#I felt pushed to be better - I was satisfied with something I personally created

[bluewaterlily]

My depression is making it so that it’s hard to write and not being able to write is just adding to the depression *sigh*

[sincerelyrki]

but i love the taste of you

Heeseung never did enjoy lollipops, their overrated taste never interesting him. But perhaps tasting it from your lips could change everything. As for the laptop? It just happened to be in the perfect place, at the perfect time.

pairing : bf!heeseung x fem!reader

warnings + genre : smut. profanity. licking. biting. heeseung is lowkey obsessed. unprotected sex (pls don’t!). oral (both ways). kissing over a lollipop (trust 🙏). recording. switch!heeseung. switch!reader. little bit of degrading (just a bit, promise). spit it mentioned a few times. 18+. mdni.

wc : 3.9k

a/n : you can probably see my addiction to secondhand tasting [ cherry lips, a cherry for my cherry, and now this one… (the lollipop was def cherry flavoured in my head)] anyways, this is only my second time writing full smut so please lmk how i did! fb + rbs are always appreciated <3

Heeseung sat with his jaw clenched; hands fisting by his side as he watched your lollipop glide down your tongue, satisfying pops sounding out whenever you pulled it from your mouth. 

He felt like he was losing his mind, his patience wearing thin the longer he listened to your soft hums of delight. 

The sounds were identical to the ones he had you making just hours ago, your body still clad in nothing but his t-shirt and your cute little panties. 

You were daunting him, you had to be. There was no other explanation as to why you were making all these erotic sounds, why you were licking your lollipop in the same way you had done to him that same morning. 

Heeseung rose to a stand, feet bringing him towards you without hesitation. He stood tall in front of you, his body blocking your vision from your computer’s screen. 

“I can’t see, baby. Can you please move over?” You looked up at him over your lashes, wide eyes matching your perfectly pouted lips.

Heeseung swore under his breath, his pants tightening as he laid a firm hand on your shoulder, gently pushing you to lean back against the couch. 

You sat back with a smirk, teeth still pressing down on the lollipop stick. At first, you didn’t mean to make the whole scene suggestive, but you’d never pass up the opportunity to tease your boyfriend. 

You knew how easily he got turned on, how easy it was for you to turn him to putty in your hands. It wasn’t that you always took advantage of it, but there’s no harm in doing it every once in a while. 

Especially when he looked as good as he did now, his messy hair - courtesy to you- stirring your arousal as the reminder of your long morning came rolling back.

You sat still under him, your eyes never leaving his heated ones, basking in the way he glared down at you. You had been fantasizing about his reaction, about how rough he would take you.

There’s nothing that irritated Heeseung more than when his good girl teased him, but there’s also nothing that turned him on more. 

There was something about your innocent facade, your delicate eyes staring at him with the warmth of the morning sun. Something about the way you conceived everyone into thinking you were some perfect, flawless, princess. 

The way you convinced everyone that you were nothing like how you actually were, you’re just a brat wearing a pretty face. But you were only Heeseungs brat, something he proved to you whenever he could.

Heeseung turned his back towards you, bending at the waist to pick up your computer. He rolled his eyes at the rotting footage playing across from him, some random romance sitcom with no specific plot.

It was the same genre you always chose to indulge in, sitting pretty while your brain worked on autopilot to create its own interpretations of how these soulless actors would portray these tedious scenes. 

That’s when an idea hit Heeseung, one that he’d been fantasizing about since the day he first touched you. What better movie is there to watch, than the one you create with the person you love?

It was perfect, everything about it. 

And so Heeseung turned back around, putting his weight on one knee and he moved the other on your other side. He sat down on your plush thighs, straddling you as you sunk deeper into the couch. 

You had long lost eye contact your the man before you, the computer blocking your sight. You ignored the way your show suddenly turned quiet, rolling your eyes at what you thought was Heeseung being over dramatic.

But what he had done next, was something that you’d be thinking about the next time you needed some sort of relief, your hands down your parties as you pleasured yourself to the thought of your boyfriend. 

Heeseung placed the computer on the side table, the two of you fitting perfectly in frame. He barely glanced at the screen before he grabbed your jaw, one hand holding it as the other pressed down on your bottom lip.

Two sides of Heeseung’s fingers touched against the lollipop in your mouth, sandwiching it between his fingers as he pried your mouth open. 

You looked up at Heeseung in shock, the lollipop sitting loose in your mouth as you allowed him to control your body in the ways he wanted. 

“You know, I’m not a huge fan of lollipops…�� Heeseung trailed off, his fingers crawling from your mouth and onto your tongue. He swiped two fingers across the sugary surface of the lollipop, trailing it in a line across one side of the candy.

He then dragged his fingers from the lollipop, across your tongue, and to your lips. He used his fingers to rub the sweetness across your mouth, a sweet coat of sugar replacing your long smudged lipgloss.

“But I love the taste of you.” He used the same two fingers to pull the candy from your mouth, leaning it to vertically press against your lips. He leaned down to your face, pressing his lips to the other side of the lollipop.

He then angled the stick in a way that allowed the lollipop to stick in the middle of both of your lips, the taste transferring to the both of you. 

He closed his eyes, uncaring of the fact that yours were wide open and staring directly at him. He gently stuck out his tongue, removing his lips enough to run his tongue across the side of the lollipop.

He turned his head as his tongue slowly moved across it, eventually meeting the end and ending on the corner of your lips.

Heeseung stayed in that position, his lips barely touching yours as he let out a quiet hum, licking the sugar off his lips as he reopened his eyes. “Delicious” He pressed a small peck to the side of your lips, pulling back to sit up straight.

Heeseung was still holding the lollipop to your lips, only this time he turned the stick so the end was facing towards his chest, the candy facing towards your mouth.

He made a show of opening his mouth, sticking out his tongue as he let a hushed “a” sound leave his lips.

He gave you a small smirk as you followed his command, lips opening wide as you stuck your tongue out the same way. “Good girl” Heeseung cooed at you in a tone that was anything but proud. 

He pushed the candy back in your mouth, using his other hand to close your jaw around it. “You’re so pretty like this, with your dirty lips wrapped around something.” Heeseung quirked an amused eyebrow as you responded to his degrading words with a whine, furrowed eyebrows staring up at him.

“Oh? You don’t look pretty with something in your mouth?” You whined again, eyebrows furrowing even more. Heeseung tilted his head to the side, face pulling up in an unfamiliar way.

 “Lips aren’t dirty” You tried speaking through your closed mouth, words barely recognizable. Heeseung humorlessly chucked at your words, a proud grin settling on his face.

“M’sorry baby, you have the prettiest lips.” Your forehead smoothed as you sunk back down, satisfied with his answer. “Should we show the camera?”

Heeseung leaned over to grab the laptop, his teeth on display as he replayed your reaction in his head. The way your body tensed at his words, eyes widening a fraction and legs jolting. 

“You must think I'm dumb, don’t you? Don’t think I haven’t noticed.” You were filled with the same desires as Heeseung, your fantasy of recording each other haunting you every time you have sex. 

“I know my dumb baby too well, there isn’t anything I haven’t already seen.” Heeseung was now watching their reflection on the screen, his desire growing as he watched the way you began pushing against him. 

“Is my baby getting needy?” Through the screen he watched as you rapidly nodded, teeth still pressing down on the lollipop. “Good, let’s show the camera how pretty your lips are first.”

Heeseung brought the laptop up between the two of you, holding it near your chest as he stared down at you, “hold it.” 

With the laptop held securely in your hands, Heeseung turned his attention back to your candy. This time, he opened your mouth in a different way. 

He pushed down on the lollipop, forcing your mouth to open due to the pressure. He slowly slid it out from your mouth, his mouth salivating as the sweet scent reached his nose. 

The camera got a close-up of the way a small string of saliva connected from your mouth to the candy, caught the way it disappeared as Heeseung’s head swooped in from over the laptop as pressed against yours.

Filthy sounds filled the room, your messy kiss being caught from a lowered angle. Though many might now think the angle would be ideal, it was nothing less than perfect.

It perfectly captured the way Heeseung’s tongue wrapped around yours, the way your head chased after his as he pulled back to change angles. 

It caught everything, including your pretty moans. 

Heeseung carelessly tossed the lollipop behind him, the table close enough for it to land on without having to look. He moved both of his hands to wrap around your waist, his hands pressing down on your curves.

“Wait, let me fix the camera” You stuttered mid-sentence, mouth refusing to leave his as you placed the laptop on the couch beside the two of you, everything above your knees visible. 

Heeseung slid his hands under your shift, sliding it up and over your head in a vast movement, disconnecting your lips for no more than five seconds before pressing against you again.

His hands squeezed at your skin, his hands coming up to grope at you.

Your head tilted back with a loud moan as he disconnected your lips to kiss the exposed skin at the top of your bra, his hands pushing your tits up as he sucked dark marks onto your skin.

He acted like a man who’d never seen a pair of breasts before, ravaging them like a starved man. He moved lower down your legs as he undid your bra, kissing and sucking spots along his path until he reached your pants. 

Heeseung slid off the couch, slotting himself between your open legs as he bit along your lower stomach, kissing your stretch marks as he appreciated your entire body. 

“My girl is so pretty, the prettiest girl in the world.” He mumbled out, sounding drunk off your skin. “So so pretty” He repeated over and over as he placed more and more kisses.

He slid his hands back down towards your legs, fingers wrapping around your waistline before he looked up at you, eyes hooded as he waited for your consent. 

At your nod, Heeseung quickly undid your pants, pulling them down and off your legs. Your panties quickly followed, getting tossed across the room in a random pile that would soon be joined by his clothes. 

Due to the shift of weight, the laptop toppled over to the side, landing in the perfect view of Heeseung between your legs. It was a sight worth millions, the sight of a man who was actually willing to sacrifice anything to get a taste of pussy. 

Heeseung pulled your legs over his shoulder, using his hands to pull your body closer to his face. His eyes closed with a loud hum, the familiar smell enveloping his senses in the most pleasurable way possible.

“You smell so good, I love you so much” Heeseung spoke once before placing a small kiss against your folds, one of his hands coming up to spread you for him.

He gave your inner thigh one last kiss before he leaned in, his lips wrapping around your clit as his vibrations caused mass pleasure to wring out across your body. 

Your back arched as his tongue circled you, your sensitive nerves reacting to his loving movements. Heeseung always started slow, paying attention to your most pleasurable parts as he submerged himself into you.

His tongue was now replaced with his thumb, fast circled getting rubbed against you as he stuck his tongue flat against your opening, slowly curling it as he collected whatever juices he could. 

A mixture of his spit and your arousal was nothing more than his wettest dreams, the taste automatically beating the one of the sugary lollipops. He could happily drown within you, the only way he’d ever want to go. 

After a few minutes of prolonging your orgasm, he finally decided to finish it off, bringing you to your most craved high. 

He pushed his fingers into you, his tongue replacing the spot his thumb was moments prior. As good as Heeseung’s fingers felt, nothing compared to his tongue.

