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ua-monoma · 5 years ago

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END.p3

@v-hawks

The hideout is... disgustingly familiar.

Monoma eases the door to it open slowly, listening to the creak. Nothing is left behind as he pulls away from it, the blood on his hands already too caked and dried to leave much of a mark.

Time has passed. He can't tell how much. It had been light when it had happened. And the hideout is dark.

It's quiet.

Monoma looks around for a few seconds. Then his breath hitches and he just sinks down where he's standing, curling up just besides the door with his dirtied hands covering his dirtied face. He doesn't move.

Hawks hears the door open from another room. It's nothing abnormal, everyone was in and out all of the time, but it still always catches his attention.

Especially now. Especially with how slow the door opens. How careful.

He slips out from where he had been, looking around the corner. Seeing Monoma sink down. It's sad, and pitiful, and just like Monoma. His head tilts to the side to rest on the wall, still watching, a relaxed smile on his face. He felt at home. He's silent and undetected for a long while, admiring the blood covering his boy. What he must have gotten up to...

That thought is what makes him push off, approaching him on light feet, sitting beside him so he can pet his hair.

"Hey."

Voice as soft as he could make it, he brushes dried blood away, revealing the beautiful color underneath.

Monoma flinches at the first touch. "Nh."

In an instant, red wings burst from his back again, thrashing violently. They settle within the second, curling up around him. Shielding him for the most part from Hawks as he curls up all the more, burying his hands in his dirtied hair next.

His mouth moves. No sound comes out.

"Ah..."

Hawks frowns as the wings bat at him and shut him out, forcing him to move away as they calm down and shield Monoma. Sighing gently, he stands, observing, only to sit back down in front of the boy and pet one of the wings carefully.

"Are you okay?"

His fingers are kind as they brush across the softer feathers, down to the longer, bigger ones at the end, toying with them gently before moving back up to start the cycle over.

Flinching again, Monoma moves to hug himself. The feathers grow stiff and sharpen under Hawks' fingers with a little ripple, unconsciously resisting the comfort.

"... You were right," he croaks out after a moment. The wings disappear, replaced by a sudden flurry of green scales that stretch over his fingers and along his hands, glittering and sharp. Without a second thought, he pierces into his own arms, blood gushing into dirtied fabric. He doesn't wince, continuing in a low whisper.

"I'm... I'm not a hero anymore..." His eyes widen and he digs the claws into himself harder. "I can't be a hero anymore. I can't be a hero anymore. I can't be-"

"Neito.." Hawks breathes, reaching forward again to hold his face when his wings have fallen away. He's leaning over him, in his space, but still trying to be non-threatening. Small. "Neito, it's okay..." His free hand moves over the one digging into Monoma's arm, trying to allow him to let go of himself.

"It's okay... you're okay," he brushes a thumb over the back of his hand as he starts pulling it free, kissing him before he could say another word.

Monoma drops his mantra to whimper a little. When Hawks kisses him, he makes another little jolt of a sound as the claws are pulled from his skin. The green vanishes with his firm touch, wings flashing back into place again, shuddering and tense and drooping low. He holds himself still, not reciprocrating, eyes only widening, body trembling like an animal trapped.

Hawks pulls away a moment later, sad to lose the taste of blood from Monoma's lips. He always enjoyed it, especially from his boy, who had practically addicted him to it.

But he isn't going to push too hard if Monoma doesn't want it. He doesn't want to scare him off. Instead, he lays his head on Monoma's shoulder. "I'm sorry," is all he says before he lets silence take over, waiting for Monoma's next move.

Monoma shivers under Hawks' weight. He feels Rin's scales rustling under his skin, begging to be released again. His whole body burns with it, this urge to force Hawks' blood to join the rest of the teeming mess on his skin. Everything itches. He feels so dirty, so dirty, so, so, so...

His breath hitches again, escaping in a little shudder before he sucks in a sharp inhale. "But you're happy-"

He wants him dead.

"You're happy I can't go back-"

He wants to die.

"I can't go back and you-" His breath hitches again. "It's all your fault. It's-" His breath hitches, he's hyperventilating. "My fault. I- I did this- I want to go back-" He starts to cry softly, tears dribbling down his cheeks. "I want to die, I don't want to be like this..."

Hawks pulls away, concern fallen on his face as Monoma starts to ramble, dragging himself down into his thoughts again. It happened so often, and all it did was sadden him more. He was such a mess. Such a mess...

He shakes his head.

"No, no..." He whispers, "No.. I've told you before, I want you to be happy..." He isn't touching Monoma anymore, sitting back, letting him have his space. "If this isn't what'll make you happy you can leave. I promise, I'm not trapping you here..." His gaze drifts to the side before it comes back to Monoma. "I love having you around, but I don't want you miserable. I just.. want you to be comfortable... If you leave I won't even tell anyone what happened."

Monoma listens, shutting off inside again as Hawks goes on. He hates how it feels, emotions suddenly damming up inside him, making the tears still sliding off his cheeks feel especially disgusting and wrong for continuing to flow nonetheless. It makes him feel crazy, all this internal back and forth. He shudders, wings curling around him all the more.

"... What happened..." he mumbles, "... is that I can't... pretend to be a good person anymore. I can't. And I tried to... " His breath shudders out of him in a sad chuckle. "I tried to fit in, be like everyone else, show I could be worthy of adding something good to the world, too. But it never mattered. Fate wouldn't have it. I've always been..."

He pauses, staring off. "I've always been doomed to this. I thought, maybe if I became a hero..." Another little laugh. "But that- that doesn't matter either, does it?" He clutches to his hair, raving again, fast and frantic. "Even those lauded as beacons of light and hope can't escape the depravity of the world. Is it just me-? Is it- all of us? Just unable to stop ruining and destroying each other, I'm so sick of it. Sick of hurting, hurting people-"

Monoma stops suddenly, relaxing.

He stares down at his hands, then brings them down to pet one of his wings, mimicking the way Hawks had caressed them earlier. "I'm trapping myself here," he murmurs, blank eyes following his fingers as they travel down and up, red moving along red. "Here, I'll get what I deserve." His hands slow, resting along a hollow bone. "I'll be the only one hurt," he concludes and grips down until he snaps the bone in two.

Hawks listens, saddened by the overwhelming thoughts Monoma was listing off. It's always hard, having to watch monoma as he seems to rapidly cycle through everything he could possibly feel. Every paranoid thought. Trying to keep up with him enough to adjust reactions properly makes Hawks sit back and listen, concerned, and quiet, waiting for Monoma to spin down and stay somewhere.

It ends up being somewhere he doesn't want him to be at all.

He gasps, reaching out to hold his hand just as it snaps the bone. "Neito-" The sound it makes has his wings fluttering, like they could feel it as well. "Hey.. hey," He tries to calm his own voice down, make it softer "...let me help you..." He tentatively repositions, hand out for his face instead, gauging the reaction, seeing how far he can go. "Let me help..."

A few soft whines leave him, like a wounded dog too scared to yelp out. Monoma tenses slightly as he's reached for, clinging harder to himself, unwilling to let go. His grip only tightens, slowly crushing the broken flesh and feathers he holds as the whines get a little louder, a little more urgent as the pain sinks and bites into his nerves, before he finally relinquishes it to grip onto him with bloodied fingers.

He looks at Hawks, a little frantically, a little blank, a memory of ripping playing once more in the back of his head, and then he leans into his touch once he's close enough with another tiny whimper.

"... kiss..." he mumbles vaguely, closing his eyes. "Can you kiss me..."

Monoma crushing the bone harder under his fingers makes Hawks frown, trying to keep his hand steady as he waits, because he knows. Knows very well that Monoma is going to reach out, hold him, desperately, if he gives him enough time.

And he does.

Desperately.

Of course.

He's beautiful.

Hawks grips his hand back, just as hard, feeling the blood smear onto his own fingers, looking into his eyes as he stares into him, and Hawks knows he's so scared, looking for answers. Looking for him.

He smiles at the request. Quickly leans in to catch his lips before he can even finish, sweet as he squeezes his hand, mumbling a soft "of course," as he moves his mouth with Monoma's, lovingly.

#v hawks #monoma.docx #END.arc #dead end.arc #corruption.arc #dismemberment.arc #integrity.arc #darkness.arc #cursed.arc #[[ so many arcs... came together... in this thread... wow.. ]]#kaitou.docx

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kenkaodoll · 2 years ago

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Kamiya Dojo Monogatari Tales 55 (JUMP SQ 22/07)

About Kamiya Dojo Monogatari:

Tales of Kamiya dojo is written by Kaoru Kurosaki and published along with the “Rurouni Kenshin Hokkaido” arc in JUMPSQ. The tale involves the Rurouni Kenshin character in daily life that takes time between Kenshin and Kaoru marriage until the epilogue chapter in the original manga before the Hokkaido Arc. Until this month (June 2022) there are a total 55 chapters in Tales of Kamiya dojo. This is an unofficial translation.

Previous Story: https://kenkaodoll.tumblr.com/post/686490052140974080/kamiya-dojo-monogatari-tales-54-jump-sq-2206

“Ah, Tae-san.”

Midori looked doubtful.

“I saw you before I came here… That kimono… Did you change your clothes?”

“Huh? Ah, ah... No, no. I'm not Tae, I'm Sae.”

What?

“I've been invited from Kyoto to tailor your clothes. From now on, let’s work together.”

"Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!"

Midori screamed for the second time this day.

After all, the person of her dreams was right in front of her.

“Um!”

Midori sat upright in front of Sae and bowed deeply.

“Please make me your apprentice. I want to learn Western style dressmaking.”

“Oh dear... I'm not good enough to take an apprentice. Rather, I came to Tokyo to learn something.”

“Eh? Sae-san, what do you learn if you can sew Western clothes with ease?”

“Hmmm, that's the question.”

Sae’s eyes happily narrowed like a bow.

“One eye-witness is better than many hearsays. I haven't seen it yet either. Let's have a look together. Isn't that nice, Yutaro-han?”

“Of course, come in. I'll show you around. Since we're here, let's show it off to you.”

Yutaro also showed Yahiko and Tsubame what Sae's intention was.

“It's in the workshop. Please come this way.”

On the way, Sae greets Yahiko.

“Oh, Yahiko-kun, it's been a long time.”

Yahiko had once helped out at Sae's beef hot pot restaurant, Shirobeko, in Kyoto.

“Next to you, is she the rumored Tsubame?”

“Er.... What do you mean, "rumor"?”

“I've heard rumors about her for a long time.”

Sae smiled mischievously.

“I didn't say anything.”

“Well... Um...”

Tsubame was unsure of what to say, so she became timid.

“I heard from Tae that there was a cute girl who looked good in Western clothes. And this energetic girl is Midori-han?”

Yes, I'm Midori! Pleased to meet you."

As they greet each other, they arrived at the workshop, which is separated from main house.

“This is the item that Sae-san has been waiting for. Please take a look.”

Yutaro opens the sliding door of the workshop.

“Wow! This is it!”

Sae exclaimed in delight.

“What's this?”

Yahiko, Tsubame, and Midori were confusely gaping, they did not know at all what was in the workshop.

“Um, Sae-san, what is this?”

“Midori-han, don't you know what this is?”

“Eh, I have no idea.”

Inside the workshop, there was some kind of shiny black machine on a platform. On closer inspection, the object on the platform is connected to the board-like object under the platform. However, the object on the top of the platform had bracelets attached to thread in various places, and it seemed to be complicated.

“Well, I've never seen anything like it.”

“What do you think? Tsubame, do you know what this is? Yahiko?”

Yutaro was very proud.

Tsubame didn’t know and shook her head, while Yahiko tried to guess in his own way.

“Since you especially invited Sae-san from Kyoto to show off this imported item, it must have something to do with Western style clothing. It's got some kind of thread wrapped around it... I get it! I know what it is! It's a Western style spinning wheel.”

“Almost but not quite. The spinning wheel anywhere in the world has same form. This, you see, is called a sewing machine.”

“Mishin?”

Yahiko and Tsubame look confused at a word they have never heard before.

“This is Mishin! I've never seen it before.”

“Midori's eyes lit up. Tsubame, on the other hand, kept a confused expression on her face.”

“What does this do?”

She asked.

“This is a sewing machine that sews at great speed.”

Yutaro explained.

“With a sewing machine, you can make a lot of clothes many times faster than by hand.”

“I've always wanted to try my hand at a sewing machine.”

Sae had a big smile on her face.

“There is a lady in the foreign settlement in *Tsukiji, who knows how to use a sewing machine, so you should learn how to use it.”

“Thank you for everything.”

“In return, I'd like you to tailor Western style clothing for the exhibition.”

“Of course.”

It seemed that Yutaro and Sae had exactly the same interests.

“Mishin.”

Midori absentmindedly muttered. Then, after looking at the sewing machine for a moment, she asked Yutaro for a favor.

“I want to learn how to handle a mishin. I also want to learn how to make dresses in Western style. Please, please...”

Midori bowed deeply, and Yutaro replied.

“That's fine. As for me, I will be happy if more people can handle sewing machines. Please discuss the details with Sae-san.”

He gave his permission undemanding.

・

After that Sae and Midori regularly visited Tsukayama Company’s workshop, where the sewing machine was located.

Midori learned the basics of Western style clothing from Sae, and together with Sae, she learned how to use a sewing machine from a foreign teacher.

・

Incidentally, sewing machines at that time were foot-pedal type, it moved by stepping on a board under the stand with the foot.

The sewing machine had already been invented in England in the 18th century, and was later developed in the United States and other European countries.

In Germany, where Yutaro was staying. There is a sewing machine manufacturer called Parra. This sewing machine company was founded by Georg Michael Parra in 1862 and became successful when the Franco-Prussian War of 1877 increased the demand for sewing machines.

It is recorded that sewing machines were brought to Japan in 1854 and presented to the Shogun's family when the Black Perry came to Japan for the second time. Later, in 1860, *John Manjiro brought back a sewing machine from the United States.

In the 3rd Year of Meiji (1880), there were still no sewing machines produced in Japan, but imported ones were used. Mass production sewing machines made in Japan was started by Pine Sewing Machine Manufacturing (now Janome), which was founded in the 10th Year of Taisho (1921).

Although sewing machines for household already existed in the world, they were still rare in Japan, and Sae and Midori were lucky enough to have a opputurnity to learn how to use them.

・

Midori spent her days going back and forth between Tsukayama Shokai's workshop and Akabeko's house.

One day, Midori saw a group of men making speeches on a busy and always bustling street. In those days, when there was no radio or television, speeches were a way of expressing one's opinion.

“The recent trend to imitate Western culture in every way corrupts the Japanese people!”

The speech's main point was something like this:

"The abolition of the sword is outrageous! What was the Meiji government thinking, giving up the spirit of the samurai? They have cut off their topknots and even lost their pride!”

Midori bent her back and trotted past the shouting man, trying to stay away from him as far as possible.

“There are certain professions that have no choice but to imitate the Western style in public. However! What is wrong is the tendency to make even women imitate the Westerner! Women and girls are supposed to give birth and raise children. In order to keep the Japanese spirit alive and well and to pass it on forever, women and girls must not imitate the Westerners! They must not lose their *Yamato Nadeshiko spirit!”

While making speeches, he distributes leaflets.

This leaflet had the words "Against the Europeanization Policy!" was written in large letters on the leaflets.

“Western clothing for women is outrageous! It's ridiculous.!”

Midori was fed up with these strong words.

Ridiculous.

That is a painful word for Midori, who loves Western-style clothing. Her parents, siblings, and relatives all called Midori's desire to learn Western style dress "ridiculous". They said if she become a seamstress, she will have no trouble making a living no matter where you go, instead of learning such a strange thing. For the time being she didn't speak about Western style dressmaking, but learned Japanese style dressmaking well. So, she was able to do a whole range of needlework, but it was not a job that Midori was excited about. Her love of western clothing and her desire to try her hand at dressmaking kept growing and she couldn't stop it.

Westerners and Japanese are indeed very different, both in height and body structure. She could understand why some people think it is ridiculous. But if more Japanese people get used to wearing Western clothes and make clothes that match their own body structure, it will not be ridiculous. Midori used to think so vaguely. But now that she had begun to study Western-style clothing, she was convinced. If we could make Western style clothing in a way that suits the Japanese, it would surely be less ridiculous.

“We must prevent the decadence of Japan, even by force of arms!”

The "Against the Europeanization Policy" leaflet was shoved into Midori hand. Midori looked at the face of the man who had shoved the leaflet into her hand, and she gasped for a moment.

The other day, he was saying, "I don't like the Western style clothes". He is the same guy who crushed Midori with a raw egg. He must not have noticed Midori, because she was not wearing western clothes now. He probably only saw the clothes.

“…”

Not wanting to cause any trouble, she took the flyer and quietly walked away and hurried to Tsukayama Company's workshop.

・

“I'm botheres to be handed something like this, really.”

When Midori arrived at Tsukayama Company's workshop, she showed the flyer to Yutaro, who happened to be there to check on her.

“Heh. The times are changing, but there are still people who say the same old things, aren't there? I think they are called "ultranationalists," aren't they?”

“I thought all the people making speeches were from the civil rights movement, but there are all kinds of people with different ideas,” Sae added.

“But, the method of conveying opinions and ideas to people through speeches is a Western one. In Japan, it is customary to convey important things in writing. It's funny how contradictory it is to live in a time when even the nationalists give speeches.”

Yutaro laughed.

“The nationalists also give speeches... Then the era of sewing kimonos with a sewing machine may be coming soon.”

Sae agreed with Midori's words.

“That's going to happen soon.”

“Moreover, we also can attach Western decorations like lace and buttons to kimono, and make dresses out of Japanese’s silk.”

“I’m doing that with the Akabeko uniforms.”

“I hope the time will come when it won't be strange if everyone dresses like that.”

“It's a good future, isn't it?”

The three of them laughed.

Notes: *)Mishin: Machine *)Tsukiji: The foreign settlements called "Tsukiji-teppōzu" (Akashi-chō in Chuō-ku) was constructed in 1869 (the second year of Meiji period) for the first time as residential area for foreign residents in the city of Edo, which was renamed as Tokyo in 1889 *)John Manjiro: Nakahama Manjirō, also known as John Manjirō, was one of the first Japanese people to visit the United States and an important translator during the Opening of Japan. *)Yamato Nadeshiko woman who displays the feminine virtues of old Japan

.…..to be continue in chapter 56…… https://kenkaodoll.tumblr.com/post/689025840737058816/kamiya-dojo-monogatari-tales-56-jump-sq-2208

TLnote(1): translating Japanese is so hard because the sentence structure is very different compared with the English also the style of writing is different, plus there’s a lot of figurative, poetic language and things that sounds not making sense if it’s directly translated into english. So forgive me if this is very weird to read, and please tell me if you want give corrections. TLnote(2) I will provide the original Japanese text for correction if any of you who read have better knowledge of Japanese language. Just dm and I’ll send the file. TLnote(3) Dtninja had translated some earlier chapters in his website. You can go and check on there

Read the rest of the tales here: https://www.tumblr.com/kenkaodoll/686193523858538496/rurouni-kenshin-tales-of-kamiya-dojo?source=share

#Kamiya Dojo Monogatari #Tales of Kamiya Dojo #rurouni kenshin #ruroken #Myoujin Yahiko #Tsukayama Yutaro #Sanjo Tsubame #Sekihara Sae #unofficial translation #kaoru kurosaki #kurosaki kaoru

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badjoices · 4 years ago

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My Life With You

I. Move-in Day Dean and Cas move into a new home and start to build a life together with baby Jack.

[Read on AO3] | [Fic Masterpost]

The sun was sitting high in the sky, creeping towards the apex of its arc, when the U-Haul pulled up outside the modest two-storey on a quiet, tree-lined residential street. The crisp spring air was warm, moving through the green leaves and blush blossom with a quiet rustle. The sound of the late Sunday morning was largely void; defined by its absences more than anything; no children playing or parents chit-chatting over their hedges just yet, as most in the neighbourhood were making the most of the last lie-in of the week.

