#I have not seen the episode yet but the images that are uploading are beautiful aaaa

[archandshri]

23rd Feb '24 - [arch] OH RISO my beloved!!!!!! ft. cyberpunk hermitcraft soup group

A cliffhanger!!!! And now I have to wait a month for you to upload the second half?? How will I cope :’’0

For real, it’s so awesome to see your process and the sheer amount of inspiration you take! In particular, I thought ‘Sit on Two Chairs’ and ‘This Was Our Pact’ were particularly yummy. 

I think book covers are really hard. You have to sum up a book’s energy in one image, make it stand out and show just enough so people want more. Exploring the narrative through those full pages is really interesting - though this is something you did for fun, it could be a really useful technique for getting to know a narrative. When I’m designing my comic covers, I always do it last - that way I’ve had practice with the visual style and I’m thoroughly familiar with the themes, so I guess spending a bit of time with the characters and narrative in this way helps for standalone book covers too. Of course, it helps if you have the time for that XD

Okay!! Onto what I've been up to!!! [warning this is a beefy post I'm sorry for your poor reading brain]

The past two weeks have been really enjoyable! I’ve been playing a lot with slow world-building, in sketchbooks, google documents, and voice notes to friends. Letting myself really sit with concepts, think about the characters, let them play in my head with no expectations. With this relaxation and lack of pressure, some beautiful narratives and interactions have been developing. I’m starting to need a name for a world/ the story. I’m not quite ready to give them a full introduction to the internet - I know it doesn’t but it feels like there’s some accountability to *produce something* and this slow development is really important for the quality and my skill building. It’s really hard to take on, but we actually don’t have to make the perfect thing now! In fact, it’s impossible. Pressure on ourselves makes it so hard to make something good if we’re always grasping at the final result.  In the meantime, while those characters develop, I have been working hard on my basic skills. I wrote about characterization last post, but this week I focused on setting and colour. I was inspired (once again) by Hermitcraft. I’ve seen some really incredible illustrations of Minecraft builds in the fandom, and it seems like a great exercise.

Bdouble0's Season 10 Base illustrated by @applestruda [source] and The Red Zone, built and illustrated by Bdouble0 [source]

One of the creators on Hermitcraft, ImpulseSV, created this build in a recent episode. It takes inspiration from the last season of Hermitcraft, where he was part of the ‘soup group’ with two other players, and his current base concept - a cyberpunk city.  I also LOVE his new character design, so I wanted to place him in the scene.

Screenshot from Impulse's video and new impulse design by @maxx-doodles

Here are some initial thumbnails I did, trying to figure out the composition. I wasn’t sure of the vibe yet, so I tried some rough thumbnailing, and drawing on an isometric grid and other perspective techniques. I’m going a bit mad for characters at the mo, so I wanted to place some in the scene. I found the angle of the isometric grid steep to place characters comfortably, so decided against that.

Looking back at it, I love the second! But I believe I was struggling with the perspective. I decided on the last one eventually.

Now, I absolutely adore all of the players in the Soup Group, and I am BIG fan of redesigning their notable characteristics to suit different settings. So yes, I decided to put all of the soup group in the image.

PearlescentMoon (left) from my comic and GeminiTay's Hermitcraft Season 10 design [from this thumbnail] (right)

Here's the sketch of the final image. I really enjoyed coming up with cyberpunk versions of them all. I used the impulse design almost exactly, with a few extra interesting details since he's mostly viewed from the back. For PearlescentMoon (middle) I kept her fringe, dark hair and gave her a glowing moon symbol on her top. For GeminiTay, I kept her long ginger hair, antlers (but glowing!) and took inspiration from her new season 10 design - a dark blue jumpsuit to match her dark blue clothes in her new design, and the braids she is often drawn with. I also gave them edgy new hairstyles. And a robot arm. I don't have lore for that.

As usual, I filled each flat colour-to-be with black and lowered the opacity to play with the values. Then I added colours one at a time, aware might be riso printing it. Originally I stuck to trying to make it printable (making the colours out of ones I could make my layering 2-3 colours at different opacities), but as I went on, I decided to drop that and focus on the quality of the image in a digital format alone. I did keep the grayscale version above with all the separate layers in case I needed that if/when I came to riso printing it. Below are the main two digital colour schemes I tried out.

I settled on the one on the left, with the blue tones - the foreground characters really pop. I put a few details in Gem's hair, colour variations etc, and cropped it for Instagram. I actually much prefer the cropped version - it sits better in a rule of thirds.

Now the moment we've all been waiting for :'')

RISO!!!!!!!!!!!

I returned to Cardiff after a couple of months away and was delighted to spend my first day back at The Printhaus, an awesome shared print studio where I have basically made my home. A few of my awesome friends happened to be there, so I spent the day playing around with this image with their help! (please check them out they're very cool - Gavin helped me a lot (we hung out at Thought Bubble, remember? and Rhi gave good crits too!!)

For those who don't know, risograph is basically a shitty photocopier that can only print one colour at a time. However, you can play with gradients and opacities, and layer colours really nicely to combine. I've done a lot of single-colour tonal work with riso but this is my first go really layering.

First, Gavin showed me how to separate the channels in Photoshop, using the flat image uploaded to the 'gram. We copied and pasted these layers in grayscale and added blending modes to each layer to replicate what they might look like when printed.

With blending modes, the digital mockup looked like this!!

This bit goes into technical details for replicating what the print might look like for those who might want it - feel free to skip :)))

I copied and pasted the Cyan, Black and Magenta layers as greyscale (as you can see above)

I made all of the greyscale layers multiply layers since risograph ink is transparent and we wanted to see how it layers. The ink usually comes out a bit lighter than you think, so it's good to bear that in mind. I used a clipping mask over each greyscale layer and a blending mode. WHEN YOU PRINT, PRINT IN GREYSCALE, NOT COLOUR.

Here's how I split the colours from CMYK to the riso colours, their hex codes and the blending mode I used to replicate the colours:

Cyan - Mint [HEX#82D8D5] Screen Magenta - Fluorescent Pink [HEX#FF48B0] Screen Black - Blue [HEX#0078BF] Overlay Yellow - scrapped for colour scheme purposes

Blue, Mint and Florencent Pink layers in greyscale in Procreate.

Riso printed Mint and Florescent Pink layers on separate paper, followed by the two layered together.

We always start with the lighter colour inks first, because sometimes the rollers can pick up the ink and cause extra marks where you don't want them. The first two colours came out great!

The first time we printed the blue, it came out very dark (left, first image). I have had this issue before - my last book, Winter Wellbeing, came out much darker than I wanted. Now I realise that the blue ink is super sensitive. All the 'white space' that is covered by a low-opacity blue on the left is only 2%, and yet it has come out pretty strong. We tried printing it on one of the misaligned images just to see, but it took all of the brightness out of the neon soup sign at the top of the image (second image). So I changed the values and pushed them way lighter, so it just pushed the values of the darker bits slightly, and brightened some of the lineart (right, first image)

And this is the final riso printed version!! I'm so so happy with how this came out. It's so different from the original digital version, and I actually love that.

I didn't create new colours in the way that I intended to - I wanted to play with overlaying purposefully to create specific colours eg. orange for the hair etc. But!!! I'm really happy with how it came out. That will have to be a project for next time.

Also, many copies are slightly misaligned, so in future I think I'd do flat layers for the colours a more blobby style with the linework on one layer only so there's less of a chance for obvious misalignment. design for the riso, rather than riso the design.

Overall though, this feels like a super cool step up and a milestone for me. Super happy with how it came out!! And I'm excited to play with colour some more. Can't wait to see the rest of the Lionheart brothers! Enjoy your weekend :)))

Archie 🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺 <3

[themisfitshistorian]

ESSAY NUMBER ONE: SIMON BELLAMY AND THE EXPANSION OF THE MISFITS UNIVERSE; WHAT YOU MAY NOT KNOW

Misfits, created by Howard Overman, aired its first episode on November 12th, 2009; what followed was a wild and unpredictable ride of a series, unlike anything that TV had ever seen before. With a cast of unique characters who get even more unique superpowers just minutes into the first episode, this show’s thirty-seven episode run would be unforgettable for most audiences. However, there is MUCH more to this series which lies below the surface.

If you’ve watched Misfits in its entirety, you may think you know everything there is to know about the series, but there is much more to be discovered. Below the surface, deep into the Misfits waters, you’ll find online shorts, long-forgotten vlogs interrupted by superheroes from the future, sinister confessions, deleted scenes within forgotten scripts, abandoned Twitter accounts, Flickr photography, and even evidence of lost media. A huge reason why I enjoy this show so much is because of how insanely deep its lore actually goes once you look past the original series. There’s an entire world of Misfits to be discovered, and in my first essay, I hope to introduce you to some of that content, provided by our beloved Simon Bellamy.

The in-character shorts uploaded online during the run of seasons one and two, shot from the perspective of the reclusive Simon, are more on the relatively well-known side of things. On YouTube, a search for “Misfits online films” brings up multiple playlists containing DVD-exclusive shorts recorded by Simon and various security cameras throughout the community centre. These shorts provide a small insight into what the characters’ lives are like outside of the episodes we know and love, and they serve to exist as sweet little extras for curious fans who just can’t get enough of the show. This isn’t all that Simon contributes when it comes to giving us the extras, though; in fact, many of these entries are directly tied to him and videos he’s made. For example, his YouTube channel contains his full tribute video to Nathan, and his Flickr account provides insights into his mind, as well as some images that casual fans may not have seen before. He also had a Twitter, as did the rest of the main cast! I find these accounts to be fascinating, as they provide a beautiful insight into what life is like for the characters outside of what we all saw on screen.

Another video of Simon’s includes a cameo from Superhoodie, who briefly interrupts his tribute to Nathan, along with a separate video, which I have yet to find again, in which Simon confesses to killing Sally in a rather sinister manner. I’ll update this post with more resources later; for now, I just wanted to appreciate Simon’s contribution to extending the Misfits universe.

Edit #1: Simon's confession can be found here! Big thanks to @merrilark for replying with the link, I don't think I would have been able to find it on my own :)

[justmichisstuff]

All Fandom has lesbian power vibes right now KAKDJAKFJA THEY ARE SO CUTE

[nickywhoisi]

GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY so thanks to @land-of-diesel-10 for just messaging me about the cool Magic Railroad behind the scenes photos, I have now been made aware of all of these incredible finds! So much production pics for both Thomas & Friends AND Tugs!! All of which may not yet have made it our way, but I intend to change that real quick! Thanks also goes to, of course, the choo choo groop discord that Coqui’s a part of, and the crew who went on twitter to upload all of this for the fandoms! Here’s where they all are if you want to take a peek!

I’ll leave Coqui to post all about D10 and the Magic Railroad in particular, but I definitely want to showcase these lovely Tugs images, and talk about them. It is so cool to see how it was made!

Wow, this is apparently how massive the sets were, pictured here at Bigg City Port. Look at how small that real life guy is at the very left. As we know, this was based on New York, but looking at it right now as a Vancouverite, I could almost swear that this was somewhere here, almost like a mishmash of the mainland and the island. The right side looks reminiscent of New West, while the right has that little blue and white chapel. I have seen a building on the island that looks almost like that, especially the placement being closer to the water. And everything around this area I grew up in has been pretty industrial like this anyway, so a part of me weirdly wants to headcannon that Bigg City is actually in Canada. Oh, but that’s just me being silly. We can also see the bridge which is so obviously San Fran bridge. But anyway, my eyes cannot get enough of all the details in this photo alone. There’s so many of these little buildings! So much that wouldn’t have even been more than brief background shots I bet, but the madlads put so much effort into making this set look like an actual full city! Everything is placed right, and they didn’t have to go that extra mile when the focus would have been elsewhere, but they did it! I wish I could walk around this set and peer down at all of those little hidden streets...see just how much detail went into everything. Like a curious kaiju.

Here’s another size comparison shot, with some guys from the crew standing next to a lighthouse(?) building and some of the tugs. If I’m guessing right, it could be TenCents, Sunshine, and...Boomer? I swear I see some orange, but then it might be a trick of the light, and it’s TopHat or something. As good of a pic it is, it’s very dark. Would anyone else be able to tell if this was a still from one of the episodes, or not? I would be really excited to know if this was a production on one of the episodes that didn’t make it past scripting! And I couldn’t possibly know what all that pile of glunkety is in front. Maintenance materials...?

Here’s a neat one! We see a shot of the bridge from a different angle, and see where the edge of the universe is. All propped up by a lot of wood. I can only begin to imagine how they managed to hold all the water used for the show. It looks like the water was always there, but I’m waiting to see a pic where it’s emptied. And we can see that the horizon shot was not so far away at all; just a cloth picture just like in the old-timey days of film! It still looks beautiful though. Oh, and there are the pipes for the tugs to have their smoke stacks working! Very neat.

Oooooh, and here we have one of the big ships that appeared in the show! I believe this is the famous Duchess? I always wondered why the main cast of boats had faces, but those like the Duchess didn’t, yet the tugs treated her like she was as sentient as them? Seemed to me like she was just a...regular not-alive cruise ship, but ehh. Finally, we can see quite clearly how all the boats were rigged and carted around...maybe at least while they were out of the water. Wild how all of that wiring is next to a giant basin of water that could short circuit everything if the wrong pieces fell in, eh? And I can’t not mention the weird-ass sight of Izzy without a hat. Good lord he is so bald he looks to be cleaved. Someone help him

[isaacthedruid]

Please allow me to tell you about one of my favourite cartoons through this informal essay I did for school a couple of months back. 

Gravity Falls and How it Did The Unimaginable

**SPOILERS... KINDA**

The 2010s saw the creation of some of the most iconic animated tv shows ever made, the likes of Adventure Time (2010), Steven Universe (2013), Over the Garden Wall (2014) and The Legend of Korra (2012). To explain why this era’s shows are so admirable is honestly rather difficult. Yet, there are many factors that can be taken into consideration when looking for an answer.

The past decade was very successful in perfecting their craft and utilizing the animated format to their favour, creating some of the wackiest and fascinating cartoons ever made. With the advancements made in both 2D and 3D animation for film, this bled into the world of TV as well.

To mention that 2010s cartoons have stunning visuals would be an understatement. Everything about the animation was beautiful; the strong colour palettes, the clean and imaginative character designs, the colourful and immersive backgrounds and especially the mesmerizing worlds that can be found within episodes that are half an hour.

This era’s cartoons also led to a massive shift in storytelling, writing longer-running stories that spread out across seasons while also swapping out episodic adventures for serialization. This heavily aided in the popularization of these shows, due to the rise of internet fandoms and dropping the taboo that cartoons were only for kids. Many shows acknowledged their older viewers by leaving clues and even puzzles to be solved by the theorists who have a large appearance on social media platforms like Reddit, Twitter and Tumblr. As the shows progressed, their fandoms created many theories for what they believed might happen within their favourite series. The top three shows from this era all utilized these changes, being at the forefront of the shift and helping guide the creative vision of 2010s cartoons.

Often regarded as many people’s favourite cartoon, Gravity Falls presented one of the best mysteries of the decade with two seasons and only 40 episodes. Inspired by Twin Peaks and The X-Files, it’s considered as the kids’ version of these two iconic shows as this cartoon acts as many people’s first introduction to horror through bright colours and fun characters.

This series follows the adventures of Dipper and Mabel Pines, twins, who are sent to spend their summer with their great-uncle or Grunkle Stan in Gravity Falls, Oregon. This town is full of oddities like supernatural creatures, insane and eccentric inhabitants, and many puzzles. The Pines twins must adjust to the weirdness while uncovering the mysteries and protecting their new town.

While living in Gravity Falls, the twins are forced to work in the Mystery Shack, a tourist trap created by their Grunkle Stan that overcharges unlucky tourists, teaching about fake monsters despite there being real creatures all over town. On his first day in Oregon, Dipper accidentally came across a mysterious journal written by an unknown author that explains all the oddities to be found in this strange town. This book acts like an encyclopedic of the Weird for Dipper, an inquisitive 12-year-old kid who seeks answers.

Dipper is an extremely intelligent kid, his brain being far more developed than his body. He’s rather awkward and self-conscious as he often stumbles over his words or gets embarrassed trying to talk to girls. Despite this, the boy is an adventurer at heart who just wants to grow up and skip his upcoming teenage years.

While Mabel is quite the opposite in many ways, she is loud and has an in-your-face personality. Mabel is bouncy and fun, she is so excited to start high school. She is easily excitable and for the larger part of the series, she is in her boy-crazy phase. Mabel is a girly-girl as she likes all things; glitter, unicorns, rainbows, partying and crafting. Yet, she doesn’t often compare well with many of the other girls in town, they see her as weird and “too much”.

(In all fairness through, it is not too kind to either of the characters as their personalities are more complex than just awkward nerd and artsy girl-girly.)

Dipper and Mabel’s personalities are very different but somehow, they—along with their Gravity Falls family—manage to solve mysteries and save the town, multiple times.

Gravity Falls is an honestly genius series that completely changed the way cartoons were made. Originally when writing a series, you’d create a base of your story; characters, the universe and a basic plot. Yet, when creator, Alex Hirsch (who was in his early/mid-20)s and his small team first began constructing their show, they planned out everything they could possibly think of for the first season. Additionally, outlining some answers for their biggest mysteries that would be answered at the end of the series.

Despite being rated TV-Y7, this series really pushed the boundaries of kids’ television. From the teeth being ripped out of a deer’s mouth by a demon, rearranging the functions of every hole on a man’s face to an aggressive pop-rock sock puppet show that ended in a dramatic slow-motion scene of the puppets burning. Gravity Falls wasn’t afraid to get a little weird or creepy. Or create some genuine nightmare fuel. 

From the beginning, Gravity Falls had built a mystery into its series, hiding secrets and clues all throughout the show. Most notably were the backwards-recorded message and cryptograms, using roughly nine different kinds, even creating two of their own.

The inclusion of cyphers and mysteries for fans to solve is possibly the reason why this series was so successful. As one of the first shows to do something like this, Gravity Falls used social media and internet fandoms to its advantage.

As mentioned earlier, cartoon fans have quite a presence on social media platforms like Twitter and Tumblr. They create theories and share fun ideas about their favourite shows. Viewers of Adventure Time, Gravity Falls and Steven Universe were all included in their share of theory fun.

Sometimes, fan theories end up being correct but when you’re Gravity Falls creator, Alex Hirsch, you don’t just watch from the sidelines as your viewers figure out the biggest mystery of your show. No, you create a hoax to get your viewers off your trail and that is what he did. Around 2013, only halfway through the first season of the show, viewers had started to follow the clues, theorizing who was the author is Dipper’s mysterious journal.

Unfortunately for the Gravity Falls production crew, the viewers were right— for the sake of readers who have never seen the show, I will not mention who the author was as it would be the biggest spoiler.