It felt like magic, the way he was able to make you feel so much in such a short amount of time. Your back arched as your legs quivered around his head, thighs tightening around his head as your heels dug into his clothes back. 

Broken moans left your lips, the sound rising the more you felt the waves coming up. Heeseung felt it too, the way you clenched around his fingers while your hips began rocking against your face.

He used the hand that was wrapped around one of your tights to go up and press against your lower stomach, pushing on it as your high washed over you. 

Loud slurps and moans filled the room, your breath caught in your throat as your back arched as far as it could. Heeseung felt you through it, both his fingers and to continue moving unrelentingly.

“Too much.” You gently shinned, legs still shaking as Heeseung licked you clean. He hummed against you, removing his fingers as he finished off, “I know baby, I know.”

Heeseung sat back up, one of his hands grabbing at the bottom of his shit to pull it off his head. You watched through tired eyes as your boyfriend palmed himself through his pants, head tilting forwards as his eyes stayed glued to your face.

It was a habit that Heeseung couldn’t seem to shake, the action starting when your relationship first started. You used to get shy after Heeseung ate you out, cheeks heating up as you tried hiding yourself.

Obviously, you weren’t shy anymore, the hundreds of minutes he’d spent between your legs long swishing that shyness. 

While you were calming down and preparing yourself again, Heeseung busied himself with getting undressed. He removed each article of clothing, throwing them roughly in the same direction as yours. 

The sight of your boyfriend bare before your eyes caused your body to light up with electricity once again, legs tingling as you obsessed with the way his cock twitched at your watchful eyes.

Heeseung leaned down to grab the laptop, placing it on the table that it was on, to begin with, one that gave it the sight of the entire couch. 

You changed positions, turning your back towards the roof as you crawled towards one side of the couch, arching your back for your boyfriend as you playfully looked over your shoulder at him. 

“I’m not going to fuck myself.” You fluttered your eyelashes, arousal growing as Heeseung playfully snickered at you in disbelief. “Don’t worry, I’ll fuck you so good.”

He kneels on the couch behind you, hands spreading your ass as he pushes himself to glide between your lips. He coated himself with your wetness before sinking into you, bottoming out as you pushed yourself back into him. 

His nails dug into your love handles, grabbing them for stability as he pushed himself into you. His head fell back as he felt himself continuously bottom out.

It was rare that you went without a condom, and there was no better feeling than the friction of your bare skin rubbing together. 

“Fuck, you feel so good.” A loud pitch moan left your lips in response, a little more dramatic due to the camera recording you. 

Heeseung could feel himself losing control, the warm feeling of being inside of you chasing his hips to push into you harder. 

Quiet swears left his lips as he found his constant pace, hips hitting against yours as he leaned over your back, hands leaving your hips to wrap around your hands. 

He pushed your hands down against the couch, his new angle allowing him to get more depth. 

“Please, I want to cum whilst riding you.” Heeseung swore one last time before pulling out, flipping your position as he leaned his back against the back of the couch. 

Your feet pressed against his legs, hips raised as you used your hand to place his dick against you. You circled his tip around your entrance one time before you sunk onto him, hand moving down to play with his balls as you bounced up and down. 

Heeseung threw his head back, eyes narrowing to slits as his pleasure weighed down his body. One of his hands rubbed up your body, grabbing your chest as the other squeezed the soft skin of your waist. 

He turned his attention toward the area where the two of you were connected, his mouth drying as he watched a ring of white froth form at his base. 

His abdominal muscles contracted as he trusted his hips forward, louder clapping filling the room as he changed the tempo. 

There was a moment where both of your eyes met, the primal desire mirroring back through your own reflections. Heeseung gave you a small smirk, one side of his mouth quirking up.

He winked at you once before he grabbed your hand, his fingers wrapping around the entirety of yours as he brought it to grab his neck.

“Use me” You tightened your hand around his neck at his suddenly sultry whisper, knees burning as you dropped against him harder. 

You bent forward, chest bumping against him as you used your hands to tilt his head back, his hair falling back to reveal his damp forehead. 

You pressed your tongue against the top of his sternum, licking a strip up until your nose touched his earlobe, teeth replacing its spot as you bit down on him.

His back arched beneath you, small sounds leaving his lips as you marked him. You treated his neck the same way you had the lollipop, using him the way he liked. 

“You feel so good.” Heeseung breathlessly praised you, his voice coming out higher than usual. It was easy to tell when Heeseung was getting close, the way he started touching your body more. 

Even with Heeseung under you, he always made sure you came undone first. The way your pleasure contoured your body caused his own long-awaited high to multiply tens fold. 

Though the feeling of his skin against yours caused a euphoric sensation to ring out across your body, you couldn’t stop yourself from teasing him a little more.

You halted your body, palms pushing down on your boyfriend's hips to stop his constant buckling.

“I want to make you feel good before.” You rose higher on your knees, only his tip remaining in as you shot him your best attempt of an innocent smile.

Heeseung tried not to let your words affect him, the pleasure that faded with the lack of stimulation returning at the thought of your lips wrapping around him.

“I much prefer you over the lollipop, nothing compares to the way you fill me.” 

Heeseung let out a shaky breath as his left leg began to shake, arms flexing as he fisted the cushions under him. “Fuck, do whatever you’d like, I’ll take anything you’re willing to give me.”

You removed him from you completely, your palm reaching up towards his lips as you looked at him with an expected gaze. Heeseung puckered his lips out, a sizable drop of spit landing between the crevices of your fingers. 

“That’s not enough.” You clicked your tongue at him, faux disapproval seeping out through your lips as you pulled your hand away from him. “You’re lucky I'm still wet, I'll just have to do it myself.”

You reached down, fingers collecting your wetness before you wrapped your hand back around him. Heeseung’s mouth fell open as you placed a small kiss against the base of his shaft, a trail of kisses following your hand as you slowly moved it up.

A sudden whimper left his mouth as you hollowed your cheeks around him, the suction perfectly squeezing around him. 

His sounds only rose as you added your tongue, the soft muscle tracing along his prominent vein. He almost forgot about the laptop, a small red light reminding him of the almost hour-long video. 

He stared directly into the camera, maximizing his expressions knowing that sooner or later, you’d be watching this back. He knew what got you off, what he could do to make you feel as good as possible. 

It was completely mutual, your knowledge of his body aiding in drawing out a loud, genuine, sound from his pretty lips. 

His back lifted from the couch, body flinching as your finger pressed against his perineum, sharp shocks of pleasure shooting across his body.

His breath caught in his chest as his hand shot out to grab your head, your hair fisting in his hands as he pushed you down further.

He didn’t stop, not even after hearing your choking sounds. As said before, he knew exactly what you liked.

 He wasn’t the only one who enjoyed being choked, you just experienced it differently. 

You continued stimulating his prostate through his perineum, spit dribbling down from the corners of your lips as you drew him closer to his orgasm.

He barely warned you before letting go in your mouth, the only telltale being the trembling of his legs. 

You tried your best to swallow everything he gave you, his familiar salty taste replacing the coating of sweetness in your throat. 

You pulled back, tongue peaking out to lap at the drops you had missed before, cleaning him from your shared mess. 

Heeseung panted from above you, his eyes closed as his heart pounded loudly in his chest. He felt the way you raised from your knees, your hand wrapping around his jaw as you pulled him in for a messy kiss.

The taste of himself no longer caused any reaction, he’d long gotten used to tasting himself on your tongue after you’d gone down on him.

“You’re not going to be able to walk tomorrow.” Heeseung said completely seriously, masking the truth behind his words with a joking tone. 

“That’s just the way I like it.” You replied back, scooting back to rest your head against the arm of the couch, legs spreading for your boyfriend to get a good view of what you were going to do next. 

“I’m ready when you are, show me how good you can treat me.” You never looked away from his eyes as you pressed your finger down against your clit, basking in the way his cock twitched at you.

“Or are you too tired?” Heeseung rolled his eyes at you, his body moving to hover over yours as he pushed himself between your legs.

“Why don’t you see for yourself?” You returned his wolfish grin, hand leaving your body to grab his waist, pulling his hips against yours. 

“Show me.”

[eloise-t-g]

i think for me, the watcher situation comes down to this:

it's absolutely respectable that the watcher team wants to grow and produce better quality content. it's respectable that they don't want to stagnate and end up pushing the same content out over and over again. that's not satisfying for them creatively, i get that.

however, if higher quality, more heavily produced content is not what your fans are asking for, then you can't ask them to fund it.

this all-or-nothing method they've gone for is frankly bizarre. it feels like they leap-frogged all other alternatives to improving their finances and ended up here, alienating and frustrating the majority of their fanbase (the fanbase they thanked for getting them to where they are).

i think this could have gone a lot better if they:

Hadn't hyped up this video for a week.

Hadn't announced the worth it successor just beforehand.

Hadn't put out a wishy-washy, "boo hoo we're so sad about this", over-produced video.

Hadn't made it $6/month (more in a lot of countries given exchange rates).

Had considered that this means fans in specific countries literally cannot pay for the subscription due to geo/region-locking.

my ideas for improving their funds, aka things they could have tried before blowing their brand up: create their own website with two options - a free version with ads and a paid version without ads, OR make better use of their patreon/make their website extra content, not all their content, for example:

Put the ghost file debriefs on there.

Put shows like survival mode on there (or even shift that show from pre-recorded video to live-stream - live stream access to patrons and VOD access to everyone, maybe).

Put episode commentaries there.

Do reaction videos to their old buzzfeed content, talk about memories and BTS, and put that there.

Put one/two episodes of each show, per season on there (and ONLY there).

Put the episodes up there a few days early.

Make specific, website only content (that's not your main and most popular series aka ghost files and puppet history).

Record the live, in-person shows and put those VODs up there.

EDIT (thought of something else lmao): put extended or even uncut versions of ghost files on there. Paranormal Detour on Detune's twitch channel has shown that people will willingly sit through 6+ hours of a ghost investigation.

EDIT: idk, do livestreams once a week where you watch scary movies with fans on discord or twitch.

(side note: the fact that they're not taking down their patreon and instead shifting all of their podcast content on there, something the patreons who have been loyally giving them money for years didn't ask for, is ridiculous and greedy. add to this the fact that they don't even get a free sub to the new website, instead get 40% off - a measly 10% more than anyone else who subs before the official launch).

the thing for me is that they're claiming they want to make "television" and "television-grade content". that's completely fine. what's not completely fine is acting like your four episodes a month is equal to netflix's entire catalogue.

this really felt like it should have been something they told us they were progressing towards, not something they revealed to be on the imminent horizon. idk, it just feels out of nowhere. no, they don't owe us all of the info about their company. but something had to be better than this.

final thought - it's okay and valid to be upset at the team for this. for a lot of people, it's a complete betrayal (especially the comment that $6 a month is something "anyone and everyone can afford", i mean yikes). i do think some people's anger got the best of them, and some of the comments i've seen across youtube, twitter, and tumblr are plain bullying, racism, and harassment. until we have the whole story, we can't decide that one founder (aka steven in a lot of people's minds) is solely responsible. i know a lot of these awful things are only coming from a small minority of the fandom, but they still get seen.

at the end of the day, all three of them got up in front of a camera and made this video, together. that can only lead us to the conclusion that they made this decision together. acting like these men in their 30s couldn't stand up against it if they truly wanted to, is so strange and parasocial lmao.

tl;dr there were much better ways of going about this announcement, if it even needed to be made at all. however, that doesn't excuse the hateful shit being spewed at the team. for now, all we know is the three founders decided they were done with youtube, and done with their loyal youtube audience.

