#I need it known that I was calling for everyone to leave twitter WELL before that chucklefuck pulled his stunt

[soumic]

About once a day I go through the mental gymnastics of going "god I should probably make an art insta, for ~professional purposes~ and ~networking~ and ~cultivating an audience~"

And then I scrunch my face up so hard my features cave inside my skull thinking about conceding to using an algorithmic social media platform in 2023, let alone a facebook product

(please don't take this as a call to suggest alternative social medias to me sdlkfjs I mega super promise you I am aware of them)

[hauntedbythefanficsofmypast]

Of Meetings and Musings

Masterlist

Not so Fake

“I expected this from Dick, not from you Alfred.” Tim said blankly from his place on the ground. Wrapped in what he could only define as a Military grade Bat-proof burrito blanket.

“Well Master Timothy I know better than anyone that you would not listen to reason. The moment your brothers’ and father's back are turned you'd be gone and already ten feet deep in your newest case.” Alfred moved forward placing a cup to the side of Tim’s head before bending the straw so that he could turn his head to take a sip. “Be happy I am letting you sit in on over video call for the Justice League meeting.” Alfred pulled out a domino mask, securely attaching it to Tim’s face.

“This is mildly embarrassing.” Alfred looked at him for a second before reaching over and turning off the camera feed on their side.

“Better?”

“Slightly.”

“Good, now I expect that water will be gone by the end of this meeting or your coffee ban will be extended. I will be in the kitchen, just call if you need me.”

“Understood.” Tim said glumly as he thought about coffee. Alfred gave him an amused smile before walking off towards the kitchen.

Tim couldn't help but pout over the fact that he was even in the situation. He just wanted to do an intensive search into the Infinite Realms, while simultaneously hacking into the government agency known as the Ghost Investigation Ward, light work really. He barely had time to react before he was caught by Alfred. Honestly they act like he had a problem.

Tim in fact does have a problem.

Dick had managed to convince them to let Tim at least listen into the meeting. Which won him some points in Tim’s book, going off a mental tally he was now tied for second place with Duke. Cass remained in the number one favorite sibling spot, while Jason had dropped to last after the spam of pictures he took of him in the burrito.

The complete asshole he was had probably already posted them all over Twitter and Instagram. Tim wasn't ready for his Wayne Enterprises PR team email, he was gonna get Jason back for this.

He sighed, taking a sip from his straw tuning back in as Batman called attention.

“Very startling information has been brought to my attention. Something that we should've known sooner but slipped under the radar.” Batman straightens, moving to the side as the projector turns on. Displaying a PowerPoint that Tim considered woefully uninformed considering Jason had made it. Jason's the only one that uses PowerPoints weird transitions, and Tim knows he could have found everything Jason compiled in under an hour.

“The Anti-Ecto Acts a law passed by Luthor during his President run. It was signed into law the day after Gotham was declared no man's land, leaving it to slip our attention.” Nightwing turned the page in the packet he had gotten made up, signaling the others to turn as well. It was the bill in full for them to read over. “This law states that any being made of ectoplasm or able to create it are classified as undead and non-sentient. They automatically lose all human rights, and are open season to be experimented on or exterminated. They also declare it a crime to be a ghost or Ecto-Entity, the Ghost Investigation Ward, operating under the government, is given full rights to arrest those they deem undead.” Batman clicked the next slide to show multiple League members’ pictures. “Multiple League members are considered to be undead.” Everyone was stunned as they looked over the pictures, Superman was the first to speak up.

“Batman, seven of those pictures.” Batman nodded his face blank but his kids could read him clearly.

“Seven of Gotham's vigilantes are considered non-sentient and inhuman. Myself included, anyone in the Justice League that has died and managed to come back. If we don't move fast, we'll all be in trouble.”

Tim sighed, shaking his head deciding to step in.

“Under statement of the year B. This is one, either a plan Luthor made to take us down, or two, the start to tearing down all protections Metas and Aliens currently have.” Constantine nodded before standing up  moving to the front.

“I thought you all knew about this, else I would've told you sooner. We're all in lot of trouble with these Acts. Luthor basically declared war against another nation.” 

“What do you mean John?” Superman questioned as he leaned forward more his Eyes kept straying back to his picture and that of his god kids. Batman nodded to Constantine letting him take over the presentation. Tim was surprised to see screenshots of Danny’s videos on the next slide.

“There is a Realm that coincides with ours and every other universe that exists. It's known as the Infinite Realms, to put in bluntly, if the Infinite Realms was to be destroyed every universe would too. The Infinite Realms is inhabited by ghosts and primordials, beings that could and would destroy worlds if they simply teamed up. The Anti-Ecto Acts is a declaration of war against them.” Constantine sighed, rubbing the back of his neck as he glanced at the pictures. “For one we need to get it repealed immediately. Second we need to start peace treaties with the Infinite Realms, up until a few years ago it would’ve been impossible. The King was a tyrant that would love a war, however three years ago he was defeated in battle and another was Crowned.”

“How do we get in contact with this new King?” Wonder Woman questioned crossing her arms determined to see the Acts abolished.

“The only lead we have is, and I shit you not, this YouTuber.” Tim blue screened for a moment as his eyes zeroed in on a screenshot of Danny’s grinning face. Constantine held his hands up at the incredulous looks he was getting. “I know, sounds down right loony but it’s true. GalacticPhantom, also known as Danny, has posted multiple videos of himself and friends interacting with Ghosts from the Infinite Realms. The most important being the young ghost girl with white hair in the last photo. If our connections are correct, that girl is Princess Danielle Phantom, clone of High King Phantom and heir apparent. In order to reach the King, we need to reach her, and to reach her, we need Danny.”

Tim blinked before dropping his head against the floor groaning slightly, thinking about how they’d have to go about this.

“Before we continue with this.” He interrupted grumpily knowing this was going to cause issues. “So as the resident expert on GalacticPhantom,”

“Yes Red, we know you have a crush on the YouTuber.” Hood called out teasingly, earning a few small smiles. Tim was silent just glaring at the camera before speaking again.

“Congratulations Robin you’ve moved up the rankings of my favorites lists.”

“Tt- I don’t care about the nonsense you’re spewing Red.”

“Awe, Robin are you smirking? That's so cute! My baby birds are bonding!” “Nightwing I swear I will stab you.”

“Back to the point!” Tim said loudly, wanting to slam his head against the floor. “Danny’s friend Wes, he is either incredibly smart or a psychic of some sort. He has a majority of our identities clocked. Stop yelling, honestly, I believe he has a curse much like Cassandra of Troy, the only people that believe him are his friends.” Batman sighed and everyone watched in shock as he pinched his nose.

“Red, we are going to have a serious talk about sharing important information like that.” Tim snorted, rolling his eyes as he took a long sip of his water.

“Honestly B, the only reason I’m telling you now is because he is going to immediately know something is wrong. Given that only his friends listen to him, well I have no fact they all will be on high alert. To put it plainly, for once we can’t sneak around in the shadows.”

“Damn, we have to do a Superman confrontation.” Nightwing said glumly, earning a teasing offended look from the man himself.

“What’s wrong with my way?”

“It’s not as fun ‘cause they see you coming. It’s never a surprise, I like surprising them.”

“Ya, you would Wing.” Superman said affectionately before Batman called attention back to their meeting. 

“We better start planning then, I want us to be in peace talks within the week. I am giving Oracle and Red Robin full permission to pull up everything from GIW and get it blasted through every media outlet, converging with Superman on certain points of this. Given the new knowledge our best bet would be to go in with civilians. I will ask the Waynes to act as liaison for us, given they are our biggest benefactors they can be direct contact between the two.” Batman turned the power point off before moving to the middle of the table again. 

“Given the threat all of us are currently facing, I am enacting Protocol Convergence effective immediately. No hero is to do sole patrols, heroes are required to keep emergency homing beacons on them at all times. If anyone is confronted by the GIW they are to retreat immediately and alert the others. The Watchtower is having its shields upgraded and will be ready for the possibility of an attack. If the GIW does approach one of us, either meet here, Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, or the Batcave. I will be temporarily opening the Zeta-Tube for the cave, do not abuse this.Now, we need to get to work everyone is dismissed.”

Danny stopped suddenly causing everyone to look at him confused as he slowly put his missing bowl down and looked around the school kitchen suspiciously. Lunch Lady also stopped in her mixing, having agreed to have a bake off with King Phantom for one of his videos.

“What's wrong Pudding pop?” She asked softly, placing a hand on his back, Danny didn’t respond for a moment before turning to them and making eye contact with Dani, who also looked off put.

“Someone not of the Realms used our official titles.” Danny muttered shifting back and forth before giving Lunch Lady a tense smile. He stood taller, no longer slouching as his transformation took place, leaving him in his royal regalia, Dani transforming soon after moving to stand beside him. “I’m sorry, can we reschedule this? I feel the need to speak with my Council.” Lunch Lady nodded, snapping her fingers causing their ingredients to disappear and be replaced with freshly baked cookies.

“Of course your Majesties.” She said curtsying before offering a plate to Dani who took it with a grin. “I will reach out to Royal Secretary Foley to reschedule. I hope that you find everything well.” Danny smiled nodding as he opened a portal for her back to hers and Box Ghost’s Haunt.

“I do as well, please tell Box Ghost I said hello.” Lunch Lady smiled, thanking Danny and promising to do so before stepping through and waving goodbye. “Do you all want to come?” Wes glared, rolling his eyes as he stood up stretching.

“Stupid question, of course we’re coming.” Danny grinned rolling his eyes as he opened a portal to the Infinite Realms Castle. Dani bounced through calling out to them as she started flying down the hallway.

“See you in the Council room! I’m going to summon the Council!” Val snorted, walking through after Sam and Tucker. Wes entered the portal two steps behind Danny watching carefully until it was closed.

“This’ll be interesting.” Sam said, stretching out her arms as the Realms fueled her liminal side and green vines wrapped around her left arm sprouting a few black and red roses. Tucker snorted as his hat was replaced by a Nemes and the traditional makeup of a Pharaoh appeared marking him as the reincarnation of Duul Aman. Val paused looking herself over before huffing and crossing her arms glaring at the ceiling.

“Really?? Still nothing? Is it because I tried to kill him at one point, come on I’ve changed and been reformed! Give me some cool ghostly changes! Even Wes gets them!” She said, glaring at Wes, who just grinned back as he adjusted the chest plate and sword that appeared on him.

“To be fair Val, I only get it because I forced my way into being his knight.” Val huffed, throwing her arms up more playful than frustrated. Danny snorted before starting to walk towards the Council room the other following after.

Dead-ends and Surprise Visits

[saintmagx]

✨ Cruel Summer ✨

Part 2

pairing: Solo Sikoa x reader, Jey Uso × reader (briefly)

AN: If you’d like tagged, let me know 💖

⚠️ Warnings: 18+ , swearing, violence (this is the WWE after all) slight smut, infidelity (if you squint), jealous Jey, toxic behaviour, bad/embarrassing writing ⚠️

doesn't follow a specific timeline however it is more recent, total divas making a return.