In 2013, a supposed leaked image of a tv showing a younger version of the show’s crazy old man character, Old Man McGucket, writing in the infamous journal was uploaded anonymously (by Alex Hirsch) to 4Chan.

Despite the image only being on up for a few hours, it spread like wildfire. Much to the team’s success, theorists stopped searching for the answer to “who is the author” and just accepted the image of McGucket as the truth.

To further push the fake-out, three words were posted to Alex’s Twitter, “fuming right now.”

The tweet was deleted a few minutes later and fans genuinely believed that someone from the Gravity Falls team had leaked the most important part of the story.

While doing research, I came across a Reddit post from April 10th, 2013, the day after ‘leak,’ Alex’s tweet was uploaded. In this post, user, TheoDW uploaded an image of Alex’s tweet with the caption, “It seems that Hirsch got mad at last night’s leak. He already deleted this tweet.”

Seeing the reactions of these Redditors in 2013 is kind of weird and crazy to look at. “He has every right to be upset. Someone internally released a plot revealing screen shot of series breaking spoiler information,” a deleted Reddit account commented.

“This is Alex Hirsch’s biggest success by far, he spent a huge amount of time carefully planning out the series, and then in a moment someone releases a major spoiler. It would make anyone upset,” the user, Time_Loop commented.

“Seriously, this is a nightmare for a storyteller, and shows a breach of trust. I feel so bad for him–honestly, I hope whoever did the leak gets caught and appropriate action is taken. You don’t f–k with someone’s story like this. It’s unprofessional.” the user, lonelybeloved angrily commented.

In 2014, this ‘leak’ was finally disproven when viewers were given an episode on McGucket’s backstory and an amazing tweet from Alex Hirsch. 

Alex had post an image of himself playfully pointing at a monitor with the supposed leaked picture with the caption, “1) Make hoax  2) Upload to 4Chan  3) Post angry tweet about "leak" 4) Delete tweet 5) Let internet do rest”

It is so interesting to look at these comments know that all of this was orchestrated by Alex.

I wish I had been old enough at the time to follow theories and fandom stuff like I do now with current cartoons but really looking at this from an outside perspective, this was insane!

The real author wasn’t revealed until 2015 and when viewers first got the answer to this biggest show on their screens, they must have freaked out!

Following the finale in 2016, a single frame of a stone version of Bill Cipher, the show’s villain, flashed in after the credits had finished.

Alex Hirsch and his team actually created a real-life statue of their villain for their viewers to find and on July 20th, 2016, the Cipher Hunt began.

By following clues, the Hunters found themselves all over the world; Russia, Japan and then travelling throughout the United States for the final 12 clues. When the hunt took them to Los Angeles, actor, Jason Ritter (voice of Dipper Pines, also a massive fan of the series) and Alex Hirsch’s twin sister, Ariel Hirsch (the inspiration for Mabel) joined in the fun helping the search.

Finally, the hunt ended on August 2nd when someone tweeted out an image of the found statue in Oregon, the same state in which the fictional town of Gravity Falls exists. The Cipher Hunt had ended but finding the statue wasn’t Alex’s goal for the scavenger hunt, it was about the journey and bringing together the viewers, more than having them actually find the statue.

Creating its own hoax, an international scavenger hunt and quite a bit of nightmare fuel, Gravity Falls was a show truly unlike any other.

The 2010s saw some of the strongest cartoons ever made, Adventure Time, Gravity Falls and Steven Universe acting as the leaders for multiple different changes in the medium; storytelling, worldbuilding, interaction with viewers, utilizing social media, representation and further pushing music into the cartoon world. From what was created this past decade and what has already been released in 2020, I’m so excited to see what comes next.

I have another one of these which is on Steven Universe’s representation and music if you would like to see that too!! 

[bryonysimcox]

You've Got to Look for the Good Stuff: Week 14, Spain

Like light is to darkness, this week has been an antidote to the last. My mood has lifted and the days have flown by, as lockdown continues and we do too.

Sunshine is a simple remedy. Each day this week has been warm and dry, if not bright and sunny too. It’s allowed us to live more inside-outside, which not only makes life easier but lifts my mood. It’s been a stark contrast to the constant rain and cold which dominated last week’s blog post.

I’ve also loved seeing pictures of children out in the streets and parks again, as Spain slowly lifts its coronavirus measures. It’s almost incomprehensible to imagine what it must be like for all these youngsters, many of whom have been cooped up in city-centre apartments with their siblings and parents for weeks and weeks. Even with the generous garden we have here and our weekly walks to the supermarket I’ve been going borderline insane, so I shudder to think how isolation has affected kids and their mental health.

Gaba Podcast live streams continue to punctuate my week. Adam Martin, whose podcast I mentioned in Week 10’s post, shares breathwork and meditative practices that have really helped me ease my busy mind. One of the things Adam talked about this week was what we consider to be ‘exercise’, in light of zealous Brits moaning that people sitting in the park, standing still in public and seemingly staring into space are breaking government-imposed controls around exercise. Adam argues that we consider sport and movement in open space an essential part to looking after our physical health, whilst ignoring the ‘exercise’ or psychological nurturing that our mental health deserves.

While this pandemic takes lives, we need to keep in mind the impact that social distancing is having on our psyches.

I titled this week’s digital diary entry ‘You’ve Got To Look Out For The Good Stuff’ because I’ve realised that there’s plenty of good stuff around, but quite simply, you’ve got to look for it. That might sound pretty obvious, but in comparing this week to the last, I can see that the main thing that’s changed isn’t my situation, but more so my mindset. Admittedly, the sunshine has made a huge difference, but apart from that, we’re still stuck in lockdown in Spain in the same physical, geographical and financial situation that we were in last week.

What’s caused this shift in mindset? Honestly, I don’t know. I think life in lockdown is making us act in all kinds of strange ways, cycling through an emotional spectrum so extreme we’ve rarely experienced it before and yet now feels like the norm. Tears, laughter, smiles and frowns easily paint my face in a matter of hours. So maybe my mood this week has just been luck. But as my shifted mindset has worked its magic, somehow I’ve seen and experienced little nuggets of ‘good stuff’. I hope that some of you have seen and enjoyed those nuggets too, wherever you are.

After rain left the road to the supermarket blocked, we finally made it to the shops this week, when the water subsided.

Perhaps fearful of another rainfall, this time we piled the trolley high in the local Aldi and returned home to stock up the cupboards. A plentiful fridge has resulted in some more cooking adventures - this week including George’s new specialty, Spanish omelette, and a new fave of mine too, veggie paella.

We picked and podded the final batch of broad beans this week, and helped to dig up the patch where they were growing to make way for the vegetables of the coming season: tomatoes, courgettes, cucumbers and peppers. One of the inadvertent blessings of being ‘marooned’ here in Catalunya has been to see and enjoy the changing of the seasons, and my interest in food growing and land management increases with them. George and I have always said we’d like to live in Spain in a self-built tiny house with a bit of land, and somehow we’ve landed in a situation right now that’s not far off! In addition to the vegetables we can get from the garden, I’ve been buying fresh eggs from the neighbour (often still warm from the coop!) which is a real treat.

(images, left to right) ‘Why simple changes [like growing food] are really profound’ a lovely illustration I discovered from Brenna Quinlan, George prepping the soil for tomatoes, and my new favourite thing to cook, veggie paella.

Food isn’t the only ‘good stuff’ to be grateful for. Since I mentioned Simon Mair’s article in my post from Week 11, I’ve been researching ‘Ecological Economics’ and its potential to lead us towards more just and sustainable ways of living. That research finally came to a head this week, when I had the pleasure of interviewing not only Simon himself but also friend and futures thinker from Mumbai, Mansi Parikh.

Making a video about alternative economic futures which address some of the challenges posed by Covid-19 is turning out to be a bit of a challenge in itself!

The interviews with Simon and Mansi were utterly fascinating, and I was so grateful to be able to talk to two super knowledgeable folk, who like me, are passionate about the future and how we can make it better. They shared their time and their insights, and now I’m left with over 150 minutes of recorded zoom calls to make sense of!

I want to use these interviews to make a video which engages people who perhaps wouldn’t usually be interested in economics, without ‘watering down’ the message or intent of the film. It’s such a hard balance to strike, to create something which is at once accessible and engaging but also rich with ideas. As the week progresses, I’ll start editing the footage and hopefully the narrative of the video will reveal itself.

One of the best things about making a new video is the chance to do loads of research! There have been so many articles which have got my brain buzzing, from ‘no-growth’ economics to deliberative democracies, and I’ve also just started reading ‘Fully Automated Luxury Communism’ which is a manifesto for a post-Capitalist future. Even if this research doesn’t directly inform the video I’m working on, it serves to inspire me. I’ve actually found myself a few times this week almost overwhelmed by how much interesting media there is out there to consume, and often just resort to adding thing to my ‘read later’ list, or quoting my favourite gems on Twitter.

(images, left to right) Recording interviews with Mansi and Simon, and my latest reading project...

The realisation of a project we began in January, ‘Place Portraits: Episode 1’ was finally released this week.

George had the idea a while ago to create a video series exploring cities and places through analogue photography. Whilst it was a super simple idea, we thought these short, laid-back videos would contrast with some of the longer-format stuff or more informative films we’re hoping to upload on the Broaden YouTube channel.

Back at the start of our trip we shot on a roll of Kodak Portra 400 and Fujifilm C200, using the trusty Pentax that was once George’s dad’s camera. We’d had the photos back from the processing lab for a while, but have only just completed the edit and got the film online, which is such a nice feeling. We’ve had some lovely responses to the resulting four-minute video, and I’ve especially valued constructive feedback so we can start to think critically about what Episode 2 might look like.

(video) Place Portraits: Episode 1 - Paris

Since ‘The Hundred Miler’ hit 90K views this week (which in and of itself is pretty nuts), I knew I had to temper my expectations about how many views we’d get with Place Portraits. Even though it’s not far past 200 views, each and every one of those views counts and I’m chuffed to see it finally online. Watching Broaden’s audience slowly grow has also served as great motivation to submit The Hundred Miler into film festivals, a process which we started this week.

There’s probably plenty more good stuff which deserves to be celebrated, but the one which can’t go unmentioned is of course the company of others.

Embracing what has become a routine activity for many of us these days, I’ve spent some cheerful hours on phonecalls and videochats to others across the globe.

This week included a three-way call between Ireland, Australia and Spain with dear friends that George and I used to live with catching up on career plans, cats and newfound hobbies. I also enjoyed a game of movie charades (which involved some impressive commitment from some people!) and even attended an evening of ‘drag queen bingo’. These digital hangouts leave me asking ‘Would I be connecting with friends and family this much if the world wasn’t in a global pandemic?’ and I think the answer would be no.

(images) Just some of the beautiful humans that feed my soul.

I’m grateful that these human connections are now much more of a priority. In being restricted to a simpler and more isolated way of living, we’re certainly reassigning value to the things that matter. That’s something which I’ve found from making the economics video and learning about the idea of value, but also something I’ve felt in a visceral way when a phone call with my parents or a friend leaves me beaming.

There’s so much good stuff out there, you’ve just got to be open to it.

[timeagainreviews]

The Edge of Acceptable

Hello friends! Previously I said I would try and post an article between then and my "Doctor Who: The Edge of Time," review. This was mostly due to my not knowing how long it would take me to finish playing the game. Well, intrepid reader, it appears I overestimated the game's length, as I have beaten it and I have many things to say. Before we begin, however, I would like to state that this review will be full of spoilers, so if you plan on playing "The Edge of Time," for yourself, you may want to hold off reading this. There, you've been warned. Let the spoilers commence!

The game begins in a laundrette somewhere in a dark corner of London. After some strange anomalies, a television kicks on, and the Doctor, played by Jodie Whittaker can be seen on screen. Speaking directly to you, she tells you that you're the only person that can help her. Suddenly a shift in the lights (and possibly time) occurs and the laundrette is filled with a black sludge reminiscent of the purple gunk from "The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild." Peering from the individual dryers along the wall are black sludge monsters with murky red eyes that stick to you. If you get close to them, they lunge and crack the glass.

After explaining to you that the universe is like a hard drive and that people and moments are like individual files, the Doctor informs you that someone has installed a sort of computer virus. Lost on the edge of time, she is unable to help you, but using a bit of her Doctory magic, she's going to help you help her, and by extension- save the universe. It's no small order, but you're raring to go!

It's during this point, however, that I did find myself slightly frustrated with the game design. As the Doctor begins speaking to you, she's oftentimes drowned out by the music, making it hard to hear what she's saying. When I went to the options menu, I was surprised to see that no option to lower the music volume was available. There was however a subtitles option, which I opted out of due to my feeling that seeing subtitles somewhat sullied the immersion. The next bit of frustration came from the following scene in the back office of the laundrette.

Another big source of frustration was the controls. While in the office, you're made to find the code to a safe, and then enter the code into its keypad. As excited as I was to be playing a new Doctor Who game, I almost rage quit due to the sheer difficulty of entering a simple four-digit code. Now, it's worth mentioning that at this point, I was still using my Playstation controller. After switching to the Playstation Move controllers, my experience improved exponentially. However, even with these Move controllers, performing minute actions felt a lot like trying to unwrap a lemon sherbet while wearing a pair of woolly mittens.

You learn a little bit about the late owner of the laundrette. He used to be a janitor at Coal Hill School, and he's now a pile of ash on a chair. The books strewn about the office show he was a man interested in strange phenomena dealing with time and space. The Doctor, using a bit of Time Lord magic, has stashed her sonic screwdriver away in the safe. After fishing it out, I took great glee pointing it at literally anything I could. Sadly, the sonic has very little actual interactivity with the surrounding world other than pre-scripted actions like opening doors that carry the story to the next stage.

Once outside, you get your first glimpse at a Dalek saucer, floating above the sky like something from the Dalek Invasion of Earth. It's a great little callback, and the alley conjures images of Totter's Lane. After building a signal booster with junk from the alley, you call the TARDIS to your location, where it materialises like the beautiful Ghost Monument we all love. Now, I'm not too proud to admit it, but as I walked into the TARDIS for the first time, I got a little misty-eyed. It really does feel like you're walking aboard the greatest ship in the universe. The people at Maze Theory did a fantastic job rendering the Thirteenth Doctor's TARDIS interior. And yes, the console does dispense custard creams. Trying to make my boyfriend laugh, I held the biscuit to my mouth and was pleasantly surprised when my virtual character actually ate it!

This joy was short-lived, however, because I was once again at the mercy of needing to perform exacting tasks with rather sloppy controls. What should have been a joy (piloting the TARDIS), was instead another rage quit moment. Really though, this is more of a problem native to virtual reality. You're only ever as good as your tools, and Move Controllers aren't hands. Controls are one of the game's biggest flaws, really. For instance- there is no duck or crouch function. Meaning that despite all of the wonderful little Easter eggs peppered throughout the game, the second you drop one on the floor, it's gone forever.

After being recruited by the Doctor, you're treated to a title sequence in full 3-D glory. Let me tell you, the time vortex has never looked cooler. I was like David Bowman entering the Star Gate. Moments like these are when the VR really shines. Afterwards, the first place you land is sort of a head-scratcher. You arrive on what looks like a planet, where you're being stalked by a creepy race of aliens known as Hydrorks. I was slightly sad that you never have to actually worry about them. They're mainly there to scurry about in the shadows. Despite the warnings of a woman you're speaking to over a holo-pad, they don't ever actually attack you. You can stop right in front of them and shine your torch at them and walk away unscathed.

If you recall from my Doctor Who and Video Games article, I complained that one of the biggest issues Doctor Who games have is puzzles. This chapter of the game has the most egregious of the puzzles and had me worried that it was about to devolve once more into a series of irritating puzzles, but they lessen as the game progresses, much to its benefit. I would like to mention though, that the game does take accessibility into consideration. Puzzles involving colours also incorporate shapes for those that are colour blind. You can also switch between hands with your sonic screwdriver, a fact that I, as a left-handed person, wish I would have discovered far earlier in the game.

After getting to the lift, you discover the planet you're on is a sort of space ship. The effect of leaving what seems like the outdoors only to find a giant window overlooking alien planets was like something David Lynch would do. I was reminded of episode three from "Twin Peaks the Return," when Dale Cooper exits a room in a building surrounded by a vast purple sea, only to find himself climbing out of a boxy spaceship surrounded by a network of stars. This kind of otherworldly experience is yet again another strength of VR. After a series of puzzles involving lasers, you meet Emer, the ship's computer that forgot it was a computer. Remember how I mentioned David Bowman earlier? Well, the "2001: A Space Odyssey," vibes don't stop there, as Emer's interface looks a lot like HAL 9000. It's a great little homage.

Before leaving the ship, you save Emer onto the sonic screwdriver and find yourself a time crystal. The time crystals are artefacts the Doctor needs you to collect to save the universe. It's a little vague in that "It's a video game, so just go get the thing," kind of manner. But it's a video game, so I'm not even bothered by it. After arriving back on the TARDIS, the Doctor uploads Emer into your brain. Emer's job is to help you along with little hints here and there. I was a little disappointed because the only reason I can imagine they did this is because they only had Jodie Whittaker for six hours on the day she recorded her dialogue. Having the Doctor speak to you like her closest friend is a rapturous bit of nerd joy, so replacing her for a bit is regrettable. But Emer is a likeable character so you don't really mind. The only time Emer really gets under your skin is when she's dropping hints repetitively. You may know exactly how to solve a puzzle, but the mechanics aren't as spelled out. Having her tell you what you already know, over and over again begins to grate on you.

The next place you visit is a very shabby looking Victorian London. You know right away that you've entered Weeping Angel territory. However, the classic Who fans will love the fact that part of this portion of the story incorporates Magnus Greel's time cabinet from "The Talons of Weng-Chiang!" I could tell the people at Maze Theory threw this in for the nerds out there. The Weeping Angels portion of this chapter is easily the creepiest moment in the game. There's a jump scare that had me jumping out of my skin. For full immersion, headphones are a requirement as the sound design is full of little creaks, groans, and stabs as the Angels make their way toward you. The incorporation of the cherubs (which you never see) and a baby pram only adds to the nightmare fuel.

This isn't to say that this sequence is without criticism. One of my chief complaints is that it's a very repetitive sequence. Once you do the first portion, you know exactly how to do the next portion. It then becomes a waiting game which is more tedious than tense. If they'd had varied up the gameplay in this section, I would have said it was the best part of the game. Instead, the Angels only play a minor part, and once you know how to beat them, their terror factor plummets. After a while, the worst part of getting caught by an Angel isn't the dying, it's the waiting for the level to reload. Even with my PS4 Pro, the loading times are egregious. Expect to spend a lot of time staring at the floating orange embers that are the loading screen. At least you can fiddle with the sonic screwdriver while you wait.