(i have so many more thoughts on this but i need to stop lmao. however i do wonder how different things could have been if 1. they had hired someone with actual business experience as their CEO from the jump, and 2. this video was more of a "hey we're broke! this is a last-ditch effort to save our company!". guess those questions will remain ... well ... you know ...).

[fromtherift]

(Puts on my communism goggles) I think staunchly pro-anders fans are fascinating because to me at least it shows how to most people revenge is more important than actual progress. People will always want to do what feels good over what is right, because progress often is slow and unsatisfying in the moment.

My main issue with Anders’ action isn’t that he did something extreme, it’s that he did in the wrong place. Why the chantry over the gallows, where the actual templars were and there would be less civilians to hurt? He had Hawke on his side, he could have planned to evacuate people or put some safeguard in place to minimize civilian damages in the gallows, since most of the people in the gallows are not civilians. Blowing up property - especially if the property houses information and shelter for the oppressing party- is good. It’s a great plan. It would have made a much bigger impact and put a lot less mages across Thedas in direct danger if it was the gallows that were destroyed and not a chantry.

But Anders was wrapped up in vengeance (and we can have a whole discussion about how responsible Anders is for the actions of Justice). The point wasn’t to make the world better for mages at that point- the mage-Templar war that ensued did not ensure any kind of rights for mages depending on what you did in inquisition, and many had to die for being made automatically complicit in crimes against Andraste (even if they were believers themselves, that’s just the consequence of BLOWING UP THE CHANTRY), it was to do something extreme to feel like he was doing something just for the mages. Blowing up the chantry made this a statement on religion. It distracted from the actual grievances about the abuse taking place in mage circles.

There is no justice when collateral damage in the form of life is acceptable. That is no way forward, and it will create a lot more problems in the long run than it solves. It creates Martyrs, people who won’t rest until their own versions of feel good revenge is satisfied.

But it did feel real good to see the chantry- at that point housing people sheltering from danger- blow up as a symbol of your hate to the Templar order. It felt real good and that’s all that mattered.

This is great commentary on real world situations where good people - and Anders was a good person, dedicated his whole life to doing right by others and the world around him- get corrupted and twisted and pushed to do things that a younger version of them might never condone. When things get bad enough and no one wants to listen these kinds of actions seem to be the only way forward. The issue, ultimately, is not Anders. It’s not even Kirkwall. It’s fear against magic and a distrust of strangers, both issues that would never be solved or even addressed with terrorism. Anyway. He’s a fascinating character and his writing is really interesting to me

[blazehedgehog]

After watching SAGE's 2024 trailer, you ever get the feeling that most people want to be making indie games instead of fan games nowadays,? Every year there's been less and less fan works there.

This is the first year I've really felt it in any meaningful way.

There have been attempts for more than a decade to rename SAGE to drop the "Sonic" part. I've always pushed back against that and at this point the branding is too strong to give up, I think. People know about and come to SAGE because the brand is strong. Renaming it would be a death sentence.

Taking off my business hat, it's a bummer to see fangames in the minority here. Everybody wants to hop on that indie game gravy train and chase the success of Pizza Tower (seriously, count how many Pizza Tower clones are in the trailer this year) or Freedom Planet or Spark the Electric Jester or whatever.

And it's easy to congratulate people for striking out on their own and making original games. I was one of the many voices urging Sabrina to divorce Freedom Planet from the Sonic franchise and make it into an original game she could sell. So she ran a crowdfunding campaign (multiple, actually), was successful, and now we have two Freedom Planet games. And that's great!

But... does that mean all fangames should go away forever?

The example I lean on the hardest is comic books.

A lot of the guys who created the biggest super heroes aren't around anymore. They gave up control long ago or are straight up dead now. These books are effectively officialized fanfiction now, as are the $300,000,000 movies based on them. An ever-increasing number of people writing, drawing and directing these characters today were not alive when they were originally created.

But people still keep writing Batman stories, officially or otherwise. Because there are some stories you can only tell with Batman. Now, you could break off and make your own character that's similar to Batman, build up this history for him, and then finally tell your original story with that character. And maybe that's satisfying, to have built something of your own like that.

But for one: that's a lot of work. Batman is interesting because he has decades (almost a century now) of history behind him to play off of and work with. There are people out there who will tell you to just start writing your dream story and forget about building up to it first, but that's more about motivation and confidence than the idea that stories don't need historical context.

And two: that's already been done.

There's a good chance you know who Rob Liefeld is from his, uh, "distinctive" art style. He also created Deadpool, a katana-wielding mercenary assassin that dresses in red and black, whose real name is Wade Wilson. But before Deadpool, he created Deathstroke, a katana-wielding mercenary assassin that dresses in orange and black, whose real name is Slade Wilson.

Here is a guy who has built a career on copying his own work (and the work of others) over and over and over again.

Did it make Rob Liefeld rich and famous? Technically yes, but he kind of got rich because other people made better work using his characters, and he's famous for being kind of a hack.

So which is better?

Creative output you can do right here, right now, today, but is considered "fanfiction" or "fanart" or a "fangame", which may or may not lead to you being the person handling the official thing at some point down the road...

Or spending years of your life toiling to bring an original concept to life, and even if you struggle through all of the boredom and hardship of getting your original product out the door, it gets lost in the noise of now-million other creators trying to do the exact same thing. And then, at the end of your launch, after 2, 3, even 5 years of working and working and working, you've only made enough money to cover rent on your apartment for a month and a half.

Or, to put it another way:

Are you ditching fangame development because you have a legitimately great story you want to tell, or are you just doing it because you can't make money on a fangame?

Are you just creating another Bloodstrike?

As someone who has struggled to justify putting lots of hard work into a fangame myself, and have both made very popular fangames and some not-so-great original games, I don't know if I have a definitive answer for you. But I do wish there were more fangames at the fangaming event, and I will say, as always, if I could get paid a livable wage for making fangames, I would drop everything and do it in a heartbeat.

[torchstelechos]

Hi! I was looking at your blog and I was thinking about my own emotions during the game and...

My memory is not the best, but I remember that during the first conversation with my friends at the end of Act 2, I... Could really sympathize with Siffrin. Understand what drove him to do this

I mean, when all these characters started talking about how they would all go their separate ways, how they would "abandon" Siffrin (and us as a player by proxy), how they would all go home and just... Leave us aside, just asking to "drop by" sometimes?..

I felt like I couldn't let them go so soon.

And I should clarify, at that point I didn't know that Siffrin was the one causing the time loops, but something deep inside me already knew, so I looked at Mirabelle's game sprite and said "no, you're not going to be let go that easily, that's not going to happen" with tears in my eyes, because I hate saying goodbye, and I felt some... Strange resentment that they wanted to leave so soon, from Siffrin, from me

For me, that ending was unacceptable, unsatisfactory, and I was actually glad that the loops continued, even if it meant that Siffrin and I'd failed our "defeat the king, break the loops" mission, because it meant that I would be stuck with these characters for a while longer

And maybe Siffrin was also happy about it on some level, and I was actually on Siffrin's side here

It's just interesting how Siffrin and the player are so deeply connected on some level that you can feel a similar spectrum emotions that made Siffrin create this loop in the first place

It's interesting how the game pushes you to feel like you're in Siffrin's shoes when the characters talk so much about "going home and asking to visit sometimes" which felt like "leaving you behind"

So when the game told you that Siffrin is the reason the loops continue... I understood it. And even supported it

Hahaha... I hope it didn't sound like a crazy person xd

Good mood!

Howdy!! Happy you liked the stuff in my blog, i have a lot of emotions about the game and the character interactions. Which is why!!! I loved the very in depth description of your emotions about the games character stuffs!! I think its fascinating how well the game can connect the player to Siffrin, especially since the game holds no reservations in telling you that "No. You are not Siffrin. Siffrin is part of this world and you are not" which might sound harsh but it actually makes it very satisfying when you as the player can help Siffrin get his wish in the end. We aren't Siffrin, but we are helping them, and sometimes that means getting really emotionally invested in the same goal.

When I first started the ISAT experince, it was strange how much I felt connected to Siffrin because at first it is very much Oh! I did not feel this with SASASA! So,, its strange how much the different circumstances of the two games can change the outcome of the player's feelings. Going further into this, I did start with SASASA and then went into ISAT which informs an experience that I had not anticipated. With Loop, we were not there from the start and we as the player are only helping right at the end which makes it hard to connect to the same degree as Siffrin but we still care very deeply because of what we have seen. Loop is already knee deep into Act 4 mental anguish, we have no lead up, no build up, just that they are there and we have to help them. And then we fail. But we only find out in ISAT that we fail!! So, at first you can brush that aside as, We can do better! We can help them more than we did before! Then we get into ISAT and its,, different. Because now we know Siffrin from the start instead of right at the tail end of their spiral, we know how important everyone is to them, we know that its going to hurt when Siffrin gets to the end and loops back. We already know.

We have these preconceived conceptions of how this is going to go, but at every step we are wrongfooted because the game cares. Siffrin forgets the parties names, but Loop instantly goes to fix this and we the players can relax. We have someone to talk to! Who knows whats important and helps us get more into what Siffrin thinks because now we have a variable! The others stay the same for countless loops but then we see more of them and suddenly we're right there with Siffrin, we didn't know this about them. We couldn't know this about them until now! But then it grows stale, because now we know. We know, because we are learning with Siffrin. Then we have to focus outwards instead of inwards, because we love them all so much! We care about them! ...and then it doesnt work and suddenly we have to figure out why we're stuck. And it hurts because it starts getting obvious WHY its happening and,, we dont want the characters to leave just like that! There isnt any release of emotions! We didn't help Siffrin like we wanted to! We can't help Siffrin! Only the party can, and from the previous loops we know they'll leave us.

We're stuck forever, and thats horrible. Because Siffrin is losing things he can not lose without it becoming SASASA, and we know that. So when Siffrin starts to lose it, it hurts but at the same time its amazing! Something new! Something changed! Maybe this time, we can help Siffrin! Even if Siffrin is wrong, maybe this time. Except the house is changed, the ending is changed, the party has changed, and Siffrin has changed. And suddenly the thought of explaining hurts, because its the end. The real end!! And we have to be the ones to press the dialogue! We have to be the ones to press attack! We have to help guide Siffrin to their ending! And we do! and its amazing! The party is going to stay with Siffrin, even for a while longer! ... We wont get to see it, but thats okay because we're just here to help Siffrin.

And then we go to the favor tree to let Loop know.