✨ Said I’m fine but it wasn’t true, I don’t want to keep secrets just to keep you ✨

The match was going off without a hitch, I had Charlotte in a headlock ready to execute my finisher when I’m taken down from behind by Rhea, the plan was for her to beat me down then escape through the crowd laughing and holding her title up high, I sold the beat down like a pro and the heat she was getting was phenomenal. Corey Graves and Michael Cole were doing their part on commentary making this look like a sickening attack, though as per his character Corey was doing his best to be a little shit that he is and side with the heel superstar. Smackdown ended with me out cold in the middle of the ring. What a way to kick off this rivalry.

Backstage, Gorilla

Back in the gorilla I’m met with hunter.

“Amazing job out there yn!”

“I’m afraid that was all Demi, I just followed her lead.”

A thick Aussie accent fills the gorilla.

“Nah, don’t sell yourself short yn, I wouldn’t have been able to look half as good if your selling of the beat down wasn’t as great.”

I’ve finally come face to face with demi, her aura radiates confidence and raw sex appeal.

“Okay ladies, you both did good.” Hunter states “but now, we have to incorporate the Uso’s into this, so next week on Smackdown the Judgement Day will meet the Uso’s.”

There is a real buzz backstage about this upcoming Smackdown. I just hope it’s something that the fans can really sink their teeth into.

Yn interview (TD segment)

“I always try and look at social media after a match, everyone things I’m crazy but honestly I need to know how it’s coming across to the fans.”

“If something isn’t working or isn’t believable you best believe the WWE universe will make their opinions known.”

Yn picks up her phone and goes into twitter.

“See, look at these comments.”

Mami vs yn????? TAKE MY MONEY NOW #smackdown #wwe

Mami stepping all over yn, me next jkjkjk unless👀 @RheaRipley_WWE #smackdown

Rhea why????? What did yn do to you :( #wwesmackdown

My two favourite woman beefing 😭 this will go down as the greatest rivalry ever!!!!!!!!!! #wwe #smackdown

“Okay, yeah some are a bit more extreme than others, but it shows that what we are doing, the story we are trying to tell is getting over with the fans. I just hope the Uso’s and Judgement Day can pull it out the bag too.”

The next day after I’m on television, I always wake up to messages from family and friends congratulating, consoling or just trying to get details out of me about what’s happening next, but my lips are sealed.

If I don’t see Jon, Trin or Josh before leaving the arena I always have multiple messages from them too, and today was no different.

J 💖

Get yo ass ready, we going for breakfast

Or we could stay in and I’ll have breakfast 👀

Did you get message?

You better be getting ready!!!!

I’m leaving now

Yn?

*10 missed calls J 💖*

Shit.

As I’m getting up, I hear banging from the other side of my hotel room, I don’t have to guess what, or who is making that noise. Opening the door, I’m greeted with an unamused Josh.

“Why didn’t you answer my calls or texts? I thought something had happened to you!”

“Well as you can see, I’m fine, so if you don’t mind, I need to get ready for breakfast.”

As I turn to walk away, I’m pulled into the familiar arms of his, my forbidden safe place. If Josh knew I was harbouring these feelings for him, this would all stop, and I could potentially lose him and I’m not ready for that.

Whispering into my ear he says the one thing I’ve been desperate to hear:

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry for yesterday and the way I acted when you were talking with Orton, I know he’s just a friend but fuck, I hate when other men talk to my girl.”

“Your girl? So, are you mine then too?” I say sarcastically, knowing his answer.

He smirks “You know all this can’t be tied down.”

As much as we have had this conversation before, and I already knew his answer - it hurt but I couldn’t let him see that.

“Exactly Josh, so how about we cut the bullshit and call this for what it is? Two friends having fun.”

He spins me around and lifts my chin so I’m looking at him, his eyes dark and fiery – he was pissed.

“Okay, lets call it for what it is, you are mine.”

His large soft lips engulf my own, filling my body with the same euphoric feeling I always get with him.

“Now go get ready, Trin and Jon are waiting for us.”

At Breakfast (TD Segment)

“Hey girl, you took your time.”

“Ay did my brother try keep you from us AGAIN?”

“Trin, I overslept and Jon no one can keep me from you guys.” I say sitting next to Trin.

No matter what I’m going through, being with my family always makes me feel better. My happy place.

“Ya’ll mind if I sit?”

Joseph Fatu. As much as we run in the same circles, I’ve only ever met him once and that was in Hunters office. From what Trin and the boys have told me he’s quiet at first, but when he warms up, he is truly a special soul.

“Sit yo ass down, you aint gotta ask uce.”

I can see the Fatu resemblance. The dark mysterious eyes, the infectious smile and in contrast the brooding stare. These boys have good genes. My eyes start to wonder to the ink across his arms, studying each piece as if I was an art enthusiast. Looking back up I see his eyes are already on me with the signature Fatu stare, I smile and return to my conversation with Trin, hoping he hadn’t realised how long id been staring.

Unbeknownst to me, the waitress that had been serving us had been making heart eyes at Josh the entire time, and he had noticed this. Whether it was to get back at me for speaking up earlier or Josh being Josh, he started flirting with her at the table, she was over exaggerating her laugh and he was pulling out all the usual material that worked on these types of women. Watching him flirting wasn’t something knew and normally I wouldn’t bother much, however they exchanged numbers and arranged to meet up tonight. My stomach became heavy, and I felt like I was going to throw up, my heart was breaking once again and the cause? Josh Fatu.

Trin and Jon interview (TD segment)

“I love my brother deeply, but he is such an idiot.”

“Flirting with another girl right when yn is sitting at the table? That’s messed up.”

“Yeah Jon, your right your brother is an idiot. How could he do that to her?”

My eyes begin to sting as I excuse myself. This behaviour is nothing knew but each time it happened it took a little piece of me. Why did I have to fall in love with him of all people?!

tagged: @southerngirl41 @christinabae @raya-hunter01

[epicthemusical]

The Crimson Star

the person who made this art is Ardenzia777 on both twitter and instagram so go check them out. the art and prompt/idea is here: https://x.com/Ardent_art1/status/1803866356640542929

WARNING: Non detailed blood and death. Polites is OOC!

Odysseus had just finished laying out his plan to the rest of the soldiers. The trojan horse would be a gamble but at this point in the war everyone was willing to take some risks if it meant finally winning. Everybody is tired and only wish to go home.

Someone  doesn't agree though and follows Odysseus and his second in command, Eurylochus. It doesn't take long for the talk to turn into yelling. Polites notices and walks over to them.

“My friends, what is wrong?” The crew member angrily points at Odysseus.

“Our so-called Captain is going to get us all killed with this absurd plan of his! Not to mention how cowardly it is! How can I be expected to follow a plan like this, a Captain like this?!” Eurylochus flinches slightly side-eying Polites as he sees a flash of anger in his friends eyes that disappears as quickly as it came unseen by everyone except those who know what to look for.

“ You may not like it but Odysseus is still the Captain so please watch what you say.” The guy scoffs at Polite's statement before turning and walking off. Odysseus gives a heavy frustrated sigh

“I will give him some time to cool down. Maybe he will be more receptive to reason tomorrow.”

—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Later into the night Eurylochus stands watch on the outskirts of the camp watching for any possible danger to the troops. His mind can't help but wonder to Polites.

Polites is a dear friend, practically a brother. He has known both Polites and Odysseus since they were children, it had always been the three of them for as long as he could remember. He respects both Odysseus for his cunning and Polites for his kindness.

Odysseus always had plans and ideas helping them get out of trouble time and time again while Polites was always there to help others in need. Polites had given no reason for anyone to believe he could be anything but kind and patient, every insult and injury is shrugged off with a smile.

Eurylochus himself had not seen anything but the bright star that is Polites. He could never forget that day, the day he found just how wrong everyone was…

The day the star turned crimson.

They were teenagers at the time running around the town laughing brightly without a care in the world. A Beggar shuffles up to Odysseus covered in rags.

“ Please kind prince, do you have anything to spare for a poor beggar such as myself?” Odysseus paused and frowned.

“ I'm sorry but I dont happen to have anything on me at the moment.” Instead of leaving, the beggar seems a little frustrated.

“You must be lying, you are the prince, surely you must have something you can give.” Odysseus shakes his head

“No i'm afraid i really don't have anything i could give you” At this the beggar becomes angry

“Is this how the prince of this kingdom treats those less fortunate? You have so much wealth and power and you still won't share it with a poor beggar? You are greedy and do not deserve to be royalty! “ The beggar then storms off leaving Odysseus stunned.They end up trying to forget about what had happened but Eurylochus senses something is wrong with Polites.

Polites leaves early mentioning he had something he needed to do while Odysseus also leaves to go home saying his goodbye. Eurylochus is about to go home as well when he remembers how Polites had seemed off somehow ever since the incident with the beggar. He finally decided to follow Polites home to make sure he is okay.

As he comes by an alley way he hears a struggle and he goes to check it out. He finds someone holding a knife dripping with blood and- is that a body?! Eurylochus quickly hides as the killer turns around and suddenly he can't breathe.

This can't be right, that isn't Polites. Eurylochus is not able to understand what he is seeing. It may look like Polites but those eyes were ice cold and uncaring nothing like the warm brown eyes he has always had.

Eurylochus feels like he is in the presence of a predator and turns around running as fast as he can. He never told anyone what he had seen.

He shakes himself out of the terrifying memory. He never wants to see that look on Polite's face ever again.He sees Nekros walking into the woods with Polites and despite knowing what will happen he can't bring himself to try and stop it.

Those eyes already haunt him and it wasn't even aimed at him; he would prefer not to get on his bad side.Besides Polites only does this to help Odysseus so it's not like he is in the wrong, right?

Despite trying to convince himself of that fact his heart feels heavy and inaction leaves him aching.

—-----------------------------------

Polites leads Nekros deep into the woods, filtering out anything the man has to say. When they were far enough away he abruptly stops.

“Hey Polites, what did you need to talk about with me that requires us to be so far from camp?” Polites doesn't turn around and Nekros feels a shiver go up his spine but he shrugs it off. It's just Polites, he would never be dangerous at least not to the crew.

“You know it's not very often that I get mad. I prefer solving problems without fighting. Everyone knows this but you have crossed a line.” Polite's hand rests on his sword

“Huh? What are you talking about? Oh you mean the trojan horse plan? I was just voicing my concerns” with shocking speed Polites has the man pinned to a tree. At last he sees Polite's eyes and Nekros can't help but tremble, staring with wide eyes into Polite's own ice cold and uncaring.

“Of course you're allowed to have concerns. I wouldn't have minded if that was all but you went too far. Odysseus is the reason so many have stayed alive, the reason you yourself have survived and yet you call him a coward? He has done so much more for this war than you have. Your arguing in front of the crew will cause problems for Odysseus and I can't let that happen.” Polite's gaze has a flash of fire in the icy depths and a sneer on his face.

“Nobody is allowed to disrespect Odysseus. Any last words?”

