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bisonaari · 4 months ago

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Käärijä Summer Camp report

I don't really come here anymore and I don't think I'll be back anytime soon, but I still wanted to make a post about this! It's probably gonna be pretty long hahaha

Last time I travelled with my husband, but this time with the amount of things to do and people to meet, he preferred staying at home and took care of our little balcony garden <3 Thanks to him we now have a full ass jungle on our balcony lol

My flights were really uneventful. My first flight to europe was so empty that I had a full row to myself so I could have some good sleep time (albeit a bit uncomfy lol, plane seats are so hard), but that was it.

When I got to Helsinki, I was welcomed by a bunch of GOOFS omg

@mitamicah @j-restlessgeek @teal-skull @katinkulta @clovermoonspell and her friend from Norway were all there, Micah and Susanna arriving a bit earlier than me. We all went to the place I was going to share with Missy, Susanna and @kaarijalist for the next two days.

Those people. Are the best. I fucking love them so much you have no idea. Everyone I'll tag in this post is an absolute cutie that I love but I'LL SAY IT EVERYTIME Skull gave me my birthday present in advance and I just BWAAAAAHH that was so sweet ;A; It was a Jukka autograph that they got for me back in Böle (now framed in my living room ehehehe) and a custom bracelet for me, inspired by my kääryle tattoo ;A; I loved it so ridiculously much it was ADORABLE

I learnt later that day that I wouldn't be able to meet @likearainbowinthedark until much later in my trip and it was a bit sad, I really missed them ;A; Friendship at first sight during february, and now I have to wait MORE to see their face again??? UNFAIR!! And also I had made little crochet frogs for them and their wife ohoho I couldn't wait to give them to their new owners <3

We also met with @formulalakana and @carpblu at a cafe during the afternoon! I was a bit burnt out by the whole you know… flying 12 hours thingie, so I ended up going back to our place but it was still lovely meeting with them they are amazing people!!

The day after that was the actual Summer Camp meet up day!! We all met at the mural together with many people already tagged here, but also @jaarijani @smimon @icbimakb and @tuherrus !! I can't believe that we just started to talk on tumblr and we were all there???? In person??? In front of that stupid Käärijä mural, exchanging bracelets and laughing together? That was just amazing

After a group picture, it was raining too much to have a proper picnic, so we went to the Tikkurila library to actually have some time to hangout and share snacks and gifts from our countries, and draw on each other's clothes and notebooks hahaha. A really, really lovely time with everyone, I'm so happy it went so well. On one side of the room was the Summer Camp flag that Skull had made, and to me it was perfect.

I also was sitting next to icbimakb and I had some time to nerd out to them because they're my fav artist of all time and they let me look at their sketchbook and it was an honor and I don't think that my eyes will ever recover from looking at so much beautiful art. @shirtlessradfahrer arrived at about that time as well.

A bit later we were joined by @follivora @wednesdayday @king-krisu and @khihi !! They didn't stay long but it was fun to finally meet after seeing them on tumblr for such a long time !! Some of us went to queuing, the rest of us stayed to clean up and we went to the venue a bit later <3

The Backas gig was one of the greatest moments of my life. Seriously. Everything went SO WELL??? Missy, Susanna and I headed out to the vip area for the pre show meal, and the food was amazing seriously. I wish I could have eaten about 3000 more of those fucking potatoes they were INCREDIBLE. We were looking at people running for barricade with tenderness hahaha, like "Look at our children <3 So much energy". Then suddenly, Missy spotted him. The Häärijä. Chatting to people next to the merch booth. She had to stop eating immediately because she had gifts to give him, and there might not be any other occasion to do so. I also handed her the fanzines because I'm a bit too shy and I don't have anything to say to Häärijä hahaha.

Part of my Backas report in a previous post ! I'll just focus on the untold parts here

At the venue it was time to meet @hyviihommi and @omppupiiras and also @blatantlyhidden and @because-its-eurovision !!! And wait also @tmrwds and @taidotonheiluja and some more people that I don't know the url of but I know are fellow tumblr users!!

I can't say how much I loved this gig. Hugo was really great, he looks so much like jere when he was younger hahaha. Käärijä was in SUCH a great mood, he was smiling so much and having the time of his life being on stage that day I don't think I'll ever recover. It felt so good being there and having an artist in front of us who was having a blast. I was dancing with Skull and Missy (my immediate neighbours hahaha), looking at Micah and Carpblu having a blast in front of us, enjoying the music that I had been listening for more than a year now with other people who also loved the same music. It was such an experience I will never forget this. We also got Paidaton riehuja!! I did remove my shirt hahaha. If I wasn't wearing a mesh shirt and a bra I would have gone full tits out hahaha, but it was too much of a hassle. But it was SO FUN being able to take part in this!!!

I don't usually listen to It's Crazy It's Party, but live?? It's seriously top 10 of the greatest moments of my life. Seeing everyone around me going fucking insane was incredible and I wish I could go back to those moments.

After the show, we stayed around a bit to chat more. We took another group picture, who is absolutely perfect and I will cherish forever.

Our little group went back to our appartment by taxi and we missed the occasion to say taksit on jo pihalla I'm very disappointed smh

We were already losing our minds because of how well the meetup and the gig went and everyone getting to see their blorbos and have pictures and chats with them, when Missy looked at her phone and SCREAMED because Häärijä had made a story with the fanzine holy shit. You don't know how fucking proud I was. I think I looked at it for 5 hours straight hahaha. He doesn't know how a video that probably took him 5 minutes to film and post made every artist's day it was INCREDIBLE.

(this is a terrible selfie but whatever HAHAHA)

On thursday, it was matching tattoos time!! I am now the proud owner of a pineapple tattoo, matching with Missy, Jay, Cass and Micah. I am ridiculously happy to have it. I feel like we really are a weird family and I found my people. I love it so, so much.

Got to meet with @pianist-chan that day as well!! We all had a lovely picnic together as a group in a park, then one song at a karaoke bar! Micah and I didn't vibe with the bar so after a huge peak of anxiety we all decided to leave hahaha. It was lovely hanging out with everyone anyway so whatever hahaha.

Friday was the Allas gig!! I met up with the gang in the morning to go eat breakfast together, and we ended up getting @hika-chachachan at the same time after we both discovered that we're not the only french fan here HAHAHA. Sorry for everyone with us, we spoke in french most of the meal time because it was fun not having to speak in english for a short time hahaha. Later that day, we took a picture making the JUL sign, the only correct pose for cringe french people uWu

Then I went back to my hostel for a nice nap, got some food with Kat and then finally joined the queue one hour before doors. (I got to see @izpira-se-zlato and @n3ongold3n there! And also I could hug Bec again 💚) We got a pretty nice spot so I'm not disappointed! Although this time Jukka didn't notice me but it's fine I can't win everytime hahaha. The gig was also a lot of fun, nothing much to say here! I didn't realize at that time that it was my last time of this trip seeing Elsa, and I only fully realized it after she left :' ( I would have hugged you a lot harder hahaha

Saturday, Benjamin Peltonen and Erika Vikman gig with the kcord gang!! Before that I went to eat lunch with Cass!! It was sad saying bye, but I really had a fun time with them ;A; <3

I was super late for the gig and arrived after doors because that one guy in my hostel didn't realize that THERE IS ONLY ONE TUMBLE DRYER FOR THE ENTIRE HOSTEL DON'T LEAVE YOUR CLOTHES HERE AFTER THEY'RE DONE. URGH. He told me he just went to take a shower because it was taking too long WATCH YOUR GODDAMN CLOTHES MY DUDE I was so annoyed hahaha

Another session of meeting up with new people! This time I got to chat with @labda-kesho @beesgobzzzing and @dragon0blood and some more people I don't know the url of!! Anyway we had a great time! Benjamin looks like an angel, and Erika is…… you know how Erika is I don't need to tell yall HAHAHA. Everything would have been perfect without the extremely drunk girls around us spilling their drinks everywhere and literally falling on people. They had to be escorted out during Erika's part because they were way too annoying for everyone.

On sunday I FINALLY MET WITH EKO YIPPIE IT WAS TIME. I went to visit them in Espoo and ended up staying chatting with them for like 5 hours big oops hahaha we get along so well it felt like 10 minutes ;A; It was also my first time taking the bus by myself in Finland like a big girl!!! For the tram Elsa helped me so I could take it alone after she showed me how to, but the bus to another city?? That was a first one my mother is very proud

Monday, I went to Suomenlinna! When I lived in France 20 years ago, I lived right next to the ocean in a coastal city. Then we moved inland in Canada and you don't know how much I miss the ocean every single day. It's the #1 thing I miss about living in France, so I HAD to go to Suomenlinna. First of all, being on a boat again was so great, I really had missed that. It reminded me of the ferries I used to go on to travelfrom my dad's place to my grandma's place. Great times hahaha. Then I just wandered around for three hours, minding my own business and avoiding people hahaha. I sat next to the sea listening to the waves for hours. And it was the BEST. I think it cured me of 28 mental illnesses I didn't know I had.

On tuesday, I met with Eko once again but in Helsinki this time! We went to get tea together and chatted for another couple of hours HAHAHA. Teemaa in Helsinki is a lovely tea shop and you should definitely go!! I also went to the Skywheel on my way back I just HAD to yknow, Käärijä tourism

After I got back to the hostel, it was packing time to leave Helsinki for other horizons.

PART 2: OUTSIDE OF THE CIRCLE

My next stop was Oulu! So I headed out to the train station on wednesday morning to go on a 6 hours journey hahaha. At least it was a direct train, and the guy next to me was only here from Tampere to Seinäjoki, so I still had quite a lot of space for myself.

Once in Oulu, I was staying with @theplantbish and her partner. I cannot say how much I love her. There are not enough words to express this. The other people I immediately fell in love with I had already met them prior, so no surprises here! (Yall know who you are hahaha) But it was our first time meeting and it was like we already knew each other from 25 years ago. We went from total strangers to great friends in about 5 seconds, and then it took two days to have heartfelt late night conversations crying in each other's arms lol. Anyway this whole paragraph is a love letter to Plant you are amazing and I love you. I can't believe that in two weeks we got to talking on a daily basis hahaha.

Anyway, we also met with @gaysontoast because we went to pick them at the airport and WOW what a tornado of bubbliness <3 They were absolutely wonderful to have as a roommate!! (and they sleep like the dead hahaha)

In the afternoon it was my first time meeting with @submariini and @ravensofskyhold as well! I'm scared that I will run out of available tag spaces like you can only tag 50 people per post lemme count a sec ok we're at 33 still good (but absolutely ridiculous that I got to meet 33 people from tumblr in the same week??? what happened to not meeting strangers from the internet lol) but anyway all lovely people!!

The day after, it was finally time for Suomipop!! In the morning we went to pick @punanenmarli from the train station! Plant and her got back to Plant's place walking hand in hand and it was the fucking cutest shit I had ever seen ;A;

We then met at suomipop for Bess! HOLY SHIT IS THAT WOMAN GORGEOUS??? HOW DARE SHE??? WHEN SHE EMPTIED THE WATER BOTTLE ON HER HEAD I JUST

anyway I was completely normal about this show. Hm. So normal. Even during the french part in Lähtee käsistä. So. Normal.

The others wanted to go see Kuumaa during the evening and I would have loved to as well, but it was raining, I was drenched and cold and miserable and instead just headed back to Plant's place where I was soooo normal about Bess.

On friday, it was my birthday, yippie!!! The clowns from kcord (NOT PEJORATIVE IT'S THEIR NAME OK) got me a card that they all signed and I loved it so much a a a a a a ;A;

We wanted front row for the Käärijä gig later in the evening, so we were there at doors and immediately went front row, which meant that we also got to listen to Viivi and Yö ! Tbh, I really liked Yö, I understand why they're a legendary band hahaha.

However, between the two shows, Plant came back to our group and told me that Jukka. Sorsa. Was. Hanging out. In the VIP section. Which we didn't have access to lol. So we ended up just watching him from afar, when I noticed that he and his friends were leaving the VIP section and crossing the festival area. I told it to Plant who asked me if I wanted to go see him but I was like naaaah I'm shy. So she asked if I wanted her to come with me and I immediately said yes HAHAHA. We went over his little group and when we arrived at about 10 feet from him we waved, and he immediately came to us to have a chat WHAT A MAN I LOVE HIM. I was so fucking awkward (leading to this great interaction… me: "I just wanted to say hi!" Jukka: "well… hi" AAAAAAA IT WAS SO AWKWARD LOL). He noticed the earrings I made out of the guitar plecs he gave me and reached for them sir excuse me do you want me dead hahaha. I didn't say much after that but we still got a picture together that Plant took for me ILYSM

I met with Kat, Lou and their friend just before the Käärijä show and it was amazing as usual. This man knows how to perform hahaha. WE ALSO HAD THIS WEIRD MID-SPEECH SHIT TALK??? JERE WH A T???

After Käärijä, we headed up towards the other stage to Kaija Koo. I was on my phone for I don't remember what, and Plant poked me to tell me "are you on your phone? how often in your life are you gonna see Kaija Koo live??" and she was so fucking right omg. I put my phone back in my pocket and it was absolutely great, got to hold hands with Plant while dancing, seriously amazing. One of my best birthdays ever if not THE best.

We had a meal at Hesburger after everything hahaha (I LOVE EVERYONE IN THIS HESBURGER), and in the not quite night of Oulu, to me everything felt so, so right.

Saturday, I got to see Kat and Lou again for souvenir shopping! I GOT THE FUCKING BEST MAGNET IT SAYS PASKA MAGNEETTI AND I'M FUCKING CRYING NO ONE AT HOME WILL GET THE REFERENCE BUT I DO AND THAT'S WHAT MATTERS LOL

I said bye to Kat after that but it's so ridiculous we live in the same country LOL I should visit Toronto at some point

At Suomipop, we got to see first Portion Boys and they were so full of energy what a show!!! Nothing can stop them, not the heat, not the wheelchair, NOTHING.

Smitten, Omega and I got to dip our feet in the water at the suomipop beach and it was so needed the sun was HOT that day. The fact that we weren't allowed more than our feet in the water was a tragedy though smh

After that, it was time to my beloved ARTTU WISKARI, I got into his stuff just before flying for Finland so I was delighted he was going to be at Suomipop!! Ed came with me to see him what a gentleman lol (seriously tho I really, really appreciate it!!)

Last suomipop show for me was Elastinen! While watching him I could only think that this was the most shark looking man I had ever seen HAHAHA.

After Elastinen, the group went to see Apulanta, while I went back to Plant's appartment to pack my suitcase, sadly.

On sunday, it was time to take the train again. Plant took me to the train station and we ended up crying so much hahaha I was a mess in the train. But if it hurt so much, it's because it was equally fun, and I can't wait to see her again.

I was headed to Tampere, then Turku! Skull escorted me to my Airbnb they're so lovely ;A; We talked together for about 6 hours lol before I had to leave to do some laundry. While my clothes were in the washing machine, we explored the k-market to find some Pirkka merch but it was all gone, so I just got a lovely @windows95man shirt hahaha. COME BACK TO TUMBLR TEEMU YOU BELONG WITH US

The day after I met with Skull again to buy some Posankka merch! Posankka…… my beloved…… the most beautiful pigduck of Finland <3 I got a reflector, in true finnish fashion hahaha. We then headed up to Luostarinmäki, an open air museum on finnish craftsmanship from the past. It was ridiculously interesting and we spent 3 hours where we only got to half of the museum LOL, we're nerds. Too bad…… I'll have to come back to Turku……… so sad

In the evening we watched TRAFIK and some more Powerwolf music videos, what a great evening holy shit

Interestingly enough, on tuesday I met up with… Skull again lol, they joined me in the park in the afternoon, we stayed here for 2 hours until we left to go to a student bar to get a lovely hot chocolate <3 It was absolutely delicious!