After receiving the next time crystal from Magnus Greel's time cabinet, it's time to move on to the next phase. The Doctor begins to tell you a little more about who is tearing apart reality- an entity known simply as The First... or the One. I honestly can't remember which, and the internet isn't much help. It's not a very memorable name, much like the title of the game itself. This "First One," is the very first form of consciousness in the universe that has awoken to find her creation of other forms of life is a disappointment to her. Our penchant for death and destruction has lead her to believe that the only course of action is to reboot the universe, hence the reality virus.

Our next stop is Metebelis...Four? I would be lying if I said I wasn't massively relieved to discover they weren't sending us to Metebelis III. That would have been cruel and unusual. When arriving at Metebelis IV, you're greeted with a gigantic temple structure. In VR, its size and design are really grand in scope. I was reminded of my visit to Durham Cathedral with its impressively high vaulted ceilings. After a quick time jump, you find yourself in a point in history where the Daleks have taken over the planet. I really enjoyed the music cues in this part, because you knew right away you were about to encounter Daleks. You can almost hear a digitised version of their voices in the score that really sets the tone.

This portion of the game was probably my favourite. A lot of it is sneaky stealth missions, which gradually increase in difficulty. The only problem with the stealth portion is you really need to bait the Daleks into following you at points. It goes against usual stealth mechanics which at this point are generally universal. When you accompany this with long load screens, and Emer repeatedly telling you what you already know, it gets to be a bit much. But getting to drive around as a Dalek later on in the level makes up for this in spades.

Much like the Weeping Angels portion of the game, the key to beating this section is patience. You can systematically work your way through the level by budgeting your time. If you take out drones and Daleks in the right order, it's a piece of cake. It becomes a memory game at that point. That being said, I still had a lot of fun. Dalek vision was especially cool. After tearing ass through various temples, you find yourself sort of outside of time. The reality virus has almost torn the universe apart but using memories of the places you've been, you're able to hold things together long enough to stop the First One. The Doctor congratulates you and tells you what a star you are. Emer is given human form for her efforts. The TARDIS drops you off back at the laundrette, seemingly to do it all over again, which leads to my biggest question about the game. Am I supposed to play it again, or was that just a meta-joke from the designers encouraging you to replay at your own leisure? Furthermore, is the Doctor not also now stuck in a time loop along with the player?

I've not done a second playthrough, so I can't rightly say if it adds more content to the game. I'm going to bet the answer is probably no. This is a shame because for a game that has been marketed for as long as it was, and had its release date pushed back almost two months, it's surprisingly sparse. At the very beginning in the Laundrette, the Doctor mentions both the Stenza and the Zygons, which made me expect to see at least one of them throughout the game. What turned the laundrette owner into a pile of soot? Hell, you don't even see the sludge monsters from the laundrette again. I expected them to be a far bigger problem than they were. The game is surprisingly devoid of other characters. Perhaps this is a symptom of VR, but disembodied voices, static Angels, skittering background aliens, and rail driving Daleks are the most interactivity you'll have with other characters.

Throughout its runtime, I couldn't shake the feeling that "The Edge of Time," was originally supposed to be a much bigger game. While I'm aware that most VR games are generally shorter in length, this feels truncated. Perhaps it was from budget issues or internal problems, I can't say. But is it twenty quid's worth of video game? I would say that maybe with DLC it would be, but as is, it feels incomplete. The ability to select chapters does increase replay value. I could see myself pulling up the Weeping Angels level for a group of friends. However, due to the lack of variety in said level, I don't see the novelty lasting long. If they were to release a couple extra levels that were more like survival horror where you were in a creepy mansion avoiding Angels, or maybe something with Cybermen or Zygons I could see the value increasing. I wouldn't want to pay more for these levels, mind.

Compare the price of this game to going to a movie with friends. These days £20 will buy you maybe two tickets to see a film. The game is basically a feature-length episode of Doctor Who. So if my boyfriend plays the game, and my wife and friends, then sure, it's paid for itself. But for people who might play this game alone, they may want to wait until the price drops a bit. I had a good time playing the game, myself, but I have to temper that response with the fact that I am a massive Whovian. Will it have the same appeal for casual fans of Doctor Who? That's really the big question, isn't it?

When the game was announced, my first reaction was to shake my head at the BBC's inability to make a proper Doctor Who game. As you may recall from my article on Doctor Who games, this stems from the fact that going with VR was pre-emptively cutting off a large portion of gamers. While there is a very real demand for Doctor Who video games, VR is still a niche market. Not everyone is going to buy VR just to play one game as I did. And even if they are, VR systems aren't cheap. I had to purchase mine on credit. The cost of admission is now much higher than the asking price of twenty pounds. That being said, the game manages to prove that Doctor Who video games can still try new things. The formula and gameplay are very close to what a lot of people have wanted for years. While I still don't feel like we've seen a truly great Doctor Who game, I had a lot of fun with this one.

[speckofglitter]

crush culture - crs

- requested by @animejaem -

Word count,, 2k

Genre,, fluff, not that angsty but still kinda emo i guess

You absolutely hated crush culture. Every single one of your friends had spent the majority of their teenage years hung up on a guy or a girl that they thought was ‘the one’. Ultimately none of those relationships ever lasted. You didn’t understand why people would waste their time trying to make someone else fall for them when they would have to deal with heartbreak sooner or later. Having to be in a romantic relationship with someone just felt too suffocating anyways. In short, you didn’t understand everyone’s obsession with romantic love, forcing chemistry when they knew the equation wouldn’t add up in the end. You were content with your love for your friends, family, role models and hobbies. You didn’t mind feeling lonely once in a while.

You throw on a yellow hoodie, blue jeans and converse on, grabbing your bag as you get ready for another grueling day of college classes. You were majoring in visual communication. As soon as you got to class, you looked for your friends chaeyeon and eunbin who usually saved you a seat. You spotted them in the middle of the lecture hall, sliding between seats to reach them. On your way, you accidentally bumped into someone.

‘Oh i’m so sorry’ he immediately apologized, reaching down to pick up your fallen belongings.

‘No worries.’ you smiled at him, walking off to go join chaeyeon and eunbin. You greet them, taking out your notebook. Throughout the entire lecture, you noticed someone kept giving you looks. As you turned to your right you saw the same boy you had bumped into immediately put his head down, blushing furiously. You giggled, amused at his shyness. Chaeyeon immediately poked your leg with her foot.

‘Hey, what are you laughing at?’ she smiled at you, taking a sip of her iced coffee.

‘Oh nothing, it’s just that i bumped into this guy earlier and i saw him staring at me. What a cutie.’ you laughed, looking back at him to see him eagerly taking notes. You had never seen someone look so interested in a marketing lecture before.

‘I’m pretty sure everyone would agree that raesung is cute you’re not special sis’ she retorted following your eyes as she shamelessly winked at raesung who just smiled back.

‘Wait, you know him?’ you tilted your head, confused.

‘Oh my god y/n you must live under a rock. Raesung is well known on campus. He has a youtube channel and he posts covers. He’s an amazing singer, rapper and dancer. In conclusion, you just met an icon and it seems like he likes you.’

‘We just met, i highly doubt it. Besides i’m not interested in dating anyone. I will check out his channel though’ you retorted, turning away from chaeyeon’s nosy ass to pay attention to the lecture again.

-

You were in your bed about to go to sleep when you decided to search up raesung’s channel name ‘gongjuboi’. You had no idea what that meant but as soon as you listened to his music, you realized the name didn’t matter because damnn this boy was talented. You stared out of your dorm room window, wondering if you would ever be this talented. You had decided to study visual communication against your parents’ will but you didn’t seem to be improving much since classes had started.

-

The second time you met raesung was at the campus bookstore. You were looking through the racks of books on visual communication for your next assignment when you both grabbed a book at the same time. He immediately took his hand off, apologizing.

‘I’m so sorry you can take it’ he muttered.

You recognized him immediately, ‘you know, for a youtuber you’re really shy in real life huh? It’s really fine you can have it raesung. I’ll probably illegally download a pdf or something’ you commenting. You waved at him before walking away, your platform doc martens clunking away.

Raesung’s heart was beating so fast he could probably use it as a beat for his next song. You had watched his videos.

Raesung was the complete opposite. He was a hoe for romantic love. All of his songs had been inspired by someone that he either had feelings for or at least a crush on. He was the type of person who went to sleep and dreamt of falling in love. It was now happening all over again, because of you.

-

Raesung was at the studio, dark lighting looming over him as he finished up a song. It was about you. He had been producing the track for 2 hours and writing lyrics for 1 hour. He recorded the track, immediately uploading it onto his youtube channel.

Meanwhile, you were in your room getting ready for bed. Fridays were usually the start of the time of your life. For you, that meant eating pizza in your bed as you caught up on the latest episode of grown-ish before falling asleep. You mindlessly scrolled through your subscription feed as you got a glass of water. Your finger came to a stop as you saw the raesung’s username appear on your phone. You immediately clicked on the video, curious to see what magic he had made.

The song was slow and sensual, his voice giving you chills as he sang the words. The lyrics dripped off his tongue like honey.

‘Let’s take our time tonight girl, above us all the stars are watching.’

You heart was beating fast as the song came to an end. You were completely unaware of how you had gotten into this mess. You thought you were loveproof. Maybe you had thought wrong. It wasn’t just physical attraction. You had always known raesung was attractive. He was tall, he had a charming smile and an athletic body. But now… now it almost felt like there was a gravitational pull between the two of you. You had never felt this way before. A fire was brewing inside of you and there was nothing you could do about it.

‘There's no reason to hide, what we're feelin' inside’

Those words resonated in your mind the entire night. That night, you fell asleep with someone on your mind for the first time.

-

The next morning you decided to act like last night had not happened. You got dressed, getting your camera and strolling out of your dorm, steps bouncy as you looked for a target. You had an important assignment for your advertising class and you were determined to make it amazing. You were thinking of going for a vintage style ad. You went around the city, taking photographs and videos of various things. As you walked in the art building, you came across an old television with a broken screen. It looked nothing like the perfect and ideal image that a vintage ad would want and yet you decided to take a picture of it. It reminded you of yourself.

After a few more hours of the same ritual, you decided to head home and start editing your project. You settled on a completely different vibe, using the television as a background as you edited the words ‘crush culture’ in a retro font on top of it. You were really liking how it looked but it was definitely not enough to impress your professor. You needed audio. You thought of what would fit the concept, your mind immediately wandering to raesung’s voice. You placed your head in your hands, ruffling your hair. You were frustrated that you would have to see him but it was the obvious choice. You decided to call him before you could change your mind.

He picked up after three rings.

‘Hey, who’s this?’ he asked brightly.

‘Um hi, this is y/n. I just wanted to ask you a favor if that’s ok with you…’ you trailed off.

‘Oh y/n? um yeah sure whatever you want.’ he coughed out.

‘So i have a project to do for my advertising class and i would love it if you could narrate my ad. I listened to your music and i think you have a beautiful voice’

Raesung paused for a second, shocked. He wished you could feel how fast his heart was beating right now.

‘Thank you.. And um i’d love to narrate your project. Do you have like a script or something?’ he questioned.

‘Well i have an idea but i wanna know how you feel about it. How about we meet up at 5pm at the campus café?’

‘Sure, see you there y/n.’

-

When you got to the café, raesung was already sitting down, scribbling intensely in a notebook as he sipped what you assumed was a matcha latte. When raesung wrote, he had a special kind of hunger in his eyes. His fingers moved fast, almost like he was typing. You sat down across from him, waiting for him to notice your presence. You peeked over at his notebook.

‘The girl with the heavy steps’ you cocked your head, reading aloud.

‘OH MY GOD YOU SCARED ME’ he yelled out, rushing to close his notebook.

‘I’m so sorry you just looked so focused.’ you laughed heartily.

He smiled, scratching his neck nervously.

‘So… my concept is about crush culture. I’ve never really understood the concept of dating. I feel like i’ve been surrounded by couples that had their relationships and were happy for a while but they all eventually ended. I feel like love is so temporary that i’m not sure there even is a point in dating at all. All this love just seems so suffocating. I want to express that idea in my ad.’ you explained, taking a sip of your black coffee.

Raesung listened attentively as you spilled your guts out to him.

‘Well, i had no idea you were so skeptical of love. I don’t personally agree with everything that you said but i think i know how i can make the audio for the ad. Is it okay if i take you to my studio?’

‘Of course.’ you jumped up from excitement, sliding your bag over your shoulders.

-

Raesung got straight to work as you arrived at his studio. He sat in one of those rolling chairs, scribbling a few notes in the same notebook while you got your laptop out working on the editing. A short 30 minutes later, he was finished.

‘Ok, i’m gonna sing the song i wrote for the ad, just let me know what you think’ he explained.

You nodded, sitting patiently as he got in the booth, ready to record. You fell into a trance as you watched him sing. You literally couldn’t take your eyes off of him.

‘I’m not falling for you, cause this baby is loveproof.’

You slightly shivered as he glanced at you while singing this particular line. As the song came to an end you smiled, clapping loudly.

‘That was… everything i wanted and more. Thank you so much.’ you complimented, excitedly grabbing raesung’s hands.

‘Thank you. So i’ll send you the recording and we can look at the final product.’ he replied, blushing as he realized you were still holding his hands. He looked down at your hands on top of his. You followed his gaze, promptly putting his hands down.

You watched the final product together, the both of you amazed at how good you were at your different art forms. Your vision had finally come together.

‘Thank you again raesung. I’m positive this is one of my best works and i couldn’t have done it without you. Especially since the message behind it was kind of personal…’ you mumbled nervously.

‘No problem. I love working with you. But i just wanted to say, love isn’t always temporary. I hope you find someone who can make you feel like you deserve to be loved everyday.’ he gently stated.

‘Like you?’ you whispered.

‘HUH? ME?’ he yelled out, confused at your sudden question.

‘I mean, you’re the only person who’s ever made me feel like romantic love was worth it. I’m sorry if you don’t feel the same, that would just be confirming my original hypothesis anyways.’ you sighed out.

‘No no i do feel the same. That’s why i was so surprised. I’ve liked you since i met you. Since you walked away from me with your loud ass boots. Since you laughed at me in marketing class.’ he chuckled.

You smiled up at him, squishing his cheeks before you leaned in and kissed him. Raesung was your first kiss and it was a lot better than you had expected. He held you like a prized possession, lips sweet like cherries. Kissing him felt like summer. You weren’t used to feeling like this. You’d never felt so alive.

-

heyo hope you guys like it 🎀🌹love you all 💖✨

••

masterlist - requests are open !!

- ya girl tiyi 💖

[stvrwar]

wait out the plastic weather

marauders social media au | 2k words | they’re youtubers bc why not and bc @frxddi is up this trope’s ass | ao3

james potter to tucci gang: you guys see the newest vid

sirius black: you mean the newest video that all of us are fucking in

sirius black: that cideo?

sirius black: *video

remus lupin: the video you uploaded and sent all of us the link to like…twelve minutes ago?

peter pettigrew: I think he might mean that video

james potter: fuck all of you not that video

james potter: and it has a name. it is out cHILD

remus lupin: pardon me, I didn’t realize “getting kicked out of Walmart #4” fit on the birth certificate

james potter: I have small handwriting

remus lupin: my mistake

james potter: ur mistake indeed but

james potter: not our fucking video morons

peter pettigrew: ur unnecessarily mean to us

james potter: lily evans video. The woman of my dreams. The greatest youtuber to ever fucking live

sirius black: now that’s just hurtful

remus lupin: and also why the fuck would we have watched her video?

james potter: now who’s hurtful?

-

remus lupin to so pete davidson and ariana grande are engaged and idk who I am anymore: sirius why is this our chat name now

sirius black: bc idk who I am anymore

peter pettigrew: is it bc ur in love with ariana grande

james potter: he loves ariana and he’s in love with pete

remus lupin: I can’t believe you’ve never told us

peter pettigrew: im touched

remus lupin: when’s the wedding?

sirius black: okay fuck all of u she is an icon and he is hilarious

james potter: ur face is hilarious

sirius black: im leaving you for him

james potter: babe no I didn’t mean it

sirius black: u’ve hurt me too many times

james potter: I promise I’ll change for you

remus lupin removed sirius black from the chat

remus lupin removed james potter from the chat

peter pettigrew: this happens like twice a fucking week

remus lupin: so how’ve you been pete?

peter pettigrew: pretty shook about that engagement tbh

remus lupin removed peter pettigrew from the chat

remus lupin: I am an island.

-

sirius black to the office season 2 episode 7: yo Walmart 4 is on trending wtf

james potter: !!!!!!!!!

peter pettigrew: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

remus lupin: im not gonna do that

sirius black: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

james potter: what number is it on trending??? Is this twitter or youtube btw

sirius black: youtube and #6

remus lupin: shit that’s our best yet

peter pettigrew: anyone check the subscriber count recently????

sirius black: the marauders are at 3.1 million what the FUCK IS UP YO

remus lupin: im so surprised u aren’t key smashing

sirius black: is it because im gay

remus lupin: no it’s because u have massive thumbs and can’t text to save your life

remus lupin: yes because you’re gay

sirius black: that’s homophobic. Im not gay bc I keysmash

peter pettigrew: ??? neither of you are straight. ????

remus lupin: no you keysmash bc you’re gay

james potter: WE ARE TRENDING WE CAN ARGUE ABOUT THIS LATER

james potter changed chat name to BRAINSTORMING SESSION ASAP

sirus black: porn

james potter removed sirius black from the chat

peter pettigrew: tasteful porn so we don’t get demonetized

james potter: keep talking

-

james potter to twinky winky is a great porn parody title why are you booing me: aquarium vid is a goooooooooooo

remus lupin: but the question is, can we live up to Walmart 4 hype

remus lupin: bc that shit is going insane online. People love it

remus lupin: we’re hoodlums, vandals

sirius lupin: loveable vandals and hoodlums

peter pettigrew: I feel like that’s debatable tbh

remus lupin: we as a collective whole have been kicked out of four separate walmarts

remus lupin: do you know how far I have to drive to get my fried chicken at 2 am

james potter: why the fuck are you getting fried chicken at 2 am

remus lupin: I don’t need this judgement

sirius black: so how’s the aquarium vid faring

peter pettigrew: u know what sirius is being the rational one for once and im too focused on the fried chicken to be amazed

remus lupin left twinky winky is a great porn parody title why are you booing me

peter pettigrew changed the chat name to colonel lupin’s fried chicken

sirius black: is it really that rare that im the rational one?

sirius black: jk ik im a messy bitch

-

peter pettigrew to three’s company: uh. Guys has james seen this yet

peter pettigrew sent an image

remus lupin: oh fuck

sirius black: well I haven’t heard any high pitched screeching yet so, no

peter pettigrew: she’s got more subscribers than we do, it would be good for the channel

sirius black: she’s a video game streamer what sorta collab are we supposed to do with that

remus lupin: idk, maybe a vid on her channel, a vid on ours? She’s in the same city so like, shouldn’t be too hard, right?

sirius black: welp he’s screaming so he definitely has seen the comment now.