The man struggles to free himself from Polite's grip to no avail, his desperation only causing the hold to tighten.

“What would Odysseus think of you?! He would not agree to this!” Polites smirks before whispering in his ear

“What Odysseus doesn't know won't hurt him.” Polites raises the sword to the throat and with one slice it is over, Life blood draining onto the forest floor.

He lets the body fall to the ground making sure to wipe his blade on the man's clothes. He looks down at his own blood soaked clothes and proceeds to drag the corpse to a hollow tree, placing it inside hiding it from view.

He washes himself off in a nearby stream before replacing his clothes with blood free ones he had placed beforehand.

One last check seeing nothing out of place Polites heads back to camp satisfied with the fact Nekros would never be able to disrespect Odysseus again.

—------------------------------------------------------------------

Odysseus walks through the camp looking for Nekros when he runs into Polites and he immediately lights up.

“Hello Polites! Do you happen to know where Nekros is? I need to talk with him about yesterday.” Polites gives one of his sunshine smiles

“Don't worry i already talked with him about it. He won't cause anymore problems for you.” Odysseus relaxes

“Thank you Polites. What would I ever do without you?” Polites slings his arm on Odysseus’s shoulders

“Anytime my brother I will always have your back!” Odysseus laughs before walking off to make sure everything is still in order.

Nobody sees the quick flash of darkness in Polite's eyes. That's right as his star Polites will do anything to keep Odysseus happy and safe. If the star has to shine crimson sometimes then so be it.

[ro994art]

Minireviews of the Bluey Minisodes

Hello everyone! Here's another one of those rare text posts from me.

As most of you may know, I'm a Bluey fan. And as all Bluey fans know, today a new batch of Bluey shorts premiered on Disney+, also known as Minisodes (or previously "Bonus Bits").

And while most fans had likely already watched these minisodes, given how they came out nearly a month before in Australia, I myself chose to wait until they were available on Disney+ to watch them, in order to save myself the hassle of looking for them online. Call me lazy if you want, but I often find it trickier than it sounds like. 😅 Especially considering how quickly those tend to get taken down.

But I digress. I was going to do this on Twitter originally, but I thought it'd be more fun and easier to express myself without a character limit here. So, since no one asked for my opinion, I'm going to give it anyways! xD

⚠️ Spoilers ahead, of course.

Here are my brief(-ish) thoughts on each of the new 7 shorts that were released.

🍔 Burger Dog

I have a soft spot for any Bluey short or episode that shows the characters dancing, particularly if they showcase new dancesteps that hadn't been shown before and that isn't flossing. I just find it really adorable and well-animated, so I enjoyed this one.

Maybe this is coming from the perspective of a non-parent, and if I ever have kids I'll have a totally different opinion, but I personally didn't find the song THAT annoying xD At least not for a first time listening to it. If it were the 15th time they'd had it on, I'd understand Bandit's position, but if it really was the first time he heard it, I would've at least let Bluey and Bingo finish the song if I were him. But again, that's just me, and it's not like what Bandit did was anything too terrible, nor am I mad at him for it. Just giving my opinion here. 😅

Oh, and the ending made me chuckle. Clever girl, Bingo. 😉😂

🤖 Bingo 3000

Not really much to say about this one, other than it was cute xD It reminded me a lot of "Daddy Robot", but with the roles reversed. Honestly, the final scene of Chili calling Bingo 3000 with her arriving super slowly because her legs are still stuck and Bandit's all "Don't get me started" was my favorite part. 😝 Overall, it was fine.

🚚 Muffin Unboxing

DEFINITELY my favorite out of this batch xD Muffin may not be my favorite character, but she is definitely the most entertaining one, and I always love seeing her show up because you just KNOW some hilarious chaos is about to ensue. 🤣

What can I say? This minisode was classic Muffin from beginning to end. Her having a toy review channel just makes too much sense and I never knew I needed it until now xD Something else I loved about this one was seeing Stripe's poor video editing skills once again, with him leaving in parts of the recording that were definitely meant to remain on the cutting floor. 😂 Very "Bumpy and the Wise Old Wolfhound," which is amongst my favorite episodes, so you know I loved seeing it.

And of course, I can't stop mentioning and appreciating Socks, my favorite, getting a cute little cameo at the end, and getting at least one line! AAAH! She's always so cute, I love Rock-Socks, you do you babygirl :'3 (And the ending was hilarious of course xD Again, classic Muffin)

I want to petition Ludo Studio to make a "Muffin's Toys" shorts series where we see Muffin parodying various types of YouTube Kids videos. Like, imagine Muffin doing challenges or a DIY? I feel like we need that. At least I do. 😜

📄 Letter

I liked this one quite a lot as well. Always love seeing tidbits of the parents' childhoods. And even though this wasn't on the same levels as "Fairytale" or "Dragon" when it comes to flashbacks or revelations, it was still pretty sweet to watch.

Little Bandit's spellings made me chuckle xD I also weirdly like how it was revealed that he used to have a bird, mostly because it reminded me of a few pet birds my grandma had when I was little. I got a bit worried that Chris was going to get sad or offended about Bandit's comment on her cooking, but glad she took it with humor. 😜

I know Bandit never really liked his artstyle, but honestly, I find it kind of charming and cute. And pretty good for a five-year-old. 😉

🍴 Hungry

Another one that was just okay for me, personally. I mean, Bandit playing like this with the girls and making them laugh is always adorable to watch. And the dad jokes were strong with this one. A lot of people are probably not going to like the gross humor, but eh, it honestly doesn't bother me.

So yeah, this was classic Bandit. I think that's all I have to say. 😅

🐷 Three Pigs

Since "Cinderella" was one of my favorites of the original batch of Bonus Bits, I had high hopes for this one. And well, I won't say that I was disappointed, because I wasn't really. I just didn't enjoy it as much as "Cinderella", mostly because this one felt a LOT more fast-paced, and I was having a hard time keeping up with Bandit's story at one point. Mmmh, is the duration of this shorter than "Cinderella"? I'll have to check it out, but I don't think it is, which makes the fact that it felt so much more fast-paced kind of interesting. 😅 Maybe he just spoke more, I guess.

It was still pretty fun. Bandit naming two pigs after the girls was cute, and sending the other one away to make things easier for himself was really funny. 😝 I wish I had his improv skills, not gonna lie. 😅 As a little side-note, I'm a bit surprised Disney didn't change or omit the "It's against my religion" line.

But yeah. Didn't like it as much as I would've liked, but still a good time.

🍃 Animals

I think this might be my second favorite out of these new shorts. Keep in mind that I was raised by a single mother, so as much as I love Bandit, I'm always going to have a soft spot for episodes that focus on Chilli hanging out with the girls in some way. 🥹

I don't know, I just found the game really cute for some reason. 🧡 It's so simple, and pretty much just an excuse to tickle Bingo in different ways, but I like how creative they got for each animal's walk. And from a character design standpoint, it made a lot of sense to make Bingo's back a "field". Like, for some reason, that made me chuckle, I don't know xD These dogs are so cubical, it felt logical, LOL.

Chilli's games have always been lot more, well, chill than Bandit's xD But I've always been a calm kid, and once again, they remind me of things my own mom and I used to play, so they resonate with me. Despite the surprising ending, this minisode was just very sweet. 😊

Final thoughts:

Even though there wasn't really anything that extraordinary about these minisodes, one must keep in mind that they're not really meant to be compared to the regular Bluey episodes, which themselves have set a pretty high standard. These are just bite-sized, mostly slice-of-life little adventures to keep us interested in these characters in-between seasons. I've always been a lover of simple slice-of-life stories when characters I love are involved, and I love these characters a great deal, so I'll always like seeing them in any capacity, especially in official productions.

I do wish we could get a few shorts of other secondary characters such as Bluey's school friends, Bingo's school friends, the neighbors, or even Rad and Frisky. But I do think more of these are coming, especially considering that some of the stills that have been released as promos (such as Chilli measuring the girls or them arriving at Nana's house and Grandpa Bob being there) didn't appear in any of these. So I have no doubt we'll be getting more minisode batches soon, and hopefully, other characters will make appearances similarly to how they did in the first Bonus Bits.

Any Bluey content is always a win for me, so I'm happy we got these. 💙

[vidjausers-fable]

PenPals(Veneer x OC)Chapter 3

Previous chapter

Author’s Note: No fanart this time but if you’re interested in seeing more check me out on Twitter, Tik Tok, and Instagram under Vidjauser! Thank you to my bestie, @tinalbion, for beta reading for me. <3

***

Veneer returned to the library for his rec time the next morning. He wasn’t sure where Velvet had gone for hers, if she even had anymore rec time left. She’d thrown a fit right before bed last night and kept everyone else up until 3 am, even Veneer. Guards didn’t take it kindly when they had tired and grouchy teens to deal with, so she was most likely back in their room.

When he was back in the library, it wasn’t hard to finish the rest of the letter. The blessed silence and the lack of Velvet’s presence helped him focus better, especially when she was always breathing down his neck, wanting to snoop. The hard part was not to overthink what he had written, and to give it to Linda to send out to Avery. The girl on the other side of the letter sounded nice, and seemed to have a unique life outside of this stupid facility. He ached for that kind of life, even if it wasn’t filled with fame or money. He just needed to get out of there. His tactics of actually trying to learn and listen was paying off while his sister was paying the consequences of being the rebel. 

Veneer read over the last part of his letter again. 

I can’t wait to get to know you better…I don’t know much to share about myself. I find myself discovering things I didn’t know about myself from when I was outside. I love fashion, I recently discovered. There’s these cool magazines—a bit outdated—and it’s fun to sketch the designs in them. Of course, I won’t take credit for them. Though I think it would be fun to explore fashion when I’m back out in the world. My counselor says I should consider looking into higher education for it. I’m holding out hope they would let someone like me in despite my track record. Can you tell me a little more about your job?

Until next time, 

Samson

Veneer was anxious about using a pseudonym, but after his and his sister’s scandal in Mount Rageous, he knew that his name would be known. Avery would probably call him names, or treat him like crap, and then reject him. He wanted her to get to know him first before he revealed his true identity. Other than his name, he was going to be 100 percent honest with Avery and luckily she was being respectful of how he felt about his lock-up. 

Everything in his letter was spelled correctly, and his writing was legible. Alright, he was ready to send it. He stood and turned to the guard who was posted at the front of the library. “I just finished my letter, can I leave my rec time early to drop it off to my counselor?” he asked.

The guard nodded his head, “Yes, but you will have to wait for someone to come here to guide you.” He took his walkie talkie, saying a code that Veneer didn’t understand. “Got an inmate here that needs transportation. Over.”

Inmate, Veneer hated that word. He liked how Linda called him a patient instead. 

The two of them waited until another guard was there. Veneer was guided to his counselor. Her door was closed at the moment, so it meant that she had another patient with her, so, he sat down patiently in the lobby chairs while the guard stood toward the door, his expression blank. Veneer had the time to wait, and he was feeling anxious about it, so he took out the letter and read it one last time as he waited for the door to open. 

