#(every August I want to appreciate this series but I also have to think of the people I lost and it will be like that every single year)

[myownwholewildworld]

wherever you go (a joel miller's ff) - chapter 5

chapter 4 | series masterlist | main masterlist | chapter 6

pairing: outbreak!2003!joel x f!reader. (it's actually 2004 now)

summary: after what happened a couple of months ago, you are ready to move forward. joel? not so much. he might need a little... prodding.

warnings: 18+, mdni. internal and verbal discussions of feelings, trauma and past relationships. some jealousy (if you squint very hard). porn with plot or plot with porn (however you wanna look at it). again, absolutely filthy smut because i don’t know any better (sorry not sorry). fluff. voyeurism (you spy on joel). masturbation (f and m). oral (f and m receiving). finger sucking. unprotected piv. praise kink. sir kink. size kink. cum eating. a bit of cum play. multiple orgasms. overstimulation. squirting. dirty talk. you are very needy in this one and joel is very possessive over you. soft!dom!joel. aftercare. pet names (darlin’, sweetheart, baby, honey). i'm sure i'm forgetting something lol. reader is female, no other description given. reader is mid-late 20s, joel is 36. no use of y/n.  joel’s and reader’s pov.

a/n: hiya! first i want to thank you all for the positive feedback this series has gotten! [: i started writing this for myself mainly, and decided to post it here thinking that if a couple of people liked it, it'd make my heart happy. also, i have taken some licenses with joel's past, as neither the game nor the tv show gives many details (you'll understand what i mean). anyways! after the last chapter, our two protagonists (you!) deserve a bit of calm, peace and quiet... right? 😈 as always, thank you all for engaging. i do appreciate any comments, reblogs and/or likes you may want to leave! even asks/requests/side stories if you want to! take care lovelies <3 x

w/c: ~6.3k (sorry?).

tags (let me know if you want to be added/removed from the list pls!): @yesjazzywazzylove-blog @pedrospurplerain @missladym1981

August came around relatively quickly. Tommy had proposed you got closer to civilisation, which meant long trekking trips while the sunlight was still up. Joel agreed reluctantly, as he still thought that was dangerous. You just went along with it, letting them decide ― you didn’t really care where you ended up as long as the Millers were by your side.

Well, one of them especially.

At daytime you barely had time to yourself. However, the story was completely different at nighttime. The second you closed your eyes, snippets of what had happened two months ago flooded your memory. For the first few weeks, the nightmares were unbearable. You would wake up in the dead of night, sweaty and shaking.

And every time you woke up, Joel was by your side. He would hug you while you both laid on improvised beds, no matter how uncomfortable it was. Neither of you would talk, you would just cry in silence while your panic attack subsided ― Joel holding you throughout the whole episode. He had truly been a rock you could hold onto in the middle of a sea storm.

It got to the point where Tommy had started to realise that something was up between you two. Neither you nor Joel denied nor confirmed anything, although Tommy never asked. He would just look away when his brother would attend to you if you fell behind or would offer to do the first night shifts so Joel could be by your side at bedtime.

You were somewhat sure that Joel really cared about you. The way he would look at you… it sent shivers down your spine. The intensity in his eyes was hypnotising ― sometimes you would find yourself lost in his brown orbs, unable to look away. You also really cared about him.

You didn’t want to put a label to your feelings, mainly because you were not sure how Joel would react. You had come to understand that the man was prone to evade any topic about his feelings in general ― physical, emotional or otherwise. You could still not get him to tell you whenever he felt off. Since the blow to his head a couple of months back, Joel had been suffering with horrible headaches, to the point where he had fainted in a couple of instances.

The man was such a closed book you found out about his deceased wife the same way you knew about Sarah ― through Tommy. You assumed he had one or at least a partner at some point in time before the outbreak. The younger brother didn’t give you many details though, not that you asked either ― some wounds were better left untouched.

You liked Tommy a lot. He was a godsend ― so very different to Joel, but so similar in many ways. He was talkative and filled in long silences with stories about how they would cause mayhem at home when they were kids. You didn’t know if they were true or not, but they were entertaining nonetheless. You were under the impression that Tommy was the one who got into sticky situations and Joel was the one who had to fix them.

“I’m gonna go to the lake for a bit”, Joel told you, derailing your train of thought.

“No worries, I’ll get the fire going. Poor Tommy is always the one setting up camp”, you replied with a slight smile.

“Yeah, poor me, relegated to such unsignificant tasks”, said Tommy with a chuckle.

You smiled back and then looked in Joel’s direction. He was frowning at both of you, but quickly controlled his face expression.

“I’ll be back soon”, Joel crouched to look through his backpack, grabbing a couple of towels.

Something inside of you twisted. But you pushed the thought to the back of your head. You had already volunteered to start the fire.

You really tried to focus on the bonfire. And after a few attempts, you finally got it going. Joel had not come back yet from the lake ― it had only been ten minutes, but you were slightly worried in case he had lost consciousness again while no one was around.

“I’ll go check on him”, you told Tommy.

He looked at you with a sarcastic smile.

“Sure thing”, he replied while he started to skin a rabbit.

You rolled your eyes before you left in the direction Joel had gone.

You walked the hundred metres that separated the camp and the lake. The brothers had ensured the area was completely devoid of human existence before they decided to settle there for the night. You were now in Mark Twain National Forest, near St. Louis. You had checked out Kansas City a week ago, but both Tommy and Joel had deemed it too unsafe. So Chicago was your final destination. None of you knew what you would encounter there, but it was worth a try. The wilderness had not proven to be any safer.

Before you got to the bank of the lake, you spotted Joel in the water. He had his back towards you, your eager eyes checking out his broad shoulders, the water level up to his hips. He ran his fingers through his hair, slicking it back.

You stopped walking, somewhat mesmerised, your head slightly tilted to one side with curiosity. In the last two months, you had discovered a new side to Joel you didn’t know he had.

You guessed that what happened that night also affected him in a different way it did you. After he almost decapitated that man, you saw guilt in his eyes when he looked at you ― you still sometimes caught a glimpse of it to this day. As you found out later, that culpability was because he felt responsible for what those men did to you ― he really thought he could have done more. And he did in a sense, because for the next couple of days he hunted down every man in that group until there was no one left to hurt you. Apparently, that was not enough in his eyes, although it was in yours. But as much as you tried to explain that to him, it just wouldn’t sink in. He was so stubborn it made you go crazy sometimes.

Although Joel had been there for you emotionally, he had not touched you for the last two months. You managed to steal a few kisses from him and that was it. He had been extremely cautious with you in that respect. You were relieved he was as you tried to come to terms with what had happened, but after a few weeks it started to feel… frustrating. You were not broken and despite what he thought, you still had needs.

He suddenly looked over his right shoulder, offering you his side profile ― to you, he was gorgeous. Feeling like a child caught causing mischief, you quickly hid behind a tree. Joel looked around, eyebrows touching in confusion, but then he shook his head as if he was imagining things and proceeded to cup his hands in the water to wet his face.

You couldn’t not watch. You instantly realised that was the first time you saw him naked. The last ―and, regrettably, the only― time you two had sex, he was fully clothed. There was something very intimate about seeing him washing up.

You were so transfixed on the picture in front of you it was like the world had disappeared around you. Joel rubbed his skin with a hand towel ― his strong arms, his chest, his back, his lower stomach… Your breath quickened a bit, your heart picking up a pace. Everything about him invited you in ― it wasn’t only his rugged appearance that appealed to you, but also his character.

You started to feel hot. Had the temperature suddenly gone up? It seemed like it. Joel put the hand towel on his left shoulder. When you saw his right hand disappear below the water in front of him, your mouth went dry wishing it was your hand. You wanted to help him clean his manhood so badly ― memories of his delightful cock rocking you into a trance short-circuited your brain.

Before you could stop yourself, you placed one hand on your belly, biting your bottom lip. You finally gave in to temptation, pushing past the edge of your panties. You dipped two fingers in your slit, doing circular movements around your clit. Your eyes, albeit halfway closed in pleasure, could not leave Joel as he kept on freshening up. You pushed down your fingers a bit more, sliding one of them in your needy hole.

You closed your eyes, a half-smile showing on the corner of your lips. That felt so good. If Joel was going to do nothing about it ― fine, you would. Still behind the tree, out of sight, you held on to the bark with your free hand, upping the rhythm of your wet fingers, your thumb rubbing that tight knot in your fold. Then you slightly opened your eyes again ― you wanted to stare at Joel while you came.

But he wasn’t there anymore. You frowned, confused, but you were too busy to worry about that right now. So you closed your eyes again to fully focus on the task at hand. You leaned your forehead against the tree, feeling your orgasm wash over you with intensity. You pressed your lips, suppressing a moan as to not alert Joel of your presence.

“Am I interrupting?”, his soft voice forced you to glance in his direction with starry eyes.

He was on your righthand side, just half a metre away from you. Entirely naked in all his glory, an erection creeping up on him. You were speechless, partially because you had been caught spying on him and partially because you were still feeling the last remnants of your climax, your inner walls crying for something to choke.

“I―I…”, you really tried to excuse yourself, but your voice faltered when your eyes checked him out from top to bottom.

His body was chiselled, his muscles somewhat defined, especially around his waist. He had a pronounced V line with a hairy, happy trail which you avidly followed with your eyes until you were gifted with the sight of his veiny cock. You unconsciously licked your bottom lip.

Your fingers were still dunked in your warm pussy. Joel grabbed your wrist and took your hand out of your underwear, raising it to eye level. Your digits were sticky, covered in your own cum. You should feel ashamed, but you definitely didn’t. Not with him. Joel looked into your eyes, and, without breaking visual contact, he brought your slick fingers closer to his face. With no hesitation, he opened his mouth and pushed them into it, licking them clean. You felt your cunt gushing, eyelids half closed. You could have easily come again for him, but he released your fingers far too quickly for your liking.

“You naughty girl”, he whispered as he pulled you from the wrist to get you closer to his chest. “You taste even better than what I imagined”.

“I didn’t think you were…”

“Aware of your presence? Always, darlin’”, he finished for you.

Your cheeks blushed when he freed your wrist and lifted your chin up. His thumb caressed your bottom lip, his mouth just an inch away from yours. You bowed to kiss him, but he backed up a little, denying you.

“Are you sure you wanna do this, sweetheart?”, he asked, you could hear the uncertainty in his voice.

You nodded vehemently.

“Yes, please, Joel, I really need to feel you, to have you fuck me senseless”, you emphasized, short-breathed.

He seemed to consider your words for longer than what was acceptable. You saw his eyes flying between yours and your lips.

“Please?”, you begged.

Your prayers might have been heard, because he leaned forward, brushing your mouth with his.

“Then go down on your knees, darlin’”, he whispered against your lips.

You silently gasped as your clit pulsed at his words. You were delighted to follow his command, and so you kneeled compliantly.

When your knees touched the grass, his cock was at eye level. You couldn’t help but marvel at the sight. His dick was as big as you remembered, the memory of it filling you up still haunted you. It was so erected now that the tip touched his belly button. Joel looked so strained you thought he had to be in pain. And you were more than willing to help him alleviate it.

You moved your hand forward, but before you could try to wrap your fingers around him, Joel stopped you.

“No, with your mouth”, was his order.

You intertwined your fingers on your lower back and inclined your heard towards him. You gazed up at him, his jawline very tense. You let your tongue out and shyly tapped his glans with the tip. Joel closed his eyes immediately and grumbled loudly as his cock twitched in front of you.

That was all you needed to spur you on. You widely opened your mouth to house his manhood and sealed your lips around the head, the tip of your tongue trying to push open the slit on his foreskin. You played with him for a bit while your jaw relaxed. Then you started to push him in further and further down your mouth, as far as you could take him. His glans pushed past your uvula, you could barely breathe, just as you had imagined a few months ago ― a dream come true. You bobbed your head back and forth, feeling him in your throat, your eyes watering. But you were still not close to have his dick entirely in your mouth ― he was so damn big.

Joel growled in ecstasy as he looked down to you. The sight of you on your knees with your mouth stuffed, bright beautiful eyes, your tongue maliciously inciting him… He just couldn’t believe how giving you were.

“Look at you with your mouth so full”, he said placing one of his hands under your chin. He could feel his own cock expanding your throat. “You look so damn pretty, baby”.

You leaned back a bit, releasing most of his erection except for the tip. With the help of one hand you started pumping his shaft, the other gently massaging his balls. Joel eyed you intensely while you ate him up like a lollypop. His salty flavour inundated all your senses, your eyes pinned on his.

His fingers clenched in frustration.

“Shit, stop, I’m gonna come”, he mumbled as he pushed back to free his dick from your wicked lips.

No way in hell, you thought. He was not about to deny you that. You had been thinking about this moment for fucking months, you wouldn’t let him take that pleasure away from you.

You grasped him by his ass, your palms firmly pressing on his buttocks to take his cock even deeper. You then gave him head as best as you knew how, fastening the rhythm when you felt the pulsation coming from him.

“Fuck, baby―”, he moaned your name as he came in your hot, wet cavity.

You felt his spent hit the back of your throat. It was so tangy and musky. You swallowed all of it. Ah, delicious, you thought gleefully. You let go of his ass and released his dick from the prison of your lips.

You placed the palms of your hands on your knees, still on the ground, and glanced up at him innocently with a sweet smile painting your face. You then opened your mouth, sticking your tongue out to show Joel you had eaten all his cum ― a bridge of spit connecting the tip of your tongue to his glans.

He dropped one hand to break off the arch of saliva between you and him with his index, and fed it to you ― you gladly accepted, sucking his finger clean.

“Did I do good, sir?”, you asked with a small voice, looking for praise.

“Good? You did fucking splendid, sweetheart”, you beamed with the compliment and got up to your feet when he offered you a hand.

He took your hand, walking behind him as he headed towards the lake. He turned around to face you and kissed you slowly, his tongue caressing your palate. He then took a step back. The sun was setting on his back, the orange and red lighting reflecting off the waterbed. His brown eyes, bearded jaw, hooked nose, his hair curling at the nape of his neck… He looked like a roman God ― Mars, you thought. Joel looked like a man about to fight for his life and yours on the battlefield.

He sat down on a massive flat rock one metre away from the bank of the lake, which was approximately two metres wide in both directions.

“Now undress for me, baby”, he instructed.