-

james potter to chad and ryan were gay fuck you disney: “hey we should totally do a collab sometime! Message me :)”

sirius black: u have sent that TWELVE FUCKING TIMES NOW

sirius black: TWELVE

remus lupin: let the boy live

peter pettigrew: okay but the smiling is a little concerning tbh

remus lupin: @james potter have you even sent the fucked message yet? What did it say?

james potter: “hey! I’m so excited that you wanted to do a collab with us! I love your channel and doing something would be super great for both of us. Anything you had in mind?”

james potter: did I come off as a crazy person?

sirius black: in the best way possible

remus lupin: somehow that doesn’t feel like a compliment?

peter pettigrew: maybe you should use MORE exclamation points

james potter: stfu I am an expert at talking to the most beautiful woman in the world

sirius black: excuse me

james potter: I said woman

sirius black: tell me im pretty

-

james potter to little pig boy comes from the dirt: fuck gotta clean this shit up

james potter changed chat name to the marauders group chat

sirus black: ??????????????? wtf

remus lupin: has james been bodyswapped

peter pettigrew: like the movie face/off with nic cage?

remus lupin: I feel like there are better examples of body swapping

james potter added lily evans to the marauders group chat

sirius black: oh fuck now that makes sense

remus lupin changed chat name to little pig boy comes from the dirt

lily evans: from that SNL skit?

lily evans: I fucking love pete davidson tbh even though he breaks in like every skit

lily evans: did you guys hear that he and ariana got engaged? Idk who I’m more jealous of

sirius black removed james potter from the chat

sirius black: she’s our new james

-

peter pettigrew to owen wilson saying yeah for 2 hrs: drink every time someone comments about sirius’s appearance on a vid

james potter: “im a simple girl. I see sirius, I click.”

remus lupin: the words that will haunt my nightmare

james potter: the comments on the drag trying vid are…bonkers

peter pettigrew: who even says bonkers

lily evans: wow okay some of these commenters are…creative

james potter: by creative, do you mean terrifying?

lily evans: yes yes I do

remus lupin: I don’t even get it. He’s not that great looking?

sirius black: okay fuck you, u trick ass hoe

remus lupin: like, you cannot be everyone’s type

sirus black: trick ass hoe

remus lupin: im just being rational. You’re also like out. So who is thinking that saying they wanna have your babies is valid

lily evans: surrogacy?

peter pettigrew: sperm donation?

james potter: adoption?

remus lupin: fuck all of you individually and as a unit

sirius black: trick ass hoe

-

lily evans to shake shake shake senora: okay just posted my collab vid let’s see how this goes

james potter: what did u end up calling it?

lily evans: “i teach 4 idiots how to play overwatch”

sirius black: harsh but fair

remus lupin: we didn’t do that badly

peter pettigrew: remus die with dignity we did fucking awful

james potter: idk what it meant when lily kept calling me a hanzo main and laughing but it felt hurtful

lily evans: good. It was.

-

remus lupin to three rings to rule them all: so has james seen that people are shipping him and lily yet

remus lupin: because we should NOt let him know about that

peter pettigrew: he’d fucking cry

sirius black: theyd be called lames

sirius black: ha

-

sirius black to james potter: dude you gotta stop staring at lily when she comes over for pizza nights

sirius black: she’s gonna notice

sirius black: or like stop pretending that she isn’t noticing

james potter: wait you think she’s noticed

sirius black: christ you dumbass

-

lily evans to marlene mckinnon: you seen my newest collab with the marauders

marlene mckinnon: we’re roommates, obvi

marlene mckinnon: did u steal my lipstick

lily evans: okay but like. The comments

lily evans: …………………………………..what of it

marlene mckinnon: gonna kill u evans <3

marlene mckinnon: okay wow they really want u to get all up on glasses

lily evans: that one’s potter

marlene mckinnon: they want u to climb him like a tree

marlene mckinnon: do the horizontal tango

marlene mckinnon: netflix and chill

lily evans: these are getting less clever

marlene mckinnon: suck his dick

-

peter pettigrew to wwlbd (what would leonard bernstein do): uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh guys we are on tv

peter pettigrew: TV LIKE WE ARE ON FUCKIN TV

peter pettigrew: TELEVISION

sirius black: what

james potter: what

remus lupin: what

peter pettigrew: OKAY like not us but like. Our video. Walmart #4

remus lupin: great now everyone’s gonna know we’re fucking vandals

james potter: im fucking crying

sirius black: IM FUCKING CRYING

peter pettigrew: oh shit now it’s the video with @Lily Evans

peter pettigrew: we are being called charming and loveable with an “adoring” fanbase

lily evans: oh my god??????????? How’d you (we) even end up on tv

peter pettigrew: idfk! Some like...social media segment or something

-

sirius black to smonk wed: settle a bet for me

remus lupin: christ here we go

sirius black: I don’t appreciate the tone

remus lupin: christ! Here we go!

sirius black: whatver, acceptable, james wants to bone lily

remus lupin: uh

peter pettigrew: that be known

remus lupin: u know this isn’t the three man chat right

lily evans: uh

james potter removed sirius black from the chat

-

peter pettigrew to remus owes me like $20 and some triscuits: who ate all my freezy pops

sirius black: who the fuck calls them freezy pops

remus lupin: who let you back into any of the chats

sirius black: fuk u m8

james potter: he was crying so i let him back in

sirius black: and lily isn’t in this chat so i can say all the shit i want

james potter: i wish u wouldn’t

remus lupin: seconded

peter pettigrew removed sirius black from the chat

james potter: problem solved! peter pettigrew: okay but who ate my freezy pops

-

lily evan to james potter: so are we going to talk about it

james potter: about what precisely

lily evans: the revolution of the moon and the fact it’s made of cheese?

james potter: ah yes, it’s swiss btw

lily evans: the moon?

james potter: clearly

-

COMMENTS ON “THE MARAUDERS TRY DRAG FT. LILY EVANS (EVANSLY)

Chaitea7: oh my god why the fuck is sirius so pretty im jealous wtf

Janeyloo: okay but anybody else picking up on the tension between james and the redhead??

                  VIEW REPLIES

                            4marauderssssss: @Janeyloo that’s lily evans, she’s                                        another youtuber and she’s fucking great

                            dva-main3: they are definitely a thing, i agree

                            greektragdy: okay but does this make their ship name                                       lames? LIMES?

thomasthetrainbdsm: is wormtail ever gonna make another appearance? I love that funky little rat

dwightkshroooot: okay but why isn’t lily actually a like...try vlogger like these guys? she outdid sirius which is like. Unheard of.

                  VIEW REPLIES

                             dianaprinces234: like i never thought id see the day

                             yalldve: she looks so good wtf im shook

dhfakjshdgljdsl: i want lily evans to step on me and i would                              say thank you

                  VIEW REPLIES

                             honeynutcheetos: p sure james thinks the same thing lmao

                             011000110110000101110100: lmao right???? Im so gay

                            TheMarauders: I definitely think the same thing -James                                     Potter

[ahgaru]

Killing Me Softly // Chapter 2

CIGARETTE Sequel (read that first) Pairing: Jaehyungparkian // Park Jaehyung x Kang Younghyun Word Count: 2845 // smoking, make out, implied sex, mention of suicide & self-harm, more artists //

Summary:  Younghyun wanted to give up music and go back to his cigarette addiction. But every ounce of sentiment he has pulls him back to the world of notes and melodies. It’s not the cylindrical rolls containing harmful materials that are killing him, it’s the other cigarette of his life; the cigarette that has been long gone; the cigarette known as Park Jaehyung.

CHAPTER 1: Photograph Chapter 2: Dance

This was already uploaded completely on ao3, aff and twitter but I forgot I haven’t posted chapter 2 and 3 here yet. So here it is.

Younghyun wets his face before staring at the mirror. As droplets of water fall to the sink, episodes from few hours ago invade his mind.

"Sungjin," Jae uttered after the black-haired hastily took the lighter from his hand and put it in his pocket.

"Oh," his friend gestured a small bow to Younghyun but the latter just looked at him sharply "I was just wondering why you're suddenly gone."

"I just want to get some air, y'know I don't like the smell of cigarette," the taller shrugged.

Sungjin, the buzz-cut young man, eyed the cigarette butt between Younghyun's fingers before nodding to Jae. "I'll stay with you here then."

"No, it's okay," Jae showed a small smile "I'll go back in a while. Just wait for me inside."

Sungjin glanced at the black-haired, who was looking blankly at the parked cars in front of them, again before nodding to Jae and went back inside.

"Sungjin, huh?" Younghyun quizzed after the buzz-cut guy left. "Your new partner?" He asked--pertaining to a lover (or an almost lover).

Jae nodded--thinking that he was talking about partner in music.

Younghyun rolled his eyes as his jaw clenched. He did not even deny it. He huffed a sharp breath. Well, I don't care. It's not like we used to be a couple. He was just my cigarette; I was just an obligation to him.

"Well, good for you," he deadpanned which caused the other to furrow his forehead.

Good for Jae, huh? Then why is it that he's disheveling his hair out of frustration? He washes his face again before marching back to his apartment's living room.

He grabs the lighter, that he got from Jae earlier, on the center table and takes his fourth bottle of beer before going to the veranda. He rests his elbows on the railing after taking a gulp from his bottle. His right thumb traces the tape on the lighter before he flips it to look at the color.

"Azure," he smiles bitterly as another memory flashes on his mind.

"What are you doing?" Younghyun asked the taller after standing beside him at the veranda.

Jaehyung shook his head and gave a tight smile. "Do you ever look at a person and think 'Oh, this color suits him'?" The fox-eyed turned to him with an eyebrow raised. "Like, when you look at me, you think of a color? Because I do."

Their eyes locked for a couple of seconds before they voiced out their thoughts. "Blue," they uttered at the same time which earned chuckles from both of them.

Jae looked at the lighter in his hand before raising it; making the sky as its background.

"They're almost the same," the older smiled as he compared the lighter and the sky before putting down his hand. "Some people may associate blue with melancholy but I see the sky every time I look at you--the sky which makes you want to spread your wings and soar the vast, to be free and to forget everything; the sky that will make you smile, because psychologically speaking, blue makes you feel at ease."

The older turned his head to look at the younger again, who was already looking at him. They stare at each other's eyes for another few moments before Jae painted a small smile.

"Or like the ocean," he continued "your eyes are so deep. Many people are scared of it, but I see the beauty in it. They're afraid of the ocean because there are many mysteries that are still unknown, creatures that are yet to be seen. But I like it because it gives me adventure and thrill. Many people think you're scary, cold and distant--especially because of your eyes," he chortled "but I like them. They give me serenity because the depth of your eyes tells me how sincere you are."

Younghyun beamed and snaked his arms around the taller. The latter laughed softly at the other's response. He liked it every time the black-haired would snuggle to his chest. It made him seem like a child. The older thought that Younghyun has the warmest heart--the softest person.

"Azure," Jae pronounced as he wrapped his arms around the younger to reciprocate his embrace.

"Hm?"

"It's a shade of blue," the older looked up at the sky once more "They said the azure is like the color of the sky on a clear day; beneath it lies the sea painted with hues of azure."

Younghyun clenches his fist with the lighter in his palm. He remembers asking Jae about Sungjin and he did not deny about him bring his partner. His jaw tightens before he guzzles his beer.

I don't care. He huffs as another images in his mind show; the image of Jae's lips wandering around Sungjin's body; the image of Jae's hands caressing the back of Sungjin's head or leaving scratches on his skin from the pleasure. He kicks the railing.

It's not like he owned Jae. It's not like he's been waiting for him to come back. It's not like he can't sleep when the taller is not around nor he is missing him. Definitely not--he tells himself.

But as he hears Jae voicing out his thoughts through a song the next evening, he doesn't bother lying to himself anymore.

'cause I don't think about you every single night; I'll be fine without you. Can sleep tight when I'm not beside you; I'm moving on.

Younghyun smiles to himself as Jae sings a cover of an English song. The words seem familiar to him. Of course, those are the words he tells to himself, too.

No, I don't cry about you; never seen tears in my eyes about you. Gonna be fine if I die without you; Baby, I'm gone

His tongue traces his lower lip as the older looks straight at him from the stage. Despite his hair covering his eyes, Younghyun knows they're looking at each others' eyes.

These are the lies that I tell myself at night. These are the lies that are keeping me alive. These are the lies.

Younghyun averts his gaze as the other sings the chorus. Remembering his lies last night, he slugs down a bottle of beer. His eyes keep on glancing at the taller, not minding the other guitarist beside him, and shift them elsewhere when he can't take the pressure on his chest anymore.

'cause the truth is, I'm about to lose it. Don't think I can do this if I'm not with you.

He brushes a hand on his faces during the bridge. He's losing it.

"You seem uneasy," Miso, the only girl artist in the Club Eskimo Crew, sits beside Younghyun. She offers the cigarette that she just puffed.

Younghyun takes the butt and inhales from it right away. Jae hastily shifts his gaze to somewhere else before he could see the cigarette being put between the younger's lips. Even though the latter did not have direct contact with the lady artist's lips, Jae thinks he still couldn't afford seeing the black-haired's lips having any kind of contact with others.

Sungjin starts singing their original song. Jae fixed his eyes on him, still not ready to look at Younghyun again while the latter turns his head to look at the stage.

Jae faces front again, leans a little forward to come closer to the mic. Younghyun puts his eyes on the taller as he starts singing his part.

It’s half excitement, Half fear Because what if You notice That I still miss you?

The older glances at Younghyun. Seeing the other already looking at him, his heart skips a beat and he avoids eye contact.

Do you, Jae? Younghyun tries to converse with his eyes. Do you miss me? Unfortunately, the older's sight is darted on the man beside him.

But today, I smile Even though it hurts, I smile

Jae and Sungjin start singing the chorus. Jae looks at Younghyun's table again. Sungjin faces Jae but seeing the latter's focus is on someone else (which he noticed that the older is only looking at one direction, if he's not looking at him), he follows the blond's line of vision and his eyes land on the sharp eyes of Younghyun. He glances back to Jae before facing front and plasters a smile while singing.

In front of you I pretend that I’m fine I pretend that I’m okay I have to

Jae lets his smile remain, too, even if he wants to pull Younghyun away from Miso so bad.

An organizer walks to the crew's table and talked to Colde. Younghyun glances in curiosity. Colde is nodding and points his right thumb towards the black-haired which causes the latter to crease his forehead.

"The line up has been changed a little," Miso whispers to Younghyun after one of the members told her what the discussion was about. "A group of artists that are supposed to perform tonight had an emergency so they're asking if it's okay with Colde to perform tonight instead of tomorrow."

Most of the artists are said to perform for two days; only few are performing for one day. Colde is supposed to be on Day 1 and 3. Other artists they know, even the ones that are in their crew, are performing on Day 2 and 4.

Although Club Eskimo is a crew of singers and rappers, a lot of them have their own groups like Tablo, who's originally from Epik High; some are solo artists like Dean and Younghyun himself.

"So, we're singing tonight?" Younghyun quizzes.

Miso shrugs, "You and Colde, yes. Same songs that he's supposed to sing tomorrow. So two solos and one with you."

As if on cue, he hears Young K being pronounced by Colde who's already on the stage. Like other artists, Younghyun got a stage name for himself, too.

I knew it. Jae smiles to himself seeing Younghyun walks toward the stage.

Sungjin, with mouth agape, stares blankly. "He is the Young K?" He asks with disbelief. "The guy you're with last night is Young K?"

The older responds with a shrug, still not taking his eyes away from the black-haired. "I guess so."

But Sungjin knows that the taller is certain about it--he knew right from the start. He knew since the first time Sungjin played a song by this new artist 2 years ago.

Now, Sungjin knows why when the taller heard 'I Would' he jumped out of the couch and asked who the singer was.

Sungjin liked the artist but Jae loved it. "I feel so attached to his music," he reasoned out. But they couldn't find any information about him except that he's from Korea and that he features in some artists' songs.

By this moment, Sungjin knows there's more; there's more to Young K being just an inspiration to Jae to go back to music; there's more as to why the older wanted to go back to Korea so bad.

Younghyun's hand is rested on the mic while he is looking at Colde who's singing. He closes his eyes and feel the cold voice of the artist from time to time. He then started singing with him, doing the second voice.

Jae can't contain his smile. It's evident that he's overwhelmed by the fact that Younghyun is indeed Young K; and the fact that he still continued walking on the path of music.

Late at night i think of you Baby late at night i think of you

It's now Younghyun's turn to convey his feelings through a song. His fox-like eyes pierce on the tiny eyes of Jae.

Late at night i think of you Baby late at night i think of you

Younghyun closes his eyes, pulling the mic away from him, as he let Colde narrates his sentiments.

Killing me softly When I feels so lonely

He breathes in as he remembers how he struggles every night to fall asleep and not to think of the older but his mind loves the image of Jae.

Let me love you baby You are so lovely

With a glint of pain on Sungjin's eyes, he shifts his eyes on the stage. "Azi," he deadpans causing the taller to face him. "He's Azi," He plasters a small painful smile.

Who would have thought that the artist Sungjin liked and has introduced to the person he likes is the same person that is the reason for his pain?

He knew that Jae wanted to go back to Korea to find this Azi guy through music. The older has told him about his almost lover; how they pursued music together, forgetting everything else, until Jae had to leave. The latter was hopeful that he'd have a place--a person--to come back to when he came back to music again.

"It's from azure. It's a color," Jae beams. "His name is Younghyun."

Sungjin lets out a breath trying to lessen the burden on his chest. He already knew that the other has his heart taken already but he was still hopeful. Now that he's seeing the one who has Jae's heart, he doesn't know if he'll continue to hope or not.

He was ecstatic to know someone who loves music as much as he does; they both play the guitar. Their parents want them to study medicine but their hearts belong to the notes on musical sheets. That's why when Jae decided to come back to his old path, Sungjin was encouraged to pursue music, too, and leave the medicine path.

When other artists perform upbeat music, the people swaying and moving slow along the other artist songs before are now grooving and jumping. The quantity becomes double.

Miso nudges Younghyun to go with her and groove along with others. The black-haired doesn't want to but Miso locks her arm with his and drag him to the crowd.

Jae sharpens his eyes to them. His forehead furrows as Sungjin taps his shoulder.

"Let's dance?" before the taller could even decline, Sungjin grabs his arm and pulls him toward the people grooving, too.