It was twenty minutes before the door opened and one of the other patients he didn’t recognize left. Linda poked her head out after and smiled at Veneer. 

“Well howdy! You can’t seem to stay away, can you, Veneer? What can I do for you this morning?” she asked cheerily. She waved her hand at him, “Come on in.”

Veneer stood outside her door and held up the letter. “I…I finished the letter. I wasn’t sure whether I was supposed to take it to you or the mailroom.” He extended the letter out to the woman. “It’s ready to be sent out.”

Linda smiled softly and put her hand on the letter, pushing it more toward him. “Take it to the mailroom, sweetie. They’ll double check that the letter is appropriate to send, okay? Tell them that it’s for your pen pal and then your name. The address will be in their system, so they’ll handle everything else for you. Is there anything else you need before you head over there? I bet your pen pal is going to be excited about your letter.”

Veneer shook his head. “No! I think I’m okay. Thank you.” He smiled. “Yeah, I hope she’ll like it.” He turned toward the guard, who would then take him to the mailroom, which was close to the cafeteria; the smell of food was making him hungry for lunch. After he approached the counter, he had to wait a moment before the mail attendant came up to the little window. He was tall, pale from working inside all day, and dark haired. He was intimidating to Veneer so the male chewed his bottom lip nervously. He had never met any of the mailroom attendants personally. 

“What do you want?” he asked gruffly. 

“I have a letter to my pen pal attendant. My name is Veneer.” He handed the unsealed envelope. It was snatched out of his hands, so he took his hands back and tucked them behind his back. He then just stood there awkwardly for moment as the attendant held his letter in a way that didn’t make Veneer happy.

The mail attendant just glared. “What else do you want?”

Veneer froze momentarily. C’mon, no one was really as scary as his sister, so why was this guy making him feel so small?

Clearing his throat, he answered, “Is there…Possible incoming mail from my parents? I haven’t been told, but I thought it wouldn’t hurt to double check…If that’s okay.”

The mail attendant rolled his eyes and looked at the computer, his hands going to the keyboard before typing away fast. Veneer wasn’t sure how long he had been working that day, but he already looked like he was tired and wanted to go home and it was still the morning. “Name?” he grunted. 

Veneer answered with a gulp, “Veneer, sir.”

The attendant’s hands typed fast before he answered quite abruptly, “No.” He turned his back to him and returned to his work of sorting mail in the back, leaving Veneer’s heart to pound in his chest. Yeah, Linda was much nicer than whoever that man was. People who acted crappy for no reason were the reason he had some…anxieties.

A sense of disappointment swelled in Veneer’s chest as he stepped away from the counter, turning to the guard. He didn’t notice that his feet began to walk on their own, following the guard back to his cell since rec time was over. His mind was lost in thought about his parents. The moment he made his confession on live TV, there had been no turning back. Surely they had watched the whole thing and knew the truth. After that, they made one public statement that they would pay everyone back and never contact their kids again. Sure enough, that was what happened. Veneer had sent a couple letters, but who knew if they lived where they used to. Veneer never received a letter back from them. He never even got a phone call.

One of the vital steps in getting out of the Correctional Facility was to have a home already set up to move into when released. The facility refused to send anyone out to an improper home, or worse—the streets. Where would Veneer go if his parents had fully disowned him? He would have to learn to live on his own, especially since he knew that he would get out before his sister. He didn’t even know how to function by himself, let alone learn how to rent somewhere and be independent. He would ask Linda if there was a program he could attend to help that transition. 

Not long after, Veneer was back in his cell, sitting at his desk. Velvet wasn’t there, so he wondered where she had gone since she had still been there when he left that morning. He turned to the guard before he could wander too far from him, “Hey, where did my sister go?” he asked. 

“I dunno,” the guard replied, “Let me check.” He tilted his head away and pressed his walkie talkie, “Just wanted to double check the location of patient Velvet. She’s not in her cell. Over.” There was static for a moment before his expression changed entirely, worrying Veneer when he saw his eyes widen in surprise. “She what? Okay. Yes, I understand. Over.” He lowered his hand. 

Veneer now stood at the cell, his hands on the bars. “What happened to my sister?” he asked anxiously. The guard answered with a disappointed sigh, “She attempted to escape again, bud. She was on her way to a mandatory meeting with her counselor before shoving a guard and making a run for it. She only got far enough because when she pushed the guard, he hit his head on a metal pipe on the way down. Apparently he bled a little and he fell into unconsciousness. Luckily, he’s not dead.”

At the mention of blood, Veneer somehow paled. “She did…? Where’s she at right now? Is she going to be back?”

“She’s screaming and throwing a fit in a holding cell. Looks like you might have a day or two to yourself while she calms down and has therapy from within her cell.” He shrugged, “I dunno how that stuff all works anyway. You don’t want to worry about it, though I'll have to keep an extra eye on you a bit harder for now. Just a part of protocall.”

“That makes sense, but it’s not like I’m going to do anything. Man…I hope she’s not in too much trouble…” Veneer said the last part aloud but mostly to himself, allowing himself to step away from the bars. 

“I can’t disclose that information…but let’s just say she’s not going to be back for a few days.”

Veneer nodded. He returned to his desk and looked at Avery's first letter, admiring her handwriting. He realized that he wanted to write back to her already, as if the conversation they shared on paper would help him cope with what was going on right now, but it would be worthless considering he already sent a letter that day.

Veneer chose not to and took out one of the magazines he was allowed to bring back to his room, and read to calm himself down.

Why couldn’t his sister just behave?

***

After another long shift, there was nothing more that Avery wanted to do than stick her feet into a bucket of warm water with her Guinea pigs in her arms, and her favorite sitcom on the television. Her feet ached as she walked into the lobby of the apartments around ten at night. There had been plenty of workers to close that night, so she was sent home early since she came in early. The lights were dimmed and the volume of the TV in the community space was lowered to a single digit. There wasn’t a soul in sight. It was oddly peaceful. 

Avery took her key ring to the lobby, heading toward the mail room. The mail hadn’t been there before she left for work, which was common. Getting her mail, she gasped in excitement after she sorted through the mail. There was a letter from the correctional facility. Which meant she got her first letter from her pen pal!

“Oh my god! He wrote me back!” she gasped.

With a sudden burst of energy, Avery raced to the elevator, which took her to the third floor. She tried not to stomp around, as to not wake anyone up. She made it to her room without trouble and set all her stuff down on the ground next to the couch, sitting on the right side. She threw the other mail and bills to the end table and stared at the mail she wanted to read the most. 

Using as much self control as she could, she opened the envelope without tearing the inner letter. She was surprised the deeper she read into the letter. Samson…What a sweet name, she thought to herself, wondering what he looked like.

Somehow, the world felt less lonely just by reading this letter. She felt as though this pen pal program would be helping her as well. Maybe she would start to feel better about herself and everything going on.

Avery finished the letter and couldn’t stop smiling. It didn’t matter that her body was aching from work, or that her feet were sore from the skates. She was happy at that moment, learning more about Samson. She wanted to write another letter back immediately, and wanted to send it tomorrow. It already felt as though she could get used to this addictive feeling of positive attention from her new friend. She wanted to get to know Samson more. Maybe if they continued to hit it off, she could call or visit him. 

“Don’t think too far ahead…Don’t start making up silly little stories in your head.” She carefully folded the letter back up and slipped it back into the envelope, setting it aside. She still had to shower and get ready for bed before she got too sleepy. The letter would have to wait until tomorrow, even if she didn’t want to.

There were harmonious squeaking from across the room. Avery giggled and stood, going to her attention seeking little pets. “Yes, I know, I know. You want out, but it’s close to bedtime and I would have to put you back in less than a half hour. I’ll let you out tomorrow morning, and then you’ll be able to roam for hours!” She picked her two pets up and kissed their heads each and then put them back down. After that, she showered and went to bed. 

Tomorrow she had the night off for once, so it was a chore and errand day. Many thoughts ran through her head—what she had to do tomorrow, and what she wanted to write to Samson—but soon she fell asleep to the sound of rain playing through her phone.

Avery awoke to loud squeaking from the living room, and groaned. Great, the one day she didn’t have to set an alarm clock, and her pets woke her up. She sat up, sore from the night before, and slipped out of bed, sliding her feet into her house slippers so her feet were warm. “I’m commmmmmming,” she said to her pets, yawning at the end of the word. “You two are complete brats.”

Two blobs of fur were squished in the corner that was closer to her bedroom door. Seeing it made Avery giggle sleepily. “Alright, I’m not longer mad that you guys woke me up.” She took the Guinea Pig snacks that were set on the end table near their cage, where all their food and other supplies were located. She picked both up and sat on the floor, laying them in her lap. “Good morning to you two as well,” she chuckled, picking hay out of their fur as they ate the snacks. She had these two for a whole year, and they were her best friends. 

Smiling, she took a picture of them in her lap with her phone. “I’ll get these printed and send them to Samson. He might like you guys.” 

Avery set them back on the ground and took their food and water, throwing it out and replacing it with fresh food and water. They circled her ankles until she placed the bowls outside of their cage, letting them free roam while she did other things around the apartment. She was usually a clean person, so her chores didn’t take too long. What took the longest was the laundry, which luckily her unit had its own washer and dryer for everyone.

When all she had to do was laundry, Avery sat down with Samson’s letter and smiled as she read over it again, trying to plan what she wanted to write back. He deserved a long heartfelt letter, rather than a quick and lazy response. He liked fashion? That was an interesting take. That wasn’t something she would ever imagine from a male in a correctional facility. She wanted to ask him what his favorite sort of fashion was, and while she wasn’t too into the details of clothes, she did like browsing them. She made sure to take note of these questions on paper that she usually did her grocery list on. Which, by the way, she needed to get done before she threw anything in the washer. 

Avery held both papers in her hands and looked back and forth between the two. Well…there were a few things that she could get for a male. Was it too early to be sending gifts to him? Nah, she didn’t think so. After adding sketchbook, and fashion magazines down, she decided to go shopping for the male, wanting to make sure her next letter contained a present for him. 

A week had passed since Veneer had sent his letter, and since his sister had been placed into solitary confinement. Apparently the guard she had shoved needed a few stitches, so she was in extra trouble for getting the guard injured while on the job. He didn’t feel guilty for his sister however, it meant that he had a few days to himself before she could return. He knew the process—she’d been through it a couple of times now. She had to be evaluated for her mental stability and whether he would be a threat to herself or others. Though it had never taken this long before, and it surprised him. 

Veneer groaned as he flipped through his magazine for the fifth time. It was a few editions old, and it seemed that the Library was taking a sweet time filling his request for getting the latest editions for him to read. For now he was stuck rereading these ones, and by now he had every page memorized.

Veneer abruptly stopped when he came across a page with two familiar icons. Him and Velvet when they were popstars. When they were frauds. He didn’t like the memories that filled his head.