And suddenly it becomes clear we failed someone.

But without them, how could we have saved this Siffrin? How could we have led them to where they needed to go? How could we have broken the loops without them?

We failed the Star, but we saved the time traveler who can help the Star in our stead.

I HAVE SO MANY FEELINGS ABOUT HOW THE GAME PROGRESSES AND HOW WE THE PLAYERS ARE PART OF THE ROYAL WE UNTIL WE NO LONGER CAN BE WITH SIFFRIN OR THE PARTY AAAAAAHHHHH.

Anyway thanks for sending this ask it made me go crazy with how I see the player in relations to Siffrin and Loop <3

[daryascurse]

𝙲𝙰𝚅𝙴𝙰𝚃 𝙴𝙼𝙿𝚃𝙾𝚁

── Part III: Sui Juris

He thought of this in abstract as the water drummed over his ears, in pictures and memories more than an internal monologue – the weight of the graduation cloak under the beating sun, the sweat gathering above the upper lips of the sea of faces before him, the warm perfume he smelled more than tasted when his tongue pressed and split her in the classroom – “Fuck,” he said. The word bounced amongst the tiles.

chapter pov : 3rd person coryo, AFAB reader, feminine pronouns ❀ tags: masτurbation, fantasizing ❀ word count: ~3.6k ❀ ao3 ❀playlist

I have a very strict adult-only interaction policy. Ageless, blank, and clearly minor-run blogs that interact will be blocked. If you have questions about what that means, please read the byf in my pinned post.

See header "Caveat Emptor" link for table of contents/ chapter 1.

He was shaking as he stormed from the classroom. The once-bustling halls of the morning had settled from the seething churn of activity, trickled into a stream of the last few graduates and their families milling around. They came dangerously close to knocking into his shoulders as he barreled through the campus.

“Hey, Cor-”

The sounds of acquaintances greeting him fell into the rhythm of his feet pounding on the marble. Coriolanus had to clench his hands into fists. He let the strain curling through his palms be what drew his focus as he walked. It couldn’t be that he thought of the interrupted fullness that ached and throbbed there with each step. It couldn’t be that he instead thought of the ring box rocking into his calf, of the secret bruise he was sure to find tonight that was probably swelling already. He ground his teeth, muscles convulsing in his throat. Even Coriolanus’ jaw felt misaligned, the clenched bite sliding in a way that felt wrong, wrong, as wrong as the day had turned.

How he hated her!

How he must hate her, to have her strangle at his thoughts so!

Coriolanus exhaled, sharp, through his nose, and strode towards the main gates. He hated her. And acknowledging this fury that burned in his veins made him feel a little more comfortable. It was more familiar to wallow in hatred. Better than to spend time in the disarray, in the confusion, the unsettled dust with which she left his mind.

Her name burst from the speakers, another droning reminder to collect her diploma, and Coriolanus fought the urge to box his hands over his ears. The fury, so close to ebbing away, refused to settle in his curled fists, as if he might only be satisfied by beating himself half-senseless. Coriolanus was familiar in his strength enough for it.

Breathe, damn it.

So Coriolanus clenched his fists harder, then flexed them with a push, fingers splaying as if to wrap around a throat. He would refuse to think of her. He would simply refuse to open up the graduation program, to find her name again; there was no reason to flip to the back pages, to see if her plans were published in the same ink that let the school boast that alumnus Coriolanus Snow was off to become Head Gamemaker. Even if he could do that so easily. Again, the better choice – to forget her.

Yes, Coriolanus would forget her. He hated her for the disruption, but he would get that plan back on track, to create the perfect public image that he was painfully close to completing. He gave a curt nod to a waving student who clearly recognized him better than he did them, and made his way to the car still waiting. As he rode to the restaurant, Coriolanus kneaded his knuckles in his lap. The hot summer day roared past the windows, and he closed his eyes. He managed to bid her from his mind, allowing more important thoughts – of work, of the Games – to take their rightful priority.

Livia Cardew was the only one who made a comment when he made his way to his seat at the square marble table, her eyes oily and sharp. Like a rat. “Something kept you, Coriolanus?”

He shed the graduation robe and handed it to one of the restaurant’s white suited Avoxes. “I ran into Professor Waterford in the hall and it was hard to get away,” he said, adjusting the collar of his shirt and leaning around the centerpiece to shake Lucio Cardew’s hand before sitting. “My sincere apologies for making you wait, Livia. Mr. Cardew, Mrs. Cardew.”

Livia and her mother Antonia took mirrored sips of champagne on his left and right, the former’s gaze still narrowed over the lip of the flute.

“Lucio, please, Coriolanus,” came a mild, oft-repeated grunt soon railroaded by the sound of his wife.

“Nonsense,” Mrs. Cardew said as she put her glass down. “That man always prattles on and on. I’m sure everyone else wanted to say their last words and well wishes, too. I’m thrilled we could even get a chance to congratulate you getting off stage.”

“It was certainly crowded,” Mr. Cardew said. He sniffed as an Avox came to place Coriolanus’ first course. “You’d think they’d have things better organized.”

“Well,” Coriolanus demurred cautiously.

“The administration’s always a mess,” Livia said, spinning her knife between her fingers. She drew an imaginary line over her poached egg with the tip of the blade before slicing through and spilling a river of gold across her plate.

“Darling, you won’t have to deal with them anymore now,” Mrs. Cardew said in a voice as smooth and rich as the sauce pooling into Livia’s eggs.

“Absolutely,” Coriolanus said, nodding.

Livia wrinkled her nose. “I certainly hope not. Mother, the bank’s much more well run than that stuffy old place, isn’t it?”

Coriolanus watched the gelatinous wobble of food on her fork and prayed she would eat it soon.

“Of course. And you’ll be training in my department, so you know if you come across any trouble, come right to me.”

Livia’s sound of satisfaction was muffled by the forkful of yellow.

“So, Coriolanus,” Mrs. Cardew continued.

“Yes?” He turned his head, grateful for the distraction.

“When do you formally take the keys to the kingdom from Dr. Gaul?”

She had picked up her knife as well, preparing to saw into her eggs just as her daughter was doing.

“Tomorrow morning,” Coriolanus said. “It’s a workday for the Gamemakers same as most of Panem, isn’t it?”

“What?” snapped Livia.

“No vacation time for you, eh?” Mr. Cardew said into the depths of his goblet.

“I thought we had plans,” Livia whined. “I wasn’t set on starting at the bank for another week.”

Coriolanus wrapped his fingers around the stem of his water glass. It seemed it would take little strength to snap it. Livia wasn’t likely upset at the loss of quality time, but rather, quality access to the Plinth fortune that she would otherwise try to squeeze out of him in such a time. Her shrewd, wealth-hoarding mother had taught her well, which was why the eventual union of the dynasties would be so beneficial to all.

“No, sorry,” he said. “My dear,” he added, and couldn’t restrain his lip from curling at the taste of it. It had made Mrs. Cardew smirk, her thick eyelashes raising to flicker at her daughter across the table, but it felt wrong. Too easily wrapped in sarcasm; and if Livia were to catch on to it over the coming years, it would be much more trouble than it was worth. He needed a different term of endearment, one less easy to spit from between his teeth. “I would have liked to do something special, but some last minute plans fell through.”

The ring box, somewhere buried in a cloak room now, sandwiched in his graduation  gown pocket against tens of other coats and jackets, still sat like a phantom weight against his leg. And with the reminder of the weight came the reminder of why he had forgotten. The reason he hadn’t proposed to Livia on that stage. He shifted in his seat.

An Avox whisked away his still-untouched plate to replace it with a second course, and Mrs. Cardew made a sound in her throat that implied she had more to say on the matter. Coriolanus barely heard her, watching the shadow shift across the back of his knuckles as the plate moved down above him.

He had no appetite.

Livia excused herself then. Coriolanus picked up his spoon and turned it listlessly in the lobster bisque.

“You know, Coriolanus,” Mrs. Cardew said in a meticulously measured tone. “After being with Livia for several years now, and speaking only as her mother who wants the best for her…”

She paused.

“Yes, I understand,” he jumped into the momentary breath, and cast a glowing smile her way even as soup slid back into the bowl. His fingers were tensing on the spoon. “I am truly sorry to disappoint any expectations, Mrs. Cardew.”

“Antonia,” she said, singing the turn of vowels over her tongue. Mr. Cardew made a mild sound of agreeance.

“Well,” she said after another pause, the time in which Coriolanus almost thought himself free of this line of conversation, “I must say, as old-fashioned as I may be in this, there certainly are specific expectations her father and I have in mind.”

“Yes, Antonia.”

He shifted his foot under the table, but no amount of fidgeting relieved the tension. He almost wished he could stand up and walk right out the door.

“As much as we’ve welcomed you into our family, a family indeed acts in mutual support, doesn’t It? Well, dear,” she added in a clearly exaggerated haste, “of course you would barely know, no fault of your own – but of course, we’ve raised Livia to understand these expectations as well.”

The rage frothing under Coriolanus’ skin was palpable, itching, consuming all of his senses and spoiling any last trace of an appetite. He’d known this was coming. He’d known that marrying was necessary, and that marrying Livia Cardew was strategically best. He’d committed himself to this plan. He’d played this game in the years since stepping out of the zoo enclosure, carefully and reluctantly coating the saccharine candy shell as the last necessary theatrics before he could take a genteel bow and retire to a watchful eye backstage. And as advantageous as the Cardew family bank connections would be, he’d known it would come with strings, with veiled condescension, with the last remnants of old money snobbery who may be impressed with his ability to claw his way back up with the Snow name, but would never forget that it fell in the first place.

And yet, even though he knew Snow would fall on top, being told how it must be done filled him with anger.

“What did I miss?” Livia said as she slid back into her chair. The tone of her voice did nothing to spur his attitude on, even as the lobster bisque steamed in savory aroma on the table.

When they bid her parents a cordial adieu and gratitude for the brunch – in which the grand tableau of Coriolanus attempting to pay for the bill was more forcedly demure than usual – Coriolanus felt the weight of the ring box almost drag his steps off-center. He knew Mrs. Cardew was right, loathe as he was to admit it, loathe as he was to put it off further in response. But it wouldn’t even be a smug rubbing in their face to reveal that he’d had a ring all along, throughout the double-tongued lecture at the table. There would be whining about how this wasn’t proper, this wasn’t the proposal Livia deserved. And what could he say? That he’d meant to do it on stage in front of everyone? That he’d had a plan? That some whore distracted him?

The anger was consuming him, each delicate clink of cutlery and humming tone of his tablemates conversation only serving as irritants he couldn’t flee from. It was worse, worse than he could have imagined, as the self-discipline he’d believed himself to have. She had genuinely rattled his resolve.

Despite himself, he was thinking of her again. And he needed to think of her alone.