Sungjin stops beside the lady artist and Young K. He starts dancing, moving closer to Jae, while Young K gathers every ounce of self-control to curb himself from pushing the buzz-cut fellow away from the blond.

And so, the Let's Make Each Other Jealous game commences. Jae is oblivious but Sungjin is doing the job for him. Younghyun rests his hand on Miso's waist that causes Jae to avert his gaze. Sungjin holds the blond's hands and motions him to move with him.

It goes on for a couple of minutes until Younghyun loses it when he sees Sungjin being so close to Jae. The buzz-cut young man is whispering to the taller to move closer to him but Younghyun thinks he was kissing the neck of the older.

The black-haired hastily pulls Sungjin, grabs Jae by the wrist and drags him out from the venue to the back alley. Seeing that there are few people smoking pot, he proceeds to the parking lot.

His grip on the older's wrist is tight that the latter winces as he is being dragged. Younghyun pulls Jae at the side of his car, making the taller lean on it before crashing his lips unto the other's. Out of surprise, Jae pushes him away.

Younghyun breathes heavily as he stares deeply at the older. He forces himself again, trying to collide their lips. He bites the lower lip of the blond, trying to convey his aggravation, causing him to gasp. The black-haired uses that as a chance to kiss him more as he cups the face of the other.

This is not the reunion that Jae has hoped for. This is not the kind of a welcome-back-kiss he's been longing for. Feeling Younghyun's pain and vexation, a tear escapes from Jae's eye. He wonders how much the younger longed for him, how much he felt lost and alone.

Younghyun becomes startled as the tear reaches his hand that is holding the older's face. He cusses to himself as he pulls away and lets down his hands. He remembers Sungjin. What is he doing? Why is he kissing someone else's man?

The younger looks away while the older casts his face down. Younghyun leans on his car beside the older.

"Sorry," he says almost whisper.

The taller wants to shake his head to tell him he doesn't need to apologize but he's the one who needs to say it. He wants to enclose the younger in his arms and kiss him again--but this time, slower and intimate. He wants to convey his yearning to the younger and the untold love he has kept for years through the collision of their mouths but the black-haired is already walking away from the older leaving him with tear-kissed face and his should-have-been's.

Chapter 3: Killing Me Softly

[stillpluto]

The Perfect Guy

Riley is tired of guys that only want to take advantage of her, so she makes three points that define her perfect guy to start looking for him. But sometimes you may not realize that you have it in front of your eyes…

Chapter six.

"Robot!" Uncle Eric exclaimed excitedly. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming."

Eric let Farkle enter the house, who was a bit light-headed after his big hug.

"I convinced my father." he said happy to be there.

Spending the holidays at the home of his friends was one of the things he liked most.

Topanga came to greet him.

"The girls are upstairs." said Mrs. Matthews while she prepared the breakfast. "Yesterday we unveil celebrating Christmas and you know how the Sleeping Beauties are... But come on and sit down to eat. My breakfast isn't Minkus's type but I promise you'll like it."

Farkle giggled. Riley's mother was always very nice.

He helped her set the table and when he was about to start eating some toast with jam, Riley appeared. She looked so lovely with her sleepy face in her pajamas of fairies. Wait... Why he was paying attention to that? He had already seen her in pajamas in the past.

"Farkle!" exclaimed Riley excited. She went to give him a hug that nearly threw him down from the chair.

"Hi, sun." he hugged her back, breathlessly.

"I'm glad that your father let you come" said Riley happily as she sat in front of him and grabbed a orange juice jar. "Thanks for your Christmas present, by the way."

"No problem" he said carefree. "Thank you for the book Don't Know Much About History" he said excited.

Riley rolled her eyes with a smile.

"I don't know how you can enjoy reading history outside school. You're so like my father..."

"It's the best subject, isn't it Farkle?" said Cory doing his appearance.

They get along really well with each other. Cory always trusted him and now he even cared about the chestnut. Farkle had been a friend of Riley and Maya since they were kids and he felt that they were like him, Shawn and Topanga. They were inseparable.

When they finished eating, they were all together in the living room sharing and showing off their gifts.

Riley and Farkle were in a corner.

"I have something for you" he said.

Riley found it funny because he had spoken like those mafia men of the movies.

They went to her bedroom, which was very lit by the sun and where the sound of the birds arrived. They sat in the bay window.

"Open it." Farkle said and gave her a small gold-colored square box.

Riley opened it curious and found two necklaces, one with a sun and the other with a planet.

"Your friendship is very important to me, Riley." he began. "I know I don't say this very often, but you know I'm not very good with non-scientific things and... I wanted you to know it. The one with a sun is for you and the one with Pluto is for me." He looked at the first one. "We need the sun, that's why we orbit it. We need to circle the ones we love, because they are the ones who hold us in place."

Riley smiled. Her eyes filled with tears. She had learned that lesson when Mrs. Svorski was gone. Then, Farkle took his gaze to the other necklace.

"On the other hand... Finally I learned that there is always a bigger image. I learned to dream. We are somehow surrounded by the people we need in our lives. And despite all my thoughts, I don't think it's just a coincidence. We must not stop believing in things."

Riley felt her heart was filled with joy and a pleasant warmth spread through her body. Each of the two has opened the other's head (and heart) in a way that was inexplicable.

"You're my best friend" she said with her eyes tearing.

Farkle felt a pang of sadness which surprised him. Shouldn't he be happy for those words?

Still, he hugged her tightly.

"Thanks... for everything." he said.

Because sometimes that one word says a lot.

She hadn't yet discovered why when Farkle hugged her, feeling protected in his arms and listening to his heartbeat, she wanted to stay that way forever. 

A/N: Hi! I hope you like this chapter because it’s the one that marks half of the story. Some sentences were taken from Girl Meets Gravity and Girl Meets Belief (which are two episodes where I think they both learn a lot). I know it's not Christmas but I already wanted to upload it. With nothing more to add, I wish you all happy holidays! Have a great time these days with family and friends!

[tardisgirlepic]

Ch. 4: “The Doctor Falls” Analysis Doctor Who S10.12: Coming Full Circle: Fighting One’s Inner Nature & the Soul’s Journey

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Redemption: The Great Work & the Soul’s Journey Home

It may not appear on the surface that the other characters in the finale tell us more about the long journey home of the Doctor’s soul to redemption.  We’ve examined some of what Missy represents.  However, delving deeper, we will see that every main character symbolizes some aspect of the Doctor’s inner fight against his nature, leading to his redemption.

Bill, CyberBill & Her Hybrid Nature

I’m going to start with Bill since in “The Doctor Falls” she illustrates a simple and brilliant, but heartbreaking example of various aspects of analytical psychology, including the psyche and how the Great Work works.

The Ego: Bill Starting to “Wake Up” on the Hospital Roof

Near the beginning of the episode on the roof of the hospital, CyberBill was just standing next to the building as Missy and the Master taunted the Doctor, who was tied to the wheelchair.  CyberBill did nothing.  I can only conclude that her Cyber-programming (representing her Shadow) was in control at this point because the real Bill would have been begging them to release the Doctor or trying to save him somehow. 

This is a beautiful illustration of a concept I talked about over a year ago in the Fairytales and Romance in Doctor Who.  We looked at all the dreams in “Last Christmas” and saw how the end of the episode left it open as to whether people were actually awake or not.

However, “awake” has 2 meanings, the literal and the metaphorical meaning. 

Of course, the literal meaning is that people are not sleeping.  The metaphorical meaning, however, is that “awakeness” means a state of awareness of self, which is a continuum of the conscious part of the psyche vs. the Shadow part.  A fully awake person is whole, is Self, while a person who is not fully “awake,” still has a Shadow and can said to be not fully conscious.

DW dreams can be literal dreams, or they can mean that a person has not achieved Self.  We can say that Bill is not conscious on the roof at the beginning, or so it seems from her later reaction of saving the Doctor.  Of course, “not conscious” literally means “asleep,” so this can be confusing as to which definition is being referred to.  However, in her case her unconscious was initially in control, and we later saw that she was in a dream-like state, i.e. an illusion.

It is said that many of us go through life asleep (or living an illusion, which is how Buddhists put it), which is meant to be taken metaphorically.  DW is playing with both the literal and metaphorical definitions in many of the episodes.

One more thing about “Last Christmas.”  I said that dreaming was meant both literally and metaphorically.  The Doctor had gone far enough through the Great Work to be aware of the fact that he wasn’t fully awake, and I mean that in both the literal and metaphorical sense.  His realization of the dreams mirrors Bill’s realization of her own illusion.

Anyway, back to the finale.  As it happens, once the other Cyberman captured the Doctor, Bill woke a little, so to speak, and saved the Doctor.  Bill grabbed the ladder of the shuttle, and Nardole said, “Bill’s back.”  However, she wasn’t conscious enough to realize later that she zapped her energy beam on the roof to save the Doctor.

She had to reassert herself over the programming.  In effect, her conscious part had gained some control over the unconscious part, yet she was unaware of her Shadow, as is the case in the Great Work at the beginning stage.

We could say that she was awake in a physical sense of being aware of her surroundings, but she was not fully awake metaphorically since she was in a delusion about herself. She was only beginning her journey to wake up.

This mirrors the Doctor’s arc, albeit Bill’s experience represents a very brief snapshot.

The Shadow: Beginning to Know Her Dark Side

At first, Bill woke up in the barn (physically) and didn’t realize that her consciousness was uploaded to a Cyberman’s body, so waking up here also represented the nascent awareness of self.  So we first saw her as she saw herself: in an illusionary, dream-like state that the Doctor said was like a perception filter created by her mind.  Even after seeing herself in the mirror, she didn’t recognize herself.  This mirrors the real-world situation where most people are not aware of some aspect of themselves.  The way we view ourselves is not necessarily the way other people view us, just like what Bill was experiencing.

It was not until she came face to face with CyberBill’s shadow, shown below, that her realization started growing that she was a Cyberman.  Since she was just beginning to recognize her Shadow, she was at the first stages of seeing her dark side, which is Stage 1 of the Great Work.  However, while she saw CyberBill’s shadow, she had no idea that she had the power of a Cyberman.  There was still much for her to learn. Most of the initial Shadow remained in her unconscious.  Because she hadn’t woken up, metaphorically, she was stuck in an illusion.

Experiencing the Collective Unconscious

It’s not until after she destroyed part of the barn that her Shadow moved from darkness into the light of consciousness.  In the process, she confronted the anger and instinct of her dark side (Cyber-programming) and only then was she able to control her hybrid nature.

This instinct to zap things with energy came from the inherent nature of Cybermen. Therefore, this instinct is part of the collective unconscious of Cybermen.  Interestingly, they are part of a hive mind, a collective, adding to that symbolism.

Actualization: Bill Integrates Her Cyber Side into Her Personality

After Bill had a realization of her power, she had several choices: repress it, use it for evil purposes, or use it for good purposes.  Repression would lead to some type of complex, giving power to its Shadow.  She chose to use it for good purposes, bravely stepping forward to help deactivate the Cyberman coming up in the lift.  The Doctor later helped her out too, showing her that she could support the colonists’ escape by using her energy beam to open a hole in a wall.

This is a beautiful example of how Bill actualized her potential into her personality, progressing toward the next stage in the Great Work.  However, in order to advance to that next stage, she needed one more set of events.

Achieving Pure Consciousness: Alchemical Marriage, Death, Rebirth

A stage of the Great Work isn’t complete without a union (alchemical marriage), so here’s where Heather came in.  This fiery union (the Doctor provided the actual fire) between Bill and Heather created a newborn consciousness in Bill – a rebirth of her sense of self.  This really was meant to be Self, skipping some Great Work levels, since she stepped out into space at the end, meaning she achieved pure consciousness with the Shadow side destroyed, represented in the image below by the dead Cyberman lying on the ground near the dead Doctor.  

Pure consciousness could be taken not just metaphorically but also literally, as she was no longer human but her atoms could be rearranged to manifest as human.

She was the Phoenix rising from the ashes, just like the Phoenix on the jackets she wore in “The Pyramid at the End of the World.”

In order for that to happen, her old self, CyberBill, had to die, which freed her from the Cyber-programming.  Symbolically, we saw it when the Cyber-suit fell down in the background – the ghost of her past.  This opened Bill’s heart to greater depths and purified her to awaken to her greater sense of Self.  Fighting one’s inner nature is over for this version of Bill.

Heather, too, represented a rebirth of the Doctor’s Self.  She was also the Phoenix rising from the ashes – a purified Self, since she had achieved wholeness and the soul’s journey home.  Going back to the TARDIS on Floor 0 represented going back to the Heaven metaphor and completing of the final stage of the Great Work. 

This final alchemical marriage was one of a divine nature.  Bill’s Mother of God Consciousness was Heather, while Bill represented the God/Christ/Buddha consciousness.  Therefore, this is the metaphorical Divine Marriage: the Mother of God consciousness and the God consciousness.  However, it’s only metaphorical.  It’s not meant to be incestuous.  It’s divine love.

And interestingly, Heather and Bill’s union was pre-destined.  Back in “The Pilot” analysis, I mentioned that Bill represented William Hartnell, the 1st Doctor, and Heather was named after Heather Hartnell, William Hartnell’s wife. This is why Heather hadn’t been fleshed out, because her meaning existed in the subtext.

Pre-destiny Contradicts Free Will, or Does It?

Since we know that the Doctor believed in free will and he had Bill write a paper about this, it might seem strange that DW set up Heather and Bill’s reunion as pre-destiny.  However, pre-destiny or free will depends on whether one is inside or outside the system of reference. 

“Time Heist” gives us the best example of this difference.  In that episode, the Doctor, as the Architect, who was a future self, was directing a self who went back to the past to rescue the Tellers in the Bank of Karabraxos.  Past self had no idea why he was there because he had a memory wipe to hide his guilt of robbing the bank, yet his destiny was already sealed and directed by his future self.  The Architect was on the outside of the system and had free-will while past self was on the inside and was pre-destined while there. 

In the finale, the ship was a metaphor for the system of reference.  Therefore, being on the ship meant being inside the system.  However, the ship, while having a huge amount of symbolism as we’ve already seen, was only a small example of a system of reference. 

The broadest system of reference is the entire arc of DW back to the 1st Doctor, which ties into the coming full circle that we’ll examine more below. 

Anyway, from the subtext definition of the Hartnells’ relationship and from the application of the concepts from “Time Heist,” Bill and Heather were husband and wife (at least alchemically) before going inside the system and getting memory wipes, so they were back together at the end of “The Doctor Falls” where they started on the outside of the system.  I see them mirroring the Doctor and River and even the Doctor and Susan.

Bill’s Hybrid Nature & the 12th Doctor

Bill’s hybrid nature – a human mind inside a Cyberman’s body – actually mirrors the Doctor’s hybrid nature.  In fact, Bill’s progression in realizing her situation actually mirrors the process the Doctor went through.  When he broke out of the confession dial, he was back at the nigredo stage of understanding.  His dark side was in control, and it killed the general.  Only after going hell bent through the universe did he realize that he had become the Hybrid, bringing his Hybrid nature into the light of consciousness.  Like Bill, it was this knowledge that allowed him to confront his Shadow.

So Bill represented the struggle the 12th Doctor was going through all the way to the end of the finale when both preferred to die rather than lose themselves. Bill’s words mirrored both their desires, “I don't want to live if I can't be me anymore.”  Of course, the Doctor will be struggling with that in the Christmas special.

However, the 12th Doctor’s struggle started in his very first episode, “Deep Breath.”  In that episode, we saw that the half-faced man was a mirror of the Doctor.  Also, we saw over and over how the subtext of many prior and future episodes showed that a face of the Doctor had to be part machine.  True to form, CyberBill mirrored the half-faced man as a cyborg.

Bill’s & the Doctor’s Anger With Bill as a cyborg, we saw the results of CyberBill’s explosive anger and how much damage she could do.  The destruction mirrored, although to a much lesser extent, the damage the Doctor could do when he was angry.   In fact, the Doctor told Bill that she could no longer get angry because she was a Cyberman.  However, his words also applied to himself as the Hybrid.

Because CyberBill’s power of destruction was enormous, like the Doctor’s, people were fearful of her, just like many were fearful of him.  So once again the fear she engendered in the people around her mirrored what the Doctor experienced.

Bill, the Wheel & the Roman Crosses There were several symbols that told us Bill represented a face of the 12th Doctor in the finale.  We saw the 1st symbol when Bill was asleep in the barn.  She was lying next to a 12-spoke wheel, shown below (white arrow). Because the spokes were inside a circle, it symbolized that this face of the 12th Doctor was a prisoner, which makes complete sense since her consciousness was imprisoned in the Cyberman. She was also a prisoner in the barn and on the ship, along with everyone else.

As more proof that Bill represented the 12th Doctor, all around the barn there were items that symbolized Roman crosses, which, as we’ve seen, represented the 12th Doctor.  In fact, for emphasis, Bill placed her hand on one of the crosses, shown below.

Bill’s image above mirrors CyberBill’s below, including CyberBill’s hand on the same cross symbol in the barn while standing in the same position.  

Bill’s Cyberman Suit & the Doctor In yet another example of mirroring, near the end of the episode, Bill’s Cyberman suit fell near the Doctor, mirroring the dead Doctor.  While Bill broke free of her Cyber prison, the suit falling near the Doctor meant he broke free of his prison.

What does this all mean?  Missy said that Bill was the exposition.  This wasn’t just a joke.  Bill really was the exposition to tell us more about the Doctor.  CyberBill mirrored Hydroflax in being a cyborg with very destructive powers, and it was the robot part, in both cases that was the problem.  In fact, Hydroflax’s head was being controlled, signified by the flashing light and hardware on the sides of his head, just like the Smilers in “The Beast Below.” 

Therefore, just as Bill’s Cyberman side controlled her until she recognized and integrated it into her being, the Doctor’s Hybrid complex controlled him until he did the same.

That’s not all.  Like Bill, the Doctor had to come to terms with his power and anger and how destructive they could be.  Also, Bill’s healing and unification with Heather mirrored the Doctor’s healing by getting rid of the cyborg Hybroflax and unifying with River.

There Are 2 Versions of Bill

When all the companions showed up at the end of the episode, Bill was the only companion who had 2 versions that called out to the Doctor.  The first is shown below at the university in “The Pilot.”

The second was from “The Lie of the Land” when she and Nardole went to rescue the Doctor on the prison ship.  In this scene from the clip, she said his name as he was sitting at the desk, but he looked like he didn’t recognize her for a moment.  Nardole was in this image, but he didn’t say anything in this clip. He had his own clip by himself where he called to the Doctor.  It’s important to note that the Doctor was not really the Doctor in this scene in “The Lie of the Land.”  The Master was possessing him, as we examined in the analysis.