“Dammit…” He grumbled and flipped the pages closed, slamming his hand down on top of the cover. He was bored, and without much to do. He leaned on his elbow, his fingers tapping against his face. Could he request some TV time in the rec room? No, he couldn’t take advantage of his position as a model patient.

A guard approached his cell from the corner of his eyes, catching his attention. He looked for his sister everywhere around the guard and listened for her screaming, but there was nothing. The guard whispered something to the one stationed outside his cell, then left. Veneer stood as if he already knew that the guard wished to talk to him. 

Sure enough, he was right. The guard walked right up to the cell with something in his hands. It was a medium sized box. “Veneer, you have a package from the mailroom. Here you go.” Since Velvet wasn’t there, he was free to open the cell door and hand over the box to Veneer. 

Veneer frowned at first. A package? Who on earth would send him a package? He quickly shrugged off that expression and nodded, “Strange…? I don’t know who would even want to send me this. But thank you for bringing it to me. Did it just now come in?”

“It came in this morning, like all the other mail. Then the packages get checked for contraband, you know?” 

“Ah, yes…I forgot. I’m not exactly used to being sent mail you know,” Veneer sounded a little sassy, but honest. The guard didn’t seem to mind anyway and returned to his post, taking his rounds up and down the hallway now and then. 

Veneer slightly shook the box. It didn’t feel too heavy, but he was still curious about what was inside. His first thought was his parents—had they sent him something? No, he felt as though they wouldn’t, not without talking to him first. He sat down at his desk and opened the box, and gasped when he saw what was inside. There were magazines in plastic sleeves! The Library must have fulfilled his request for the new magazines he wanted! 

“Thank you, thank you, thank you!” He gasped, taking the magazines out without checking the rest of the box. Though there was something strange...Why would the Library send the request directly to him? He looked over to the guard’s post, wanting to ask him something, but the guard was not there. 

“Strange…But wouldn’t this go to the Library if I requested it there…?” he asked himself, and just in case, he made sure to take them carefully out of the plastic, afraid that the Library would be upset with him if he somehow destroyed the magazines before they even got them. He grabbed the box and picked it up to place on the ground, but it was still heavy. He pushed around the tissue paper inside when his eyes widened. 

There was more in the box. There was a whole sketchbook! When he delicately picked it up, he saw a letter down at the bottom of the box and a little note next to it that read: I hope I’m not rushing this forward, but I hope you like the gift. I think it’s unique that you like fashion and art. You don’t have to force yourself, but I would love to see anything you sketch! Love, Avery.

Veneer slowly cupped a hand over his mouth, feeling tears in his eyes. A gift? For him? He carefully peeled open the letter, which had photos of two cute furry creatures. 

Dear Samson, 

Yes, I know, it’s a bit too early to be sending a gift to you, but I just had to get these for you when I was grocery shopping. I think it’s amazing that you have a passion, and I want to help you be able to pursue it, even through these small gifts. So hopefully you can sketch me a new outfit or a better uniform for my work! I would draw it for you if I could, but my drawings are more like chicken scratch, but I’ll maybe send a picture so you can do it!

Veneer smiled at a badly drawn pizza with fat pepperonis and mushrooms to the side. 

These are pictures of my two piggies. Jams is my brown one, and Garry is the one with the multicolored patches. I’ve had them for about a year, but they’re my whole world. At the end of a long work day, I lay down and cuddle them for hours. I hope you think they’re cute!

Veneer smiled as he read the rest of the letter, keeping it to himself. 

[fellow-traveller]

A slight rant, I suppose. But it's more frustration than annoyance.

(under the cut because I don't want to spoil someone's day with this discourse)

I'm pretty much active in Twitter/X mainly because of the 1 Day 1 Hol Horse thing, but when I ventured deeper into the JoJo fandom, I realised the anti-proship discourse is just a huge WHY for me.

Like, why does this mess have to exist?

Why does one have the need to not interact with other fans in the same fandom, especially if they also share a similar preference?

Why can't everyone just like what they like, and leave what they don't, without harming actual fans, like sending death threats, trolling, doxxing, rallying hate etc?

To clarify, I've only known about this new definition of anti-proship about this year, when I got active again in the JoJo fandom. And it came to me in the form of being forced into a voting poll without my knowledge, and the fans that voted for or against my account labelled me a proshipper based on "problematic" fanarts from my Japanese friends and moots that I liked and shared.

It was the very first time I learnt what the bastardised definition of a proshipper is to these group of people.

Because during my anime/manga era, some good 20 years ago, proshipping basically means shipping whatever one likes and accepting that others may ship things one dislikes. We had terms like OTPs and NOTPs and BroTPs, and we use them freely to express love and acceptance, while also acknowledge what we prefer and what we don't.

Yes, there will occasionally be fans who will throw a tantrum about what others ship. They were the ones we call antishippers - the most intolerant of fans. They started ship wars, they send death threats, they doxx. They are the unhinged that most likely would kick a baby if given the opportunity.

Proshipper is actually a very positive word, and we love proshippers, because they're very tolerant, they work as middle men in ship wars, and by all things divine, most of them have really great artistic skills. Antishipper, nope, we don't want to be that. We hate that. We despise that.

But somehow the new generation seemed to shift the blame of all things bad on proshippers by changing the definition of it.

Depending on who you ask, proship could be a short to "proactive shipping", "professional shipping" or just "pro shipping" (as in pros and cons). All positive words. Now the new generation who most likely was never thought of how to explore fandoms at a young age, deemed proship as "problematic shipping".

The audacity to simply change the definition is palpable. Especially when I find out the kind of "problematic" things that they try to justify hating on.

Kids. Teens. Young adults. My dears.

Whatever "problematic" things you've seen in a fandom /ship /character now IS NOT NEW. It's not something that just happened to exist in a recent fandom to spite the younger gens. It has been there 20 years ago when I was underaged and older fans were making fanart of their favourites both "problematic" and not. Heck, probably way longer before for them as well.

If only you utilise some reading skills and maybe your library card, you can find the history of anime-manga was filled to the brim with "problematic" topics. It's a way of expression, it's a way of coping, it's a way of criticising certain factors like politics and people. Anime and manga has always been "problematic". That's a hard fact.

Virtue signaling especially if you're from the West is not gonna change that.

Also, I cannot stress it enough that fiction does not equate to reality. At best, it is an imitation of reality, in a form safe for consumption and indulgence that require no harm to real living beings. Once people can differentiate these, trust me, life will be so much easier.

While the definition of proship had seen a pretty twisted change, antiship didn't. They still did the same things, only now, the minors were dragged in.

Despite all, I won't deny there are absolute rotten eggs on both sides. There will definitely be proshippers who are so disturbing it scares even Junji Ito. There will also be antishippers who will do anything to spread more hate in the fandom, making it rather unlivable. And both sides have the capability to influence an attack on each other, or worse, take advantage of gullible, ill-informed fans, especially minors.

But if we stop lumping everyone into "proship dni" and "antis dni" lists, and openly, properly communicate and explore about likes and dislikes and preferences like old times, I'm sure complaints from antis like

"Why is this fanartist who draws / fan who like [insert ship] has to be a proship?"

"I like this fanartist's artwork but they are a proship, so now I can't see their stuff."

"There's not enough fanart of [insert ship/character]."

would be way, way less.

And I always wonder if these antis, who were mostly young teenagers of a sound mind, have a pending curiosity to explore something adult through fictional characters. Hence why, while they despise proshippers and anything not sfw, they still talk about it among themselves and draw lemony drawings, even to a detail I personally wouldn't share so openly. And why they still invade not sfw spaces even with a clear warning.

Because, I get that, I've been there, most likely as early as 12. Exploring sexuality is not wrong at that age, and it's already a correct method to use fiction for it.

But by pushing away people who had been there, who can actually help, is gonna continue making these antis be a hateful, intolerant bunch. And more easily influenced by actual real life predators.

And for the "proshippers", it's also pretty frustrating to see themselves being harrassed, blocked, and talked about behind their back from antis who never thought of maybe, just maybe, getting to know them first. Especially if they are not from the West.

So my advice to these antis and especially the antis who practically had no reason to be an anti, don't confine yourself into a small container and scream why it's too small. Fiction is there for you to explore reality and things that you can and will never do in real life. Exploring it is way better than suppressing yourself, as long as you know your own limits. Preference and discomfort are only evident if you communicate in a proper manner, not by bashing someone without them knowing and shift the blame of the discomfort you caused yourself on them when they had no intention to even present it to you.

We're in the same fandom. Sharing the same love for the same character and ships. I don't see why we should cut it down so meticulously just because one cannot separate fiction to reality.

As a pretty much seasoned anime-manga fan, especially in JoJo (I've been with the fandom since 2001, tbh), keep your mind open. Block and mute are always your friend if things get too overwhelming, but hatred shouldn't be the main motivator. Communication is key. If you want to know more, express your discomfort, discuss on characters / ships / fandoms...always communicate first. Never assume, never stab on the back. You might be surprised how helpful proshippers can be if you're just, for once, be nice.

That's all.

[fiction-box]

Leonie X Lorenz Pinch Hit

Happy February! I have been away from my computer these past few days, though when nearby, I've been working on this piece. Happy belated @nagamas to Kenzotenmas on Twitter! More pieces to come!

The story will be continued beneath the cut.

“Worry not! I will have any threat we run into removed in moments-”

“Or your name isn’t Lorenz Hellman Gloucester. Yeah, I’m well aware.”

The noble in question raised a brow, “Perhaps. Though some members of our number seem to need a constant reminder of the fact.”

This would be the first (and the last, as his partner had assured him) time that Lorenz and Leonie had been assigned the duty of border patrol since they had first reclaimed it from those bandit-pests. Nothing eventful had happened so far, though as the gentleman and the noble, Lorenz naturally insisted upon leading their path.

“I think I get more than enough of them, thanks,” the commoner woman quipped.

Lorenz nodded back at her, “In that case, why not put your lance away and relax a bit? I’ll happily handle any issues on the patrol-.”

“Or your name isn’t Lorenz Hellman Gloucester.”

“That was not what I was planning to say.”

Leonie rolled her eyes, “It may as well have been. Come on, if this is because I’m a girl, or because I’m some commoner you can’t risk being outdone by, I suggest you drop the act now. I’ll have you know I’m able to defend everyone else just as well as some stuffy noble. Honestly, you haven’t changed a bit since I last saw you.”

“E-Excuse me?”

He slowed his horse, allowing her to proceed next to him as he attempted to argue his point.

“I am only being considerate of you. You work hard enough as it is; there’s no reason for you to further exert yourself if it can be avoided.”

“So I can’t do the work, is that it? You’re fine on your own, and I can just head back to camp?”

Lorenz searched for the right words to say, “If that is what you want, I see no reason to stop you.”

“And what if I asked you to head back to camp?” she challenged.

He laughed, “How preposterous! I would never leave you to defend us on your own out in the woods.”

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. Wordlessly, Leonie’s face morphed into a scowl. She steered her horse in front of his own and cantered up ahead, continuing until he couldn’t see her anymore.