Except for Dean Winchester, and his better half Castiel, who had been up since the sun first began to peek over the horizon, packing, stacking and taping boxes in the bunker. Several chaotic and disorganised hours later, all was packed and prepped, and here they were; home. They’d seen it before of course, but this was the first time seeing that house become their home.

“I can’t believe it,” Dean said, after silencing the rumbling engine. “My own white picket-fence.”

Cas, unsurprisingly unsentimental about fencing retorted with confusion. “The fence isn’t white.”

Dean rolled his eyes, lovingly, and made to get out of the truck without a response.

“We could paint it white, if you’d like?” Cas continued, once he too had disembarked, and had met Dean on the pavement side.

“No, man, I like it as is.”

The two walked up their front path - theirs - their steps springy with giddiness as they approached the front door. Pulling a pristine silver key from his jacket pocket, with a turn and click, Dean swung open the door to their new life. The pair stood on the front porch for a moment, not quite believing that this door was for them.

“Should I carry you over the threshold?” Dean joked, leaning over to Cas, face plastered with a grin.

Cas looked to his side and met Dean’s gaze, holding for a moment before-

“I wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself.”

Cas took the first step and walked into the entranceway. Dean quickly followed behind. The house was dark, with all the blinds left closed, the only light now streaming in through the open door, silhouetting Dean and Castiel in the narrow doorframe. Cas stood there, studying the blank walls, mentally populating them with where he envisioned they would put up photos of their family, past, present and future. Something about those blank white walls, the canvas for him to paint a picture of the life he had chosen, caught the angel off guard as he became overwhelmed with joy. The moment was only sweetened when Dean, who was having equally soppy thoughts about the prospect of a coat rack - a real place to hang his hat - intertwined his fingers in Castiel’s. Neither said a word for a good minute or two, not wanting the moment of pure indulgent fantasy to end - they were so unused to complete unapologetic wanting that it was so nice to bask in it even for a minute.

“We need to start unpacking at some point.” Dean broke the silence.

“Yes, Sam’s bringing Jack by tomorrow morning,” Cas agreed. “We need to have his room ready by tonight at the very least.”

Despite their agreement, they were still glued to the spot, hands still locked together.

“You gotta let go, Cas.”

“You first.”

The two began to stare at each other in a mix between a loving gaze and a challenge. Cas intensified his gaze.

“Same time.” he said.

Dean nodded, eyes never drifting from Cas’s. They each pulled their hand away at the same time, eyes still locked, and broke into a soft laughter.

“You let go a little earlier than me.” Dean teased.

“Actually, you started to pull your hand away six milliseconds before I did.” Cas retorted playfully.

Dean started back out towards the U-Haul with Cas in tow, turning his head back as he walked to reply;

“You can’t prove that.”

Dean opened up the back and the pair were reminded of the magnitude of the task ahead of them.

“Well,” Dean said, nodding his head slowly in a pre-emptive defeat. “Where do we start?”

Cas stepped up and made for a stack of two boxes. “I can take all the heavy ones.” he said, lifting the boxes with ease.

Angelic strength or not, Dean felt compelled to protest. “I can carry the heavy ones too.”

“There’s no need, Dean. It’ll be faster if I do it.” Cas replied, his voice earnest as he offered his help as always.

Dean scrunched up his face in a faux irritation. Of course, Cas was probably right, and even still, Dean wasn’t one to complain about having a literal angel do the heavy lifting for him. Dean opted for a double-box stack too, but ones marked ‘clothes’; an acceptable compromise for him.

Box after box, Dean and Castiel ferried their life from its transit state into its permanent home. With only one box left, Cas began to unpack and sort their contents on the empty living room floor, while Dean went to fetch the last box. The sun now sat directly overhead. This, paired with the strenuous back-and-forth, had lead Dean to ditching his flannel over-layer a while ago.

“Oh, hello!”

A cheery female voice chirped from behind Dean as he began to close up the U-Haul. Dean turned and was greeted by the broad smile of a mid-thirties woman in yoga pants. Welcome to suburbia, huh.

“You must be my new neighbour!” she continued.

“Uh, yeah, hey,” Dean said, holding his hand over his eyes to shield them from the piercing sunlight. “I’m Dean. You live next-door?”

“Carol,” she replied. “And yes, I’m your right-side neighbour!”

“Awesome.” Dean nodded. Despite typically being effortlessly charismatic, Dean definitely felt out of his depth; he was simply not accustomed to the rules and decorum required in scenarios like these.

“You know if I’d known you were moving in today, I’d have made a casserole,” Carol began to ramble. “Do you like casserole? Oh, everybody likes casserole. In the next few days, you’d better expect a casserole.”

“Sure, I love casserole.” Dean shrugged, humoured somewhat by this strange, incredibly enthusiastic woman.

“Great,” Carol sighed, face still plastered with a big grin. “I hope your wife won’t mind.” Carol gestured to Dean’s wedding ring.

Dean licked his lips and started rolling his wedding band around his finger as he was put in the not unusual bet never pleasant situation of having to correct someone to explain himself.

“Husband actually,” he corrected. “And uh, he won’t mind; I do most of the cooking anyway.”

Carol clapped her hands over her mouth in a melodramatic gasp. “Oh! A husband of course! My bad! How long have you been married?” Carol said, frantically attempting to recover from her faux-pas.

“‘Bout three months.” Dean answered.

“Oh! Newlyweds!” Carol cooed, already seeming to have completely recovered from her earlier embarrassment. “Any kids?”

“Just one, he’s four.” Dean grinned proudly, his earlier reservations melting away as the joy he felt at the opportunity to talk about his family took over. “My brother’s bringing him over tomorrow once we’ve settled in.”

“Aw! So cute! So you’ve been together a while then?”

“Six months.” Dean replied honestly without thinking.

Carol paused, unable to hide her confusion as the cogs in her brain connected dots in ways her traditionally-wired brain couldn’t comprehend.

“Wow,” Carol laughed awkwardly. “You got married after three months; that’s so fast!”

There was another pause. Just then, Cas emerged from the still open front door and strolled over.

“Dean, I was wondering where you’d got to.”

“Hey Cas, come here I’m meeting the neighbours,” Dean beckoned Cas closer and placed an arm around his waist. “This is Carol from next-door.”

“Nice to meet you. I’m Castiel.” Cas said, plain and business-like.

“Wait, but your son’s four?” she continued to work through her thoughts aloud. “Oh, is he from a previous relationship, or?”

“Jack?” Cas answered, trying to pick up the thread of the conversation. “No, we adopted him.”

“Before you were a couple?”

Dean figured now was the time for a little lie of convenience, undoubtedly the first of many.

“He’s the kid of a friend of ours,” Dean half-lied. “She died when he was born so we took him in; me, Cas and my brother.”

“Oh, I’m sorry about your friend,” Carol said, her confusion fading. “But that’s so sweet. Well, I won’t keep you, I’m sure you’ve got tonnes of unpacking to do!”

“Yeah, well, great to meet you Carol, see you around.” Dean said with a smile.

“You sure will, with casserole!” Carol assured before she headed off along the street.

Dean’s smile lingered as he stood there, outside the house he shared with the love of his life, who was right there pressed to his side. He let the noon sun shine down on his face and the gentle breeze flush over him.

“Dean,” Cas spoke, tentative to break Dean’s moment of euphoria. “I came out here to tell you that we left all the crockery and kitchenware at the bunker.”

“Shit.”

#i'm back on my bullshit i fucking guess #supernatural #spn #deancas #destiel #spn fanfic #spn fic #destiel fic #destiel fluff #caelum writes

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mallowstep · 3 years ago

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I wanna hear about the PO3 au's the anon left out! skyclan, loner, po5. Im guessing loner is Crow/Leaf raising the 3 outside of the clans. I love hearing you talk about your au's!

aww thanks! okay, same plan as before, details below the cut.

skyclan po3: it's, uh, pretty on the nose. crow and leaf run to skyclan with their kits.

loner po3: this is a catch-all term for three aus with similar premises, but i don't have a clear/short title to differentiate them. one is leafcrow, one is mothpool, and one is just leafpool. i'll talk about each of them.

po5: this is my internal name for the jaywing au. this, if you don't remember (and why would you), is a bit of a parallel to the dovefeather/med cat dovewing au where jaykit and dovekit are siblings.

skyclan po3: "they move on tracks of never-ending light" (title song)

the au title for this in my notes was "whitewater," but i think i'm going to save something else for that. (if you're confused why i have two titles for all of the aus: when i make a big au, it usually gets a temporary title that's short and easy to search, but i replace it with a permanent title later. sometimes they stay the same, like ashes, but usually i change it.)

so my only notes on this is

crowfeather and leafpool make it all the way to skyclan with a trio of newborn kits.

and like yeah, that's basically all i've figured out.

uhhh i know skyclan will come to the lake sooner, obviously, and i know that jay's character arc plays out really differently because there's less ableism.

(even in the windclan au, jay is intertwined with ableism: in that case, it's "either you're the same, or you're not capable." but leafstar is a sensible leader who doesn't have that problem.)

otherwise, yeah, i don't really know where i'm going with this, other than i think it'll be fun to explore, since leafpool is firestar's daughter and named after leafstar.

loner po3: the common thread in all of these is what happens to thunderclan's medicine cat after leafpool leaves?

(tbf, that's a common question in quite a few aus. but it makes itself a central conflict in these three.)

loner po3 I: leafcrow. "on and on we run in loops"

uh, yeah. they run away, and stay away. this one isn't supposed to focus on the kits that much, but rather, leafpool's struggle with duty and desire.

i've got this:

“There’s a loner,” the kittypet said, her voice languid, claws extended, but with an air of ease, “named Leaf. She’s been helping out loners for, oh, a season or two.”

as a quote from it. it's my least favorite of the loner po3 aus.

loner po3 II: single mom leafpool. "between us, i'd trade you for them every time"

i've talked about this one actually quite a bit, but it's probably going to take me a while to write it. it's inspired by "butterflies and hurricanes," but instead of leafpool dying, crowfeather dies.

also, the chapter titles come from "marjorie" which is basically 90% of why it's going to take me a while to work on it, that song makes me cry a lot and uh, things are a lil Much right now.

i've got a few scenes sketched out, from holly running away, and leafpool panicking, to leafpool worrying about bringing her kits to thunderclan.

loner po3 III: mothpool. "to make a choice in all this mess"

this is the au competing with divided po3 for next po3 au to write, and i'm...i love it. (as a note, i won't write two aus for the same time period at the same time. that's why i was waiting to finish wfmisus before i got back on doahins. now it's all messy. but i get confused lmao.)

anyway, i have the least written for this, but i'm very excited. in my first warriors fic ever, "if you love me any, let me know it now", leafpool thinks this:

(Leafpool should have left. She should have found Mothwing and told her and left. Maybe pause to say goodbye to Squirrelflight. Mothwing would have gone with her, and things would be alright. Not like they are now, all tangled and impossible.)

and well. i'm weak.

i don't have a ton of concrete stuff to say about it, especially considering it's so high on the list, but i mean, i'm excited.

po5: "wing and feather"

alright, this is an old one. since it's also high on my list, i want to explain where it came from rather than what it's about, because that will cover what it's about in a broad sense, without tempting me to give away the details.

(also, w&f is a working title. much like "feather take flight," i may change my mind.)

anyway. i started getting into warriors with "cloudtail's daughter," an au where dovewing and ivypool are brightheart's kits.

in a post so old i had to go to my main blog to find it, i said this:

i also want him to be dovewing’s brother. but the au where brightheart gives birth to dovekit, anxiety child, and jaykit, blind, and feels like a failure despite the fact that its not like her half-blindness is genetic, is not this au. that is another au.

and the seeds were planted.

so right, i'm writing up ctd around when i'm first reading "flightless dove, poison ivy," which will go on to inspire dovefeather (med cat dovewing au, but as you'll see, dovefeather is the assigned working au name. after i decided i didn't like feather take flight, i reverted back to its initial working title, dovefeather.)

so i've got these two things rolling around in my brain.

dovefeather comes first, because i reread fdpi so many times and i just. i want dovepaw to stay in riverclan. i don't want her to leave. i want her to be happy. (also please! i'm still finishing ch 2 of fdpi no spoilers it's taking me embarassingly long to finish.)

but anyway, consider this a bonus au talk because explaining what po5 is, imo, requires me explaining what dovefeather is. like, in an au talk scenario. they're unrelated aus, from a reader perspective.

so i come up with this list of "things i want to be different in oots":

dovewing should be cloudtail's daughter

dovewing and jayfeather should be siblings

dovewing should be a medicine cat

dovewing should go to riverclan

ivypool should be the fourth cat (but i'm not revealing which aus this applies to bc big time spoilers)

and this creates a bit of an au matrix. pick and choose, you know? ctd is (1).

dovefeather is (3) and (4).

but i still wanted (2), and so it seemed pretty natural to make a (1), (2), and (3) au.

but that's a retrospective analysis, what really happens is, i get like fourteen "what ifs" deep, until i'm writing fic for my fic for someone else's fic. kind of.

dovefeather diverges pretty sharply from fdpi, especially based on what i've read of ch2. it takes the same core idea, and because my idea of riverclan was inspired by fdpi, there are plenty of similarities, but i think it's functionally very different, and superficially similar.

(also, hollowflight ends up in a completely different trio lmao dovepaw hangs out with rushpaw, troutpaw, and mossypaw.)

but anyway, i'm trying not to write another au of the same time period, but i just finished writing out the full outline for ashes, and the next chapter (i.e., ch 12, which i'm hopefully posting today if all goes well) gets me thinking, and i can't let it go: i want (2) to happen.

so i look at my outline for dovefeather, because the rule is, it has to be very different from this.

since dovefeather is like 70% drafted (altho that number seems low, because i suspect i'm going to end up adding a lot into the fourth chapter), i now know that was never going to be an issue, but at the time, i was very worried.

so i was like! well, that means i'm going to fuck with every part of po3, and we're going to get ivypaw and hollypaw roped in, and jaypaw is always going to be a warrior, and i think i made squilf his mentor? or maybe sandstorm lmao.

either way, it ended up being defined by jaypaw, which i didn't initially plan on. but that's po5: squilf's litter lionkit, hollykit, ivykit & brightheart's litter dovekit and jaykit grow up together.

it's got a similar vibe to ashes IMO.

okay wow that ended up being a lot i've been hyperfocusing on dovefeather all weekend, and in my head, it's inextricably linked to ashes, ctd, and jaywing/po5, so uh. yeah.

hope this was what you were looking for?

#ask #anon #talk #au talk #mine #txt #dovefeather #jaywing #po5 #au drop

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devouredivinity · 4 years ago

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What and who are some of your best or most stand out rp experiences and people throughout your time in rp?

hooooooooooooooooo boi this is gonna be list

every single rp i’ve ever been in has made it’s own impacts on me, the people i’ve talked to, the amazing community and friends, the inspirational writing, the time spent talking about fandoms and ocs and everything in between.

i’ve been rping for over half a decade now ( a decade? i think, time and memory r both hard ), and, can you believe it, it started at hexrpg. i remember trying so many threads but there was this one narcissa rper who i shared a thread with ( i was playing lucius, seventh year hogwarts, enemies to romance lovers arc thing ), and they were so encouraging and i remember being blown away by their talent. they gave me a piece of advice that has still stuck with me - write an emotional response to their para, then a physical, then an emotional response to your own actions, and make sure that you give them something to respond to - whether ic or world things. Easy guaranteed three paragraphs. I still go through that advice any time I struggle with a reply. Whoever you are, know that I owe you my life.

Actually, time is hard, so the first rp may have been a superwhoavengerlock chatzy rp? the - group of excellent moffats? i just got hit by seven different waves of cringe and nostalgia, but i was there for at least a year and that was the first time that i made friends online. i was playing capn jack harkness, and got to explore the possibilities of non-straight sexualities, group rp, had this one lady ( who played??? thor’s mom? ) talk me through one of my first major panic attacks, i learnt to write really fast ( open chatzy channel with seven active players u had to be fast and still get a decent reply in, it was a fun challenge ). again, i owe so much to them.

then @somnacin introduced me to tumblr rp ( during a snow day from school GOD what a throwback ), and i lingered in the hp fandom for a while, getting better at writing ( i built a whole radio ep for one muse - glenda, who was a radio host, i should try and find that ), tilden still has a place in my heart, every narcissa i’ve played a lucius against has been incredible, dani (??? im bad at names im sorry) who i played remus against their sirius and i still remember planning the star wars prank for the dash.

then my first foray out was diverona, and i had the time of my life playing cassian. then worthfightingfor - victoria, if you’re out there, thank you for one of the most memorable rps. i took a six month hiatus for my gap year and couldn’t wait to come back every moment. i love leverage, but i also adored all the different mechanics and event methods, especially the ongoing heists and tasks.

then came the shift from skype to discord, and all the rps and incredible writers i’ve had the honor of writing with since. menagerie, millennium, arcana, behindsanity, highcourt, colloportus, and currently, terror. every single one brought something unique and incredible to the table and truly helped me grow.

and all the people who have truly levelled up my writing. @icaruswritings ( for showing me the truth about the longing in hands ) @annabcths ( how many groups together now? i will follow you anywhere ) @rajkumariwrites ( you have my heart my glittersatan ) @venlirps ( i’m so glad to have met you and infodumped about leverage on you this past year and groused on the adhd ) @mintyxtea ( the ecnouragement! the care! the patience for a new player! ) @polarisdreams ( rhi you inspired so much of my rp style and ilu i will always add u back into the discord ) @hailthequeens ( if there was anyone i’m happy to lose a muse to, it’s you ) @boy-wcnder ( for all our talks on a solarpunk reality ) @lxcuna ( for all your incredible creations and encouragement ) , @dionysins ( who knew me back when i was still going by lotzo ) everyone in terror rn, all of you who’ve deleted your blogs, all those who i never got your urls, k, zero, riley, the list is endless.

the rpc and the people and the creations and the journeys we have been on have been incredible, and wow this got long and sappy, but yes! many many standouts, it’s been a blast.