You did not hesitate ― all your clothing fell to your feet, piece by piece, while Joel eagerly watched the show you put on. He wetted his bottom lip while he readjusted his cock on his lap. You stood there with dreamy eyes, awaiting. He motioned one hand towards the rock he was sat on, an invitation for you to join him.

Once you were sat on his right, he placed his left hand around the front of your neck ― a very slight touch that forced you to flatten your back against the rock while he positioned himself on top of you. He bit your chin while his left hand put a sweet amount of pressure on your throat. You could tell he was controlling himself.

“My turn”, he whispered, coming off you.

He got off the rock, kneeling on the ground in front of you. You put your elbows down on the rock to lift your torso and be able to look at him, your knees bent, the sole of your feet against the cold surface of the rocky platform. Joel grabbed you by the hips and scooted your ass over to the edge of the rock. Your legs were firmly pressed against each other, trying to hide your quivering cunt ― suddenly you felt shy.

“Spread your legs open for me, darlin’, lemme see”, he commended you with his hands on your knees.

You couldn’t say no to him, you didn’t want to. So you obeyed, dropping your legs to the sides, offering him your dripping fold. He traced your slit with his index, and you moaned.

“You’re so fucking wet already. So receptive, aren’t you?”, he asked looking at you dead in the eye, his finger sinking in between your legs, looking for the entrance. “Who gets your pussy so wet?”, he pushed his fingertip in your hole, and you groaned loudly. “Who, darlin’? Use your words”.

“You, only you, sir”, you gasped.

“This is mine”. He pushed in the second phalange.

You closed your eyes, trying to control your breathing.

“All yours, yes”.

His finger got completely sucked in down to his knuckle, stroking your g-spot. You harshly pressed your lips.

“Exactly, don’t you dare forget that”, his tone was so serious you looked at him enigmatically, not really understanding where that sudden possessiveness came from, but you loved every bit of it. And you were more than happy to put his doubts to rest.

You nodded frantically.

“I would never, sir, I swear my pussy is all yours”, you really meant it.

“As it should be”, he added a second finger as he leaned forward and kissed your mound.

You sighed, eyes teary, and flattened your back against the rock again, as Joel made out with the fatty skin above your clit. He introduced a third finger, all of them rubbing your anterior wall. Then his mouth dropped and sucked in your clit. Your knees trembled while you held both of your breasts, playing with your nipples and biting down your lip to stop your wanton screams. He insisted with his kissing until your wet cunt started fluttering around his fingers, a clear tell you were about to come. He stroked your clit with his teeth, very lightly, sending shivers up your spine. Your legs pressed against his head, tension building up. And then, finally, sweet release. You came so hard on his mouth, and he drank it all.

He unburied his head from in between your legs and glanced at you with a sufficient smile.

“You taste even better directly from your creamy cunt, baby”, you were glad he was so talkative during sex, especially if it was to praise you.

Joel placed the palm of his hand over your mound, his fingers covering your damp pussy, and rubbed with just the right amount of friction. You exhaled slowly.

“I’m gonna make you come again”, he promised.

You pursed your lips, your cunt palpitating at the prospect.

“I don’t know if I can―”, you uttered under your breath.

He raised an eyebrow, almost as if he was offended. Joel grabbed your thighs and pulled towards him; the back of your knees placed on his shoulders.

“Don’t doubt me, of course you can. I said I’ll make you”, his mouth was so close to your moist pussy you felt his cool breath on your damp skin.

You whimpered when his tongue swept your entire slit unhurriedly, from your perineum to your clit, his hand climbing up your body to squeeze one of your breasts firmly. Joel repeated that move a few times ― and your brain chemistry would be changed forever after that. He briefly pinched your nipple while he paid special attention to the core of your pleasure. Joel smothered your clit with his lips ― you closed your eyes while placing a hand over his on your boob.

Joel’s tongue stopped torturing you for a second. He nudged your clit with the tip of his hooked nose and then inhaled your sweet smell. That scent was making him go wild with lust to the point where he started fisting his cock, the tip already leaking with precum. He flattened his tongue against your swollen lips, wiggling it through the slit to touch your needy hole. He could not believe you were this wet for him ― if he had the chance, he would drink from your seeping fold every single day. This was how ambrosia tasted like ― he was damn sure of it.

He placed his hands to each side of your puffy flaps to spread your pussy open, while the tip of his tongue slipped inside of you. Your free hand flew to his head, fisting a handful of hair. Your toes clenched as he started to fuck your hole with his tongue. You felt your whole uterus contracting so hard it was almost painful. Your cum started to ooze out as a new orgasm hit you with full force, yelling his name. Joel did not waste any of it, licking it off you shamelessly.

What just happened ― that felt like sin, the most beautiful sin you had ever experienced. Your breathing was so irregular you thought you were going to have a heart attack. Then you heard Joel snickering as he got back up to his feet.

“See? Told ya”, he said smugly as you placed the elbows on the rock to lift your chest and glance at him.

He was jerking off, his cock ready for you again. You sat back up and leaned forward, your hands on his muscular thighs as you kissed the slippery tip, the shaft, then his balls. You showered pecks all over his manhood, worshipping it.

“S-sorry, sir, can I ask? Is your cock only mine? P-please?”, you asked in between smooches, almost panting, looking at him with puppy eyes.

Joel’s irises were swirling with desire, his hips slightly slanted forward towards your mouth, his dick visibly spasming while he caressed your cheek.

“All yours, yes”, he replicated your exact words, your heart fluttering with contempt.

You smiled at him before licking his testicles again ― your hand pushing his shaft against his lower belly to give you better access. Your eyes never abandoned his as your saliva covered his soft ball sacks.

This time he did step back, and you let him.

“I need you inside me, please”, you murmured.

His jaw was so tight he didn’t dare to speak. Joel could feel his heartbeat on his cock, all because of you and your wanton mouth. You looked so damn beautiful ― on your knees, staring at him through your eyelashes, patiently waiting. He knew you very well by now, fully conscious that as sweet as you were acting now, that was it ― an act. And he loved every bit of it. He liked the way you replied to him when sex wasn’t involved, taking no shit from anyone, your snarky remarks driving him crazy.

Joel sat down on the rock and motioned for you to join him on his lap. You joyfully obliged, sitting atop of him. Your knees to each side of his waist, your bust against his, skin to skin. Your nipples grazed his chest, becoming harder at the electric contact. He cupped both of your boobs and pushed them up, so he could kiss them tenderly. You sighed, your mouth against his ear. Still holding your breasts, he unattached his lips from your nipples to peck your chin.

“Fuck me, darlin’”.

You looked down between you two. His erection was so prominent you knew it was hurting him. And you could ease that pain for him. Heaving, you lifted your hips up and grabbed his dick. It was hard but soft at the same time, velvety, very warm and beating. So sensitive to the touch he groaned ― music to your ears. You hugged his neck with your free arm as you guided his tip to your leaking entrance.

With a sudden drop of your hips, you impaled yourself harshly ― his bollocks kissing your tumid lips. You circled your hips against his, very slowly, which made you both moan in unison. Then you raised your body, his cock slipping out completely. Holding him from the base, you came down on him sharply again.

Joel was close to losing his mind. If you did that one more time, he wasn’t going to be able to hold it for much longer. You seemed to understand that, because you started to rock your hips back and forth, up and down. He kneaded your ass, feeling your rhythm, spurring you on. His fingers squeezed the skin under them while he kissed your collarbone. His mind was completely blank ― he could only focus on your sweet pussy hugging him, choking him. His dick felt so wet, so hot, throbbing for release… You kept on riding him, your movements growing erratic as you both were close to climax.

You surrounded Joel’s neck with both arms, pressing your breasts against his handsome face, your hips flushed with his, as your cunt angrily convulsed around his erection in blissful liberation. Joel held it together while you recovered, his hands still on your ass cheeks, fingers so clutched they were close to dislocating.

“Baby, if you don’t get off, I’m―”, pain smeared his tone. He was really fighting for his life right there and then.

“Oh, sorry”, you said with a small voice, still feeling your own pleasure. You elevated your hips, so his manhood popped out with a squelching sound.

You were not going to leave him hanging, obviously. So you kneeled before him, in between his strong legs, and kissed his tip. Joel sighed loudly when you closed off your lips around him for the second time today and pumped his shaft fast and strong, milking him dry. A minute later, your throat was clogged with his spent. A drop of it trickled down the corner of your mouth.

Joel leaned forward and caught the cum off the corner of your mouth with his thumb before rubbing it on your lips. Then he kissed you wetly, devouring you. He could never have enough of you.

“Thank you, sir”, you whispered with a smile when he was done assaulting your mouth.

He just smiled back. A genuine smile, the first you had seen from him. It tugged at your heart a little.

You were still feeling restless. Although you had orgasmed four times already, your pussy lips were so inflamed you thought you were on your way down to hell. Still on your knees in front of him, you softly massaged your sensitive clit. It was burning ― you suppressed a sob as you glanced up at him, lips slightly parted.

“What is it? Is your tight pussy still gushing, sweetheart?”, he asked you, cupping your chin.

You nodded, tears of frustration blurring your vision.

“I need more, I can’t ― my pussy is on fire, sir”, you muttered, feeling sorry for yourself. You were in a heightened state of sensory overload.

“Let me help you with that then”, you almost cried of relief at his words.

You quickly got up and kneeled on top of his lap again. He slipped a hand in between your bodies to caress your core. Your flesh trembled at the touch. Suddenly you realised you desperately needed to find your own rhythm ― you didn’t have to communicate it, Joel understood it in a second. He stopped and let you do what you had to do. You placed the palm of your hands on his shoulders and started rubbing your pussy against the side of his still hand. You slid your cunt further up to his elbow, and then returned back to his wrist. Your clit greedily welcomed the tingling sensation of the hair on his forearm against your wet slit.

You kept on rocking your hips back and forth on his forearm, pressing hard against it, sliding, rubbing and causing as much friction as you could, the heat in your belly flowing down to your crotch. You buried your fingers in his wet hair and tilted his head backwards so you could rest your forehead against his. Your inner walls contracted extremely hard and then you let go, squirting plentifully for a few never-ending seconds on Joel’s forearm. Your overstimulated cunt was leaking on top of him as if someone had opened the tap of your pleasure and couldn’t close it. When the last wave of your climax abandoned you, you looked down to see how it all trickled down from his forearm onto his lap.

You closed your eyes, content, when he gently tapped your pussy a few times. You breathed in deeply, feeling completely satisfied, finally at peace. Then you pecked his lips with gratitude.

“Better now, baby?”.

“Yes, infinitely better. I―I’m sorry I made a mess”.

“Don’t you apologise for that”.

You both remained in that position for a few minutes ― his now relaxed, wet cock warmly lodged between the flaps of your still dribbling cunt. He hugged your waist to bring you closer to him, his mouth brushing yours in a moment of calmness you had not experienced with him yet.

When his lips released yours, you placed your cheek against his right shoulder, your fingertips tracing the scar on it. Silence ensued, neither of you felt the need to fill it with words.

As much as you fought against yourself, you had feelings for Joel. Although you probably didn’t know all his faces, you knew enough about him to love him. The way he would have you on your tiptoes with his sarcastic comments, his bluntness, his rudeness, the way he would snap back at you when you pressed his buttons ― but also his kindness, his caring side, his softness, how he worried about you making sure you were okay, his demanding sexual needs, the way he made you feel when his hands mapped out your skin.

But you were not sure what he thought about all of this. In some respects, his mind was inscrutable. It was part of his charming personality, you guessed. You kissed the scar on his shoulder as he buried his face in your hair, inhaling your scent.

“I love how you smell”, he murmured.

“Is that the only thing you love about me?”, you couldn’t resist, the words just slipped out of your mouth. You wished you could take them back, but it was too late for that.

Joel slightly froze in place at your question. He couldn’t deny that he had started to develop feelings for you. The way you looked at him made him want to be a better person. Although you drove him crazy sometimes, you made his days bearable, a shining beautiful light amongst so much darkness. You were his lighthouse, guiding him to shore. He just needed to learn how to surf through the violent waves before he could safely approach the coast.

Knowing how close he had been to losing you had opened his eyes to a new, unknown reality. He would literally kill for you if he had to ― he had already done it and would do it all over again without blinking. No regrets whatsoever.

But he had some unresolved trust issues when it came to romantic relationships. Joel married Sarah’s mother, Charlotte, when they were both twenty-one years old, as soon as they knew they were expecting. The first two years were very hard on them both, parenthood was not a piece of cake. Resentment had grown between them, to the point where Charlotte had accused him of robbing her of her fun years, which led her to cheat on him. They tried to salvage their marriage for the sake of Sarah, but they never did ― Charlotte died in a car accident while on a heated, angry phone call with Joel.

He locked away those thoughts ― it wasn’t the time nor the place to dwell on the past. Not when he had you with him.

“I… well, no. I love everything about you, sweetheart”, he conceded.

Your heart skipped a beat with joy. No, it wasn’t a love confession, but it was much more than what you were expecting of him. You turned your face against his neck and placed a kiss on his Adam’s apple.

“C’mon, let’s freshen up, I want to clean my mess off you, I do feel a bit bad”, you said with a chuckle.

You got off his lap, the cool breeze touching your sweaty skin. You offered him a hand, which he took, standing up behind you. Without letting go of his fingers interlaced with yours, you guided him to the water. It was cold, but you ventured inside with Joel following you. When the level was up to your waist, you turned around in Joel’s embrace.

You proceeded to wash off your cum and his off his cock, his lap, his forearm. When you were done, he kissed the top of your head. His left hand did the same to you, his fingers caressing your pussy, cleaning the proof of your shared pleasure. He did so not in a sexual way, but in a caring, intimate way. A minute later, you both disappeared beneath the water to emerge a second later, to wash off all the sweat. You found yourself in his arms again, your cheek against his chest ― you could hear his heart beating loudly but steadily.

“Joel, I―”, you didn’t know where to start. There were thoughts you had been wanting to put into words for a while now. “What happened to me sucks and I still die a bit inside when the memories come back at night. But none of it was your fault, nor mine. I do not want those bastards to win, to ruin my life. And my life with you. And I know it will take time to heal that part of me, or maybe it will never heal, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t want you. I want you so badly, Joel, but what I do not want is you walking on eggshells around me. I’m not broken, I want to move forward, not get stuck in the past. Do you understand what I mean?”, you asked, your cheek still against his chest, looking up at him.

