#Also this can be in the eyes of an ideal spinoff for you OR the community

[brambletakato]

Ok so in an ideal society Des fans would have their Des centered game, but now I’m genuinely curious… What do you want to see in a Des-focused game? Like pretend Level 5 made Des from the Professor Layton franchise have his own spifoff series (either similar or different from the origin), what would you love to see?

[lover-of-the-starkindler]

1-4 for The Avion My Uncle Flew, 7-12 for The City Between, and 15-20 for The Galleries of Stone, please?

The Avion My Uncle Flew 1. What got you into this story? At some point I started reading off the Newbery Award and Honor list, and this one was an Honor book in 1947 2. Describe it in one or two sentences. Boy is thrown into a new situation and makes the best of it 3. Quickly list 3 things you like about the story! French vocabulary, kids exploring, cheerful storytelling 4. Assign this story a hyper-specific genre name, e.g. "inspirational religious semi-horror sci-fi western" (yes, that's Trigun) contemporary adventure as foreign language instruction (now accepting suggestions for similar volumes)

The City Between (#1 through #5) 7. How does the story compare to your initial impressions of it? has it surprised you yet? how? It's different than what I expected, but I can't put my finger on what or why because I didn't have concrete expectations going in. XD 8. What questions are or were you most excited to learn the answers to while experiencing the story for the first time? I am rather curious about Pet's parents… 9. Give the most UNHELPFUL and/or SILLY summary possible. Orphan takes in borders, and learns how to make tea 10. If you made an amv about this, what song would you set it to? Eye of the Tiger, maybe? But what I can tell you is that there would be a lot of shots of various characters striking a dramatic pose for the camera (think the Leverage gloat shot...) as well as JinYeong in slow motion during a fight 11. If you were put in the main character's position, how well would that go for you on a scale of 1-5? Assuming 5 is quite well, I would say… -1? 12. Assuming your loved ones would be there, would you want to live in the world of the story? Depends on how close to the action we are but let's go with no, not really

Galleries of Stone 15. What time are you most likely to be found reading/watching this story? (time of year, time of day, season of life, whatever makes sense to you) Summer, shading into autumn 16. Do you think this story has broad appeal, or is it meant for a very specific audience? if it's more "niche", what kind of person would most enjoy this story? I think the niche for cozy fantasy is growing 17. Compare this story to your usual tastes. how does it differ from what you've already enjoyed? if one says my usual taste tends to action adventure, this is much lower stakes and everyday adventures 18. Compare this story to your usual tastes. what parts of it are exactly the kind of thing you've always loved? I do love stories about making home in situations that initially look less than ideal until the place blossoms 19. Pitch an idea for a sequel or spinoff novel for this story! a comedy of manners set entirely in Pred, stoneworking only as the faintest of cameos (technically this does sort of exist, but I'm thinking it should be even more Georgette Heyer-esque) 20. What's the WORST thing about this story, in your opinion? (feel free to be positive, e.g. "it's not longer", if you want!) I find the third act a smidge under-developed and while the updated version gave me things I didn't even know I wanted it also left most of the final showdown to the imagination--generally a good thing, but I think it could have been written around just a bit more.

[westeroswisdom]

HBO senior exec sees clear sailing for several more seasons of House of the Dragon.

Francesca Orsi, Executive Vice President and Head of Drama Programming at HBO (or whatever they’re now calling it), told Deadline that HotD would run for at least four seasons and possibly more.

House of the Dragon: News About Season 2, Possible Seasons 3, 4 … and Beyond?

Three years after the end of Game Of Thrones, HBO last July launched prequel series House of the Dragon to big ratings. It was quickly renewed for a second season, with executive producer/director/co-showrunner Miguel Sapochnik leaving and co-creator/EP Ryan Condal becoming sole showrunner.  

“We learned a lot from season one. As as you know, Sapochnik’s no longer joined us for Season 2 but he really set up such a beautiful canvas in Season 1 and the partnership formed between Miguel and Ryan yielded something that was incredibly special and one that the world really responded to,” Orsi said. “We regard House of the Dragon as a piece that’s been incredibly successful and has exceeded all our expectations in delivering a spinoff. The flagship Game of Thrones is iconoclastic and to follow in its footsteps, in what [GoT creators] David [Benioff] and Dan [Weiss] achieved, was no easy task, so we are proud of ourselves in what we were able to accomplish with Season 1.”

She mentions that Ryan Condal wrote all eight scripts for Season 2. Thank the Old Gods and the New Gods that Ryan is not a procrastinator!

Looking forward, “with all eight scripts written by Ryan, despite pencils down, I can say that we’re really confident about what we’re doing and the team that we have in place for Season 2,” Orsi said. “To be honest, we think that the audience will be just as pleased if not more so.”

[ ... ]

Filming has not been impacted by the writers strike. 

The reason Season 2 is just eight episodes has more to do with the storyline than anything.

“There was some question about the narrative shape of Season 2. We were developing it with Ryan Condal and [EP] Sara Hess, and we realized that we were sort of treading water narratively in the middle of the season,” Orsi said. “So it just felt much more rigorous, more urgent emotional arc for our characters if we compressed the season. And then that also dictated how we would kick off Season 3.”

As for number of seasons for HotD (emphasis added)...

With a portion of the plot originally intended for Season 2, including a major battle, moving to Season 3, there has been speculation that the series more likely would go to four seasons. Condal and Martin have reportedly been going back-and-forth on whether three or four seasons would be optimal to tell the full story; Orsi provided a surprising update on that debate.

“It hasn’t been finalized yet, it’s still under discussion,” Orsi said about the length of the series. “George and Ryan are going to meet after the writers strike. They had originally planned to meet before the strike took place and that was to figure out at what point the series itself was going to end. Is it four seasons? I don’t think from where I sit at this point will be any less than four. But could be more. We’ll see.”

As for the other spinoffs...

As to how long The Hedge Knight is envisioned to run, “ideally year-to-year and arcing out a three-season series, which maps out the three novellas that George wrote,” Orsi said. “Of course, we’d like more beyond that, and George is continuing to think about the remaining novellas that he still wants to write but at this point, we have our eye on three seasons that would map out each book, each novella.”

HBO continues to develop other GoT prequels (One about Aegon’s Conquest has been rumored), “but they’re so nascent at this point that it’s more of a moot point until we realize them as real contenders for production greenlight,” Orsi said, adding “But yes, we’re exploring a few worlds in George’s canon and body of work.”

[ ... ]

The one known spinoff centers on Jon Snow, with Kit Harington attached to star and executive produce. It also is in very early stages, Orsi said.

“We’re just working deeply with the writers to get it in shape for potential greenlight, but at this point, no, no determination on whether it can go all the way,” she said.

Obviously much depends on the outcome of the writers’ strike. The sooner the producers quit being miserly, the sooner the strike will end.

Support the WGA against greedy producers who use the writers as the equivalent of minimum wage labor. George R.R. Martin strongly supports the strike.

How Can You Support the WGA Strike?

[arbitrarygreay]

There’s drama, and then there’s drama

I have rewatched Netflix's US Iron Chef so many times. The editing, the pacing, the content, there's so much to enjoy each time. So, of course, I checked out the spinoffs Netflix has done, with Iron Chef Mexico and Iron Chef Brazil. Well, I stalled out on watching Mexico, while I'm rewatching Brazil. So that tells you just about everything about the differences between the two, as well as their similarities to the US version. Mexico appears to be hung up on the showmanship aspects of the original Iron Chef, as well as the reality show dynamics. There are major mistakes in the kitchen, the judges will outright dislike the results, there are far more mid-cook added challenges, and of course, the increased OOT Chairman stuff. This means, though, that the commentary is also often meaningless hype. There are some educational aspects I liked (rating the nutritional value of the ingredients, for example), and I also really like that they share the individual dish scores at the end. However, I just ultimately prefer "pure" competence porn where the competition is decided based on the ideal results from each challenger. Brazil, meanwhile, embraces the direction the Netflix US reboot took, where there's a chip in their shoulder on teaching the audience that the evolution of food is important. They're really proud of Brazilian cuisine and ingredients, and they want the rest of the world to know it. Most notably, there's no Chairman character at all, and one of the regular judges is a chef, so he has a stronger eye on the techniques involved. When they hype up the quality of their Iron Chef roster as the best in the nation and the world, I can really believe it. Brazil manages a couple of things that US doesn't (scoring 90+ total, or getting a perfect score on the appetizer), and I felt like they were deserved accomplishments. Part of this is a brilliant innovation only the Brazil version has, which is having all of the competitors watch every episode together from "the locker room", offering yet an additional level of expert commentary. As one episode points out, this allows for some networking and collaboration. The camaraderie of the challengers rooting against the Iron Chefs is also pretty delightful. Iron Chef Brazil emphasizes the chemistry all of the participants have together as people pursuing the delicious. Mainly, it seems to me that US and Brazil had stronger casting. That makes everyone else's jobs easier, when you've really got the best of the best. In Iron Chef Mexico (and many other competition food shows I don't much care for), the drama is based on "THINGS GOING WRONG????" In US and Brazil, the drama is based on "Wow, these dishes are really at the top of the game. How on earth will the judges decide between the two?" And I have an obvious preference for one over the other.

[pirate-au]

A Pirate's Life for a Prince (Part 5)

Summary: Roman was a dashing Captain, content with his exciting life out at sea, diving head first into adventure both on and off land. He wouldn't give up his life for anything, and yet he found himself...lacking something. He was never sure what.

When he meets Virgil, a seemingly common traveler in an old tavern, that lacking feeling in his chest goes away for the first time in a long while. So surely there's no harm in offering the stranger and his friend a ride, right?

Notes: TW for Remus being Remus, threats of violence

thank you again to @cheshirevalentine for editing! Check out their spinoff @actorau it's going to be so cool

part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 part 6

The throne room was quiet, the guards stationed around the golden walls silent and motionless, the air just as heavy as it had been since news of the missing Prince had made it to the King.

Janus’s eyes were on the blue skies outside glass stained windows, the guards around him staring straight ahead, backs straight, unmoving for hours.

He leaned against the back of the throne with a sigh. The golden throne was grand and elegant, but also old and uncomfortable. It was honestly more for show than for furniture, and his back always protested the hours upon hours he spent in the throne room. He was always staring at the door, waiting for the same boring pointless people to come in with their same boring pointless demands.

It had been a bit more frantic since Virgil had disappeared along with his advisor, but with over a week of no new leads, no way to track down the missing Prince, things had settled back into routine, just coupled with a rising sense of uncertainty and dread.

Janus could barely even remember the last time he’d had a proper conversation with Virgil. They saw each other in meetings, Virgil quiet and nervous, out of place in a room full of adult royals, but that was about it.

He’d stopped by to congratulate the young Prince on achieving adulthood on his 18th birthday, as well as to praise Patton for his success, but that had been almost a year ago now, and they’d barely said a word to each other since.

Janus had never bothered to get to know the boy- too many bad memories, too much responsibility on top of the crown that had been thrust upon him after the death of the Queen.

He’d been given the throne to the kingdom he was never meant to rule, expected to ignore his own grief and confusion in favor of piecing things back together. He couldn’t raise a child on top of that.

Virgil had his mother’s mismatched eyes. Janus still couldn’t bring himself to look at the Prince without a simple glance being accompanied by waves of unwanted memories.

Patton had raised him well in place of any real family, and Janus had paid him enough to support the young advisor for decades.

And now both Virgil and Patton were gone, vanished without a trace in the middle of the night, and Janus didn’t know what to do.

Virgil was the only heir, set to be King in less than a year’s time now. The boy was a wreck. Anxious, timid, unprepared, and unsociable. So Janus had managed to push back the crowning until he was twenty, rather than eighteen like originally planned.

Patton had done his best, but he and Janus both knew that boy wasn’t fit to be King. Not yet, at least. Probably not for a long while.

But there was nothing Janus could do about that. He was never meant to be King, he was simply a placeholder until the late Queen’s son came of age.

He'd been able to keep Virgil from being crowned as an unprepared teenager like Janus had been, but he couldn't keep the crown off his head forever.

But now the late Queen’s son was gone, and Janus was still on the throne, his back still protesting the long, uneventful hours.