#a #ooc #?#for yall #you have my heart #long post #not gonna put this under a readmore cause everyone should read the names at the bottom #Anonymous

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loveafterthefact · 4 years ago

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Love After the Fact Chapter 34: Gold Threads

Lance learns a bit more about Keith's past and Shiro observes his littermate in a new element.

First Previous Next

“I just remembered,” Keith mutters as Lance’s hand finds his waist, pulls them close together on the dance floor. “I hate this.”

Lance laughs, kisses the tip of Keith’s nose, laughing harder as said nose scrunches up at the contact. “I really like dancing, actually.”

Keith grimaces as he steps on Lance’s toes. “Do you like bruised toes?”

“No,” Lance admits. “But… I like you, so none of it's really that bad.”

Keith’s ears flutter. He wants to kiss Lance, wants it for himself, but people are clearly watching them; he doesn’t have the courage.

“Do you really hate it?” Lance asks, face expressing some twist of smile and sadness.

“No. I just don’t like it.” Keith sighs, ears drooping just a bit. “It’s not the worst thing I’ve done for royalty.”

“What’s the worst?” Lance asks, gliding along.

“Part of my training to join Shiro’s elite guard was to spend a movement in the Virmir Swamp. That was the worst. By the time it was over, I was basically one gigantic insect bite. They bit me through my clothes and managed to get under my armor. I just had to let them drink their fill and leave on their own.”

Lance laughs, spinning Keith out and back in. “That sounds awful!”

“To be fair, it was partially my fault. I was told not to take my helmet off while I slept but I was uncomfortable so…”

“So you took off your helmet and invited a swarm of insects into your armor?” Lance grins; they both fall into quiet laughter.

“Yes. I was anemic for a while. Shiro found it very funny.”

“You two seem very close.”

“Of course we’re close,” Keith argues, frowning slightly. “You’re close with your littermate.”

“Allura and I grew up together. You and Shiro didn’t. What is that like? Did it just happen, or…”

“Oh.” Keith hesitates, staring down at their moving feet. Lance pulls them a little closer together. “I was found by accident. Zarkon sent men to find my father, and they found me instead. Shiro led the search team.”

“And you just hit it off?” Lance whispers.

“He’s rather old not to have a mate. I think he was lonely. But he took me in as his charge for my first decaphoeb at the imperial compound, helping me adjust to society. It did cause a bit of gossip, but he’s only ever been my littermate.”

“Well I should hope so,” Lance says, keeping them in time. “You were even more of a kit then.”

“It’s not unusual to find a mate before adulthood. You just don’t actually mate with them. But Shiro and I were never like that. He’s my littermate, not my lifemate."

“I see.” Lance frowned, brows crinkling. “Why would they assume you were Shiro’s baby mate or- Wow that’s so gross. I am so. Gross.”

Keith laughs. “You’re not gross. You’re a different species. Galra are a lot more communal than Alteans. Kits sleep with their mother or older littermates. Daibazaal is dangerous-”

“Yeah, the thing that turns things inside out, I remember.”

“Yes, among others. They all sleep in dens together.”

“So wait. You just picked Shiro to snuggle up to?”

“He was the biggest. It was instinct. Before that, I usually slept for a few vargas a couple times a day. I was entirely alone.”

“So you survived all alone as just a little kit?” Lance asks, squeezing Keith’s hand.

“Yeah… My kittenhood’s been a bit of a mess.”

The song ends and Lance pulls Keith close just long enough to kiss his cheek. “I’m sorry, beloved.”

“It’s fine. I have my mother now, sort of, and my littermate. And you. That part’s pretty great. Hey, Shiro.”

Lance’s cheeks burn beneath his scales, heat creeping up to the tips of his ears, capped with gold. He gently keeps an arm around Keith’s waist as he greets the Captain. To his surprise, Shiro's changed out of his customary armor into some sort of linen attire: a loose-fitting shirt with a sigil on the chest and loose, black pants tied at the waist. They look practical and comfortable, and Keith looks jealous. Lance is a little jealous, too.

“Hey, Shiro! Some of our friends are here! Do you wanna meet them?” Keith grins, bouncing a little on his toes, jealousy over in a second. His tail swings in wide arcs. Lance’s own smile is fond as Keith shows off for his brother.

“Lanval and Gloriana? I already met them. They seem lovely. Came over to greet me themselves, actually.”

“No, no. Not them. Pidge and Hunk.” Keith grins, tugging on Lance’s hand to where Pidge, Hunk, and another Balmera -presumably Shay, given her rounded belly- are standing, enjoying the festivities. Lance turns back to the captain with a grin before following after his spouse. Shiro smiles.

“Hey, guys. How’s it going?” Keith asks as Lance rushes past to hug their friends.

“I am tired of standing, but one does not turn down an invitation from King Alfor,” a female Balmeran says. “Hello, your Majesty. I am Shay, wife of Hunk. Forgive me if I do not bow.”

Keith smiles. “Hi. And don’t worry about it. Do you want me to find you a chair?” Keith waves over a servant before the woman can protest. “Could you please bring this poor woman a chair-”

“Kitty!” Keith waves off the servant, eyes the small child in Hunk’s arms, making grabby hands at him. “Kitty!”

Pidge cackles as Hunk tries to get his daughter to lower her arms. “Rosie we talked about this. Prince Yorak is not a kitty. He’s like Prince Lancel. You have to be respectful and-”

“KITTY!”

Keith tenses, feeling the eyes of several dozen people now focused on him. There are only a few options he can choose, and he knows ‘curl into Lance’s side to avoid noise’ is what he’s expected to do, what Adam’s trained him to do. But also? Fuck it. Lance said he could be himself.

“You know what? Come here. I’m Kitty now.” Keith cautiously takes the child from Hunk, balances her on his hip as he chats with Pidge about her experiments with Balmeran crystals while Shiro chats with Hunk. Rosetta contents herself tugging on his braid, counting the gold threads in each section.

“Five! See, Kitty! Five!”

“I do see. Look at them all. Oh, how many are in this one?” Keith indicates a different section. Rosetta goes back to her counting.

Lance watches with only increasing fondness; Shiro watches Lance. He’d never expected to like the crown prince as much as he does. He’d left Altea with the belief that Lance wouldn’t do anything to harm his kit littermate, but now he believes Lance will love Keith as much as Keith loves him.

Which he does. Even if he doesn’t know it. Keith’s too young, too inexperienced to understand his own feelings. But Lance clearly does, blue-and-pink eyes brimming with warmth as his spouse places his circlet in the little kit’s reaching hands.

“Oh, no! You don’t wanna-” Hunk winces as the gold crumples like foil in the Balmeran child’s hands. “-do that. I am so sorry!”

Keith watches, violet eyes wide with surprise as the kit molds the wad of crumpled gold, the ruby triangle gem partially obscured as she pulls the metal this way and that.

“She’s begun experimenting with her metalworking abilities,” Hunk explains, clearly terrified.

Keith just watches. He doesn’t really care, even as Pidge grumbles about having to forge him a new circlet.

Well, he doesn’t care until Rosetta holds the ball of metal out to him, presenting as a gift. “For Kitty! Like it?”

“It-” Keith’s hopelessly endeared to you little girl. He hasn't been given many gifts in his life. “It’s beautiful. Thank you.”

He takes the ruined circlet turned treasured gift from the kit, cradling it to his chest with one hand while he squeezes her close with the other. “I’ll love it for always.”

“Keith, you’re a sucker,” Pidge declares, leaning forward to run their feelers over the metal. “Wow, her abilities are impressive. The integrity hasn’t been compromised at all! Where can I get one of these?”

“...A baby?” Keith asks, cocking his head. “I mean, give me a decaphoeb or two and you can borrow mine.”

“Like your baby would be good for anything,” Pidge scoffs. “They’d be cute, but useless. I need a little metalworker.”

Keith stares, cautiously holding the girl a little closer. “I honestly can’t tell if you're joking or not.”

Shiro laughs, watching the bantering get louder, Shay laughing from her chair as Pidge and Keith argue over whether or not his kits will be useful. He leans down to Lance, who is also being uncharacteristically quiet. “He seems happy.”

“He’s happy when he can be himself. That’s all he wants.”

“Thank you for giving him that. I'm glad he's happy with you.”

Lance smiles, steps in as Keith begins to get defensive regarding their future children. Shiro settles back to continue watching, leaning up against a pillar.

He has a task to complete tonight, but for now, he’ll enjoy the sight of his littermate having fun with other people.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Alfor slip away from the festivities.

#LoveAftertheFact #LAtF #klance #galtean au #altean lance #galra keith #adashi #altean adam #galra shiro #voltron legendary defender #vld

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douchebagbrainwaves · 4 years ago

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YOU GUYS I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS

Auto-retrieving spam filters would drive the spammer's costs up, and in practice they don't seem any happier for it. For example, suppose you're just two founders and one who was away half the time what we were doing that it became a gateway into a wider world, but as a trick? You're asking for trouble if you're optimistic about big companies that they need to do?1 6 of 8 subjects had lower blood pressure after the treatment. At one end you have people working on them. If valuations change depending on the application form that asks for your middle initial—because it doesn't feel like procrastination.2 Many are underfunded.3 I haven't released Arc.

If you're experienced at negotiations, you already know how to calculate time and space complexity and about Turing completeness. If you have multiple incompatible offers, take the harder one. Another is to work for you without giving them options likely to be filled by freeware. In Europe they generally decide in high school. In an essay I wrote about this in On Lisp. The CEO of Forgent, one of McCarthy's grad students, so we had to buy a chunk of time on them, and then advertised this as a checklist to examine their credentials. And they don't; they've made sure of that. It's probably perfect. This is a very subtle one, so subtle that a company about to buy you.

We currently fund about 40 companies a year, one in March and one in winter.4 And in World War II and, for that matter?5 The mediocre ones might as well flip a coin. I think that a company that would be the number of transactions. He said he didn't like math in high school: what you want, you have a much more serious undertaking than just hacking something together on your Apple II in his apartment or his cube at HP.6 The competitors Google buried would have done it. He never referred directly to the customers for whom your boss is only a means to an end.7 Better to have resolution, one way to build great software is to start their own startups, basically flew into a thermal: they hit a market growing so fast that big companies tend to have more skeletons than squeaky clean dullards, but in fact it will usually be happy to take VC money even if they pay a lot for desktop software, or resold Web-based email.

Nerds are Unpopular February 2003 When we were in our twenties that the truth came out: my sister, then about three, had accidentally stepped on the cat and broken its back.8 Telling me that I didn't ask my parents for seed money, though.9 If you ask yourself what you spend your time thinking about is whether you make something users love, here are some general tips. It seems unlikely this is a game with only two outcomes: wealth or failure. In our school it was eighth grade, which would make them say wow? I'm optimistic, I'm going to call all our lies lies. I'm motivated to be honest. Serving web pages is very, very cheap.10 It's what acquirers care about. Odds are you would have had to struggle against them.11 If you want a computer to solve for you.

Notes

That is where product companies go to grad school, secretly write your thoughts down in the sense of the words won't be demoralized if they knew their friends were. It is the following scenario. Other investors might assume that not being accepted means we think. In fact, change what you're doing.

It's like pulling the control rods out of Viaweb, and spend hours arguing over irrelevant things.

5, they sometimes describe it as a whole is becoming more fragmented, and FreeBSD 1. Your teachers are always telling you and the war, tax receipts as a single VC investment that began with an excessively large share of a rolling close doesn't mean easy, of course reflects a willful misunderstanding of what investment means; like any investor, than a product, just that they're all that matters, just the local builders built everything in exactly the opposite way as part of your mind what's the right order.

Apparently someone believed you have for a long thread are rarely seen, so it's conceivable that a startup to an investor would sell it to colleagues. For example, would be critical to. It's like the stuff one used to wonder if that got bootstrapped with consulting.

He, like a knowledge of human nature is certainly more efficient.

As always, tax loopholes are definitely not a commodity or article of commerce.

The Duty of Genius, Penguin, 1991. Most computer/software startups are now the founder visa in a startup. As the name Homer, to sell them technology.

166. Not surprisingly, these are, and it will seem as if the selection process looked for different reasons. Look at what Steve Jobs tried to explain it would work to have done all they could attribute to malice what can be fooled by the fact that the highest returns, it's hard to say because most of them. Thanks to judgmentalist for this is an acceptable excuse, but he got there by another path.

This just seems to be delivering results. Which means if the students did well they do the opposite. They assumed that their prices stabilize. Founders weren't celebrated in the next generation of services and business opportunities.

Robert in particular made for other reasons. The reason you don't need its reassurance. All he's committed to is following the evidence wherever it leads.

Most smart high school kids at least for the government. I'm not saying all founders who go on to create one of few they had to. The second alone yields someone flighty.

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allimariexf · 6 years ago

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Friends. I am so unable to have coherent thoughts about Arrow at this point. I wanted to do a little 7x19 review (not much to say, tbh fuck I lied), but then again I also wanted to do a 7x18 review, and a 7x17 review, and...also talk about Arrow ending and EBR leaving. Yeah, ‘cause I still haven’t managed to do those things.

I keep thinking I have to have all my thoughts in order and arranged before I can say anything valuable, but the problem is my thoughts won’t comply. They refuse to be orderly and arrangeable. (Also I’ve tried just typing whatever is in my brain, too, but all I have to show for it is about 10,000 words of semi-coherent babbling hanging out in my Drafts. Probably never to see the light of day.)

So anyway 7x19 (🤞 that I stay on track here - update: I fucking failed! 😱😱😱): it was okay I guess.

As we draw to the end of the season - of the show, really - a few things keep bothering me, and unfortunately they’re coloring any and all enjoyment I may be able to squeeze out of the episodes so I have to just get them off my chest:

1. I keep getting stuck on the terrible production value. I can’t help it! It’s gotten to the point where I cannot help but see the production as much as I see the story, and it’s so jarring. I see the sets, the stage, where I only used to see the setting. It’s the (lack of) camera angles, the lighting, and the very obvious reliance on sets, rather than location shoots.

And I can’t help but think: it didn’t used to be like this. Seasons 1-3 were so immersive, so atmospheric. Stylized? Yes, but in a way that was purposeful and enhanced the story.

The most recent seasons make production feel only like a means to an end.

I think the production budget got cut a little after season 3, but seasons 4 and 5 still felt epic and captivating enough. But season 6′s production values were abysmal. And I thought it would finally improve in season 7 with the new showrunner, but instead it has only gotten worse and I realize now that it must have everything to do with budget. (And maybe this is my bitterness talking, but I can’t help but suspect that part of it is that increasingly, more and more of each year’s budget is being used to fund the crossovers. 😠)

The EPs seem to have forgotten something critical about filmmaking - production is always going to be a crucial aspect of story-telling, whether it’s intentional or not. There’s no such thing as an “objective” camera angle or edit. Every non-decision has as much an impact on the story as a decision would have, and by forgetting that, they have vastly reduced the overall quality of the show.

Anyway, I feel like I have to make one thing clear, since after all, I WAS ON THE SET and I MET THE CREW - literally shook hands with and spoke to camera operators, lighting people, and all other sorts of production people: they work hard and take their jobs seriously and in no way am I trying to suggest that any of them are bad at their jobs. They were truly lovely and professional and I was so impressed by them. I truly think the lapse in production values is entirely due to decisions made at the very top about money. It just has a very unfortunate, very obvious impact on the quality of the show they’re making.

2. I can’t help but see and lament the effect of OVERPLOTTING and a lack of emotional foregrounding.

I comment all the time about how tight the story was in seasons 1-3:

Big Bads who had a personal connection to Oliver

seamless interweaving of the Flashbacks and the present

a clear, consistent, well-paced evolution of Oliver’s character that paralleled the action/plot

excellently-plotted storylines where all the characters were relevant to the plot - so that we had a reason to care, and focus on character actually forwarded the plot.

a good mixture of villains of the week that were both interesting unto themselves, and provided much-needed wins/breaks in the overarching plot, and allowed for plenty of character moments

generally, because of all of the above, a perfect sense of pacing and an excellent balance between plot and character, where plenty of time was given to dialogue and quiet character moments - which only served to enhance the plot

But then season 4 came along and things went south quickly, mainly due (in my opinion) to writing decisions that put plot over character, resulting in some seriously out-of-character stories that unfortunately had a huge impact on the show going forward. But even aside from Oliver’s uncharacteristic lying and Felicity’s unlikely decision to call the whole thing off, season 4 was already suffering from a clear lack of the things (above) that made seasons 1-3 so good.

It was the first time the BB had no real connection to Oliver’s past, which meant that suddenly the villain arc had to pull double-duty - drive the present-day plot and also somehow establish an emotional reason for us to care. Unfortunately, rather than pulling those two threads together into a tight, single focus, the writers created a sprawling story - a messy, confusing present-day arc and the absolute worst flashbacks of the entire show.

And it also saw the deliberate introduction of more comic-book elements to the show, with Damien Darhk’s (and Constantine’s) magic, which was a wrenching change in tone from the first three season’s grittiness. (I know a lot of the haters like to blame this shift in tone on Olicity - and even I will admit that the suddenly happy-go-lucky Oliver was a little too heavy-handed - but I fully believe the tonal shift has everything to do with the introduction of magic. And, of course, the horrible, clunky, meta-heavy crossover, which for the first time was used as a vehicle, rather than a chance for us to enjoy interactions between characters we loved.)

Then there was season 5. Lots of people love season 5, and I agree there were good elements, but for me it still suffers from a lack of those things that made seasons 1-3 so great:

most of all, with NTA there were suddenly too many characters - and they didn’t have a legitimate reason to be there. Their stories were arbitrary, inconsistently explored (or, more accurately, not explored), and had nothing to do with Oliver. And (maybe worst of all), their backstories/stories had nothing to do with the overarching plot of the season. So, again, the show’s focus was pulled in a million different directions, rather than the earlier brilliance of plot and character working together to drive the narrative.

the introduction of metas as major characters in Arrow (rather than only being used in the crossovers) continued the cartoonish atmosphere which, in my opinion, made the consequences of all actions feel slightly less real, less impactful. To me it felt like a betrayal of Arrow, at its core. Because Arrow was solidly gritty for the first 3 years - even the League of Assassins storylines of season 3 felt grounded and real. Even The Count, Cupid, the Clock King - comic book villains to the core - still felt gritty and real within the universe. But (for me at least) the casual reliance on metahuman abilities let the writers be sloppy and careless with their plots, their resolutions, and their consequences.

and I know most people love Prometheus, but I never loved him for two main reasons. First, while I appreciate the fact that they tied Prometheus’s origin to Oliver, the personal connection just felt forced to me. Prometheus, Talia, all of it felt untethered and hasty. I think they could have done a much better job grounding the story, planting the seeds earlier, but they didn’t. Second, Prometheus just won too much. The show had spent 5 years making us believe in Oliver’s abilities - as a fighter, an archer, and a strategist - and it was suddenly as if he were a bumbling idiot. The show made him seem incompetent in order to make Prometheus be always 10 steps ahead, and it was not only disheartening, it was unbelievable. Because not only did Oliver have 5 years more training than Prometheus did, he also had a team behind him.