Given the 2 clips, there were 2 Bills, just like there were 2 Doctors (the one that died, and the one that got resurrected, another Phoenix).  This wasn’t surprising since in the “Extremis” analysis, we saw that there were 2 faces of the Doctor in the subtext. 

BTW, interestingly, Bill didn’t know about the Doctor’s regeneration energy in the finale, which implies that the Bill in the finale was the first one from “The Pilot.”

Also, at the end of the finale, there were 2 Nardoles, but one didn’t have a speaking part.  Is Nardole’s non-speaking version representative of his superficial role in the Christmas special, for example, as a mention of his name?  Most likely, there has to be at least a mention of him escaping with the children.  Otherwise, this would leave an unsatisfying plot hole in the text for many people. Heather would have been able to move the ship away from the Black Hole, but that doesn’t mean she saved everyone, as far as the text is concerned.

Hazran & Her Redemption

It may not seem like there is a redemption arc for Hazran; however, there is one, of sorts.  Her name is one letter different from Kazran in “A Christmas Carol,” which is not a coincidence.  Elder Kazran was the cruel tyrant who ruled Sardicktown and the entire planet, controlling the skies and the sky fish, including the shark.  The 11th Doctor changed Kazran through his past, as a 12-year-old child.  Hazran is meant to be an incarnation of her past self, Kazran.  And since we’ve examined how there was a gender change at the end of “The Husbands of River Song,” it makes perfectly good sense that we should expect Kazran to be a woman with almost the same name.

Since Floor 507 was meant to be Purgatory (at least for some, if not all, of the characters), Hazran was in Purgatory.  We have to look at her entire arc with Kazran in the same way as Missy and the Master.  Elder Kazran was the Shadow at the beginning of his episode while younger Kazran was the Child Archetype, displaying the potential of elder Kazran.  The Doctor kept showing the boy’s Shadow to him, and the boy changed his elder self, who finally showed kindness and even playfulness at the end.  He mirrored the 12th Doctor in “The Last Christmas,” as both drove sleighs with someone they loved.  Kazran, being 12, was the 12th Doctor, and it was foreshadowing what the 12th Doctor’s arc was going to be.  Of course, the cruel tyrant was the Master persona.

BTW, the characters were sleeping in “A Christmas Carol.”  The Doctor and young Kazran have a conversation that gives us that information:

KAZRAN: The fish love the singing. It's true. DOCTOR: Nah. The notes resonate in the ice crystals, causing a delta wave pattern in the fog. Ow. A fish bit me.

Delta wave patterns are high amplitude brain waves associated with deep sleep.

So Kazran’s reincarnation is Hazran, who was a helpful, motherly type in “The Doctor Falls.”  She took in children to keep them safe from the Cybermen and showed her kindness in doing so.  While we didn’t see her going to Heaven (Floor 0), she did move up several floors with the children and most of the other adults.  This was a symbolic ascension.

Nardole & His Redemption

Applying the same concepts to Nardole, he embarked on his redemption arc.  He was the quintessential Child archetype, who had to learn to balance playfulness with the responsibilities of being an adult. His latest responsibilities were foisted upon him by the Doctor to take care of the adults and children from Floor 507. He objected initially because his dark side took over when in groups.  Near the end of the finale, he seemed to be acclimating to his new role and higher floor assignment, having ascended with the group.

Alit’s Symbolic Redemption

Because Alit represented the Child archetype, she needed redemption.  Not only did she achieve it symbolically by ascending floors in the ship, but also in a biblical way.  The Doctor held out the symbolic apple from the Garden of Eden, offering it to Alit in the image below.

He added

DOCTOR: Then how about humanity's first weapon? (an apple) Tempting, isn't it?

As he said, the apple represented temptation.  However, we have to go back to Grant in “The Return of Doctor Mysterio” to see what the temptation was.  Grant got powers that he wasn’t supposed to use and even promised the Doctor he wouldn’t use them.  But he did. As we saw, older Grant was wearing a mask that looked like an upside-down CyberLeader mask.  He got extraordinary strength and destructive powers, much like Cybermen, although he did use them for good purposes.  Grant’s use of his powers made him a target for being taken over, possessed, so to speak. And Grant was a mirror of the Doctor, so the Doctor wasn’t supposed to use some of his powers, either, but he did. Nardole even mentioned in Doctor Mysterio that the Doctor wasn’t supposed to interfere in others’ problems, but that never stopped the Doctor all the way back to Classic Who.

Anyway, in Alit’s case, she took the apple but threw it at the Cybermen, symbolically rejecting the temptation of gaining strength and special abilities. In this way, she symbolically returned the Child archetype to innocence before the Fall from the Garden of Eden. She also represented all the children, so they were all rescued symbolically, even though we didn’t see a literal rescue of them from the ship.  That rescue may be implied from the ending where Heather piloted the TARDIS off the ship. However, I do hope we get a textual explanation of Nardole’s fate in the Christmas episode.  His fate was tied up with the children.  And adults.

It’s important to note that the Doctor symbolized the serpent in the Garden in this scene since he offered the apple to Alit.  In the Book of Genesis, the serpent is not referred to as Satan, but it is in The Book of Revelation. It was up to Alit to either accept the temptation or reject it.  Unlike young Grant in “The Return of Doctor Mysterio,” Alit chose to reject the temptation, thereby getting a symbolic redemption.

Another thing to note is that Alit was associated with a horse-like machine on wheels in the barn, shown below (white arrow).  While the machine didn’t look exactly like a horse, it didn’t have to due to being a gestalt system, like what Santa mentioned in “Last Christmas.”

The property of this gestalt system is reification, which we looked at before in the Fairytales document.  Its shape suggested a horse.  Therefore, it was meant to be a horse.  Because it was on wheels like the Trojan Horse, it suggested a mechanical Trojan Horse. That certainly agrees with the other metaphors that we’ve seen.  Also, this was another symbol that tied Alit with CyberBill and the Doctor, suggesting that all 3 were Trojan Horses that needed redemption.

Missy’s Shoulder Devil and Angel

We need to revisit something from the previous chapter, but in a different way.  Missy, in her conversation with the Doctor on the roof of the hospital, said to him after she knocked out the Master that she was in 2 minds. While we saw the meaning of being in 2 minds, there is another meaning.  She was of 2 minds, being torn between her shoulder devil, the Master, and her shoulder angel, the Doctor.  Therefore, the Master was the externalization of temptation while the Doctor was the externalization of conscience.  Again, this showed that the Doctor was a symbolic angel, who won Missy over to his side and redeemed her, and, therefore, by the various metaphors, himself.

BTW, there was one interesting piece of subtext on that rooftop scene that showed the Doctor as both the angel and the corresponding opposite.  In the image below, the Doctor is lying on the rooftop after being attacked by the Cyberman.  The white arrow shows an angel wing again with his jacket spread out.  However, his other side is in darkness (yellow arrow). Also, his leg is in an odd position (green arrow).  The corresponding idiom would be that the Doctor had “one foot in heaven and one in hell,” displaying his 2 opposing sides.

The Doctor’s 2 Shadows

The Heaven and Hell idiom extends to the Doctor’s 2 Shadows.  When the Doctor talked to Bill in the barn, he had 2 shadows, shown below (green arrows).   Using the Library metaphor definition, multiple shadows meant that he needed to die. In “The Caretaker,” he also had 2 shadows.  Danny, a face of the Doctor, died to fulfill the requirement.  However, there was something very interesting about “The Caretaker” shadows, as well as these shadows…

In this next image from the finale, the Doctor moved forward, and one of his shadows did something interesting, just like in “The Caretaker.”  It became distorted (white arrow), unlike the one marked by the green arrow.  It’s hard to see the distortion in this image due to the BBC  logo, et. al., added to the image.  Check out the episode to best see what I mean.  The suggestion is that one is not a humanoid, which certainly goes along with the cyborg symbology.

The Doctor & the Trojan Horse

Back in “The Lie of the Land” analysis, we examined the subtext which showed that the Doctor was a Trojan Horse.  The finale not only showed a toy Trojan Horse, but also gave us a reason why the Doctor was to be considered one.  On the roof with Missy and the Master, there was no way he could win the war against the Cybermen without help from his old friends. Therefore, in order to assure their help, he changed the Cybermens’ parameters to go after Time Lords.  He could be considered a traitor to his own people, which brings in the whole Trojan Horse theme.  It’s possible these Cybermen actually were able to leave the ship. What happened then?

The Doctor’s actions here mirror Kar’s in “The Eaters of Light.”  After all, we saw that Kar was his mirror in that episode. To fight the Romans, Kar let the Eater of Light beast through the portal to kill the Romans.  However, the beast ended up threatening both the Romans and Pictish civilization, mirroring both the humans and Time Lord situation in the finale.

In fact, he told Kar

DOCTOR: So, you were supposed to guard the gate while everyone else went off to war. But you had strangers at the door, and a guard dog in the attic, so you let the beast come through. KAR: It was the only thing that could defeat them. DOCTOR: So you thought the Eater Of Light could destroy a whole Roman army. KAR: It did. DOCTOR: And a whole Roman army could weaken or kill the beast. KAR: Yes. DOCTOR: Well, it didn't work. You got a Roman legion slaughtered, and you made the deadliest creature on this planet very, very cross indeed. To protect a muddy little hillside, you doomed your whole world.

So the Doctor could have potentially doomed his whole world to protect people on the ship.  In fact, the ship was meant to be a model of the broader universe and the Time War, so this didn’t just affect Missy, the Master, and himself.  The Doctor had to redeem himself after being the Trojan Horse.

In another example, while he was born to save the universe (BBC’s line), he went hell bent through it unraveling time.  So what we’ve been watching with Season 10 is that he’s gone back to change the past to set it right.  He went back to near the beginning were the trouble began, the epicenter of the Time War.

BTW, the existence of the toy Trojan Horse is a great example of one way that we know we are on the right track reading the subtext from “The Lie of the Land,” et. al.

3 Suns: Missy, the Master & the Doctor

There was an oddity on Floor 507 with 3 suns.  At different times throughout the finale, we saw what looked like at least one sun shining, not just during the day, but also in near darkness, as the image shows below.  (They aren’t just reflected lights, like moons would have.)  How did that happen?

In fact, we first saw the reflections of 2 suns with Alit in the middle, shown in the image below, when she looked out the window of the farmhouse at the Cyberman attack near the beginning of the episode.  She was behind bars, a prison metaphor, which corresponds to the prison metaphor we saw with Bill and the wheel.

The Suns were really metaphors.  (The lights in the darkness would have fit in “The Eaters of Light.”)

Missy told the Master:

MISSY: I loved being you. Every second of it. Oh, the way you burn like a sun. Like a whole screaming world on fire. I remember that feeling, and I always will. And I will always miss it.

It’s interesting that Missy talked about the Master burning like a sun since we’ve examined how the Doctor was a Sun.  By extension of the metaphors, Missy and the Master were Suns, too.

Alit isn’t a Sun.  If she were, she would have to die, as is the case with Suns in the Great Work. However, she is a reflection of Suns, representing the Child archetype of the Doctor, et. al.

When the Doctor met Missy and the Master to talk them into staying and helping to save the colonists, it was dark, and we saw 2 Suns at first with the Master and Missy, as tiny specks in the background.

At the end of the meeting, Missy took the Doctor’s hand and rejected his request to stand with him, shown below.  However, taking his hand represented an integration.

Then, immediately, the camera showed the same wide shot from above, except now there were 3 Suns behind the Doctor, confirming that the Doctor integrated with Missy and the Master.  Three faces in 1, and three Suns in 1, giving the Doctor immense power, which is why we saw the Doctor’s OMG long hair.

Near the end of the episode, the Doctor was able to blow up Cybermen by himself with amazing speed, whereas it took Missy, the Master, CyberBill, and him to kill one Cybermen with great effort earlier in the episode.  Again, this is a demonstration of his strength, and like Samson from the Bible, he died using his strength to destroy the enemy.

Alit & Nardole: Symbols of Renewal After Ragnarök

We knew back in the “Thin Ice” analysis that Ragnarök was coming, followed by a renewal.  Near the beginning of the finale, Alit was carrying a bouquet of daffodils, shown below.  Daffodils, a spring flower, are symbols of rebirth and renewal, so she foreshadowed and represented the coming renewal after Ragnarök.  The Child archetype of the Doctor would renew after getting a symbolic redemption.

Also, Nardole was associated with daffodils, so he, too, was a sign of rebirth and renewal. As the Doctor and Bill were saying goodbye to him, he was standing in front of the daffodils (white arrow). They are more difficult to see in the image than in the episode, but once he moved out of the way, they were clearly visible.

Also, near the end of the episode, he and Alit were on Floor 502 standing near daffodils. Interestingly, Floor 502 looked like a renewed Floor 507.  There were a couple of larger patches of daffodils, too, as Nardole and Alit headed for the farmhouse to meet Hazran.

BTW, Alit and Nardole were mirrors: both were Child archetypes and represented faces of the Doctor.  To suggest the mirroring in a physical way, Alit mirrored Nardole’s movements as he told Hazran that he remotely rigged explosions.  In the image below, Alit’s hands were animated in the same way as Nardole’s when he mimicked an explosion.

Also, Alit and Bill were mirrors.  We already saw the prison metaphor.  Also, they both represented the Abandoned/Orphan Child archetypes.  However, Alit represented the potential of Bill’s Child to return to freedom and redemption from the Cybermen.

Coming Full Circle: The 1st Doctor

It was inevitable that the 1st Doctor was going to show up.  Of course, Bill and Heather’s existence suggested that right from the start of Season 10.  However, more than a year ago when I went back to analyze the 1st Doctor’s stories, I saw something interesting.  Things weren’t happening the way they seemed, just like in nuWho. For example, in the very first episode, the TARDIS landed in caveman times, and the chronometer said it was Year 0, so the Doctor said the gauge was broken.  That was the start of things not happening the way they seemed.

In fact, there was a shadow at the end of that first episode, rather than the image of the person who made it.  While it could have been just a shadow, it was clear that DW was using Jung’s symbolism in the next story “The Daleks.”  Therefore, that very first shadow could be interpreted as a Shadow at the nigredo level, which fits with the primitive cavemen.

Even more surprising, it was clear to me that the Doctor was being observed, as though he were in a bottle in various stories.  I got the distinct impression that the Doctor, Susan, Barbara, and Ian were inside a system of reference with a memory wipe, just like in “Time Heist.”  In fact, those scenes were similar to the finale where the Master was observing the Doctor and his companions.

Anyway, all of this suggested that the characters were inside a smaller system of reference for the entire arc of DW, so there was a bigger system that we weren’t aware of.  We had to come back to the 1st Doctor at some point, whether it was through Susan, Ian, or the 1st Doctor, himself.

It was clear, too, that at the end of “The Tenth Planet” (the 1st Doctor’s regeneration story with the Mondasian Cybermen and the setting at the end of the finale), once again things weren’t happening the way they appeared. There were 2 versions of the scene leading up to the regeneration in the story, itself, suggesting there were two 1st Doctors, just like there were two 12th Doctors, Bills, and Nardoles.  One set may be inside the system while the other set are outside the system.  Therefore, I see DW coming full circle, returning to revisit some aspects with the 1st Doctor.

This time, however, the 1st Doctor gets to glimpse his future (the 12th Doctor), even though he didn’t know it yet, while the 12th Doctor gets a glimpse of his past.  It will be a fascinating contrast for Christmas, just like seeing Missy and the Master together.

The 1st Doctor Needs Redemption

It was clear from the subtext of the 1st Doctor’s stories that he was doing some terrible things.  For example, Nero was one of his faces, linking back to the whole king and tyrant characters.  Also, Nero gave Barbara a gold bracelet, which allowed the Animus to enslave and control her.  This was equivalent to putting her in the brain room from “The Return of Doctor Mysterio.”

Also, the Doctor actually started the fire in Rome associated with Nero (the 10th Doctor even mentioned it), and then the Doctor laughed maniacally, much like the possessed 12th Doctor did in “The Lie of the Land.” Setting the fire was actually a metaphor for starting a time war.  (There were multiple time wars mentioned in DW.)

Therefore, the 1st Doctor was acting many times much like the Master, and the similarity was shocking.  In the 1st chapter of this analysis, we saw how ice represented Hell, so it was appropriate that we saw the 1st Doctor in Antarctica, which represented Hell.  As a result of his misdeeds, he needs redemption, so that is what I expect will be part of the Christmas episode.  We should expect plenty of subtext suggesting this.  Of course, the resurrected 12th Doctor is there, too, needing redemption for his 2nd face.

BTW, the 5th Doctor was in a struggle that started the fire in “The Visitation” on Pudding Lane, which was the Great Fire of London.  That, too, was a metaphor for another time war.

The Big Illusion

In nuWho, every episode has something that says things aren’t happening the way they appear, and when I went back to the 1st Doctor episodes, I saw the same things.  Regarding nuWho, in all the 11th and 12th Doctor episodes in the TARDIS, there is a mist coming out of the floor.  I believe this is the fiction mist that the 10th Doctor mentioned in the Library episodes.  That mist existed outside the TARDIS, too, at times, but it was always inside.  That is until the very end of the Season 10 finale.  After the Doctor resurrected, the mist stopped spewing out of the floor.  That’s really interesting!

But the fiction part doesn’t just start with the 11th Doctor.  For example, in “Smith and Jones,” Martha’s first episode with the 10th Doctor, the hospital was torn from Earth and sent to the moon.  There was no way this could happen in reality, so we know that something else was going on.

As for Classic Who, the 1st Doctor’s fifth story “The Keys of Marinus” showed how people thought they were living a lush life.  However, it was all an illusion, similar to what we saw with CyberBill.

It appears that the Doctor and companions have been in a dream-like state for a very long time, living in illusions.  In fact, quite a few of the episodes are part of dreams, like the delta waves from “A Christmas Carol,” even though they may not appear that way on the surface.  I take the dreams and living in illusions as simply meaning that the Doctor hasn’t become whole, and this lack of wholeness has clearly been there from the beginning. So we had to come back full circle to make the Doctor whole from the beginning.

In the Next Chapter

We’ll take a look at the setting on Floor 507 and what that tells us about a character we haven’t looked at yet, among other things.  Also, we’ll examine how the setting adds to the coming full circle theme, among others.

Read next chapter ->

[lauraramargosian]

Taylor Swift 2018 Reputation Stadium Tour Netflix Special was fantastic!

Taylor Swift 2018 reputation Stadium Tour Netflix Special was fantastic!

The Taylor Swift 2018 reputation Stadium Tour was a pure success!

Swift’s performance in Dallas was unforgettable as she stood on a 150 foot tall stage. In fact, that’s the largest stage Taylor has performed on, it’s no wonder the whole set was on-point. Moreso, this was Taylor’s first Stadium Tour, which she opened up about on stage in Dallas.