He’d been King for nearly a decade. He’d built his kingdom, built a reputation, placed his spies, made sure he had eyes and ears on every corner. The people knew him, respected him (more out of fear than anything, he suspected). The King was always the first to hear anything.

And yet there hadn’t been a word about the missing Prince. Nobody was sure when he left, if he was still in the city, if he’d left on a ship or was just hiding right under their noses. Nobody knew if he’d left willingly or if someone had stolen him.

It had been over a week, and still nothing.

Janus was pulled from his thoughts when the double doors at the end of the hall swung open without any warning or announcement, loud heels clicking against the floor, the guards startling to attention.

“Hell of a place you got here,” the intruder called, weaving around the two guards stationed at the door, expertly avoiding their grasps. “Did you decorate in puke yellow on purpose?”

Janus leaned forward, watching with his one good eye as the man pushed his way into the throne room, grinning as he surveyed the area, avoiding the apparently incompetent guards.

Janus raised a hand, stopping the rest of his men from rushing forward, weapons raised. The day had been never ending and dull, he might as well see how this played out.

Janus kept his eye on the intruder, eyebrow raised. “And who might you be?”

“That’s not important right now,” the man said, finally spinning around to face the throne. “What is important is… holy shit. What happened to your face? It looks like it was on fire and someone tried to put it out with a fork! Like, in a good way. It works.”

He sounded almost awestruck, staring shamelessly at the marred side of Janus’s face, and for the first time in years the King felt uneasy up on his throne, tensing under the gaze.

Nobody looked at his scar. It was common courtesy to pretend it wasn’t there, an unspoken agreement among the people.

“Tell me who you are and what you want before I have you arrested.”

The man gave a dramatic, woeful sigh, crossing his arms over his chest. “You have a kid, yeah? Short, big mop of black hair, crown prince and heir to the throne of Naither?”

That piqued Janus’s interest much more than the bizarre show the nameless man seemed intent on putting on. “My nephew is the heir, and the city is aware there is a reward for his return. If you have information you should have scheduled an appointment.”

“Appointments aren’t really my thing,” he said, looking up with a bright, crooked grin, one hand moving up to brush over his mustache. “The point is, I know where your kid is.”

“Wonderful,” Janus said. “Where?”

The man merely shrugged. “That depends. How much are you paying?”

He kept his voice disinterested and bored, picking at chipped, painted nails. Well, two could play that game.

Janus leaned back in the throne and examined his gloves, black and gold rings glittering in what little sunlight managed to filter in. He saw the man’s gaze fall on the jewels, his eyes brightening hungrily. “I’m sure we could get you a handsome reward for helping to bring the Prince home. If your information is authentic.”

“Well I’m not offering information,” he said, tilting his head to look at Janus. “I’m offering to collect him myself. There are very few people you could trust with the job, you know. You can’t just pick up any rando’ off the streets.”

“I have plenty of people who are more than capable of bringing the heir back home. You’re expecting me to entrust his return to a stranger?”

The man shrugged again. “I won’t share the information with just anyone.”

“You’ll share the information if there’s a knife to your throat.”

The man actually grinned at that, brown eyes brightening dangerously. There was a scar across the left side of his face, that eye a bit glossy, parallel to Janus’s own injury. “Any fool willing to attack the ship he’s on will die. I can guarantee that. Except myself, of course!”

“Is that so?” Janus drawled. “Care to explain why?”

Remus hummed, rocking forward onto the balls of his feet, smug grin only growing. “You’ve not heard of the Calypso? She’s mighty notorious, especially about these parts. And I’d simply not let anyone near her. There’s precious cargo on that ship, you know.”

Janus had heard of the ship, but only vaguely. He tended to ignore rumors of pirates, busying himself with more important things than following those stories. Especially when such stories didn’t often involve the land he was ruling.

Well, he couldn’t exactly ignore the pirates when they were kidnapping the kingdom’s only heir, could he?

“How do I know you’re right about Virgil being aboard?”

“Why, I have written proof from the Captain, of course!” The man bounced a bit on the balls of his feet, leaning forward. “He’s been on board for… nearly two weeks now? They’ll stop in Gladena in about a day's time, and from there be off to Deigh. You can check any record you please, the first mate is absolutely meticulous about it all.”

Janus drummed his fingers along the throne, studying the intruder carefully. He should have this man arrested for daring to barge into the throne room, whether he was telling the truth or not.

He could send someone he trusted after Virgil, but… the Prince and his advisor would be on the lookout for someone they recognized. And despite himself, Janus was achingly curious. "And how long would it take you to get my heir back to me?"

“Well, considering it took the Captain two weeks to get to Gladena,” the man mused, dropping his arms to fold his hands behind his back, swaying slightly. “I could cut them off at Deigh and be back in less than two months.”

It wasn’t… ideal. The kingdom needed it’s Prince back as soon as possible, especially when he was so close to taking the throne. Janus couldn’t keep the fear and uncertainty at bay forever.

But Deigh was a decent way away. Assuming this man would actually do what he said he would, two months was the best they could hope for. It wasn’t a bad offer.

“Very well,” Janus relented with a heavy sigh. “Every day over two months you’re gone, I reduce your pay. I expect Virgil to be returned unharmed.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re no fun.”

“And I’ll need your name,” Janus said. “I’d like to know who I’m trusting my nephew’s safe return with.”

The man brightened, toothy grin spreading across his face as he put a hand to his chest and bent forward in a mock bow.

“Remus of Lucoria. At your service, your majesty.”

Janus sighed, and some of the guards at the foot of the throne shifted anxiously, no doubt waiting for the order to attack.

As it turned out, there was one pirate Janus couldn’t ignore the rumors about. No one could, with how they seemed to spread with viscosity like no other.

“Ah,” Janus said. He wondered briefly how Remus had managed to dock without word getting to the King, making a mental note to fire his head naval officer. “Wonderful.”

“There we go.” Remus straightened, his grin never faltering. “Now you know who you’re dealing with.”

“And now I trust you to deliver Virgil safely even less.”

“Oh come off it,” Remus said, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like I’m incompetent.”

“You do have a reputation,” Janus pointed out. “And I’d like my nephew back. Not his corpse.”

“I’m ruthless, not stupid. He’ll be alive.”

“He needs to be unharmed.”

“Unharmed is… such a big request these days,” Remus said, turning back to examining his nails. “Should I kiss his booboo if he gets a splinter?”

Janus set his jaw, staring down at Remus from his vantage point up on the throne. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had talked back to him like this, especially in his own throne room. “You should deliver the Crown Prince without injuring him. He’s royalty.”

“Yes, and as am I,” Remus said. “He’s not special.”

“You’re not royalty anymore.”

Remus rolled his eyes once again, turning back to Janus with a smile. “It’s a mindset.”

“Of course it is,” Janus drawled, leaning forward in his throne. “Royalty is power. If I wanted you dead today, your head would be at my feet in seconds.”

Remus laughed then, the sound short and humorless. “I had no problem getting in here, did I? If I wanted you dead today, you would be.”

“Not if you wanted to escape with your life,” Janus said. “But you’re welcome to try.”

“I did say if, sweetheart. I’m not here for that today.”

“Good,” Janus said, keeping his voice cold and sharp. “I still need the Prince back in one piece.”

“Yeah yeah,” Remus agreed, waving him off. “I heard you.”

“Completely unharmed, Remus.”

“Yes,” Remus growled. “I heard you. I’ll kiss all his booboos.”

“Good,” the King said again. “And I trust you’re aware of the reward for Virgil’s return?”

“Oh, I am,” Remus said. “And it’s not enough. I want 3,000. To start.”

Janus scoffed, raising an eyebrow. “To start, huh?”

“I’ve got to be compensated for my time, don’t I?”

“Sure,” Janus agreed. “But I’ll remind you I do have an army at my disposal. I don’t need you for one job. You’ve given me all the information I need to send my own men.”

“The Calypso’s Captain won’t let him go so easily,” Remus said. “And much less to anyone but me. So either I go get him, or he makes it to Deigh and is never heard from again. Your choice.” He said with another infuriating shrug.

There were countless eyes on Janus, the guards watching and waiting, ready to move at the King’s word. Remus was smiling, smug and knowing, and Janus took a steadying, resigned breath.

“Fine,” Janus relented. “I’ll give you 1,500 before you depart, and 1,500 when you return with Virgil.”

“Plus the pre-existing reward.”

The King sighed. He’d pay just about anything to get Remus out of his castle. “Fine. 3,000 on top of the reward.”

Remus smiled again, giving one more fake, flashy bow before sending the King a wink Janus would have anyone else killed for.

He started towards the double doors before pausing and turning back to the King. “How ‘bout a kiss, too?”

“Get out of my throne room.”

Remus cackled, striding past the bewildered guards and pushing past the double doors, the clicking of his heels echoing against the walls. He disappeared and the doors closed behind him, leaving Janus perched on his throne in silence like nothing had even happened.

Taglist:

@i-really-like-dragons @stitches-system @poettheythem @remy-the-lemon-berry @shrubs-and-bushes @i-sexually-identify-as-a-mistake @wordsmithandworm @the-dead-and-the-decaying @hope340 @winterwynd @thomas-sanders-tothe-standers @angstysunshine @sunshineandteddybears @pixelated-pineapple @fire-and-ash67 @blues-clues-oh-wait @shinekittenace @marrymebishop @all-panic-nodisco @ravenclawunicorn1 @someoneiwasnt @listenherebuddypal @aroace-energy

[forwantofamohawk]

Selfishness, Selflessness and Reciprocity

Or: An essay on why I think that Coderra has more potential as a relationship than people give it credit for.

As a foreword, I would like to say that this applies equally to romantic and platonic Coderra. Many of the building blocks for a romance are the same as those for a lifelong friendship. All I want, at the end of the day, is for Sierra to be happy. 

Now you could alternatively call this essay “Cody’s tendencies in relationships and how that changes in Planes Trains and Hot Airmobiles” because the first item of focus here is his relationship with Gwen, and how and why it fundamentally doesn’t work. While Gwody is generally not well-liked as a relationship due to his creepy, entitled and stereotypical “nice guy” behavior, those aren’t the reasons why it doesn’t work. They’re effluences of the real core problem with his Cody’s behavior and that mentality, and I’m going to call it out right out of the gate: Cody is selfish. 

For him, it’s never about what Gwen wants or who Gwen is as a person that matters. She is an object to be attained, an ideal girlfriend that will make him cool by being with him. His first notable interaction with her is making a pass at her during the talent show- he more or less thinks he can “get” her with a bit of flirting, without putting in the legwork of actually getting to know her. Compare this with Trent’s first major interaction with Gwen in The Big Sleep as a counterpoint. Watching this scene, what strikes me the most about how Trent conducts himself here is that there is no flirtatious undertones to his approach, no overt, eye-wagging, shit-eating-grin “hey babe, you’re so cool and I’m totally into that”. No, he just talks to her. Talks to her about whatever she wants to talk about, lets the conversation naturally go where it goes, and it gets her to open up, if only just a little. Cody, on the other hand, never does this with Gwen, he never understands this, and every interaction he has with her until Up the Creek, and then resuming in World Tour, is about trying to obtain her as an item.

In World Tour, his selfishness and desire to have Gwen reach new levels and really show how little he actually cares about her as a person. During the episode in Australia, Gwen acts hurt because Duncan is acting jealous of Alejandro “hooking up” with Courtney. Cody’s first instinct is to offer her his vote, but with the implicit subtext this game alliance is a means for him to hook up with her. Gwen is not actually hurt here, she’s playing him for a vote, but he doesn’t know that, he thinks Duncan has actually hurt her. She says to him “ Can you make the pain go away?” and he nods and tells her he’s there for her and that he’ll make everything better.

This is Cody at his absolute lowest. Here he is seeing someone he thinks is heartbroken and vulnerable and all his first reaction is to manipulate it to get into a relationship with her. 

Now this may all sound very anti-Cody, and I certainly don’t apologize for or condone this behavior. But I also now move on to my next point, which is that it is a learned behavior which makes sense in the context of his upbringing, and that he has the capacity to change this behavior.