Shaking his head, Lorenz debated going after her. A true noble wouldn’t let her go off on her own to get hurt, but perhaps this could be a lesson for her. It wouldn’t get through her head, otherwise.

Although…he had found himself rather…unconventionally fond of her during their academy days. That attraction had only blossomed further at how she had matured over the years he had not seen her.

What was he thinking? Leonie had proven herself far more than capable of taking care of herself, and Lorenz was well aware of that. She tended to be far more independent than the women he would meet in the court; he should have known suggesting otherwise would be seen as an insult.

“Leonie!”

Lorenz charged his horse forward, attempting to catch up with the woman. He needed to apologize before their relationship became any worse than it already was. The last thing he wanted would be for her to think he did not value her.

It was just difficult with her. Everything came out wrong any time he opened his mouth to speak, it seemed.

The more he charged on without luck, the more confused he became. There was no way she could have gotten that far in the short time he had hung back to think.

Glancing around the forest, he caught sight of a shift in movement. The swish of the tail of Leonie’s horse. 

Relieved, he changed directions, heading toward that small clearing. Slowing down as he approached the animal, his entire complexion paled.

Leonie was not there.

He held his lance up in a defensive position as he anticipated an attack, looking from left to right.

“Leon-”

A shrill whistle interrupted his call, and his partner’s steed perked up. It galloped off further into the forest, Lorenz close behind as he gripped his lance tighter.

Reaching another clearing, the violet-haired noble identified the armor of three knights from the Empire. Granted, two of them were dead on the grass, but the third…

Leonie had the third pinned against a tree with the blade of her own lance.

“How many more of you are there?” she pressed.

“J-just us three! We were told nobody would be out here!”

The woman lowered her brows, “Tch! Then you were told wrong.”

With that, Leonie swung her lance around so that the wooden end knocked against the soldier’s head. He collapsed immediately, thudding onto the ground and dropping his sword.

Lorenz could only look on from the back of his horse.

“Some help you were. And after all that talk, too,” she scoffed at him.

“Three soldiers found you in the time you rushed ahead? And you didn’t think to call me?”

“I found them, and I wasn’t about to lose them to go cry for some help that I didn’t need!”

The dark mage sighed, relieved and frustrated at the same time. Was there truly no way to show that he cared for her well-being without her taking it as an insult?

“Think for a moment, Leonie! What would you have done were there more soldiers waiting out of sight? If there were ten soldiers instead of three, or archers in the bushes?”

“That’s why we go on patrol, genius! So that more than three never get this far!” she quipped. “Now if your noble hands aren’t tied, I could use some help getting this one back to camp.”

Together, they used their horses’ lead to tie up the surviving knight. He was then tied to Lorenz’s mare as the two prepared to return to Garreg Mach.

Leonie mounted her steed, “Honestly, my horse is a better patrol partner than you.”

“That is not fair in the slightest! Had you not…run off like that, I would have been right at your side for that skirmish!”

“Pssh, please! You know I’m just teasing.” She turned back to him, raising a brow, “Besides, I would hardly call that a skirmish.”

Lorenz frowned, “Be that as it may, I had originally meant to find you so I could apologize. I meant only to keep you out of harm’s way earlier; it was not my intention to insult you.” 

Leonie turned her chin up, but the noble didn’t look away, “I offer you my sincerest apologies.”

As he watched Leonie throughout his attempt to make amends, Lorenz noticed a faint blush spreading across his partner’s face.

“‘Out of harm’s way?’ We’re out here looking for trouble, not wildflowers.”

It was his turn to feel embarrassed, “I am well aware…*ahem* that is to say…”

“Look, apology accepted. All I want in return is for you to acknowledge that I can take care of myself. If you can handle something on your own, so can I.”

“Understood,” the violet-haired knight nodded. Truly, he did understand. But some part of him that he could neither identify nor stifle knew that he’d be just as worried if he found Leonie in the same situation again.

Perhaps this matter was better left dropped than pressured. He could better communicate his thoughts to her once they were back at the monastery. At least, if he could muster the courage (and if she would actually hear him out).

[fahrni]

Saturday Morning Coffee

Good morning from Charlottesville, Virginia! ☕️

Were four days away from what is the most consequential Presidential vote in my lifetime, perhaps the country’s lifetime.

Voting is the most important thing you can do to save our democracy.

I’ll leave it at that. I hope you enjoy the links.

Pema Levy • Mother Jones

Donald Trump may be a known quantity. He’s been a public figure for decades, a television star, and president from 2017-2021. But a second Trump term would present something the United States has never experienced before. Not a would-be authoritarian in the White House—that was Trump’s first term—but a would-be authoritarian who could actually accomplish the task of transforming the federal government into a tool of political repression.

Don’t vote for this man. He’ll destroy our country as we know it and turn it into a hellscape.

Sascha Pare • Live Science

High school students who came up with ‘impossible’ proof of Pythagorean theorem discover 9 more solutions to the problem

I love that a couple of high school kids figured these proofs out. Good for them!

Dave Winer • Scripting News

I’m searching for some common ground between the twitter-like systems, a basis for interop, a common API even. We had that for the blogging layer of this onion, something called the MetaWeblog API. All the popular blogging software supported it. And that meant you could write once and publish to many places. And you could write the script that did that in an afternoon or two. We started out with simple systems and the best of intentions. There’s no technical barrier. And we could do it in a few weeks at most if there was a will to do it.

I have thoughts around this as well that are built around Dave’s desire to use RSS to populate the various services. It deserves a blog post all its own. Maybe I’ll have enough gumption to do that someday. 😃

Matt Carroll • Flock

Over the years, Flutter has attracted millions of developers who built user interfaces across every platform. Flutter began as a UI toolkit for mobile - iOS and Android, only. Then Flutter added support for web. Finally, Flutter expanded to Mac, Windows, and Linux. Across this massive expansion of scope and responsibility, the Flutter team has only marginally increased its size. To help expand Flutter’s available labor, and accelerate development, we’re creating a fork of Flutter, called Flock.

This feels extremely ambitious to me and I fear it’ll fail. Hopefully it doesn’t cause a mess in the community.

Sidney Blumenthal • The Guardian

Donald Trump keeps saying that if he is elected to a second term he will prosecute his political opponents, “the enemies within”. On 22 October he stated, once again, that as president he would use “extreme power … We can’t play games with these people. These are people that are dangerous people … an enemy from within.”

This man is a menace and must be defeated once and for all. Kick him to the curb so, hopefully, he’ll get the idea he’s not wanted and go play golf for the rest of his miserable life.

Iain Thomson • The Register

Drivers passing through San Francisco have a new roadside distraction to consider: billboards calling out businesses that don’t cough up for the open source code that they use.

Some open source projects thrive and some struggle. If more companies would dedicate some resources to these projects it would be better for everyone involved. We don’t need more incidents like the person who snuck a back door into an open source project or just see them abandoned and left to bit rot.

Ahmad Shadeed

Currently, the CSS Working Group (CSSWG) is discussing whether to include masonry as part of CSS grid, or as a new layout module?

I like this, especially if the author(s) of masonry agree with the idea.

Louie Mantia

I wish there were more browsers, and I wish they were more unique. I appreciate that Arc attempted to innovate, but their ego and hubris are a little frustrating. They believe their product is so great that everyone should use it, including their own family and friends. However, when they don’t, they are left feeling perplexed.

I know lots of folks at work using Arc and they love it! I’m skeptical of it. Not because it’s different but because it’s built on Chromium and I don’t trust Google.

Tim Anderson • Dev Class

A Google engineer presented a proposal to the official standardization committee that would split JavaScript into two languages, a core to be implemented by runtime engines and a more capable variant which depends on tools that compile it down to that core.

I thought the idea of a core was Web Assembly? Maybe that’s too broad? I’d like to know more about what this proposal implies and how would it affect developers.

Michael Miszczak • Just a Pack

A couple of weeks ago, in a moment of caffeinated inspiration/despair, I sat down and wrote a long Facebook post as to why we were ditching Google and switching to DuckDuckGo. Today I want to dive even deeper into this topic, and give you a first-hand account of how Google is killing hundreds of thousands of blogs and small publishers.

Blogs were never really meant to be monetized but enterprising folks have figured out a way to do it.

Unfortunately relying on an advertising company’s search engine to surface your blog to users is risky, as the article points out.

My blog is for me and the ten folks who read it. It’s an outlet. Thankfully I don’t have to make a living from it. I’d starve.

Emma Roth • The Verge

Though Dorsey’s message didn’t specify how many employees would be laid off, sources told Fortune that it could be around 100 employees — or about a quarter of Tidal’s remaining staff. Tidal cut 10 percent of its workers last December, and Dorsey reportedly considered a major reorganization at Block in July.

A few years back, during COVID summer, I tried Tidal, Spotify, and Apple Music. Tidal isn’t bad at all. It’s another competitor in the big music service scene. Granted, it’s the smaller of the three, but the user experience at the time was perfectly fine and the music sounded just fine.

I landed on Apple Music, which has the worst user experience, because it is bundled as part of Apple One. It’s fine.

[casspurrjoybell-24]

The Alpha's Boy - Chapter 29 - Part 1

Book Two In : The Alpha's Trilogy

I saw Doctor Victor the next morning and he told me everything I had already known.

That the mating process had healed any scaring that was in my throat.

He had shown me old X-Rays and took another one where the scar tissue was now gone.

I felt relieved but there was still a part of me that was confused.

Why did I need to mate for this all to happen?

Why didn't it happen when I first phased.

A part of me knew that some questions wouldn't get answers and I was okay with that but at the same time, I knew it would be something that bothered me for the time being.

I sat in the quaint, popular Village Cafe.

I knew everyone here but yet I still felt like a stranger as I watched Riot walk over with our coffees in his hands, smiling as he set mine down on the table before taking his own seat.

"This place is beautiful," he commented before taking a sip of his coffee and humming in satisfaction.

"What time did Ivan say he was coming?"

I looked at my cell-phone for the time and gave a shrug.

Ivan didn't know about my voice and I didn't want to speak in public yet, the last thing I wanted was to draw attention to myself.

Everyone knew I was mute, I was the Alpha and Beta''s son, I didn't get much privacy when I lived here.

I was lucky to get away with half the shit I was getting away with before being sent to the farm.

"Should be any minute. he's not normally late," I mumbled, my eyes darling to the counter where two teens were chatting, neither of them paying attention to Riot and myself.

The words were hardly out of my mouth when the door chimed and I looked over to the familiar face of my best friend, Ivan.

He had dyed his hair a dark-green colour that had lhighlights and black roots, almost reminding me of a pop singer, I had seen on Twitter.

In true Ivan fashion, he didn't care what he wore, with a long marron skirt and a black vest over a darker shirt and tartan pants.

Everything he wore always looked so odd, yet so fitting, like nothing he wore could go wrong.

I stood up once his head turned in my direction, it was like a funny movie, Ivan let out a high-pitched sound before running over and hugging me, nearly lifting me off my feet as I wrapped my arms around his shoulders.