His eyes were focused on yours. His heart shrunk a bit, sharing your pain. If he could, he would take it away, all of it ― the fear, the panic attacks, the agony, the memories, the nightmares. But he couldn’t change the past. So, he nodded.

“I do, honey”, he whispered as he bowed down to place a gentle kiss on your lips.

You both stood there for a few more minutes, hugging each other in silence. Then Joel grumpily ended the embrace.

“We should get back, Tommy is going to kill us”.

You laughed because it was so true. You both got out of the lake, towelled down and got dressed. You started walking towards the campsite besides him ― your hand in his, fingers entangled. When you saw the tent and Tommy’s outline against the fire, you got ready to release his hand. But he didn’t let go when Tommy turned around to look at both of you.

You tried to hide a soft smile ― and failed.

The younger Miller noticed you holding hands but made no comment about it. But he did smile. A very wide smile.

“Well, about damn time, dinner is almost ready”, he said with amusement, pointing to the rabbit impaled with a stick roasting on top of the fire. “If you took any longer, the rabbit was going to come back to life and run away”.

“Always so theatrical, Tommy”, you chuckled.

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL - The Summer Games BLgin.

Organized, in each category, with ones I'm enjoying most at the top. Those Greeks did have that reputation for naked dudes rolling around together so I'm declaring it...

BL OLYMPICS!

I'll be passing out metals in various sporting events, as part of the weekly updates through mid August, just for funzies.

July 2024 Week 4

Ongoing Series - Thai

The Rebound (Weds Gaga) eps 9-10 of 12 - I guess mass murder is nothing next to having to raise funds for your basketball club. There were a lot of water sports in these eps (no not that kind). I’m not complaining. The street BB playoffs were fun. Frank is GOOD. I didn’t know he played. They aren’t using doubles for this. Meanwhile, it’s a bummer this one can’t be a poly romance. 

Winner!

Gold in Handball

for that shower scene in ep 9 (also... ya know, DUNK TANKS)

Balls in hands of all types.

Briefly must chat about that intro/outro music. It's like Thai autotuned Stray Kids. Which means I kinda adore it.

Century of Love (Weds Gaga) eps 5-6 of 10 - I guess he’s had a long time to learn how to fight really really well. This is a fun show. It does occasionally feel like a bunch of gay boys playing dress up. I LIKE P’Third a lot. I hope he doesn’t turn out to be an actual baddie. I’m finding the music a little intrusive in these episodes. I love the deconstructed suits look, and the velvet blazer. Very 90s. The confessions scene was very cute. It’s a good thing Vee is so easy-going, because the last few months of his life have been truly insane. And now he’s queen of the castle? Still working his convenience store job?

I honestly thought we'd just get kisses halfway through not a full on sex scene. But it was very sweet and tender. Appreciated, boys, thanks. However it’s never a good sign when the sex scene is it at the halfway point, it just means there’s gonna be a lot of trauma to come.

(I gotta say every time Daou smiles he actually looks his age.) 

This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans (Fri iQIYI) ep 4 of 8 - I like them now. I mean as a pair of characters. I wasn’t really sold on the main couple until this episode, and now I’m interested (yes I am shallow). The boy with the glasses is definitely sus. I’m quite drunk, thus I have to say Sailub is the hottest thing on my screen right now. Metas's taste in interior design sucks. OK, that physical therapy session was sexy. I wasn’t sold at first, but now I love this side couple too.

Argh. SailubPon kiss so well. Also COUNTER LIFT!!!! 

Silver in Weightlifting

Sunset X Vibes (Sat iQIYI) ep 7 of 12 - I’m the one who always says this stuff, but this pair might be the best at relationship heat. Let me try to explain. They are good at putting on screen the kind of NRE, want to bone, just really into each other physically and also connected and loving. It’s the way their bodies always arch towards each other. They’re very comfortable in each other’s space in a way that’s really rare to see out of Any BL country but Taiwan. I think they might be my favorite couple currently active. I don’t know how to put it except that

it looks like they want each other,

it looks like they like each other,

it looks like they’re into each other,

and it looks like they GET each other.

It’s nice to see on screen. The plots/stories/narratives that they're given aren’t doing them any favors, but man they’re a good pair. Meanwhile, was I screaming the whole time don’t rip the sample of the custom piece? Yes I was. But it was still sexy.

Sam getting discovered was fun! Yo is gonna burn his arse good.

My Love Mix-Up Th (Fri YT) ep 8 of 12 - Okay! Officially boyfriends. I almost like the friendship btw Atom and Mudmee better than the romances. But they all so cute. 

The Trainee (Sun YouTube) ep 4 of 12 - I hate the gf intern so much. I think she is past redemption now - time for death. What is it they say about ADs? they do all the work, for none of the credit but all of the blame.

Knock Knock Boys (Thurs Gaga) ep 10 of 12 - I guess Peak’s dad really is that awful. Jane is the beard? Got it. The show got suddenly quite sweet and complex. Where did that come from? Meanwhile ,Almond + Latte + sex education is awesome. Great trope we rarely get in BL. 

Love Sea (Sun iQIYI) ep 7 of 10 - Look, what’s really annoying me is that I am neither upset nor pleased with the show. I like to be driven one way or the other by Meme. Trash watch here. (delayed this week, I can't face it)

I Saw You in My Dream (Weds Gaga) ep 1-2 of 12 - Out the gate I don’t like it. I don’t really like the teasing thing and the acting is poor. That said, neck kisses in the very first episode do make me happy. So I’m gonna keep watching. As for ep 2, I like the sides, and we have gay brothers trope activated. I also like the paranormal element, it adds some much-needed tension, but it is still a little slow (typical of a pulp).

Ongoing Series - Not Thai

I Hear the Sunspot AKA Hidamari ga Kikoeru (Japan Weds Gaga) ep 6 of 10 - I like our poor lost puppy slowly figuring out what’s going on. It’s so elegantly done. Also, the the boy begs his quiet seme to SAY something, you know he’s gonna DO something instead. 

I could have done wihtout the pan around the head kiss. We over that, 8 years ago.

Takara's Treasure AKA Takara No Vidro (Japan Mon Gaga) ep 4 of 10 - Why don’t I like this show? I had to think about it quite a bit. It’s the power differential. I never enjoy it when the character with less power is the one doing the pursuing, it comes off as too desperate or something. In this case he is: from the country, poor, and younger, It just makes Takara’s dismissive attitude and snobbery unpleasant to watch. Also, you know me, =/= obsessive stalker behavior. 

It's airing but...

Bad Guy (Korea YT) - yeah, erm, no thank you.

4 Minutes (Thai Netflix/Grey) ep... - Great, a rich boy studying business at uni, suddenly gains the supernatural power to see four minutes into the future. I try to catch up next week.

I have a source, but I simply didn’t have time to watch it. So sorry. Too much traveling too much BL to keep up with. A perfect conflation of conflicting priorities.

Meet You at the Blossom (China) - it's your funeral (or, more likely, one of the main characters'). You can argue but... statistics. You know my feelings on this matter. MY BLOG, remember?

64.media.tumblr.com

In case you missed it

The Time of Fever AKA Unintentional Love Story 2 (Korea movie) trailer IS COMING IN SEPTEMBER!!!!

Next Week Looks Like This:

Upcoming BLs for 2024 are listed here. This list is not kept updated, so please leave a comment if you know something new or RP with additions.

Coming Up Next!

7/29 Battle of the Writers (Thai ????) - trailer here, TutorYim return, and while I adore them, I really hope this is better than Middleman's Love. Won't be hard. However: the premise? Ugh. Something something authors fighting - save me. Why don't writers understand that nothing is more boring than writers?

8/4 Sugar Dog Life (Japan Sun ????) 10 eps - OMG a uni student who looks too young and a... COP. GAH. The subversion and kink of it all. Please Gaga pick this one up? They made it for US.

8/7 Cosmetic Playlover (Japan Weds ????) 8 eps - office romance around the makeup counter featuring a younger seme and sex by blackmail. I am intrigued. DFTUJ (don't fuck this up, Japan).

8/8 Monster Next Door (Thai Thurs WeTV ) 12 eps - I am so DAMN excited to see Big finally lead a BL. I can't even with this, one of my most anticipated of this year. He's a great kisser ya'll, he's kissed a lot of boys as second lead. I can't WAIT.

8/12 First Note Of Love (Taiwan Mon Gaga) 12 eps - About a singer with stage fright and his timid fan stars Charles (H4 the puppy one) and Michael Chang (the youngster in My Tooth Your Love), plus side couple featuring a Thai actor Jame (Koh in Gen Y) and Liu Min Ting (of Guardian fame). What a damn tean. I can't wait. With thier powers combined!

8/16 The Last Time (Thai Fri YT) ? eps - Convoluted story of loss and possible reincarnation or something.

8/22 The Paradise of Thorns (Thai movie) theater release - Jeff Satur is back but this does not look like a BL (the gay lover's death is the inciting event). More in Goodbye Mother vein. Looks dark and dramatic. He opposite and extremely well known actor Toey Pongsakorn who has never done gay before.

Addicted Heroin (Thailand adaptation) is also supposed to release this month. GIVE IT TOO MEEEEEE. I don't care about anything else but August back on my screen. It's been almost a decade since he did BL.

THIS WEEK’S BEST MOMENTS

This week's adventures in caption "out of" and "off" are not the same thing. This is an uncomfortable thought.

I'm so tired I'm seeing double. This is all you get.

(Last week)

Streaming services are listed by how I (usually) watch, which is with a USA based IP, and often offset by a day because time zones are a pain.

The tag BLigade: @doorajar @solitaryandwandering @my-rose-tinted-glasses @babymbbatinygirl @babymbbatinygirl @isisanna-blog @mmastertheone @pickletrip @aliceisathome @urikawa-miyuki @tokillamonger @sunflower-positiiivity @rocketturtle4 @blglplus @anythinggoesintheshire @everlightly @renafire @mestizashinrin @bl-bam-beyond @small-dark-and-delicious @saezurumurmurs

Sigh, Tumblr in it's infinite wisdom doesn't like too many tags.

Sports in Play (the jokes write themselves) )

Boxing

Breaking

(That's Not) Cricket

Diving (yes, for that)

Fencing (yes, with those)

Handball (exactly what it says, no, read the word.. again)

Rhythmic Gymnastics (obvs)

Squash (snicker)

Surfing

Swimming

Trampoline

Weightlifting

Wrestling

[heizuhaevents]

HeiZuha-Week 2024

August 5th until August 11th!

Welcome to this year’s HeiZuha-Week, where we want to come together and create one or more special pieces about our favorite (to-be) couple!

You like the couple Kazuha and Heiji? Then you're at the right place!

As every year, the HeiZuha-Week will again include the Hattori-Day (August 10th)!

Around that time, our beloved Osakan Couple will return with a new case in the Japanese Manga-Series, so I decided on the theme

Reunion / Return

To give you some prompts, here’s the daily list!

Case Closure: Heiji returns to Osaka, after successfully solving a case in another city. Kazuha, who was worried during his abscence, waits for him. Ideas: dangerous case, lost case, dispute, argument, long-distance relationship

School Commitments: Because of commitments at school, Kazuha and Heiji haven’t had much time with each other. Finally, all commitments are over and they find a quiet moment. Ideas: school festival, tournaments, exams

Lost: Kazuha and/or Heiji get lost on a trip. After hours of searching, they find each other again. Ideas: Woods/Forest, dangerous case, big city, crowded place, snowstorm, school trip

Dangerous Situation: Kazuha/Heiji gets kidnapped/trapped in a dangerous situation (can be also funny dangerous, like accidentally trapped in the girl's changing room?) and the other has to come to the rescue! Will they be there in time? Ideas: kidnapping, accident, crash, trapped, captious situation

Old Friends: Years have passed and still no couple – even worse! They have lost sight of each other over the years (or maybe have fallen out?) ! Are they worried, the other half might have found a love? Ideas: Study abroad, working abroad, new old love, undercover mission, unsent letters, old memories, long-distance relationship

Another Life: In another life they find/found each other again. Will they recognize each other? Will things be different? Ideas: Isekai, Afterlife, Reincarnation, Past Lifes, Alternate Universes, timetravel/changing past

Returning Memories: May it be because of years passed or lost memory.. They remember old times and relive old feelings. What might their older self think about themselves? Ideas: Photos, lost memory, nostalgia

You can stick to the daily prompts or do an overall work for the whole week by using just the theme or combine different prompts as you like 🙂

It’s free for your interpretation but you can send an ask if you need some inspirational hints (^_^)

I hope for a lot of enjoyable creations!

More Info below the cut!

Some Guidelines

Use tag #HeiZuhaWeek2024 and/or #HeiZuhaWeek and tag this blog by using @heizuhaevents so I can find your entry(s)!

Post your work to the Ao3-Collection (if uploaded to Ao3)

You don't need to participate daily, just choose the topics you like or only use the overall theme to create a piece!

You're free to choose what you want to create! All kind of fanwork is appreciated, open to all creators of all skills! (^_^)

Follow this blog to not miss any of the creations or infos and updates on the event!

Spread the Word! (e.g. by reblogging this post) So we can gather a lot of participants to make this event a great experience! (^o^)/)

Have fun!

I'll reblog on this blog all creations. (^_~) Also after the event week.

(I'll reblog this announcement over the next weeks again as a reminder, but wanted to give enough time for everyone who's short on it!)

[veliseraptor]

August Reading Recap

Godkiller and Sunbringer by Hannah Kaner. I enjoyed these both (I mean, clearly, I read the sequel), though the first probably more than the second. The author is doing some interesting things with her world-building, though I have a little bit of a time figuring out what's going on with her naming conventions (which isn't that important, except in the ways it is). I'm definitely curious to see where it goes and will be reading the third one, but ultimately my verdict on this series is more "solid" than "good." Positive! But not, like, enthusiastically recommending to all and sundry.

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. This book had the seeds of a good book in it, and it almost lived up to that when it wasn't being unbearably didactic in the most heavy-handed way possible, footnotes and all. When the author focused on the characters and the dynamics between them, I could see a good story there, but it kept getting spoiled for me by being hit over the head with a message that I (admittedly) already agree with. I liked the collection of short stories by the same author much better.