A bad childhood does not excuse bad behaviors as an adult, or even a young adult like Cody, but it does provide a level of understanding how and why he does the things he does. There is a substantial body of canonical evidence that Cody is a neglected child, manifested most famously and notably in the show by the revelation that his parents (nor anyone else for that matter) never once remembered his birthday in Awwwww Drumheller. Interestingly it seems the Dramarama spinoff has taken this idea up as well, with Cody having said “It feels like a mother’s warmth, or least, so I’ve been told” which in context seems meant to indicate that Cody is unfamiliar with motherly affection. But what he lacks in parental attention is made up for in material wealth- his TDI bio speaks of a plethora of the latest tech and gadgets paid for on his parents dime. This is where the root of his selfishness in dealing with Gwen comes from- having never received love in his life, only things, he can only conceive of a relationship as a thing to be had, not love to be shared between people. Because the latter concept is utterly alien to him. But it’s alien to him because this mentality is learned, taught by years of neglect and being spoiled. And what can be learned, can be unlearned.  

Enter Planes, Trains and Hot Air Mobiles. It is all good and well to argue that Cody is the way he is because he is a victim of parental apathy and absence, but unless this amounts to meaningful change in his behavior, it is meaningless. Here we see that Cody in fact has the capacity to change and to be better than he was, and it’s in his relationship with Sierra that we first see this.

The Total Drama Jumbo jet has been demolished to smithereens, and at the epicenter of the destruction was Sierra. The episode begins with her eliminated, incapable of walking, buried under rubble and with most of those still present utterly uninterested in her plight. Cody, Alejandro and Heather are tasked with racing to Hawaii by whatever means they can find, but Sierra is left with no provisions for her return home. Let’s be clear here- Cody is supposed to get to Hawaii, not Sierra. 

At this point in the game he’s only barely started warming up to her the last episode, and otherwise has rebutted her at every turn since the game began. She cannot move on her own, no matter what means he uses to travel she’s dead weight. With his chosen method of travel, the balloon, Cody can get farther and go faster if he goes alone. He has every logical reason in the world to be selfish here, from a competition standpoint. 

And yet he doesn’t. He takes her with him, an act that I would argue is his first truly selfless act in any of his canon relationships with anyone. He gains nothing by bringing her along, or at least, nothing that is immediately apparent when they set off. He risks his victory in the competition to ensure she has someone to take care of and look after her. He prioritizes her needs and the urgency of her situation over his wants, and even his personal feelings for her at this moment- despite everything she has done to him that has made him feel violated and uncomfortable, by taking her with him he has forgiven her, and without words said that her life and wellbeing are worth more to him than his own feelings about their past. This does not absolve Sierra of responsibility for these acts, but Cody’s forgiveness is an important step in giving her the opportunity to atone for them. It is a profoundly mature moment for Cody, the most mature he has ever been in the entire series since Up the Creek. 

Later on in the episode, something incredible happens. Something called reciprocity- an exchange of mutual benefit to all parties involved. And it’s when their hot air balloon has crashed and they are stranded in the middle of nowhere somewhere in North America, with no apparent means to continue the race. Along with a box of fireworks, Sierra motivates Cody with a rousing speech, and importantly tells him that “You want a number one fan? That comes with responsibilities!”

This is a first for Sierra, in that she is demanding something out of Cody’s side of the relationship. For all the time she has been on the show with him, she has taken care of him with no regard for getting anything out of it in return. She has saved his life at risk to herself numerous times, and while she exacted a toll in physical affection she had never previously called upon Cody to do anything for her, personally. Here that changes.

She demands that he continue the race not for his sake, but for hers, and for all the fans she represents. This transforms the act of continuing the race from a selfish one for Cody, into a selfless one, as he is no longer doing it out of self-interest, but to fulfill his obligation to his relationship with Sierra. And for the second time in the episode, Cody shows the ability to be selfless and consider the needs and wants of others. He is not a fundamentally self-centered person at heart, and his bad habits can be unlearned in the right circumstance with the right people. 

It is this relationship that carries a feeble weakling and a crippled girl to the finale against all odds. It brings out the best in both of them and takes two people who on their own would have zero chance for success, and allows them to lift each other up and help each other move forward. This is the potential of Coderra, as a romance or a lifelong friendship. It’s only two, maybe three episodes where we see a glimpse of it, but I think that together they can be a little less broken and start to defeat their worst demons. 

[reiraland]

Eric - Happy (belated) birthday

Finally I finished the fanfic for Eric’s birthday! It took me way more time than I had expected, but better later than never, right? hehe. I planned to write a fic between 500-700 words, but ended up writing 2600+ words. my love for Eric is unquenchable  

I’m thristy for more Eric’s content. I wish Beemoov added him in the future events or release a spinoff.  Beemoov, just take my money 

I would have liked to write also an Eric’s POV, but recently my work schedule is hectic. I might try, but it’ll take a while. 

I apologize in advance for any typo or grammar mistake.

Happy Birthday, Eric! (04.26) Shaken off from my slumber by the emanating vibrations from my smartwatch, I lazily opened my eyes. The world was still dark outside. After turning off the alarm, my heart filled up with joy as soon as I laid my eyes on my beloved. By his rhythmic breath, I could tell Eric was still sound asleep. Reaching out my hand, I caressed his disheveled black hair and gently ran my fingers along his jaw as my heart beat firmly with ecstasy.

“God, he’s so attractive…” I murmured to myself. 

Nothing could bring me more bliss than staying a few more minutes in our heavenly nest, but today I had an important task. For the past two weeks, I had been mulling over the ideal way to celebrate his birthday. Although I wished we could go on a trip together, he was currently busy with a new case, plus my schedule was tight too; having several auctions planned for the next three months consumed most of my time. In the end, I made a reservation at a trendy, popular restaurant, and since neither of us could take the day off from work and I wouldn’t see him until the closing time of the café, for starters, I decided to surprise him with a special breakfast. 

“Come on. No time to waste!” 

After slipping out of the bed stealthily, I hurriedly took a shower and got dressed as quick as a flash. When my phone buzzed twice, I went outside, racing down the stairs all the way out to the street where Hyun was waiting for me with a small box in his hands.  

“Thank you very much for delivering it so early in the morning and especially for putting up with me for the last week! I am aware I have been fussy about the flavour… verging on nitpicking.” I said apologetically. 

“Please, don’t mention it. What are friends for? Also, you’re one of my favourite customers, I can’t let you down,” he responded with a smile, “and don’t concern yourself about the flavour anymore, I’m positive Eric will be delighted. I’ll be looking forward to your feedback.” He added cordially before waving goodbye. 

Back at the apartment, I heard the shower water running, and immediately got anxious. I had less time than originally planned. 

“I hope I can wrap everything up just on time,” I sighed nervously. 

I conscientiously got down to work with the breakfast preparations. While brewing a new type of coffee I had specifically ordered from one of Cosy Bear Café’s suppliers, I set the table and sliced the cake into equal pieces. I clasped both of my hands together happily after getting everything ready. The fragrance of freshly brewed coffee wafting through the air reassured me since it reminded me so much of Eric’s embrace.  

The sound of footsteps brought me back to reality. Eric was leaning against the door frame, gazing groggily at me with his golden eyes. As he covered his mouth with one hand to hide a yawn, he put his wet hair back with the other one. The mere sight of him took my breath away.

“Morning…” His voice was still low and rough.

“Good morning! Just in time! Breakfast is ready! Summoned by the coffee’s scent, right?” I asked jokingly.

Eric’s eyes twinkled with amusement. He walked over to me, leaning down on my face until his lips found mine. A pleasant feeling unfurled in my stomach as I kissed him back with adoration. 

“What can I say? A great day starts with a cup of coffee...” he trailed off suddenly, “but you know what?” He enquired conspiratorially, giving me a playful smirk.

“What?” I whispered back mischievously. 

 “A day without you is always incomplete, nothing could fill the void of your absence”. 

“Not even the finest coffee?” I attempted to wear a blank expression, but my tone gave me away. 

The corner of his mouth quirked up before shaking his head in denial, staring deeply into my eyes as he replied with more amorous words. My heart began to pound like a drum and I was certain my cheeks were blushing furiously as if to mirror his flushed face.

“Definitely, you are turning into more and more a romantic every day… a hopeless romantic like myself … I’m absolutely in love with you.” I stated softly, swallowing down the emotion that comes with my words, suppressing tears of happiness that threatened to fall down from the corner of my eye. 

A few seconds later, Eric held me in his strong arms and rested his forehead against mine, letting out a contented sigh when I hugged him back. Lost in each other's eyes, time seemed to have slowed down. The closeness between us felt so natural, like it was meant to be. However, reluctantly, I pulled myself away from his warmth, he raised an eyebrow in response.

“If we don’t hurry up, coffee will get cold and we won’t be able to have breakfast without rushing” I explained. “Today’s menu is a bit particular. Sir, I hope you find it to your liking. By the way, Happy Birthday!” I spoke teasingly. 

Eric’s eyes showed a hint of surprise for a brief moment, then he grinned from ear to ear, while squeezing my fingers gently. I summarized quickly about the coffee and the cake, he listened to me attentively as always. I watched him restlessly, as he brought the mug to his lips and tasted the pastry. Relief washed all over me after he nodded approvingly, flashing an encouraging smile. That peaceful moment was engraved in our memory, it might have been just an ordinary breakfast for others, but for us, it meant a great deal. When we finished eating, we cleared the table and as I was about to wash the dishes, he stopped me with a hand up.

“You prepared breakfast, it’s only fair I’ll do the dishes.” He said warmly, not letting me a chance to protest. 

At first, I just observed him while he was focused on the task at hand, but then, I tiptoed closer and circled my arms around him from behind, burying my head in his back. Inhaling deeply, his scent infused my soul with tranquility and comfort. 

As soon I noticed Eric was done with the chore, I took a step away from him. At the same, Eric turned around, and without a warning, lifted me up, slowly spinning me around until we reached the living room. He tenderly laid me down onto the couch as we locked eyes. He looked extremely amused, just like a child plotting mischief. The next thing I knew is he relentlessly tickled my ribs as I burst into giggles. The sound of our laughter echoed through the room.

I wanted that moment to last forever, but duty called. As his silver watch catched my eye, I furrowed my brows. 

“Eric, we need to start moving now… I don’t feel like leaving, but look at time…”, I pouted.  

“Time really flies when we are together, right? You know… we can stay a bit longer, if you will.”

“But If we don’t leave now, we’ll be stuck in a traffic jam and neither of us will be on time for work”.

“If we turn the siren on, a traffic jam won’t be an obstacle.” He pointed at, letting out  a small, low chuckle. I couldn’t refrain myself from tittering at his statement. 

“The siren is only for special occasions. If we used it regularly, you might get caught by one of your fellow police officers. And then what?” I dismissed his suggestion with a playful tone. 

“You promised to visit me in prison, wouldn’t you honor your vow?” He replied in the same way. 

“Needless to say, I would. However, I’d rather have you with me every day. I think you’ll agree with me.”

“I can’t argue with your reasoning.”

He made as if to rise up from the couch, but promptly sank himself back, showering my cheeks, my forehead, my lips and neck with light kisses. I giggled merrily.

“Just one more minute, please.” He pleaded in between kisses. 

I silently agreed, enjoying every second of the sweetness of his love. 

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

For the rest of the day I was in high spirits, despite being a busy one. I had a meeting with a supplier and had lunch with Yael to address some remaining minor issues regarding our upcoming exhibition. I also passed by Leight’s shop to pick up my outfit for that night. I had purchased it last week, but Leigh had insisted on adding a few details on the sleeves. 

Eric arrived at the café past the closing time. After greeting me with a kiss and complimented my dress, he started to carry the tables and chairs from the terrace to inside the café, while we had our usual conversations.

“How was your day? Complicated?” 

“Kind of, but now that business is successful, I refuse to complain about having a pile of work. When I remember last year … I was about to be forced to shut down the Cosy Bear.” I shuddered in cold sweat. 

Eric put a hand on my shoulder and affectionately kissed my temple as I closed my eyes, indulging myself with his display of tenderness. 

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

As soon as we stepped into the restaurant, the waiter greeted us politely and led us to our table. 

“This place is highly recommended, not only for its tasteful dishes and its amazing presentations, but also because of reasonably priced food. I must add, I find the decor magnificent.” I said, offering him a smile and he did the same in return.