He was thinking of her when he took a different car back to the penthouse, claiming that he’d promised to join Festus Creed and his family for a drink and knowing she would turn her nose up at the invitation to join. Coriolanus instead took the car to the cobbler, thinking of her as he purchased a pair of satin pink slippers with genuine mother-of-pearl soles. At least, that’s what the salesman said as he peddled the most insensible shoes Coriolanus had ever seen, but he wasn’t thinking of the practicality of the gaudy gift that was just an expensive bribe for some free time. He was thinking of her, thinking of her still when he returned home and watched Livia pluck the ribbon to shreds in greedy haste to open the box. It may not have been what the Cardew family expected him to mark the occasion with, but he was able to pretend it had not been a hasty purchase and rather something wrapped and hidden away for this very moment. It was good enough to please her, for her eyes to soften ever so slightly.

“Maybe you could wear them out with the girls to drinks tonight,” Coriolanus said, knowing that he was speaking too on-the-nose but hoping she wouldn’t be shrewd enough to notice.

He was right.

“Darling, these might just have to be house shoes,” Livia said in her patronizing way as she turned them in her hand, running her finger over the sleek iridescence of the soles. Coriolanus had a flash of fear in his stomach for a moment, realizing for the first time that this gift could confine her to the apartment rather than heed his words to coax her away. “But I was thinking of it, you know, going out with Victoire and Davina tonight. Maybe Carina.”

“Oh, were you?” Coriolanus couldn’t care to think of whose faces matched the names she was throwing out.

“Well yes,” Livia said. “Carina and Davina are sisters, so I have to ask them both if I ask one.”

Coriolanus couldn’t care less, so long as she and Carina and Davina and any other well-educated graduate now seeking an early retirement with a ring on their finger would be out of his house. He was thinking of her incessantly now, unable to shake the memories of the morning, like cobwebs knotted high out of reach in the archway. He got his wish with a few more subliminal nudges of approval throughout the evening – of course she should go out and be with her friends. She should take her valise of powders and lipsticks and get ready with Vittoria or Victoria or whoever lived closest to their favorite oyster bar, with pounds of seafood arriving fresh from District Four thrice daily now. They should proceed to the rooftop for cocktails afterward. In fact, she should take her favorite sleeping mask in case they all spend the night. It’s past dinnertime now, she should call the car soon.

She blew a kiss at him out the door in her haste, and Coriolanus didn’t even pretend to catch it.

Instead, he latched the door. He moved without thinking, heeding a primal instinct he hadn’t indulged since his early teen years. Coriolanus turned about, not even waiting to hear the muffled groan of a departing elevator before he unzipped his pants. He didn’t even try to walk to the couch. He moved his hand in a firm grip, back and forth, and came quickly, down the close of his fist to spatter down the front of his nice slacks. It was messy. But the release for a moment made him feel the cluster in his head relaxed enough to think clearly. Coriolanus moved methodically in the aftermath, carefully stepping out of his pants and balling the fabric together. He shed his clothes like snakeskin and wrapped them together to discard in the laundry.

Coriolanus took a shower next, feeling his heartrate slow at last under the cool streams of water. He washed away the burning humiliation of the morning stumbles, the painful brunch with the Cardews. The June night was settling in to be a hot one. He thought of this in abstract as the water drummed over his ears, in pictures and memories more than an internal monologue – the weight of the graduation cloak under the beating sun, the sweat gathering above the upper lips of the sea of faces before him, the warm perfume he smelled more than tasted when his tongue pressed and split her in the classroom –

“Fuck,” he said. The word bounced amongst the tiles.

He needed her, and in his bedroom, he toweled off his wet hair with a vigor that rubbed his scalp near raw. Coriolanus remembered being in primary school, for a moment, the last classes he had taken in rows of carved mahogany desks before the effects of war in the Capitol tore formal schooling asunder. There’d been only a handful of students left that day in geology, when the teacher was explaining earthquakes – the natural ones, not the way the floor shook and buildings swayed as bombs fell.

“It’s easy to imagine that small earthquakes can release pressure among the plates and prevent something bigger,” the teacher had said, tapping the diagram on the chalkboard. “But those little ones aren’t enough to relieve the fault lines of the energy strain. The tension stored on the fault still needs an intense release of energy. A big earthquake.”

The release in the foyer had soothed his mind from the tempest of the morning, but it was far from enough. All the blood in his body was still pumping downwards, the aching weight of the morning still too much to ignore. Coriolanus shoved the comforter down on his side of the bed, droplets still dappled across his shoulders, and took his cock in his hand again. Vague, comforting images flitted across his mind automatically before he thought of her.

She was behind his eyelids, the shape of her face against an unknown background. First, she stood in the classroom, then, she was lying back in the chair in that strip club basement. He opened his eyes, and he could imagine her there in his bed for a moment. He squeezed his fist hard, harder than he’d done before, as if he could pretend it was her hand, her mouth, her cunt.

“Fuck,” Coriolanus let out again in a grunt.

He needed her. He needed to fuck her. He needed to brace his hands against her ankles, feel his fingers wrap around her legs, inhale her scent of sunlight. He would raise them over his shoulders, pushing a faint moan out of her. It would break from her perfectly shaped lips, her breath sighing high into the room.

He would push into her then, watch his cock get slowly swallowed by the wet tightness of her cunt. Coriolanus groaned, adjusted his fingers, tensing his thighs at the memory of how it had felt, at the knowledge that a memory was far from enough. He needed to fuck her, drive deeper and deeper, the back of her thighs hammering against his chest. He needed to be holding them, the plush of her flesh between the spread of his fingers, not his own cock. Each rock of his hips would thrust down into her, not the mindless clenches of muscle and hips jerking feebly upward into bed.

The comforter at his feet was growing too hot of a cover, but even in irritable awareness of this, Coriolanus couldn’t stop and throw it off of him.

He would feel her clench around him, his grip on her thighs tightening in return. He would feel her along his length, every bit of him sucked into her. Her hands would be weak, falling across her chest – no, Coriolanus changed the image without too much thought to take him out of this fevered fantasy – he would bind her hands. She would be held up against the headboard, unable to move beyond how he maneuvered her. She would cling in agony to the fine iron vines, pushing her voice higher and louder in frustration and relish.

“Please,” she would say, as he’d heard her beg, and the thought of it made him groan again as if he could respond to her now. “Please, please.”

He needed to fuck her. He needed to fuck her hard. She would throb around him when he sank deep and held still for a moment, and she would make another plaintive wail when he let her shaking legs down and braced himself over her. He would have to pull out, but he would kiss her, capture her lips and taste the beading sweat. He would hold himself over her when he entered once more and when she cried out again, begging again, he would come. She would be dripping him when he pulled out, and Coriolanus came now at the thought of it, of seeing the milky ooze from the folding petals of her cunt as he filled her.

Coriolanus opened his eyes and exhaled hard enough to banish the ghost of her from the room. His fingers were sticky, the sheets spattered with stains turning dark in the evening light from the window. He couldn’t even think of cleaning them, which he should do whether or not Livia gave the extra reassurance that she wouldn’t be coming home.

He thought, dimly, with the last strings of coherent thought he had, of her. Coriolanus had been a fool to think he could forget her, and he could almost admit that to himself. She intoxicated his senses, his very thoughts. He needed her. He needed her, just as vitally and indispensably as he needed Livia Cardew, but in a wholly different way.

He closed his eyes and, in a rare moment, allowed himself to think of another young woman – the one other “her” to plague him. In the concrete jungle of the Capitol he was free, far, from the wild crossings of brambles and branches seeking to trap him beneath an everblue sky with the screaming echoes of her sounds. He’d shot down the filthy birds, maybe shot her down as well, and cast the cursed singing far from his ears. Only she had made his blood run like this. Only she had haunted him so pervasively, so continuously. Until now.

He had tracked down a wild thing like her before. He could hunt again.

Part IV: Cui Bono Fuerit

[marshmallowgoop]

2024 AMV Review

[2022] [2023]

2024 felt like a huge video editing year for me. It was characterized by three major developments:

Submitting to contests

Editing MMVs (Manga Music Videos)

Participating in timed challenges

For contests, I maybe really threw myself into the con contest scene (that is, for AMV contests that take place at conventions) after sparking a heated discussion about submitting personally captioned videos for the sake of better accessibility. An initially stressful situation ultimately became one of overwhelming support, and I've since become more involved with this part of the AMV community, which has been so kind, encouraging, and inspirational. I'm certain I wouldn't have made the strides in my editing that I feel like I made in 2024 had it not been for the community.

In fact, the last two developments on my list are purely because of the community. It was the community who pushed me into making MMVs; after signing up for an MMV exchange (check out the video Violet Skies gifted me here!), I practiced MMV-like skills with an AMV/MMV ("No Choir") and also made my first full-blown MMV in DaVinci Resolve ("15 Min Flame"), which involved thinking in a more motion graphics way and utilizing my program's 3D camera, something that maybe looks a little wild (but is sincerely less complicated than it seems!):

Incorporating more motion graphics and manga panels into my work then became almost "standard" for me. Four of the six AMVs I made for Project Org Editor (POE)—of which none are unfortunately in this reel because they remain unfinished, but you can check out a preview here—utilized a fair amount of manga as well.

And that brings me to my last development: participating in timed challenges. POE is a biennial video-editing tournament with six preliminary rounds in which participants have one week to edit a video to a theme. I took part in every round (always with a Detective Conan video because I think I'm hilarious), but it was actually my second timed challenge in the year. The first was SLICE (Short Little Iron Chef Edits), wherein participants had about four days (100 hours) to create a video set to a song from a list of songs only revealed at the start of the challenge. "If You Kill Me" was my entry, and I finished it pretty much to my satisfaction by the end of the 100 hours, so I thought I would do even better with POE.

But POE was extremely hard on me. I finished nothing, never scored above mediocre, and had a meltdown after Round 2, where I must have cried all day after submitting an entry that I hated (and won't be revising). It was my most difficult video editing experience thus far—emotionally and physically, as I sacrificed sleep to edit and wound up sick by Round 6. I really wanted to stand out and impress, but... I wasn't there yet.

And that probably describes my feelings about my AMVs in 2024 better than anything else: not there yet. There's been a lot of growth in my skills, in my eyes; there's the aforementioned MMV experience, where I practiced 3D camerawork as well as manga animation for the first time, but I've also made longer videos, utilized "Twixtor" effects ("Feel About You"), learned how to make my own VHS tapes for the ultimate VHS aesthetic ("Eyelash"), and continued to work on my pacing and compositions (even if I still have a long way to go with the pacing and even intentionally made it "worse" as an experiment once). Videos from 2022 and 2023 that I used to be so proud of almost became painful, and I'm overall much happier with everything I made in 2024.

But whenever I'd make finals in a contest—which happened at seven cons (green text in the video, with yellow being when I didn't make finals but still had a video exhibited, which happened at six cons)!—I knew I had no chance of winning a category, and I have yet to. Because I'm not there yet. I'm satisfied with most of my videos from 2024, but they don't feel special enough. Good, maybe, but not great. For POE and Anime Frontier, where I entered nothing but Detective Conan videos, I captured attention for my dedication to the franchise, but the AMVs themselves still feel lacking.