Messalina: Empress, Adulteress, Libertine: The Story of the Most Notorious Woman of the Roman World by Honor Cargill-Martin. This was a solid book but felt like it could've been an article rather than a full-length book. It was a little stretched for what it was, though I appreciated the way the author analyzed primary sources. As always, I am here for an author who recognizes the specific angles of unreliability of Roman histories and works with that to inform their analysis (not just throwing their hands up in defeat but also not taking things at face value). But yeah. Would've been, in my opinion, a better article than a book.

Remnants of Filth vol. 4 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou. This book just keeps getting better in a lot of ways. The revelation about Gu Mang's betrayal was a little bit disappointing in some ways but also fun and crunchy in others, and the general storyline is still compelling me. I think I like Meatbun's writing and narrative interests. I have come to this conclusion based on 1.5 novels, though, which is a relatively small sample size. I continue to feel like this is one worth recommending.

The Children of Red Peak by Craig DiLouie. I feel like Craig DiLouie wants his books to be complex and deep horror and falls short of the "complex" part in particular. The funniest part of this book was the part where the sound of a shofar was the ~scary, foreign, sound of unimaginable power~ when I was like. I hear this every year. A guy named Marty blows one.

As you might be able to tell, I was unimpressed.

The Husky and His White Cat Shizun vol. 6 by Rou Bao Bu Chi Rou. One thing I can definitively say for 2ha is that it has the hottest sex of any danmei I've read so far, and this volume definitely delivered on that. We're also moving into the arc that really gets me going so I'm very excited for the next volume and its Revelations; Mo Ran's increasing anxiety is very good for me, even above and beyond the sex.

The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity by David Graeber and David Wengrow. I was so ready to be annoyed by this book, and I was still annoyed by this book in places, but overall I ended up appreciating it far more than I expected to. The counter-narrative it provides feels grounded in evidence and certainly is refreshing in its emphasis on a non-teleological look at history; I think they still fell a little bit into the trap of a glorious past and a fall that they're critiquing but certainly less so than the prevailing story. I want more people I know to read it so I can talk about it, which is also a (generally) positive thing for me to feel about a book; it may not mean I liked it but it does mean it provoked thought.

In the Shadow of the Gods: The Emperor in World History by Dominic Lieven. It's actually been a while since I DNFed a book, but I didn't finish this one. The sentence structure was already bothering me and then there were a couple (relatively) insignificant errors that pushed me the rest of the way over the edge. It seemed like it was going to end up being a relatively basic chronological overview of a number of emperors, however, rather than being more about the emperor as concept or idea, which I would've been more interested in. The fact that he kept comparing emperors to modern CEOs didn't exactly endear me to the book, either.

I'm currently reading To Shape a Dragon's Breath, with The Ratline and The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay (I promise, @ameliarating!) on the docket next. I wanted to reread The Last Unicorn but then I discovered that my copy has a big ol' chunk taken out of one of the pages, so that was a bummer.

We'll see what else turns up - I have The Spear Cuts Through Water and Dreadful out from the library, so those will probably be proximate reads as well.

[jenyifer]

August September LGBTQIA book list.

Now quick disclaimer: I moved during this time. Very stressful. So maybe that’s why I have so many dropped and disliked books. I’m going to give these quick reviews in a specific order of would recommend to mehhh only if you are that type of person. I don’t give spoilers this is just a taste. I am lesbian who is 30 so that also colors my perception of these stories. Only going to include pics of the top 5 to drag you in for easy screenshotting.

Okay Let’s go.

1. Somewhere Beyond the Sea by Tj Klune 🏳️‍🌈👨🏼‍🍼👬🔥🏡⛓️‍💥 okay once again when I take over the world House in the Cerulean Sea and Somewhere Beyond the Sea will be required reading I didn’t think the follow up book to one of the best books in the modern age about feel good found family foster family could get any better. But I was proven wrong. The sequel gives you all you need. You can tell the author felt the pain of our world as he wrote this but the children and characters give those stories life. I cried I laughed. There is nothing quite like it.

2. The Spirit Bares It’s Teeth by Andrew Joseph White 🏳️‍⚧️💕😱🩸👁️🐰 You know what I am putting this one as 2 because despite it making me have countless panic attacks because I’m not fond of… gore? Horror? I adored this book still thinking about it. The romance is 10/10 T4T. I adored the mystery and intrigue. The main character is autistic and very anxiety ridden I can’t describe to you how this book will change you. Although approach with caution.

3. The Disabled Tyrant’s Beloved Pet Fish Vol2. 🏳️‍🌈🐟🤴🏻🤣 mild 🌶️ on a completely different note the “IS THAT MAN IN LOVE WITH A FISH” is a treat that always surprises me with the amount I love it. Maybe I am trash crazy but I find this funny easy to read and in this second book we got even more time with the fish and his prince actually in human shape. The miscommunication trope is strong with this one but so is consent and romance. Idk I just fucking love it. I want the prince to become emperor with his fishy lover haha.

4. The Name Bearer by Natalia Hernandez 💃💐🏳️‍🌈👩‍❤️‍👩💜💜 Okay quick disclaimer here the book is an classic style fantasy journey it is slow. However I really loved how beautifully thought out the universe was it’s a latinx woman forward book. The romance is not the point but it feels very natural which I appreciate. Main character might even be ace spec. There are great side characters. I really love the apprentice wizard but WARRIOR NUNS!!! Hehehe also things seem to be not what they seem which is always cool. I’d definitely suggest this to any fantasy lover.

5. Grandmaster of Demon Cultivation the comic vol 1-3 🏳️‍🌈👬🪄🪦💀🫏necromancer evil wizard is reincarnated into his nephew’s body years after his death. Or is he evil? Or is he 🏳️‍🌈? Hahah yes he is. Anyways in the present he’s finding the consequences of his actions while his…. Love interest is going to make sure nothing happens to this version of him. You slowly get the past. I find the comic is the easiest way to consume this fantasy story. Yes there is anime, book, and a Netflix series and a new Japanese manga is being released but I like this one. 🤷🏻‍♀️

6. Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire 💜🪦🚪 about a school for those who come back from other universes and long to go back. Main Character is probably ace spec. Very interesting fantasy book for someone who consumed a lot of fantasy as a child. Thought it was also very thoughtful book. I had fun it’s not super surprising or new ground but I enjoyed it for a quick read.

7. Spell Bound by FT Lukens 🏳️‍🌈🐈‍⬛🧙‍♀️🧑‍💻 well it’s YA. Out of the other FT Lukens books I semi enjoyed this one. The characters are still dumb as rocks and the setting could use some more fleshing. But it’s okay. For a fun quick read that semi reminds you of urban fantasy? It’s good. The side ship found family was a little forced but I enjoyed the side characters.

8. Psalm for the wild built 💜🍵🤖🏕️ it’s a chill cozy book for people who are over worked. I’d say if you want scifi it’s not. It’s closer to fantasy. Very short and preachy.

9. Casefile Compendium vol2 by Meatbun 🏳️‍🌈🩸🌶️🚩🔍🐉🥼 Danmei Murder mystery modern times age gap. Does have 2 chapters of non consent and absolutely off the wall opinions about the medical industry.

10. Otherworldly by FT Lukens 🧚‍♂️🏳️‍🌈🥶❄️ YA familiar escapes fairy world finds a skeptical person decides they’ll def fall in love and make a deal. I listened to 50% the characters are intensely idiotic and just…. So so so blind. I couldn’t do it. The skeptic is a person who moved to the city for their family but they do stuff for their family without really caring for them I’m just not buying it. The familiar is infact a psychopath or so low iq he doesn’t care to live or feel or observe anything in 5 years. So so so stupid. Omg.

I had several DNF

I made my parents listen to Ocean’s Echo by Everina Maxwell in my mission to make my parents less homophobic. My mom enjoyed it. My dad said it was way too gay. 😩 man I wish it was way too gay.

What am I reading next? Hummm idk yet. Suggestions are always appreciated!!!

[yenn-reads]

Monthly Series Appreciation - December

It's the end of the year, we're getting closer to the holidays and I will have three stories for you today that I connect with December, Christmas and New Year's Eve.

All of them for different reasons, but all of them all worth reading…

I‘m a little early this month, but it’s for a reason. I want you all to get a look at that wonderful advent calendar in time 🥰

Let me tell you what I have for you this month:

Eyes That See

Sy x reader (💕🔥🌩, status: on-going)

Eyes That See is something very special to me. @just-chirpin not only manages to write one of the most wonderful Sy's I have ever seen. She also makes me feel seen. I can relate to so many things and feelings in this story. And having Sy by my side in this one is just so soothing. It's a really long story and it's not finished yet. But I can promise you that you won't be disappointed if you dive into it. The definition of comfort fic ❤️

And don’t forget to take a look at her masterlist, where you can find many asks with additional scenes or alternative scenarios 😍

179 Crescent Street

(College AU; Mike, Charles, Napoleon, Sherlock, August, Sy, Marshall and Geralt x multiple OFC's)(💕🔥🌩, status: on-going)

Everyone must have seen me talking about Crescent Street's inhabitants by now. I found them one year ago and fell in love with all of them. @raccoon-eyed-rebel gifted this universe of stupid dorks living together in one house to us, and I am so incredibly grateful for that. I read every one of these chapters multiple times and I know I will do it again. Maybe it's my favorite thing in the world 🥰

@raccoon-eyed-rebel also made my New Year's Eve feeling last way into the summer and that's a good thing. Those chapter's are so much fun! Get to know all those guys and, even more important, those wonderful women who are lucky enough to get one (or two) of the boys into their beds.

Sapphire Falls Chronicles

Caleb Syverson x OFC, Chris Evans x OFC (🌩💕, status: completed)

@sapphirefallschronicles was such a cute surprise last December. Every day until Christmas we got an update on the lives of Caleb, Chris, Abigail and Livia. And I loved getting new little bits of that wonderful fluffy story. @keanureevesisbae and @diegos-butt really put a smile on my face with this. I totally plan to re-read that lovely fic this December. Join me?

Hope you find something you enjoy here. Please let the creators of these stories know what you think about it. Reblog, comment, shower them with love. They deserve it!

Monthly Series Appreciation -Masterlist

[ayelbee]

MORE THAN LOVE | K. MBAPPÉ | 1

next chapter |

Summary: Sometimes even love is not enough for relationships. But it's fine because you are over it. But getting again in a contact with his younger brother wasn't smart.

TW: slightly coursing , just my really bad writing skills in english so probably even english grammar

Notes: Hey, this is the first time I'm publishing something in english so I'm really sorry for any mistakes I made (english is not my first language), and if you wanna correct me, please do so! I will be glad. Also, i would want to make a series from this, so let me know if i should or if it's really that bad!:)Let me know what are you thinking abou this

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

You let out an exhausted breath the moment you stepped into your apartment. Leaving your luggage on the floor you dragged your body to the living room. You felt more than happy when you ended up on your couch. You have been up since five in the morning, the lack of sleep was clearly visible on you. You were more than happy to be back.

Spending Christmas back at home was great, but there were reasons why you moved to a different country, thousands of kilometers far away from your home town 5 years ago. Some people would call it youthful imprudence, you called it a step that needed to be taken. Since that you have been living your best life, at least most of the time.

You took your phone to text your mum that you had made it to your apartment safely. But when you unlocked it the date in the middle of your screen made you frown.

29th of December

Being in a rush since morning you didn't even have a moment to think about anything else than catching your flight and getting back to Paris. But now, when you were sitting on your couch you started to realize…

It was Ethan's 16th birthday today, your ex's brother whom had you been really close to since the first time you met him as an 11 year old boy. And today he was turning 16. A wave of nostalgia brushed over you. You saw your little brother in him. Every time you missed y/b/n, Ethan was there for you. You could do all the stuff you used to do with your brother with him.

That was the one thing that Kylian loved. Seeing you with his family always made him more than happy. Seeing how you were part of his family.

But you didn't see Ethan since August, the last time you talked with him in person was the day when you were moving out of Kylian's apartment. Ethan had that day tears in his eyes. Well, he wasn't alone… Knowing that person who had loved as his sister was after four years leaving his and his brother's life. If he was younger he would be really angry at Kylian. But he was old enough, and he understood that sometimes is love not enough.

So now you were wondering if you should call him or not. He had texted you on your birthday ten days ago. But you felt like a text from your side wasn't enough. That he deserved more than that. So after minutes of thinking you pressed the green icon and started to call.

"Y/n?" his voice sounded surprised.

"Hey, Ethan." You let out a small laugh "I just wanted to wish you a happy birthday." For some reason, you started nervously playing with your bracelet.

"Thank you, I appreciate it." he was silent for a moment. "I thought that you won't call." His voice tone now changed from cheerful to something more sad, and your heart ached.

"I couldn't forget about you. You are still like my brother Ethan." you stopped for a moment. "Even after all of that." now you sounded like someone who will start to cry at any minute.

"Y/n" he noticed so he tried to change the subject. "You know that we didn't have a Marvel marathon in a long time." He mentioned something you used to do when Kylian was away and you both missed him. You always choose a few movies from the MCU which you have binge watched in one sitting surrounded by your favorite snacks and food that you would order earlier. And if Kyliand had a game that day, you would also watch it together.

"You would want that?" now, you were the one who was surprised.

"Why are you surprised ?" before you even responded he continued. "I miss it." for a second time in a few minutes you wanted to cry. Getting all the flashbacks from the past when the two of you used to hang out.

"Okay Ethan, I'm sorry but I need to go now. I will text you later and we will find a date okay?" now you just wanted to end up that call as soon as possible because you are a coward.

"Sure Y/n, I look forward to it." his voice now sounding happier than before.

"Bye Ethan, and in a meantime you should decide which movies we are gonna watch." you tried to sound also happy.

"Bye." were the last words he said before you ended up your call.

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

You couldn't fall asleep that night, even though you were really tired... Your head was full of thoughts, calling Ethan wasn't a good thing to do, you should just send him a message instead. But you didn't so, in the end, it was just your problem that Ethan's older brother was stuck in your head.

You hated yourself for that. You thought that it was over. That you are over it. But Christmas really messed up with your mind and hearing Ethan's voice too.

It was the first Christmas in four years that you didn't spend with Kylian. Well, you didn't even wish him a happy birthday this year, but he did to you. You just didn't open his message. He also sent your family a Christmas card, making your mum happy and your little brother sad that he didn't come with you. Y/b/n was too young to understand. 