Wednesday, last day in Finland. I met up with, you have guessed, Skull again lmao. We headed to Vantaa (because I had a plane to take r i p).

Skull and I then headed to Arttu Wiskari's Allas gig. We were quite lucky as the rain had just stopped (btw Kallo I still have the rain poncho I stole from you lol it's in Canada now sorry).

We had so, so much fun. The gig was just really fun and light hearted, everyone knew the lyrics, and it was the best ending for an amazing trip. Nothing like dancing with your friend on good music!!

I hugged Skull and cried in the train. Familiar scene, lol. Me sobbing in trains in Finland. I love you so much Kallo.

There are no words left in my heart to express how loved I felt during these 17 days. I will be back. I promise. I can't bear to not go back when I left pieces of my soul with dear friends. Take care of them please, I'll be back to put some more of my soul in them. I love you. So very much. You made my life really bright for a short time, and knowing how good it can be to be alive I want to feel this again.

To all of you, who are my soulmates, my siblings, my loved ones, my beloved: thank you.

#käärijä #bison talks #long post #finland #suomi #sorry I'm such a sap hahaha #it took me like three hours to write this post lol

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pandorxxx · 2 years ago

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Possessive ex boyfriend neteyam jealous of y/n moving on but he just HAS to ruin her before her current boyfriend can

Unless you’re willing to risk it…

Neteyam (19) x omatikayan fem reader (18)

[this screenshot of him is just 😩😩😩]

Yeah surprise, here it is. I was just looking at this in my queued and said fuck it, lemme just post it now.

🔞minors do not interact🔞

Warnings: smut, p in v, cursing, kinda sad.

Neteyam was a great warrior, and a promising leader. He cared for his people deeply, and did whatever he could for the betterment of the clan. However, he was a horrible boyfriend. He would let his temptations get the best of him when it came to other girls in the clan. He would lie and cheat on you so many times.

Although he promised never to do it again, he would. It became too much for you to bare, so you broke up with him. He was devastated, but how could he be mad? It was all his fault and he knew it. You two were promised to each other at a young age, as you would be tshahìk and Neteyam would be the next olo’eyktan. It’s a shame that it didn’t work out the way it should’ve.

It killed him to see you moving on, though. You were one of the most sought out women in the clan, and when the males heard the news of you and neteyams breakup, they came flocking at your feet. You found a nice boy, who treats you right. So’uk was a great warrior, and a helping hand to his clan. Neteyam hated that you found a knock off version of him. He knew deep down that you missed the real thing, and he was going to get you back, no matter what it took.

“Not even a scratch, my love.” You look up at So’uk with a light smile. He came to visit you in the healing tent after he got back from the battle. He was currently holding you in his arms, as he smiled down at your glowing face.

“I had to come back in one piece for you, babe.” he chuckles as he pulls you in for a hug, leaning his head into the crook of your neck. You hug him tighter, and shut your eyes. It felt so good to be with someone who treated you like queen. It was such a level up from Neteyam.

“Mmm, you better.” You command as you kiss his chest. you both just stood in the hug for a while, not wanting the moment to end. You were suddenly ripped out of your trance when you heard a nock on the wooden door to the healing tent. You and So’uk pull away, and look in the direction of the door, making your smile drop. It was Neteyam, battered and bruised from the battle that took place.

“Hey, I-I didn’t mean to interrupt, but every other healer is occupied.” He grins nervously as his hand reaches to scratch an imaginary itch on the back of his head. You roll your eyes, and stare up at so’uk. He chuckles at you, and leans down to your ear.

“Be nice, my love.” He whispers to you as he grabs your ass, causing you to smile and push him away. Neteyams lips were pursed, and his eyes were watering watching him touch you like that. So’uk walked past Neteyam, giving him a sarcastic smile before walking out of the tent.

“Ok, come sit down.” You sigh as you turn around to get your supplies. Instead of sitting down, he leaned his head out of the tent to make sure that no one was coming before he closed the makeshift door behind him. The door shutting caught you off guard, as you slowly turned to Neteyam. His chest rising and falling at a rapid rate as he glared at you.

“Neteyam, I do not have time for this. Do you need help or not?” You ask with your hands on your hips, growing irritated with his lack of communication in this moment. He takes a deep breath, and walks over to you. He got so close to you, that you could feel the body heat radiating off his chest. Your breathing hitched as he went to grab your arm.

“Him, y/n? Of all men, you choose him?” He asked, searching for your eye contact as you stare at the ground.

“Neteyam, who I chose to mate with is none of your business.” You explain as you glare at him, backing away from his cold grasp. He clenched his jaw at those words.

“You could do so much better, y/n. You’re so pretty, smart, kind. what are you doing with him?” He asks as he traces your body with his eyes. He walks towards you, and pushes a loose strand of hair behind your ear, leading his hand down to your neck to grip it gently.

You would be lying to yourself if you said you didn’t miss his touch. You shut your eyes tightly as you inhale sharply. He bites his lip at your reaction, reaching his thumb up to lightly brush your lips.

“I know you miss this…You miss me…You miss us. I know you’ll never take me back, I get it. Let me just make love to you one more time before he does. You know he can’t do what I do for you.” He whispers in your ear as he wraps his arm around your waist. You throw your head back at the touch you’d been craving since you ended things. You hated that he had this kind of power over you. You hated that you let him get this close again. You hated that you were about to do the one thing that you left him for.

You look up at him with lidded eyes, and nodded at his request. Immediately after your confirmation, he pinned you to the wall of the tent. He started attacking your neck. He tapped your thigh signaling for you to jump into his arms. You obliged, as you started leaving hickeys on his neck. You bit him, drawing blood, and licked it up with a low moan. He hissed at the sensation, before pulling away from your neck.

“We don’t have much time, so I’ll be quick.” He pants as he puts you down. He pulls his loincloth off, before snatching yours off. He turns you towards the wall and pushes you up against it. He palms his throbbing cock before using the tip to play with your wet cunt. The friction made you both moan in unison.

“I’m gonna fuck you so good, I promise.” he says in your ear before slowly sliding into you. You cry out, missing the feeling of him inside you. He starts to thrust in and out of you slowly, causing your eyes to roll back. He places his hand next to your head that is laying on the wall, giving him more leverage to speed up the pace.

“I’m gonna fucking ruin you right here, right now.” And with that last sentence, he grabs your arms and hold them behind your back harshly. With his free hand, he snakes around to grab your neck from the front.

“Ohhhh my eywa, Neteyammm!!” you whine loudly causing him to slide his hand from your neck to your mouth.

“I know, I know, but you have to be quiet before everyone hears you! unless you’re willing to risk it.” He says through fast breaths as he watched your ass slap against his pelvis, sending him over the edge. He throws his head back in pure bliss, as his eyes shut tightly.

He growls loudly, as he snaps his head back down, latching onto your neck. He bit you hard, causing you to yelp loudly from the pleasure and pain. You start to get teary eyed, as you realized this would be the last time he would make you feel like this. You knew you’d regret this in the morning, but you didn’t care at the moment, you had to get this off of your chest.

“I-I love you, Neteyam!” you moaned as the tears finally fell from your eyes. The words you just spoke made his heart flutter. He wished that he didn’t fuck you over, so he could have this moment forever. His emotions got the best of him, as he started to get teary eyed as well. He leans down to the crook of your neck, and gives you the deepest, slowest stokes he’s ever given you. You both moan loudly at the feeling. You could feel your high coming, as you bit your lip, and shut your eyes.

“I love you too, y/n! I’m sorry for everything. I should’ve treated you better.” He confesses as he speeds up the pace, crying in the crook of your neck. You reach up to hold onto his arm, as more tears fell from your eyes. You were emotional from the pleasure, from the apology, and from the fact that you couldn’t take him back anymore. Your emotions started to send you over the edge, as your eyes rolled back again, and your legs started to shake.

“I’m cumming Neteyam!!!” You scream as he wraps his strong arm around your torso, kissing your cheek. He bites his lip, as he groans in your ear, feeling his high approaching him too.

“Let’s cum together, one last time.” He says breathless as he grabs your hand. He thrusts into you a couple more times before you two cum in sync, filling the room with a pair of moans that would never be heard together again.

“Fuckkk, y/n!” He shouts as he thrusts into you once more, leaving his cock in for a few moments before pulling it out for the last time. You cry out from the emptiness that would stay with you for a life time. He kisses you one last time on the cheek, before turning you around to face him. He palms your cheek with tears in his eyes, as you try to hold yours back with pursed lips. He pulls away, putting his loincloth back on. You watch him, back still against the wall. He walks back over to you, pulling your small hand to his chest. Looking you in the eyes.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t be what you needed, y/n…”

Ok wait, how do you make a smut…SAD??? Like I genuinely don’t even know how it got here. Also, let’s talk about her man told her to be nice, and she took it too damn far…he didn’t say FUCK HIM, he said be nice, girl!!! I get it though ngl. I hope you guys enjoyed. Send more requests 😎😎😎 love y’all!!!

Outtie❤️🖖🏾,

Pandorxx

#avatar #avatar loak #avatar smut #avatar the way of water #loak headcanons #loak x reader #neteyam fanfiction #neteyam headcanons #avatar headcanons #jake smut

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gwydionmisha · 2 months ago

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Personal: Home just in Time to Catch COVID for the first time

Apparently Squirrel's been unwell for three days, were out of tests and forgot to ask me where they were, kept wandering around maskless to chat with me because they missed me and we needed to coordinate on stuff.

I was slightly sneezy right before bed, but attributed it to air quality and being out in it yesterday. Woke up very sick and immediately went to test before contacting Millennials to warn them off, because i do not fuck around. I was trying to get back to sleep when Squirrel came to ask about tests. Mine was likely false negative because the infection was so new.

So yeah. Quarantine here.

I was able to get an appointment very early tomorrow, so that's something. Bad news is, Doctor told me to wait for the booster until after the trip and I was intended to go today. I effectively likely don't have much if any immunity and it feels like someone is sitting on my chest.

I told my Doctor at the beginning of the pandemic that my goal was to try to avoid catching it for two years, which was the initial guestimate for a vaccine. I made it 4 years 7 months. Nearly 8. Two or is it three of my millennials still have never had it. I suppose I should count it a win, but I'm pissed, especially as if I'd ignored Doctor's orders or stayed south a little longer or if squirrel had been more careful when I got home, I'd be okay. My chronic illness and lung stuff are already hugely debilitating. I don't need extra chronic illness on top.

I had planned to put as much time and energy as I could into catching up the stuff I didn't post before leaving, the stuff I missed, and the firehouse of new stuff I queued last night. No clue what I'll be able to do, as I literally never had COVID before.

I beg of you wash your hands. Wear your mask.

#Personal #COVID

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wehangout · 3 months ago

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Another @shamelessdvdcommentary requested by the wonderful @suzy-queued with questions made by the amazing @callivich! This one is for Slick back My Hair (You know the Devil's in There)! These are a lot of fun, so hit me up if you want to see this for a different fic 😘

Give us some stats - (when you wrote it, word count, how long it took to finish, is it a one-shot/multi-chapter, etc)

Wrote it in 2015! It’s a long one-shot, and I think my second ever shameless big bang.

What was the initial inspiration for your story?

Okay. Took me a minute. I knew this was inspired by a one-shot I wrote for GW2015 that has since been taken down, but I also knew the one-shot was inspired by something and it took forever to go back and figure it out. Anyway, the initial one-shot was inspired by the Day 7 theme of “Imagine Your OTP – go to the website http://otpprompts.tumblr.com/ and choose a prompt!”. I don’t recall what the exact prompt was (I think digging a grave together), BUT apparently I still have the one-shot posted here on tumblr if you wanna read it! So, yeah, the Big Bang fic was inspired by this one-shot which was inspired by GW2015. Phew. That was a novel on its own

If the story is written from a character’s POV, why did you choose this character?

Mickey. Because I am me.

What was your favourite scene to write?

I’m not sure, but reading back, I really like the scenes with side characters as assasins. Sheila, Jimmy, and Angela. Fun stuff.

How did you come up with the title?

Ugh. This was back when iTunes was a thing lmao. I basically went through all my music, picking out songs I thought might fit the fic’s plot, then went through the lyrics.

Are there any little moments or references you hope readers will notice?

Two! I had fake IDs with the names John Foley and Axel McClane which is a reference to John McClane and Axel Foley – Die Hard and Beverly Hills Cop respectively. And I also had this line “Two inches to the right and it would’ve hit your fucking heart, Ian.” "Two inches to the left and it would have missed me completely” which was reference to The Mighty Ducks. Only one reader picked up on these lol.

Was there anything you struggled to write? If so, how did you overcome this?

The Terry fight scene. And, honestly, I just pushed through it.

Favourite line in the story?

Okay, the “My hero” continuation, but also, back in 2015, I wrote, word for word, “Knew you’d come.” I mean, it’s Ian saying it, but obvi why it’s a fave lmao

What are you most proud about in the story? (plot, characterisation, dialogue, twist/cliffhanger, etc)

I wouldn’t call them twists, but the little surprises that turn up along the way – Sheila being a badass, the texter being Mandy.

Are there any ‘behind the scenes’ info you’d like to share - e.g. what’s going on in a characters head in a certain scene or how you came to write a certain line?

At the end, where Mickey goes to save Ian. Ian’s “goodbye” is legit. Dude was sure they (at least he) was going to die.

Reading back the story now, is there anything you’d change or add?

It’s very quick. I’d probably add more depth to it. (also the title shh)

Would you ever write a sequel to this story?

I’ve considered it, but one half of the dynamic duo gets taken in this one. What other plot could there be?

Are there any ‘easter eggs’ in your story - e.g. references to other stories you’ve written, a trope you often use etc?

I think I did the big Oh moment in this, along with a few others. I think that’s about it.

If you’ve chosen your most popular story, are you surprised by the popularity?

This is definitely not my most popular, lol, but I appreciate the love it’s received!

Were you nervous or excited to post this story?

Oh, always excited

Did you have a beta or a friend who helped you as you wrote?

I did! Again, this was back in 2015 when my pal Ella @hubrisandwax was still around. We had similar time zones, so we’d Skype and write at night (poetry, bitch), and have our own little sprints. She was my cheerleader and beta!

Anything else you’d like the readers to know about the story?

I know this is an Ian and Mickey romance, but I actually preferred the scenes after Ian was taken. Getting into Mickey’s head when he’ll do literally anything to get Ian back? Including torture and murder his own brother? That shit was fun.

#fic commentary #ian and mickey #my fic #slick back my hair (you know the devil's in there)

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shedoessoshedoes · 5 months ago

Text

Casual

my hand slipped. inspired by this post i made :)

read on ao3

wc:2k

It was past midnight by the time Cassian slipped away to stumble up the stairs to the karaoke stage. No one had sung yet tonight–everyone who usually did was very drunk and it usually took until about then for some brave soul to pour their heart out via an ABBA track to the entire bar. He didn’t mind. He would break the ice. Soon, everyone would want to sing along, too.

He swipes through the tracks, heading immediately past his typical go-tos. Tonight was not a night for “Man! I Feel Like a Woman!” Tonight was a night for–a-ha. He hiccuped as he queued the song and got into position, and wiped angrily at a tear he could feel beginning to form. She would come back, he told himself. She was just scared. And besides, a situationship did not deserve this kind of emotion. Even if it had been with the most beautiful, intelligent, perfect woman he had ever met. Even if he thought that Nesta Archeron loved–he cut himself off.

“No!” he said out loud into the microphone, but before anyone could react, his song was starting, and there was nothing left to do but sing.

At a table in the back corner, Feyre, Elain, Rhys, and Azriel were just realizing that they were missing someone. Rhys kept insisting Cassian probably just went to get more drinks. Feyre didn’t agree.

“You know how he is when he’s drunk, Rhys! What does he do? He doesn’t drink more, I’ll tell you that much. What does he do?”

“He talks about Nesta,” Rhys replied, mumbling into his drink.