Season 6 failed spectacularly in all ways, in my opinion. It was the ultimate example of overplotting, where the writers basically took everything that was so great about seasons 1-3 and did the opposite. Too many characters, uneven pacing, a sprawling, unfocused villain arc, and a lack of any given reason to care about any of it. And of course, everyone acting counter to their long-established characteristics.

I was really, really hoping that Beth and the new writers would use season 6 as a counterexample: what not to do in season 7. But (and again, I am not trying to place blame - I have no idea who is really in charge of these decisions, plus at this point there are already so many balls in the air that a lot of it is probably out of the writers’ hands anyway) as season 7 winds to a close, it’s clear to me that they’ve basically repeated a lot of the same plotting problems of season 6.

Which brings me to 7x19. (And all of 7b actually, if I’m honest.)

Because this was supposedly a JOHN DIGGLE-centric episode, but it was way too little, way too late. (Setting aside the absolute tragedy that it’s been 7 years and this is the first chance we’ve gotten to look in-depth into John’s backstory beyond Andy.) Like others have mentioned, the focus on John felt superficial at best. We have a character with 7 years of characterization to explore, but the episode hardly touched on John’s character, his emotions, at all. And the little we got felt superficial.

Instead, the episode was plot-heavy, convoluted, and tried to accomplish too many things. Things that, for the most part, had not been adequately emotionally foregrounded. By that I mean:

John’s story with his stepfather could have been awesome, except we’ve never fucking heard John even mention his parents before this episode. They planted and harvested those seeds all within a single episode.

Felicity’s struggle with her legacy...WOW. That was the first time we’ve ever heard her specifically say that she wanted her own legacy more than as Overwatch. Yeah, we have the “beacon of hope” stuff from 4x17, and some references here and there this season - and I don’t mean to be ungrateful - but I feel like there were ample opportunities to do a better job foregrounding Felicity’s struggle, yet they just haven’t.

Emiko and Dante. Yawn. Too little, too late - both in the season and in the series.

Emiko and Oliver. Same.

I have strong feelings about why it’s all going wrong, and for the most part I think it’s this: the writers aren’t trying to tell a complete, emotionally fulfilling story in season 7. Rather, season 7 seems to be divided into two discrete storylines:

7a, the prison arc, was pretty much its own thing. Sure, the writers attempted to establish a connection to 7b through the flash forwards, but it’s a very weak connection that relies on illusions and attempts to obscure the audience’s perception of events (mainly to do with the attempt to make us believe that Oliver’s prison stint caused a fundamental change in Felicity, making her become a villain in the future). But in reality, the 7a arc was pretty much self-contained - and, in hindsight, all the better for it.

7b, on the other hand, has lacked focus and direction, and as the season has worn on it’s become increasingly clear that rather than having purpose and emotional fulfillment of its own, it’s being used as a vehicle:

to drive the flash forward story, and/or

to drive next year’s crossover storyline, and/or

to drive season 8′s storyline.

(I’m using and/or there because I pretty much suspect all of those things are one in the same.)

Seasons 1-3 (and even 4 and 5, to some extent) built upon each other. The writers planted seeds in seasons 1 and 2 that didn’t pay off until much, much later, meaning that we were invested in that payoff. We were adequately prepared, through plot and character, for those stories. But rather than continue to reinvest and build on elements of the earlier seasons, the latter seasons - especially 6 and 7 - have gone off in completely unprecedented directions. And for season 7, this means they’re trying to do accomplish too much at the very end. Too much plot, too late in the game, with too little emotional foregrounding.

We have THREE EPISODES LEFT after this - only THREE EPISODES left with Felicity - and there are still so many unanswered questions. Not only for the season, but for the show. And somehow each episode still manages to feel stagnant, refusing to answer our pressing questions, or worse - introducing new ones.

And I guess that’s what’s really getting to me now. Because did I hate 7x19? No, not really. Aside from the general decline in quality discussed above, it was fine. I like the Team Arrow moments, I liked Olicity in the bunker, the team within the team. This is the sort of action and stories I wanted more of last season, and all this season too. It’s nice to finally have it again.

But it’s time for resolutions now, and we’re not getting them. It’s time they start answering our questions about the flash forwards, time they start resolving the Emiko storyline - or at least building up to that resolution. (Remember how tight 1x19 through 1x23 are? The threads unraveling, the ever-heightening intensity?? Nothing like the plodding, disconnected feel of these late-season 7 episodes.)

All of which makes me think they’re not really intending to resolve these questions this season at all. Rather than giving us a satisfying, complete story, they’re just rushing to the next thing - the next crossover, the next season.

And it just bothers me, because this is the end for Felicity. We deserve character moments, goddammit.

The showrunners seem to have forgotten that it was always character that made this show great. And it just makes me sad that it seems they won’t remember it in time to give us the proper ending that Felicity (and Oliver, and John) deserve.

#arrow meta #my meta #arrow 7x19 #arrow 7x19 meta #holy shit what have i done #top posts #selected favorite posts #on television #on production #on tv production #on television production

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weareimprobable · 6 years ago

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Almeida Young Critics review The Paper Man

We had the distinct pleasure of welcoming the Almeida Young Critics to The Paper Man at Soho Theatre a couple weeks ago. The Almeida Young Critics are a group of 10 young people aged 15–25 who work with the Almeida over a year to produce responses to theatre across London.You can read more about the group here.

Here are a few of their responses to the show 👇

Minna Jeffery:

Sometimes touching, sometimes joyful, sometimes uncomfortable, and always complicated, I’m finding The Paper Man a tricky show to review. In some ways that implies that I found it a tricky show to watch, but I didn’t really, mostly. I found it funny and engaging and o p e n.

So what is The Paper Man about? It’s sort of about football. Originally, it was supposed to be about the eponymous ‘paper man’, Matthias Sindelar, once the world’s best footballer, who lead the Austrian team to victory against the Nazi orders. An apt story of resistance in a time of escalating far-right violence. The idea to make a show about Sindelar came from Lee Simpson, Improbable’s co-artistic director. Simpson cast four women to help him make and perform the show (Vera Chok, Jess Mabel Jones, Keziah Joseph, and Adrienne Quartly), and quickly found that they were resisting the direction he wanted for the show, uninterested in making ‘yet another show about a dead white man’.

I would say there are broadly three things going on in The Paper Man:

1. The telling of the story of Matthias Sindelar, complete with evocative shadow puppetry (Jess Mabel Jones) and mournful cello playing (Adrienne Quartly). 2. The telling of the performers’ own relationships with football, from Lee Simpson’s self-confessed addiction, to Jess Mabel Jones’ tale of pulling boys from the sidelines of school games. 3. The telling and showing of the making of the show.

The Paper Man shows its workings, laying out pieces of the puzzle one after another, saying ‘see, this is how we got to where we are now, and where we are now is how we got here’. I tend to feel some resistance towards work that places a lot of its emphasis on ‘process’. It can feel a bit unready, a bit like you’re seeing the bits you shouldn’t be seeing, stuff that’s unfinished. Or it can also feel like ‘oh wow what a beautiful, transformational, formative experience these guys have had in making this, which I didn’t get to be a part of, and what I’m seeing is that being condensed into 90 minutes and it feels slightly unsatisfying’. I think it’s really hard to pull off process heavy shows, that put the rehearsal and making on stage, but The Paper Man does it. It does it by making that its subject. Ultimately, for me, it’s a show about telling and making, about how we tell stories and make theatre now in 2019.

I read that The Paper Man was devised through using Open Space Technology, which is a system through which the work/agendas are shaped by the people involved – diminishing hierarchy and inviting fluidity and openness, a process called ‘self-organising’. No wonder then that it ended up like this, with lots of different things going on, different threads, and everyone seemingly talking about what they want to talk about. That really excites me as a working practice, but also slightly scares me as an audience member.

Unsurprisingly, given its genesis, it’s quite episodic. I’m not always sure of what each episode is doing, but I enjoy each one in some way. And even that thought I just had there is written in to the show. There’s a bit where the show’s sound designer Adrienne Quartly comes on stage to a song (I think it was Pet Shop Boys’ It’s A Sin) and holds up placards telling the story of how formative this song was for her as a teenager. At the end of that bit Lee Simpson comes on and says something along the lines of ‘ok well I’m not really sure why that bit’s relevant to the show…’. I mean, same, but I don’t mind that it was there because I really enjoyed it and found it touching and relatable (particularly as a queer woman I guess?). The point is, they know exactly what they’re doing. The show is constantly self-aware.

There’s clear affection between Lee Simpson and the other performers, and at the beginning and end of the show they really seem like a cohesive ensemble. But a lot of the time they do also seem like an entity separate from him. The Sindelar bits, largely led by Simpson, are the most traditionally ‘theatre-y’ bits. These sections are often very beautiful, but they do feel remote from the cast members’ own stories, which feel much more immediate and ‘real’ (whatever that means). It’s weird watching that dynamic between the two forms played out on stage, and I’m not entirely sure what the end result is and what I think about this opposition.

Looking back at the notes I took whilst watching I can see that I’ve scrawled ‘openness’ and ‘vulnerability’ several times. The heavy use of improvisation and the performers’ own biographies both feel open and vulnerable, and openness and vulnerability can really feel like endearing qualities in a performance. And The Paper Man and all its performers were, indeed, very endearing. That might sound a bit patronising, but I don’t mean it to be at all. There’s a real feeling of generosity.

It’s great to see a diverse group of women performers given prominence on stage, taking control of the narrative and being themselves unapologetically. But I do think that the show necessarily puts a lot on the women involved, asks them to share a lot of themselves. The pro of this is that it’s them taking up space and making their voices and narratives heard, but is that at the expense of giving part of themselves away? There’s a bit where the four women get audience members to pick personal questions out of a bowl for each performer to answer. Lee chooses not to take part in this exercise. The idea of these questions is that they make the participants vulnerable, which then creates a closeness between everyone involved. We, the audience, are involved insofar as we pick the questions, but we’re not giving anything of ourselves away. It’s a weird power dynamic, and this section, for all its generosity and openness and charm, does feel uncomfortable.

I really liked this show. It’s a living, breathing piece of work, a little bit different every night, always moving and changing. I’m a theatre-maker and, specifically, a dramaturg. I’m constantly examining my own and others’ working practices, so that inevitably made this an exciting show for me. It’s about what stories we choose to tell and how we tell them and what we as artists want to participate in and the work we want to make and how we value it. Listen, this review was squeezed out of a document containing over two thousand words of notes. There are bits in there like ‘the set is germane, playful yet somehow also ominous’, which I’m just not going to address now because this particular review doesn’t feel like the place for that sort of thing. Suffice to say that it’s a sticky, fun, complicated, show that does something very exciting in addressing how we make work in this current political and artistic moment. Just go and see The Paper Man so we can talk about it, yeah?

Bellaray Bertrand-Webb:

What can I say about the Paper Man? It wasn’t a traditional play but rather a real show. The performers play with the audience and with what is real and not. There was so much meat on the bone it is hard to shred down. Essentially, Paper Man is about 3 women reaffirming their identities. They do this by reclaiming a space traditionally dominated by white men, the stage. The arc of the story is that the Improbable co-Artistic Director Lee Simpson, has brought them together to tell the story of Matthias Sindelar captain of the Austrian football team in the 1920s and 30s. To the dismay of Lee, the 3 women attempt to reconstruct the story, to take control and reuse Sindelars story for their own purpose. They will not just tell another white man’s story; instead they will rebel.

One of the ways they deconstruct Sindelar’s story, is by giving each character the spot light to relay a football memory. Not shying away from the stereotype that women don’t like football. Keziah told her story whilst playing football with Lee the only white male in the show, who ironically cut the story short by walking away. Vera Chok’s narrative was through a silent dance, the music trapped in her headphones, made it strangely moving to watch her jump from one side of the stage to the other, with just her breath as music. They were experimenting with how you tell a story, the power of the narrator and the different forms one uses for articulate truth.

For me, what made this creatively disjointed performance click, was in one of the many moments the actors broke the forth wall. In this specific scene, they turned to the audience and asked them to take a question out of a hat to then ask it to one of the actors. So, Keziah cheekily ran up the stairs to her mum who was sitting in the back, having the best time, and asked her to choose a question, which she then asked Jess: Do you think humour can easily cross the line to be offensive? Jess responded quickly with a no, and then said it depends who is saying the joke and then retracted the latter and stuck with the original no. For me, this specific question and this specific answer summarised the play. This question serendipitously responded to an earlier scene, whereby, Jess, Keziah and Vera, dressed in their black and white football gear, wearing Hitler’s moustache, dancing to heavy grime music and on occasion incorporating the Nazi salute with the Eminem rap battle arm bounce, while the sound technician, Adrienne Quartly, held up a sign saying Feminazi.

Writing it down plainly it does seem like a cause of concern, and probably makes you think- that is the definition of humour becoming offensive. But to be in the room and to have the previous scenes amounting to this moment, it made it almost revolutionary rather than baselessly offensive. For me, they were reclaiming an insult thrown left, right and centre by misogynists around the country. To me, it was a big ‘fuck you’ to the suppressors, oppressors, fascists and so was an empowering act to witness. 3 women from African, Chinese and British decent were having so much fun by using dancing to dominate the stage and show that they are proud of their feminism, owning the insult and in doing so ridiculing it. It made me question, what is offensive? What is humour? What is a revolutionary act? Obviously, this could have gone unbelievably badly and most of the time, it is the oppressors who feel comfortable enough to make offensive hollow jokes. But when executed well, it is liberating.

Similarly, Sindelar, protested on the football stage. Sindelar was told to loose or draw to the Nazis but refused and consequently won against the Germans. Sindelar then walked to the Nazi delegation and danced a solo, silent, Viennese Waltz. For me both acts of protest were extremely powerful, they didn’t chain themselves to objects, shout, resort to violence, or remain subdued but rather, they translated their frustration and presented their identities through something joyful, un-seemingly political and in a way silent. For Sindelar, some believe this led to his assassination of Carbon- monoxide poisoning a few months later. Witnessing the Feminazi dance in this context I was reminded of the freedom we have on stage and in this country, our lives aren’t on the line, but we still have causes to fight for and to play with. We can have the last laugh.

A Paper Man is clearly a feminist piece but also has the bravery to critise itself. They recognise the issues with white feminism, with a moving and deliberately awkward scene where Keziah tells Jess and Vera that the first woman football player was in fact a black woman called, Emma Clarke in 1800s as opposed to the famous white female football player Lily Parr in the 1920s, who was their poster girl for feminism and football throughout the show. Jess and Vera respond to Keziah’s sheepish reveal by saying, ‘we can’t tell everyone’s story’. Mic drop. Advocacy has its limits and that boundary is race. The scene ends with the 3 seemingly politically conscious women, shying away from the issue of white feminism and institutional racism, they have a cautious disagreement and each abort the stage. This conflict further highlights how complicated all the issues the play addresses are. There are fine lines between feminist fractions, between experiences, between doing something right and doing something wrong, between comedy and offense. Having fun and rebelling. We are all on the brink of paper thin boundaries.

Pamela Vera:

My thoughts of the Paper Man…..on paper.

Improbable co-Artistic Director Lee Simpson, a former-football-addict wanted to retell Austrian footballer Matthias Sindelar stand against fascism in 1939 Nazi Germany, ‘Nazi and football’ was the premise, however, the thanks to his diverse and outspoken four-female co-stars, it was reduced into a small sub-plot. . Keziah, Jess, Vera and Adrienne richly layered the narrative with intimate discussions and debates, about race, stereotypes, and of course gender. Creating a half-acting, half-Q & A, participatory political production with backstage segments that ultimately felt like a conversational social commentary.

As the cast reviews their own progress in between scenes, Vera, dressed in black sportswear asks ‘If we need another show about a dead white man?’ whilst casually stretching. In the era of #MeToo, gender pay gap scandals, Irish Abortion Referendum, the answer points to no. An answer that the show illustrates with fun quirky flare, whereby several narratives are told in conjunction with Sindelar’s rise and rebellion. This features monologues of football memories, a sort of backstage expose in which the cast eats, changes and discuss the show and its topics; culminating into a commentary on racial and gender inequalities, with the treatment of football greats Emily Clarke and Lily Parr symbolising the difference of ‘girly goals’ and ‘boys goals’. I’m aware of the oxymoron, illustrating how history glorified dead white men, to contrasts how other greats are discarded due to their race and gender; as to just producing a show that focuses on those unrecognised heroes and heroines in their own accord. However, the irony is so creatively executed, that it powerfully exemplifies the injustices, helping to make the Paperman one of the most idiosyncratic shows that I have seen.

The exposed set of a white framed pillar, with wooden stools scattered across the stage also instrumental to the play’s authenticity. Much like the narrative, a layering process ensued; the cast overtly constructed the set in front of the audience, during scenes. They added white curtains, tinsel, created paper projections of the dancers to the soothing violins and the visuals of fluorescent lighting, creating a lively disco atmosphere. Even the sound designer is on stage throughout the play, dressed understatedly, like the rest of the female cast who were in either jeans, sportswear and plain tops. The DIY feel to the set design mirrored the show’s experimental essence, producing an immersive environment. As an audience, you were no longer just watching a social commentary, but also a participant. This added a lively unpredictability to the show, making the skilled actors think and react quickly, with impressive comical timing.

The show’s endearingly immature tones were cleverly offset with transitions in composition that forebode upcoming segments of thought-provoking conversations about racial and gender inequalities. The simplicity of Lee, a middle aged man, in jeans and a shirt, just standing to narrate the details of the Nazi’s systematic killing of Jewish people was an unsettling reminder of the two sides of humanity.

The show’s premise of ‘Nazis and football’ is not something I would’ve relied on for laughs, but laugh I did, along with everyone else. There were a few times however, where boundaries were crossed. Imagine, one minute you are swaying in a fun sing-along, then next minute there is an unnecessarily overly sexualised dance of three 20-something females dressed as referees, with Hitler mustaches, finishing off with a Nazi-salute.

So word of warning, the Paper Man might not be everyone’s taste. For some, it could be a crude kerfuffle, for others bold and brilliant. For me, it was the latter; complex topics told with an authentic accessibility.

#almeida #theatre #young critics #art criticism #theatre criticism #improvisation #play #almeida theatre #soho theatre #young critic

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ayankun · 6 years ago

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GOTHAM

insanely rambley HUGE spoiler-ridden seasons 1-4 thoughts under cut

FIRST OFF LET ME TELL YOU I GOT CHILLS

Secondly, let’s think back to how I felt about season one. A little loose in the narrative, not so much weaving threads as having threads, ones that you keep expecting to pull tight but more often than not just get dropped for other, shinier threads. All leading to a surprisingly effective character-driven season finale that hopes to prove to you that a few meandering plot points can still add to a sum greater than the parts.

(Oswald goes from umbrella boy to King of Gotham, Bruce Wayne starts at the site of his parents’ murder and ends up taking his first steps into the Batcave, Jim enters as this black-and-white idealist and winds learning from a mob boss that even good men sometimes get their hands dirty to get the job done. A socially awkward unrecognized genius has a psychic break, leading ultimately to the fall of Edward Nygma and the rise of the Riddler.)