“I was just flipping through a magazine when I spotted a review about this place. They’re usually overbooked, but Yael happens to know the manager, so I was able to get a reservation for tonight.” I commented joyfully. 

“This is my best birthday since I was a child. I’m grateful to you for putting so much thought and effort, I know you did.” He remarked knowingly.

“You seriously need to stop playing the mentalist card.” I sighed in defeat. “I did research trendy restaurants, it took me a while to find a few of my liking. Yael’s help did come in handy for getting a reserve here, though.”

“You are adorable. I love you.” He murmured tenderly. 

Soon enough, our meal was brought to the table. Before I knew it, Eric had already emptied his plate. He looked away sheepishly, it was so cute that I found myself smiling widely. 

“It was thoughtless of me...” he attempted to sputter an excuse.

“The way you gobbled up all that food, one would think you haven’t  eaten for days.” I remarked pretending to sound casual, then I winked at him. He let out a throaty laugh in response. 

“Today it was hectic at work. Showing the new recruits the ropes was more strenuous than usual. Moreover, the investigation about you-know-what case is no longer stuck. I wish I could give you more details... Well, the fact is we made quite considerable progress. And in the end, I barely had time for lunch.” 

“You mean you skipped lunch, don’t you?” I pointed out with concern.

“It’s not like I was on an empty stomach... I had a snack-” he stammered.

“Eric…” I cut him off in a flat tone. 

His face shadowed while he looked sideways, scratching the back of his head. 

“Eric, I need you to take care of yourself properly. Just going to the gym regularly won’t keep you healthy. Skipping meals is a bad idea, a terrible one, in fact. Don’t underestimate its negative effects. Eric, I want to stay with you until we're grey and old. So, please, promise me you will be more careful in the future.”

“Umm… sure… right… I mean, I’ll try to avoid skipping meals… umm…” He responded to me, almost stuttering. 

His face turned as red as a beetroot. It took me a moment to realize why.

“It did sound like a proposal, didn’t it?” I thought bashfully, finger tapping on the table. 

Eric reached his hand over the table to touch mine while he spoke to me, while looking into my eyes.

“I don't see myself living without you either. I swear to you I won’t lose sight of the most important.”  He swallowed, and continued, “I’ve been doing some thinking. How about going on a trip the following weekend after the last auction is planned for the last week of June? How does that sound? I bumped into Yael a few days ago and had a little chat about an opening in your schedule. I thought it’d be a good idea to set the trip for that date as you’d be less packed with work. You’ll definitely need a break, it will do you good.” 

“But what about your work? What if--?”

“I had a conversation with the chief to let him know in advance that weekend I would be out of the radar.  He was quite understandable. Well, you haven’t given me an answer yet.”

“Haven’t you already guessed it? I thought body language was your thing.” I tried to sound teasing, but I just ended up giggling.

The grip of his hand slightly tightened on mine, before he leaned over to kiss the back of my hand. I got up from my seat and ran to hug him without letting go of his hand. That drew the attention of other customers, but even if I felt sheepish, I focused on Eric. 

“I'll take that as a "yes", then”. He hummed jovially, “we just need to decide where we want to go.”

For a moment I was a little taken aback because I had just assumed he had already decided on his own, but Eric wasn’t that kind of partner. He always treasured my opinions. His thoughtfulness was like those peaceful waves on the ocean, as soothing as calming. 

“Planning the trip together will be twice the fun.” He affirmed.

I agreed with a nod, my smile didn’t leave my face for the rest of the evening.  

After having a great dinner, we headed back to our apartment.

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

[The following scene is kind of steamy. Just warning!]

The moment we reached the bedroom, we practically collapsed onto the bed. Entirely eager for one another, impatiently getting rid of our clothes as if they were on fire. We lost ourselves in waves of ecstasy, forgetting the entire world. His hands slid down my body, claiming every part of me with his touch, making their way to my most sensitive spots. I didn’t even bother trying to suppress my moans. I didn’t remain passive either, I devoured him with reverent hunger. As growls of desire escaped his lips, I felt proudly satisfied.

Breathless from the intensity poured out between our lips, still unwilling to release the other one, not even for a second.

When both of us came together, flames of heated fervor clenched inside me. Caught up in the rhythm of his body against mine, relishing that sensation while I realized every one of his movements matched mine, we were in complete sync.

“I can’t get enough of you.” His voice, ragged with lust. 

I couldn’t even manage a reply, I just dug my nails into his back, pulling him closer, feverishly urging him to continue. 

Finally, glistened with sweat and gasping for air, we collapsed into each other's arms, both exhausted but elated. Snuggled together, in no time we surrendered to the realm of dreams. 

My last thoughts before dozing off were dedicated to the wonderful man next to me. Eric had shown me such deep, earnest love that swept over me, marking a before and after in my life. What could possibly be better than that?

[samwpmarleau]

I am trying to do better with my Dornish fancasts for ASOIAF and though by no means are you required to put up with me and my ignorance (not malicious ignorance but becoming less so is still something I am working to correct- I'm not trying to pat myself on the back here just trying to communicate that my intentions aren't purposefully hurtful), I was hoping you might be willing to answer a question for me. It is my understanding that the Dorne is analogous to Spain during the Moorish occupation. Would a mixed race fancast be acceptable for a dornish character? Say Nina Dobrev as Ashara Dayne? She is listed as being of mixed race from what I can find? Or perhaps would a Hispanic actor like Ana De Armas or Alba Galocha be more appropriate for the "Stony dornish"? Once again, I am very sorry to bother you- I just don't have anyone else to ask-and I pray that you are not terribly offended by my ignorant questions. Have a great day!

I'm certainly not offended, and I'm glad that you're seeking out better fancasts!

I think mixed-race fancasts are fine. The most important thing is that the Dornish characters are fancast with people of color. While sticking to canon as close as possible is a goal, things like hair and eye color shouldn't be the primary goal. One of the most egregious examples of this is Tyene — people prioritize her blonde hair and blue eyes over her race, which they absolutely should not. After all, in a scenario where the fancast would be actually cast, those sorts of things are easily fixed with movie magic.

Re: Nina Dobrev, do you have a source on her being mixed race? I did a brief Google search and didn't come up with anything.

Ana de Armas was born in Cuba, but according to an article she did, her grandparents were Spanish, and generally speaking, Spanish people are white.

I can't find much information on Alba Galocha, but Google/IMDb says she's also Spanish, so the same would apply to her as to Ana de Armas.

The MENA region (Middle East/North Africa) is the ideal area to find fancasts from, as GRRM has described Dorne not only as Moorish Spain (the Moors being from North Africa) but also as Palestine (the Middle East). Which absolutely isn't to say you can't use fancasts from elsewhere — South Asia or Latin America, for example — but you need to be cognizant of things like how Moorish Spain is not the same thing as present-day Spain and make sure your fancast of choice is actually a person of color.

A gold mine for "stony" Dornish fancasts is the show "The Magnificent Century" and its spinoff, "The Magnificent Century: Kösem," which consist almost entirely of Middle Eastern actors, most of whom have lighter coloring.

Hope that helps :)

[yoonjinkooked]

Just read Anyone but the groom and i *sighs deeply* need to get some things off my chest.

So for the beginning i love the characters. They are so well crafted. They have their own thought process, their own priorities and moral obligations, and as a reader,as much as it frustrates me see them pine when they can be happy, it really does give them their own flavour.

Also I like their interactions with each other. It read like I was there sitting with them as they discussed stuff and as if I could also hear the change of tones?? Idk if it makes sense or not but it made every character stand out as distinct individuals and bring out their personalities.

As for the characters themselves as much as I love yoongi i think OC and Sojung stole the show for me. First of all, OC, in my eyes is a badass, ●for approaching yoongi first and having such a wonderful and witty conversation

●for continuing with the wedding planning and actually help them with her whole heart and not just for the sake of her job

I'm honestly kinda amazed at how level-headed she is through everything cuz in many stories the OC end up ditching her professionalism. So I liked how here OC took her time to understand things and accept them, and choose to be professional till the very end and choosing to leave instead hurting herself watching him marry. All of these were instances where OC did what felt to me was the most rational thing to do.

And Sojung.... Kinda sad that the end hinted at sojung showing interest in seokjin. Cuz damn i really could have crossed over the line of alternate universe and all to date her. She's a queen. I love her character so so so much. Such a fresh breath of air and it's so amazing that she had no hard feelings against OC or Yoongi.

Also just wanted to mention that it was for the first time that I laughed so hard at a marriage getting cancelled. It was emotional and all, knowing everything would now fall into place but the way Yoongi and Sojung announced the news was hilarious. I couldn't help but crack up.

So I'm gonna end it at that. Thank you for writing this story. Absolutely loved your writing.

Okay, wowza, first of all, I am so sorry for letting this sit in my inbox this long - tumblr became a bit too much, as per usual lol.

But I am here now AND I CAN'T THANK YOU ENOUGH. Seriously, the attention you paid to all the details, taking the time to write this out and make sure I see it, all of it - it means so damn much and it makes it easier for me to write.

The reason why I started writing is because I wanted to read stories like that - ones that have someone level-headed, that don't have a happy ending always, that don't make life ideal. You enjoying OC being level-headed is the best pat on the pack I could have gotten.

And Sojung stole the show for me, too - so, so much, I'm still debating making a Seokjin spinoff with her as an OC. In stories and movies, even in the one this story is based on, so much emphasis is put on female rivalry and I loved the chance to make the other female lead someone good, likeable and genuinely someone you will root for.

Thank you, so so so much. This review made me ecstatic and push out several K of writing - so thank you, from the bottom of my heart ❤

[thelatelockdownlist]

A Series on Series 02: Nalini Singh’s Psy-Changeling/Trinity Series

Hi! I’m Alex, a YouTube Newbie and this is The Late Lockdown List where I talk about the list of things I’ve got on my mind since the lockdown started. Today, on the second episode of A Series on Series, I’ll be talking about one of my favorite romance novel series ever: 

Spoilers galore! That’s it. That’s the disclaimer.

So who are the Psys and and who are the Changelings?

In this world, there are three predominant races: the Psys who have powers akin to those of Professor X and Jean Grey, the Changelings who are shifters -- both animal and human forms, and the humans -- just humans. 

There are two main changeling 'packs' in the series: the cats (leopards and panthers) - DarkRiver and the wolves - SnowDancer. As of this writing, there are 15 books under the Psy-Changeling series and 4 under its spinoff -- Trinity -- so named because they've included the other race: humans.

The series starts with Slave to Sensation

with Sasha Duncan, a Psy, who gets involved with Lucas Hunter, the alpha of the DarkRiver cats.

Sasha is a cardinal Psy. This means she’s very strong - literally off the charts strong, because their scale only goes up to 9 and cardinals are way over 10. But her abilities have not manifested. Her mother, Nikita Duncan, is a member of the ruling council. In this book, Nikita decides to enter into a sort of business partnership with the DarkRiver cats to sell real estate to changelings. Sasha becomes the point of contact. 

So that’s basically how it starts. If you want to know more about the story, please go ahead and read it. I don’t want to tell you because that would be a disservice to the author. 

However, I’m going to tell you what I love about this book and the books that follow.

I think Ms. Singh is a great world builder. There are a lot of familiar things about this world where Psys -- who are in the Marvel parlance, mutants -- and changelings -- think were animals but that’s oversimplifying it -- coexists with humans. She sets up the story so well without overexplaining it -- showing AND telling at the same time. 

I found it very easy to dive into this world inhabited by the gifted and the supernatural mostly because their problems mirror a lot of what we contend with in the real world: corrupt politicians, violent crackdown of dissenters, prejudice against those who are not like ourselves… The characters in the story deal with these problems using their gifts -- ones we don’t have, but I understand their motivations and the decisions they make -- right or wrong. 

It may sound trite but the human element in the circumstances in which the characters find themselves are very real and I couldn’t help but be drawn and just stay engaged the entire time. 