“Exactly!” she shot back, hands flying up in the air. “And why are Elain and I here instead of with Nesta and Gwyn and Emerie right now?”

“Because Nesta knew that he would be sad and that you would keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t cry himself to death.”

“And what will she do if she finds out we lost him because we were making out?” Feyre asked.

Rhys sighed. “She’ll chop my dick off and then kill me. But why weren’t you two watching him?” he turns to Elain and Azriel.

Elain squeaked as Azriel’s hand disappeared underneath the table. “We were in the bathroom,” he replied smoothly. “Cassian told us he’d wait right here.”

“Well obviously that was a lie!” Feyre squawked. “Nesta just started trusting me again, and if we lose him–everyone split up! We can all check the bar and if he’s not here then–”

“Feyre,” Elain cut in. “I think I found him.” She nodded up to the stage and Rhys’s mouth dropped open. Cassian appeared to be fighting back tears, and a melancholy introduction began to echo through the bar.

“Oh my God, he’s singing a breakup song,” he yelped and jumped up, pulling Azriel with him. “Come on, Azzy! Someone needs to record this blackmail.”

Azriel turned pleading eyes on the girls, but was dragged away before they could do anything to help.

Elain leaned over so Feyre could hear her over the noise of the surrounding tables. “Do you think it’s odd that Nesta is so worried about Cassian’s feelings that she sent us to take care of him instead of having us stay with her? Or that she needs a girl’s night after a situationship break-up with someone that she claims she has never had any sort of feelings for?”

Feyre shrugged. “I think she still doesn’t trust that I won’t repeat everything she says back to Rhys,” she said, an edge cutting into her voice.

Elain hummed in response, and leaned back in her seat before jerking up abruptly. “Is he–is this Casual?”

“No way.”

“I really think it is.”

“Call Nesta. Now we know for sure he’s in love with her.”

“Is she in love with him?”

“Feyre. Call. Her.”

Sure enough, on stage, Cassian was launching into his first verse. “And you said, sweetheart, no attachment,” he sings, more than a little off-key and with the wrong words. He hiccups. “But we’re knee-deep in the passenger seat, and you’re eating me out, so is it casual now? Huh? Is it? Two weeks and your mom invites me–”

Azriel climbed up on stage and whispered into his ear. “Fuck, Az, no, I’m not going home! I’m singing! If it’s casual, it’s casual now.”

Fully crying, Cassian continued. Rhys’s flash was on now, and he was sure this was the best video he’d ever taken of his brother.

“...maybe we’d have an apartment and you’d show me off to your friends at the pier. I know, baby, no attachment,” Cassian sobbed, and the bar sang along. “But we’re knee deep in the passenger seat…”

At the table, Feyre and Elain had managed to get ahold of Nesta via Emerie and Gwyn. “Listen!” Feyre exclaimed to the three of them. “He is crying on the karaoke stage! Would any man do that for someone he didn’t love?” They can hear murmuring in the background, Nesta talking to her friends, and then a door click shut.

Gwyn comes back towards the speaker of the phone. “I think she’s scared,” she said quietly. “I know she said she didn’t feel anything towards him, but she’s been crying all night. I think he was getting so important to her that she wanted to protect herself.” Emerie voiced her agreement.

“She’s never had anyone to take care of her,” Elain replied. “Everyone who was supposed to didn’t. Just…tell her we love her and that we don’t think Cassian will ever hurt her like our parents did–like Feyre and I have.”

Emerie spoke next. “For what it’s worth, I think she loves him too. We’ll talk to her.”

They said their goodbyes, and turned back towards the stage of the bar, where Azriel was now trying to physically remove Cassian from the stage and Rhys had turned on his phone light to wave back and forth. A few other tables had followed suit.

“It’s hard being casual when my favorite bra is in your dresser, and it’s hard being casual when I’m on the phone talking down your sister,” at this, Cassian knelt down on the stage and put the microphone down, burying his face in his hands. The rest of the bar continued singing for him. Feyre glanced over at Elain, most likely thinking of the time three months ago when Cassian had, in fact, talked Nesta’s sister down as Feyre had spiraled.

The song began its outro and Cassian took a deep breath, gathered himself, and stood back up. “Fucked you in the bathroom when we went to dinner, your parents at the table, you wonder why I’m bitter.” He stopped to visibly gulp back more tears. “I hate that I let this drag on so long, and I hate myself.” Each word was punctuated with a sob. He finished the song and collapsed into Azriel’s arms, burying his face into Az’s neck. Rhys hopped up onstage and the two brothers half-carried Cassian back to the table and the girls. Cassian slumped back in his seat.

“Do you want to go home, Cass?” Feyre asked gently. “Any one of us would be happy to take you.”

He shook his head petulantly. “I’m not going home without Nes.”

Rhys sighed. “Cassian, I don’t think she’s coming tonight.”

“Well, she’s not the love of your life, now is she, Rhysie? I’m telling you, she’s coming to get me as we speak. My song will convince her that I love her and that I’m so sad.” Cassian’s words were slurring together, and with that, he dropped his head to rest on his arms on the table.

The other three looked at each other. “Did you convince her to come?” Azriel whispered. The girls shook their heads.

“We’ll just wait until he’s really asleep and then we’ll get him in an Uber before he can realize he’s going home,” Feyre decided.

Another thirty minutes passed. Rhys got them more drinks. The time inched closer to two. They were about to call it good and drag Cassian home when someone spoke from behind them.

“Please tell me he isn’t dead.” Nesta said, deadpan, as she walked to Cassian’s side, laying cool fingers on the side of his face, as the rest of the table gaped at her.

“Nesta!” Elain greeted her. “I’m so glad you came.”

Cassian was beginning to wake up, and shifted so one eye was open. When he saw Nesta, he got up so fast he fell back down. “Nes!” he said, far too loudly. “You’re here! See, everyone?” He turned to his friends. “She’s here!” He looked back at Nesta, and very seriously took her face in his hands. “Nes, I told them you were coming, even though you tried to break up with me and I was so sad, and no one believed me, but look! You’re here! That is some soulmate shit right there, sweetheart, how else would I have known you were coming? But I was so sad, so I had maybe a little too much to drink.” At this, he tried to show her how much he’d drunk, pinching his fingers together clumsily. “Which I shouldn’t have done because I should have trusted the power of our love. I’m so sorry Nesta, will you please, please forgive me?”

A smile ghosted over Nesta’s face. “We can talk about it later. Do you want to come home?”

“Yes!” he shouted, throwing an arm over her shoulder. “But really, I’m already home, because you’re my home, silly.”

Nesta mouthed a goodbye over her shoulder and began to lead Cassian to the door. “Which is why I was so sad when you said we couldn’t date anymore–”

“To be clear, Cassian, we weren’t dating,” Nesta said, but Cassian waved her off.

“That’s what you thought, sweetheart. But I knew what was really going on!”

“And what was that?”

“You were falling in love with me. But then you got scared. That’s why I was so sad. I don’t want you to be scared about loving me.”

“Do you know you sang a song about how sad you were?”

He nodded solemnly. “I thought it would let you know how serious my love is.”

Nesta laughed. “Well, it certainly did that.”

Cassian gasped then, as though realizing something. “You said we’re going home, Nes. Does that mean you’re asking me to live with you?”

“We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

“Okay,” he responded dreamily. “I’m so happy I don’t have to be mad at you anymore. It was so hard.”

Nesta laughed again, and Cassian smiled so widely his face could have split in half.

She drove them back to her apartment, and Cassian promptly walked over to the bed, flopped down, and fell asleep. Nesta went through her nightly routine quickly before wrestling a half-asleep Cassian into bed and climbing in next to him. He pulled her into his body and mumbled something that Nesta thought was supposed to be an ‘I love you.’ She pushed that familiar wave of fear down.

She’d talked with Gwyn and Emerie for a long time that night, and she’d decided that she was going to take her therapist’s advice and trust that Cassian would be waiting for her when she’d admitted that she’d fallen. Their no-strings-attached arrangement had been all her idea, and she had been terrified earlier that afternoon when she’d tried to break up with him. He’d become so important, and that scared her, but Cassian, she thought, was better than letting the fear get the best of her. She pressed a kiss to his forehead, curled into him, and fell asleep.

Cassian woke up to a pounding headache and flashes of the night before running through his mind. Nesta trying to break up with him, the trip to the bar, singing, Nesta coming to get him, him confessing his love–wait. He pushed up onto an elbow, and sure enough, there was Nesta, asleep beside him. A broken sound pushed itself out of his throat and she opened her eyes as it did.

“Sweetheart,” he said, voice breaking. “You’re here.” He presses kisses to her forehead, her cheeks, down her neck, across her ears, everywhere he can reach. “I love you.”

“I know,” she whispered, face buried into his neck. “You sang a song to the whole bar about how sad you were.”

He groaned, rolling off of her. “I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

She shook her head. “But it did convince me that you really were serious about this. That you weren’t telling me that you wanted to date me just to break up with me”

“I’m more serious than a heart attack, sweetheart.”

“Mmm, then you’ll be glad to hear that I love you, too.”

Cassian smiled, crushing Nesta in a hug and pressing her into the mattress. He kissed her, and they whispered love yous into each other’s mouths, and it was everything either of them could have ever dreamed of.

#nessian #acotar #nesta archeron #cassian #I just needed to make this so here u go I'll format her tomorrow

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hwabyul4wheesun · 2 months ago

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How you met Jeongyeon

Single mom!Jeongyeon x teacher!fem!reader

Synopsis: Y/n was just a simple preschool teacher who just so happened to fall in love with two of her students' mother. Jeongyeon was just a single mother to a pair of twins who fell for her children's teacher.

Type of post: Headcanon

Tags: fluffy, Chaeyoung and Tzuyu are twins, reader is for once not a flustered mess, brief interaction with Lee Minho and mentions of and also brief interaction with Im Nayeon, tons of fanfic cliches

A/n: I'll add the pictures later, cuz I don't want this getting lost in my drafts again :P Also pacing might be confusing sorry XP

---✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦---✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦---

You finished fixing your classroom for the new year, making sure all the chairs were tucked in their desks, each desk had a stack of blank paper, colour pencils and craft sciccors, and that each of your students had a little cubby of their own.

Counting the seats and cubbys one last time while checking your rolecall sheet to make sure you had enough of everything for each student, you took a break sitting by your desk, pulling up your introduction activity for the first day, making sure to memorise the work to explain to your students.

With how you were acting, it's no wonder you were so nervous, it's your first official day as a teacher and your first day meeting all your students for the first time, so nervous was an understatement.

After going over your activity for what seemed to be the fifth time, you heard a knock on the classroom door, getting up you walk over to the door taking deep breathes before opening to meet your first student and their parent.

Smiling you welcome the both of them in, showing the little boy where his desk will be and which cubby is his, you tell him he can go play in the corner quietly while you chat to his mother. Once his mother left, you go and talk to the little boy to get to know him better and get an idea of how he might behave during the year.

While you were chatting with the young boy another knock sounded off the door, excusing yourself from the conversion you got up to open the door and welcome the next student and parent. This went on for some time until the last student and parent you met were a pair of twins and their mother.

Stunned you stared wide eyed at the beautiful woman for what felt like hours until you shook your head and stretched out your hand, "Good morning, I'm miss Han" you smile at the woman and her twins, "Good morning, I'm Yoo Jeongyeon and these are my twins, Yoo Chaeyoung and Yoo Tzuyu" Jeongyeon introduced herself and her girls, pointing to each one as she introduced them.

"Good morning girls" Y/n smiled, "are you excited for your first day?" she asked crouching down to their height, "I promise it's not that bad, we have play time, reading time, nap time, and of course learning time" she explained looking at the girls.

Chaeyoung hid more behind her sister, while Tzuyu stood still observing the classroom and her new teacher, "they're a bit shy, but they should be warming up to you soon, just give them some time please" Jeongyeon stated while, petting Chaeyoung's head.

"Why don't you girls go explore the class? Over there in the corner we have a reading nook if you wanna have some quiet reading time, we have blank paper and colour pencils on the desks for art and crafts and over there closer to my desk I have a movie queued for when we're done with our first activity" Y/n smiled at the girls giving them options on what they wanna do and pointing out where they could put their stuff and where they can play.

Looking around the classroom, Tzuyu took her sister's hand and pulled her over to the cubbys, claiming two that were right next to each other and put her bag and Chaeyoung's bag in the cubby before dragging her over to the reading corner.

"Sorry about her, she always been over protective of Chae" Jeongyeon commented scratching the back of her neck shyly, "oh it's not a problem at all, I mean they're twins aren't they" Y/n giggles, "y-yes" Jeongyeon blushes. The two chat for a bit more before Jeongyeon has to leave for work and Y/n needs to start class, they bid goodbye and go their separate ways.

Jeongyeon did not expect her daughters' teacher to be so cute, as soon as she left and was in the safety of her car, she held the steering wheel tightly while silenting screaming at how cute the young teacher was.

Once her screaming fit was done, Jeongyeon took a deep breathe and started her car and left the school 'I definetly need to find a way to see her again' she thought while driving.

---✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦---✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦---

Days has passed since the two woman have seen each other, the twins would be dropped off at the enterance of the school with Jeongyeon watching them, so there is no need for her to walk them in, and they are often running out the building with the rest of their classmates at the end of the day, so again there's no need for Jeongyeon to go inside the building to get them. There was one day however that the twins weren't collected immediately.

Seeing that the twins were still outside waiting for their mother, Y/n called them back inside, telling them to stay in her classroom, while she went to the office to call their mother. The girls listened to Y/n, and waited in her class, Chaeyoung immediately ran over to her to continue her art project from earlier while Tzuyu went to the reading corner to continue her book from break.

In the office, Y/n was looking through her students files trying to find the Yoo twins' file to call their mother. Pulling out the very last file labeled Yoo, Y/n took it to the phone and dialed Mrs. Yoo's number, waiting for the familiar sound and when all of a sudden she heard a the voicemail response.

Forrowing her brows, she looked at the phone to double check the number, and attempted redialing again, thankfully she got an answer this time, "Yoo Jeongyeon's phone, how may I help you?" the voice on the other side spoke, "oh- good afternoon, this is Miss Han, calling from Hongneung Elementary School, I was just calling to find out when the twins will be picked up as it is getting quite late" Y/n spoke.

"Oh! Give me just one moment" came the response before some shuffling was heard, "hello?" spoke a voice sounding like Mrs. Yoo, "good afternoon Mrs. Yoo, I don't mean to disturb, but school has been out for quite some time now and the girls are still here, when will you be by to pick them up or I could even drop them off for you?" Y/n inquired.

"I'm so so sorry Miss Han, I'll be by to get them in the next 10 maybe 15 minutes, again I'm so sorry" Jeongyeon spoke, "it's no problem at all Mrs. Yoo, just make sure it doesn't happen again" Y/n said with a smile on her face, after saying goodbye, Y/n dropped the phone and put the file back before heading to her classroom.

When she got back to her classroom, Y/n found the girls quietly occupling themselves, "girls please get your stuff together, your mother should be here within 15 minutes" she said walking over to her desk, and started packing away her stuff. Once the girls got their bags back on their backs, Y/n turned off her classroom lights and locked the door, walking with the girls to the front of the school to wait with them.

When they got outside, there was a car waiting for the girls, getting out the car was a well built man, with an apologetic smile on his face, "DADDY!" the twins yelled running over to the man, smiling Y/n walked over, "good afternoon, I'm guessing you're Mr Yoo?", "Mr Yoo? No? I'm Lee Minho, the twins' father" Mr Lee smiled introducing himself with an outstretched hand, taking his hand in shock Y/n introduced herself, "oh- I'm so sorry, I'm Han Y/n their teacher" she gave an apologetic smile, "I thought their mother was coming to pick them up?", "unfortunately Jeong was busy and could not make it, so she called me, but the girls are anyways with me this weekend, so it's okay" smiled Mr Lee.