“This is the first tour. Nobody has ever played back-to-back nights at this stadium before. Thank you guys.”

What a great way to wrap up the Taylor Swift 2018 reputation Stadium Tour, no doubt.

Swift also opened up about her song “All Too Well,” from her album “Red.”

“It’s weird because I feel like this song has two lives to it in my brain,” she tells the crowd “In my brain, there’s the life of this song where this song was borne out of catharsis and venting and trying to get over something and understand it and process it. She continued. “And then there’s the life where it went out in the world, and you turned this song into something completely different for me. You turned this song into a collage of memories of watching you scream the words to this song or seeing pictures you post to me of you having written the words of the song in your diary or you showing me your wrists and you have the tattoo of the lyrics of this song underneath your skin. And that is how you’ve changed the song ‘All Too Well’ for me.”

She even had snakes take over the stage, we assume to mock the haters that sit and call her a “snake.”

The video included some amazing visuals along with a mashup of Swift progressing over the years. Snakes were a huge part of her set, even her microphone had awesome detail!

During the set the gorgeous 29-year-old singer stepped on stage and gave a heart warming talk to all of her fans in the crowd before singing “Delicate.”

Swift opens up about the fear and anxiety that surrounds having a bad reputation, a nod to the name of her album and tour.

“Having a bad reputation in our mind could get in the way of finding real friendship, real love, real acceptance, people you really fit in with,” she tells the crowd. “All of us are sort of afraid of having a bad reputation because we’re so scared of something fake, like gossip, or a rumor about you or a name you got called getting in the way of you finding something real.”

Isn’t that the truth though? Fear and anxiety can hold us back from reaching our true potential but we don’t have to let the words of another destroy us.

Taylor Swift and Bryan Adams perform together, check it out!

Sometimes we really get dragged in the dirt because we are worried about our reputations due to some made up rumor, mind you, made up by people who know nothing about you and your life. As for Taylor Swift, that’s the paps but it’s still very relatable.

How many times have you found yourself anxious to attend school or hang out with friends because you had a disagreement with another and you were worried about what was said in regards to you and your actual actions during that situation. Further, Swift just proved we shouldn’t give a crap what people say about us behind our backs, at the end of the day, we know the truth and we know what we deserve.

Swift was real and down to earth, her dancer handed her a tissue and then she turned around to blow her nose. I mean, for real, she’s human and that’s the best part of seeing your favorite artist live in person. The fact that she took time to talk to her fans, give words inspiring words to never forget and thanking them for all their inspiration.

The whole set had a lot of emotion and meaning, to start we see negative reports about T-dawg and then when it’s time to wrap up we see a very happy Taylor skipping and at peace with her life and reputation.

What a priceless experience at the Taylor Swift 2018 reputation Stadium Tour and I can only imagine how it felt to be on that stage, singing your heart out for your family, friends and fans.

If you haven’t seen her Netflix special yet, you’ve got to check it out. And if you were able to attend her show, we’d love to hear your experience, did you have a blast? Some fans even made it onto the Netflix special, we’ve seen your handsome/beautiful faces!

Oh and mad shout-out to Taylor for walking through the crowd to see her fans up close and personal, that’s what being grateful looks like in case some people forgot.

Sound off in the comments below!

Blessed be!

[Image Credit: Taylor Swift Instagram].

Taylor Swift’s reputation Stadium Tour – Trailer

Taylor Swift Reputation Stadium Tour

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Positive Celebrity Gossip - Laurara Monique

Laurara Monique is known by various celebrities as the youngest and kindest celebrity blogger. PCG has been described as a "celebrity safe zone."

Positive Celebrity Gossip - Laurara Monique

Mario Spinetti just dropped a powerful rendition of a few of 2018's best love songs. You have to hear this, it's powerful! https://positivecelebrity.news/2019/01/02/2018s-best-love-songs-mashup-by-mario-spinetti-is-perfect/ #MarioSpinetti #LadyGaga #Drake #PostMalone #Maroon5 #girlslikeyou #adamlevine

2018’s best love songs mashup by Mario Spinetti is perfect!

Mario Spinetti is best known as a soloist musician and vocalist. He delivers music in such a magical way, creating a sound that sends chills down your spine. And he’s just dropped another amazing v…

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Crashhh gamin for NYE. #CrashBandicoot CrashBandicoot

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What an amazing game, there is so much to do in Final Fantasy XV - 15. Well done to all the creators, cast, crew, spx, etc! I've been playing for a total of 302 hours, 50% of the way complete including comrades! Highly recommend! #FinalFantasy Just completed #EpisodeGladiolusDLC

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Final Fantasy XV! Episode Gladiolus! Please feel free to share! Wrapped worky a little early today. This cold is kicking my butt! So, now I'm going to kick demons butts!

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[adorkablephil]

Fic: Squish

Summary: Dan gains some weight, but it doesn't change how Phil sees him. Rating: Explicit Word Count: 3K Tags: Body Image, Weight Gain, Getting Together, Blow Jobs, Self-Esteem Issues, Hurt/Comfort Trigger Warnings: Weight-related stuff and body image issues

Squish

It had already been going on for a while the first time Phil mentioned it, but Dan had been avoiding the conversation as best he could. The shame was just too much.

It was a Wednesday, and he’d gone shopping, but had brusquely dismissed Phil’s offer to come with him before running out the door and locking it quickly behind him. When he returned, he’d found Phil sitting on the sofa in the lounge with a serious expression on his face.

Dan, shopping bags in his hands, faced his friend and asked testily, “What?”

Phil sighed and brushed a hand along his fringe, tucking a bit behind his ear as was his nervous habit. “Could I talk to you for a minute?”

Dan looked away, then nodded reluctantly. How could he refuse Phil? “Let me put these bags in my room and I’ll be right back.”

In his room, he stiffened his spine, knowing what was coming. Phil was finally going to bring it up. Dan was dreading the conversation, but he’d known it would come eventually.

He went back out into the lounge and sat on the sofa, his jeans binding his waist painfully. Well, he’d be able to fix that as soon as they’d gotten this over with.

Phil didn’t hesitate, looking very concerned. “Dan, I know something’s wrong. You haven’t been acting like yourself and you’re just looking … unhappy. I’m worried the pills aren’t working anymore.”

Dan flinched. “Oh, they’re working. Believe me, they’re working plenty.” It had been a month since Dan’s doctor had recommended he give anti-depressants a try. He’d just been having a particularly hard time lately, and the pills had seemed to help. He was thinking about death less often, spending less time lying face down in the hallway feeling hollowed out and empty. But … the side-effects.

Phil was watching him, obviously concerned. “Then what’s going on? You always like me to come with you when you go shopping, but today you really blew me off when I asked.”

Dan gritted his teeth. Here we go. “I was going out to buy new jeans, okay?” he snapped. “Because these ones are too small now. Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed that I’ve gotten fat!” The doctor had cautioned him that the medication might cause him to gain weight, but he hadn’t taken the warning seriously. What were a few pounds? He was no slave to society’s beauty standards! So he’d been surprised at how much it bothered him when it happened.

Phil looked taken aback. “You’ve gained weight?”

Dan rolled his eyes. “Oh spare me! Like you hadn’t noticed! I’m hideous!” He’d been avoiding wearing his fashionable shirts for the past few weeks, not wanting anyone to notice the changes. He couldn’t hide the increased roundness of his face, of course, but baggy jumpers could hide his body at least. He was surprised no one had mentioned it in the live show chat yet.

Phil put a hand on Dan’s arm and said gently, “I think you’re being self-conscious, Dan. If you’ve gained weight, it really isn’t noticeable. And even if it was, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, right? You’d still be you.”

Dan pulled away from Phil’s touch. “I make my living on the Internet, with people looking at me all the time. Of course it matters what I look like. Of course it matters if I get fat!”

Phil shook his head slightly, but Dan cut him off before he could say anything else. “Now if you don’t mind I’m going to go change into some new jeans that aren’t cutting off my fucking circulation,” and he stormed out of the room.

Dan continued to gradually gain more weight over the next few weeks, but then the increase seemed to level out. He’d gained nearly 14 kg and he felt like a grotesque whale. Fans had finally noticed, and some had mentioned it in comments on his videos and in the live show chat. Some had even posted tweets calling him “fat.” It made him cringe every time he saw that word.

To be fair, every time someone posted a comment or tweet like that, other fans jumped to his defense and said really nice things: compliments about his looks, arguments against judging people based on their weight, insistence that the difference was really minor, stuff like that. But it didn’t stop him from feeling terrible about it.

He’d completely shifted his wardrobe now, focusing on camouflaging his body as best he could. He didn’t want anyone to see. He thought about stopping taking the pills. He thought about it every day. Was it worth it? Was it really worth it? But he didn’t want to go back to the pit of darkness he’d been in before the pills. So he kept taking them, but he hated his body more every day.

Phil watched him all the time, and it only made him more self-conscious. Phil said he was just worried that Dan might be getting depressed again, but Dan always snapped that he just wanted Phil to stop looking at him. He wanted everyone to stop looking at him.

He started canceling half his live shows, not wanting to see the weight-related comments in the chat, even if they were attempting to be reassuring. It was just evidence that everyone had noticed.

He’d never thought of himself as a vain person, but suddenly he just hated how he looked and found himself obsessively looking in the mirror, noticing every bit of pudge, hating the roundness of his face, stomach, and thighs.

Hating his body, he started to hate himself.

It was another couple weeks before Phil brought it up again. He was probably afraid to mention it after Dan’s reaction the first time, but Dan couldn’t bring himself to talk about the issue calmly. It just upset him too much.

It had been more than a month since Dan had uploaded a video to his main YouTube channel, and he had spent a couple of painful live shows pointedly ignoring questions and comments about his weight in the chat. He really didn’t want to talk about it.

But Phil brought it up one evening when they were sitting down for dinner in front of the tv. Dan had started eating exclusively vegan again, hoping that the diet would help him lose some of the weight, but thus far it hadn’t helped.

“The weight thing really bothers you that much?” Phil asked quietly, raising his fork to his mouth and chewing slowly, gesturing toward the small portion on Dan’s plate.

Dan scowled. He considered not answering, but finally said, “Yeah. I know it shouldn’t, that I’m just buying into stupid societal expectations and irrelevant beauty standards, but that only makes me feel worse. I feel like a whale and a hypocrite!” He took a bite of his food and wished there was some chicken in the veggie stir fry.

Phil continued eating for a long moment, then swallowed and looked Dan in the face. “You know you’re still attractive, right?”

Dan blinked. Phil didn’t usually say things like that. Well, he’d been very reassuring and encouraging when Dan was an insecure teenager, but that had been years ago. Phil hadn’t commented on his appearance in a long time.

They hadn’t turned the tv on, since Phil had started the conversation before they had the chance, but Dan turned it on now, going to Netflix streaming and putting on an episode of “Death Note” they’d both seen before. He didn’t reply to what Phil had said … but he thought about it.

Dan had changed into track bottoms and the baggiest t-shirt he owned, ready to start winding down to try to get to bed at a decent hour, when Phil knocked on his door. The knock was tentative, as if Phil wasn’t sure he should be bothering Dan, which made him feel bad for how he’d been treating Phil lately. He opened the door and saw Phil wearing his pyjamas and glasses, obviously also ready for bed.

Phil looked at the ground, then up into Dan’s face, and said, “There’s something I … well, I haven’t told you … but I think maybe … now I should.” He was blushing. What did Phil have to blush about? What was going on?

Phil straightened up a bit out of his habitual slouch and said firmly, “I’m attracted to you.” He didn’t quite meet Dan’s eyes.

Dan blinked with surprise. “You’re … attracted to me?”

Phil shifted from one foot to the other and looked down at the carpet, then looked up again and lifted his chin as if steeling himself. “I’ve been attracted to you since … well … remember those Nakedbooth photos?”

“That was years ago!”

Phil blushed an even brighter pink across his high cheekbones. “It’s only gotten worse since then. I mean, I hardly knew you then, and … as I got to know you better … you only seemed even more … um … I mean…” He swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing, then looked directly into Dan’s eyes and said plainly, “You’re gorgeous, Dan. Don’t you know how gorgeous you are?”

Dan thought about the moments he’d spent looking in the mirror before changing into his sleepwear. He thought about his soft, pudgy stomach, his thick thighs, and he grimaced. “You can’t mean that. Not the way I look now. If it was ever true, it’s not true now.”

Phil stepped closer, looking serious, and said firmly, “Yes now. I love how you look, Dan. I’ve been holding back from telling you, because I didn’t want to make things awkward between us, but now I think you need to know. I’m telling you the absolute truth. I think you’re beautiful. I don’t expect you to … I’m not expecting anything to happen. Between us, I mean. I know you don’t feel that way about me. But I’ve just seen how you’ve been lately, and it seemed so ironic, given how I feel, how I see you, how much I want to…” He gulped and looked away. “I just thought you should know.”

“How much you want to … what?” Dan asked, biting his lip and watching Phil’s face.

Phil had been looking at the floor in obvious embarrassment, but now he ran his eyes slowly up Dan’s body until he met his eyes. “How much I want to touch you,” he replied hesitantly. “How much I want to put my hands on you and feel your body.” He looked away again. “How much I want to kiss you.” He stepped away, further into the hallway, as if about to flee.

Dan stepped forward to meet him. “I’ve wanted that since I was 18,” Dan admitted with a smile, and then lifted Phil’s chin up to press their lips together gently. It wasn’t a long kiss, just an expression of intention.

Phil’s eyes were wide when Dan raised his head to look at him. “You really thought it was just you?” Dan asked, chuckling slightly. Phil nodded, seeming struck dumb. “I’ve been lusting after you since before we even met. Like you said, it only got worse when I got to know you and … it isn’t just lust, you know. It’s about you. I want you.”

Phil found his tongue. “I want you, too.”

Then Dan remembered what he’d looked like in the mirror just moments ago and shied away. “You can’t want me, looking like this, though. I mean, you haven’t seen me. I’m so ugly, Phil.” He felt like he was going to cry, which only made him feel more embarrassed. He couldn’t let Phil see him like this.

Phil frowned. “You could never be ugly. And your weight doesn’t affect how attractive you are at all. I’m just as attracted to you now as I was when you were a skinny teenager.”

Dan looked at the floor. “You don’t mean that.”

Phil stepped closer again and took Dan’s face in his hands, catching his gaze and looking into his eyes with such obvious love that it nearly took Dan’s breath away. “Let me show you how much I do mean it.”

It was the slowest lovemaking Dan had ever experienced. Phil stroked his hands over every inch of Dan’s body, not seeming to hesitate over any of the areas Dan found unattractive. He ran his hands reverently along Dan’s shoulders and chest, his belly and legs, even his hands and feet. The only time Phil hesitated was when his hands reached toward Dan’s neck. He looked a question at Dan, and Dan nodded slightly, giving Phil permission, and Phil stroked his fingers along the skin of Dan’s neck, not too lightly—not lightly enough to tickle—just lightly enough to sensitize the skin and make Dan shiver. Dan closed his eyes tightly and arched his head back, giving Phil better access. He felt Phil’s lips touch his throat, then just beneath his left ear, then felt Phil’s breath in his ear as he whispered, “You have the most beautiful neck. You have no idea how many times I’ve wanted to kiss it.” Then he followed his words with actions again, his tongue flicking out to taste the sweat beginning to gather on Dan’s skin, and Dan moaned.

This started Phil’s journey of kisses, his lips tracing all the skin he had already caressed with his hands. When he reached Dan’s belly, Dan was torn between self-consciousness about the fat there and excitement at Phil’s nearness to his cock. Phil pressed kisses to Dan’s belly, not seeming turned off by it at all, and Dan relaxed a bit, biting his lip again as Phil moved lower and lower.

When Phil took his cock into his warm mouth, Dan moaned again, louder this time, arching his back with the pleasure. Phil’s hands were stroking his hips and thighs as if he couldn’t get enough of Dan, couldn’t stop touching him, and with Phil’s hands on his skin and Phil’s mouth on his cock, Dan actually did feel beautiful. He felt desired and loved and lost himself in the attention Phil was lavishing on his body.

His eyes squeezed tightly shut, Dan groaned, “Oh god, yes. That’s so good!” and he was writhing uncontrollably, his hips thrusting upward toward Phil’s mouth though he tried to control himself, not wanting to choke Phil, not sure how experienced Phil even was with this particular act, though he did seem remarkably good at it. Dan’s hands came down to rest on Phil’s head, fingers twining into his short hair, and Phil moaned around Dan’s cock in response.

Dan opened his eyes and looked down to watch Phil’s head bobbing over him, Phil’s hips thrusting against the mattress with his own urgent need. Suddenly, Phil froze and stiffened, groaning, the vibrations reverberating around Dan’s cock, and Dan realized that Phil had come just from touching him and sucking him off. Any doubts he’d had about his own attractiveness vanished temporarily in that moment and he felt like a sex god, able to make someone as incredible as Phil come so easily, just from letting Phil touch him. He hadn’t even gotten to touch Phil much yet—Phil had come just from enjoying Dan’s own body.

A shiver passed through him head to toe, and Phil sucked at his cock again, causing Dan to shudder more strongly. “I’m close,” he warned Phil breathlessly. “God … so close!” Phil’s hands were wandering again, stroking every part of Dan’s body he could reach as his lips and tongue worshipped Dan’s cock. Panting, Dan tried to hold still, tried not to thrust, gripping the sheets tightly with his fingers as he didn’t want to pull Phil’s hair out by the roots in his desperation. “Oh Jesus,” he groaned, overwhelmed by sensation, and then his whole body arched as he began to come in Phil’s mouth. Eyes squeezed shut, toes curling, fingers clawing at the bed clothes, he came harder than he ever had in his life, and Phil drank him down without hesitation, continuing to suck until Dan collapsed limply onto the bed and whimpered with sensitivity.

Afterward, there wasn’t a single thought in his head. Dan just lay spent and languid, eyes closed, body completely relaxed as Phil climbed up the bed to wrap him in his arms. He felt himself turned onto his side with Phil pressing up against his back, spooning him, his arm wrapping around Dan’s waist, his hand resting warm on Dan’s bare belly. In his exhausted state, Dan could only feel the weakest whisper of worry that Phil would feel fat there, but even that hint of self-consciousness fled at the realization that Phil wouldn’t be holding him like that if he disliked Dan’s body. Awareness of how Phil saw him soaked into his very bones and he smiled weakly, feeling himself begin to slip into a sated sleep.

In the morning, Dan woke to find that sometime in the night they had shifted position and he had become the bigger spoon, now pressed skin-to-skin against Phil’s back. He thought back on the previous night and felt a surge of gratitude and love for Phil. Phil had taken such a big chance in telling Dan how he felt, a chance Dan himself had never had the guts to take.