So after finishing the first book, I hunted for the next and was completely gratified that it’s a series. I get to know what happens after and that’s amazingly satisfying. I also get to find out more about the initially peripheral characters in the book. And I get to learn more about what “Silence” is and why it’s starting to break…

The next books are about the rest of the packs with a smattering of Psys and humans here and there. The pairings are usually Psy and changeling. Down the road, you get human and Psy and then human and changeling. You’ll also meet the so-called bogeyman of the Psys: the Arrows. Essentially, they’re a squad of highly trained assassins, most of them trained since childhood. Fascinating bunch.

The last book in the Psy/Changeling series is Allegiance of Honor

which sets up the spinoff Trinity series. 

In this book, we meet an almost one-year-old Naya - Lucas’ and Sasha’s half-psy/half-changeling daughter and the only one in the world - who can now shift. This is also the book where we find out just exactly how many ‘pupcubs’ Mercy and Reilly have. 

It’s not all cute stuff, though. There’s an abduction attempt, a ‘righteous’ killing and vengeance. All through it, we see the lives of the Psys, Changelings and humans evolve to try to live in this world where there’s now a real possibility of all three races co-existing in peace. 

Of course, si vis pacem, para bellum. If you want peace, prepare for war. And there’s a lot of foreshadowing.

So I’ve mentioned Trinity several times. The first book in the spinoff Trinity series is Silver Silence

where we meet Psy Silver Mercant, assistant of Kaleb Krychek who is the former Councilor now member of the new Trinity Accord council. Kaleb and Sahara Kyriakus’ story is told in the 12th book, Heart of Obsidian

We also meet another changeling pack, the StoneWater bears and its alpha, Valentin Nikolaev. 

In this book, someone is committing acts of terrorism against humans -- to start -- to undermine EmNet or Emergency Net headed by Silver. In the previous books, EmNet coordinated rescue and relief operations. 

The three other books in this series deal with more of the fallout of the creation of Trinity. A shadowy organization called the Consortium -- which is like the reverse side of Trinity -- also made up of all three races -- that seeks to undermine what Trinity wants to accomplish. It wants to sow discord among the races so they can go back to how it used to be: Psy, Changeling and humans living apart and keeping to themselves. 

I’ve talked about what I loved about this series, but I realized I left out one important thing: romance. Each book tells you the love story, either the start of one or the continuation of the ones you’d read before, of the characters. The dynamics of the relationships are different, especially among the changelings because they have a hierarchy: an alpha, his/her sentinels, lieutenants and soldiers. They’re also classified into two ‘dispositions’: dominants and submissives. The dominants are usually soldiers, but there are also maternal dominants -- ones who protect the hearth and home from within the hearth and home. In this world, submissives hardly ever hold eye contact for long against dominants, which makes for a power imbalance in a relationship where you’re ideally supposed to be equals. However, with mates -- like wolves, changelings who mate -- explained like a magical and psychic merging of the souls -- mate for life. With mates, the dominant-submissive dynamic is less structured. It wouldn’t make for a good relationship if the submissive doesn’t have ways to be in equal footing as the dominant. Here is where the human side of the changelings appear. The mating bond snaps into place only when both parties let it happen. It is up to the female (all of the major matings in this story are heterosexual) to decide to accept the mating bond. However, it is the male who becomes aware of the ‘mating dance’ first. 

I may be explaining it badly, but if you’re intrigued, go read the books. Seriously.

One other thing I love about this series that I know I’ve mentioned but feel like I should say again: this is a world you can happily get lost in. The way it’s built is so intricate; the details seem to jump out of the pages. I feel so invested in what happens to every single character that gets introduced in every book. 

Of course, I have favorites like Roman and Jules -- twin DarkRiver cubs who were introduced in the first book. 

I find myself looking for mentions of the pups or cubs because of how Ms. Singh writes them. Imagine having a toddler and puppy/kitten existing in one body.

It’s difficult to choose a favorite, but so far, mine is Allegiance of Honor. 

It has all my favorite characters and it’s a great setup to the spinoff. I was so relieved to hear about the spinoff because I thought that I would have to say goodbye to all of them. This way, I still see glimpses of my favorites while being introduced to new people and how they form connections to the characters that have yet to be explored.

That’s it for me. I hope you enjoyed listening to me ramble on and on about the Psy/Changeling/Trinity series. 

The latest book, Alpha Night

has been out since June 2020. Thanks for watching, and I’ll see you in the next episode where I discuss Nalini Singh’s other supernatural/paranormal series, Guild Hunter series.  

[aion-rsa]

The Suicide Squad Ending Explained

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

This article contains major The Suicide Squad spoilers. But you could tell that from the headline. We have a spoiler-free review here.

Well done! You’ve survived The Suicide Squad! 

James Gunn’s stunning supervillain flick is a brutal ride through DC’s most deep cut characters and now you want to dig deep into what happened. So we’re here to break down that shocking ending, where we leave our heroes, and what’s next for the Suicide Squad in the DCEU. Well, those of them who survived, at least…

The standalone (sort of sequel) movie centers around the Suicide Squad on a top secret mission. So off they go to Corto Maltese. 

We begin with two crews but only one actually survives the opening bloodbath. Those lucky few are led by Bloodsport (Idris Elba) and the crew consists of Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior), Polka-Dot Man (David Dastmalchian), Nanaue/King Shark (Steve Agee/Sylvester Stallone), and Peacemaker (John Cena). 

Later, they pick up Rick Flag (Joel Kinnaman) and Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie), who both somehow manage to survive the trap set by Amanda Waller. After much scheming and fighting, the team kidnaps the Thinker (Peter Capaldi) and make it to Jotunheim, the Nazi prison where the Corto Maltese government have been keeping Project Starfish A.K.A. Starro the Conqueror. But when they get there things begin to spiral out of control and that’s where we’ll begin…

Why Were Peacemaker and Rick Flagg Fighting?

While this is a movie filled with wild unexpected moments, the most shocking–to some viewers–twist comes when the truth about Project Starfish is revealed. And we’re not talking about the fact that it’s actually a giant starfish-like alien called Starro. 

No, the real horror here is that Project Starfish is and has always been run by the US government. Yep, it’s the US who have been testing on and torturing innocent humans, and the Squad wasn’t sent to stop Starro but were in fact there to destroy Jotunheim so that the US government and Amanda Waller’s involvement were kept under wraps. 

It’s not something that Rick Flag can stomach as he states, “I joined to serve my country not to be its puppet.” It’s an honorable moment that finally makes Flag a true hero, but it’s short lived. Amanda Waller always has a backup plan and here that plan wears red, white, blue, and a shiny helmet. 

Gunn’s searing action flick has a lot to say about war, America, and the nature of disposability, and Peacemaker is one of its most brutal statements. He’s a man who believes he “loves peace” but it “doesn’t matter how many people I have to kill to achieve it.” That in itself is the oxymoron of imperialism. 

In that way, Peacemaker and Flag represent two different versions of the patriotic ideal. Rick is the idealistic man who wants to do the right thing in the hopes of making his country live up to what he thinks it can be. But Peacemaker wants to protect his country no matter what horrific crimes they’ve committed. That’s why he agreed to be a mole for Waller within the Squad and why he decides to kill Flag when his former teammate wants to leak the records of America’s Project Starfish to the press. 

Sadly for us and Rick, Peacemaker succeeds, leaving Flag dead and the American ideal shattered.

Bloodsport Makes a Choice

With Peacemaker planning to stop the truth about Jotunheim from coming out at any cost, his next target is Ratcatcher 2 (Daniela Melchior). After the explosions incapacitate them, the brilliant young heroine grabs the disk with the damning records, leading Peacemaker to hunt her down. 

Just when it seems like he’s going to add another Squad member to his kill count, we skip backwards eight minutes. Here we see that Bloodsport, King Shark, Polka-Dot Man, Harley, and Milton have been setting the charges, which end up going off too soon. As they start to explode (and after the tragic death of Milton), Bloodsport ends up falling through the building on a large slab of concrete, landing in front of Peacemaker as he’s about to kill Ratcatcher 2. 

As he draws his weapon, Peacemaker does the same, leading to a fatal shootout. And in a hilarious callback to an earlier gag when Peacemaker claimed he could shoot better than Bloodsport thanks to smaller bullets which would shoot through his enemies’ bullets, Bloodsport beats him using exactly that tactic, apparently killing Peacemaker (more on that in a moment) and saving Ratcatcher 2. 

It’s a key moment for Bloodsport, who made a promise to his surrogate daughter that he’d get her out alive, and it’s the perfect way to wrap up Bloodsport’s arc in the film, from estranged father of a young daughter to a man trying his best to form more connections under difficult situations. Yay for the world’s best bad dad! 

The Suicide Squad Takes a Stand 

Now that Jotunheim is destroyed, Waller calls the remaining Squad–Bloodsport, Polka-Dot Man, Harley, King Shark, and Ratcatcher 2–telling them they have to go back to the US. But there’s one big problem: Starro is now freed and the giant alien is on a rampage. 

After decades of being tortured by Gaius Grieves A.K.A. the Thinker, Starro believes the city belongs to them and starts shooting out mini Starros in order to turn the population into mindless zombies. Starro is able to create countless self-replicating copies of itself, so the carnage being wreaked on Corto Maltese is probably only a preview of how quickly Starro could spread their influence throughout the entire world if left unchecked. 

For a moment it seems like the Squad will head back into Waller’s cold and cruel arms, leaving the people of Corto Maltese to their gruesome fate. But at the last moment Bloodsport chooses to go back and is soon joined by the rest of his crew. It’s a massively powerful moment and one that transcends even our core team as before Waller can blow their heads up her colleagues knock her out and begin to help the Squad on their unauthorized but massively heroic new mission to stop Starro and save Corto Maltese.

It’s one of several moments in the film that drives home the harder edges of Amanda Waller, who is played as close to a villain in this film as someone like Thinker or Corto Maltese dictator Silvio Luna.  

The Final Fate of Polka-Dot Man

David Dastmachlian’s performance as Abner Krill AKA Polka-Dot Man is one of the many stunning turns that the film has to offer. And while we’d love to say that the villain turned hero gets a happily ever after that’s not the case. In fact Polka-Dot Man gets an ending as tragic as his origin. After being tortured by his mother who infected him with a parasitic alien virus in the hopes of making him a superhero he became the villain known as Polka-Dot Man.

It’s not a conscious choice but more of a compulsion as he has to expel his deadly polka dot pustules or he’ll die. It’s the grossest power in a movie full of gross powers but as the crew face down Starro Abner finally comes into his superheroic own. 

As Bloodsport becomes the leader Waller always knew he could be, he uses Abner’s fear of his mother and the hallucinations he has of her to help him channel his powers into destroying Starro. Bloodshot yells “It’s your mother” and we see Starro through Abner’s eyes, the creature is transformed into a kaiju-sized version of the woman who ruined his life. His polka dots end up destroying one of Starro’s legs, and Abner celebrates screaming “I’m a real superhero!”

Just as Polka-Dot Man realizes his truly heroic nature, he’s killed by another of Starro’s limbs, crushed but finally happy in his last moments. It’s a fittingly bittersweet end for the unexpected and relatablely depressed hero.

The Final Fate of Starro 

Fighting a huge roaming starfish is no easy feat. It takes everything the Squad has to take down the monstrous creature, including that tragic sacrifice of Polka-Dot Man. When they catch up with Starro in the city, Harley takes the high ground using Javelin’s javelin to burst through Starro’s eye as Bloodsport and Ratcatcher 2 try to incapacitate the huge beast. 

As Harley swims around in Starro’s bloody eye she’s joined by thousands of rats called by Ratcatcher 2. The rodents swarm Starro, overcoming him as Ratcatcher 2 protects Bloodsport from his childhood fear come to life.

And with that, Starro is gone. 

Though Starro might have been a murderous alien kaiju by the end of the movie, they began life as a harmless creature floating through the stars, kidnapped by the American government. To kill him is a tragic but necessary act and one that cements the Squad as very much anti-heroes rather than the villains they began as. 

What’s Next for the Squad?

While we know that Peacemaker will get his own spinoff TV series on HBO Max (more on that below) it’s unclear what the rest of the crew will be doing after this. One thing is clear, though. They all have the freedom that they never thought they’d achieve. 