Stunned by Mr Lee's last statement, Y/n gave yet another apologetic smile, "I see- well I hope you three have an enjoyable weekend" she said, waving at the girls before waving bye at their father and walking to her own car. 'What did he mean by it's his weekend with the girls? Could it be that their not together anymore?' Y/n couldn't shake the thoughts from her head.

---✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦---✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦---

Weeks had passed since , the twins got home late, Y/n still couldn't figure out what their father meant and it had been driving her crazy, not wanting to seem insensitive and nosey, she couldn't ask the twins, until she overheard them talking about sleepovers.

"I don't know if we'll be able to sleepover" Chaeyoung pouted, "why not?" asked Dahyun, "because we're sleeping over at our dad's house this weekend and won't be close to you" Tzuyu said, "but why? Don't your mommy and daddy live together?" Dahyun continued asking, "no they don't, mommy and daddy haven't lived together since we were 4 years old" Tzuyu answered, "mommy said that they didn't get along anymore and would be living seperately" Chaeyoung added.

'So they havent been together for years?' Y/n thought, a small smile creeping on her face before she stopped and continued on with her work, checking the clock every now and then to know when break ends.

At the end of the day, you walked out with your class to their parents, after what happened last time, you chose to wait with your students rather than let them wait alone.

Watching as each of your students run off to their parents brings a smile to your face, smiling you look around seeing the twins still there, you hope it’s not another situation with the girls having to wait for their father or mother again.

Just then you heard a voice call out for the twins, turning you saw a woman that was not their mother, “Chaeyoung! Tzuyu! Cmon girls”, “good afternoon, who might you be?” You tried asking politely to the strange woman, “hmm? Oh! Are you Miss Han?” The woman turned around with a raised eyebrow, “yes I am, who might you be?” Now it was your turn to raise your eyebrow.

“Interesting” the woman mumbled with a smirk, “I’m Im Nayeon, a friend of Jeongyeon, she asked me to get the girls so that they could go to their father” ‘Nayeon’ said reaching her hand out for a handshake with a smile, “oh- I’m so sorry Miss Im, it’s just that their mother didn’t say anything about someone coming to pick them up” you said shaking Nayeon’s hand.

"Nah it's cool, Jeong always forgets to notify people" Nayeon said nonchalantly, "anyways I gotta get these girls to their dad, but here take this" Nayeon started bending to get in the car, handing you a piece of paper before waving goodbye, waving after the car, you walk back to your post to wait with the rest of your students.

Once all your students have left, you walk back to your classroom to lock up for the weekend. Arriving in the classroom, you look at the note in your hand, deciding to put it in your pocket for later, you walk over to your desk and start packing up.

Getting out your car, you walk over to the door walking into your house, taking off your shoes, you start walking through your house, stopping off at the kitchen, you make your way over to the fridge to grab a drink, before digging into your pocket to pull out the strange note Nayeon gave you, unfolding the note, you read it out loud,

'I know Jeongyeon would never approach you on her own, so here's her number, be sure to contact her soon

xxx-xxx-xxxx

~Nayeon'

Feeling your face get warm, you stare at the number before gaining courage and reaching for your phone, typing the number in as fast as you could, double checking for any errors, you hit the call button before you could even think.

Seconds pass, 'drrr' 'drrr' 'drrr' is all you hear until "hello?" Jeongyeon answers sounding groggily, "hello? Who is this?" You hold your breath, "hello? If you don't answer me soon, I'll be hanging up" you hear her sigh, "WAIT-" you blurt out not meaning to shout, softly you say, "please don't hang up" silence, you don't hear anything for what feels like hours, you check your phone to see if she hung up only to see that the call is still going, "Miss Han" you hear a whisper, "yes? Well I'm not teaching right now, so it's actually Y/n" you whisper back, a flush blooming on your face. Silence again, "Miss Yoo? Are you still there?" You had forgone the the missus long ago after meeting the twins' father, and figuring that Jeongyeon was indeed single.

Waking up to her phone vibrating, Jeongyeon answers it not even looking at the caller ID, "hello?" she answers, still feeling groggy from her nap. "Hello? Who is this?" forrowing her brows, she looks at the caller ID to see it's an unsaved number, still getting no response and starting to get frustrated at being awoken from her nap to a prank call, Jeongyeon says with a little hostily in her voice, "hello? If you don't answer me soon, I'll be hanging up" sighing Jeongyeon removes her phone from laying on her ear when "WAIT-" is what she hears being yelled, followed by a soft "please don't hand up".

Wide-eyed Jeongyeon stares at the caller ID again for what feels like a while but was actually five long seconds, whispering a low "Miss Han?", "yes? Well I'm not teaching right now, so it's actually Y/n" she hears a hesitant whisper back, silence, at a loss for words, Jeongyeon doesn't know what to say, her mouth agap like a fish out of water, "Miss Yoo? Are you still there?" she hears a soft voice call, 'Y/n... Y/n... what a pretty name' she thinks, "hehe thank you Miss Yoo" comes a giggle from the other side of the line, her widening once again, Jeongyeon scrambles to sit up properly, "I'm so sorry, I didn't realise I said that out loud" she rushes out, her face now beating so red she could hear the blood pounding in her ears.

"It's quite alright Miss Yoo" she hears Y/n giggle again, feeling so flustered but can't help the butterflies in her stomach from hearing the young teacher's giggles, smiling Jeongyeon finally straightens her posture, before asking why Y/n decided to call her, "oh! I got your number from your friend Nayeon and she said to contact you soon, so I decided why not call now" Y/n said with an embarrassed chuckle, "wha? Nayeon gave you my number?" Jeongyeon asked, making a mental note to scold Nayeon in the morning, "yeah, she gave it to me when she came to pick up the girls earlier" Y/n said, 'that explains how the girls got to Minho without him picking them up' she thought.

"I'm so sorry about her, I hope she didn't do anything to embarrass me" Jeongyeon half-joked, "oh don't worry she didn't" Y/n replied, "I was actually wondering if you were free tomorrow" she quickly asked, shocked Jeongyeon once again had her mouth agap like a fish, stummering over her words and stuttering before taking a deep breath, "yeah I am, why?" She smiled, feeling like a teenage girl being asked out by her highschool crush, "would you like to go out on a date with? We could go to a cafe or walk around a park, I dunno" Y/n asked sounding shy but confident.

Kicking her feet on her bed, trying to compose herself before answering, "s-sure, I'd love to go on a date with you Y/n" she finally answered still feeling flushed and slightly out of breath from the nerves, "perfect, I'll forward you the details once I decide what we'll do later" Y/n replied excitedly, "I look forward to it" Jeongyeon responds just as excited, they kept talking for a while until Jeongyeon heard a soft growl from the other side of the phone, chuckling she asked if Y/n had eaten yet and if not to go and eat and that they will chat again once she's done, smiling at nothing she says bye before hanging up.

Kicking her feet again, Jeongyeon squeals into her pillow before calling Nayeon and scolding her but also thanking her for the push and gushing about her date, looking at the notification she just got from Y/n.

---✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦---✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦ . 　⁺ 　 . ✦---

A/n: This is definitely not proofread, at least not the entire post, anyways I do hope you enjoyed this as I had a lot of fun writing it. TMI but I started writing this on March 14th so... yay I finally finished it :D this is also one of my longer headcanons :D

#oneshots #twice #yoo jeongyeon #jeongyeon x reader

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ma-lark-ey · 7 months ago

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Lark Liveblogs Literature: THE SUNSHINE COURT BABYYYYY LETS GO JEAN

to begin: THE COVER???

The fucking NARCISSUS/DAFFODIL. Stop stop stop. Nora stop. She said it wouldn’t be a sun but I WASNT READY.

RESILIENCE. FIRST BLOOM AT THE END OF WINTER. NEW BEGINNINGS AND REBIRTH.

warning in advance for how many reaction images will be in this post. Miss Nora Sakavic has a way of making me unable to verbalise how devistated I am so I turn to goofy photos.

Also, just so we’re all on the same page:

it’s 1:20 AM. My roommate IS asleep. I am fighting the demons (downloading this book) but i am winning (it is queued on my kindle)

ITS DOWNLOADED LETS GO

Okay so context is that my Kindle is at 10%

I tried to go to bed and read this in the morning but I am

SO NOW I HAVE FRANTICALLY FOUGHT A WAR (figured out how to get this book) AND I AM READY FOR BATTLE (to cry over Jean)

ONE, TWO, THREE, LETS GO BITCH!!

Also my kindle cord is too small for me to properly lay in bed so im literally about to lay on my stomach kicking my feet like a middle schooler WISH. ME. LUCK.

CHAPTER ONE:

oh we’re jumping right in okay. god. hi baby :((

OH. I am just adding onto my #1 Riko hater agenda right now.

“The golden rule— not where the public can see” DIE. LITERALLY DIE TETSUJI

“The lack of broken fingers this time” THIS TIME??? JEAN. JEAN.

im so.

RENEE!!!

“and he had wasted them texting Renee a heads-up.” Nora please we’re only four pages in bro

Renee i love you im marrying you please give me a kiss. Mwah Mwah Mwah. She said “Bitch. Lay back down.”

currently also reading a batshit raven!neil fic and just. on the ground. about all of this.

stop the way I literally went “who the fuck is Nathaniel” Im too transgender for this.

Me, seeing the Abby content we need in this world:

Jean dont call that hellscape home bbg

Renee beating self worth into this man. ily

“Jean couldnt remember the last time he was allowed to wear color” LITERALLY KILL ME

Nora I need you to be less good at describing pain please and thanks

NOT THE BITING

DADMACK DADMACK DADMACK DADMACK!!

he fr be moving this man like a doll. love you wymack

tied him up with racquet laces I. h. lays on floor softly crying.

NOT THE DADDY ISSUES

Jean fr out here plotting 50 ways to kill his brother. he fr though Neil was the problem. no girl Neil just has no tact and autism rizz. Kevins the fucking snitch

no one:

Jean @ the Moriyamas;

“that man is years overdue for a head-on high-speed collision” YOU TELL EM DADMACK

CHAPTER TWO:

Jean please just sleep like a normal human man. God.

Even Jean be out here like “Kevins a little Chihuahua ass drama queen. Bitchboy. Wet cat man.”

Kevin: look, bro, if the 5’3 twink with enough daddy issues to make riko blush and chugs ‘fuck around and find out’ juice for breakfast can escape the moriyamas and not die, so can you.

Testuji. Testuji when I catch you. Tetsuji

Jean what the fuck makes you think anyone but Andrew Minyard will ever tell Neil what to do. Girl.

“If I am not a Raven, who am I?” A MOTHERCUCKING TROJAN BABYYYY

“I have to go to my next class.” I forgot they were in college deadass. Neil is straight up my age im gonna throw up.

Okay. It is. *checks time* 3 AM. I cannot keep my eyes open, which means i must put Jean away for sleep.

ITS IS NOON THE FOLLOWING DAY. I HAVE SLEPT. I HAVE TAKEN MY MEDICATIONS. TIME TO HYPERFOCUS BABY.

KINDLE SAYS WE HAVE 8 hrs 27 mins LEFT IN THIS BOOK. IM SAYING GOODBYE TO MY FRIENDS AND FAMILY. I’LL SEE Y’ALL AT DINNEE TIME. ITS JEAN TIME.

Hiiiiiii Thea….

“Good morning, Paris.” Now, the average man will see this as a reference to his frenchness. but real ones know Paris is prince of Troy, the man who married Helen of Troy & started the Trojan war.

do y’all think Jean has a french accent wait wait wait. obviously itd be very slight at this point but is it there. necessary question.

Assessing Thea like a fucking state exam right now. Neil could not have cared less about your ass I am gaining so much information

Hate of my life Riko moriyama.

CHAPTER THREE:

JEREMY FUCKING KNOW HI BAYYYBY

the way I literally got up and had to pace and stim for a moment even though I fully expected this. autism. my roommate is concerned. not really. she’s used to this she watched me read TKM and dramatically reenact the Ichirou Car Talk.

wow??? AFTG team actually seems happy and well-adjusted and friendly with each other??

Random Note: I’m currently watching Blue Exorcist & one of the main characters is a girl name Moriyama and I’m literally just sitting here like “This girl is way to nice and innocent to have that name.” Because she literally is the nicest girl to ever exist. Why is she cursed with the same name as my mortal enemy (Testuji)

“Tonight’s experiment was the icing on the cake, an invaluable experience no matter how it ended.” Jeremy, my love.

He has empathy… Never before seen footage. Y’all get the cameras!!

He’s so shaken about Jean,,, holding you so gently Jeremy. Here as a guy who knows nothing at all about Jeremy since I’m. so new here. but god.

Jeremy: are you sure a Raven can abide by Troja—

Kevin: Bro Jean is so pathetic he’s a bottom fr. He never disobeys an order

Jeremy: I. Okay you didnt have to say it like that, bro.

I will literally never stop respecting the Trojans strat in the final they really said. “If these fucks can win the championships with nine players, surely we can.” and then willingly got their asses handed to them.

“Xavier stumbled when he got the next serve off, and the Fox guarding him gamely hauled him back upright before running for the ball. It was a simple gesture, but it endeared Jeremy to them” I dont remember if this bit was described in tkm so i’m going to guess that’s Nicky or Matt. Aaron would fucking never.

Nah because like. Yes this proved to the Trojans how resilient the Foxes were, but it was also a message to the audience, yk? Like we know the Foxes were getting shit for their quick rise to the top after they pulled their shit together, but I personally think that the Trojans did this both for their improvement & for Foxes’ publicity. This game proved to the public at large how devastatingly *good* the Foxes were, because of their small size. The second best team in the league crumbled playing the same conditions the Foxes did *every game* and got to championships with. They proved that Foxes were, in fact, a D1 team who earned their keep.

oh hes got daddy’s money. Well. not. officially. yo what I mean.

“it was always best to have a paper trail” Neil Josten would have an anuerysm hearing those words.

Bye Jeremy I’m. Love you so much. Why do you feel like a sixty year old man in your early twenties.

“between seven and twelve students.” yikes.

“unfamiliar and accented voice.” I WAS RIGHT I FUCKING CALLED IY HES GOT AN ACCENT BABY FUCK YEAH

“you ever feel like— like you’re making a choice you cant come back from? But even knowing everything could go completely sideways, you’d make that choice every time?” okay so coming out allegories i could make aside, Jeremy is so… where to start with him. He reminds me of Percy Jackson. Endlessly loyal and selfless to the point its a bit stupid but endearingly stupid.

CHAPTER FOUR:

Okay so we’re alresdy hateflirting. noted.

Its also extremely sunny today in Podunk Hicksville where I live so it feels very On Brand.

“Jean had seen that smile in a half-dozen broadcast… He could picture it too easily, and he dug his fingernails into his own face in vicious warning.” Awww you think you can best the gay worms in your brain. goodluck with that Johnny.

“isn’t that reason enough to keep living? To rediscover simple delight one moment at a time,” keeping this quote for eternity

“enough sunlight to chase away Evermore’s shadows. They are willing to take a chance on you. Aren’t you?”

Kevin Day autistic king. taking this hesdcannon to my grave .

“the conspiracy theorists were working overtime” no girl they just aint stupid.

THEY DESTROYED HIS POSTCARDS…

CHAPTER FIVE:

I want to start keeping record of all the times Jean is like “[name] wasn’t decent enough to [thing]” because its SO funny. We LOVE a petty king.

also keeping track of all the insults he throws at Neil.

Neil likes to think he’s SUUUUCH a loner boy no friends angsty “dont speak to me” resting bitch face ass motherfucker. In reality he is a jack russell terrier — ceritifed jack russell owner who’s dog thinks hes soooo big and bad but said dog literally cries when you dont let him in the bed or say hi to people on the street

Jean is SOOOOOO dramatic 😭😭

Jean: Why would you let Kevin do this.

Neil: let him?? He did that on his own.

Jean: you’re proud of him for being a problem, arent you?