Season two is a blur. A period of transition from Jim “Good Cop” Gordon Fistfighting Corruption into... Gotham City: Arkham Asylum’s Backyard. Think how much season one was about only Fish Mooney vs Falcone vs the GCPD and Cobblepot doublecrossing everyone he meets, and how much seasons two and three and four were about the Riddler and Valeska and Tetch and Ra’s al Ghul (and Valeska). We have the bring-everyone-back-to-life at Indian Hill period to thank for the sudden left turn into the Strange.

WHICH IS NOT A COMPLAINT.

There are so many types of Batman stories, and there’s a time and a place for both Joe Chill and Killer Croc. Gotham started in one and always knew it was headed for the other.

And B.D. Wong as Strange is a DELIGHT and I really appreciated his dynamic with Miss Peabody. Speaking of, the bomb defusing scene was a real gem omg lololol give the woman some damn water already.

At the same time, the Fish storyline was like WHOA what EVEN is haPPENINg at any given moment. And it ultimately didn’t amount to much? There’s so much waffling between the surviving gang camps where everyone’s either got a kill-on-sight order or a owed-life-debt to each other and the pendulum swings back and forth so quickly it’s not really worth holding onto how anyone feels about anyone else. That dead/MIA character will come back or the rivalry will be revived or the long-held grudge will be recalled if and when that plot point is going to be drafted, but other than that everyone’s friends and that’s ok.

And like. Ivy??? Ivy Pepper??????? Why is that ride so wild??? There is no cause and effect, only next next next. It’s insane. Maybe watching this all at once rather than over the course of four years lends a different perspective, but holy cow. Such a ballsy way to do whatever with a character you never had a plan for.

Which brings us to Barbara Kean?! Season one she was there because they knew she was a Mythos Character but then they were like, wait, whateven is she for though? Which is a fair question, since having her be the Little Lady Trophy Fiance meant she was a boring and needless character wasting space, not standing on her own and hardly informing Jim’s character either. So what to do, what to do. How about we kidnap her, put her through some insanely cruel physical and psychological abuse, make her a psycho-revenge-bride, put her in a coma, have her come back as a 100% Arkham Villain, give her a hench(wo)man, have the henchman KILL HER, have Ra’s al Ghul waltz up out of literally nowhere and say “lol, borrow this arcane mojo for a minute, I’ll want it back later or will I” and now she’s a kingpin of Gotham’s underworld with her own mini League of Assassin?!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Like. Even if they never had a plan going into it, I’m pretty okay with most of what they came up with. Better than the lil wifey hanging out at home and having one passing remark about curating a gallery that we never saw and was never mentioned again.

Better off a once-crazy, once-dead mafiosa than the less inspired handling of Miss Kringle. I won’t even get into that trainwreck I-only-exist-to-validate-manpain-of-my-murderer wait I said I wasn’t going to get into it.

So Nygma! Like I said when I got started with the show, the season one Edward Nygma was crafted as this painfully unsympathetic offbeat loser and I think they fully succeeded with that characterization. The emergence of the Riddler persona was a welcome change, an upgrade, a spit-shine into something clean cut and confident and stylish. But I like that, compared to the Penguin, the posterchild for evil-psychotic-villain!Protaganist, for example, they held on to a lot of Nygma’s unlikeablilty in that he’s still an ass, even more of an insufferable egoist, and SO CRAZY he can’t even read himself (which was a big thing about the character before he split in half, so in itself that’s pretty great).

I don’t know. Maybe you like him and I’m supposed to like him. I think he’s exactly what he ought to be, and while I'd never want to see him marched off a peer with a bullet in his back, I’m more than happy to see his fellow villain-Protagonists knock him around once in a while. Penguin and Mooney and now Lee (?!) and Zsasz even are the kind of villan!Protagonist you really root for. But if it’s any one of them vs. the Riddler, they’re definitely not going to lose. Nygma’s like in his own category of villain!Protagonist Antagonist.

Of course, the post-Arkham-proto-Riddler who was running Oswald’s mayoral campaign, now HOT DAMN that was a storyline I could get behind. I almost actually believed they were going to do something great in the Nygmobblepot arena and that was a magical moment. I think the resulting blood feud, as painful of a 360 as they come, was a sounder storytelling decision and more in line with the show’s Schroedinger’s Frenemies mentality.

And his season four storyline with the Ed Nygma persona challenging the Riddler was a nice full circle. Sort of closing the gap between this raging banana nutball and the razor-sharp criminal mastermind he could be if tried. Not SUPER THRILLED with his creeping on Lee but, with all due respect, that’s par for the character so again I say I don’t think I’m meant to like him??

I just spent half this rant on the Riddler so I guess they’re doing something right.

Ok so Cameron Monaghan’s VALESKA TWINS. Let’s get right into it, shall we.

Holy smokes they did everything right on this one. Loved the Primal Fear treatment of his introduction, and the way this random circus kid just so happens to start displaying jokey traits that astute viewers will start to suspect that this could be the big bad we’ve all been waiting for --

and then they kill him.

WOW

I was so ready for this kid to grow up to be the Joker, and they rip that dream away and replace it with an idea that anyone can grow up to be the Joker, and damn if that isn’t the nicest treatment of the character’s fractured and obfuscated origin story. But. THEN!

THEY BRING HIM BACK and it’s everything you wanted him to be. He’s just so good. There’s just the right amount of (IMO, anyway) Hamill-homage in what is otherwise a fully imagined Character who is instantly recognizable as one of many iterations but at the same time outclasses them all. The high-level narrative and dialogue stuff, the stuff they create for him to do, I mean, is all great. And then Monaghan brings this manic A++ game to the table and blows it out of the water. Best Joker performance? Arguably so, especially when you consider

JEREMIAH VELASKA because this kid can’t stop having stellar Joker performances. He’s like, two and a half, three of the best Joker performances on the books. Jeremiah’s distinct visual style, the characterization, AGAIN with the obfuscated we-are-legion origin story hocow. NO COMPLAINTS HERE.

Anyway so if that’s what we get in return for sending Fish Mooney through a narrative meat grinder, then I guess it’s an even trade.

Pengiun. What to say about Penguin. I loved what they gave him in season two, a ton of character stuff because his plot stuff of rags to riches had played itself out. I felt real bad for his mom, but I really liked that he went and made himself mayor, and even while his story arcs tend to go riches to rags and back again, it’s never not a pleasure watching him claw his way up to where he thinks he ought to be.

For the most part they do a good job stringing together these different Protagonist story-groups, keeping in mind that most of these groups serve mainly as antagonists amongst themselves (when they’re not being buddy-buddy to serve some winding end). So when you get the villain!Antagonists you can really tell the difference. I got a little yawny while we were setting up Fries, and by the time we finally locked Tetch up for good I was very grateful. These will never be main characters and the show knows it and wants you to know it, too. So while they’re the main on-screen villain, it can get a little stale because the same effort isn’t being put into their lasting appeal.

Um. Jim Gordon. Another thing I liked about season four was a strong return to GCPD bidniss. Season two there was a lot of GCPD, but with Captain Barnes and the strike force and Galavan, so it was a completely different narrative animal than what Gordon was throwing down with in season one. Then Gordon goes to prison and after that he doesn’t go back to GCPD until well into season three, and by then the story’s about Mario and Tetch and Lee and omg I forgot about Valerie Vale until this very moment whoops.

As was hinted in the season one finale, Jim Gordon went on a very twisty path through the mud before he figured himself out again. Killing Galavan was like WHAT JIMBOY and that wasn’t even the worst of it. What I liked most about his stint as a PI was the character’s eventual acceptance that the law isn’t the be all and end all of righteousness, and that there are other means available when enforcing peace and justice. Not necessarily by killing every evil mayor you come across with your own two hands, but the eye-opening to the virtues of vigilantism is super important when you realize he’s going to be Batman’s main ally down the line and this time in his life is going to be what ultimately allows the future police commissioner to legitimize this kind of shadowy ninja behavior.

Anyway, in season four, Jim kind of comes back to roost at the GCPD, and finally ousting Bullock as Captain was rough but obviously warranted, and with only one season left that was a good time to do it. Harper was a nice addition and I’d like to see more of her as a standalone character. (Similarly, Fox has fit in nicely with the cops, but I’m not overly hankering to see more of his day to day antics.)

What was my real point? I really liked the Gordon vs the GCPD dynamics of season one, and while obviously that’s not a story you can tell forever, it did inform the sense that the police force is a living entity that can serve you very well if it trusts you, but before that can happen you really have to jump on its back and break its will LOL.

Also, remember Renee Montoya and Harvey Dent? Yeah, I don’t either.

SO BRUCE WAYNE, MY FRIENDS.

Gotham is my very most favorite Bruce Wayne story, and much as Batman: TAS is my forever-reference for most Batmany things, Gotham is going to be my heart-canon for Bruce Wayne origins.

It’s one thing to say, “ok so this rich kid watches his parents get murdered in an alley, and from this moment on he vows to do something about it and makes himself a master detective/martial artist who puts on a mask and a cape and runs around at night smashing thugs’ heads in for justice” like it’s a foregone conclusion, a straight-forward A-to-B process, and a wholly other thing to show us, step by step, how he learns to become the thing we all know he’s going to become.

In season one he was this quiet, morose but driven child who didn’t know what to do with this crisis he’d been handed. He’s a kid who sits in a pool with his whole clothes on, trying to hold his breath for as long as possible because he has no idea how else to become better prepared for handling his issues. But he has Selina and he has Alfred and he has Fox and he has Jim Gordon, and he will have the Court of Owls and the Valeskas and Ra’s al Ghul who will all play a part in handing him pieces of himself until he has a full set.

He started with this strong sense of right and wrong, a deeply seated desire to put his talents and his money to some sort of use, an earnest diligence towards bettering himself in all ways, and little by little he gets shown just how much of a fragile and defenseless baby he is. That time Alfred accidentally-on-purpose clobbered him in the eye -- that was the moment Bruce found out they’d all been pulling their punches with him and that he still had so so so far to go.

Of course, at the particular moment, he was going through a well-earned rebel without a cause phase (which will do him well when he calls on those behaviors for the benefit of a wider audience), so I don’t think that realization hit him at the time. BUT I NOTICED. Sure he’s got a bulletproof suit and he can look Jim Gordon straight in the eye now and he can fling himself off rooftops like a champ (and when Alfred gave him the keys to the Batmobile I cried a little), but he’s no Batman. Not yet. Not quite yet.

But you can see without a shadow of a doubt that he’s gonna be! Instead of this “Bruce Wayne woke up as Batman” story, we get a look at all the day by day choices and experiences that inform, shape, and depend on Bruce Wayne’s core identity and the way that they will collectively create Batman.

Now, David Mazouz may not have the character acting chops of a Pinkett-Smith or a Taylor or a Monaghan, and he may not be as comfortable living in a everyday character like Pertwee and Logue do so effortlessly, but there’s a steeliness a Bruce Wayne should have, a hauntedness, an idealistness, that Mazouz emotes in spades. Sometimes his Bruce Wayne does a stunt or pulls a pose that Mazouz KNOWS is Batman territory, and while his awareness of “I’m doing a cool thing look at me doing it” is a little distracting--it’s also SUPER EFFECTIVE and I fall for it hook, line, and sinker.

I’ve always been one of those fans who’s way more interested in the lives and characters of the secret identities (compared to the heroics of the super identities) so hot diggity dog is this the show for me. All Bruce Wayne all the time. When we he does put on the mask, it’s all the more powerful for knowing who exactly is wearing it and what’s driving him to do these borderline insane things.

Not 100% sold on Ra’s’ “I saw this in a dream” strong-arm prophecy, feeling like it steps on four years of Bruce Wayne’s self-determination. Not 100% on how they introduced him and his aims and his baffling reincarnation(s). But I am 100% on the pronunciation of “Ra’s” because I’m aware that Kevin Conroy et al figured it out somewhere between TAS and Arkham Asylum, but it’s something that they never quite got in Arrow. (Oliver consistently uses “raysh” but everyone else is a grab bag between that and “rawz”.)

For that matter, David Mazouz consistently pronounces Ra’s with two syllables, so there’s also that. Wait, hold on. In Gotham they also draw a hard line between Ra’s al Ghul, the man, and “the demon’s head,” some sort of mystical power of time travel and flashlightiness. Give one point to Arrow for not being that bizarre.

Long story short, the shot at the finale where Gordon’s waiting on the GCPD rooftop with the spot light and Bruce Wayne stalks up behind him was BEAUTIFUL. (They also did the thing some episodes earlier where Bruce peaces out on Gordon when Gordon’s mid-sentence with his back turned and I laughed a lot)

Looking forward to their take on No Man’s Land. Here’s a short story for you at the end of this long story:

One time I was reading No Man’s Land volume by volume from the library. It was tough because I checked the first time and they had the full set, but then you never knew that the next one was going to be available when you went in for it.

So I get out of the car one day and look there’s a quarter on the ground. Neat. It’s mine now!

Going into the library, there was a cart of used books for sale by the door. 25 cents each. Hell, I’ve got a quarter now, let’s see what they got.

What they got is the No Man’s Land novelization. For 25 cents, or, in my case, free.

So I read that instead, and turned out I liked it way better than the source comics. I have a hard time reading comics? I tend to not look at the pictures, and certain art styles aren’t my jam. Also when it comes to narrative capabilities, there are different tools and effects inherent to each form, and I appreciated the literary treatment and the internal voice it brought to the table that the comics couldn’t.

Also the author said in the note that his method was to sit down and jam out minimum 2000 words a day and that’s still a feat I admire.

Anyway, that’s my long winded take on Gotham. Not perfection, but certainly a respectable and authoritative representation of a subject matter we all know and love. I give it my second favorite Batman portrayal (behind Kevin Conroy and above Adam West) and my absolute favorite live-action Bruce Wayne, hands down.

#Gotham

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creideamhgradochas · 6 years ago

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Thanks to the lovely @marvelmom for taking the time to answer these! Get to know more about her, go give her a follow and then show her some love!

These questions are from this list. You should check it out, there’s 50 questions all together and they’d be great to ask your favorite fic writer!

1) How old were you when you first starting writing fan-fiction?

A woman never tells her (fanfic) age ;)

2) Do you prefer writing OC’s or reader inserts? Explain your answer.

I can't honestly say that I prefer one over the other since I've never written a fic for an OC. I guess my style of writing is better suited to allowing readers to insert themselves into the narrative. I like the challenge of writing a character that allows the reader to flesh out in their own image but still have some substance on their own within the story.

3) What is your favorite genre to write for?

Is smut considered a genre? LOL. Seriously though, I love humour so you'll find most of my stories have an underlying comedic thread. I have a really dark sense of humour and I'm sarcastic af so I love when people respond favourably to it in my writing.

4) If you had to delete one of your stories and never speak of it again, which would it be and why?

Wow, this is a really good question! I think it would probably be the very first fic I wrote called "Marked." I wrote it for a friend when I was deep in the Cumberbatch fandom. She was complaining about the lack of Khan fics so I wrote one for her. It's on Ao3 and every now and then I get a kudo and I cringe. The writing seems so basic and stilted compared to my newer works. If anything it shows how much I'm improving.

5) When is your preferred time to write?

I find I do my best work late at night. I'm a single mom with a full time job and busy teenagers so I don't usually get to sit down at my computer until after 11pm. I love being able to leave the day behind and just focus on my writing without any interruptions. I typically go until 2am. It's a little crazy but writing relaxes me and helps me sleep better. And it inspires some really great dreams ;)

6) Where do you take your inspiration from?

Most my inspiration comes from real life, my experiences and passions like music, film and literature. I like to daydream and I find I'm constantly having conversations with characters or constructing scenes in my head. I'm a little crazy I guess lol

7) What’s your favorite scene that you’ve written?

Another great question...let me think. I have one in my head that I haven't written yet that I know will eventually be my favourite but at this very moment it's the scene in Chapter 10 of The Contest where Bucky and the reader are dancing in the antique store and they finally kiss. It was the very first scene that came to me when I started to think about this story and to finally get to write it was incredible. But man did I stress over it...I wanted it to be perfect. Exactly like I had pictured it in my head.

8) Have you ever amended a story due to criticisms you’ve received after posting it?

Hasn't happened yet. I'm very stubborn and it would take a lot for me to deviate from the vision I have playing in my head. My muse won't let me rest until I've captured a scene note for note on paper.

9) Who is your favorite character to write for? Why?

Bucky! I can't seem to get him out of my head. For me, Bucky is the most fascinating character in the MCU. His story arc has brought him from one end of the spectrum to the other and back again in so many facets and I love exploring these layers of his personality,

10) Who is your least favorite character to write for? Why?

Thor but only because I stress over his speech patterns when I'm writing his dialogue. I want to make sure I'm doing his character justice and capturing him accurately on paper.

11) How do you come up with the titles for your stories?

For one shots, I usually wait until I'm done and then riff on a major theme in the story or what inspired my to write it in the first place. The title for "The Contest" series came from the Seinfeld episode of the same name that inspired the story.

12) What do you think is the best idea you’ve had for a story so far?

Considering that The Contest is my very first Bucky fic (and series) I would have to say this is my best story idea so far. More to come I hope ;)

13) Do you have any abandoned WIP’s? What made you abandon them?

Thankfully none yet! I find that when story pops into my head I can't move on until I get it down on paper and out in the wild.

14) Are there any stories that you’ve written that you’d really love to do a sequel to?

I get a lot of requests for part 2 of "Three Creams, No Sugar". Everyone wants that shower scene ;)

15) Are there any stories that you wished you’d ended differently?

Yes, Infinity War. Oh wait....do you mean one of mine?

16) Tell me about another writer(s) who you admire? What is it about them that you admire?

Oh wow, there are so many incredible writers in this fandom that it's hard to pick just a few. I'm grateful to have fallen in with amazing writers such as @evansrogerskitten, @Thewife101 and @avenger-nerd-mom on Twitter. Their support and guidance are the reasons I gathered up the courage to start posting my fics on Tumblr.

Writers like @unicorns-and-fairy-dust-blog own my emotional ass....Dre is the master of angst. I love the wit and humour in @tilltheendwillIwrite 's stories - I think it's a Canadian thing born out of bitter cold winters and ketchup chips. @lovelynemesis has such a great style of writing, very flowing and descriptive. The depth of talented creators in this fandom is insane. There are just too many to mention!

17) Do you have a story that you look back on and cringe when you reread it?

Definitely "Marked"

18) Do you prefer listening to music when you’re writing or do you need silence?

Complete silence. If I have music or Netflix playing I start to daydream and boom, a whole new story.

19) Have you ever cried whilst writing a story?

Not while writing but as I listened to a song and imagined a Bucky one shot to the words. I was ugly crying by the end. I may get around to writing it one day..

20) Which part of your fics have been the hardest to write?

I would say the first few starting paragraphs of a new story or chapter. I take way too long with the beginning sections.

21) Do you make a general outline for your stories or do you just go with the flow?

I pretty much have the whole story plotted out before I get started. "The Contest" has been in my head from beginning to end for over a year now.

22) What is something you wished you’d known before you started posting fan-fiction?

I wish I had known about Tumblr to be honest. It's a great outlet for fanfic and the source of so much inspiration and support.