After killing Starro, Bloodsport blackmails Waller into letting him, Harley, Ratcatcher 2, and King Shark go. It means compromising Rick Flag’s final wish to reveal the truth of what Waller and the government did in Corto Maltese but it also allows Bloodsport and his crew to avoid returning to Belle Reve. It seems like the crew might stick together, especially in the case of Ratcatcher 2 and Bloodsport. 

Plus, once Flag’s friends find out that Peacemaker is still alive, they might have a score to settle. About that…

The Post Credits Scenes

The first of two post credits scenes is the big one. After we think that one good thing happened in this movie A.K.A. Peacemaker being killed by Bloodsport, Gunn has a shock for us. 

See, Peacemaker survived–to star in his upcoming HBO Max series–and Waller has sent two of her best to pick him up from his hospital bed where he’s recuperating in order to do nothing less than “save the fucking world.” After the brutal horrors that Peacemaker committed during the film, it seems strange that he’ll be taking a leading role in a TV series. But after the smart subversiveness of The Suicide Squad we’re cautiously optimistic. 

If you wait until the final moments of the credits once we’re done with all the good stuff like Special Thanks and celebrating all those amazing visual effects artists, then you’ll get to this gnarly and hilarious little stinger. 

If you throw your mind back to the beach-set murder fest at the beginning of the movie, the first character to apparently die is Weasel because no one checked whether ot not he could actually swim. It’s a sad and grotesque way to start the film, but there’s good news for anyone who loves the grody child-killing beast: he’s still alive. After all the drama of the past few days Weasel just popped back up and is totally and utterly alive. That means the people of Corto Maltese should probably watch out as there’s a murderous Weasel in their midst!

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The Suicide Squad is on HBO Max and in theaters now! 

The post The Suicide Squad Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[the-goddessfighter]

[Part 1] YASS WEBCOMIC BATAROU ART FROM YOU AAA IT'S LOVELY I'M- 😳😍😍💗💘💕 "Just Another Shitty Day.." Honestly I like this quote! It's fits their (and also maybe many of us all including me, lmao) Valentine's Day for this year, that despite it feels shitty they still found a comfort from, by, and for eachother 😊💖 Especially after all of what had just happened to them, Garou and Badd definitely need eachother as they're already fed up with any HA's and Neo Heroes' BS 😢😑 But you give them fluffy domestic moment together it's really soothed my heart AAA THANK YOU THIS IS TRULY A BLESSING 😭🙏💕💝

[Part 2] About artstyle: I love that in this drawing has a perfect blend between ONE + Murata + your own artstyle: ONE bc this is them in webcomic (and I can see Badd resembled more of his webc version the way you draw his sharper eyes and his shirt), Murata bc ONE was also influenced by him when he draw recent chapter so automatically there's also Murata's style, and your own style bc you also gave them your own interpretation as I still can see it especially on short-haired Garou in here 👀😉💕 As what I said before, you successfully managed to blend all of those styles into PERFECTLY! Combined with Valentine's Day themed: GORGEOUS ART!! 😤👌💯💖✨

[Part 3] About details: great colour palletes and painting techniques!! It turned out looks great and goes very well for Webcomic Batarou, gives them different feels (more realistic) and atmosphere (darker bc their current harsh situation in webcomic) but softened it with very casual yet intimate domesticity between Garou and Badd, aww.. 😚💕 What truly standing out in this drawing are the amazing shading especially on their outfits (so neat and despite they wore messy/crumpled outfits it's still looked vert smooth! I love it! ❤), and also subtle colour gradation for the background (that's why this pic seems like a painting for art museum whoaa GOOD!! 😳).

[Part 4] About Garou and Badd: I love the way you added so much detailed hints like the tranquilizer darts that embedded on Garou's hat, Garou's battle-damaged outfit plus his freshly scrapped wounds, Badd's heavier darkened eyebags and also freshly scrapped wounds although not as bad as Garou (was those from fighting the cyborg guards??), and their matching tired but content faces 👀✨  Not to mention those delicious chocolate truffles 😋🍫💕 Really adored that you draw them in the most casual relaxed manner with Badd lounging on the sofa carelessly while handfeeding the worn out Garou who let Badd resting/leaning on his chest and holding him to provide comfort for his lover aww! 😣💖💖 There's so much love, affection, and caring gestures shared between them! No need for words as they're already know they love eachother 👏😎

[Part 5] This made me think that Garou was attacked on the same day Badd was released himself from Neo Heroes, seeing the timelapse of Suiryu finished the mission and meeting up with Suiko, also that it seems Badd was captured days before Suiryu's mission, so Badd could be coming home to find Garou has experienced same shitty day like himself.. 😢 When Badd on the way home after got out from NH building, he remembered to buy Zenko and Garou Valentine's Day gifts (as an apologize gifts for missinv about 2 days, too). Just as he arrived at home, Badd found Garou waiting for him, sitting somberly with tattered uniform and just very tired face. Badd immediately hugged him and apologized for making Garou worried, Garou also relieved that at last Badd finally coming home :")

[Part 6] They eventually told their stories, then comforting eachother by enjoying movie night while munching on Badd's chocolate gift 😊🍫💝💻🌙 Badd insisted to handfeeding Garou, he wanted to cheer up his wolfboy and make sure he was well pampered as Garou needed lots of genuine support right now, also encouraged him to never give up on getting new job who treats him better! 😤👍 Garou knows Badd also needs lots of comfort after listening what he has going through, so he offered warm loving hold/embrace for his beloved Badd during the movie night 😌💕💕 You conveyed their Valentine's night wonderfully in this art, Temperans-sama! That for Garou and Badd, as long as they can spend time together they don't care if it's not perfect or ideal 👏😉👌❤

[Part 7] I'm so sorry that I rambling too much! 😅🙇💦 I really adore your Batarou Valentine special art, plus, it's webcomic version so AAA this style deserve so much love THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR MAKING IT SO BEAUTIFUL, THEI

----

Anon! always leaving me speechless!😭💖💛💚💙💜❤ I was interested in playing with the textures of the brushes and wanted to make it look something like title cards for cartoons👀. It would be interesting as a spinoff of them ...🙏😳💗

[fgooooooo]

So, your TWST x FGO is pretty interesting. What is FGO about exactly? All I remember is that there’s a war over the holy grail or smth?

FGO is a mobile gacha strategy game where you are the last master in the world and you have to go around and fix singularities (because a place where history went wrong and you need to correct it) with heroic spirit, also called servants (yeah it doesnt look good). Its part of the fate series with Fate Stay Night being the main thing. Fate itself is really big since there are so many spinoffs and other universes.

FGO is a lot of things. There are some really great stories and there are also a lot of problems with it as well. 

Grail wars happen mostly in Fate Zero, Fate Stay Night, and Fate Apocrypha and other spinoffs like Fate/Redline, etc... Grail wars are basically where 7 mages using servants from 7 different classes, saber, archer, lancer, rider, caster, assassin, and berserker (15 in fate apocrypha). And duke it out with each other, so its like a battle royale type of thing. The Grail is portrayed as a wish granting device which is why its so sought after.

In FGO there are more added classes like mooncancer, Beast class (non playable), alter ego, ruler, avenger, and foreigner.

I like fgo because the main story is really good (especially lostbelts) and the characterization of heroic spirits CAN be really well done (example: Salieri, whose existence is screwed up due to people remembering him for the wrong reasons, such as being the one who killed mozart when that was false. Since thats the main thing he was remembered for, when you summon him he turns out to be this avenger with an identity crisis. He is the only salieri, however the real one cannot be found. He takes on the identity of salieri but in some lines, does not call himself that. Its super interesting to see how the way people remember you changes your character. Even Napoleon, who was terrible, if you summon him as an archer, he’s an ideal. He is napoleon but the version people admired him for not remember him for, therefore archer napoleon is actually cool. But if you summon his rider version, he’s actually more similar to how Napoleon was like in real life.)

Not to mention, its really cool seeing how historical/fictional characters get adapted and designed. Sometimes its awesome and other times its like.... real bad and sexualized and its gross!

While I love FGO, I am aware of it’s problems and how it can create problematic characters. FGO is big, meaning that there are multiple writers and some singularities are written bad, and theres one thats notorious for that. But some like camelot and babylonia are well written and well loved within the community.

Fate is also kinda funny because you would never imagine a scenario of Medea being a garbage kit collector or Alexander the Great being a gamer. That Edison is a Literal Furry (tm) and his spandex suit is like the collective of all of the presidents or something like that. Bartholomew Roberts has an obsession with eye covered hair. 

The stories can get pretty heart wrenching and so so good, and makes you wonder about morals, who’s wrong or right, do you really have the right to do this?, etc...

You play FGO for its characters and the story, you should NOT play it for the gacha. The gacha has a 1% droprate for an SSR with a 0.08% SSR rateup (in japan server, for north america server its 0.07%). The gacha is cruel and theres no pity system. But like I said, you don’t play it for the gacha, and the great thing about FGO is that you can clear really hard chapters with low rarity units. 1-3 star budget teams works!!! 1-3 star units are AWESOME and should not be overlooked just because of the rarity. 

FGO is really nice in building up characters, theres a lot of voicelines, and most have their own interlude/rank up quest that goes more in depth of the character. Theres also bond craft essences and valentines day gifts as well that show you more of their vulnerability. Theres a lot you get to work with and its really nice compared to other gachas where they don’t give you much individual content. 

I’m rambling a lot but FGO is pretty fun, I’ve been playing it for 3 years both JP and NA server, its the only mobile game that I’ve stuck for that long really. And to clarify, I am aware about the problems of FGO, trust me, but that shouldn’t stop you from enjoying the other GOOD elements FGO has to offer. 

Hopefully I was able to clarify it well enough?

[makku-ruko]

Warning Spoilers? I mean some spoilers.

Sooooo lemme give my thoughts on Kuroshitsuji and the ever loved yaoi fanbase.

Let’s start with interpretation. I read somewhere in another’s response that Sebastian and Ciel’s relationship somewhat surpasses master and butler but not in any conventional way whether it be: familial, friendship, romantic, etc. They appear to have an understanding that more connects their inner beings than anything else. I’ve seen it in some of the moments where they’re simply conversing (e.g. Book of Circus last episode on the train).

Ciel is ruthless, cynical, prideful and is very good with strategy. He is a good leader but not inherently on the side of good. He’s a boy that’d already given in to the dark side the moment he made the contract. At such a young age, governing who lives and dies by order of the Queen. He appears to be neutral and his moral scales seem to always be wobbling. That said, he still has his innocence, childishness and a dormant wish for ‘things to be better’. He lies without really thinking and surely feels guilt and regret despite saying he won’t and forcing himself not to. He’s brash, forever moving forward and conditioning himself not to look back if necessary. Very intelligent and rather self aware. The things he tends to deny are only conventional positives e.g. caring for people or generally being a nice person (unless he has guests.)

Sebastian has no limits. Instead, he gives himself limits to fit his job. Not short of perfection, he’s long suffering and has next to immaculate endurance. A brilliant performer and employee yet we don’t know much about his emotions. If anything, Claude appeared to be the perfect example of what a demon was supposed to be. Perhaps Sebastian is like that without the smoke and mirrors.

Now the both of them seem to bond over sin. Ciel being so accepting of his own flaws as a human and being so aware of what makes one; I feel like Sebastian really admires that about him. He who has no morals, who kills with no remorse and sees things generally through black vision. Both him and Ciel are in the darkness, eradicating smudges from Her Majesty’s ‘great vision’.

Towards the end of season 1, when Ciel flinched and decided not to take his revenge right then and there, when he’d begun making excuses and trying to run from it, Sebastian had lost the glint in his eye. Disappointed. It was probably rather anticlimactic, like seeing a dessert you’d longed for grow too watery. Ciel, being prideful, found his way back to being himself eventually after realising the main goal that he’d lost sight of and understood that his soul in that condition, wavering like that had become unappetising.

Revenge is the fire that keeps Ciel’s soul as delectable as it is; What lead him to the path he now walks that he can’t return from. As such, all his other ‘sins’ can fall neatly around him as he can pick whichever card he pleases to help him move forward. This is the aesthetic that keeps Sebastian tied to his hip— the perfect meal for a perfectionist.