Neil: oh you fucking know I am, bitchass

“but other than his outstanding murder charge there was nothing interesting about that Fox.” i’d consider that very interesting information, Jean. Youre just deranged

“with milk, juice, and vodka dominating one shelf” that’s Aaron, Nicky, Andrew/Kevin in order. Im correct.

“There was an entire drawer dedicated to cheese.” Yeah that sounds like Nicky.

“Half the drawer was full of mini candy bars. Jean threw them all into the trash” bro Andrew is going to kill you in cold blood and not even Neil can save you.

Jean is SO dramatic. Give him Kevin’s crown.

Jean @ Neil during the final: ARE YOU WITHOUT INTELLIGENCE????? ARE YOU STUPID??? DO YOU WANT TO DIE??

Seeing the media coverage of the championship is the food I needed thank you Nora for this. I am eating it up. om nom nom

The sportscasters referring to athletes with their first name is batshit. What. why. huh. Absolutely not.

CHAPTER SIX:

Renee protecting Jean from discovering Riko’s death through media & not through them…

Everytime boys start fistfighting in this series I hear Roxanne from Megamind. “Ladies, ladies, you’re BOTH pretty.”

a) Jeans reaction to finding out was exaclty what I expected

b) I’m FASCINATED to know who called campus security. Jeremy?? Renee?? Someone in Fox tower???

Neil was gentle with someone other than Andrew? I didnt know he knew how to do that…

NEIL. NEIL JOSTEN. YEAH BABY

HES ROOMING WITH CAT AND LAILA??? YES YEA YES YESY

the Jean-Renee dynamic is so fucking important to me. MLM/WLW solidarity. theyre besties.

THEYRE SO IMPORTANT TO ME BRO.

Literally snuggling Jeremy

Oh he’s got Fox potential. Hiiii Jeremy. Give me the traumadump bbg

THEY/THEM??? DO MY EYES DECEIVE ME OR IS THIS AN HONEST TO GOD THEY/THEM PLAYER OH ILL CRY. ILL CRU RIGHT NOW

CHAPTER SEVEN:

Oh Jean. you’re about to have such a gay awakening babe i can feel it in my bones.

A FUCKING YOYO??? I LOVE HIM

“A mite bit hecked up” PLEEEASE JUST SAY FUCK /ref

OH HE WAS IN LOVE WITH KEVIN. INTERESTING INTERESTING INTERESTING.

autism coded lookingg motherfucker (stares at Jean.)

The chaos of Cat and Laila’s house is so fucking cute. Its about to be two lesbians and their distrustful pitbull rescue in this bitch and im ready for it.

CHAPTER EIGHT:

watching normal people discover the cult that is Evermore. Finally someone having a normal response to that madness. What the FUCK.

wait theres actually a cardboard dog i thought it was fanon joke.

oh my god there is actually a fucking cardboard dog. i.

jeans brain just got actually shattered by this living room. he cannot comprehend this.

Cat & Jeremy, realizing the cult rumors are real: I THOUGHT YOU WERE KIDDING! I thought it was joke! I even wrote it down in my diary! “Kevin made a very funny joke today!” I laughed at it later that night!

Okay, last night; I went to bed at 2:30 AM 45% through (college my beloathed). we’re back in business.

Jeremy is so disturbed all of the time. goofy ass.

“Loving something is not enough,”

“When was the last time you enjoyed playing?”

“ Irrelevant.”

Whats his shirt look like Jeremy. Jeremy whats the shirt look like. Jeremy. Whats the shirt look like.

Okay so I’ve reached my image limit for this post and I dont have fun reaction images on my laptop. so now I will post this & reblog with the rest of this book.

#lark says #aftg #all for the game #the sunshine court #tsc #tsc spoilers #the sunshine court spoilers #In order of men: Jeremy Knox. Neil. EVERYONE ELSE. Riko….. Nathan— /ref

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utahlive · 2 years ago

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No episode today (i have a test i gotta study for booo) :( However in usual “no episode today” style, I’ve got some behind the scenes stuff! (+ answering asks). I’m really glad you guys like hearing about this part of the blog :D

It’s a little long so I’m putting it under the cut

So my latest method of answering asks is to write a quick outline/reply and save it in drafts (as opposed to what I was doing, which was copy pasting asks into the notes app and writing replies there. dont ask whats wrong with me; I dont know). Anyway this specific comic had its first ‘script’ (shoutout to @/ghostburface for the ask)

I usually draw out what I imagine happening and then add text to hit the points im aiming for, but I did the opposite in this one. I had a lot of trouble figuring out the actual visuals for this one

(For the record I tried to find the original price of the glasses on the las Nevadas merch page but it wasn’t there. I remember losing my mind over the price tho)

attempt/draft 2 (sort of) since I wasn’t sure about the layout. I was really hoping to just have three panels (as you can see by the “if 3 that would be epic” note above)

And then I transferred it digitally! I did go over the script in DMs with my friend so it ended up as it did I did see one person pointing out the whole “rose colored glasses” thing (shout out to you fr !!). I had a lot of meaning I was going for with this one but I have a hard time finding a middle ground between “so obscure its not there” and “way too obvious”

I also wanted to answer some asks (as per usual :3 because I love talking with you guys)

I wish he would grow it out!! However as anyone who’s gone from short to long hair... the awkward phase is NOT pretty. I did hear on one of his streams he might cut it when the EP comes out rather than the album. because he’s a coward (but I can’t blame him)

who doesnt feel like ripping up their pillow though, amiright fellas? Shout out to all the utahlive fictives out there (I’ve heard of reported sightings). Would love to talk to you guys some day <3 It still baffles my mind that this blog leaves any sort of lasting impression on people (for reals though, I hope you guys are ok!!)

this one isnt directed at me but I just think its funny you say this because summer 2022 I went to the Winchester house with my friends, but we all decided it wasn’t worth the price so we just checked out the gift shop and walked around the outside for about two hours. it’s actually very pretty! super cool architecture

this one is under the “what would you recommend I get at the gas station”

It’s also not a question but I think it would be funny to let you know I wrote and queued that post (and the other one posted that day) at like 5am I don’t know how I missed it because I usually check my posts the next morning before they get posted I know it’s bad I’m trying real hard to get my sleep schedule to be normal (this post is sponsored by melatonin tablets)

GET AWAY GET AWAY GET AWAY GET AWAY 🤺🤺🤺

I assume you’re talking about the mcytblr sexyman poll?? Im already making predictions and bets in my head on this one but Ill be fighting for MY meowmeows till my last breath

#utahlive #4th wall break #back to the 2nd ask I have considered making a discord server for this blog but ive gone back and forth on it a lot #I dont wanna act like im a big deal and be like woah hey look at the discord server I made for myself that nobody asked for !!!#ur here for wilbur. im here for wilbur. this aint about me !!#the homestuck one is slash j btw !!! I love u guys #I’m currently reading jt myself #haven’t met vriska yet #behind the scenes

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thewadapan · 2 months ago

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TFNation 2024 post-mortem

So I went to the Transformers convention again! If you're following me for non-Transformers reasons, then this blog post will be worthless to you, sorry. If you didn't go the convention, it will probably be worthless to you as well. And if you did go to the convention, then it might even be worthless to you, too! I'd strongly recommend just listening to the podcast Jo and I recorded looking back on the event; it's more fun. I really only write these things as a personal record of the weekend, so it doesn't just fade into memory, because TFNation is one of the most important times of the year for me.

In previous years, I've followed the convention by making an hourlong vlog, recapping the event start-to-finish from my POV, showing off all the toys wot I got. Last year the production of that video was such an albatross that I committed to never doing that again, which turned out to be a good thing, because I don't think I could talk breezily about TFN 2024 to a camera for a couple of hours.

It's not to say that I didn't have a good time at TFN, or even a great time. But where some people seem to have found this to be the best TFN yet, I was definitely struggling a bit at some points in the weekend. In previous years, I've spoken to close friends of mine at or after the event, and they've expressed feelings of having had an off year one way or another, and I guess this year it was my turn! Partly, this blog post is going to be me working out what exactly went wrong, so next year's convention can hopefully go a little smoother for me.

The problems really started weeks before the convention. I had big plans to put together a really special zine, something that would prick people's ears up, something that I thought would genuinely leave a lasting impact. I'm being cagey about it because I hope it might still happen next year. But I couldn't source the material that I needed. Not to worry, I thought, I'd left myself more than enough time that I could brute-force the problem, create the material by myself.

And then I had an unrelated personal crisis, and suddenly it was three weeks later and I had nothing, with maybe a month to go until the convention. And I still made a go of it! But it couldn't be done. Not with what I had. Every approach I tried turned out to have hidden pitfalls and it was all turning out dogshit. I admitted defeat to my collaborators, who I'd inadvertently strung along for most of a year, which was embarrassing and frustrating.

Meanwhile, another deadline had been creeping up: the Refined Robot Co. zine, compiled by my close friend Ben, to which I contribute every year, needed to go to the printers in a few weeks and I had nothing. I'd picked a robot to write about out of a hat a few months ago, hoping that a good angle would occur to me in the intervening time, but it just didn't. I came up with an angle for Kingdom Rattrap, but immediately realised I had far more to say about that toy than could be contained within the margins of a single page.

When I saw the cover for the zine featured Missing Link Optimus Prime, who otherwise didn't have a page in the zine, I asked Ben if I could switch my page to talk about that toy instead. He agreed. However, around this time, I realised that the Transformers: Mosaic archive I've been working on for the last two years would be ending almost exactly coinciding with the convention; with the queued posts almost exhausted, I had no choice but to sit down and blitz through the remainder of the work. I gathered up all the scripts and previews I'd found, and I worked out a format for the posts. I lettered, coloured, and in a couple of cases wrote unfinished material I'd found to bring those strips to a readable state of completion, if possible. I wrote a blogpost reflecting frankly on the difficulties of the project, which would go over like a wet fart when it finally went live.

I started having problems with my eyes. They weren't hurting, not exactly, but they seemed to be producing copious amounts of sleep: viscous strings of yellow gunk accumulating not in the corner of my eye, but around the back, in the eyelashes, everywhere. I got some eye drops which didn't help. I went to the optician and she gave me some different eye drops, which did help. There wasn't any infection or anything. It was obvious what had happened: I'd been staring intently at the screen for days, drawing and redrawing the same gradients over bitcrunched artwork.

By this point—look, honestly, I'm losing track of the timeline here, in which order I did what—I really, really needed to get the RRCo review done. Feeling like I needed to make something worth the wait, I'd given some serious thought to the exact kind of writing I wanted to submit this time around. I wanted something in the vein of my intended Kingdom Rattrap review, but much tighter. An old memory surfaced and I finally had a hook; I wrote the page over the course of a few hours across a couple of days, in the electric kind of fugue state that happens when you're writing something that fucking slaps. Ben really liked it.

The problem, then, was the art: I'm not an artist. I can colour a drawing fine, but I don't even consider myself a colourist. The only way I can draw anything remotely good is through hard work: studying a reference object intently, drawing, erasing, redrawing the same line over and over again until it approximates reality. I was glad that the format of the zine encourages traditional media, because it meant I could force myself not to use the computer for a couple of days. I told Ben I hoped to have the piece ready by the end of Thursday (my day off); it was Saturday by the time I was able to sheepishly slip my rough pencils over the counter—for the robot mode, not even the truck mode! I spent Sunday inking and colouring. I spent Monday drawing the entire truck. Finally, it was done.

(If you haven't already, check out the rest of the zine here!)

There were now less than two weeks to go until the convention. Every year, I like to have something to give out, to give to people I meet as a little souvenir or whatever. It gives me an excuse to talk to people, and has been my #1 life hack for not being socially paralysed at the convention. I still had the Wheelie: Spotlights comic I'd made a year or two back, but I'd finally given up on my shitty old EPSON inkjet printer, which meant I needed to use a local print shop instead, which meant I needed to learn how to set up a PDF with bleed (on a comic that we'd drawn with zero bleed). The cheapest, quickest print shop in town is a forty minute walk away; I can make the round trip maybe twice during opening hours. Originally, I'd designed Wheelie: Spotlights to have a greyscale print on the reverse side as a costcutting measure, but the print shop told me that if I wanted one side in colour, the reverse side would have to be charged as a colour side as well. I decided to redesign the entire page in glorious full colour to take advantage of this fact. I reworked the comic itself to add bleed where necessary. I had to send through the file maybe three times before I'd finally gotten it all in the exact format they wanted.

The thing about Wheelie: Spotlights is that all of my friends already got copies at previous conventions. I wanted to make something else for them, and decided to make an A5 collection of prose and comics. I coloured an old bit of Transformers Animated concept art and designed a cover around it, made layouts for everything, typeset all the stories, wrote brief afterwords, and reeled off an introduction for the collection as a whole. I realised I probably could finish the Rattrap review in time, and did so; four people read it before the zine went to print. The vibe I got from the prereaders was that it's probably the best piece of writing I've ever released—but they're all biased. I sent through the file in the format the printers told me they wanted, only for it to turn out that they wanted it in a slightly different format, but then they managed to print it anyway as a special favour. Honestly, the print shop kind of rules. But what I'm trying to say is that the whole thing was very stressful.

On the way back from one trip to the print shop, I noticed an unread message from an IRL friend. They'd sent through a PDF several days ago. It was a photo of a handwritten letter to me, basically calling me out for being a shit friend and ghosting them for weeks during an important transitory period in their life. I replied with a rambling explanation for my behaviour, and apologised, promising to make things right in a couple of weeks.

But it did upset me! I was very angry at myself. And what made it even worse was that it happened at the peak of my fervour, when I had far too much momentum to simply stop and have it all be for naught. I was also painfully conscious that I'd been basically ignoring my girlfriend for days, in the run-up to this convention where I'd practically be going radio-silent for a long weekend. It all turned out okay, I got the zine done with a couple of days spare, everything was fine. But I had been stressed. I had been staying up late to work on my fake fandom job, and getting up early to work my real bullshit job. And my train was at 06:57 in the morning.

Honestly, that part on its own would have been fine, I wouldn't have it any other way: I usually arrive around noon on Friday, and there's plenty of people around, so it means I get as much out of the day as possible. But I was already tired, and I wound up paying the price.

Friday

I met up with Jalaguy and Daniel right away. Coming from the States, Daniel had brought us each a copy of the abortive Final Faction comic, which never came out in the UK. Meanwhile, I had an old LEGO book and a Transformers PlayStation 2 demo to give to Jalaguy; as always, we were rooming together this year, which made everything a breeze. I quickly gave out a bunch of zines to people. Ben arrived; he was staying at the Moxy, the other hotel in the NEC, and the plan was for us to store the copies of the RRCo zine in mine and Jalaguy's room so he wouldn't have to cart them all back and forth himself all weekend. For some reason I got it in my head that the Moxy is outside the NEC, like the Premier Inn and the Ibis, so I led Jala and Daniel on a wild goose chase out to the train station before finally checking my phone to work out where to go next, and realising that we'd already passed it.

The Moxy is comically different to the Hilton: decked out in plush leather, neon signage, vinyl records. When we got there, the elevator wouldn't work for us; we needed a keycard to operate it. We sat in these luxurious leather swivel chairs that span around frictionlessly. Ben took us up to his room. He was bemused because it looks like a dungeon: dark mood lighting, metal lattice on one wall, everything is strapped to everything else. We split the zines amongst ourselves and carted them over.

Jo and Rabbit rocked up; partners of 9 years, this marked the first time Rabbit has been able to come over from the States, and it was the first time they'd met in person. I think we all decided to give them some space. Nonetheless, we did a quick handoff, because I'd bought Jo's Timelines Transmutate off her. I gave her a copy of the zine, and watched with dawning horror as she flipped to the Kingdom Rattrap review, shotgunned the whole thing, then promptly got up and left without a word.