It could be around 3 am when you finally fell asleep. But even in your sleep, you didn't find peace.

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

"I'm home Mon amour." you heard your boyfriend's voice followed by his steps. You were sitting at the dining table with your laptop in front of you as you were booking plane tickets.

"Hey babe." you looked up at him, smiling as you saw his beautiful face. Even after four years of dating, you felt like you just fell in love with him. "How was training?" you asked as he bent down to kiss you on your forehead. You wrapped your hands around his neck, making him bend down even more.

"It was fine." he pulled you up while wrapping his hands around you. And kissing you again.

"What are you doing?" you laughed.

"I just wanna some cuddles." he rested his head on your head, squeezing you more into his hug. You let out a little chuckle.

"Okay but I need to finish booking my tickets first, and then we can cuddle okay?" you put a little kiss on his neck. "And you can change into something more comfortable, while I'm gonna finish this." Kylian pulled away with a little frown on his face.

"What are you booking tickets for?" he asked visibly confused.

"I thought that I would visit my family next week. Summer break started for Y/b/n so I could spend some time with him," you answered.

"But we're playing against Nantes next week." he wasn't smiling now. "And I thought that you are going with me." 

"I really wanted to go with you, but Y/b/n is after next week leaving for training camp. And then I'm flying to NYC with my work so that's the only week when I can see him."

"Since when are you flying to New York?" he looked almost angry like you didn't tell him.

"I told you like a month ago." he nodded with his head like you didn't. "I really did, you just weren't listening." it's not like it would be the first time he didn't listen to you. But you didn't mind, both of your schedules were so full, that sometimes you weren't able to keep everything in your heads. 

"I'm sure you did not, but whatever." he rolled his eyes, while also creating more space between you two. "But we have a game that week, so it's gonna be like what, fifth game in a month that you will miss?" he started to gesture with his hands. You know how much it means to him when you attend to his games, but at the same time, you know that you're doing the best you can.

"Ky, I'm really sorry." you tried to take his hand into yours, but he flinched with his hand away. "It's not like I'm missing your games on purpose. It's just a little bit busier at work and I can't do anything against it." You looked into his eyes. You have known him too well to tell how disappointed he was.

"But you don't need to work. You can stay home with me. You know that money is not our problem." now he put on puppy eyes and bring a conversation to a point that you argued about a few times in the past months.

You loved your job, you were a curator in an art museum. You started to work there as an intern while studying your first year in art major, getting a promotion just in January this year. So of course you didn't wanna give up that now.

"You know that I don't want. What I would do here? Wait for you every day to come back from your training? Following you like a lost puppy for every game? That would not work, we would just lose our minds!" now you were the one who got slightly angry at him. Seeing how his puppy eyes disappeared.

"Bordel de merde Y/n! It's really great to know how much I mean to you! Is it a lot that I'm asking? Having a girlfriend that has a relationship as a priority and not some fucking work? Is it a lot Y/n?! Is it something you can't give me? Even though I would give you the whole world if I could?" he furiously threw up his hands. 

"You know it's not like that Kylian!" you watched him in disbelief.

"Do I?" he turned away and rushed thru the doors. "I'm gonna go to Haikimi." then you just heard the slam of doors. First tear rolling down your cheek.

[citrus-cactus]

Citrus' Art Summary 2023!

The year is almost over, so here's my art summary for 2023! I got this template from here. This is my third year in a row being able to populate every month with a finished(/digital) piece (and really, I did a LOT more than what's shown here!), so that feels like something to celebrate!

Technically some of these choices don’t match up with their post dates; I counted some months as “when I was primarily working on them” and some as “when I actually published them,” but the sentiment remains. Like I said, it was a busy year! :)

Some more rambling + links to all featured artwork beneath the cut:

I remember last year I was quite worried about/was actually teetering on the edge of artistic burnout. There were definitely some months during this year that I felt a bit overwhelmed (particularly during the summer, when I was working on a 5-illustration series in a style that was DEFINITELY outside my norm, PLUS a bunch of other stuff), but I also appreciated the stylistic variety, and doing a lot of sketchbook drawings/marginalia that were(/are) just for me, so they never had to be "finished” or even "good." Even though almost everything pictured here is Digimon(/anime) art, I did experiment with a more "realistic" style for the Dracula Daily series (Aug/Sept), as well as trying to relearn the "Disney" style I started drawing in waaaaaaay back in high school, only now with a LOT more understanding of facial structure and anatomy. Largely, this style shake-up has been incredibly freeing (these are still sketchbook-only studies at this point, but I'm planning on some digital illustrations in the Disney style in 2024). I'm sure they still look pretty anime-influenced, and I'm not sure I'll ever truly be able to escape that, but honestly I don't mind; the anime aesthetic IS a part of my preference/style!

Let's see, the prevailing fandoms for what's shown here are Digimon Survive and Adventure 02. I really want to draw more Survive art next year!! Really happy with the collabo between @vidramon and myself (July), and honestly most (if not all) of these pieces. I worked hard, I branched out, I took on some really ambitious projects, and finished a ton of things (looking at you, March! That Knight drawing was a WIP for an entire year, but I finished it instead of abandoning it, which is what usually happens when things sit around that long!). Ultimately, I believe I told (and helped tell!) some great stories through my creative projects and art this year, which is my true goal forever and always.

Honestly I'm happiest with April's drawing. That one was a ton of fun to do, but I would have to work really hard to replicate that coloring style because I don't remember my brushes/settings, ahaha. Sadly this is how it usually goes with coloring for me; I make it up as I go almost every single time, which is why series are so difficult for me. I am nothing if not inconsistent -_-;

I would be remiss to mention that a huge part of my productivity this year was due to setting and tracking monthly goals for myself. I gotta thank everyone on the @campdigimonth server for their help in keeping me organized and motivated throughout the year! I plan on continuing my creative check-in posts in 2024.

Next year, I want to a) make more Survive art (particularly with Survive Week coming up), b) draw some more flippin' gargoyles (CRIIIINGE, but no, cringe is dead, I'mma do what I want!), and c) keep working on my personal project! And I am, once again, thinking about bookbinding. That's a "maybe" for next year as well!

Descriptions and links to the full artwork pictured for each month:

January: Survive Week, Day 5

February: Survive Gang Aromantic Week

March: Knight Unryuuji and Friend

April: “Rose-Tinted” fic illustration

May: Happy Birthday Vi!

June: Happy Birthday Haru Shinkai!

July: Happy 1st Anniversary Survive! (aka BEST SOCK FRIENDS)

August: Dracula, September 13

September: Dracula, September 20

October: Adv 02 Countdown Event, Day 7

November: “Boo!” on the Cob

December: Digimon Secret Santa 2023

[magnorious]

Young Royals Perfectly Understands Frustrating Teenagers

*Spoiler Alert for the whole series*

This Netflix-produced Swedish teen drama just wrapped up its third and final season. It follows the second-in-line to the Swedish throne, Wilhelm “Willie” navigating a fancy boarding school rife with toxic social hierarchies and a crippling addiction to dangerous traditions, while also discovering his sexuality. Suddenly, his older brother dies and he’s now the crown prince, when no one ever expected him to have this responsibility, including himself. His jerk of a cousin records him and his new secret boyfriend being intimate and so ensues three seasons of drama surrounding the chaos of this poor kid being outed to the whole world, and the damage of publicity on his relationships.

*I watched this with subtitles and cannot comment on the quality of any dub.

This show is incredibly frustrating, because its characters are frustrating—because they’re incredibly believably teenagers who stake their entire futures on a high school fling. Willie and his love interest, Simon, are in a constant struggle over Willie’s great expectations as the new crown prince and Simon, of a lower social class, having a great many demands over how he thinks he should be able to live his life.

The characters have a ton of depth and that goes well beyond the two leads. The villain of the show, August, the evil cousin, is a hot mess who can’t do anything right. One that absolutely expects to peak in high school and sail through adulthood on his family’s legacy. He’s also Willie’s spare if he abdicates the throne, a rather unique twist on the prince trope I haven’t seen very often. Willie doesn’t want to be king, but he hates the idea of August on the throne even more, and, if only to spite his cousin, strays way outside of his comfort zone and ignores his own wants and desires to make sure he becomes king.

Other side characters include the dudebro boys of their school, also all dickish aristocrats, the ladies’ side of the school, and Simon’s sister's relationship with these socialites and her awesome best friend, Felice.

—

*spoiler alert again*

These two characters, Willie and Simon, are terrible for each other. Simon is too young and immature to understand and appreciate the demands of being royalty in a modern setting. He gets upset at Willie for all manner of things—that Simon has to watch what he posts on social media, who he talks to, who he takes pictures with, what statements he makes, and his unrealistic expectations of any politician. Every time he gets upset, I understand that he’s 17, but I’m also scowling at my TV thinking, “What exactly did you expect, dating royalty?”

Willie, on the other hand, bends over backwards for this guy and desperately needs to actually attend his therapy sessions instead of angsting over his doomed-to-fail romance. They’re entertaining, but they are so, so stressful to watch, whether it’s their many arguments or whenever they start making out in a public place where they can be caught.

They break up, get back together, break up, get back together. In the 11th hour of season 3, Simon officially breaks it off and I actually cheered. I figured the finale would end with the sick queen’s funeral and Willie reluctantly accepting his birthright.

That did not happen. Instead, Willie and August have a rushed “all’s forgiven” conversation, he abdicates, and runs after Simon to be free of a responsibility he never wanted. On the one hand, yes, he never wanted to be king, that much was clear from the moment he found out he was the new crown prince, but on the other hand—Willie wasn’t the character who needed to change for this relationship to work.

Simon was.

Simon, who argued with him constantly over the conservative nature of the monarchy, for all the stances Willie wasn’t allowed to take because of his rank. Simon could have ended this season either breaking up with him for good, or committing to the responsibility of loving royalty, and the two could have looked to a future of slew of progressive changes once Willie had the authority to enact change as king.

August won’t enact shit. August who, upon telling his friends that he’s the new second-in-line, realizes acutely how miserable he’s about to be for the long rest of his life. I half expected this guy to not survive to the end of the season with how self-destructive he is.

It feels like they had a different direction planned for the finale and someone somewhere cut it down. That, or Netflix's "3 season" rule made no exceptions and they had to rush to the finish line.

—

Overall, they’re frustrating, but they’re also incredibly well-written teenagers. The constant pop/club music over actual score got annoying but it’s an exposure to artists I never listen to. The acting is fantastic across the board, as well, along with the editing and cinematography. The actual plot, up to the finale, was engaging and well thought out, with these two heirs duking it out in a cold war with the entire school caught in the middle.

Maybe I just don’t understand Swedish teenagers. I certainly can’t speak to if this at all reflects the reality of Swedish culture and living under a monarchy. It’s a shame that, in my opinion, it didn’t quite stick the landing with the messages it wanted to send, but the show’s a solid, if stressful watch, and a short one at that.

[violetmina]

Hi! I found your tumblr a few months ago and I fell in love with your writing. It's so immersive and polished and I've had an amazing time reading your stuff. I read your post about the difficulties you're facing lately and I just wanted to wish you the best. This is a bit weird since I'm a faceless stranger on the Internet, but I've been thinking about your situation from time to time. I honestly hope things work out for the best! Good luck <3

Thank you for your kind words, faceless stranger. It means a lot.

I'm doing much better now than I was in August. To make a long story short, it came to light that the person who owned my apartment never intended to sell. Property managers were trying to scare me so they could raise the rent. Rumor is that they have been raising rent on several places, not telling the owners, and pocketing the difference. Rumor also has it that some of these owners have found out and are sueing the property managers.

I moved in with my boyfriend in October, and for the most part, it's been wonderful. He hasn't read Chokehold (and kinda hoping he never asks 🫣) but has read my SPNxBoys one-shot and has been encouraging me to continue to write. He is extremely supportive of my all of my creative and non-creative endeavors. I am still adjusting to living with others, though, and helping with his 3 year old when he has him every couple weeks. So writing has been difficult.

The good news is that I'm finally getting the writing gears back into motion. I have over 1500 words on Chapter 11 for Chokehold after months of staring at a blank document. I intend to have it finished and uploaded by the 1 year anniversary of the first chapter on January 30th. I can't believe it's already been a year! I am also going to try to have the series finished before season 4 of The Boys comes out.

Thank you again for reaching out. I appreciate it. And stay tuned! Chapter 11 will be out soon!

[romaine2424]

Weekly Blog August 30, 2023

Let me say upfront that my personal world is quite small, but that doesn't stop random lightning strikes of 'Oh shit' hitting my household. Yikes. I think things have calmed down once again so I can get back to escapism. LOL

I have been writing and updating. The Azkaban Letters Chapter 12 was posted yesterday. I update every Tuesday. The response has been 'meh' kudos wise, but I have some lovely lovely commenters, which inspires me to push ahead. For anyone who's posted a chapter fic, you know what it means to have a few folks comment on each chapter.

What I've been reading:

I've been reading a lot! Mostly very long fics, but then I hit upon a fest I hadn't heard of before that just ended. @ladiesofhpfest! 16 weeks of themed fics! The theme range goes from Vilenous Vixens to Hedwig's Circle of Divas. Most of the fics are less than 5K. Here's the link to the Master List by Weeks/Themes. The final two weeks have to be added to the list. I know one of them is Week 15: Girly Girls.

I have two three recs from this fest, mind you, I've just started reading the stories.

The first is Sparkling Cyanide (1.4K) by @saintsenara.

Summary: Tom Riddle had nothing to do with the death of Hepzibah Smith. Hokey had just had enough of being a slave.

I have no idea how the author fits so much into 1.4k words. But we learn who Hokey is and how she and those who came before her were mistreated by Hepzibah Smith. That wizards and witches have no idea and don't care to know the rich history of house-elves. And they are oh so clever! Cheer Hokey on as she works around the law that house-elves cannot use their magic to hurt their masters.

The second is Look Like the Innocent Flowers (4.8K) by @midnightstargazer.

Summary: Daphne is silly and superficial, the sort who obsesses over makeup and fashion and knows all the latest gossip. Astoria is fragile and soft-spoken, a delicate flower of a girl. When the Carrows take over Hogwarts, the two sisters appear to be unaffected, indifferent to changes that have little impact on pure-blood Slytherins like themselves. But as the Sorting Hat said, "those cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends" - including allowing themselves to be grossly underestimated.