23) Do you have a story that you feel doesn’t get as much love as you’d like?

I'm always in awe of the fact that people want to read my stories period so I appreciate every single note, comment and message whether it's 4 or 400 :)

24) In contrast to 23 is there a story which gets lots of love which you kinda eye roll at?

I'm always in awe of the fact that people want to read my stories period so I appreciate every single note, comment and message whether it's 4 or 400 :)

25) Are any of your characters based on real people?

Not so much characters but personality traits. I find that I project my style of humour and sarcasm (plus my lack of filter) onto characters all the time.

26) What’s the biggest compliment you’ve gotten?

I must be the slowest writer in this fandom. I seriously don't know how you all put up with me. I've had so many incredible compliments but it always amazes me to hear readers tell me that a new chapter was worth the wait.

27) What’s the harshest criticism you’ve gotten?

One that really stands out is someone telling me that I was going to lose all my followers if I didn't update my fics faster. That one really hurt because like most writers here, I really beat myself up knowing that I can't turn around stories or chapters as quickly as I would like.

28) Do you share your story ideas with anyone else or do you keep them close to your chest?

I have a few writers here that I talk to regularly and we feel comfortable enough to share our ideas. Some of my favourite messages have been from other writers wanting to talk through an idea or ask for some help with a scene or ask for some help with a scene or some dialogue.

29) Do people know you write fan-fiction?

Aside from a few twitter mutuals I have met, no one in my "real life" knows I write fanfic. Though I think my kids may have their suspicions...I have a writing degree and my friends and family are always telling me that I should write more. If they only knew LOL

30) What’s you favorite minor character you’ve written?

I can't tell you because they are about to make an appearance in the next chapter of "The Contest" and I'm excited to write their scene.

31) What spurs you on during the writing process?

The incredible feedback and messages I get from readers like you (I live for your chapter summaries....seriously), pictures of Sebastian Stan, reading all the amazing fanfic out there, Bucky's thighs, Marvel, eating chocolate....eating chocolate off of Bucky's thighs.... (Need to add that to my list of future fics)

32) What’s your favorite trope to write?

Definitely slowburns. I love the flirting, the teasing, the witty dialogue as the sexual tension builds....it's delicious.

33) Can you remember the first fic you read? What was it about?

This is going to date me....please no judgment. It was a 'NSYNC fic. Wish I could remember the name but it was a JC x reader. I was obsessed with JC back in the day...ok, stop laughing.

34) If you could write only angst, fluff or smut for the rest of your writing life, which would it be and why?

SMUT with my fucky Bucky and my side boo Sebby ;)

#milestone celebration #ask the author #marvelmom

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sol1056 · 7 years ago

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the problem with super-robots

In the Voltron reboot, I’ve been giving serious thought to the possibility that the writers may like their anime -- and remember the butchered American version of Voltron with some fondness -- but they don’t actually know the mecha tradition all that well. It shows up the most in their failure of imagination about the S1 finale and the truncated S3, where the Voltron writers compensate by adding tension via new plot points (alternate realities! clones!), rather than addressing the tension inherent in the genre.

This is the failure of imagination. A robeast? Form Voltron. A ship trapped on a dying planet? Form Voltron. Rescue Allura? Form Voltron. Destroy several battle cruisers lurking overhead? Form Voltron. The narrative continues to insist on this (and never refute it) when the rebels say they need Voltron, too.

This isn’t the first series to have to tackle this issue. It’s pretty common in the mecha tradition. If you don’t address it, as a writer you end up with a repetitive storyline where every week just happens to have a brand-new universe-ending threat that just happens to require the universe’s greatest weapon. Win that fight, and the following episode you get the same thing all over again.

So how do you fix this? You break the premise.

First, I’ll give you context of what I mean by ‘super-robot’ vs ‘robot’, and then I’ll walk you through what I’ve seen writers do to get around this ‘I’ve got a voltron-hammer so everything is a nail’ trap.

First, some context

Most mecha stories fall into one of two general categories: robots and super-robots. The first type gets its tension from being an arms race, because each side has to keep leveling up; I’d put Eureka Seven, Gurren Lagann, Code Geass, and the Gundam UC timeline in this category. A technological leap may let one side get ahead for a bit, but their opponents will find a way to catch up. Also, the kill rate tends to be quite low, because the playing field is relatively even.

(You could also class series like Macross or Sidonia no Kishi into the non-super category, since their mecha aren’t impervious and the death rate can be high, except only one side has mecha. Normally that’d mean ‘super-robot’, except the antagonists are so bloody overpowered that any win comes at a high cost. RahXephon might also fall into this, too.)

The super-robot tradition -- which Gundam stepped into with the Gundam Wing storyline -- is a little different. In the GW storyline, ‘gundam’ designated a super-robot that utterly outclassed its opponents. You can see this in the pilots’ kill-rates compared to the original Gundam series. 0079 was a soccer game (2-3 points, 10 points being superlative) to GW’s basketball game (78 points, 120 points, sky’s the limit). The bad guys’ mecha just lined up and got cut down like paper dolls.

Except then, everything becomes too easy. The sole battle-tension lies in whether the bad guys can just keep throwing cannon fodder at the super-robot until it (or its pilot) breaks down or is simply overwhelmed by sheer numbers. It also reduces the emphasis on human/pilot skill. You’ve got to be damn good to win with a factory-stock Kia against a Maserati in the straightaway, even if the Maserati’s got a mediocre driver. And if you’re the one in the Maserati, well, there’s no contest.

This is where Voltron sits; for most of S1/S2, the tension lay not in robeast strength so much as the pilots’ inexperience. Once the pilots leveled up -- and then the robeasts stopped coming -- most of the tension was gone. It was the Maserati laying waste to a Kia. No competition at all.

Keeping the tension

One: have the opponent level up; we’re finally seeing this with Lotor’s comet-ship (and I’ll leave a fuller explanation of my complaint for another day).

Two: remove the super-robot from the picture. Force a pilot into self-destructing (aka the Heero Yuy School of Conflict Resolution), overwhelm and capture, isolate and capture, or in Voltron’s case, just enforce the narrative’s rules to make combination impossible so you can’t achieve super-robot in the first place. And yes, I’m saying it was a real failure of tension to let the team re-achieve Voltron in S3, especially when the narrative glossed over the struggle.

And then there’s the third option, which is my favorite and where some of the best storylines imo lie: destroy the team from within. A group of pilots, met by chance or design, who together fly mecha that by simple stats should be unbeatable. Unified, they’re unstoppable; to create tension, the writers must destroy that unity.

You do that by giving each pilot a competing agenda. It’s the reason they fight, and when this doesn’t align, the friction can create schisms. We get glimmers of this, as when Hunk prioritized the Balmera while Allura prioritized helping anyone in earshot with a distress beacon, or when Pidge focused on finding her brother over focusing on the team.

Shiro’s emphasis on ‘we decide together’ (as opposed to Keith’s or Allura’s ‘this is bigger than any of us’) falls apart once each person develops their own agenda. Allura and Coran seek allies but are easily distracted by hints of surviving Alteans; Pidge chases her family; Keith is too busy combing deep space for any sign of Shiro between suicide missions against any passerby Galra ships; Lance is focused on freeing planets; Hunk, well, not sure what he’d want. Freeing planets, too, I suppose; I can see him continuing to work as a team with Lance.

Then you break them apart. Dig into that friction, have each character stake their priorities, and one by one, each one falls away. Even alone, each lion is damn near a super-robot, anyway. Nothing the Galra have come up with can defeat even a single lion (other than overwhelming numbers, but even there ‘form voltron’ has always saved the day, so the narrative has carefully prevented the Galra from ever pressing an advantage for long).

Let the freed planets be thrilled with a single lion, and there’s no longer a pressing need for Voltron itself. There’s no real reason the team needs to swallow their conflicts in favor of a contrived working relationship.

[aside: I still roll my eyes that no one ever pointed out to the freed planets’ leaders that there’s only one Voltron, and it can’t be everywhere at once. Especially when one or two lions can do the job; using all of Voltron would be a hugely inefficient use of resources. It’s a remarkably selfish complaint on the part of a leader who was already entirely passive in his people’s freeing, and the failure of any of the protagonists to point this out means the narrative effectively validates that selfish complaint.]

After the break-up

So they scatter, and therein lies the fracturing that makes the story jump to a truly epic scale. You’ve got to follow these separate storylines, while compacting each because of time constraints (Coran&Allura, Pidge, Keith, Lance&Hunk, Lotor, Zarkon&Haggar, Sendak/Galra, Kollivan&BoM, various rebels). You can timeskip easily, and do catchups by showing alliances forming -- Pidge contacting Allura to say hello, reporting she’s working with this rebel group, and Allura says she last heard sign of Lance&Hunk in the something-or-other quadrant, and no word of Keith. That updates us and tells us it’s been three months. Then jump forward again, this time following the rebels with BoM, and drop hints that it’s been another month.

Have them come together in twos or threes, then break apart again because there’s no outside force pushing on them to reconcile. (Remember, the opponent’s only real threat is sheer numbers, and enough allies can undermine that, even if there’s only one lion leading the charge.)

We’d get the passage of time (even without clues like change in clothes or hair) with enough information to know where each is at. If we want a shock (”been trying to get ahold of you, they’ve captured Blue and are executing Lance in two days!”) then the noise of all those differing story lines can help mask the signal of what’s happening off-screen. Use that epic scale of so many different threads at once so the viewers feel just as overwhelmed as the pilots, and drive home the sense of being up against insurmountable odds.

Don’t forget the antagonists

And alongside all that, you continue to ramp up the tension by letting viewers see Lotor’s plans. Stop hiding the cool shit; the distraction trick of ‘wow Lotor came from nowhere’ is only going to work so far. Show what he’s up to; give him a role in the narrative beyond just opposition -- let the viewers understand his goals, possibly even realize he’s got some good points, even if his execution sucks. Let him smash through the individual lions; let him wound one, and capture another. Let him stand on the brink of complete victory, all the more bittersweet because we viewers would know that the team damn well handed most of that victory to him.

Bringing them back together

You position every arc so each character gets only enough victory to keep going, never enough to actually win. You ramp up the enemy’s previously overwhelming numbers into something truly vast, and you push each character into realizations that drive them back to unity. You make them realize they genuinely miss someone they’d once thought annoying. You tire them out with the fight, until they accept they can’t do this alone. You don’t simply let them reflect on that hubris -- you make them pay the price for the mistake. You force them to seek each other out, argue their differences, and resolve or get over them.

You don’t make it a single episode’s platitude, easily won. You make it a half-season (or more) of earning the truth, first-hand and at high cost. You’ve got to let the story test them, and hard, before they can accept the truth that they’re ‘stronger together’.

When the team finally reunites, that alone is a hard-won victory. They’ve defeated the greater opponent of their own flaws, and the stage will be set for their re-unification on a higher level.

In conclusion

So far, everything has (relatively speaking) come far too easy for Voltron. If the writers want to keep the story moving, the characters are way overdue for suffering some major, long-term consequences. They need to start earning those victories, instead of just yelling ‘form voltron’ and calling it a day.

#voltron meta #voltron legendary defender #storytelling #redux

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seenashwrite · 7 years ago

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The Nail: July 2017

The Nail isn't about perfection. It isn't about award-level contenders. It's about seeing focus and effort and hard work radiate off of the screen.

The Nail's purpose isn't to highlight genres of fics or specific ships written during a certain time frame - the sole focus is quality.

Character dimension. Writing with clever readers in mind. Solid world-building. Tension through boundaries. Crazy crisp dialogue. Incredibly tight plotting. Big emotion.

And though yours truly - nice to meet you, new folks, I’m Nash! - is editor of the list, the goal is for YOU to curate the content.

Read more about how all this came to be, find past editions, see what factors are considered when constructing the list, and how to get your recommendations in/be a curator HERE.

Hey, ramblers? Let’s get ramblin’.

For your reblogging convenience, here’s The Nail Master Post of Editions!

Quickie Nash Note:

I've not had opportunity this month [June] to give individual three-point reviews. So, something a little different here for July's reads - and it just might be the way The Nail rolls from here on out [and yes - I still will review on my "own time", as it were, once I... y'know... have more time].

Aside from the typical short blip of a summary that reviewers provide for their readers, you'll see a handful of reasons these pieces made the list below that, labelled "Q". In other words, the "Q"s are a handful of elements we [curators & I] look for when it comes to an author nailing it.

Quite wonderfully, the curator submissions are increasing in number with every edition! So much so, many stories have been shifted to upcoming months. If you enjoy curator selections & found them to be of quality, please consider not only giving the authors feedback, but also thanking the curator(s) for bringing the story/series to your attention. I suspect they'll dig it.

XO - Nash.

* ~ * ALL FROM THE WORLD OF "SUPERNATURAL" UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED * ~ *

SPEED READS [from scene do-overs to gif-inspired one-shots to dripping drabbles, all 500 words or less]

These won’t be reviewed separately in Nash’s usual three-point manner à la #Nash Gives [Feed]back due to their length, excepting those cases where the author pulled off a fleshed-out plot/character or had a unique take that was well-covered in the short amount of space. If there is no title provided by the author, Nash/the curator will pick one for them.

THE YEAR IS 2050 - @mishasaurus

Years on the job, and still the occasional surprise.

Q: crisp, quick, no more words/detail than necessary; executed a call-back and wisely eschewed any [uneccessary] explanations; wonderfully delightful, spot-on humor

FIFTEEN - @teamfreewill-imagine

Time always has moved differently for Dean.

Q: Concise while still giving character dimension; exploratory without explaining every finite detail; subtle and realistic tipping point in character arc

RESERVED SPACE - @supernaturalfreewill

Rather than take action, Dean observes and wonders.

Q: pitch-perfection descriptions that gave just enough vs. too dense; took a prompt that inferred a certain direction/instead chose a thoughtful path to show a different side of a well-known character; pleasant change of pace/atypical use of reader inclusion/insert

STEP-BY-STEP - @veneredirimmel

A short character study, considering what exactly is behind this hunter's smile.

Q: careful and considerate exploration of a characteristic that often bends shallow and sappy; flow is pitch-perfect, each section adding a bit more gravity, growing more personal as it goes on; kept in line with the portrayal we know while adding believable layers; leaves the reader with a feeling of "I want to go back and read this again"

---> Unable to tag author, if someone would kindly let them know <---

THE LONG, FULL YEARS - @ariannnawinchester

What happens in the life story of the Winchesters after "The End" has been written.

Q: fantastic example of a heavy topic in the hands of a sharp author who can make it feel "light" & not depressive; written with clever readers in mind, painting a picture fluid enough to allow for interpretation; absolutely knocked it out of the park regarding the "main event", in that those details weren't important as the aftermath is the point; fleshed-out OCs whose personalities were clear & enjoyable despite only a few lines between them

THERE IT WAS - @deathtonormalcy56

There's every reason to believe he'll be back - after all, he's always come back before - and now begins the time in between.

Q: good contrasts between objectives & subjectives/how "dulls" can be "sharps", etc.; took the risk of going with little/no dialogue that can often go awry for many/go sluggish; strong protag in the face of sorrow/doesn't fall apart/introspection without broodiness; 2nd person almost fading into 3rd omniscient

ON THE SHORT SIDE [500-ish to 1.5K]

Works via curators will not necessarily receive Nash's typical 3-point review

URBAN LEGENDS - @sasquatchandleatherjacket

Seems that some legends are more than the stories we use to contain them - and just how frightening they are depends on your perspective.

Q: creative take on the subject which made absolute perfect sense; nice, slow burn - despite the crisp pace & length - to the ultimate reveal, nicely camouflaged by the initial, more intuitive reveal; atypical choice regarding perspective, one not often utilized; leaves reader with the feeling of "I'd definitely read this again"

---> Unable to tag author, if someone would kindly let them know <---

SHEETS - @klaineaholic

The basic skills for hunting include weapons and the lore, but when it comes to hunting with the Winchesters, one must also master snark, sarcasm, sass - and those skills may just be the most important of all.

Q: well-done characterization; nice, quick pace; awkward moment handled realistically; fleshed-out protag in a very short amount of time/showed a sharp wit with a softer side that didn't bend sappy

TEA TIME WITH MILDRED [on AO3] - @grey2510

Crowley has help this time around with his critique of Dean and Castiel.

Q: in medias res with steady pace; excellent characterizations, including fleshed-out & highly enjoyable minor/here-and-gone character from a past ep; doesn't waste time on things superfluous to plot, nice flow

TRANSPLANT - @zepppie

Dean takes a moment to give thanks for a gift, one that's given him a very different perspective on life.

Q: very unique/original plot that fits within the universe of the show; excellent characterization [minor OCs & protag alike]; written with clever readers in mind; big emotion while calmly introspective

THE BEST OF FOOLS - @fanforfanatic

In which Castiel learns that a gift he's received holds more than simply music.

Q: in medias res; scene exploration with unique/original concept; tangible descriptions of the object in question, paints picture of sound extremely well; multiple fantastic turns-of-phrase/keeps a steady flow/prevents a bogged-down information relay

STICK 'EM UP - @seljepw

Dean finds himself in a slightly atypical situation, though he also finds the family mantra still applies.

Q: Solid beginning/cap-off; very believable characterization/verbiage/behavior of protag; tight plotting with crisp dialogue; little-to-no extraneous detail

MIDDLE-OF-THE-ROAD [around 1.5K - 2.5K]

Works via curators will not necessarily receive Nash's typical 3-point review

LET'S SWAYZE THIS MOTHER - @emilywritesaboutdean

They thought Gabriel had been taken out of the equation. They were wrong. Oh wow, were they ever wrong.

Q: in medias res; incredibly creative plot [bonus points for perfect title choice]; both the overall story/structure and characterizations left the feeling of having watched an episode of the show; seemingly effortless humor

THERE YOU'LL ALWAYS BE - @deansdirtylittlesecretsblog

It was a different relationship for Sam, this woman who understood his lifestyle and his secrets completely, though the feelings of contrition seem to find him all the same.

Q: beautifully fleshed-out, introspective view of the stoic main character that rings true to canon/believable interaction with secondary canon character; moderate borrowing from source material used appropriately; killer last line to cap off

Curated by @klaineaholic, who said: "This is so so sad and beautiful! The [pieces of dialogue were] such Eileen things to say, I’m so glad you wrote this!”

LONGER [around 2.5K to 3K-ish]

Works via curators will not necessarily receive Nash's typical 3-point review

CRAPULOUS - @butiaintgonnaloveem

A tale of a hangover, a vampire stake-out that went awry, and mysterious underwear await.

Q: well-plotted story with just enough detail/purposefully does not reveal every facet/encourages readers' imaginations; quick, witty, crisp dialogue beyond prompt(s); phenomenal featured OC; believable take on canon character; seemingly effortless humor

THE REST - @mrswhozeewhatsis

Deferring to author's pitch-perfect summary - “It’s all about what you give away and what you keep for yourself.”