This was probably the first thing that really threw me. I'd given out maybe a third of the copies already, and was planning to give out the rest, and now I was like... is it bad? Worse—is it upsetting? As it happened, I had completely misread the situation in my sleep-deprived state. Jo hadn't even finished reading the story, she'd just needed to go to a panel! But I didn't get the chance to ask her about it until after the convention, so until then, it preyed on my mind.

While people were taking a look at Transmutate, one of the pegs ended up getting snapped, which also kind of sucked. I had anticipated it would happen, because 2010s toys are fragile, and felt like it was worth it to be able to share in the joy of that figure with other people, instead of just whisking it off to the hotel room. Thankfully it was just a tab for weapon storage, which still works, it's just a bit looser without it. But it's one of those things where you just go—agh! Another stupid little stressor for the pile.

Anyway, although I vaguely dislike Transformers: Prime in terms of the fiction, the toys are all from the period of design that I know and like best, and these particular colourways elevate them so much. Beast Wars: Uprising is amongst my favourite Transformers fiction, and these are the most iconic characters from that universe, so I'm thrilled to finally have them both. God, do I need to get a Lio Convoy now?

I think a high point on Friday was the "pen con" that took place between auto_thots and sixty_cats. I'd seen auto_thots tweeting about it, so I went over with the one pen that I'd happened to bring, a bright orange LAMY fountain pen I'd had since I was a kid. I'd recently been starting to think about changing my signature, because the one I've had all my life is illegible and ugly, and I wanted something nice and distinctive—they gave me some encouragement that I was along the right lines. I've honestly never seen such cool pens, either—sparkly inks, beautiful and functional designs. It was nice to be excited about something that wasn't Transformers.

Speaking of which, there was a lot of love for G.I. Joe this year. In particular, SameAsItEverWoz was going around showing us this one stock photo of Snake Eyes from Rise of Cobra, with his stupid fucking skintight bodysuit and luscious kissable lips sculpted into his helmet. It was kind of like the chicken game, insofar as if your objective was not to look at Snake Eyes, then you were basically fucked. Erica had a notebook with her and people started drawing their own takes on the image. I did a T-posing Snake Eyes (see my reference picture below) in fountain pen. Clearly the whole thing quickly snowballed and people began submitting some genuinely high-effort entries, so later in the weekend I went back and rendered my Snake Eyes out in Sharpie with full muscle definition, chiaroscuro. By the end of the weekend, there were entries from James Roberts, Jack Lawrence, and Nick Roche, which is fucking nuts. I desperately want this to become a real zine.

Anyway, I've gotten ahead of myself. On Friday, I had a handoff arranged with a guy on Facebook for an Armada roleplay Star Saber to give to Jo. It turned out to be far, far smaller than I had imagined it being as a kid, more like a Star Dagger to an adult, but it had a really fun mechanism.

Just like last year, I didn't have a ticket for any of the Friday panels; there was nothing to justify the cost of admission and I usually prefer to hang out anyway. In the bar, the usual big table at the back was covered in toys, all belonging to Rachel; she was having a big collection purge, and had decided that it would all be free to a good home. I was extremely tempted by a Titans Return Hot Rod to put with my various Lost Light characters, but it was missing its guns, so I hesitated, thinking I'd find a cheap complete copy in the dealer hall. I got to try a Fall of Cybertron Ultra Magnus, on which I snapped a tab (see, it's very easily done); I actually really liked the toy, but this year I was planning to cut down on the number of redecos I was picking up. Historically, a lot of my toys have been redecos, often toy-only characters, so I have kind of a weird collection—but increasingly, I find myself wanting to get molds in the colors they were originally intended to wear. That Fall of Cybertron Optimus Prime has always been an iconic design in my eyes, and after handling the mold, I resolved that I'd pick one up if I saw it (alas, I didn't). Meanwhile, Jala had been toying with the idea of starting a Star Seekers collection, after winning a Titan Class Tidal Wave at the Transformers One pre-screening they attended; one of the toys on the table was Prime Thundertron, which they quickly decided he hated, but they seemed pretty set on getting Legacy Thundertron if they could.

Around this point was probably also the most time I spent with Cone, who I know from the TFWiki Discord; it definitely feels like he's been able to come out of his shell a bit more with each convention he attends, which is really nice.

Dinner was Zizzi's, which I don't always get along with; a friend's parents back in uni would often take us there, and I found that I never liked the pizzas, which is my first instinct for Italian food. This time I had some seafood pasta which was much better. Afterwards, we kept things very lowkey; I remember playing Lexicon in the bar with Ben, Daniel, and Jala, getting very tired, and making it back to the room not long after midnight.

Saturday

I'd banked on getting over seven hours sleep that night, but for some fucking reason, the hotel decided to test their fire alarm at 6:40 AM. I was genuinely baffled by this. Hotels exist for one purpose: as a place to sleep. By momentarily blaring the siren, waking me up at such an ungodly hour, the hotel had failed at its one job. I spent the next hour trying to fall back asleep before giving up; it was time to get ready for breakfast anyway. I put on my SPREEM shirt and the matching (read: clashing) garments I brought to go with it. Last year, I had a pair of thrifted three-quarter-length hot pink cargo pants several sizes too big for me, which I held up with a belt; they were constantly falling down and showing my pants, which wasn't great. This year, I was able to get some pink shorts, which were an upgrade in that they'd stay around my waist, but a downgrade in that you'd sometimes be able to see my balls if I sat down in just the wrong position. If you saw my balls this year: I'm sorry, or, you're welcome.

My usual strategy for TFN—because food at the NEC is invariably expensive—is to really load up on the buffet breakfast, snack through the day, and grab a meal with people in the evening. I duly wolfed down an English breakfast, some yoghurt, a croissant, a waffle, and a mini muffin. Unfortunately, the opening ceremony began before I was quite finished, so I ended up cradling a little muffin as I speedwalked across the hotel to the panel room. I couldn't see any easily-accessible seats, so I opted to just stand at the back. I wound up stood right in front of a fire alarm button, with this muffin in my hands, and the audience kept needing to clap for the guests and the announcements, which I couldn't do, because I was holding this stupid fucking muffin and trying not to move a muscle because I kept imagining myself setting off the fire alarm. (At the train station the previous day, I'd accidentally hit an "intercom for assistance" button at the train station with my bag; I heard someone asking me how they could help just as the train pulled in.)

Gherkin appeared and said "Hi Wada," and I said "Hi," back. I couldn't turn to one side without, I imagined, hitting the button. I ate just the top half of the muffin and tried to clap at the appropriate moments; my arms got covered in crumbs. I later saw a message from Gherkin in the group chat: "At the opening ceremony right now waiting for wads to recognise who I am". Aaaagh!

Toy Fu had posted some pictures of their table at the start of the day, and I spotted a Thrilling 30 Swerve & Flanker, which was practically the one thing I'd told myself I'd buy instantly if I saw it this year. Even better, I could just about make out a single-digit price tag; I'd resigned myself to just sort of paying whatever at this point. I fully expected it to have vanished by the time the dealer hall opened, but after we made our way up the monstrous queue, I walked in to find it still sitting on the table unnoticed. I guess the demand for that toy really isn't what it once was! Alas, I am a slave to my memes. I also spotted a GDO Wheelie on the table for next to nothing, and was sorely tempted to buy it just for the sake of having a spare—like, I already have one!—but I resisted, and instead I asked one of the volunteers if I could leave a copy of the Wheelie comic with the toy. He was charmed by the idea; hopefully whoever picked it up enjoyed it!

After that, though, I ended up being weirdly stuck. I found an Armada Knock Out sans missile for a couple of quid, which was perfect, because mine is missing his legs (I didn't lose them, I got him like that). I found a loose hand/foot/gun for Combiner Wars Skydive or Air Raid (they're identical), which was perfect because mine had come with Firefly's hand/foot/gun for some reason. But apart from that, everything seemed too expensive. Was I really going to spend £25 on an Armada Deluxe? Not likely. Except £25 is what all Deluxes cost these days. I don't buy them at that price, but like... it's reasonable, from that perspective! Here I was, at the one time a year where it's possible to find pretty much anything, and the best I could do was pick up some piddly little bits and pieces for toys I already owned.

The longer I walked around, the more I found myself reckoning with the very thing I was trying to work through in the Kingdom Rattrap review: namely, that my relationship to Transformers and to money is completely fucked. Everything seemed more expensive than it had been in previous years, except this made perfect sense, because everything has become more expensive, the econony or whatever is in the shitter. I used to like getting cheap Scouts for a fiver; now I already own most of the Scouts and what the fuck does a fiver buy you anyway? 1.25 meal deals? I'd ask for the price of unlabelled toys, and balk at the answers: "I'll think about it, thanks!" They were usually gone by the time I got back.

Another issue was that, this year, the dealer hall was more crammed than ever. They'd completely rearranged the stalls to give more room in the aisles, which did help, but not nearly enough to cope with the horde that descended upon the place on Saturday. It was too hot, and too loud, and far, far too busy. Many of the dealers were visibly struggling to keep up. Speaking as someone who works in a shop, I shudder to think of the stock loss, the figures manhandled and broken, the accessories lost—hell, maybe even the shit stolen, there have been thieves at TFNation in the past.

I remember at one point during the weekend, at one table, there was this big tub of toys, and while taking a look I absentmindedly put a figure to one side—and someone snapped at me, something like, "Excuse me this is my table!" Turned out it was a separate stall, someone selling handmade stuff. Presumably that person spent the whole weekend doing that, getting progressively more irritated at the careless nerds more interested in toys than in crafts, constantly encroaching on the tablespace. And dealers pay for their tables—right? I totally understand why that person was miffed. But also, personally, being snapped at like that... didn't love it! Actually felt quite bad about it! I felt like the environment put me in that position. For all of Saturday, I flatly did not enjoy going around trying to root through bins. Again, see my review: I felt like a rat.

Still, I had an ace up my sleeve, one that would let me escape the sweaty press of the dealer hall altogether: another pre-arranged purchase from someone on Facebook. After a panel on vintage retailer catalogues—the only panel I attended on Saturday—we eventually found a mutually convenient moment to meet up. His name's Lee, he was a gregarious lad maybe a little older than me. I gave him a full suite of zines by way of thanks.

When showing people what I'd bought from this guy, I'd find myself always doing the same bit, because it felt like the only way to even communicate this insane pickup. I would produce this Commemorative Series Red Alert reissue from my bag, and say, "Yeah, so I got this Red Alert. He's really nice! He was £40, and normally I wouldn't spend £40 on a toy like this. But the thing is..."

And then I'd pull another toy out. "He did come with this Inferno."

And then I'd go back into the bag. "And he also came with this Skids."

"And he also came with this Prowl."

"And he also came with this Jazz."

"And he also came with this Tracks." (Tracks was still safely encased in his backing tray!)

"Oh, and he also came with this entire Menasor."

Ben, the only person I know who has a deep connection with the Commemorative Series (or similar) reissues, gave me the best reaction. "HOW? HOW?" The story goes like this—not that it's much of a story. I was about to leave the house one day. I happened to go on Facebook. There was a post in a sales group, timestamped three minutes ago. Amongst others, he had the above Autobot Cars listed: £5 each or take the lot for £25; along with the Menasor: £15, because Wildrider's arm is broken off and the combiner feet were missing. There were no photos of the Autobots. I messaged the guy to ask if Menasor was still available. He was. I asked if he had photos of the Autobots; he did, they looked fantastic. I said I'd take the lot and PayPal'd him £40.

He explained to me that he'd listed the toys as cheaply as he felt he could, because he wanted them to go to people who wanted them, rather than just the people with the most money. I felt like his logic was wrong: someone who pays a lot of money for something can be guaranteed to want it at least a certain amount. Someone who snaps up something valuable for not very much could just be a grifter. Still, I think what he meant was: he wanted the toys to go to someone who wanted them who would not otherwise be able to afford them, which is exactly who I am. G1 stuff like that has always enthralled me, and I've always kind of assumed I would just never be able to own them. Since last TFN, I've built up a nice little collection of the Retro reissues, by picking them up on deep discount, but I've always assumed the Autobot Cars would just be forever beyond my grasp. And now, thanks to Lee, I have a whole little collection of them!

(Hopefully a lot of other people were also able to benefit from his generosity. I remember he'd listed the reissue Insecticons for... maybe a tenner? Powermaster Optimus Prime and Apex Bomber for £25, a beautiful G1 Sureshot for literally a fiver, Robots in Disguise 2001 Optimus Prime for £40. Absolutely mad stuff.)

These toys went basically straight back to my room; they had too many bits to lose, and I didn't know how any of them worked. After the convention, I was able to get Menasor's feet off eBay, but it's mad to think that I paid about the same for the rest of the combiner as I did for those feet alone! They now have pride of place on my burgeoning G1 shelf.

(Oh, and as you can imagine, this stroke of insane good luck certainly hasn't helped my attitude towards Transformers and money.)

As always, Ben continues to have the best taste when it comes to toys. His sealed Beast Machines Scavenger instantly made me resolve to get a copy of that toy for myself, as I've always liked the look of it. His true star finds though were an X-Dimension Adventure Team—commemorating the opening of his very own comic shop this year—and a Stormtrooper Rage, with its perplexing water squirter and stunning colour scheme. Jalaguy got their own Adventure Team the next day; it's so nice to see people getting into Armada stuff.

The food situation ended up being a bit fucked on Saturday. Some people wanted a light lunch and a big dinner, others the reverse. We ended up doing Nandos mid-afternoon—I had a small chicken burger—and then later we got a Subway. These two small meals weren't far off the cost of a typical main meal at Resort World, so I was quite happy with that, and might suggest something similar on future Saturdays; trying to squeeze in a sit-down meal before, during, or after Club Con is often a nightmare. But I definitely think not everyone got exactly what they wanted in terms of food that day.

Rushing back from Resort World with Ben, I heard someone yell: "Nice shirt!" So I automatically replied, "Thanks!" And then they said something like, "Why does it say SPERM on it?", and I realised they weren't there for the Transformers convention, they were just a bunch of neds loitering by the lake. So I proceeded to ignore them, and they jeered at us as we walked away. I don't usually wear the SPREEM shirt in public, partly because I like it and don't want to ruin it, and partly because it really does look like it says SPERM. As we stopped by my room to pick up my Club Con wristband, I was becoming a thundercloud. Here I was at the Transformers convention, the one weekend a year where I don't have to feel too weird about my interests, and it's like I'm back in fucking high school. I wondered if maybe it's time to retire the shirt altogether. The outfit never quite works for me.

Club Con

Ah, Club Con. This was definitely the low point for me of the whole weekend, which sucks, because usually it's a highlight. I think what I should say is this: it was mostly a me problem. Things had not been going well for me up to this point. I was very, very tired.

So, the cosplay contest was spectacular, as ever. People have such wonderfully creative and well-done costumes, everyone is so buzzed about it. My favourite was definitely the Cosmos with a shiny retrofuturistic UFO-like dress, absolute conceptual slam dunk that deservedly took top prize in the "humanized" category; the cosplayer in question, Mika, turns out to also be a phenomenally talented artist. But there were a lot of really thoughtful outfits this year. I was surprised when the Rosanna/Flip Sides cosplayer (swapping faction onstage!) turned out to be none other than our Umar—though of course, who else? And Erica's sk8r grl take on Flamewar was also brilliant.

I will say, it definitely felt like the dividing line between the "mech" and "humanized" categories was a little blurred—both had the same regularly-dressed-people in helmets—and as is often the case, while the winners were all extremely worthy entrants, I did feel like some people got robbed. Well okay I'll just say it: JLaw is definitely biased towards Lost Light, he always has been, and cosplays based on his comic always do well as a result. There was a stunning—I mean really phenomenal, huge cardboard shoulder pillars visible even from my worst-seat-in-the-house behind a tall guy at the back-left—Armada Megatron cosplayer, appropriately chosen for a convention with David Kaye in attendance, who didn't even place in the top three for the mech category. Outrage!