Okay so I’ve rambled on a bit. Now onto the yaoi aspect. A lot of the ways in which I’ve seen people portray the relationship becoming a thing is Ciel letting out his weakness and or exposing his feelings somewhat. As much as it probably works, to me, the thing I keep saying when I see it is “Ciel would n o t let that happen”. Exposing his feelings?? HAH as if. I know he cares about Elizabeth a lot and plans to marry her out of duty (but also out of his own feelings too). That is the canon part of it. Thing is, this boy is so damn hard to read.

Before y’all start yelling, I’m not into the pedophilic 10000 something year old demon ending up with a 12 year old. That’s a no.

I like watching the relationship between him and Sebastian develop. Whatever it is, it’s a bond of some sort and if I’m honest, I see it. Some slight hints and the attachment. In another universe it could happen (just not in a conventional way). The way sometimes Sebastian is so careful and delicate when handling or holding him. I don’t see a father or brother, I see a caretaker or a tutor. But even so, I still don’t see that. Some scenes look like it’s almost past that?? It’s hard to explain but it’s never conventional. The typical ‘oooh~ blushy blushy I have feelings’ or tsundere ‘nooo! Don’t touch me you idiot!’.

It’s just. I can’t put my finger on it. But if I had to see it happening, I would imagine that they’d continue their business/teasing/friendship up until a point where it becomes possible. Whatever deeper bond is kept underneath a bunch of leaves until Winter comes and reveals everything. What I mean is: Ciel will grow up. If he doesn’t go through with the contract, he’ll grow up and whatever was dormant will start coming through. Needs or rather what he didn’t know he needed (don’t think of it like that -.-) will start coming through. And Sebastian is literally riiiight next to him. The comfort. The go-to. So. Needless to say. In my mind, I feel like the boy will be very confused.

As a duo, they’re adorable. I love seeing them together and it just works. The aesthetic, their ideals, their personalities (I use the word loosely) etc etc.

This was a huuuuge ramble and I didn’t really go anywhere but I guess the easiest thing to conclude all this with is: Yes, I can see them together. No, not right now. When Ciel is older and has his mind opened to other things? Yes. I don’t blame the yaoi fanbase but I don’t condone the pedophilia. No matter what, Ciel is a minor. The demon ending is a different story. But the boy is a boy.

Unless you wanna go into darker and realistic territory, yes it could happen but no I wouldn’t condone it. It would be the ‘it is what it is’ shrug moment bc idfk. Real life is messed up. If it ever went there, I wouldn’t be surprised- things get complicated and Sebastian is a demon. In terms of characters, I don’t think so...unless the ‘needs’ thing comes early (which is a eughhh no) but would I blame anyone for writing it? No. Just don’t romanticise it. It ain’t right.

———

Update: I didn’t really see what was behind the Sebciel ship. Turns out no matter what, it’s still impure and not a good. No no. So I’m all for the platonic thing. Not like I wasn’t before but the aged up thing doesn’t sit right anymore. (Which is unfortunate because there were some good spinoffs).

That said, I still don’t give a shit about the Yaoi fanbase. It’s a whole kettle of fish to get into. Do what you want, I won’t be shocked by anything nor will I condone it. Platonic only is good.

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Holy Hands | Houses With Teeth Update #2

HOLLA guess who’s back for another writing update!

If the title of this update seems unfamiliar--Houses With Teeth, what? who? when? why?--that’s because the last time I talked about this project on here was the first time, back in July! For a refresher, check out THIS very rambly post where I “intro” the project (very minimally as I had no idea what I was doing).

I still don’t know what I’m doing *exactly* but have made a semi-break through with this project and felt inclined to share. The last I spoke about HOUSES WITH TEETH at length was to vaguely describe what the project was. This book for those who don’t want to read the previous post, is the seventh book in my (very ongoing) series, Fostered. This book comes along five years after writing the first book in the series, after a major writing revolution.

I haven’t shared much about this on this blog because I wasn’t sure how to, but I really struggled with this project. HWT comes as the book after Rewired (book 6), which I finished drafting in March-ish of 2019. From then, until two days ago, I had no idea what I was doing with the series--if I could even continue it, and how I would continue it with all the changes my writing evolution presented. I chose to distract myself/keep busy with Moth Work, a spinoff of this series and my current novel, however, HWT sort of nagged in the back of my mind for many months. 

HWT is actually one of the reasons I ended book 6 so hastily! After getting a few ideas for new scenes, I fell in love with the idea of writing my protagonist Reeve in a city by herself, with new people we’d never met before. These rose-coloured glasses worked to my detriment, as the premature idea took over my decision-making process before I could properly understand what I wanted from it. 

After the end of Rewired, I thought everything was all fine and dandy! I had a new novel idea set up, ready to be written whenever I wanted. But something unplanned happened--I didn’t end up returning to the project. This is mostly because my desires for the book--whether to write it as a “real” book, or continue it as a semi-disjointed Fostered book (which isn’t shade to my past books, just the tea loool)--started to conflict. Though I started many openings (about 3k words of first scenes), nothing was sticking. I felt like I was misjudging my main character Reeve and making her more of a caricature than she really was. I feared I forgot who she was, and that her story was ending (scary!). 

This is where I (recently) found the root of the problem. My mischaracterization of Reeve worked against me, as I’d done exactly what I’d feared doing--misjudging who she was. It had been a long time since I’d written with Reeve, a character I’ve written with since I was thirteen, and though I felt I knew her, I also felt like I’d lost her in translation. While I was back home a few weeks ago, I began re-reading a few passages of book six to get a feel for a character, which helped, but didn’t cause any revelations. 

It was only a few days ago, when I helped @sarahkelsiwrites crack the plot of her novel that I felt an itch to try to crack mine as well. I first did this by paging through my (very minimal) notes for the book. This notes document consists basically of only two scene ideas I had that were a few thousand words long. Somehow, re-reading them helped me realize Reeve’s priorities, but most importantly, how much this book focuses on her vulnerabilities. It made me realize the root of her flamboyance toward the end of book six, and where her genuine side resided. 

So this leads to the actual update! 

Let’s first chat setting, y’all. This was a hard call to make, because I’d initially determined Reeve was going to be in NYC at the start of the book. The problem is, I’m *very bad* at writing real places, especially places I don’t personally know well. The thought of having to engage a five character cast (which seems small, but in a big city where they could be doing other things, feels big), and also have to write in this city accurately made the realism of this book too much for me to handle. I’m all for realism! But I wasn’t prepared for the culture shock that was “welp these books used to take place in an unknown unlocated subway station” to “so this book takes place in a real city”. It made too many things too real for me, the time period included (which is another crisis)! Setting this whole book in NYC overwhelmed me and I knew I wouldn’t do it justice. 

The problem is, I’d planned this entire book around NYC. At the start of my initial plan of HWT, Reeve is supposed to live in an apartment above a bakery with two housemates who I’d already sort of gotten to know! I couldn’t just throw all of this away, especially since I’d set Moth Work in a direction toward NYC so everyone could meet up easily. So what did I do? After reading those initial notes I mentioned above, I made it all backstory. ;) And boy! Did this also crack the book open. 

This was the first revelation I had with HWT 2.0. Allowing myself to move the book out of this setting, but still have the important parts got me to ask myself why Reeve would move to a big city with a new identity, and oh, did the pot start stirring ITSELF. I then decided to create a smaller town just outside of NYC where I can run amuck, lol. The town’s name is Wicker (for now) which I don’t dislike, though it hasn’t grown on me. I’m very bad at making up town names, and after many attempts, I settled for a very real word?? Lol.

This post is getting long, so I won’t explain the story unless y’all want to know, but I came to the decision that in this town, our fave soft boi Foster would have a nice house and his ideal cottagecore life, and all would be SWELL. Until!! This leads to our very hasty summary:

After escaping a toxic relationship, twenty-year-old Reeve disappears for the second time in one summer. She’s drawn to Wicker, a mealy town outside New York City, whose disappearances of affluent girls has caught her attention. The day she arrives, a sinkhole buries one of them in the front yard of her new home, a fixer-upper she shares with estranged friend, Foster. Quickly she falls prey to speculation by herself and others, who try to connect her to the tragedy. And even stranger, false recognitions as the girl in the ground, and the many other missing Wicker girls make her feel more and more like one of them--these alluring unknown women. 

(A huge thanks to @sarahkelsiwrites​ for literally cracking this book open for me, and for all the conversations we’ve had regarding this project! Literally this book wouldn’t exist without Sarah!)

Now let’s get into the first thing I wrote for HWT 2.0!

Holy Hands is the prologue of Houses With Teeth, and marks a milestone for the first prologue I’ve written! 

This prologue was a very impromptu thing. I drafted this a few days ago, and immediately felt something I’ve never felt writing any of the other (many) openings I’ve tested for HWT. It felt very right, but most importantly, I felt like I had Reeve back. It’s very possible for your own characters to hide from you (which is how I felt with Reeve), and though it’s taken very many months for her to really reveal herself to me, I’m so happy I’ve waited because I’ve never been so stoked to write her. 

As y’all know, Reeve is a bit of a no-bullshit kinda gal. The last chapter you would’ve seen her in, she was lounging in a motel bathroom drinking margaritas on her own and you know? We love that for her! Except, after that chapter, I couldn't figure out who she wanted to be--the ‘no fucks given’ woman in the bathtub, or the vulnerable, porous person she often was in earlier books. I love no fucks given Reeve, however, I think I got caught up in her no-fucks-givenness that I missed the time she does give fucks (which is! often!). This prologue really opened me up to her, and I feel a closeness to her that I haven’t felt in a long time. 

The prologue itself is rather short. It’s about 1300 words pre-edits, and I wrote it in! one! sitting! A phenomenon! We begin as Reeve is getting out of a taxi to enter her new home, AKA her old pal Foster’s house. She invites herself after a horrific encounter that scares her out of NYC and closer to her old pals (who she’s estranged herself from). Reeve outlines first, the disappearances of these affluent girls, and then fixates on Irene, her future housemate, whom Foster describes as many things that summer. Reeve is semi shook by Irene because she’s startlingly pretty and also startlingly looks like?? her?? (Reeve is just into herself? Who knew?)

Excerpts:

Here are a few excerpts from the prologue that I kinda dig! Here is the first paragraph:

Four girls went missing the summer the ground opened up. I was the unofficial fifth. They were girls I knew, in some iteration at least. Girls who wore their hair down, collars up. Anklets from their football boyfriends, like voguish ball-and-chains, pretty lingerie no one would see for at least another decade. Things I’d never worn, but wanted to wear. They were wealthy girls with the kinds of parents who dressed them in tights and midi-skirts, sent them to boarding schools, paid for piano lessons just to display a trophy. Girls with parents who wanted synthetic children. Girls who lusted over the romance of marriage—the ultimate form of female liberation. Girls who cast spells with each other and chose their friends based on zodiac signs, the amounts of vowels in their names. Girls who kissed each other in secret and stayed missing until they wanted to be found. None of them knew me.

This is a description of Wicker (CW: a bit of a gory descriptor):

That summer was pallid and bitter. Wicker sat in a valley an hour outside of New York City, and rarely caught sunshine. The locals explained it had always been like this—anemic, unexciting. Women came here to raise quieter children, and those quiet children threw stones at each other’s eyes to see who’d go blind first. The first one who did was found floating face-down in the creek behind the church and the women and children left hastily. It worked in waves like this: people coming, people going. Wicker was empty and both full—of the dead, and alive. I’d chosen it for this reason. 

Here’s an excerpt that comes right after the previous (all of these actually make up the first three paragraphs lol, TW: eating disorders):

The cabbie I’d given the last of my savings to took my bag out of his car trunk and walked it up to the house. It was one of the few nice days in Wicker, one of the last while I was there. Sunshine slit my face in two as I watched myself in the cab’s reflection. I reached for my cigarettes and realized too late that I’d left them back at the apartment. That summer, I was the thinnest I’d been. The hollow ache of me more of a victory than a loss. I know why I stopped eating in those first two weeks, why every meal Foster would later serve me in that house felt cryptic, and it had something to do with the body they never fully recovered. I wasn’t hungry when I’d gotten to Wicker; I wasn’t hungry for a long time after.