In thinking about 2025, I've been thinking about what it means to be there. I've been thinking about how to measure growth, as measuring the times I make finals, or my note counts, or YouTube likes, or even scores I get in tournaments like POE, don't seem to be healthy ways of defining development (especially when what makes finals at cons might not really correlate with what's most beloved online, with "If You Kill Me" being my most successful con video of 2024 but "Nosedive," which never made finals once, being my most successful video on the web). Conversations with others (thank you!) have provided a wealth of wonderful suggestions for considering growth: trying new things, doing easily what used to be difficult, finding joy in your work.

And in 2024, I do think I made progress in all those things! But being there goes back to my question of what is good art?, and, well, I think I'll need to continue working on defining what that means to me.

Still, my major goal for 2025, at this time, is to be less hard on myself. As my videos have become longer and more elaborate, they've taken more time to complete, with each AMV in this reel (excepting maybe one) representing at least 30 hours of work, with many being 50+-hour efforts. That's a fair chunk of time, but I still beat myself up for "not doing enough" or "not completing enough videos," which isn't fair to me.

It's regrettably not something I did for 2023, but my year-end DaVinci Resolve hour count for 2024 (counting time from when I first got this computer in late August 2023) is 1,107 hours!

The earliest total-hour screenshot I can find is 666 hours in July 2024, so this means I spent, at the very, very minimum, over 441 hours in Resolve in 2024. And dedicating that many hours to improving my craft isn't nothing!

In the end, I am sad that there are only 12 videos in this reel when I at least started brainstorming and drafting for 9 more. But all the improvements I made, all the ways I challenged myself, all the seeing things like this at cons, in person, on the big screen... that's worth celebrating.

Thank you so much to everyone who has supported me so far. I hope to post even "better" videos in 2025—ones that are there!

[thislovintime]

1968.

“‘Actually, I wanted to leave the group over two years ago when the first season ended, but the guys convinced me not to. I didn’t care about all the things that were happening, all the acclaim. I hated the work! It was tough, and I didn’t like it. I just wanted to record for all my life. Also, the pressure was awful. We were working in an incredibly new environment. Half of the crew on the show was young and had very little experience at that level of work. Many of them were getting their first big break. Actually, after the TV show was canceled it was easier for me to leave. Doing the TV show was the worst. Then came the movie, and I couldn’t forego the movie, so I did it. You know, there were moments here and there — lots of good, funny stuff happening throughout — but the only time that I was really happy was when we were recording the ‘Headquarters’ album. The concerts were fun, but during the concert tours you are removed from your friends except for the guys. And even when we did take a few friends along it was only a mild relief. This last tour of Australia and Japan wasn’t fun because I felt hideously under-rehearsed. I was constantly pushing for rehearsals, and they were constantly saying well, like later. We couldn’t get together. Also, we didn’t play any new music this last concert tour. It was all old tunes, nothing from our newer albums, and it was a bore. But I think they suspected I was leaving anyway. For me, a lot of the pressure was off. When I felt a part of the group every time someone said something that jarred my sensibilities, I’d raise a huge ruckus and everybody thought I was out of my mind. While we were making the TV Special, knowing I was not going to be there any longer, I just thought to myself — I don’t have to worry about this thing — and I just let everything slide off my back. They must have though something was screwy. Then I finally told them, ‘Gentlemen I’m in negotiations to resign from the group.’ And they said, ‘Okay, well, there’s not much time, we’d better get to work on this Special.’ So we taped the thing and that’s the last I saw of them. The last day of the taping they gave me this little testimonial memorial watch.’ From his pocket Peter drew out a silver, antique-looking timepiece with the back side engraved, ‘To Peter Tork, from the guys down at work.’ ‘I’m free, I don’t know what I’ll be doing. I’m actually a little apprehensive, because there’s no doubt that there are three other incredibly talented fellows out there. They’re very talented guys. Mike is one of the funniest people I’ve ever known. Micky is even funnier and Davy is just cute as a button. Who could ask for anything more? Davy dances so great, did you see him dance in the film? I’ve not seen dancing like that on the screen except from Fred Astaire. The only other thing is that I’m both really relieved and really, really apprehensive. I’m terribly glad and also terribly sad.’” - NME, January 25, 1969

“Peter and I were the bulk of the playing ability because we were musicians. But when Peter left it rather unnerved Davy and Micky — and I changed my mind [about leaving]. After all, the personal appearances were pretty well satisfying, the music was fun, and the whole thing was fairly lucrative. And Davy and Micky left alone would have been in real trouble.” - Michael Nesmith, Disc and Music Echo, September 19, 1970

"In a telephone interview this week, Tork explained why he left the group in 1968, three years after it was formed. ‘Musicians were being auditioned in an effort to create the Monkees, and the purpose was to reap money,’ he said. ‘But for our first two albums, studio musicians were hired to do the instrumentals and we just did the lead singing. I didn’t want that.’ Tork convinced the other three members, Davy Jones, [Micky] Dolenz and Mike Nesmith, to do the third album themselves. ‘But I couldn’t get the guys to go for that again, so the fourth album was half and half,’ he said. Critics had frowned on the Monkees for this. ‘Every single malcontent felt he had the right to tell me what was wrong with the situation. I took the critics to heart,’ Tork said. ‘When I talked to the guys about it, they told me if I want more I should get my own act.’ Tork describes his current relationship with Jones, Dolenz and Nesmith as ‘cordial.’ ‘I learned to put all my bitterness behind me,’ he said. ‘I hear about them through the grapevine, but we have no real call to talk to each other, although, I had a brief lunch with Davy Jones in Japan recently.’ When Tork joined the Monkees in October 1965, he was 23 years old and inexperienced in handling fame and fortune. ‘There’s a lot of things involved with money and recognition, and the price was much higher than I expected,’ he said. ‘There’s an isolating pressure that goes along with success. I couldn’t handle it.’" - article by Lisa Stenza, Connecticut Daily Campus, February 26, 1982 (read more in an older post)

[cinefarious]

Day 3 of Hotsuweek! Today I bring fanciful introspection on his home life and some possessive future dad vibes. <3

Yamato's mother is heavily (entirely) inspired by Hotsuqueen's fanart of her which you can find here.

Yellow

G Rating. Yamato Hotsuin/Hibiki Kuze. Daichi's Path Ending.Post-Game. Female Protagonist. Pregnancy.

Yellow leaves crunched beneath his boots, brittle as they were brilliant and the sound oddly satisfying. Yamato had never been the sort inclined to take in the beauty of nature. There was never time or purpose to it, and he hardly made time for it even now. His days were better spent working, far underground and away from anything even resembling a plant.

But there was something about the sound of it and the color that had his mind drifting from to-do lists and emails and code to something perilously close to reminiscing.

His mind flowed to his ancestral home in Osaka. Yamato had precious few memories that he deemed the title of ‘childhood memories’. However, he always remembered his mother best. 

She’d been a stately and imposing woman, standing taller than some men and commanding a frosty presence. She’d had the same pale, severe eyes that he did, but hers held a depth of knowledge and calculation that he was sure he could never replicate. If ever a person had merited such a position of authority, it was his mother. Yamato felt as if he was forever chasing her ideal even now. Japan was saved, but she was still a point of light he was climbing towards.

For all that she was stone and ice and iron in his mind, he could also remember her in the early mornings. He would climb out of bed, no older than five or six, and seek out her company in the dawn. 

He’d always found her in the same place: the back porch that overlooked the garden. She would sit there and drink her morning tea. No electronics, no papers. At most, her only distraction would be a book. More often than not, her attention would be on the garden as the morning light slowly illuminated it blue, then pink, and finally gold.

The ginkgo trees were the ones etched in his memory the most vividly, so brilliantly yellow that as a small child, he could remember them almost burning his eyes during the brighter parts of the afternoon. The leaves created splashes of vibrancy against the dark stone pathing where they fell in pleasing, scattered heaps. Nothing else was as bright as those trees during autumn.

It was strange to him what small things in his memories could create such lasting impressions. He had not given much thought to his answer when Hibiki had once asked him what his favorite color was. He had simply replied ‘yellow’. At the time, he hadn’t even known that he had a favorite color at all, but it turned out that he had all along.

Hibiki always seemed to see right through him. Where others saw an insurmountable task and an impossible to understand man, she had seen with perfect clarity that it was Yamato himself that felt like he was impossible, unwilling to pick apart or parse most aspects of his personality save the ones that made sense to him.

She knew when to push and when to follow. She was not afraid to meet him on the battlefield if she felt it was the only way Yamato could change, understand, or accept truths that he had refused to see.

She even seemed to read his mind. For as his thoughts drifted to her, Yamato’s eyes did as well, only to find her already gazing in his direction. His world of melancholy, thoughtful yellow blazed blue, and he could feel his strange mood burn away under it.

Hibiki smiled for him, sweet and gentle, and the squeeze of her hand still clasped within his own felt like a second smile. 

“You know, I was thinking,” Hibiki said, eyes shifting back to the sidewalk as she shimmied in that little bit closer to press more heavily into his side and clutch his arm instead of his hand. “We should visit your home in Osaka. I really loved it there the last time we went. It just feels right to go back now. It was so beautiful when the leaves were turning. I don’t know if your family chose the color of the JPs uniforms, but I can see why they might have.”

Yamato frowned, about to ask her to continue before she did without him saying a word. “I dunno. It’s bright and strong. A color of change and forward movement even in the face of oncoming winter. It’s nice. Very fitting.”

It would never cease to leave him flat-footed and speechless in these moments when she so innocently dropped a sweet and profound thought upon him that turned his life upside down. Here he was simply walking with her on his way to have breakfast in the city, now suddenly left unmoored by something she’d said. No one else had ever managed to render him down to his base as she had. She could make him laugh effortlessly, try new things, and listen where no one else had ever managed.

Yamato cleared his throat and reached over with his free hand to cover Hibiki’s arm. The texture of her white jacket felt somehow softer and thinner than usual. He worried absently if she was cold.

“You may be right. I admit I’m not aware as to why they chose yellow, but it is as good an explanation as any. We can go to Osaka anytime you like. You know that. It is your home as much as it is mine now that you bear the Hotsuin name.”

And the Hotsuin line. His eyes shifted downward on pure instinct, his stomach going hot with possessiveness and pride as he stared at the front of her sweater. She was only two months pregnant and not yet showing, but her lack of bump did nothing to deter his fierce appreciation.

He was struck with the thought that his son or daughter might one day wake early as he did, eager to join him in his morning routine. He could imagine them like he had once been, keen to be near him, emulate him, to fill his shoes as he still strived to do with his own mother.

Would he want his child to see him working? Or staring at the trees in solemn understanding? Yamato couldn’t say what his mother had looked at or sought every morning in the garden, but it was the memory of her there that had always stuck with him the most. Not the image of her in uniform behind a desk, or walking with poise through the building, or even listening attentively as he recited what he’d learned in his tutoring that day. It was her in civilian clothes and sipping tea in the blue glow of dawn while staring at the trees. He wanted to find something that stalled him, that made him feel both untouchable and more gentle just as she had always felt to him. And he at least knew where to start.