Last year, you might recall that one cosplayer inadvertently ended up trapped improvising lipsyncing and dancing onstage for three minutes because the AV team didn't fade out the backing track. And while that was spellbinding, clearly the convention organisers have overcorrected, as it felt like the cosplayers were being ushered on and off the stage very briskly. I definitely think some of them should have been allowed to chew the scenery a little more. Particularly, I should say, considering what was to follow later in the evening.

During the changeover, we got to see a preview of the next episode of The Basics—this one featuring the Star Seekers. Honestly, it instantly pilled me on the Star Seekers. They're so fucking cool slash dumb. The Matrix Test was brilliant, as always; McFeely has a real gift for dredging up the obscure and the esoteric. This year, the TFWiki gang split into two teams, hoping to at least give everyone else a chance: I was with Jo, Rabbit, Ben, and newcomer James, carrying forward the torch of the Crack Calibre Laser-Blazer Broadswords, while Gherkin, Viv, Jala, Daniel and Cone formed Feast or Famine (named after the newly-discovered Star Seeker character from the Chinese MMO).

As usual, I mostly served as a voice to say either "yeah that's right" or "I don't know about that" as other team members answered the questions. It's really high time I learned to trust my gut, though—there were two questions, "What connects the characters Scrounge, Crankcase, SOMETHING and Devastar?" and "Is Motomix a Transformer?" where I was completely correct, but second-guessed myself. James totally surprised me by really holding his own, getting a few questions which had the rest of us stumped or uncertain. It later transpired that we had in fact won the quiz, in spite of our effort to handicap ourselves; they never officially announced this result, we had to ask McFeely, who had to ask David. Assuming this wasn't deliberate, which I would understand... kinda weird not to announce that at any point!

I guess I'll take this moment to talk a little more about James, 'cause he was one of the people I met this year and got to hang out with for more than just a single conversation. He honestly just sort of appeared from nowhere with a clear objective of "I am going to become friends with these people", which I massively respect (had he turned out to be a cunt, I would not have respected it, but he wasn't, so!). I was reminded of myself doing something similar towards the start of uni, and at my first solo TFNation not long after that. He seemed cool and was very nice to all of us. I've since chatted with him a little online; apparently the only reason he picked our group out of the crowd was the OSKO Rampage I had sitting on the table. I'd brought that figure along as a conversation starter, so looks like it did its job!

Anyway, so the evening progressed. There was the charity auction, which went crazy, but is also kind of just half an hour of clapping while people with money bid for mildly interesting items. Someone correct me if I'm wrong—that custom Action Master Billy Stripes sold for like a grand, right? I say this only because I remember when the sealed Animated Swindle remarked by the late Derrick J. Wyatt himself went for £650, I thought, wow, that is such a measly sum by comparison.

Simon Furman and Andrew Wildman went up onstage to announce their new podcast. Apparently the first episode went up over a month ago? Well, they have a Patreon, etc, you know the deal. I'm not saying that I won't listen to it, I might at some point, but definitely as an announcement to that crowd of increasingly-younger-skewing fans it went over like a wet fart. I presumed this was the "Like a surprise? Close your eyes..." teaser on the schedule, because podcasts are something you listen to, meaning you can close your eyes. As it turned out, I was very mistaken.

Next up, there was the script reading. As with last year, it wasn't written by, well, a writer, so it kind of sucked, to put it nicely. I guess without mercilessly dissecting the thing for every single joke that fell flat, I'll try and explain what a convention script reading should be like, as someone who's seen a ton of them. You have a handful of huge voice actors with iconic roles in the room. Your story, whatever it is, is nothing more than a means to have them play off each other, cover their full dramatic range, and say as many catchphrases as you can in as short a space of time as possible. You want to avoid in-jokes which the actors themselves—who typically aren't as deep in the sauce as you—are unlikely to get. You want to minimise the role of the narrator or other side-characters. You want to avoid splitting the cast in-story, to allow all the characters to play off one another, while still contriving to avoid having a voice actor swap between multiple characters in the same scene. You want the actors to play the specific versions of characters they actually played, not different versions from other timelines or whatever. You want to give fuckin' David Kaye some actually good material to work with—more Beast Wars, less Armada, dig? You want to pace the jokes so they lead to direct punchlines, so the audience as a whole can laugh and clap before the story progresses, rather than burying punchlines in the middle of individual line-reads or back-and-forths. I'm not a comic writer, but as an audience member I can definitely tell when things aren't working, and I truly wonder why on Earth at a convention with people like Jim Sorenson, James Roberts and Simon Furman in attendance, you wouldn't allocate some portion of your budget to commissioning a good script. As it was—as some of my friends also put it—the moment the narrator said "End of Act 1!", my heart just sank: so is this two acts? Three? Reader, it was three, and none of them were any good.

Honestly, the big thing that had me baffled was that the entire script reading was predicated on the fact that Gregg Berger has, in the past, voiced Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh. But the thing is, I always thought it was Peter Cullen who voiced Eeyore! I'd coincidentally had a conversation about that very fact with Daniel earlier in the weekend! Gherkin googled it as the script reading dragged on. Sure enough, it seems that Gregg Berger only filled in the role for a few video games and ancillary media, beginning in 1997. He does a wonderful Eeyore voice, don't get me wrong, but I don't get the impression it's his role, and to place such a focus on "Eeyore from Kingdom Hearts II" for a Transformers convention felt like a misguided choice to me.

At the end of the script reading, there was immediately another bonus round of charity auction, where they flogged a signed copy of the script and an inflatable rubber ducky from Amazon. Up and up the price crept, in increments of £10 at a time. At £280, for some reason I'll never know, David asked us all to clap, as if this was in any way an auspicious figure. We duly obliged. The final bid ended up being for something like £450, or 2/3rds of a sealed Animated Swindle remarked by the late Derrick J. Wyatt.

Overrunning by this point, I thought: this is it, the headline event is starting soon, I'll be able to chill out for an hour watching the old cartoon, and then I can go back to the bar and hang out, hopefully feeling a little rested. But then it was the actual surprise! The Mapes brothers had found a never-before-seen recording from the '80s. What was it? It was the audition tapes for Wheelie. Because I'm still in theory the custodian of Wheelie's TFWiki page, I dutifully got out my phone to record. The performances were demented, delivering nonsensical rhymes in a nonspecifically exotic accent. After each, David would go, "Do you want to hear another?" And the audience yelled back, "Yes..." And I sat there, listening to these unfamiliar voice actors cackling and giggling, thinking how it's been years—literally years—since I started trying to fix Wheelie's wiki page. I haven't touched it in months. And I wondered, will I ever be free of you? Will my work ever be done? As I write this I have been home for less than 24 hours, and somebody has already added a note to the page. It rhymes badly. It's not cited. I'll need to fix it, I guess.

And then, Gregg Berger got up onstage, to read us an extract from his work-in-progress memoir. He told us, it's fine, feel free to leave, none of you are expected to stay, this isn't that kind of thing. But the thing is, I had no idea how long this segment was going to go on for (20 minutes, per the schedule? Everything had overrun!), and I wanted to watch the cartoon, you know, the headline event of the evening, the thing I'd been told was the big thing to be excited about, which most of my friends were staying here for anyway. I snapped. I couldn't take it any more. I got my phone out and started posting in the group chat.

I could not tell you a single thing Berger talked about in the extract from his memoir. I was simply too tired. It described a world utterly alien to mine. A third of the words he was saying seemed to be quotes from other people. And the thing was, the thing that really got to me, aside from all the self-hatred over feeling like a hater, was that I'd brought with me a zine containing some lengthy personal episodes from my real life, and all I could think was: does this sound like that reads? Will my friends read it, and slump in their chairs, and loll their heads, persisting only out of a sense of obligation?

I knew it was over because suddenly people started clapping. By then, it was already too late. I watched the first part of "More than Meets the Eye", a boring cartoon I'd watched mere months prior in the cinemas (and enjoyed, somehow), and it was only when I realised we'd moved into the second part without me even noticing that I decided I was simply too tired to stay any longer, and finally made the wise choice to return to the bar.

Usually, Club Con has been fun and exciting, and I think the problem TFNation is increasingly having with it is that they feel like every year they need to debut something which has never been seen before, something important, over something which sparks joy. Last year was great: Jayhan rocked. This year did not rock. It just rolled on, and on, and on...

And I hate to be a hater about it. The auction raised £6400 for charity, of course that's fucking brilliant. The script reading made me chuckle a couple of times. The Wheelie auditions genuinely shed some light on a character/performance which has always been controversial. Gregg seems to have touched the hearts of a lot of people with his reading. These things were all perfectly fine taken on their own. And of course a huge part of my problem was just the physical reality of it, my own tiredness, the caught-up-in-my-own-head of it all. It was a me problem. But also, also, could they not have saved Gregg 'til last, as they have done with people like Garry Chalk in the past?

Look, something was just cursed this year. Viv got trapped in one of the elevators for ten minutes; another of the elevators was permanently cordoned off with hazard tape. That Saturday night, there were reports of Jim Sorenson being pursued through the corridors by someone from the salsa convention. The salsa convention! In years past, this charming trademark of TFNation, these bizarrely coincident events, background set-dressing, now elevated to plot-relevance, twisted into something adversarial. We heard that one of our volunteers had got in a fight with one of theirs. What the FUCK was going on, that night? There was a new water cooler positioned by the entrance to the dealer hall. Could there have been something in there, turning our vision red, driving us to madness?

I don't really remember what happened after I left the panel room. I hung out in the bar for a bit, and began to enjoy myself again—but I don't think I stayed up much later.

Sunday

That night, I was finally able to get some rest: I wasn't awoken by a stupid fucking fire alarm, or even a deliberately-set phone alarm, but rather by my own body deciding "hey, that's it, you've had enough". I felt good. I decided that Sunday would be a reset for me. I shaved, as I'd planned to, because my beard has developed a sizable bald spot, creeping up my neck onto the right side of my face. It used to be quite small, hidden away under my jawline—but roughly coinciding with that aforementioned personal crisis, more of the hair seems to have disappeared, an ice cap melting. At work, strangers come up to me and whisper the word "alopecia", as though whispering it makes this in any way a remotely polite thing to say to someone.

I'm not really attached to my facial hair—or rather, I guess, it's not really attached to me—but the half-on, half-off look is just kind of stupid. It's distracting. My eyes are up here! So at the moment, I'm having to shave more regularly. Maybe it'll grow back, or maybe it'll all fall off, and I'll probably be fine either way. So on Sunday morning, I took it as an excuse to perform the ritual. Cleave it away! All that shit in my skull, pushing its way out—begone! I gave myself horrendous razor burn; my blade was too blunt. In the evening, returning to my room, I saw there was still a spot of dried blood on the centre of my chin. It had been there all day. Whoops. But in the meantime, it fuckin' worked and all. I felt great. I looked cute, in my Hatsune Miku t-shirt and pink shorts.

On the way down from our room, I was able to prove to Jalaguy just how dogshit my phone camera is. I've had the thing for maybe six years at this point; it was actually my first decent-spec smartphone, but the camera is a dreadful thing that smears out every shape into a blurry haze regardless of the lighting conditions. Apparently it's "AI-enhanced", which to my knowledge just means you have an option to crank up the saturation sometimes; presumably, this software was a vain attempt to cover for the camera modules being cheap pieces of shit even at the time. Still, I was able to get maybe my favourite photo of the weekend.

Sunday was so, so much quieter. There is a kind lie at TFNation that Sunday's dealer hall is just as good, that places like Toy Fu purposefully hold back some stock for the second day, that the big stalls like ID Toys won't run out. It's not fucking true. The Blokees blokes had sold out. The bins were all half-full, the dregs of Revenge of the Fallen Sideswipe redecos, Armada Side Swipe redecos, Siege Sideswipe redecos, accumulated like silt in the wake of the gold rush.

But as a true gamer, I thrive on Sunday. I will find the things that no-one else wanted. I made off like a bandit. At Toy Fu, I found a Generations Junkheap going for a song; nobody gives a fuck about the Reveal the Shield Junkion mold these days, it's hot garbage, Studio Series is where it's at, but I'm still a Classics collector and I think that toy looks sick. I got my Wreck-Gar from Umar a couple of conventions ago, and now he's got a bike to ride on. Or maybe Junkheap is a Star Seeker! The world is his oyster. I also picked up a Combiner Wars Firefly—with his correct hand/foot/gun this time around—to complete my Superion, except the rest of the Aerialbots are in storage back at my parents' house so this is mostly academic.

I finally got a chance to properly look at the stall of my favourite traders, Blue Beetle. I've historically spent tons of money on frankly absurd quantities of cheap shit toys from their stall; this year, it was slimmer pickings for me, their huge bucket of slop by that point consisted mostly of BotBots. As usual, there was also an assortment of Transformers- and Marvel-inspired 3D-printed paraphernalia, custom-designed by one of the pair. The coolest item he had this year was a working clock in the shape of Cybertron; the second hand is the Ark, orbiting around. I don't really have room for that kind of thing in my life, but I was able to admire it from a distance.

Yesterday, I'd been tempted by an incomplete Robots in Disguise Movor and Rollbar to complement my childhood Ro-Tor and Armorhide, but they'd sold by the time I returned. Still, I was able to pick up a cheap Wildrider with dog-eared stickers; I plan to rip out his arm and use it to repair the other one I got. Last year, they also had an absolutely ruined Tentakil in their big bin, so sun-bleached as to be practically a redeco, with painfully stiff joins I dared not to try; I had actually resolved ahead of time that if it was still there this year, I'd pick it up, to go with my knackered Snap Trap. Well, lo and behold, there it was, dredged up from the BotBot pick-and-mix! I picked it up, and the main guy at the stall (I really need to get his name one of these years) waxed poetic about it, in mock outrage. "All weekend, I've seen people pick that little guy up, and I'm just like—come ON, he's £2!!! Yeah, he's a little sunburned, but where are you going to get a G1 guy for £2?" Of course he was absolutely right. As I said to him, it was less a question of whether I wanted to spend £2 on a Tentakil, and more a question of whether I dared to dip into the world of peroxide or whatever. But hey, if there was ever a toy to test the waters with...!

My dream of a Robots in Disguise Ruination wasn't quite dead, however—another stall actually had another Rollbar, this one complete with instructions, for a similar price to the one I'd seen at Blue Beetle. I also grabbed a Classics Megatron (about time!) from the same seller, and he threw in a Universe Ravage for free (my secondhand Hound came without one when I got it, many years ago now, so it was perfect!).

I hesitated for far longer than I should've over a complete Armada Demolishor for literally a tenner at another store. The thing is that I already have a Demolishor, with Blackout, just missing his missiles. But finding the missiles on their own has proven to be far trickier than I'd ever imagined! So really, I'd just be admitting defeat by buying a complete copy and flogging my incomplete one to recoup the cost (I could probably sell the Mini-Con alone for a tenner, if I was patient enough). "Are you having a laugh?" said Ben, when I agonised to him over it, which immediately snapped me out of my indecision. Honestly, it's really funny how much on the same wavelength we can be in that room. At one point I saw a Transmetal Optimus Primal at the Toy Fu table, and was about to buy it on the spot, when Ben pointed out, "It's missing one of its kneecaps. There was another one here earlier which was complete—but I bought it." Unbelievable!

I helped Daniel find a Beast Machines Rattrap I'd spotted earlier in the day, which he in turn only wanted to give to Jo—and I think she in turn planned to give it to Rabbit? This reminded me that I wanted to go home with some Beast Machines stuff myself. There was a Strika and a Tank Drone, which were at the top of my list to go with the dark horse favourite of my haul last year, the Motorcycle Drone. Unfortunately, they were a bit too expensive for me to buy on sight, and they were gone by the time I circled around. I'd also set my sights on some of the other Basic Vehicons, but was torn between the original colorways and the Robots in Disguise redecos, which had starred in a comic strip of mine. In the end, I decided to favour the original Beast Machines versions; partly because as I say, I'm swearing off redecos, and partly because I didn't want to start a whole new collection of "guys who appeared in that one comic wot I did". These worked out to be about a tenner cheaper than the sets of the redecos I'd otherwise seen, so that was nice, especially because at first I was disappointed to discover that I didn't really like them: Scavenger was great, but Mirage and Nightcruz really refused to cooperate while transforming. I was later able to work them out, in the comfort of my own home, and now I like them all, thankfully.