This is a great canon missing moments fic for 7th year. Daphne is very much a Slytherin (as is Astoria). She's made a decision to protect her sister and those that the dark side wants to hurt. We're treated to the beginnings of Astoria/Draco, the subtle communication between Slytherin women, including Narcissa, and how such a beautiful witch can use her wiles and magical powers to help bring down the Dark Lord that most of her house admires.

Oh, and this author also wrote Lily's Cat (sniffle) for the fest. Really sweet.

One more rec, and it's Drarry, and it's a Series, and it's long. I'm guessing that many of you have read the Blood Magic (340K) series by Houseofhebrideanblacks(AO3) and Thestralsofspinnersend(AO3). The series is made up of 3 distinct fics in feel though definitely intertwined. The first fic, A Half-Life, A Cursed-Life (49K) is very tough to read. It takes place quite a few years after the war, and Auror Harry is so so broken. At the very end, though, there is a spark of hope as Healer Draco takes action.

The second fic, The Forest (88K), is my fav. Definitely the balm to ease the pain of the first one. And the third, Misunderstood Creatures (198K) is amazing in love, action, and lore. Truly a great Drarry series that should be on every Drarry fan's list to read.

One note of interest is that the Authors wrote for their character, and it's seamless.

Please remember to give love to these stories! Comments are always appreciated.

Resources:

Today's resource came from @maesterchill on the Main Drarry discord server. The Fic Writer's Guide to Formatting (An AO3 Repository) by @anisaanisa. I cannot tell you how excited I was to finally learn how to do coloured text in AO3 and so many other things! Geez just so happy for this resource.

UpComing Fests of Interest (okay to me):

H/D Kidfic Fest: Prompting is Sept 16th-29th.

H/D Owlpost 2023: Sign-ups Aug 18th - Sept 8th.

Harry Potter Rare Pair Fest IV (@hprarepairfest): Claiming now open!

Oh wow, I think I'm done! Have a great week and remember to have some fun in our lovely fandom!

Rom

[mermaidsirennikita]

Caro's August Book Rec Wrapup

Books! I read a lot of them in August, as I read a lot of them in basically every month because wow life is life.

I really loved beginning (still have two books left!) Kristen Callihan's Darkest London series. It was all the Gothic romance + paranormal + historical romance trends + hot sex shit I want out of historical paranormals. I also knocked out two great queer ARCs, Fly with Me by Andie Burke and A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing a Scoundrel by KJ Charles. And I conquered a classic. Check out the recs!

Firelight by Kristen Callihan.

I love historical romance. I love paranormal romance. So it's no surprise that I love both; but I really can't emphasize how excited I am about this series. It's a bit dark, a lot adventurous, and lushly romantic with a solid dose of angst. You have a tortured hero who ruined himself in pursuit of immortality, the innocent but bold heroine he can't resist (who has a big secret of her own) and this really Gothic vibe that I find irresistible. I am. Obsessed.

Moonglow by Kristen Callihan.

Although I do think they definitely benefit from being read in order, the Darkest London series can technically be read as standalones. I'm so super impressed by this series, and Moonglow is such a standout. Even stronger than the first book, it's funny and hot and heartbreaking. You're basically pairing the two slutty, slutty side characters from the previous book, bringing in some werewolf politics and trauma (and an extremely hot carriage scene) and topping it off with some of the most romantic shit I've ever read. Such a good werewolf book. Such a good romance novel. I was riveted, and I was surprised by some of the bold swings this book took. An absolute banger.

Baron by Joanna Shupe.

One of the funnier, sexier "rich upper crust man can't believe he's falling in love with a poor" books I've read. Will Sloane is in fact... kind of the worst, but in a way that's both sexy and endearing. And I really appreciated that, as a heroine, Ava was undeniably susceptible to his charms--but very aware of her personal responsibilities, and self-respecting enough to take control of the situation. Also, love the backdrop of the medium frenzy in Gilded Age America.

Winterblaze by Kristen Callihan.

My new favorite marriage in trouble book, made all the better by the fact that there's like... a Rumplestiltskin issue involved? here, we have a very hardcore, very mercenary heroine and the man she's been married to for fourteen fucking years and really had no idea what was going on in her personal life. They love each other deeply; and their love is deeply complicated. He withholds himself out of anger, and then loses his shit when she wears a pink dress because the pink of the gown against the red of her hair reminds him of her vagina, and he sure does lOVE that vagina. It's amazing and I severely recommend it.

Shadowdance by Kristen Callihan.

This series is nothing but winners; and this book takes a darker turn, as, heads up, both the hero and heroine are survivors of sexual assault, among other things. He's hard-edged and determined to protect her from The Truth, which makes him quite a bit of a dick, and she's secretive and cool and remote, but also desperate to Know him. It's an angsty, at points difficult read, but still quite impressive.

Evernight by Kristen Callihan.

A demon man is turned into a mech-type atrocity by a woman who was forced to act, and is now bound to said woman because her touch is very literally the only thing that soothes his mind and body. Fucking amazing premise and she follows through. Will calling Holly "My Evernight"? Lol I'm fucking gone. Ill-advised sex, cage fight adventures, orgasmic biting, an incredibly tense last 25% or so where I was near tears because how will they work this shit out??? Yes yes yes.

In Which Margo Halifax Earns Her Scandalous Reputation by Alexandra Vasti.

A fabulously funny and sexy debut novella which you can get for free (along with the other Halifax novellas) on Alexandra's website! The thing I love about Margot is that she is kind of in a state of arrested development, which is rare to find in heroines, especially historical heroines. Like, she should be progressing a lot faster than she is. She needs to grow the fuck up; but she doesn't quite know how. It's honestly a pretty affirming messy girl book in that sense. But it also perfectly encapsulates not only how important pacing is in a romance, but the aching, pining yearning of a good brother's best friend book. Henry wants this crazy bitch so bad. It's glorious. God bless him.

In Which Matilda Halifax Learns the Value of Restraint by Alexandra Vasti.

Controversial but brave--this one may have worked for me even more. Which, shocker, I prefer the one with the (light) BDSM and the grumpy older hero. But the romance had me sold as soon as it became clear that Matilda is a Secret Freak and this older gentleman is soooo into it and sooooooo guilty about that. The terse note exchanges, the play, the cat shenanigans, Matilda hiding out at this scary man's big house. Just. Loved it. So much.

Salt in the Wound by Sierra Simone.

This prequel novella to Sierra's upcoming Lyonesse trilogy should be required reading before said trilogy. It's rich, it's dark, it's intensely erotic, and it establishes a fascinating push-pull between the kind of calculating and kind of innocent Isolde and the threatening, but alluring man she's being forced to marry. Mark is... a fucking lot. And in a lot of ways I think this book is a good intro to Sierra's ouvre, because it's on the shorter side, it's very much entrenched in her world, and it's a little taboo but nothing compared to say, her Thornchapel series. It's extremely hot, extremely angsty, and I can't wait for the rest of the series.

Snow Place Like L.A. by Sierra Simone and Julie Murphy.

I really like these Christmas Notch books. They're so cute and, even when they aren't super Christmassy like this one, weirdly festive. The kind of romcoms I enjoy, where much sex is had and the vibe is cheery but emotional. This is a m/m second chance novella, with a very good bathtub scene, much love for romcom excellence, and a satisfying conclusion in every sense.

Fly with Me by Andie Burke. ARC; read my full review here.

Kiss of Steel by Bec McMaster.

McMaster creates a really interesting paranormal-steampunk world, where there are monsters everywhere and a social structure curving around them. I really enjoy a "heroine sells her soul to scary hero to save her family but then it turns out he's like, obsessed with her" setup, which is what this book has. There's vampiric eroticism, a hero with a cockney accent named BLADE who actually is extremely soft for the heroine (except not where it counts). It's very solid.

Heart of Iron by Bec McMaster.

In some ways I liked this one more than Kiss of Steel, because the hero is a vIRGINAL WEREWOLF BODYGUARD and the heroine is a flirty debutante type who's in way over her head. It's a great clash of uptight man x flighty girl, and there's a lot of tension because... the werewolf virus can be spread through sex, and if she gets the virus she probably won't survive. So they can't have sex. But they really want to have sex (and there is a great scene where they get creative). A great setup, love werewolf STIs.

A Nobleman's Guide to Seducing A Scoundrel by KJ Charles. ARC; read my full review here.

Knockout by Sarah MacLean.

My favorite Hell's Belles book yet, because Tommy Peck can absolutely not handle this whirlwind of a woman who literally blows up his life. While there is a plot arc and all that, this book is very focused on the romance and character development, which I love. Imogen is such an amazing heroine, and Tommy fully rises to the occasion (in every sense). I also really love the scene where he has to suck on her tits in front of people ("has to") because they're pretending to be a sex worker and a john, bye.

In Which Winnie Halifax is Utterly Ruined by Alexandra Vasti.

The Halifax brother gets his book, and he is! Hot! This is a "I didn't know I had a wife" book, which I love, and the heroine is a sheep farmer? How fun. Because Winnie isn't quite as fucking balls out insane as Margo or Matilda, I think this is probably my least favorite of the trilogy, but it's still really fucking good. Our hero is both sweet and hot, a difficult combination, and he's younger than her? SCANDALE! Lovely, romantic, so good.

Scandalous Passions by Nicola Davidson.

A quick, super hot Tudor-era FFM menage romance with a sizable helping of femdom. One heroine is a domineering, sexually liberated widow who used to be the king's mistress and is now being booted from court by his wife; the other is a shy but curious virgin who's been locked in a convent all her life. Their escort? A big dangerous knight guy who's actually a FUCKING SWEETHEART and doesn't want to talk a lot because of his stutter. Which. My fucking heart. Lachlan. He got me immediately, and his relationship with Janet and Marjorie was kind of incredible. They all fall in love with each other, to be clear, and it's both super sexy and remarkably pure. I loved it.

Two Wrongs Make a Right by Chloe Liese.

This is one of those fake dating contemporary setups which is objectively insane, but it's a retelling of Much Ado About Nothing so it's fine I'm good with it. Adding to the story is a hero whose tenseness is actually anxiety, and a heroine on the spectrum with sensory issues. It's quite sweet and the writing has a brisk, refreshing tone I liked a lot. The last quarter or so does have a contrivance I wasn't a fan of, but I still came away from the book really liking it, which is difficult for me with normal contemporaries.

Flowers from the Storm by Laura Kinsale.

I've loved every one of the three Kinsale books I've read (and I'm taking it slow... she only has about a dozen books out and doesn't seem to write anymore) and while Shadowheart remains my favorite... Holy shit, this is so good. A masterpiece. Beautifully written, gorgeously romantic, hot in a unique way I can't even get into... (Suffice to say, if you have a thing for when a religious heroine is corrupted~ by a slutty slutty man, you'll like this.) It's everything people hyped it up to be and more.

Give the Devil His Duke by Anna Bradley.

I went into this with no concept of Bradley or her work, and it was so good! Not super complex in terms of plot, but with enough heft to make it matter. Funny, sexy, and it sold the rake hero who has his big Clueless "I'M BUTT CRAZY IN LOVE WITH JOSH [FRANCESCA]" moment only after he basically pitches himself to the floor begging her to stay with him. I had a very good time, and I'm happy to have found a new author.

[declanlikesmusic]

Listening Highlights: Episode 001

August 13th to 20th, 2023

Hello! Just as soon as I've started a new series, I've decided to put it off and make a new series! (Expect this.) Trying to keep up with daily posts was simply not worth it. Much as I was so excited to kick that series off, I thankfully decided to turn it off before it became too much of a chore for me and I'm glad that I did. Because now, we have a different format to substitute it!

Welcome to Listening Highlights, where I go over what I've been listening to as of recently! There's no set time for each episode, I just talk about music when I feel Autistic enough to do it. I also wanted to be more selective with what I talk about this time around; for the most part, that didn't happen, I'm just so Autistic that I went over pretty much all of the past week. So let's go!

Drake – If You're Reading This It's Too Late (2015)

The first thing I listened to after the last Today's Listens episode, I spent that morning with the 6 God himself, the man behind such classics as Way 2 Sexy and that one line where he calls himself a lesbian. He's one of the most popular figures of music right now and it's to the point where either you detest his trajectory as one of the most bland musicians going or you're LosPollosTV. I'm in the former camp and I do not look forward to having to try out his latest records any time soon, but at least I have this mixtape to fall back on whenever I need a reminder that Drake can spit. This turned out surprisingly great & consistent. I especially loved most of the beats on here, especially the ones that were sampled on I'll Try Living Like This (a cool album & also vaporwave). The energy is great and Drake even has some touching vulnerable moments as well. I highly recommend it and probably no other Drake release.

7.8 / 10

Highlights: Legend, Energy, Know Yourself, No Tellin', Madonna, 6 God, Now & Forever, You & the 6

The rest of that day was not too interesting. I listened to Western Digital's lost signal, which was a decent vaporwave and broken transmission EP. I bring it up because its closing track, glowing (disintegration), is one of the most haunting, harrowing and almost hopeless pieces of plunderphonic music I have ever heard. I highly recommend it for that alone, it sounded like distantly watching the world burn and collapse in front of you while bunkered away. I then finally gave a listen to lilien rosarian's second album every flower in my garden, which I didn't care all too much for. As much as I appreciate the production & the pretty soundscapes, they felt much less like songs than her 2019 debut. After that, I took another very slow step in conquering waterfront dining's monotonous discography with the FEELS 感じている EP, which was actually his first release in general and not his debut album that I rated before. I cared for it even less; it was a much rougher batch of vaporwave that was particularly underproduced & repetitive.

billy woods & Kenny Segal – Maps (2023)

So I decided to go through with another 2023 release and this one I wasn't too particularly excited about. Abstract Hip Hop has been hit or miss for me most days and that's usually to do with the production, so when I heard that billy woods was joining up with producer Kenny Segal again after 2019's Hiding Places, I was even less thrilled at the idea, because I did not like that at all at the time and I only now think that album was okay. But holy shit, Maps blew my expectations way out of the water! The beats are far better here, by miles, the samples are awesome and the beat drums are consistently excellent. billy woods continues to be a great rapper but it's not usually the lyricism that sells a hip hop record to me. It's the production that helps make me wanna look into the lyrics and this album handily succeeds at letting billy shine like that. I came out of this record with so many favourites, way more memorable highlights across the board than on most other billy records I've heard so far. Extremely high recommendation, genuinely makes me feel like I've been missing something from billy's records all this time.