Some Foster gentleness (I missed him!):

Chickadees chattered in the birdfeeder Foster had set up a week earlier. Though I hadn’t been on the road long, the drive had exhausted me. The midafternoon clouds pilled, hardly overcast, something I’d come to miss when the sun stopped coming. He hadn’t invited me to live with him, but didn’t object when I called to say I’d be coming up. It was the first I’d spoken to anyone who knew me as Reeve and not Evie in half a year. That day, he greeted me from the porch and took my single carry-on from the cabbie with a boyish thank you. It was one of the last times I’d see him wear it—his bashful gentleness, like he always felt the need to apologize even when everything was brilliant. 

Here’s an intro of Irene, where the chapter title comes from:

Irene sat at the kitchen table inside the house. I caught her in glances through the doorway. The first thing I thought was that she’d look better as a blonde. A small thing who held her mug like she was holding a holy object. I’d later be haunted by those hands when I remembered how they looked by the time she was partly pulled up. Foster described her as many things to him over the course of that summer: a housemate, a partner, a friend, sometimes just a person he knew. She was reading something, something French—I could hear her reciting parts of it, at times loudly, like she knew she had an audience, at times at just a whisper, the most personal parts, I later found. I’d translate the line I’d heard most prominently later: Don’t let the house consume you. 

“Cigarettes?” I said to the cab driver as he was nestling back into his car. When he didn’t hear me, I knocked on his window. The sound of it made Irene’s head bob to attention, though only for a moment. “Cigarettes?” I mimed smoking one when he only blinked at me. We spoke minimally on the drive up, though I learned more about him just by looking. Two daughters, their pictures pasted neatly on the dash. Candy coloured flyers for take-out restaurants jittering against the AC’s shutter. In all that time, I hadn’t learned his name.

When he rolled up the window, I had to jump back so my nose didn’t get clipped. The sun shifted through the glass in wisps, like cobwebs, and my face disintegrating from the surface of the glass was the last thing I saw before he zipped away.

I was surprised to see Irene standing on the porch next to Foster when I looked up. My cheeks warmed. The cabbie’s drive-off had embarrassed me, and I realized how I looked to her, a woman I didn’t know, that I already wanted to know. A bit pathetic. Frazzled. A city person who couldn’t navigate a city. A weak woman—already needing a fix on her first day of a new life.

“I’m quitting,” I said, even though she hadn’t said anything. In the sunshine, she was prettier than I wanted her to be. Her hair hip-length, a length I’d always been too impatient to achieve. Wearing a camisole and a midi-skirt. Pearls in her ears, like the others wore. In New York City, she would’ve been plain to me. The kind of girl I would’ve marked up with a pen in a magazine. Outlining her hips as to say they weren’t good enough, squiggling over her eyebrows because her face was too pretty for a body so average. It wasn’t long after she was gone that I became mistaken for her.

And here’s a bit from the very end of the chapter:

The ground opened like a cracked egg, so slow at first, I didn’t notice. Some say she pushed me. Others say it was the other way around. It melted under us, and one minute I was thinking about how embarrassing I was, how crude it was to still be addicted to cigarettes, and the next, there was a belly in the ground and Irene was somewhere in it. Her dark hair wisping around her, like a tornado. How I thought she’d look better as a blonde. Holy hands, camisole, midi-skirt, pearls in her ears. This was all I’d ever know of Irene. A body was found the summer the ground opened up. I still don’t know exactly who she was.

So that’s it for now y’all! Obviously lots of stuff is subject to change, but I’m finally feeling confident with this path (if I scrap all of this you will know lol)! I’m very excited for this book, and hope to take some more notes on it soon to see where it will go. For now, I’ve got an idea for the first chapter I can play around with, but I hope y’all enjoyed this little piece so far!

--Rachel

[chubbyooo]

A Recipe for Disaster:  A Blurred Lines Spinoff Chapter 4 - Quiet Contemplation

Hi guys don’t worry I didn’t forget about this I just needed the right inspiration, so here we go with a new perspective :D

Cipher Nine contemplates the mission ahed

Bolen turned the datapad off as a smile crept over his face, well well maybe Commander Ash had more to her than it seemed. He didn’t know if he should lord this over her it could be quite beneficial to the chiss to gain such information but still not until after the mission, Commander Ash was definitely still an asset to the upcoming mission. 

They would have to strike quickly while the iron was hot otherwise the eternal empire could gain the advantage, Bolen had been a part of many wars both in the shadows and the open but he knew such concepts were arbitrary when compared to the goals of the more intelligent

Still he always seemed to be wrapped up in combat, such was the way of his position within the empire. It had given him much acclaim but he still longed for what he was truly after, this fickle empire had never understood that but Nox... Nox had seen things differently. She wasn’t exactly a paragon of rational thought but her goals were just even if her methods tended to be rather unsavoury, every other sith he had met had pushed him around but Nox had respected his opinion and allowed him to rise above his station. This had rather left him obligated to help however which was of great annoyance to him as it held a great risk for a tactical advantage. Still it seemed like the best idea, they were strongly lacking information though and that could turn the tide of this war before it even began.

Bolen took a few more minutes to contemplate the best scenario and the worst, he must be prepared for both of course. Soon however he left his chambers, he had written a letter unless he didn’t come back a long time ago and made a few edits for the current mission before leaving. He may not understand why but these people would miss him when he was gone so offer them that little comfort. He made his way to the cockpit where Ensign Temple sat plotting the route to where they would meet Commander Ash.

She turned to him with a smile “hey Cipher we’re all ready to go are you prepared for the mission” Bolen nodded he felt a blush come over him as Temple smiled at him 

he answered “yes everything is prepared this mission should last a couple of days and I will be back shortly” Temple nodded pausing for a second

she raised her eyebrow a him “can I say goodbye properly first” she stood up putting her hands on his shoulders

Bolen held his head blushing “uh yes it’s fine at the moment we don’t need to be so formal” Temple nodded leaning in for a peck on the cheek

Temple smiled at him “you and your silly rules” Bolen conceded his insistence to keep personal and professional work seperate may be a little over the line but he just worked better that way

he chuckled awkwardly “yes well I’m not the only one you know that” Temple gave a guilty nod, they were both a little obsessed with protocol so harbouring a relationship had been difficult.

Still it was better than Kaliyo and her long string of men that got on their secret agent ship, Bolen had told her to stop so many times but she was uncontrollable Bolen guessed he should have expected that from an anarchist.

Bolen squeezed her arm “I will miss you, but I should come back after all the data seems probable” Temple nodded touching her forehead to his

she sighed “I know Bo I just worry about you” Bolen was still so unfamiliar with this idea of missing people but he had to admit he didn’t mind the attachment

Bolen held her hand “I’ll make sure to be 80% more careful, just for you” Temple smiled rapping him into a hug, his arms stretched awkwardly out behind her he had never quite been a huger but Temple insisted on it.

He left the cockpit and was met by the anarchist leaning against the wall “go blow something up in my name ok” she said with a smile, Kaliyo was still a little bitter from the whole getting arrested thing but she was starting to forgive him.

Bolen gave her a nod and continued to back to his quarters but before he could the droid SCORPIO stood in his way “where are you going?” she said coldly, Bolen wasn’t someone who scared easily but he had to admit SCORPIO scared him. 

She was however very advantageous so it became a give and take, Bolen quickly responded “I am on my way to the new discovered planet of Zakuul” SCORPIO looked at him intently

she almost seemed to smile as she held out her hand “My databanks are vaguely familiar with the planet this may help you corrupt some of their systems” she held out a pristine datacard which Bolen swiftly took.

He wasn’t so sure if he should use it but for now he’d just keep it as a last resort “thanks... what does it do?” SCORPIO looked him in the eye

“I’m not exactly sure it should disable their systems but I would need a clearer understanding of their tech to involve myself in a more direct way” Bolen nodded not quite understanding but hoping SCORPIO would be on their side this time

Ash led Bolen onto the Chiss ship where he could see the rest of the team was waiting, he smiled being on one of these ships felt like home.

Ash walked over to the holoterminal “alright we’re all here so lets go through the plan, we will pose as a chiss supply ship to get past the Zakulian defences” Bolen looked at the other two, a jedi master and a two bit smuggler certainly not his ideal crew but it’d do. 

the togruta spoke “now I will mask mine and Gacen’s brainwaves to avoid detection by any force users that could be looking for us” Bolen had always enjoyed that natural advantage over the force, it’d always seemed such a annoying concept.

the zabrak dressed in a ridiculous outfit spoke next “I will pilot the ship and use my slick charm to get onto Zakuul and land the ship, don’t worry I’ve played this gambit hundreds of times” Bolen had to say he doubted the success rate

Bolen cocked his head “and what is the success rate on this ‘gambit’” the zabrak held his chin thinking for a few seconds

he smiled “about 50/50 but it'll be fine” Bolen sighed that did not fill him with confidence

Ash interrupted before tensions rose “once there Kavaraa will head to Arcanns trophy room while me and Cipher nine disable the power grid” Bolen nodded that seemed like the right call

the zabrak frowned but didn’t speak up, Ash continued “if all goes to plan Nox should be freed before the alarms go off and then we may have to fight our way out” Bolen didn’t like that idea he was usually surrounded by sith and this time it was one jedi, morality was not tactically helpful.

But the plan was agreeable as they had to be fast about it “very well this seems ideal given the time constraints I’ll make myself at home Commander Shen” Bolen saw Ash get visibly angry at him as he left the main room.

He smiled it was very easy to get inside the head of these people, after this was all over he would have some valuable leverage over all of them.

Soon he made his way to the cockpit where the smuggler sat feet up on the console “I trust you won’t be doing that during the mission” he span around to face Bolen with a rather cocky expression

he chuckled “maybe I will maybe I won’t who knows I kinda like it that way bit of chaos ya know” Bolen raised his eyebrow at the zabrak

he folded his arms “you know people can see through this facade? I mean I can tell you’re pretending” the zabrak frowned at him his expression turning serious

Gacen put his feet on the ground “I’m not pretending for others dude, do you know people can see you’re a massive tool” Bolen narrowed his eyes at the smuggler maybe there was a little more to this.

Bolen sat down in the co-pilots seat “why are you here you don’t seem like you’re short of money?” the zabrak frowned at him again

but a smile quickly returned “I owe Ash a favour and here I am repaying it” Bolen shook his head he knew that wasn’t accurate

Bolen raised his eyebrow “no no from my records you have said that you’re even on all favours unless I’m mistaken” the zabraks anger shone through now “which I’m not” Bolen kept an extensive record of his enemies

he sat up “how do you know that?” Bolen couldn’t help but let out a chuckle

he smiled “It’s my job to know things Gacen Zandar” the zabrak had begun to look uncomfortable now

he tried his best to deflect “well why are you here I could ask you the same?” Bolen smiled that was easy

“upon many occasions Darth Nox has provided support and stability for the empire as a tactician and as a friend it seemed obvious I had to help” Bolen watched as he reacted to the comment wincing at the mention of Nox. Bolen smiled continuing to press “ah I see this is to do with her?” the zabrak looked beyond uncomfortable now he should dial it back to avoid tensions during the mission. “don’t worry Gacen, it’s my job to keep secrets I won’t tell” the zabrak still hadn’t said a word just sitting there looking trapped.

Gacen frowned at him looking up after a long silence “you thrive on this don’t you?” Bolen frowned at him maybe a little “you love holding power over people?” Bolen had to admit it was helpful to have information. the zabrak continued “well it’s a shame you’re not the only one who knows about secret channels?” Bolen’s eyes went wide what? how could the smuggler?

Bolen shook his head “you don’t know what you’re talking about!” Gacen’s smile and cocky attitude returned now

he chuckled “oh I do the underworld can tell you a great many things, things you’d probably want to keep from the empire and also probably from Nox” Bolen was furious if the bounty hunter had anything to do with this he would be furious

Bolen stood up fists clenched “you tell anyone and I will personally see th-” Gacen interrupted him putting a finger to Bolen’s lips

he leaned in uncomfortably close and whispered “you keep my secret I’ll keep yours, besides anything that hurts the empire is fine by me” he leant in and kissed his cheek then Gacen walked away leaving Bolen in the cockpit stunned, what had he missed? how had he found out about his other mission? the smuggler of all people? he had to get to the bottom of this...