He raised a hand and stroked it softly along Phil’s pale shoulder and arm, then down to his waist and hip. Some might think Phil was skinny, he realized, but Phil’s body seemed perfect to him, and he realized that the reverse might also be true.

Gently caressing Phil’s skin as the other man slept on, Dan thought a moment, considering, and realized that, while he still didn’t feel comfortable or happy with his body at its current weight, he did feel better. Knowing that Phil loved his body didn’t fix everything, but it did help. He resolved to go shopping again to buy some more fashionable shirts to flatter his current size and not always hide behind the baggy jumpers. This time, he’d take Phil shopping with him.

The other man began to stir, and Dan knew he was waking to the soft caresses. Kisses would follow, and more, and the knowledge filled Dan with a happiness he hadn’t felt in months.

[allthereclists]

Otayuri

Birthday Boy by Ren 1,106

Otabek lets slip that he never celebrates his birthdays. Yuri decides to fix that.

what hoodies are made of by pissedofsandwich 1,235

Let it be known that Yuri Plisetsky is killed by his first friend, and possibly, if given more time—and if he could just admit it deep down in his heart that yes, he has a crush on Otabek the size of St. Petersburg—his first boyfriend, during the exhibition gala of Trophee de France.

Oh, what’s the murder weapon, you ask?

The goddamn hoodie.

Or: Otabek dresses sexy for his EX Gala and Yuri loses his shit.

Worth The Wait by Ren 1,277

"I turned eighteen in March," Yuri says.

melt me down by ohhotlamb 2,196

“Do you remember? In Barcelona? It’s been at least three years by now.”

“Of course I do,” Yuri mumbles. “That was when we first started talking.”

Methods of Falling by stutter 2,610

"When Victor was his age - younger, even, Yuri thinks, shame blooming in his chest - he’d made the whole world fall in love with him already. The long hair, the soft smile, the way he moved like he had a secret in his skin and he couldn't wait to share it with you. Yuri’s watched the tapes over and over. He could skate any of Victor’s early routines in his sleep. But he can't - the thing Victor could do so easily, the casual, guileless charisma he threw like a shadow - Yuri can't manage it on a single person, not even some moody Kazakh with a dumb haircut whose eyes are too far apart anyway - "

(In Park Guell, Yuri takes a hard fall. Otabek picks him up.)

The Death of Golden Locks by IzzyBee92 4,505 

Yurio shows up with short hair and Otabek tries to figure out what the hell happened. But Yurio doesn't seem to want to discuss it.

The Naming of Cats by unheroics 6,075

The photo gets almost drowned out in a sea of others, more flashy. It’s easy to miss, tagged only as #practice. Otabek doesn’t remember following Yuri Plisetsky on Instagram. Maybe his sister did it for him.

(Otabek, Yuri, and a relationship that develops in the margins of their careers.)

Baptism by InsominiacArrest 9,648

Yuuri Plisetsky has been waiting to lose his virginity to his boyfriend (and also take his boyfriends virginity) and on his 18th birthday, he gets his wish.

follow up: Otabek and Yuri have been apart for a couple months and finally get to reunite.

Anything But Obvious by Tessa on Ice (tessacrowley) 15,016

Yuri Plisetsky would rather die than ever be obvious.

let us be the unexpected by peachys 16,394 

Yuri is used to overworking himself but Otabek helps him see everything he's been missing out on.

Extended Free Skate by Opalsong 20,420

Otabek won silver at Worlds. Yuri was going win gold at fucking domming.

(Fuck his brain and its fucking innuendos.)

Something Old and Something New by heartsdesire456 30k

When Otabek's home rink is damaged in a fire, he and his coach get permission to train in Russia from Yakov. Yuuri and Victor offer their spare room to Otabek for the duration of his stay, and in doing so, Yuuri is given a front row look at Yurio coming to understand his feelings for his best friend, as well as the subsequent panic that ensues after he discovers his feelings aren't so 'friendly' after all.

in flesh and bone by csoru 32,077

After recovering from an injury that cut his previous season short, Yuri makes a comeback with a new coach, a new country of residence, and a relationship upgrade. Still: perfection takes effort.

AU

Panic! In the Hotel by sweatpantz 1,318 

Yuri has a minor panic attack after something that happens between him and Otabek. He comes to his gay dads for advice and then he and Otabek talk it out <3

Spontaneous Combustion by kanekki 3,589

When Otabek and Yuri present at the exact same time, chaos ensues.

concerto for piano, in a minor key not yet decided by 777335 5,260

magical realism au, where yuri is a tsar of ice (which, for the purpose of this fic, is almost a demigod, of sorts) and otabek is a very sad and musical young man who has moved to St. Petersburg to deal with the death of a friend.

it starts like:

Otabek moves to the outskirts of St. Petersburg and becomes friends with Yuri slowly and then suddenly, like ice sliding across a plate. How he meets Yuri goes like this: (a memory that retains the present tense, because it feels very much like a thing that is still happening to him, not a thing that is over)

by the nape of my neck by aphhun 5,499

Everyone has a counter that ticks down the hours until you first meet your Destined; your soul mate. Yuri Plisetsky has been actively ignoring his timer for the last eight years. That is, until it's dwindled down to zero behind his back, and he has no idea how or when he met his Destined in the bustle of St Petersburg

Fire Red by Qitana 7,813

The static reaches its peak before someone says, “Hello Mr Yuri Plisetsky.”

He’s different from the first person, of this Yuri is certain. He jolts slightly when the man pronounces his full name, and he finds an absurd amount of comfort in his voice. It’s soft and warm, with a stoniness that could rival Yakov’s and Lilia’s, and his accent makes it endearing as hell. A small flame slowly starts to burn inside of Yuri for reasons he can’t possibly fathom. It’s just a man’s voice, and a stranger’s to boot, but he feels significantly better already.

When Saving Fairies by Eshli 8,064

Otabek is a knight to the Kingdom of Kazakhstan. He winds up saving a fairy from a tough spot, taking love advice from a total idiot, and losing his virginity in an unsuspecting way. Such is the life of the Hero of Kazakhstan.

Someone to Protect by DragonofFernweh

Yuri's heat happens to take him by surprise the day before a competition, even though those stupid suppressants were supposed to take care of that. He'll head to the medical wing to take care of the problem, but what if he runs into someone else? He dreads anyone finding out about his being an Omega. Still, he's just fifteen, no one would be affected by his heat. He was just a kid.

It turns out, they hurt kids everywhere. It also turns out that Katsuki Yuuri is really fucking terrifying when he wants to be.

the birth of comets takes place on the tip of your lashes by apollothyme 15,622

His second visit to an ophthalmologist occurs five months later.

Just like during his first consultation, he doesn’t understand any of the medical jargon coming from the doctor’s mouth. Only now, after he’s done explaining everything in complicated, convulsed words, the man turns to Yuri with a smile on his face and explains everything once more, this time using terms Yuri can understand.

Yuri listens. He bites down on his bottom lip and he does not cry.

My Life is Over, I Might As Well Jump by accidental-mormon (crazyhomoinspace) 20,109

Yuri Plisetsky was not expecting to go into his first heat surrounded by competitive figure skaters in a classy hotel before an international competition. He was not expecting to sleep with his roommate.. and they weren't expecting to have to deal with the consequences.

First Door On The Right by TeaLovingTooru 21,218

When Yuri turns eighteen, his brother Viktor, informs him that he has to find an Alpha suitor. Yuri is angry as he doesn't understand why he would have to get married, causing him to run into town. After a chance encounter, Yuri makes an unexpected acquaintance with a local.

Neon Pink Motorcycle by goldheart 74,720

There are certain moments in Yuri Plisetsky’s life that he likes to forget happened at all. The time they were chased from the apartment, the landlord angrily spitting and waving threateningly at them when his mother couldn’t produce enough money for rent. Babushka’s funeral. The first time he fell in competition.

He cannot forget that, under the black band he wears around his wrist like a shield, his soulmark may as well be nonexistent.

Unsteady by otayuri_oh_nice 139,679

Otabek was going to kill JJ. He was going to take the next flight to Canada, hunt him down and kick his ass. Leo: I tried to stop him but he went and did it anyway, I’m sorry! (link)

- Or: JJ uploads one of Otabek's remixes of Yuri's songs to YouTube and Otabek freaks out.

- Or: what happens when you take episode 1, replace figure skaters with musicians and exchange Victuuri for Otayuri. Aka another strange AU no one asked for.

on finding your way; by crossroadswrite

When Otabek has to leave back to the dormitories, he turns to Yuri, looking slightly nervous and asks, “So, are we friends or what?”

Yuri stares at him. “Beka, I let you pet my cat.”

Prequel: on growing; by crossroadswrite

Yuri Plisetsky glares at him with all the righteousness five year olds possess, and says in heavily accented and clumsy English. “Be more gooder, stupid!”

And then he storms out in a sweep of blond hair and blue and red lights from his Sketchers.

(Or: in which everything is the same but Yuri Plisetsky is Victor's bratty five-year-old child.)

https://otayuri-ficrec.tumblr.com/tagged/yoi-fic-rec

wip

Eat Your Heart Out, Adonis by blackmountainbones 

The year is 2021. The Beijing Winter Olympics are just around the corner, and Yuri Plisetsky is forced to take a break from skating in order to recover from an ankle injury. His friend Otabek comes to Russia to keep him company during his time off the ice.

soldier boy, tripping over himself to win my praise by thissupposedcrime

Yuri cannot crater down the path Victor blazed, happily forsaking Russia and his career for an international love affair. Neither will Kazakhstan's favorite son.

Or Yuri and Otabek from 2016-2026 and the competitions, weddings, and longing that define them.

Not your usual love story by arcsinx

Baranovskaya's new face, Yuri Plisetsky (22), who shot in Venice for Vogue's last issue, was seen accompanied by Otabek Altin (25) as they left a coffee shop in St Petersburg yesterday. The DJ and voted 2017's hottest musician, Altin was in the city to compose for Victor Nikiforov's (30) new movie production. The couple met at the Paris Fashion Week after-party(image) and have been appointed to be secretly dating ever since. An intimate friend claims Altin to be completely besotted with the Russian beauty, having even gifted him a $35,000 diamond collar necklace!

For more photos of Plisetsky's front cover shoot for Vogue, click here For more articles on Altin's new collabs with popstars, click here.

Let the Record Drop by BoxWineConfessions 

A collection of PWP oneshots loosley based around the idea of DJ-Otabek.

[ghostmartyr]

Ranked Anime Openings–2016

For all. Five things I completed watching (not that my neglect helped with writing this faster).

Oh well, it’s still fun.

This list will have a few more spoilers than usual, thanks to the nature of some of the openings. One in particular is warned for with lots of bolding, but forewarned is forearmed and so on.

Onward!

Links all attached to the titles, because I’m really tired of creating YouTube playlists that end up with half of their content gone.

5. Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress :: “Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress” by Egoist

We get it, you like shadows.

This opening blurs and shadows the heck out of itself for the first forty seconds. About the time it reaches a point where there’s enough color that allows images to be apparent instead of creepy ambience, the singer starts wailing.

I generally like Egoist’s music. I even like most of this song.

I do not like the wailing, and fittingly, it casts yet another shadow on this opening.

The animation keeps to the melody fairly well, and there are some really neat aesthetic choices throughout, but the line that leads into kicking off a faster pace makes my ears bleed, and the opening really doesn’t seem to care about making things easily visible.

With some of the symbolism of one protagonist bringing light to the other, I think it’s fair to say it’s intentional; past those first forty seconds, things are much clearer.

However, it shadows things so excessively before then that the attempted symbolism is lost in a sea indistinct imagery that consistently makes me worry that I’m judging this opening based on a bad fan upload.

(Based on the Amazon screencaps, I am mostly sure I am not--but still.)

It has a nice rhythm, but the visual art largely fails this opening.

4. Thunderbolt Fantasy:: “Raimei” by T.M.Revolution

I did not watch enough last year to exclude the puppets.

This is a... difficult one to rank. I’ve never watched a show that uses puppets, and comparing animation to this kind of handiwork is a little weird. Certain quality things just do not operate the same way.

Still, this opening undoubtedly utilizes some pretty standard anime intro tropes. It’s a straightforward, high-paced introduction to the entire cast, and besides a few dramatic character shots, spends its entire time speeding through awesome battles.

It’s nothing new under the sun, but its timing is impeccable, and the music would be enough to get anyone pumped.

I’m actually very sad that I don’t have more to say about it, since now I have to move on to looping the remaining contenders.

3. Haikyuu!! :: “Hikariare” by Burnout Syndromes

Oh, but this pains me. I keep hoping that one day I’ll be able to rank a Haikyuu opening as highly as my love for the show, and it keeps not happening.

I think this opening is great.

Really, really great.

This is the first time in the series’ run that I think the opening finally figures out how to get the action of volleyball down. They’ve had trouble in the past (with how long the ball stays in the air, mainly), but this--this one sells it.

The whole season is this one game, and here’s where darkness works, because it accentuates the dramatic light each character is drawn with, and adds to the sense of ceremony the plot has.

This is good. The imagery is consistent and sharp; it’s fun to watch, fun to listen to, and the flare the credits get is one of my favorite effects of the year.

More than any of the previous ones, this opening speaks to the series’ quality as a sports anime, and I feel so, so bad for handing it bronze.

Final two time!

Which can only mean one thing:

Honorable Mentions: Endings

For real this year, because I found ones I like!

Haikyuu!! :: "Mashi Mashi" by Nico Touches the Walls

Sure, it’s just scrolling through for a minute and a half, but it’s a charming minute and a half, and it makes me smile.

One of Haikyuu’s strengths is making each team memorable, and in a season where our heroes are battling to go to nationals, remembering every other battle that got them there is a wonderful way to end each week.

Also it has color. I like color.

Erased :: “Sore wa Chiisa na Hikari no Yō na" by Sayuri

I’m not sure why I like this one. The music style isn’t really my thing, and the unique aesthetic parts are the kind of thing that weird me out more than anything.

Yet something about it makes me feel like mentioning it, so here we are. It’s an odd little window of music and art, and I like it.

Yuri!!! On ICE :: "You Only Live Once" by Wataru Hatano

Hi I love this.

I love the music, I love the use of the skaters’ instagram pics, I love the feel, I love the affection pouring off Victor and Yuri.

This is my anime theme happy place.

If this whole post were about ranking things with no concern for what part of the anime they bordered, I might put it in first for no reason beyond personal enjoyment.

Then I would proceed to make up reasons so that it looked legit, and because this theme is so great, that would be an easy task.

And now we reach

SPOILER TERRITORY

OF GREAT MAGNITUDE

FOR YURI ON ICE

Finding a version that was purely the musical ending that didn’t have audio warping was too much trouble, so yeah, actual, genuine spoilers for the gay skating anime.

I get to type that. What a time to be alive.

Yuri!!! On Ice :: Episode 10 Ending that I can’t find the title or artist for

I think I bring it up every year, but one of the things I like about endings, when I do like endings, is how animators are more willing to experiment with style than they are with the openings.

I will love anime openings forever, but nine out of ten, even the phenomenal ones, stick to conventions and make the most of them.

Yuri on Ice decides that having a smartphone photo reel of their protagonist getting drunk and pole dancing is a good use of time.

And it's relevant to the plot.

2016 did a few things right.

Now we’re back to the final two openings!

2. Yuri!!! On Ice :: “History Maker” by Dean Fujioka

This is such a meta placement.

Past that, this was a really hard decision to make. This is easily the most memorable opening of the year. It suits the show, it’s constantly evolving, it has wonderful music... It is unique in its simple elegance, and has the same love for the sport the anime portrays as the rest of the series.

Yet here we are.

As beautiful as this opening is, one of the main reasons I appreciated its constant evolution throughout the episodes is because I kept hoping that it would grow past the things that kept bothering me about it.

However much care is put into the character art and animation, that doesn’t reflect itself in the backgrounds until the last few seconds. A ridiculous amount of the skating is done in front of solid walls of color, and those colors do not always look good. Clear, obvious effort goes into the transitions, but it’s still a heck of a lot of background content that offers absolutely nothing except a clashing distraction from the skating.

The other problem is that the opening is the characters skating--and they repeat sequences.

It’s a minute and thirty seconds. You can’t do that.

Theoretically, having all three of the protagonists skating in sync in emptiness, followed by the version they do with their final stage colored in and looking so damn pretty, is a neat idea.

But besides the flourishes of color, there is nothing to focus on in this opening except for them skating. That isn’t a bad thing--it’s part of what makes it such a good opening--but it makes it immediately obvious that you’re watching something you’ve seen in the last thirty seconds.

It’s a needless distraction from the opening’s beauty, and it bothers me every time I watch it.

Which has added up to quite a bit of bother.

Seriously, I love this opening, but the things that don’t really fit for it are things that feel like they could have been fixed very easily, so it’s kind of a slash between “WE WERE BORN TO MAKE HISTORY” and “WE COULD HAVE HAD IT ALLLLLLL.”

These lists make me feel really awkward sometimes. The further into the ranking process you go, the harder it gets, so the more critically you start looking at things.

The result is a second place spot that I spend more paragraphs complaining about than appreciating.

I swear I like this one.

1. Erased :: "Re:Re:" by Asian Kung-Fu Generation

Today on things I honestly did not expect.

In an embarrassing turnaround, I didn’t fully appreciate this one until I got around to the ranking process. This is embarrassing because the entire reason I watched this series was because some kind anon recommended it with the note that the opening and ending were excellent.

Some of my tastes have never let go of the joy that Naruto and Bleach openings give me; nonsensical high-paced action makes me happy. As a consequence, I end up sulking pettily when an opening with a good beat chooses to utilize its other good qualities.

(Then it swoops in like a damn hurricane near the end and does make the most of that beat and fuck.)

This opening tells the entire story of the series.

For the gentle beginning parts, it does what I’ve always liked about previous Haikyuu openings; it complements the music instead of explicitly following it. Pieces of the animation still hit the expected beats, because this opening does a phenomenal job of pairing its visual and audio art, but the overall image is there to portray its story.

As the movie framing suggests, this is an opening that is meant to be watched. Every little thing follows the music and draws its content from the plot. If you think of openings as trailers for their series, you can’t ask for better.

Though the best part comes when that respect to portraying the anime’s story follows through in the eleventh episode. If you’ve never seen or cared about Erased, you only need to know the title and compare the above link and this one.

The story informs the opening on every level, and there is no substitute for the level of cool that happens when people commit to that.

Caps taken from Crunchyroll--and Amazon Prime because Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress is a special snowflake.

A late Happy New Year to anyone reading this. I hope that whatever else happens, there will be good music and animation to lighten the dark spots.

And if that doesn’t happen, we can all judge Attack on Titan to death for not living up to its implied promise of epic themes.