“Actually, let’s go to Osaka today. I’d like to see the garden again as well,” he told her with conviction in his voice. He looked down to see Hibiki’s face lit up over his decision, and Yamato smirked softly back as he lifted a hand to gently pry away a few of the yellow leaves that had become caught in her curls before letting the breeze carry them away from his palm.

Japan was saved, and it was likely time for him to appreciate many things more.

[alyszaen]

~ "Circle Triangle Square" - changbin x chichi ~

embedding in time: march 2023 word count: 1.1k words summary: changbin needs to know why chichi has been closed off around him warnings: pure angst, swearing, yelling disclaimer: Chichi is an O/C invented by @chiskz who gave me explicit permission to create and post this. a/n: I recommend reading this first. You don't have to, but it makes everything make more sense

Part Two Part Three

Do not repost or translate my work. © All Rights Reserved Reblog or comment if you liked it. Let me know what you enjoyed.

Chichi radiated confidence. Her eyes looked like small crescent moons because of the wide grin she was giving Changbin. He sat across from her, seperated by the glass wall in the recording studio. "How did I do? I think this is it!", she was satisfied with the ad-lips she just sang into the microphone. They were recording them for their upcoming album. All of the other members were already done, but with her busy schedule for Troubl3mak3rs, some personal projects and life in general, the oldest only now got the time to record. And who better to create some ad-lips with than Seo "Yooooh" Changbin.

She took of the headphones she was wearing all throughout the process and put them in their designated space. When she looked at the rapper through the see-through wall, he seemed anything but happy. His hands were moving through his hair, pulling it back and out of his face. He seemed stressed, his eyebrows furrowed. "What's wrong, Binnie?" Ichi couldn't hear his sigh, but it was obvious that something was bothering him. Were her recordings not as good as she thought?

"Why are you being distant with me?", he didn't look angry at all, instead a hurt expression became clear through his glossy eyes. The girl knew what he was talking about, but she couldn't tell him that. There was no way she could explain why she stayed away from him, so she did the only thing she could think of in this moment; She lied. "What are you talking about?"

He stood up fast, pushing his chair back with so much strength that it got shoved into the dark couch behind him. It would definitely leave a mark on the leather, but that didn't matter to Changbin right now. What mattered, was to find out why his best friend was lying to him right now. "YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!" The young mans eyes widened, he didn't mean to yell at her. He knew of her past and the damage it could do, but he was so afraid to loose her, almost intoxicated with that fear, that he lost control of the volume. She didn't even flinch, sure he would never hurt her. Yet he still apologized instantly - ashamed that he shouted at her.

Instead of panicking, Ichi grew furious. She walked towards the door seperating the recording room from all of the mixing-technology and opened it with all her strength. It didn't slam against the frame, because it was secured with rubber, but it still visualized her anger well.

"What the actual fuck, Changbin?" He visibly cringed at the name, not used to being called anything but loving nicknames by her. Tears built up in her eyes, but she didn't let them fall. She may trust him with her life, but showing weakness - which crying in front of the members felt like to her - was not something she took lightly. It was almost trivial. Of course they had all seen her with tears on her cheeks, but never like this. Never because she was the one causing someone else pain.

She stepped closer, now directly staring at the muscular man in front of her. "You know I care about you. I'd never want to hurt you. Ever...", towards the end of her sentence her voice grew quiet. Enormous amounts of guilt spread through her entire body. Hurting him was the last thing she wanted to do.

"Then why the hell have you been ignoring me? You say you don't want to hurt me...", before his voice could become more forceful he caught himself, not wanting to get too loud again. His next words were quiet, a mere whisper. Anyone observing would think he was saying something sweet or comforting. His voice was warm and almost soft, "But you have been the cause of most of my pain during the last weeks.", his voice broke, tears pooling in his eyes aswell, "I needed you! I needed my best friend to cheer me up, but she wasn't there...she was the reason why I needed cheering up in the first place."

Chichi couldn't practically feel her heart break into a million tiny pieces at his words. Her bottom lip quivered, her mouth drying up in an instant. Her chest felt heavy, but not in a comfortable way. Instead of feeling heavy with love, it felt heavy with pain. It was like someone filled her chest with thousands of stones and told her to keep moving. Every single breath felt like a burden on her body. She knew she couldn't keep it a secret anymore. It was eating her alive to be the cause of so much pain for him; To be the reason her best friends heart was aching. She was fighting with herself. The girl knew she owed him this honesty, but she was deadly afraid of what would happen once he knew. Ichi didn't think she would survive it if she lost him. Especially not like this.

This was the moment where Park Ichi let go of her restraints for the first time in years. She released all the built up emotions, all the fear and pain and anger that she stored in her body for so long. And with that release she also rid herself of the control for them. Ichi let the tears roll down her cheeks a while ago, her pupils widened in stress. "You want to know, why I've been ignoring you, huh, Changbin?", she took one last step closer, pointing her finger at his chest. With every word she said she got louder and louder. "I was ignoring you, because I can't be close to you anymore. I want to cry because I can't touch you. My heart aches because I just want you to tell me THAT EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE FINE, BUT IT WON'T BE!", she was yelling now. Enraged by her own emotions. "I'M IN MOTHERFUCKING LOVE WITH YOU, YOU ABSOLUTE FUCKING IDIOT!"

Chichis eyes widened in shock. She unconsiously threw her hands over her mouth. The tears she was releasing were not from anger or sadness anymore. They were filled with regret. She could never take this back. This would change everything. She probably just destroyed her most dear friendship and there was no way to change that.

And the only thing Changbin did was stare at her...

Taglist: @longingpurity @hyujinnie1 @sensitiveandhungry @minvho @hee0soo @minnnie-binnie @zoe8stay @l3visbby @bbyquokka @imafivestarkpopstan @mxnsxngie @serenitysoda200 @lino-jagiyaa @notastraykid Feel free to let me know if you'd like to be added to the taglist!

[nahalism]

i was wondering, how did you get to develop your art? im currently in a process where i am trying to experiment and go beyond the need to create art that is realistic (as in "objectively like reality as it is", like I was being told by both school and family). i feel like I struggle a lot to follow my inspiration because of this, and I am also trying to learn how to draw scenes from my own ordinary life, but unfortunately I am quite impatient and frustrated with my inability to create what I wish to create + perfectionism in general makes me scared of using colour as well 😭 I really admire your art so much, both your sketches and finished pieces, and I have always wondered your own learning process throughout the years. please feel free to not reply if you feel uncomfortable cause I know it is a very personal process as well, and above all I hope you are doing well and I am sending you endless love <333

🥺🥺 this is so lovely to receive because if im completely honest there are multiple moments where i feel exactly as you've just described and despite pushing through it, a message like this is very validating that ive progressed in some way

i dont mind sharing at all. i started drawing/painting when i was 21/22 which is relatively late and i was so fearful because despite having a vision for what i wanted to create i lacked any skill that could help me bring what was in my minds eye to fruition. i was also insanely depressed and in the middle of getting my degree at uni (so felt like i had no time to pursue art, at least not to the extent i wanted to). — my plan to get better consisted of multiple things. id draw everyday. i had/have two styles i'd practice, one realism, and the other 'freestyle'? basically draw only from my head and from the rhythms that came naturally to my hand, no references. by doing that, or drawing the human figure/portraits/cars/buildings from my imagination, not only was i reinforcing what id actually learned from my study of the fundamentals, but i was learning to incorporate my own creativity into the rigid structure that sometimes comes from only drawing from reference. by doing that and drawing studies every day i began to build a library in my head of images/poses/character archetypes i could pull from which made drawing from my imagination easier, but also had the structural knowledge of forms/perspective/anatomy to make them look credible. id do this whenever i had free time, and once i left uni began practicing anywhere from 6-9 hours daily. a bit extreme but i felt like i had time to make up for since i started drawing relatively late in life. only tip there is to balance practice with making finished pieces. finished pieces will show you which fundamentals you still need to work on & how much progress you've made. they also show the completion of a thought whereas practice only gives you the tools to bring that thought to reality

just so u know, ur practice of the fundaments is not in vain. you just need to revive your own capacity to draw from your imagination/subconscious. the main thing is knowing your going to find your work horrible for a long time before it gets better. the joy has to come from the process of creating rather than the end product. by the time it gets better, your eye will also have improved, so you still wont be satisfied. thats where growth comes in. being your biggest critic is what will make you great, as long as you remember where you came from (date and keep your work so you can look back on it) and the role criticism plays. separate your skill from your self worth.

something helpful i was once told is along the lines of 'perfectionism is a lie we tell ourselves to justify our procrastination. no one is ever perfect, so the only way to gain skill is to practice. you cant grow if you dont begin. so if your really a perfectionist, your only solution is to start'

i would love to see your work someday and hope i will. wishing you luck and sending you all the courage to begin and be great. you got this <3

[zen-dayas]

What did you think of the Ted Lasso finale? It was very emotional but everyone in my dash right now seems to have strong opinions about it, either good or bad, and I was wondering what your opinion since you haven't really said.

it had a lot of issues but i guess i feel mostly positive about it (and the whole season in gerenal). i think the more i rewatch nitpick it the more i'll find those loose treads, and there were definitely choices i didn't like, but overall i never felt the ethos of the show was really compromised???

my main issue with this season was time-management and pacing. back when it was still airing, during the fist half of the season, i kept feeling like they were wasting precious screentime on new, under-developed side characters, but also kept hoping it would all tie itself together in the end. there were also a lot of misleads i didn't really understand. looking back, it’s not that they were wasting time, it’s that a lot should just have been cut. the episodes were very long. i think maybe they were worried about balancing the comedy and the drama, but they excelled at that in the previous seasons in a way that didn’t seem organic in s3… but in terms of the actual main character arcs i’m not that mad, personally. i understand that, considering where s2 left things, a lot of us were expecting a more “confrontational” season (nate and ted, rebecca and rupert, jamie and his dad, even roy and keeley) with more tension filled scenes that would end up driving the narrative forward by way of friction. i’m sure that would have been satisfying in it’s own way, and yet there’s something about their refusal to be antagonist, the softness of coming into yourself and your role and your worth on your own, with just the right push…. i mean that’s the whole ethos of ted lasso right there.

like. it’s the general message of “love people for who they are and forgive them for who they aren’t”, but it’s also “i give you a job, the life part is up to you”. the entire spirit of the Lasso Way is that it’s just the initial domino that sets off the effect. there’s no guidelines, other leading with his heart and creating a support system that harnesses people’s talents. ted doesn’t drag people kicking and screaming into being a better version of themselves, but it’s just that much easier to do when you know you’ve got someone in your corner. which after two years culminates in a final season that, in my opinion, is all about finally having the confidence to shed negative self-thoughts, motivators and coping mechanisms, even if some storylines were certainly clearer and more well-executed than others: roy sheds self-doubt and petty hang-ups and manages to step into his leadership role more confidently. colin breaks free from his fear of not being accepted by his peers by coming out to them. keeley relinquishes some of her internalized shame, inferiority-complex and the stigma of her public image, being able to conciliate it with being a taken seriously as a business woman. rebecca let’s go of her hatred of rupert, jamie of his hatred of his dad, and nate of his self-hatred. and ted finally unshackles from his incapacitating fear of abandonment and of not being a good father to his son.

but, i think when it comes down to it ted himself was almost more cathalist than character for the narrative/message. he comes into these people's lives and he changes it forever, but it's not really his home, "it was never really about him". and i can understand people disliking this, finding it a bit cruel. i think i do as well, a little. but what u gonna do abt it 🤷🏻‍♀️ i'm choosing to not let it take away from the actual spirit

[gaypudding]

Okay I just saw Poor Things and oh my god. If that film doesn’t win best picture I’m going to eat my shoes. Please excuse this essay, as I’m not in a class right now that I could write it for and don’t feel like putting more work in than simply typing on my phone.