8.4 / 10

Highlights: Soft Landing, Soundcheck, Blue Smoke, Babylon by Bus, Year Zero, Baby Steps, The Layover, FaceTime, Houdini, Waiting Around

Skimming through some more albums here, you'll notice one of them is home to one of the biggest vaporwave & future funk songs of all time, Private Caller. This is SAINT PEPSI's split album with ショッピングワールドjp titled Winner's Circle. I wanted to give this another fair shake, just in case SP's overshadowing of JP's side comes off as undeserved. But no, that first side is genuinely some weak & weirdly produced mallsoft-ish vaporwave. Not my cup of tea in comparison to the great second half. Speaking of giving lower vaporwave albums a fair shake, when christtt tells you this is one of the best vaporwave albums of all time, it's always a coin flip as to whether that's even close. Careless Messenger Recordings✆ (division under Comtex)'s sole album Suddenly Mega is not close at all. It's one of the slowest & most lethargic listens I've had in a vaporwave album and some of its many cuts are especially poorly produced.

Skymmr – your new home (2017)

Back in 2017, there was this group of very tiny vaporwave & plunderphonics producers who were given the password to a Bandcamp page and told to run wild with it. It was a practice that, in many ways, was horrible in hindsight, with how shoddily it was managed and how toxic some of the people in the group were. But underneath all of the gunk they shoved out, one record by fellow Aussie Skymmr stood out as not only a captivating example of the extremely abstract ethos of the music released there, but also was great & conceptully fascinating. your new home is a 7-minute 7-part suite of experimental plunderphonics & vaporwave sound collage and it's very cryptic about this theme of entering a new home and it not being at all what it seems. The result is probably the only record of that collective I ever regularly came back to and it even held up for me today. It's not my highest recommendation, this is definitely a more personal thing to me, but if you're curious, do check it out.

8.4 / 10

Highlights: gazing through the window, the man in the bathroom pipe cleaning (he isn't what he says he is), isn't this your new home?

The next day, I felt like kicking off the morning with some metal and one of my girlfriend's highest recommendations was Between the Buried and Me's Colours. It was a damn great time with some incredibly high energy throughout. After that was Ariana Grande's Sweetener, not my first full-length experience with her music, but one that I decided to rate first here anyway thanks to my favourite discog diver. That evening, me and my girlfriend decided to do a discog diving listening party ourselves by listening to every song netbooks.WRLD publically released to Bandcamp, which amounted to only two and a half hours. It was an excellent time and constantly high energy & fun. I recommend his debut album ENDLESS STAIRCASE for getting into his currently short but incredibly promising catalogue.

The day after that, I slogged through DJ VLAD's frankly exhausting Hardvapour. double mix. It was an okay time with some highlights, but it frankly served as a reminder of why that submovement of vapour burned bright & fast with toxic fumes. A few months back, I was recommended You're Doomed. Be Nice. by Rob Crow's Gloomy Place and to my pleasant surprise, this was a genuinely great indie rock record. The riffs & choruses were shockingly well-written and pretty catchy, through my only gripe was how understated the majority of it sounded. Still, I fully loved my experience with that album, unlike Facade by one of vaporwave's earliest come-and-go producers Psychic LCD, which I only loved about half the time. This was a full detour into progressive electronic ambient music and hoo boy, it sure sounds like it. It's definitely an ambient album with hints of progressive electronic music. It's decent, but I just don't think it should necessarily be noticed.

stab something – the art of copyright infringement (2014)

The end of that day, I tackled the final multi-track release by the early 2010s duo of stab something, which comprised of then-upcoming vaporwave legend christtt alongside then-upcoming beloved trans songwriter & producer Jamie Paige. They went on their separate ways after this particular EP, but my god, at least it still they had the magic in them together. Their full-length self-titled album is frankly astounding; it's some of the creative, upbeat & fun glitch hop / plunderphonics records I have ever heard and while this EP is much more small-scaled by comparison, it continues what made the duo so good. It's only 15 minutes, 5 tracks but it's just as creative, upbeat & fun with glitch hop & plunderphonics as that album, albeit without fully-fledged cohesion, which is kind of in its nature. I dearly recommend both of these records, at least the sole album itself.

8.6 / 10

Highlights: in and out, cheesecake

What else have I heard this week? Well, there was this one time two vaportrap icons VAPERROR & COCAINEJESUS collaborated under the Love Potion duo moniker with their album XXX. That was amazing at the time and even now, it's still an incredibly consistent and great wave album. I also listened to non-canon by Late Arcane after hearing their great album PreQuel from this year. This was more of the same punchy and creatively chopped together vaporfunk that was provided there, although on first listen, it's a lot lesser for me by comparison. There was also the first of a series of EPs by Street Sects, Gentrification I. It was mid. Whatever magic they were forcing through on their debut album End Position might just be a fluke after all these years.

There's about five more records that I heard after that, but at this rate, I kinda don't want to say much about any of them? Not because they're bad, not really, I just cannot say any notable things about each of these records, not even as much as I already did the rest of these. I adore Everything Everything as a band, but A Fever Dream is easily one of their weakest efforts, even if it's still a bit great. This weird STAR GIRL alias I heard many years ago put out the weirdly fascinating RNBW EP almost a decade ago (what the fuck) and I decided to finally listen to its predecessor, STAR. It was much less captivating & interesting despite being kinda similar in concept.Rebecca Peake was another side-project of death's dynamic shroud members, but even when compiling songs from the first two months of recording a song every day for a year, The World's Strongest was so inconsistent that I can hardly tell you what to make of it. Bladee & Ecco2K's Crest was just not a good listen to my ears. There's a 9 minute song that felt like 6 different tracks, I had to check what I was listening to multiple times. Plus, aside from Ecco clearly singing the higher passages, for the most part, I could not tell these two apart. Call me a not-member of the Drain Gang, I guess. Finally of this batch, I checked out bodyline's ファンタジーモニター、which was another healthy serving of really deceptively simple but clearly well-produced vaporwave. I do love what they're often going for, but this was just barely my least favourite so far; still very damn good.

I wanna close out this retrospective with two albums. First being Anderson .Paak's Oxnard, which is in my opinion, one of the most underrated albums of the past decade. Not that .Paak is not popular, he clearly is, that Silk Sonic album was excellent, but before that, people were dying for another Malibu from this guy and while they ended up getting that in the form of Ventura, it was not before the music community got "let down" by Oxnard and they dragged the album for it. I think it's a great album with some excellent singing, rapping, songwriting and producing across the board. It was really slept on. Lastly, Blank Banshee just incredibly recently dropped his fifth mainline album 4D. I have a lot of thoughts that I don't even think are cohesive yet on just one listen of this brand new thing, so that's why I've decided to give it its own review on RateYourMusic that you can check out right here.

There you have it. Where I've been with music for the past week! Will I do something like this again? Hopefully! Will I talk about a full week's worth of music again? Hopefully not! Until then, stay safe and tie your shoes!

[meltotheany]

hello, friends! how are you doing? i know it’s been a little bit since i’ve done a blog post, but i went to michigan very improtu in august and stayed throughout september to be with my family! it was honestly a much needed, and very happy, trip! and i feel like it was just a much needed reset for me overall, too! but my family is doing well, and i feel so thankful i got to go into fall with them this year! but because of that, i haven’t been reading as much as i normally do! but i am still here today to talk about and review the eight things that i did read these last two months! ❤️ ✨ Queen of Shadows (Throne of Glass, #4) by Sarah J. Maas ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (reread) 1.) Throne of Glass ★★ 2.) Crown of Midnight ★★★★ .5) The Assassin’s Blade ★★★ 3.) Heir of Fire ★★★★ “I’ll bleed whatever color you tell me to.” maybe it’s because i know the end of this story, but the way i was foaming at the mouth during the manon and dorian scenes. who am i? when did i become this? okay, that just had to be addressed whatever this feeling was quickly, but let me move on. QoS is the book i remember being my favorite in this series, so i went into it with some really high hopes, which all got met while also exceeding any and all expectations simultaneously. this reread truly was hitting differently, and i really am not sure why, but i am very tempted to give this five stars. i think what is holding me back is that part one feels like a three star read, and those three stars are completely because of manon and lysandra. but part two? now, that feels like a six star read to me. i feel like this is already treading on spoiler territory, so i don’t want to say too much more, but i really think sarah just writes such good characters that are a true joy to follow and cheer for. and i will always just love seeing girls get their revenge, even if that revenge comes in many different forms, and shapes, and ways. extra bonus moments i loved this reread: aelin saying manon is the most beautiful person she’s ever seen (oh, what could have been), asterin (also one of the best side characters sjm has ever written), chaol’s “you deserve to be happy”, elide’s heritage (and every scene with her and manon tbh), kaltain and her piece of a warm cloak in a cold dungeon (i am actually tearing up while typing that), a ghost leopard (and some much deserved territory). trigger + content warnings: possession, loss of a loved one, grief, slavery, violence, gore, blood, murder, death, vomit, captivity, talk of forced breeding / rape, a lot of insinuation of rape, talk of pregnancy, talk of still birth, torture, captivity, medical experimentation, a suicide mission (sacrifice of life) ✨ Dawnshard (The Stormlight Archive, #3.5) by Brandon Sanderson ⭐⭐⭐⭐ .) The Way of Kings ★★★★★ 2.) Words of Radiance ★★★★★ 2.5) Edgedancer ★★★★ 3.) Oathbringer ★★★★★ 4.) Rhythm of War ★★★★★ i did this reread of this novella just for a little extra refresher before wind and truth drops this december, and i am very glad that i did! We follow some new and old characters on a new expedition going to an island, to heal one of the best creature companions, and maybe also looking for an oathgate, while someone on this sailing crew could maybe be sabotaging the mission as well. but my favorite part of this was reading about two characters with disabilities that have changed their lives, finding normalcy on their own, but also finding a bond and understanding on a different level together. for me, it was really beautiful, and i don’t want to go too far here, but i do personally feel like brandon is truly putting in an effort and consistently writing good disability representation (again, this is just my opinion but i do appreciate seeing it, and seeing a range of it both physically and mentally, throughout the stormlight series in particular) !! this is a really beautiful story, but this is filled with lots of cosmere lore, which is why i think i...

[vidreview]

VIDREV: "A.I. Filmmaking Is Not The Future. It's a Grift." by Patrick (H) Willems

[originally posted august 22 2023]

I worry that young aspiring filmmakers will see these [AI-generated film trailer parodies] and choose to use AI instead of actually going outside and putting their hands on a camera. That, to me, is just depressing as hell.

i have an on-again off-again relationship with the video essays of Patrick Willems. he's one of the very last video creators consistently carrying forward the internet-critic tradition of framing criticism with fictional elements as if the review is occurring in a story, and he's been unwavering in his commitment to the bit for damn near seven years now if not longer. unlike a fair few who've utilized this device in the past, however, Willems is himself an experienced filmmaker with a stable of consistent collaborators helping both behind and in front of the camera. this means his videos are, generally speaking, well-edited and pretty nice to look at. this experience also factors heavily into his criticism, leading to work that is consistently appreciative of and empathetic towards the innumerable material challenges faced during any given production. he is well-versed in film history and cares deeply about the art-- so he uses his criticism as an opportunity to play with cinema instead of simply commenting upon it. as a film school graduate who worked grip/electric for a few years and now makes video essays myself, i think that's pretty cool.

unfortunately, i sometimes find the finished work a little… lackluster. there are a couple videos i really, vehemently disagreed with (looking at you Rewriting The Matrix Sequels), but most of the time it just leaves me a little nonplussed. to be clear: his stuff is never bad, and i've actually found his recent work to be a marked improvement (that Bollywood video is the kind of thing i DREAM of making!), but overall i guess i'm maybe a little too familiar with the specific knowledge pool he's drawing from to get as much out of his stuff as i'd like. relatedly, while i admire his use of the fictional framing device and have nothing but enthusiasm for its continued use… i just, uh, also, kind of, don't really get a whole hell of a lot out of it when he does it most of the time. it's low budget amateur film-making, the quality of which is all over the place. but i am also someone who has spent a lot of time thinking about the video essay's capacity to fuse art with criticism, so i can be probably unfairly harsh when i feel it's not "properly" utilized. the fictional framing device at its best complements the criticism either literally or symbolically, and i find that in Willems' work they're often more distracting than complementary.

actually, before i explain why any of this commentary is relevant to the video at hand, i want to go on something of a tangent. one of my favorite single-video uses of the fictional framing narrative is Hbomberguy's Ctrl+Alt+Del essay, but my gold standard for its multi-video use is in RedLetterMedia's film review series Half In The Bag. the latter Plinkett Star Wars Prequel reviews arguably set the mold here (for better and worse), which RLM carried forward through at least the first two or three years of HITB. basically, every review is framed as two VCR repair guys not repairing VCRs and instead talking about the movies they just saw, then charging Mr Plinkett for that time as billable hours. i like their implementation because while the framing devices are in-character, the facade is completely dropped the instant they get into review territory. Willems is similar in this respect, which i think is good. too much fiction in the body of the criticism risks breaking the back of the whole essay.

in those first years, HITB did a pretty admirable job of using the fiction to comment on their subject. one of my favorite examples from this era is their review of Transformers: Dark of the Moon, where they spend the bulk of the review talking about the empty excesses of Michael Bay's frenetic, messy action setpieces, full of tonally inconsistent and sophomoric humor… only to end their review with an excessive, sophomoric, disgusting five minute setpiece where two adult men roll around in fake diarrhea and vomit all over themselves. you really just have to see it for yourself, it's a masterpiece of gross-out humor done for a good reason. as the years wore on they eased up on that fictional framing device, until covid happened and it suddenly came roaring back to great effect. they've eased up on it again since then, which i think is good. you can tell when these things are perfunctory. the fictional frame is at its best when it's as playful as it is purposeful.

okay, so what the fuck does any of this have to do with Patrick Willems' video on AI film-making? the short version is, it's got me rethinking how harshly i judge this specific variety of amateur film-making.

to summarize, Willems here is discussing viral AI-generated parody trailers of Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Avatar in the style of Wes Anderson, released by a company called Curious Refuge. this one's clearly coming from a personal place for him, and not just because he made a parody trailer for Wes Anderson's X-Men back in 2015. he has a lot to say about every AI-booster's fabulous yarn about how they're "democratizing" art creation, specifically that it's bullshit nonsense. i've gotten in trouble for expressing similar sentiments on twitter (which i can't link to because my account was permanently suspended over """death threats""" and honestly? good fucking riddance), particularly the insistence that LLMs and image generation algorithms make art accessible to some vaguely defined disabled population. it's an offensive notion on a number of levels-- it relies on an ableist assumption that art-making is somehow inaccessible to disabled people, as if specialty tools do not exist, as if the paralyzed have never painted, as if the blind have never written books. it assumes that art is somehow a secreted and gatekept skill, and not the single most common human compulsion outside of our basest needs. but even if these were nonfactors, there is simply no amount of accessibility gained by these technologies that outweighs the industrial-scale plagiarism, automated labor-discipline, massive carbon footprint, and generalized annihilation of the entire internet's usability they represent. these tools are not without their legitimate uses, but until they are vehemently and inescapably regulated on an international scale there is simply no case to be made for them as they currently exist.