Q: excellent weaving together of a fleshed-out OC's story in a very plausible behind-the-scenes-canon vignette; limited/no laborious describing of situations/surroundings/appearances; well-done choices of breaks/flipping to next scene/kept flow; bonus points for utilizing a seldom-seen character

Curated by @klaineaholic, who said: "I'm falling more and more in love with these fics that explore what's behind the canon. [This story is] like following this thread and going until you think you know how it's going to play into the canon and then the end just tugs your heart unexpectedly. Michelle clearly put so much thought and creativity into her pre-canon story on [a] beloved, oft-written about part of the Supernatural universe."

DEEP DIVES [3K and beyond, including completed multi-parters with 2 to (roughly) 5 parts of modestly sized chapters totaling at minimum 3K words]

This does *not* include series, which have their own section. Works via curators will not necessarily receive Nash's typical 3-point review.

THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS - @hannahindie

On a much-needed night of relaxation for the crew, Dean’s picked a happy hour - with the hope of a happy ending - that doesn’t quite go as expected.

Q: rarely seen use of a narrator to help tell the story - and it is pulled it off seamlessly/does not detract or add a cumbersome nature - this is one of those few exceptions to the likely-never-to-fail-you in medias res kickoff; crisp, witty dialogue/interactions; solid all-around characterization

SCAR TISSUE - @fanforfanatic

It's nothing new when Dean meets a woman in a bar - only this time, as the author puts it, "their damaged parts seem to match."

Q: took an oft-seen locale/situation and went deeper/introspective without being depressive; lovely, subtle touches sprinkled throughout for adding character depth - particularly O.C. - that add up by the end (bonus points for inventive "naming"); multiple well-crafted turns-of-phrase

SERIES SPOTLIGHT : SUPERNATURAL & SPN CROSS-OVERS [works that are completed series, as well as ongoing series with at least 3 parts published as of/prior to the edition of The Nail in question]

Due to time constraints, series are not read in full. They are given a cursory once-over for the quality basics, most importantly that the author has put maximum effort into world-building.

The first chapter / first handful of chapters / first third of the first chapter - depending on length - are read to ensure there are no gross grammar / spelling errors, as well as ensuring the story’s premise is made clear.

Summation line(s) below are taken from the author/the story, edited/shortened only for length/clarity if needed. Same applies to series from other fandoms featured on this list.

LIKE A ROLLING STONE - @stori-teller

"Cas Novak stumbles across a dead body - enter the Winchesters."

Q: in medias res; character dimension; descriptions of people/places/things unfold organically; plot unfolds organically/no long expositions/etc.; bonus points for mini-summaries/appropriate warnings for each chapter

SENSATION - @littlegreenplasticsoldier

"Sam is cursed to live without his senses and you are left to look after him at the bunker."

Q: [Deferring to our curators this go, seems they covered it, yes? ;) -N.]

Curated by @butiaintgonnaloveem, who said: "It's one of those fics that is heavy, while maintaining humor which is tricky. And the way she manages to describe the senses and the lack thereof just boggles my mind."

Curated by @klaineaholic, who said: "Being inside Sam's head as he loses all of his senses, following along as you (the character) try to keep him sane and make him feel not-so-alone when he can't help BUT feel alone [...] Sam's internal voice is captured perfectly, his characterization is so true, and the plot is just phenomenal."

BLOOD & PERFUME - @helvonasche + @madamelibrarian

"A pair of sisters must learn to navigate a life they're not used to, without a family, and with a power that should not exist."

Q: in medias res - and with a kick/thrown right into the action; unique ability/power/skill not seen/rare to see in this fandom; inventive name choices for original characters that fit the tone without being cumbersome or distracting; lets plot unfold organically

YOUR YOUNG MEN WILL SEE VISIONS, YOUR OLD MEN WILL DREAM DREAMS - @winchester-family-business

[SUPERNATURAL + INCEPTION]

"Dreamsharing: digging through the secrets that should stay locked up tight - and no secret is safe from the Winchesters."

Q: see my review for more detail on how this author essentially gave a master class on how to start a story, particularly in the action/adventure genre; takes inspiration without carbon-copy; characterization on-point; tension through boundaries; writing for clever readers

Nash Note: The link on the right - the second part of the title - is to the first chapter. The one on the left - the first part of the title - is to the brief primer on the “Inception” universe

RISE FOR YOUR KING - @thran-duils

“You were betrothed to a prince, but when a neighboring king - a mage - decides to dole out justice to your future father in law, he destroys the royal family... and takes an immediate liking to you.”

Q: well-styled fantasy/pseudo-historical AU with solid world-building; in medias res; tension/drama/action that ebbs/flows; gift/power/skill for protag which is atypical/rarely seen

Curated by @klaineaholic, who said: "JaNae is the queen of AU!Cas and she throws this character into new positions and life experiences and draws from the various Castiels that we see on the show in order to play with her AU!Cas' personality. This fic reminds me of Godstiel in a way, and how power-hungry that Cas was. Definitely imaginative, truly unique, and sexy to boot."

THUNDER ROAD - @tankcupcakes

“Sent back in time to stop the murder of their parents, Sam and Dean are met with unforeseen circumstances that strand them in the past.”

Q: in medias res; crisp dialogue; tight plotting; spot-on/fleshed-out characterization [familiar + OCs]; evident critical eye regarding appropriate detail for time period; nice formatting/flow

POEMS & POETICAL PROSE [mostly quick reads, these are actual poems of any structure/length, as well as short prose that sings like a songbird]

These will not be reviewed separately in Nash’s usual three-point manner à la #Nash Gives [Feed]back due to the typically short lengths & structure. For poems: an excerpted line is used in lieu of summary. If there is no title provided by the author, Nash/the curator will pick one for them.

WHAT ANGELS NEED - @justrandomspnstuff

"...counting freckles like they’re flecks of gold."

Q: stanzas arranged with common strokes vs. carbon-copy repetition; sweet/thoughtful without bending saccharine/broody; kept clever readers in mind/lets the reader fill in the finer details

HIS CREATION - @vintagesam

"...enough tiny stars to make you believe in infinity."

Q: impeccable structure; steady through-line with nice break in form for ending; imagery without using over-the-top vocab/kept it simple & sharp yet expressive

HE KNEW - @trexrambling

“The hunting continued while a different dream was born from the ashes.”

Q: nice change of pace with pseudo-”insert” approach in 3rd person/engaging readers with choice of 2nd protag; good formatting to help flow/segments of their time together separated; no "real" dialogue but without loss of pace

[ETA: Caught it on a subsequent glance - I have no idea why only Rex’s got copied from draft when I had it in another category initially, but it’s fixed now! -N.]

RANDOM FANDOMS [all types, all lengths, all the things that aren’t SPN but are still pretty dang super]

Works via curators will not necessarily receive Nash's typical 3-point review, same standards apply per genre as noted above

TWO BIRDS [series] - @whotheeffisbucky

[MARVEL]

“Set in the roaring 1920s, Bucky Barnes runs Manhattan like a kid with a toy set. There’s perhaps only one person who should be more feared than him - and she’s asking for his protection.”

Q: phenomenal/well-researched world-building; tone, verbiage, descriptions that read like they're somewhere in the Gatsby family tree; appropriate to this time period/genre - winding and packed with rich - not laborious - detail

WHAT'S A LITTLE TRAUMA BETWEEN FRIENDS - @withstarryeyes

[STAR TREK]

An injury proves traumatic to more than just the person on the receiving end.

Q: wonderful characterization/explored side of a protag only seen glimpses of; nice cadence/flow; appropriate use of "breaks" in formatting that didn't disturb the flow; refreshing style to see regarding a distinct lack of laborious descriptions [setting/characters/etc.] in lieu of shots of tiny details sprinkled along paragraphs

LOGIC AND ANGELS - @oneshot-twoshot-redshot-blueshot

[SHERLOCK + pseudo-SPN]

The great Mr. Holmes adds to his vast amount of knowledge.

Q: in medias res; excellent characterization of protag; kept air of mystery/no explicit explanations/ambiguity - written with clever readers in mind; multiple well-crafted lines, both internal and verbal

---> Unable to tag author, if someone would kindly let them know <---

ORIGINAL WORKS [anything from haiku to novella]

Works via curators will not necessarily receive Nash's typical 3-point review, same standards apply per genre as noted above

I DIDN'T GIVE YOU THE FRUIT - @medeae

"I forget that ichor is gold."

Q: imaginative/original; vivid but not overbearing/atypical imagery; crisp, tight structure/verbiage

LIKE THE SUN - @louisamayanniecat

"He looked at her like she was the sun, in that he never looked at her except in frustration."

Q: subverted the concept and made it infinitely better; not a space/word/letter wasted; conveyed a multitude of thoughts and incited as many feelings in a crisp, quick, organized manner

---> Unable to tag author, if someone would kindly let them know <---

THE JUDGMENT - @impala-dreamer

One person's journey through.

Q: good use of imagery; platitude pulled from the facile & given framework; contrast of easy nature with intensity of setting

BOOKS ABOUT BETTER GIRLS - @inkskinned

Not every princess spends her days alone in the tower.

Q: above and beyond, fantastic, exceptional execution of a trope twist; fleshed-out characters; plot unfolds organically; written for clever readers; lovely world-building/character depth as compared to the length of text [read: many authors would take more words and likely accomplish less]

Shameless Self-Promotion:

See Nash Write : Master || See Nash Write : Mobile

Now get out there & read, read, read!

#The Nail #Nailed It!#Quality Writing #Must Reads

65 notes · View notes

jungblue · 8 years ago

Text

cold coffee. (m)

pairing: jungkook | reader

genre: smut

word count: 4,564

description: “I wasn’t referring to verbal truth. I was referring to,” and then there was a brief pause that was followed by a light press to the center of your stomach. Your back laid flat against the wooden bench before the predatory loom of his figure appeared overhead, “Candor of the body. Which you, my love, are the absolute queen of.”

With an exchanged swipe, taste forthcoming as the two of you had intended. Too sweet, muttered against your lips – lips that curved into ones of amusement at his feigned disfavor for your particular arrangement of the poison. Too bitter, slipped past your teeth in retort, the air of the syllables brushing against his breath; a dance of icy exhales in a burning winter night. His mouth twitched at that, following your suit into similar enjoyment of the playful critique.

“Maybe not my coffee, but sweet in other aspects, no?” He spoke in a devilish dialect of insinuation and lust. One that, before encountering him, was unfamiliar to you. Adoration, it managed to claw at your chest with great vigor each and every time he glanced down at you through darkened tufts of raven hair. His words wrapping their way around you entirely until they sounded of music. The notes gliding across your bones as his voice conducted your motions.

You sighed deeply, running the tip of your finger along his bottom lip, only to be caught in the wolf’s trap. The edge of his canine halting your actions to find path for his tongue against your skin. Only the tiniest of hitches found its way to your throat in response, but it still pulled a sly arc to his lips.

“Sweet?” You questioned. “I would use many, many other words to describe you first, Jeon Jungkook, before I would ever settle on sweet.” He quirked a brow before sinking his teeth further down, only releasing with your pleasured hiss. “Not exactly disproving my point.”

Suddenly you were pulled closer in your seated positions along the wooden park-bench. One that the two of you had settled for on the way back from coffee in the dead of night. “Let me pose this question to you then, sweetheart,” He began, one hand settled at your side, the other bringing the bitter coffee of choice to his lips. “When we met at that bar, and I asked you after some appropriately escalated small talk, with the most painfully obvious hidden-agenda, I would love to fuck my name out of that pretty mouth of yours — would you have preferred a sweeter touch? Because it’s just that, well I have these crystal clear memories your reaction. Eyes lighting up the second I said it to you, thighs tensing together under that black dress, teeth digging into your bottom lip so hard I thought it would bleed.” Your back stiffened with the kneaded press of his fingers across your ribs, causing your mouth to part. “So I’m sorry if I wasn’t aware of your inclination towards… Sweetness.”

Recollections filed through, only to be masked by the current wave of enamored emotions that Jungkook managed to cast inside of your blood. “I don’t have an inclination for it. I just said that it wasn’t the first word that came to mind when I thought of you, and I most certainly never said I disliked your other traits… Honesty and such.”

Breathy laughter trailed, followed by the press of his sun-kissed hand against your cheek. Warmth permeating across your skin to provoke the melting of your chilled internal cage. “Well, I certainly can’t argue with that. Honesty has always been a strong point of mine – yours too.”

“Mine?” You questioned with furrowed brows. “If I remember correctly, when we first met you told me that I was too soft-spoken. But then again, you probably say that to all the girls that don’t explicitly talk about worshipping your dick.” The quip slid past your mouth with playfulness.

“Actually I prefer the latter, usually means that it left them speechless. I mean, you would know, right?” He pressed back with sly curvature that made you bite your tongue. “However, I wasn’t referring to verbal truth, sweetheart. I was referring to,” and then there was a brief pause that was followed by a light press to the center of your stomach. Your back laid flat against the wooden bench before the predatory loom of his figure appeared overhead, “Candor of the body. Which you, my love, are the absolute queen of.”

Enveloped in the warmth of his irresistible enticement. Chapped lips quickly ensnaring yours, dispelling the chill more than your bitter-sweet coffees ever could. Several minutes passed, marked by the trade of frosted breaths and languid tongues. With legs hitched around his waist, the firm press of arousal against your center pulled a gasp from your throat. His smug grin singed you before the graze of his teeth, the blunt edges tugging at your lip in a low-welcoming growl. Smoldering glimpses pierced through the strands of his hair, reflecting his pure desire that perfectly mirrored your own.

“Body, huh?” You finally replied.

“Yes, body. Would you like a demonstration of just how honest your body is, baby?” He whispered, lifting himself up onto his knees with a seemingly ever-plastered smirk.

“I…” You trailed off, his wandering hands leaving fire in their wake, “Yes.”

“Honest words too… Just far fewer than me,” He laughed vibrantly. It pulled you in, wrapping its way around every inch of your skin until it was completely consumed by him.

“You could always try to make my words honest too, no?” The thread of your insinuation roamed free, and Jungkook had never grappled onto something so swiftly. Suddenly his hand pressed at the base of your throat, and instantly your neck bared in response, even with only the slightest hint of pressure.

“That would be a bit greedy though, don’t you think?” He asked, loosening his grip, sliding it lower and lower. Your body lifted with his hand, completely guiding your movements.

But even with so much lust coursing throughout, you still couldn’t help but laugh. “Funny you mention greedy. That’s probably the second word I’d use to describe Jeon Jungkook if someone were to ask.” Suddenly all movements ceased, venomous eyes peering down at you through the darkness.

“Greedy?” He scoffed. “I seem to remember the first time we slept together I made you come three times. If that makes me greedy, then sorry to say, but I’m afraid you are the greedy one.”

You giggled at his accusation, while also remembering the happenings of that first night together – that very long night. Thoughts messy with lust, tangled with whispered promises of Jungkook’s plans for you; promises that he most certainly kept. Several months had passed since then, but the lingering effects of being given everything you had ever needed in that sexual way left you imprinted. The touch of others turned wrong, or at the very least incomparable. Even the simple exhale of his breath anywhere against your body left you trembling. It was as if, in just that one night, he had managed to fill your veins with himself, so that all it took was a simple trace of his finger, or whispered word along your neck, and suddenly every single thing that had been felt that night manifested itself in the most physical of ways.

The point was only proven further as the soft indents of his fingers came along the top of your jeans, thighs instantly fidgeting together. With an upward glance you were reminded of the conversation at hand. Jungkook was more than generous in the realm of sex, however he was, again, greedy. Pulling your strings in the most intoxicating of ways, because he wanted every part of you, and he knew just what to do so that you would let him have it.

“Well, in my opinion greedy and selfish are two sides of the same coin, but just because you’re one, doesn’t necessarily mean you’re the other.”

Suddenly fingers wrapped around your hips, sliding you up the slope of his thighs. “How philosophical she gets when there’s coffee, moonlight, and a hard cock digging into her pretty, wet cunt,” He mused with a slanted grin.

Gasps slipped past your lips at the pressing arousal, hands fisting into the bottom of his shirt. “Yeah, s-something like that. I just mean that you take almost as much as you give, you know?” Your voice quivered throughout, proposing great amusement for the personified sin hovering above you.

“I don’t think I like that reputation very much,” He pouted, but it was quickly wiped away with the sudden press of his lips to the shell of your ear with soft whisperings. “So tonight, no taking – just giving.”

Surges of fire began to flare. They started on your lips, leaving them charred with need. Then down your neck, ardor began its entanglement around your blood. Singed prints of his palms as they scattered wildfires beneath your shirt. The fabric rose higher, chilly breezes cutting across your flesh. Goosebumps induced by the windy howls, only to be extinguished by his mouth just as fast as they appeared.

“You know I’m just teasing, right? You give plenty – trust m-me,” You stuttered as the light nip of teeth teased across the skin on your lower belly.

“I know, but I like your teasing. It’s cute,” He smiled, accidently releasing a bright flash of his bunny teeth from below. The one singular trait that carved a dent into his façade of stone-cold playboy.

“Well you’re pretty cute too,” You whispered with a bouncy ruffle of his moppy hair, entangling the strands between the gaps of your fingers.

“Cute, huh? Is that another thing that comes to mind when you think of me?”

Jungkook was certainly cute. He had glimpses of adorable smiles that would scrunch his nose, and crinkle his eyes, so yes, of course he was cute… But it definitely was not one of the first words that came to mind when you thought of him. “I’d say cute is more towards the ‘sweet’ end of the spectrum.”

“Wow, so I’m not cute or sweet. I’m just being slandered left and right tonight, aren’t I?” He said, lifting himself from his ministrations along your stomach.

Lowly whimpers escaped at the loss of his touch. “Fine, want an ego boost then?”

Cunning eyes responded. “Baby, do you not know me at all by now? I can get ego boosts from you on my own.”

Eyes were rolled fiercely, but only because you knew it was true. “Oh, and there’s the number one thing I think of when I hear the name Jeon Jungkook – cocky as hell.”

“That… I can admittedly agree with,” He chuckled. “But what exactly is wrong with being confident in how I can make you feel? You definitely don’t hide that you like it.”

“Actually, maybe it’s the third word I’d think of, but regardless, I never said I didn’t like it.” Confidence was one of his most defining qualities, and with the way he used it, it most certainly wasn’t a bad thing. “I like the way you say what you want, and how you know exactly what I want.” With motioned fingers, you started him forward, only to once again be burned by his light as it found your lips.

“What about you?” He asked after pulling away.

“What about me?”

“Are you interested in what comes to my mind when I think of you?”

Smiling softy at the thought, you quickly nodded. “Very interested, actually.”

“Well, we already established honesty.” He demanded to prove his point with the path of his tongue as it scorched your neck. His promised moans being prized to him quickly enough. “And then soft-spoken—”

However at that you interjected, “Was.”

“Sorry?”

“I was soft spoken. Past tense, as in used to be,” You reminded.

“I’m familiar with the workings of the word was, but thank you for the reminder,” He responded with playful sarcasm. “Though I’m curious on how exactly you think that.”

“Remember the first time we slept together?” You asked bluntly.

It was as if he couldn’t help but bite down on his lip, the memories reflecting off of his irises in such a way that you didn’t even need his answer. “Of course.”