I saw Barbie earlier this year and I find myself comparing Poor Things to its narrative. Now I would never pit two beautiful women against each other but I think both movies have a similar message for very different audiences.

Barbie is about a woman who has been trapped in the ideal life. She has everything, and one day she questions what it would be like to not have everything (or a life at all). She then is sent on a quest to restore this naivety by traveling to the “real world”. Typical heroes journey stuff. However, she discovers that humanity, specifically fem-presenting folks, need help. She learns about ~feminism~ and being a GirlBoss and Woman Power and all that jazz. I’m not shitting on this either, it’s just how the movie was written.

My point is that this form of feminism is extremely digestible to the general public (maybe not dude bros with a podcast or has-been comedians but that’s beside the point). It was marketable (Mattel backing the project is an example of that), it was able to be shown to a diverse audience of children, adults, and the elderly. Even religious people couldn’t have too much of a problem with it. There were trends and TikTok filters and the whole Oppenheimer thing. It was extremely successful.

Visually, it was a good movie too. The sets were awesome, the costume design was perfect (albeit for a Chanel ad that rubbed me the wrong way), and it had both hilarious and emotionally gripping moments. I still have the Ken song on loop in my head sometimes and I bought an overpriced ‘I am Kenough’ sweatshirt so it worked on me.

What frustrated me about Barbie and I think what frustrated some other people, was how digestible it was. The movie pushed boundaries for the realm of Hollywood and for people who had only watched Avengers movies up to that point, but it felt too soft. “But GayPudding! You say. It’s a kids movie!” And to that I say yes. You’re correct. I still feel like it could have done something better than include 10 different product placements and an insanely long monologue that is accurate but in a way that doesn’t addresses the problem, it only identifies it.

Now, Poor Things. Decidedly not a movie for children under 13. It’s gory and filled with sex and cursing, but honestly it’s nothing I hadn’t seen by the time I was that age (maybe the brain parts). That’s an entirely different conversation though. It, however, was NOT marketable. It is sacrilegious so that audience is out, I saw at least four people walk out at different points all of various demographics (a mother and her two daughters to name 3) and its audience was mostly queer or alternative film majors and cool old people. (I work at a movie theater so I feel like this data is relatively accurate but it’s also a small theater so who knows).

But this film had all the same points as Barbie! It stars a woman who begins the movie with childlike naivety (more literally here), she leaves her world behind in search of something that will satisfy her personal world, finds that the world needs saving, then returns with confidence and self agency. Although she is not met with a Mojo Dojo Casa House, she’s met with wild objection and physical violence. In the end, much like Barbie, she gets what she wants while leaving her mentor behind and creates a world that is safe for herself and for her peers. She even has goals! Her studying for a medical exam is similar to Barbie’s… medical exam (aren’t I funny?).

The set and costuming is stunning. Like I actually had my mouth open at how beautiful and symbolic it was. Barbie was impressive but oh my god this film was one of the most visually gorgeous movies I’ve ever seen. Saltburn was pretty good too but the story didn’t hit me as hard.

Each phase of life that Bella entered was accompanied by a change in color palette, dress, and environment. She begins in infancy and toddlerhood with the dark and underdeveloped streets of London. She wears baby blues and white flowy dresses. Then she leaves for Lisbon and enters childhood. Her clothes are stiffer but still movable and are pastel and primary colors. Then the boat and Alexandria. She’s discovering that the world is full of horrors and complexities, her costumes increase in how stifling they are and become jewel toned. This was the teenage period. Then there’s Paris, her twenties. She’s found her liberty and her clothes are more revealing with a variety of styles and colors. She’s inventing herself. Finally, she reaches full adulthood. She’s realized who she is, what she wants, and makes a plan to get it and she does. She comes across challenges, but is able to rely on herself and those she knows to trust and she’s able to care for them in the same way they’ve cared for her.

Max’s character I have some different thoughts on, idk how I feel about his love for her in her infancy, but it’s a psychologically confusing situation and he felt weird about it so I’ll give him a temporary pass.

Anyway, this is all to say that the feminism of Barbie and of Poor Things is saying very similar things and executes that message in a very different way. I hope that in the future, more films like Poor Things can be made with nuanced takes and intelligent messages and less fucking advertisements.

[the-bi-space-ace]

Some writing asks for funsies. :)

🚀 Do you like to outline your fic first or create as you go?

🎁 Have a piece of a WIP you want to share?

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

🧪 Do you research for your fics?

💘 Is it easier to write angst or fluff?

🚦What sort of endings do you prefer to write: ambiguous, bad, happily ever after, etc.?

🤖 Are non-fandom friends aware that you write fanfic?

(Lots of questions, feel free to pick and choose if you don't want to answer all of them!) <3

🚀 Do you like to outline your fic first or create as you go? When I first started writing I just created as I went along but now I plot everything out beforehand and they get to writing. Currently all 10 chapters of my next fic are all outlined just waiting to be written! 🎁 Have a piece of a WIP you want to share? YOU BET I DO!

The both of them had emerged, covered in blood and smelling of blaster fire, but alive. Cody couldn’t even describe how it had felt to push through the crowd and seek out that familiar blond hair and blue and white armor, frantically trying to confirm that at least one person he cared about wasn’t gone. He was still covered in grime and he was positive his wrist was sprained, covered in bruises and cuts and praying to whatever was out there that he could get his hands on one of his brothers and confirm the presence of a heartbeat. By the time he saw Rex his chest was cracked wide open, something angry and raw rearing its head. His lungs ached while his anxiety mounted. He saw Rex, bent over one of the 212th troopers and trying to calm him while the medics reset a broken bone. There was a rough cut over one of Rex’s cheekbones that had scabbed over and while anger surged in Cody over seeing it he couldn’t help the strangled noise he made at the site. The captain turned to it immediately and before Cody even realized he moved he was crushing Rex to his chest and holding him so close it was almost like they were one person. For the first time in a long time Rex buried his face in the crook of Cody’s neck and just breathed him in like he had been just as destroyed. And now, looking at how dead tired his brother was, Cody realized just how badly they both needed to rest. How badly they both needed to break.

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write? Honestly? Sometimes it's Tech. I'm not nearly as familiar with his personality and voice as I am with the others. I've definitely gotten better since I first started writing but it still needs WORK.

🧪 Do you research for your fics? Yes. Yes I do! I spent probably too much time researching but I like when things are as accurate as they can be! Although. Sometimes I straight up can't find answers to my very specific questions and use the 'Star Wars Science' excuse when I can't figure something out lol.

💘 Is it easier to write angst or fluff? I find my writing flows better when it is angsty. When it's the emotional bits I can get lost in long paragraphs of wordy nonsense because the emotional bits are what really drive me to write. I can get that way with fluff too but usually with the more introspective parts. But fluff and comfort really have my heart. It is rare to find a fic of mine without it.

🚦What sort of endings do you prefer to write: ambiguous, bad, happily ever after, etc.? I'm a happy ending person. I love happy endings. I always want to try and tie things up with... maybe not always happiness but hopefulness. I can't see myself writing something ambiguous or bad unless there will be a continuation in another fic. I have absolutely read and enjoyed things with endings that are ambiguous or bad! It just has to feel satisfying.

🤖 Are non-fandom friends aware that you write fanfic? My partner reads and edits my stuff and other than that not a single non-fandom friend knows that I write at all! I just get so nervous thinking of anyone reading my stuff! And that sounds so silly as someone who posts fanfic but I physically can not be in the same room as someone who is reading something I wrote. I get weirdly nervous about it and just have to walk away.

[felicityhicklingviscomlvl6]

mp – evaluation.

Starting this project already with an interest in true crime made it an almost automatic choice to do it for my MP. As well having considered true crime for other projects before. Finding a problem within the topic is what led me to push this project further as I felt this was an opinion that some share. A lot would never even have thought of it considering it involves serial killers — in conversation it's not a topic people want to engage in because it's not the most normal conversation to be having. But I feel that it is so relevant to today's society of recognising women more.

There being a lack of knowledge or representation for female serial killers stems from the same misogynistic views as a women not being able to do a man's job. This is a means of a way to represent women, but not glorify them — reminding readers than the issue is the murder, but it's also the fact that society thinks women couldn't kill. But they can and they do, they just use methods that make them stand out from their male counterparts. Their methods reflect their evolution, their nature is to gather and not hunt, so killing is always a means for their personal gain for longer periods of time. While men use methods that offer quicker releases so they'll hunt and stalk and use torture methods to overpower and get what they want. It's important that this is understood as it explains why we don't hear of many female serial killers, but also why the ones that are more notorious are known a lot more because of similarities in the way they kill.

Applying this understanding into my outcome relied on the idea that it is an unserious, but also serious topic. Using a small amount of humour, but also a factual tone that creates the realisation of issue — why should we care if it's about serial killers, but also representation is representation and this is representing women are still disadvantaged regarding to whether they can kill or not.

This term I decided to submit my ISTD response to officially submit, and it was undoubtedly a huge learning experience and push for me that you could say was a lot harder than I expected, but I also did expect it. It pushed me editorially, since it's only something I'd started to focus on after second year. It clearly de-railed me from my major project for a while which I think lost me a lot of exploration time. It's obviously on me for not managing myself better, but I think because ISTD is commended for how hard it is, it made me focus on it more so I could get it to that standard of what they're expecting. As always I think I pushed through with both ISTD and with getting back on track with my major project.

Experiencing two huge projects on the go definitely creates a lot of stress, which I personally think I handled well, not letting it consume me. Originally having the goal to submit on the original date, I realised fairly quickly that whatever I'd submit would not be to the standard I know I could achieve, with the extra week I was able to create something that is substantial which satisfies the pleaser and achiever in me. I've spoke about the loss of exploration time, but I think and I hope I made up for it through my development.

I think what you can see throughout the process of my development is my understanding for something not working and instead of completely abandoning it, I push it again or try it a different way before letting it go. I think it was important to have this mindset during my development as it pushed my outcome to become something that I really loved. As a hopeful editorial designer this is the type of method I want to carry with me as it allows me to consider the latest trends and interpret them into something of my own – using contexts and narratives through editorial.