Democratizing storytelling is what affordable film-making equipment did. It's what, like, iPhones did, it's what the internet did. Those things gave people outside of traditional structures without huge budgets and resources, the tools to create films and a free platform with which to reach a wide audience. Arguing for AI film-making is saying that people no longer need talent or skill. By this logic, why would you learn to play the violin when you can use AI to create a fake violin recording of the piece of music that you want to play?

it's easy to be against this AI grey goo crap, and still fall into obvious rhetorical traps meant to cede ground to the worst people on planet earth. Patrick Willems deftly avoids these pitfalls and calls it exactly what it is: laziness and plagiarism. the examples he focuses on are especially egregious because the guy who made them didn't even come up with the idea himself-- he asked chatgpt to make him a list of videos that would go viral on youtube, then had some algorithms whip them up. he did no work. no work went into the creation of these things. their supposed "quality" is composted from the unattributed and uncompensated labor those models were trained on. it is a function of what my girlfriend has been referring to as "the age of the executive auteur," describing this moment in history where talentless executives want to remove artists from the art-making process for pure algorithmic profit that goes directly and solely into their own pockets. ghoulish CEOs and tech boosters who want to be revered the way artists often are, without having to put any of the work in, and without having to listen to criticism. they don't just want to own everything, they want to be loved for it too.

it reminds me of Maggie Mae Fish's video about off-grid youtubers, a crowd of independently wealthy failsons who like to crow about their amazing self-sufficient housing projects that they did all by themselves… except for the parts they didn't. she makes a fantastic observation in that video that i've found myself coming back to often-- that for rich people, paying someone else to do work for you is ontologically indistinguishable from doing that work yourself. the exchange of capital comes with an exchange of credit. it is the base assumption that underpins every capitalist boss's relationship with their workforce, and we see it on full display among the guileless herd animals of silicon valley. AI art is only and exclusively a mechanism for doing to art production what the ruling class have long since done to industrial labor, annihilating the worker's claim to its value, disintegrating the jobs held by artists to disempower and destabilize them so that they will accept worse pay for more work. it is precisely the kind of horseplay that's got damn near all of Hollywood on strike. the actual technology itself sucks, obviously, and it will always suck no matter how much better it gets. the quality of the end product is immaterial-- it's about wage theft, man. it's about greed and labor discipline. same old story, different day.

They love the idea of using AI for film-making because they don't actually have any talent or skill. For them, AI is like a cheat code that allows them to seem like actual artists without doing any actual work.

but let's get back to Willems. he does a great job deconstructing how these supposed parodies don't even really embody anything meaningful about Wes Anderson's style, pointing out that anyone who thinks they're emotionless, stoic, austere films clearly hasn't watched any. the dude makes comedies about broken people struggling to find meaning in their lives, for crying out loud! the popularity of this algorithmic trash is an extension of pop culture's long-standing illiteracy when it comes to Wes Anderson. something about a director with a distinctive visual style short circuits the brain when you haven't watched any movies made before the new millennium, i guess. how pretentious to be all having your own vision or whatever lol lmao

what really hits home for me, though, is how he compares these parodies to his own Wes Anderson's X-Men trailer. he talks about spending time watching all of Anderson's films to date in pre-production, taking notes not just on style but on substance, on theme. he treated the project as an exercise in understanding a film-maker's approach to their craft, then got his friends together and spent a couple weeks running around New York filming the thing. the resulting short film is, let's be real, kind of sloppy and cheap-looking. but so what? in the making-of for it, Willems talks about the specific logic of the composition of this X-Men team and the inspiration behind the costumes. here we catch a glimpse of the layers of labor which go into the production of even the simplest amateur work-- research, writing, self-analysis, location scouting, costume design, props, lighting, camera work, and on, and on, and on. sure, it looks cheap. but it was made by hand with love and care, it embraces what it is and doesn't try to be more. i speak from experience with these kinds of projects when i say, the finished work is almost superfluous, except as proof of labor. the real value comes from the experience of making the thing, and the lessons you learn along the way. collaborating on even the silliest and cheapest of short films can be a transcendent and life-changing experience.

Artistic influence is Wes Anderson taking his love of Hal Ashby, Francois Truffaut, and Jacques Demy, and processing them into a unique approach that expresses his own view of the world. AI art is just a machine for plagiarizing existing art.

this is sort of a perfect illustration of what AI art simply cannot replicate. under the proposed normal of those boosting a post-LLM world, there is no barrier between the having of an idea and the realization of that idea. it's a world where ideas guys finally get the credit they insist they've always deserved. what they fail to understand is that everything which makes art special comes in the phase between having the idea, and finishing the work that idea inspired. they refuse to acknowledge that art is work, and work takes time, and that people who draw and write didn't just wake up with this ability by magic divine endowment. they aren't "hoarding" their skill. if i'm a good writer today it's because i spent the last 14 years and change being a really bad one. all this talk of accessibility and democratization sounds suspiciously similar to the "telling me to read is ableist" line of thinking, where we equate the simple and undeniable fact that getting better at anything requires Hard Work with a pilfered and ill-defined language of oppression adopted by bad-faith actors to justify why they never have to change or learn or improve in any meaningful way, to justify why criticizing them for their actions is actually a sort of hate crime.

Willems ends this video teasing a second part focused exclusively on the idea of "content," the way so many artists and entertainers today frame the fruits of their labor as if it is no different from paste in a tube. like Willems, i've long despised "content" as a descriptor and think its widespread adoption is nothing short of corporate-fueled stochastic terrorism against any creator who dares to presume that what they make has any value without the platform. it's like i said in my video about Netflix in 2018-- the only thing platforms have to sell is the platform. the ongoing grey goo-ification of the internet has renewed my conviction that "content" is the enemy (or at least an enemy), because its success relies on a baseline assumption that all things are reducible to their predictable financial valuation. this moment is not just about copyright law or labor exploitation; it's a come to jesus moment for our entire culture, forcing us to confront the only logical endpoint of art under capitalism. it is time for us to decide for ourselves what we value.

AI is getting better all the time, but at its very best you will only ever get serviceable imitations of mediocre products.

with Matt Mercer playing Ganondorf in the american localization of Tears of the Kingdom, i decided to revisit the 2009 online miniseries There Will Be Brawl where he also plays Ganondorf. this series was incredibly ambitious, an attempt to make a dark and gritty film noir playing on the full-cast absurdity Super Smash Bros Brawl. i'm not going to pretend that it's better than it is, because i haven't been able to sit through the whole thing since it aired. it's very much of its time, and boy was that time problematic. but in the same way that films i once would've thought of as mid have skyrocketed up my rankings simply by virtue of having real sets and props and costumes and lights that are actually turned on, i find TWBB's excess of paper-mache props and dollar store wigs immensely charming in hindsight. it looks cheap, and the performances aren't always great, but so what? this is something that no algorithm could ever produce. it's a fanwork that took countless hours of labor, and while the finished project has no shortage of flaws, it may well have been an essential starting point for dozens of careers. it is an audacious idea that was executed to its conclusion, a feat that vanishingly few projects of its ilk have accomplished.

this kind of thing used to be youtube's bread and butter. i still quote The Legend of Neil all the time ("hello, uh- old man?" "you may call me… old man"), and my sense of humor is eternally linked to the forgotten pivot-to-video creations once hosted on The Escapist, Cracked, College Humor, and countless other long-dead platforms. these kinds of parodies fell out of fashion because they tend to be cheap and silly-looking. the rise of Marvel came at the apex of the 2000s hyperrealism fetish in genre media (Spielberg's Minority Report ruined science fiction cinema for at least twenty years), so everything had to be grounded and look photorealistic. we want immersion, man-- we don't want to see the zipper on the rubber monster suit. i think this is an unspoken motivation behind the AI hype cycle. what's the point of even attempting a genre parody if you can't make it look exactly as good as its Hollywood equivalent? we don't want to see a cardboard imitation, we want to see the perfect thing we can imagine in our heads brought flawlessly into reality!

i share Patrick Willems' sentiment that this is depressing as hell.

Willems shook something loose in my head with this video, because i came away from it completely rethinking my relationship to his fictional bridging material, and the generally low production value of most anything high-concept on youtube or other video platforms. there is something to be treasured in even the most slapdash of amateur films, when the work is done with love. there is inherent value to human endeavor in the attempt, even a failed one, to bring an idea into reality. it's the work, the experience, the memories, the chemistry of it all that matters. i want to live in and encourage a culture where people are allowed to make shit that sucks and not have it ruin their lives, so that they can keep making shit until they're good at it. art is not a machine, it is not algorithmic, it is not statistically predictable. like all things truly human, it is an act of defiance against entropy by a soul in transit.

anyway it's a good video, go give it a watch

[yukiakaren]

Kpop title track ranking: DAY6

In this series I’ll be ranking kpop groups/soloists title tracks based on my taste.

The long waited DAY6 comeback had me obviously thinking of their music and how great their songs usually are. Hence, I also realized that I hadn't done a ranking for their songs, so I decided to fix that. The year of Every DAY6 makes this one of the longest lists that I've done, so I'll better get on with it.

I Smile - At some point I realized just how much I love this song. It really captures those melancholic feelings I tend have for people that have left my life - fully or partially - and not just talking about romantic relationships. Seeing people that I clearly cared more for than they did for me, having to pretend like those hurting feelings don't exist even though they very much are there. I Smile just really captures it and it gets me emotional every time.

You Were Beautiful - It's just gorgeous, nothing else I can add here.

I Wait - The hype for this one was real when it was released. And deservedly so. It just is awesome even now years later.

Shoot Me - The darkness of it just pulls me in. Also the power in the instrumentation and vocals especially in the chorus. It just works so well.

How Can I Say - At some point this was my favorite for sure. And it's still great but my appreciation for the ones above it just have grown over the years more. However, knowing myself, if this were to be the relatable song for the moment it would shoot back up the ranking for sure.

Sweet Chaos - Up-tempo things are my thing for the most part and this one is up-tempo enough to make me a fan of it for sure. I've kind of forgotten how good it is and should listen to it more often tbh.

What Can I Do - Being the August song of the EVERY DAY6 songs I automatically want to be able to rank high. It's nice but I rarely reach out for it. But maybe I honestly should listen to this one more often as well.

I'm Serious - It's a sweet song about feeling perhaps a little helpless with having feelings towards someone. Again, if it's your current situation this will hit home.

Letting Go - Being the first two songs I've always compared my liking of Letting Go and Congratulations. But I think this is the first time Letting Go is the one to take the higher spot out of the two. It's a very pretty story about eventual break-up and it got me now.

Dance Dance - It's a fun one but maybe I just I'm feeling the other types of DAY6 more. But if I'm looking for a cheery fun one this does come to mind.

Congratulations - Song about a bitter ending to a relationship. Probably again something to rate more highly if you are currently going through something that makes you relate to it. I have to say that I prefer surprisingly many other songs above this now.

Time of our Life - Pretty and hopeful feeling song but not one I tent to go for.

I Loved You - A lovely song again. Nothing wrong with it, but I just rarely go for slow songs like it.

Hi Hello - A sweet sweet song but one of those slower ones I just don't search out for.

Welcome to the Show - Let's start by saying that I was so happy that they came back! As a song it's one I haven't listened to much since it came out, but it's very sweet song again.

I Like You - It's lyrically a bit odd that this was the last EVERY DAY6 song. But it's a cute concerned confession story and the instrumentals are powerful enough for me to keep me more interested.

When You Love Someone - Again, absolutely lovely lyrics. The slow songs just tend to not be my gear and this one is very slow. And again, if you need someone comforting you right now, this song is absolutely going to hit you in the feels.

Days Gone By - For some reason this one just haven't been one I would have listened to. Nice like every other DAY6 song is but maybe just not for me.

You Make Me - I have to admit I haven't listened to this much at all and now listening to it it didn't shoot it up in the rankings. Also, lyrically maybe a bit too desperate for it to be enjoyable. Instrumentally pleasant but not one for me clearly.

Zombie - For some reason Zombie just wasn't my thing when it came out and it was outshined by a masterpiece of a song on the album that is Love Me Or Leave Me. It also has a potential to hit the chord with me lyrically and not in a good way - I don't really want to be in the mindset were this hits fully home, so I can't rank this too high. Again, if it hits home it will hit hard.

All Alone - Another one that has potential to hit the chord with me lyrically and that's part of the reason I can't rank it any higher. Also, it's on a slower end of things so it's not something I naturally gravitate towards.

Now onto the b-sides. DAY6 has one great discography and even someone as picky as me has ton of their b-sides on my list. So this time I give explanations to only a couple of them and the rest is just a list. Love Me Or Leave Me - This one just hit me immediately when I heard it. Also, the timing of it made it even more special. Absolutely worth a listen if you haven't yet. I Need Somebody - This just grabs all the heartstrings and doesn't let go. The pain and the emotion just is there and gets me every time. And here are all the others: Rescue Me, 365247, 121U, Somehow, Talking To, WARNING!, Out of My Mind, Colors, Blood, Stop Talking, Headache, Feeling Good, Sing Me, Hunt, Freely And let's not forget the Japanese ones: Stop The Rain, Breaking Down, If We Meet Again

One last thing I just have to say. Lyrically most DAY6 songs are top notch and I'm sure that if a specific situation in life makes you relate to a song it can just take it to the top spot no matter which song it is.