My last purchase was really exciting for me. One stall which was new for this year was Junk Shop U.S.A., being run by a couple of gentlemen who'd apparently come all the way over from Japan, bringing with them a bunch of uncommon and niche exclusives! It's quite typical for me to spot something on Saturday which is in some way special, but not in very high demand, going for more than I could usually justify for a toy of that size—in this case, it was United Rumble and Frenzy, paired up for £40. That's just too much to pay for two Scout Class figures, in my head, but I resolved that if nobody else had bitten by the end of the weekend, I'd make them an offer. Sure enough, they didn't seem to have received much interest, so my waiting paid off. They also seemed to like my fancomic (I'd been giving copies to most of the dealers), so that was really nice. While at the convention, I often like to gather up weird little micro-collections, and I found that this year Rumble and Frenzy paired really well with the Universe Ravage and Classics Megatron. It's all vibes, innit?

Unfortunately, due to my fixation on making the most of my remaining time in the dealer hall, I made the usual mistake of neglecting to visit any of the guests until it was already basically too late. David Kaye had vanished, with only the deserted amusement-park-esque queue barrier snaking towards his table to indicate that he was ever there. Again, I should've just sucked it up and waited for half an hour earlier in the day, but ironically the reason I hadn't was a complication with the thing I'd planned to get him to sign: an Armada Megatron jigsaw puzzle Jo bought for me last year. It wasn't until lunchtime that day that I was able to enlist Ben and Jo to put the damned thing together. And let me tell you, we smashed that children's jigsaw puzzle. I was hoping to mention to Kaye how his performance in Armada was one of the main things I enjoyed about the show, back when we were watching it for Our Worlds are in Danger—but then I had to go and let myself be distracted by toys, and miss my one shot! Argh!

Nick Roche was also permanently swamped. One of the volunteers shook his head at us, saying that Roche was heading off on his lunch; Jo made a valiant effort by saying "We're close personal friends!" (are we? I'm not!). The volunteer just shrugged and said, "man's gotta feed sometime", which I thought was really funny. I managed to briefly accost Roche in the bar later and shove a zine into his hands while he was presumably on the way back to his room, so that was something at least. God knows what he thought of it, assuming he's even read it. Dude was also massively behind on commissions, and ended up staying up late in his room finishing a couple of pieces for Jo—not that you'd know it, they turned out amazing.

I was however able to catch James Roberts at his table. For the last few conventions I've been putting off buying the notebooks, but this time my number was up: I got the set. In exchange (well, apart from money) I also gave him a zine, because I figured if any of the guests would be into my pretentious-ass prose, it'd be him.

Jo and I also briefly spoke to Simon Furman, mostly to let him know that certain parts of his Armada run were the best things he'd written in the early 2000s. He did actually light up at the reminder, and bemoaned the cancellation of Energon/Cybertron, as he always has done. Plus we managed to not completely embarrass ourselves, so I'm calling this one another win.

We finally got the full story from Jim as to what the fuck happened last night. It's really a tale for the ages, and I won't do it justice here, but I'm sure the legend will only grow over the course of conventions to come. Basically, it was like this: somehow, the salsa dancers had arranged things with the hotel to cordon off one of the two corridors leading through the building. This was another reason why the convention felt so unbearably busy. The signs were carefully worded: "to avoid congestion", TFNation attendees were directed to the other corridor.

Now, to hear Jim tell it, he was rushing to the panel room, and at that point, the corridor wasn't cordoned off, or he didn't see the sign, or something. Or maybe he did see the sign—I'm sure he'll never tell. Regardless, he was three-quarters of the way up the corridor when he saw the barrier at the other end. Still, it would have been asinine for him to turn around and go back, so he ploughed ahead.

But then someone called after him! And so he glanced over his shoulder, and offered a "sorry!" in deference. Then suddenly, this person came up alongside him, tried to step in front of him. Jim sort of just carried on going, but no sooner had he passed the man, he felt hands on his shoulders! The dude had physically grabbed him, yoink!

Like a cartoon character, Jim's legs were in motion but going nowhere, and the salsa guy's supervisor or someone was saying "Let him go! Let! Him! Go!" Until finally, the guy let Jim go, and he scurried off to the panel room.

Now, I'm told that around this point, Jo and Rabbit happened to be outside the panel room. So these salsa dancers came up to them and asked, like, "Who is running your convention? The behaviour of your guests is completely unacceptable!" They dutifully pointed into the room, up on stage, where David was busy MCing.

Eventually, the salsa people ended up crossing paths with some of the volunteers. Jim likes to imagine that they made a demand along the lines of, "PRODUCE THE COWBOY!" One thing led to another, and apparently one of the salsa folk—presumably, the same blockhead who'd grabbed Jim—slapped one of the TFNation volunteers on the arm. Not a proper blow or anything, but like—what the fuck!

So finally hotel security stepped in, Jim got called out. The salsa guy began this litany of complaints: according to him, Jim bodychecked him in the corridor! He demanded that the security team check the CCTV tapes. "Yes, PLEASE check the tapes!" Jim agreed, because he knew for a fact that they would show their guy laying hands on him. And of course, he had no intention of pressing charges, but- Of course, that turns the tables. By that point, the other salsa guy was apparently at his wit's end trying to talk down his idiot pal, and finally the guy listened. And that's more or less the end of it, but apparently, hotel security later conferred with TFNation staff to say they had reviewed the tapes, and "Your guy did nothing wrong." Not only that, it turned out that Jim had been chased down the corridor not just by that one guy, but by four salsa dancers! Absolute scenes.

So yeah, that's the story of how Jim became the mortal enemy of salsa dancers. On Saturday night, I'd found the signs of this going on in the background to be kind of alarming, but in the light of day, it was impossible to see the situation as anything other than extremely fucking funny.

We had intended to stop by the "Construct-A-Con" panel, but by the time we arrived, David Kaye was up on stage doing an audience Q&A. It's crazy how much Kaye gives off the impression of being one-of-us, a bona fide fan of the franchise (or at least the parts he's been involved with!). We presume that the convention-organising roundtable had been swapped with Kaye's panel for some reason or another.

Back in the bar, the number of toys floating around had reached a critical mass. I think it was SameAsItEverWoz who had acquired a full set of Kabaya toys for Kenzan, Jinbu, and Ganoh. These came complete with ten-year-old Japanese chewing gum, so Erica, Sixty_Cats and myself all got to try some! I don't know why I'm phrasing that like this was a good thing. The gum was very bad, but we've since updated the TFWiki pages for Kenzan and Jinbu to properly document how it tasted. Ganoh's page has yet to be updated; poke Erica to get on it!

Daniel picked up a Collaborative H.I.S.S. Megatron (the toy I'd originally planned to cover for the RRCo zine)—mostly just for the sake of buying something! It was right before the dealer room was closing, so he got a good price, but a few days later his airline lost his damn luggage (he's since got it back, minus an expensive bottle of whiskey that apparently got stolen by airport staff). Still, we managed to eke what fun we could out of the thing; I was thrilled to find that Rumble and Frenzy could sit in his gun turret. Meanwhile, it turned out Umar had got a Classics Optimus Prime, which immediately made me keen to get my own copy out of storage; it's crazy how good a pair he makes with Megatron.

I'll level with you—at this stage in my journaling, it's been a full week since I arrived at the con, so my memory is hazy. These fragmentary scenes are all that remain aside from vibes. But I got to talk to a bunch of people that night. I had a good bitch sesh with Chris McFeely and PaperPlane off the YouTubes, as we chatted about wronguns in the community and the possibility of a YouTube panel at TFNation in the future (David was not keen). I got to shoot the shit about comics and stuff with Cradok from the TFWiki Discord, who I only ever really get the chance to chat with at TFN, but who's always a pleasure to speak to—he knows so much about so much.

There were a few people who left as Sunday was wrapping up, which always takes me by surprise, even though it shouldn't. Coordinating across the hotel proved to be difficult for me as I kept getting booted off the guest WiFi for some fucking reason, so I'd just randomly stop getting notifications. At one point I checked the group chat and realised that Viv had ollied outie maybe an hour ago—and it was like, welp, I'm probably not gonna see her again until next year!

That's the aspect of the convention which I find is really brutal: I like panels, and I like talking to guests, and I like getting toys, but most of all, I like talking to my pals. And unfortunately, for most of the weekend, all of these activities are in direct competition. There are physically not enough hours in the day. Most of these people, I could happily spend a whole day with them, and it'd pass in the blink of an eye. I'm not talking about the whole crowd—I'm talking about individual people. Even if I was never to step foot outside the bar the entire weekend, I'd still find myself wishing I'd got the chance to talk to all these people just a little longer. But it's only by the existence of this event that we're able to meet. For so much of the year, everyone is so far away.

I'm sick of all the typing. I just want to hang out.

I think it was Sunday night when I briefly lost my phone. My pink shorts were really throwing me off, so I didn't have my usual feeling of whether or not my phone was or wasn't in my pocket. At one point we went off to get tea, and we'd just left the hotel when I realised—shit! I'd left it in the bar. So we rushed back, but at that point it was already gone, handed in to the hotel staff by one of our pals. But the thing was, the hotel staff didn't seem to have a fucking clue about it!

I asked at the bar. They knew nothing about it and told me to check with reception. I asked at reception. The lady there asked me what my phone looked like. Oh dear, I thought. It's a generic off-brand phone. It's black. It's in a very badly yellowed clear case, I guess? "Yellow phone", echoed the receptionist. I shook my head. "No, no, it's a- nevermind. It's just a black phone." It was a moot point because she knew nothing about it. She went over to the concierge desk and tried to call housekeeping. Housekeeping knew nothing about it. She shrugged and told me to check with the bar again. Internally I was like, one of your staff has my phone! Are you not going to try and get the bottom of it? So I went back to the bar and asked one the wait staff. She passed me over to her supervisor. The supervisor went back over to the concierge desk, and finally returned with my phone, which had apparently been there the whole time. What a palaver! Daniel and Jalaguy looked after me during this whole little snafu, which was really great. We had a nice dinner and stayed up 'til late.

Monday

This was easily my best Monday at TFNation yet. I wouldn't dream of leaving on Sunday, but I usually find that the only cheap trains on Monday are late in the afternoon, by which point most people have usually fucked off already. Not so this year! I wasn't the last one standing! I was hanging out with people right up until the end! Ha!

I managed to find the last few people I'd wanted to give zines to, and shoved copies into their hands during the goodbyes. I walked a couple of people up to the train station, as is tradition.

Rachel's stuff from Friday was all out on the tables again; Prime Thundertron and Titans Return Hot Rod still hadn't found a new home, which I was thrilled by, because I hadn't found a complete Hot Rod and I'd really come around on the idea of Thundertron. I had a go of transforming him myself, and immediately decided that Jala was just wrong, it rules. There was also a Netflix Kingdom Rattrap, which I decided I'd like. My Kingdom Rattrap is the retail deco, and he's missing his rifle; this one was complete, and technically different, and it felt fitting considering all the thought I'd been giving to my stupid Rattrap collection. But then I saw Daniel playing with the toy, and I was like... actually, he should have it. I didn't need it, he'd get more out of it! It was really nice to see someone discovering that figure for the first time, a toy that means so much to me. I spent the entire train ride home just flipping Thundertron from one mode to another. Few toys exude such life and personality. Like I say, I'm normally the #1 Prime hater, so it's not a figure I ever would've thought to pick up—if not for Rachel's generosity. So I want to give her a huge thank-you, I'm sure a lot of us ended up leaving the convention with something like that which really excited us, thanks to her.

Also on the table was the original fucking pencil art for Jack Lawrence's cover to Lost Light #10, which auto_thots had bought. Unfortunately, it hadn't brought along anything to transport something like that with, so the damn thing was just out there on the table next to everyone's coffees. After a near-miss, I was like, hold the fuck on, we've got to get this thing off the table. Thankfully, Daniel had mistakenly ended up with a spare copy of issue #184 of the Marvel UK comic, which had a plastic sleeve of about the right size; in went the art, while Ella adopted the comic (we got to hang out a little bit more this year, which was nice!).

Jo, Rabbit and I are all Magic: The Gathering players, and the previous night, Rabbit had revealed that they'd brought along a bunch of Bloomburrow packs, so that we could do our own little tournament. This really thrilled me, because my coworker who I usually go to MTG events with had BETRAYED me for Bloomburrow by going away on prerelease weekend to play in another city, so I'd pretty much resigned myself to never playing the expansion, despite it being the most appealing set in ages. Thanks to Rabbit, I got to actually try some of the cards! On Sunday night, I made a WBR lifedrain deck with a bat/lizard typal theme, and we got the chance to play in the bar on Monday. My deck actually played really well! I won some, I lost some, but most importantly I had fun, and Rabbit was very patient with the fact that I was constantly getting up to say goodbye to people. I felt like I hadn't got to spend much time with either of them over the weekend up to that point, so it was really nice to actually sit down together and do something like that, right up until the time came for me to go and get my train.

Next time

So at TFNation 2025, here are some things which I hope will make me enjoy myself better:

I probably won't be contributing a review for the Refined Robot Co. zine again, assuming Ben decides to extend the trilogy into a quadrilogy. I love doing it, but drawing just takes me too long, and it's just not the same without drawing. Also, look, this isn't me blowing my own horn, but I think it'd be difficult for me to top this year's piece of writing—there were a perfect storm of factors which made this one work, and I simply can't think of a reason I'd ever be able to write a better piece in that specific format.

I have plans already for next year's zine, and if all goes according to plan, I will have the whole thing finished by the end of this year. Which should mean I will have the damn thing printed months in advance. Look, we all know how these things go, but that's my plan.

I might try to collaborate with someone who has a table to give away (sell?) some printed goods. I felt like this year was so busy that I actually struggled to give away nearly as many copies of the Wheelie comic as I'd hoped, for instance, and Ben definitely found the same with the RRCo zine. I'm sure there's lots of people who'd like my stuff if they knew it existed.

I will get lots of sleep before going to the convention. No, really.

If circumstances outside my control conspire such that I do not get enough sleep, I will allow myself to resort to the 500ml cans of Monster which the Hilton was selling for £2 each at breakfast for some unfathomable reason. Honestly, I can see why they weren't included in the all-you-can-eat breakfast buffet; if they were, we probably would've seen a few heart attacks.

I will probably voice some of my criticisms of this year's Club Con in the annual feedback survey they do, in the hopes that they will take more of a back-to-basics approach. I'll also try to notice if I am not having fun, and try doing something else.

I will try to wear shorts with bigger pockets. (Sorry, Jo, I will not be able to participate in the cosplay show, though I will of course continue to rep the merch.)

I will stop taking items of breakfast food "for the road".

I will suck it up and queue to see guests towards the start of the day.

I will try and change my financial situation to have a stream of income outside of my job—whether by making significant sales from my existing collections, or by having a Patreon for some meaningful creative endeavour—which I will use to properly budget for things like TFNation. I need to allow myself to spend more on specific things that I want, and waste less time scrubbing around Facebook, eBay, and charity shops for random bargains (this year was a fluke). My attitude towards money has always been fucked and it's time to work on that.

In case it's not obvious, though, I did overall really enjoy myself this year, and that was entirely down to my friends, old and new, for being such wonderful people to be around. Even in my most sleep-deprived and highly-strung state, you all made me feel content, comfortable, and included in our little community. I was constantly being surprised by your antics. I hope to see all of you again next year, and I hope that I will see some of you before then!

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