"I missed you so much. You look so good, Starfall. Gosh, you tan really well when you actually leave the house," Ivan commented, looking me over as he took a step back, with a playful smile.

Riot chuckled at the comment, causing Ivan to turn his head and look at him.

Ivan gave my mate a once over, before smiling and holding out a manicured hand.

"Ivan."

"Riot," he said, with an amused look on his face.

It made my heart jump in my chest, a bit.

I sat back down at the table and Ivan was quick to pull a seat up beside Riot so they could face me.

"Tell me everything."

'I wouldn't even know where to start,'  I signed but as soon as I finished Riot cleared his throat, his eyes telling me that he wanted me to speak.

He wasn't rushing me, I knew that but he also didn't want me to hide the fact that I had a voice now because as scared as it made me, he knew it made me excited too.

I wanted to shout from the rooftop, speak to everyone, rub it in but I was nervous.

I took a deep breath, I rubbed my hands on my knees, Ivan could see it, my nerves.

He looked at me, lifting a brow, waited for me to start signing, telling him what was bothering me but I never lifted my hands.

"Did you know when you get mated your old injuries heal? Because I didn't."

I watched as Ivan's eyes widened and Riot rolled his eyes.

"Jeez Starbright. How long have you known?"

"Well, I just told you I didn't."

"You know what I mean."

I bit my lip for a second before shrugging.

"Nearly a week."

"We had a phone-call just the other day. Are you telling me, you could talk the whole time?"

I nodded my head.

"It's not as big of a deal as it seems. Big whoop, I can talk. It's not like my voice was a totally fore-run to anyone. I can talk when I phase. Which by the way, I'm itching to do but besides that, it's not a big deal."

"It is a big deal," Ivan started.

"I know about the threat. Ellis told me. Think about it a little bit. That's one less thing they can hold over your head. Lucca has no holds on you anymore or Charles Maverick for that matter."

"I wouldn't say that they have no hold over me, just nothing physical," I interjected.

Ivan fell silent after that, I guess the realization of what I was saying was hitting them.

Yeah, Charles and Lucca had no physical bond to me now, that was great, I was happy about that, I didn't really think about that, I'll admit that but they still had a hold of me, of my wounded soul.

I still saw them when my eyes closed, when I was alone I could hear their laughter, their taunts.

I may not have any scars to show it but it was all mental.

I mean, I wasn't a drug addict for no reason.

"I want to run," I said, looking towards Riot, he nodded.

We spoke with Ivan for another few moments and then I gave my best friend a hug again before leaving with Riot and making our way back to the small space we were temporarily calling our own.

The back yard went to another street, unlike the house I shared with my Dads that opened into the forest.

We both changed into a pair of shorts, leaving our chests bare as we walked to the path that took us to the clearing.

I gave my Dads a quick text, letting them both know we were going for a run because as much as I had wished this to be a nice visit home, my life was still in danger somehow.

We walked in a comfortable silence until we made it to the clearing, I could sense the guards around us, hear their footfall in the distance.

I hated the idea of being watched, I mean if it was this easy to keep eyes on me at all times, why didn't my dads just do this instead of sending me away?

Not that I was bitter about that, my eyes fell towards Riot and I questioned.

How long would it have taken for us to meet if I hadn't been sent to the farm?

Would he have come here at some point?

Would I have gone to visit for the funeral?

I couldn't see me going to say goodbye to Nana, if I didn't know her and if Darren didn't want to push me.

I would have just stay home and gotten high.

What would have happened?

"You're off with the pixies, again, Starlight," Riot said, pulling me from my head.

I rolled my eyes, taking my shorts off.

"Yeah well, I've got a lot on my mind."

"I can always help you clear your mind. 'We have the technology'," he said with his cute little smirk, again.

I rolled my eyes but I smirked back at him as he dropped his own shorts and soon we were both running off into the woods.

[lindsaywesker]

Good morning! I hope you slept well and feel rested? Currently sitting at my desk, in my study, attired only in my blue towelling robe, enjoying my first cuppa of the day. Welcome to Throwback Thursday!

Many thanks to everyone that contributed to WEDNESDAY WORDS yesterday. There were some very cool submissions. Really beautiful words. I hope you enjoyed reading them and I hope they inspire you to read (and write!)

On this page, ‘Throwback Thursday’ is about memories. So, what do you remember? If I was to say the word KISS, what immediately comes to mind?

When I hear the word ‘kiss’ – no – that radio station does not come to mind! I’m over it! (When I finish my autobiography, you can read all about it!) I’d rather think about actually kissing! Ooh, yes, who doesn’t love kissing? Do you remember your first kiss? I think, for most boys, a game of ‘kiss chase’ is your first opportunity to kiss a girl. As you would expect, I suggested playing this game often, especially when I was in a mixed group of boys and girls. My first memory of this game was in my parents’ lounge at our house in Highgate. It was quite a long lounge with lots of furniture to hide behind and, to make it more interesting, we closed the curtains! There was a lot of laughing and screaming but – predictably – not a lot of kissing! We were just kids! Thankfully, I managed to attract a girlfriend at the age of 11 (she was 12) and we grew up together.

So, on this Throwback Thursday, what kind of memories does the word KISS conjure up for you?

It’s almost the end of the football season and – here we go! – reams and reams of crap transfer speculation. Some people enjoy it! I don’t. All I can tell you is: it’s going to be a summer FULL of dramatic transfers. Real jaw-on-the-floor stuff! Some of your favourite players are about to leave your club!

Working from home is all about discipline. If you currently spend days working from home, you know what I mean; all of your routines go out the window! I know your secrets! I know you don’t shower for two days. I know you wear the same underwear two or three days in a row! Ladies love working from home because, if they’re not needed for Zoom or Teams calls, there’s no need for a bra! We eat leftovers for breakfast, we order in junk food at lunchtime, we eat cookies with every cuppa; diet-wise, it's a minefield. Me? My secrets will be remaining secret although, for those that know me, you can just imagine what goes on! Clothes? Erm … not necessary! And, yes, I play my favourite Slave songs at high volume and shake my rump! The neighbours probably know every word of ‘Wait For Me’.

Needless to say, Wednesday was not a good day. We lost Annie Mae Bullock – better known as Tina Turner – at the age of 83. What an incredible woman! Deep into her seventies, she was on stage, wearing a mini skirt and dancing with more energy than most of us will ever have. She was making great R&B music before it became known as soul! Very wisely, she got the hell out of America, a black music market in which she would have been forced into a format. In Europe, she could make whatever kind of music she wanted. Europe allowed her to be the Tina Turner she wanted to be and allowed us to enjoy a truly unique singer and performer. On Twitter, Mick Jagger said, “She helped me so much when I was young and I will never forget her.” Personally, ‘Nutbush City Limits’ was the one for me. When I DJ’d at family parties as a kid, I always played that tune. If you get a moment, check out any video of Tina and Bryan Adams performing ‘It’s Only Love’. They clearly loved each other. Bryan will be devastated!

Have a throbbing and thrusting Thursday (with hopefully a few thrills through your thoroughfare?) I love you all.

[treadmilltreats]

Diving into the Hasidic community

I watched the Netflix documentary One of us, which shows the lives of Hasidic people who chose to leave the community. It's amazing that only 2% of Hasidic ever leave the religion.

Growing up in upstate New York I have known this community for many years. They came to our town for the summer, every summer. Last summer I was home with friends who grew up elsewhere. They were so curious as they had never seen a Hasidic before.

I thought I knew a lot about their culture but seeing this documentary made me realize that so much more happens in that community than any of us, from the outside world realizes.

I already knew that women are treated like second-class citizens but didn't know that they are only taught the basics in school and only until a certain age as women are only needed for childbirth and rearing children. They are also only taught about their community and religion as this is their way of keeping these women stuck there.

But it may surprise you that they do that to the boys as well, to keep them in the dark about the outside world and how to survive in it.

I knew that women shaved their heads when they got married as hair is your beauty and no other man should see it. But I didn't know you had to wear tights, not skin color, that you aren't allowed to have any say in any matters, and that you must obey your husband no matter what.

These people that have decided to leave the religion have had it tough as once you leave you are considered dead to everyone, even your parents and children. Women who usually have 5 or more children are left penniless without education to rely on.

And if that is not bad enough the community comes together to pay for a high-priced attorney to make sure that they get the children and they are not going to grow up in the sectoral world. They even have a law that is called status quo which means the mother must not change anything, her clothes, her hair, or who she interacts with. It's impossible to do that when you are trying to start a new life outside of this religion and most women lose their children. This was the saddest part for me because you don't want to be controlled anymore, you will ultimately lose your children.

So today my friends, remember we don't know what others are going through. There is so much pain and suffering that people go through that we never know of. Because of that, we should always be kind to others, and learn about their religion or cultures so this way you know what is going on.

"Be the change you want to see"

@TreadmillTreats

"Be the change you want to see"

@Treadmilltreats

"And just when the caterpillar thought his life over...he turned into a beautiful butterfly"

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[dreamcatcherrs]

dating a faceless streamer/youtuber; mcyt x reader

+ this was a request, but it got deleted in my drafts ;-; sorry!

dream:

since he is also a faceless youtuber

he’s very understanding of keeping your privacy

and whatever reason you have to not reveal your face, he respects it

he knows what it’s like to have people tell him to face reveal

sometimes his voice will just appear in the back of your streams/videos

like in sapnap’s with the question about one direction

and chat is like, how long has he been here?????

the two of you would hint at a face reveal

and then after weeks brush it off like it was nothing

because you like to torture the fans, I guess🙄

because dream never has a face cam on

he has the perfect seat for you on his lap whenever he streams/films

and the same thing goes for when you film/stream; he’ll be sitting right next to you with his hand in yours or on your thigh

you’re known as the faceless couple

georgenotfound:

it really doesn't bother him at all that you’re a faceless streamer/youtuber

I don't see him as the type to post a whole lot of pictures with his s/o anyways

or something along those lines

so it wouldn't make a big difference to him

would just think it was funny to tease chat about knowing what you look like, when they don't

and then having them just hear you voice in the background of his videos sometimes

but not actually seeing you

he kinda likes that your relationship is more concealed

and that it’s harder for people to come at you when they don't know what you look like exactly, just because he’s dating you

because that would honestly be his biggest worry when revealing your relationship

so he’s happy that’s one less worry :)

sapnap:

does everything to not get people to beg for a face reveal

he doesn't want people to put that kind of pressure on you

especially if they go after you for it just because you're dating him

like, he will make a video about it if he has to

or tweet about it

the last thing he wants is for the fake fans to try and reveal your face or other things about you

when clearly that’s what you wanna keep private

that being said, he’d do so many streams with you

wether it’s gong against each other, or being on the same team

you always have so much fun together

even if you're literally in the same room together

if his face cam is on, he’d look over at you every now and then and send you a smile or some shit like that

there’s some pretty cute moments - expect a compilation

badboyhalo:

bad would be really proud to have an s/o who did youtube/streamed

and he would for sure help you out if you ever needed him to!