“Then you remember what you asked me that night?”

Gears turned for a few moments before he settled on the memory. “I asked you how you wanted me to fuck you — after I’d already made you come twice, if I might add.”

“The last part is irrelevant,” You said through the rising creep of heat travelling up your neck. Nowadays you tried to bury your reactions deep, just to put on the front of being ahead, but it didn’t ever take long for him to pull it to the surface. Devouring your need with his words and body. “Do you remember what I said after you asked me that?”

He answered instantly because it was something he remembered with the utmost clarity. “You told me, in the shyest voice I’d ever heard, whatever I wanted was okay.”

“And what did you say to that?”

“I told you that you didn’t have to be shy, and that I wanted to give you what you needed,” He repeated the words of the past intimacy while snaking his hand up your side.

“And did I tell you?”

“Eventually, but still not in as much detail as I knew you wanted to.”

“Okay, so ask me again.” His surprise to the request amused you greatly, but it quickly melted as he took advantage of the game at hand.

“Is this hypothetical? If I ask you how you want me to fuck you, does that mean we’re having sex in this park, because I would personally love to.”

“Hm, we’ll see,” You whispered with a shrug, running your fingers beneath his jaw.

“Okay,” He began, eyes glinting. “How do you want me to fuck you?”

“Well, I’d ride your face first.” The initial words crystallized a hiss in his throat, teeth baring down harshly on his lip. “I remember the first time you asked me to do that to you. It’s silly now, but I remember that I was so scandalized by just the thought of it, but after a bit of your irrefusable coaxing I let it happen.”

“So, let me—” He growled, hand already clawing down your waist.

But you grasped his wrist quickly before quipping him with a cheeky, “Not finished.”

His jaw tightened, beastly need welling within, but he pushed it down. “Okay, what else?”

With a championed smile, you continued. “Well, you usually like to drag that out, but after a little bit of time you would finally give up because you want to feel me drip down your tongue, right?”

The inner-animal once again swelled, “Fuck, yes. The way you taste — I want it now.” He teethed at your neck, seducing gasps past your lips. “Tell me, what else?” He whispered.

Clouds obscured your thoughts, the smoulder of his tongue wrapping smoke around your lungs. “T-then… Then you’d flip me on my stomach. Fingers in my hair, hand at my hip, and then after a while you’d pull me up on my knees, and then you’d wrap a hand around my neck, and squeeze, and I’d feel like I’m floating when I come down your cock.”

“We’re fucking in this park,” He rasped with a final bite at your neck before lifting his head to face you.

“No… I don’t think so,” You said unconvincingly, shudders embedding themselves inside of your voice.

“Baby, you can’t tell me exactly how you want me to fuck you, and then not let me fix it for you.” His voice was that of a whine, one that instilled you with great satisfaction.

“You can fix it later, just not in a park,” You giggled.

“You’re killing me,” He grumbled, pressing his forehead against your heavily rising chest. “Want to know your last trait at least?”

There was insinuation shrouding his words, but they only created intrigue as you settled on a simple, “Yes.”

Palms traveled up your side, inviting warmth with every skim of his fingers, until they finally stopped to cup your face. “Sweet,” He said simply, but with a flicker of fire rising behind his eyes.

“Sweet?”

He nodded. “Yes, too sweet, just like your coffee.”

“Well, then you’re too bitter.”

He smiled, thumb running across your lips. “Let’s make you a bit more bitter then.”

“What do you—” You tried to ask, but the words shattered as his lips found their way beneath your shirt, igniting an electrifying current.

“Everything about you is so fucking sweet,” He growled between tantalizing flicks of his tongue. “Your skin, your cum, just you — it’s everything.”

Veiled in the repercussions of his addictive touch, you voice rattled. “That… That a bad thing?”

“No, it means I can just never get enough of you. You’re right, I am greedy, because, fuck, I want this, always.” He breathed, snapping at the button of your jeans with his teeth, and once again your body just followed. His hands rolling your hips against his face because he knew it was what you wanted.

“Then take it,” Your said, voice quivering as he buried his face into your covered center.

“Thought you didn’t want it here?” He smirked.

“I know… But just do something… Fuck…” You sounded shaky and tormented, and Jungkook could most certainly feel that.

“Okay, okay, I’ll fix it,” He said, but his actions contradicted. Suddenly you felt bare, no touching besides the contact of your legs.

“Jungkook, what're—”

“Sh, just trust me,” He silenced, and you could see the sly nature of his smile, so you listened.

Desperate eyes, followed his every motion. He gripped his coffee off of the table, bringing the bitterness to his lips. He sipped at the drink, grinning as he broke away from the lid. You thought that maybe he was just taking a quick sip before beginning the real brunt of his plans, but instead he pushed your shirt up further, and began to angle the drink towards the newly revealed skin of your stomach.

You flinched, immediately pushing him away. “Jungkook, what the fuck!? That’s hot!”

“Baby, baby, it’s okay, calm down. It’s luke-warm at most. You have to trust me, okay?” His palm pressed flat against your belly, halting your squirms.

“But…” You trailed off, clearly hesitant of whatever Jungkook’s newest trick was.

“You know I’d never do something to hurt you, right?”

“Of course,” You answered immediately.

“Will you trust me then?”

The adjectives of tonight’s conversation might leave the impression that was only partially accurate of the man with raven hair, and wolf-like appeal. Buried deep within, there was a gentleness. One that no person would be aware of if just assessing his pristine exterior. Yes, he could be rough, and demanding; seemingly ready to burn his nearest victim with the relentless scorch of a dragon’s flame. Yet, to dig deeper, was to find the opposition of these predatory traits. He was liquidating. Shrouding those he wanted with water, lifting their bodies to heights of blissful elation. Soothing his inflicted burns, until they were ready to start again. With that understanding and experience of what he actually was, another word of description branded itself to him.

“Trust is probably the fourth word that comes to mind when I hear the name Jeon Jungkook.”

Your grinning lips watched as his sparks evolved into flames, engulfing everything, including yourself, as his mouth slanted with yours. It was the addiction of what he gave, that no one else could. It left you vying for every flick of his tongue, nip of his teeth — it was everything. You wanted everything, so maybe in the end, greed was a factor that defined you as well, but with him, it was just what he did. He took, and took, teaching you how to as well, only to give, and give, until it was pure entanglements of equal exchange set forth into motion.

Finally the flurry of his emotions ceased for that of a brief moment. He stole the air as he pulled away, while once again, grabbing the coffee. “Ready?” He asked, hand sliding down the still exposed flesh of your belly.

“Yes,” It came out as a soft whisper, one that was almost swallowed by the howling winds of winter. “I trust you.”

Positioned between your legs, he placed the softest of touches down each side of your ribs. The contact pulled you higher, back arching in search each time he pulled away. Through shaky breaths you watched him prowl from above. His eyes spoke volumes, reflecting the greed seeded within.

The moments leading up to his angled position of the coffee cup felt almost muted. It was as if it wasn’t the middle of winter, in the blistering cold, with ruthless winds, and air so dry. As if it wasn’t the setting of a wooden-bench buried deep within the park-grounds, the only witnesses to see being the swaying trees with barren stems. It was almost as if there was nothing but the two of you, not just here, but anywhere, his aura of enrapturement demanding to be the epicenter of every thought you dared to conjure.

These elements consumed you, so that even when the initial beading of the bitter-coffee began to dance across your skin, it was still, somehow, only him. Your eyes widened at the warmth, the perfect warmth. Mimicking that wondrous moment of blissful release on brutal days of snow and rain, when it was all eradicated by the warmth of a shower or bath. Melting your bones, until it shrouded any ability to think. It was similar to this moment, as you watched the personified version of warm baths on snowy days, smile from above you. Teeth baring down as he created the line of heat across your stomach.

“Good?” He asked, and you nodded even though you weren’t sure of whether it was a question of if it felt good, or if you yourself were good. Either way both sentiments rang true as the sliver of warmth began to drip lower down your stomach. Maybe it was only the slightest of concerns that the coffee would ruin your clothes if it were to travel past the band of your jeans, but the thought was vanquished with immediate fervor as fire once again raged. Tortured gasps demanded as his tongue dispelled concerns of every magnitude. From those of the most mundane in nature, to that of existential. Stealing back every drop of his drink that he had drawn on your skin.

“Fuck,” You mumbled, any elaboration escaping with the relentless snaking of his mouth.

He placed a soft peck to your stomach before lifting his head with a completely expected smirk. “Again?”

“Yes,” You whispered, the single word shaky as it rolled past your teeth.

No time was wasted as Jungkook grabbed the cup, once again carving at you with his possession. It was strange, the completely temporary substance of the bitter liquid was no more permanent than that of the clothes that you used to dress up your skin — yet, with each dribble of the liquid, it felt almost branding. Every touch in the coffee’s path rendering it all completely his. The thought only solidifying as he soothed the burns with his merciful tongue. You welcomed this feeling however, that you were his with each simmer of his drink, and that he was yours with each promise to soothe it.

These ideas were quickly left for another day however, when the press of fingers pulled you back into reality. Between your legs, his hand cupping the arousal that demanded a gasp. Cunning eyes met you as he traveled up your body. Forehead pressing with yours, breath that of bitterness, and a hand that was beginning to knead at your ability to breathe.

There was no cocky aura as he stared down at you, lips lined straightly, eyes glinting, but not in the way of his usual slyness. Instead it felt as if he was marveling, or something of the sort. His line of sight darting to every reaction that escaped from you as his hand unsnapped the button of your jeans. Swallowing the rattled breaths as his fingers slid across the results of his tactics. He inhaled deeply, eyes falling shut at just the pure amount of want that he could feel from you. The words tangled in your throat, not sure of how to say it, so instead you simply nodded. Pressing your lips to his, sealing the moment.

Strangled moans instantly fought to the surface. By now, after a few months shy of a year together, he knew you perfectly. There were no secrets, every inch was known to him. He engulfed you in flames and fire, turning every need to ash. He listened to your bodily candor, instilling its meaning, and stalking its path, until it was seared across his mind as second nature. His fingers listened, rubbing and thrusting at the pace of your responses. Building and building, towering you so high, that it would of course inevitably crumble. He was addicting, and intoxicating, cloaking you in his being until the construct of time rendered itself irrelevant. It felt of an eternity, yet somehow also felt much too brief. Trying to force the snap of your belly away, just so it wouldn’t end, but this was Jungkook, and he was relentless. He wanted you to writhe for him, because of him, and only for him, and you were not someone to deprive him of that.

“Jung—” You whined, breaking off halfway as he readied you to splinter.

He groaned, teeth bared as he coaxed you along. “I’ve got you,” He whispered, fingers dragging every strand of your sanity away. “I’ll always have you.”

The whimpered consequences of his touch and words crystallized in your lungs. Silent pining and relief, clawing their way out as he felt the convulsions of your aftershocks. Limpness infected every inch of your skin, seeping past it to envelop your bones. Breaths were heavy, intermingling, and it was almost as if the words were left in the small space separating you both; almost as if they didn’t need to be said at all. But he devoured that very air, filling his lungs to breathe them out.

“I love you,” He whispered with a soft press to your lips, where he exchanged the sentiment that you immediately repeated.

“I love you, too.”

The following moments felt again, timeless. It could have been minutes, or hours, and you never would have known, because he was that of fire and ice. Burning down the world, only to rebuild it with sculptures, patiently waiting to start the cycle again. The moon and stars were still bright, whispering to stay beneath the canopy of constellations until the sun banished them away. Yet it was obvious that the two of you had to eventually leave it behind. Walking away from the park-bench, hidden behind the winter-scorned trees, coffees in hand that had become cold long-ago.

“I think we should drink our coffee like that more often,” He joked, throwing an arm over your shoulder.

You curled further into his side, returning his smile with everything that he made you feel. Happiness was embedded within you, and all because it was most certainly the first word you would use to describe Jeon Jungkook if someone were to ask. He was radiant, and bright; enticing and wonderful.

“Yeah, I think we should too.”

#bts scenarios #bts smut #bts fanfic #bts #jungkook smut #jungkook fanfic #jeon junkook #jungkook #jungkook scenarios #bangtan

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writtenbykaichu-a · 8 years ago

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So Ky, you've been here for awhile, right? Tell us some of your favorite threads you've done with any of your muses, and anything you're hoping to do in the near future

Ohhhhh golly GEEEEEZ I wasn’t expecting a question for ME that made me smile omg!

Even though I suck at choices. I assume you mean across all my blogs because this blog is pretty young? If you want just this one feel free to come back and boop me, haha.

Geepers lemmie think here! It’s fun to reminisce. I may try to do this by character (assuming they’ve HAD a thread I love) for my sanity, so this may (read: will) get long!

Ash Ketchum. BOYO we’ve had a loooong run. Technically Sylvia’s is even longer but we started off in Group and I snagged him as SOON as the person playing him hit their time limit cause I hated their portrayal THAT MUCH. I wasn’t even sure if I could handle him cause I played all rockets at the time but I figured no way I was worse than them. 😂 Surprise people loved me. Okay so that was me BRAGGING now let’s talk about me on Indie. ASH KETCHUM’S all time favorite thread from his original run on @gotta-ketchumall to here... honestly given I can’t remember much of anything about my original runs I’m gonna have to give it to Trip @shootie and Burnt Leaves. Still in Progress. ;3

Jesus God Emma had a thread on her old blog @detective-essentia with... wait... which... hold on. ... ... ... BACK! You can turn off the music now. (Or not you know do you.) Okay so it was the person I thought. My giiiirl Emmi. Looker, @theagentlooker! We had this thread that started as dash commentary; Emma was upset about the prospect of a sibling when she barely gets to see Looker as it is. This turned into actual real conversation about their relationship, it was very emotional there was crying on both ends and it sparked actual effort on Looker’s part to spend more time with Emma and call her more often. ;w; This is the last post if you wanna do that ish.

Harley @cacturnefortheworse has had a fuckton of great threads in all honesty. It’s hard to pick a favorite so I’m going to do two. I really loved the thread where he and Ingo, @blacksubmas, were in the rain together and had to reconcile after the mess that was that contest. And I am very proud of one of my more recent threads with @shootie where he FINALLY got through to him about gender identity. Kid--i mean full grown man sorry--has a ways to go obviously but he’s finally ready to listen and learn thank Harley Arceus.

For Iris @dragon-spirited, hands down, the thread when she punched Shamus @firewarriorshamus in the face and proceeded to lose their gym battle. It went unfinished but it was still glorious.

My personal favorite with Izzy @theluckyraichu I think has to be her thread with N @inversion-formula, best summarized as “this human is nice, talks to pokemon, and not only claims that he doesn’t catch pokemon but he can help me find my old trainer too???? too good to be true not buying it this isn’t real life.”

My favorite of Jamie’s @sickle-shock‘s threads is probably his thread with Surge @galvonizedpatriot, (whom i apparently cannot tag,) which is a Gym battle. Didn’t get very far but I love this interaction very much.

May’s @stageonmay most recent gut wrenching interaction with her sister May (called Maple in twin-verse) @watterlogged is probably my favorite omg. Basically May admits she has a crush on @rubrendan, whom she knows Maple doesn’t like, and while Maple tries to be supportive (and doesn’t hide how she really feels very well) May can tell Maple doesn’t like it so May very firmly insists that she’ll get over it for Maple’s sake.

I honestly thirst over Mewtwo’s @clonedtorule in this case thread with @distcrtions (LET ME TAG CASS TUMBLR YOU WHORE... this honestly isn’t fair to whores I’m sorry). I even tagged it so you can read it! Basically Mewtwo was going around destroying labs (not just Rocket’s but evil labs in general) and Cyrus showed up to see what the fuck and it was a bad time for him. Honestly Cas hmu let’s revive this shit.

@inversion-formula gets yet another shoutout because my current favorite for Paul is N annoying the fuck out of Paul by following him persistently and insisting on talking to the Pokemon that are released at the time because Paul refuses to talk about his treatment of Fraxure. Paul refuses to acknowledge N’s ability by the way.

Proton, @cutthroatblackcoat, had a thread with @attitxde while he was on his original blog, @knifepointexecutive, and to avoid listing a bunch of ours, I think maybe Dren and I might agree it’s been our favorite? It’s the Whiskey thread in the Arranged Marriage verse we had, which has actually been archived and can be read here!

Sylvia, currently at @scientifiquederoquette and originally at @runaway-heiress, had a thread with another Rocket OC, Ghost @shadyxdealings where they both got drunk off their asses, bitched about their abusers, and then eventually fell asleep on each other and... I loved it.

My definite favorite for Touko @atwhatcost is her thread with Cheren @blackmambacheren where they TOTALLY just watched The Lion King and NOTHING ELSE. ...okay I came back to this cause it implies they went all they way. They didn’t omg lmao they didn’t even get past making out but damn Touko tried. xD

X @xneverlies was admittedly haaaaaard to choose a favorite for because I love all of his threads SO MUCH most of the time. But his favorite goes to a very brief thread with Petrel @poisoncraft in which they had their first kiss but Petrel, realizing X was uncomfortable, brought it to a quick halt. Exceeeeept X took that the wrong way, assumed Petrel was going to out him, had a panic attack, yelled lots of revealing things and ran. Sparked a lot of character development. Good thread.

And... I believe that’s all. You may notice some charas didn’t get a shoutout. I have some threads I maybe liked in some cases but not enough to write a paragraph about. I still very much enjoy these characters though. Some of them haven’t even had a chance to write much if at all so there’s that.

ON TO YOUR SECOND QUESTION FINALLY! Another bullet point list for you but more of a brainstorm ^^

I want someone to wreck Proton’s shit. How many times do I have to ask for this???

I’d like to write in Melanie’s teenager verse. Literally. At all.

Jamie needs threads as a Gym Trainer. For that matter I need to redo his verses and theme.

Misty’s battle with @mezasepkmnmaster.

Just shippy shit with Misty in general but I’m looking at you @pxkemonmaster.

LET TIERNO AND TREVOR KISS. (hi @hispokedex!)

I want Ariana (@executiveariana) and Venus to interact more, even outside of our ongoing thread.

I want Melanie to interact with Executives more at ANY age.

Speaking of, @poisoncraft and @atknifepoint still owe me that uncle-esque relationship.

I want a Mentor relationship with Mirror!Ash and Ash. Seriously. Make it happen.

Hopefully @couldbemine and I can finish the Olympicshipping re-proposal soon so we can move it here so we can move on to wedding planning * w *

I want more movement on the calling-out-Proton arc

X-PROTON-PETREL OT3

LET. EMMA. MEET. GLADION.

For that matter Let Emma have a romantic relationship. Or let her also meet someone who can gently show her that sex CAN be for fun and that someone should pleasure HER for once.

CHOO CHOOOOO EVERYBODY BOARD THE DOMINO TWINVERSE TRAIIIIIIIN (hi @agent-009!)

Someone just feed my botiqueshipping soul. Or just interact with Shauna in general.

Idk I probably have more ideas but I’ve just been discovered as awake and I’m exhausted WOW.

#distcrtions #galvonizedpatriot #plz read this i spent almost half an hour on it ;w;#Anonymous

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