like with coding

or just general growth in your channel

wouldn't really care if you showed your face or not - whatever you're happy with makes him happy

he would just make sure that you never felt pressured to show your face

he knows people out there can be meanies

and come for you just because you don't show your face

and he’d always be there to talk to about it if it ever stressed you out

he would also make sure that you didn't hide your face because you didn’t like it or something like that

and if that was the case, you bet he’d be reassuring you

calling your all kinds of sweet things and show you lots of love

he takes lots of pictures of his two favourite girls

you and rat, of course (without showing your face, obviously)

technoblade:

he actually really likes that you're a faceless streamer/youtuber

like, he doesn't notice how much he likes it

before he realises all of the times you'd sneaked some hand-holding while streaming, or shared little kisses when on mute wouldn't have been possible if you both didn't show your faces

you’d share these secret glances when streaming/filming together

and no one would even know about it

sometimes his chat hears a little talking in the background from you

but techno just brushes it off like you weren't sitting right next to him the entire time

and vice versa

he also just stays with you when you're working

sharing small touches and words

chat also notice eventually how much you gush over each other without noticing

it happens A LOT more than you realise

especially from his side🤭

wilbur soot:

okay so

I think wilbur would have a hard time not showing you off to stream every second of the day

he would just always talk about you and want you there with him in his streams

and miss your touch after 5 minutes of being apart

but would be totally respectful of you wanting to remain faceless

he would just talk to you from an angle where chat couldnt see you

but yeah, he loves that you do the same type of job as him

and most of all, you motivate each other on days where you can't be bothered to even get out of bed

you’re definitely that couple that everyone makes cute compilations of

and that everyone strives to be

chat loves you, what more can I say

corpse husband:

ANOTHER FACELESS COUPLE

the power you two hold over everyone is actually immaculate

you stream/film together all the time

just having fun and being yourselves

he would definitely ask if you could join the games he plays with others when streaming

and if that wasn't possible, he’d just get you to come into his room and be part of it that way

he teases you a lot on stream

both cutely and mischievously

and your viewers are like👀

while his chat is just going crazy

you share lots of giggles

like, seriously, the majority of the videos/streams consists of you two laughing your asses off

you two will forever be known as the faceless couple

even if you both face reveal, that’ll always be your title

skeppy:

zak will find a way to show you off no matter what

he just can't resist

the way his heart is always beating out of his chest because of you is just too much for him to not ever show you to the world

but of course with your consent only

he wouldn't ever pressure you or anything

but since you're only remaining faceless

you can expect LOTS of matching outfit pictures taken in the mirror

and just lots of pictures of you in general

with your face blocked out or not in view, of course

you'd always be helping each other with your setups or videos

and he’d want to introduce you to literally everyone he knows

especially bad

you don't necessarily stream/film a lot with each other

but you're always in each others’ company in some shape or form

he always mentions you in his streams

just small stories or conversations

chat can tell he’s head over heels for you

karl jacobs:

he's the most support person everrr

he’d always be celebrating even the tiniest achievements with you

you hit 2k subs? he’ll treat you to an expensive ass dinner

you hit 1 million subs? he’ll buy you a whole room full of filming gear to improve from your previous ones

you managed to finish that one video you've been struggling with? he takes you on a weekend trip to somewhere you’ve always wanted to go

he’ll beg you to join him in is streams

just so he can hold your hand :)

or laugh with you every once in a while

he doesn't need you to face reveal at all

your company is all that matters to him when it includes the rest of the world

I mean, he’s the one able to see your beautiful face all the time, so he can't really complain even if he felt like it

always tweets about you or tweets things at you that only you two understand

and everyone is like ?????

but you don't care :)

fundy:

fundy actually doesn't talk a lot about you in his streams or videos

mostly to avoid people leaving bad light on you in the chat

unless he’s in the same game as you, of course

which in that case, the first thing he’d want to do is find you and talk to you in the game

he’s very respectful of you keeping your face private

and tries his best to keep the pressure of a face reveal off your shoulders

especially if it’s happening in his or your comments

if it gets really bad, he’ll eventually talk about it on twitter or something like that

does tiktoks with you

only with your voice though

and posts manyyy pictures where you’re tagged, but only slightly in view

he doesn't really care about your face being a secret

as long as he gets to see it, he’s happy

quackity:

alex has so much fun making videos or going live with you

and obviously you have the best collabs

you’re the funniest couple on the platform and it shows

he would talk so much about you - like, telling embarrassing stories about you or some shit like that

or saying how clingy you are with him

and chat would be like AWW HE TALKS ABOUT THEM

and he's like “no”😤

but alex can't fool anyone

he’s in it for real with you🥴

and at times, he doesn't even try to hide it

especially when he speaks up about ho proud he is of you

and how people should respect your choice of remaining faceless to the world

but then he quickly moves on to his silly self again

with blushy cheeks ^w^

punz:

has you on his lap constantly

even when his hand-cam is on

nothing will stop him from making you sit on his lap while he’s streaming

he loves that he can rant to you about the problems he faces sometimes concerning his streams

because you get it

he’d teach you the games you didn't know of

and you'd teach him the games that he didn't know of

and then you'd stream/film together after learning the basics

he doesn't talk about you a lot on stream

but chat eventually figures out it’s because you're literally in the same room as him

and how do they find that out, you may ask?

well, your snores coming from his headphones made it very obvious to say the least

awesamdude:

sam knows what it’s like being a faceless streamer

so if you wanted, he’d give you all of the advice you needed

and if you ever considered face revealing, he'd totally help you!

you guys have matching setups 

you sometimes talk to each other across the room as you're playing the same game together

because it’s funny to tease chat that way

you’d be posting pictures on social media

that give off hints that you're with each other a lot

like, in one photo he’s wearing a hoodie

and the next day, you post a photo of you in that exact same hoodie

stuff like that

he also celebrates big and small achievements with you

wether it be you achieving them or him, you always celebrate together

eret:

matching. outfits.

STRAWBERRY DRESSES

PLATFORM HEELS

ahhhh chat would be going absolutely crazy at the fits you guys have sometimes

and you're always matching

as in always

he tells their stream that you have a matching crown like his

but that chat obviously can't see it on you because you don’t have a face-cam

she likes telling stories about you

like, memories they have of you two together

and he just always compliments you and praises you for your hard work on her streams

telling everyone how happy you make them

she also always invites you to join his streams because it means a lot to them that you're there :)

jack manifold:

jack is so excited about the fact that you're also a streamer/youtuber

it makes it easier to open up about your relationship online

because some people already knew you before you revealed you two were dating

though I feel like jack would kinda like the secrecy of your face online

just to brag to his audience about how he gets to see your face every day

but also because he likes that there’s more privacy for you

sometimes he’d pop into your room without knowing you were streaming/filming

and would just start talking to you while you giggled about how you were “kinda in the middle of something”

when jack realised what you meant, he’d hurry out of the room in an instant

you’d always be in each others chats/comments

showing what a supportive couple you were

he always raids you at the end of his streams if you’re streaming at the same time

tommyinnit:

tommy always forgets that you're a faceless streamer/youtuber

and is sometimes sooo close to blurting out something he shouldn't

because he’s so used to seeing you, he just kinda forgets that no one else can

you always have to send him a text to “sToP TalKIng AbOUt yOu” so he doesn't accidentally reveal something

that being said, he literally talks so much about you

again, I’m bringing up that time he said that tubbo is so clingy

he says the same thing about you

but he’s really the clingy one, and it’s pretty obvious

you catch him saying things like “yeah, y/n is really cool”

or “guys, please don't say stuff like that to y/n”

getting all serious and shit🥺

he asks you constantly if you can join his vc

even when you're busy, he’s like “pay. attention. to. me😤”

it’s really entertaining sometimes

especially when his streams just consist of you two bickering the whole time

calls you his favourite woman

tubbo:

ahhh tubbo is so sweet when it comes to you

like, when anyone mentions you he just starts smiling

and wants to tell everyone about you

even if they already know you from your channel

he just can't help but ramble on about you

especially to tommy

he replies to all of your tweets

and you reply to all of his

you always feature each other on your channels/streams

and share a celebratory cake when reaching subgoals

sometimes chat notices similarities in your layouts

like a colour change

or a similar pattern

posts a photo of your pinkies intertwined

wearing matching bracelets you made yourself

and everyone finds it super cute<3

ranboo:

he would encourage you so much to join his videos

and wear the same type of outfit to cover your face with

but with a sense of yourself in it so you'd look similar, but not exactly like each other

you'd be matching outfits so often

doesn't talk a lot about you on his streams

apart from mentioning how short you are

but on TWITTER

that's a whole other story

his twitter has practically just become a fan account of you

he’s always in your comments

just to leave a :)

or a supportive comment

if you ever wanted to do a face reveal

he would do it with you if it meant making you feel more comfortable about it

or less nervous

you’re just very lowkey and cute

___________________________________

tag list✰

@zayenz @terribletoothbat @0t0n1n @0125cm @yukiuheh @shinee-is-5-forever @regularnoceur @b01nk-b0w@christhebish@nutritious-emo-crackkk@bookishreid@giavanna-707 @reddiesmcdonalds@cosmins@vixxzial@autumnpleaves@paradigmax@meaganjm@shiningsunrises@moralofwalls@username1212131@gxldentaestuff@innitdream @televisionpresent38 @bubblyanis@zurami @highoffhockey @popinjaytaylor@196os@livsbaby@doubts-of-gold@bunlina@retrav @mcyt-is-my-life@aleaisntcreative @my-shitpost-of-writing @my-shitpost-of-writing @clownsdrowning @pissbabywastaken@shiningsunrises @tie-dyed-dumbass @death-by-rats@simpfordraco @bippity-boppity-boopa@neongreendaydreams  @vibin-by-myself@littlepotatos0w0@christhebish @pipp-poppz@btsiguess-kpop@prettysmallfries@hiyoko-kos@kenmxskitten@fudrudy@weepingartanimespy@rhino-zucchini@goldenstarofthunderclan@melonmarz@ubeicecreamisthebest@polaroidinurroom @ady-yoo@isimpforeveryone@edenhollandd@ineedtogetoutofhere@glitter-night @hamilsandersfam@mothheart-witch @wrong-exit@trashcanfullofdork  @hellfirepheonixx @marshmallow-babe@isimpforeveryone @ky50621 @randomcloud@wormie4k@dinonuggies50  @p4rty-t4ttoos@aspenthegremlin@book-of-anarchy @jeyacore @thetattooink@gogywasfound@millavalntyne@junob1ade@ubeicecreamisthebest@karida @i-have-paws-love@drvgonraja@eatasslikegrass@creamofweep@venusomega@lunarfedora@rowe-n @wreny24 @vincent-stargogh @floatingplanets​ @vernon-dursley​ @childhoodgrunge​ @fivxss @hexagonclash​ @crazyjuls12​ @littlebabysandboxburritos @shifted-dreams@lenamarie666 @reinyrei @sozvuchiy @weaslvy-mxlfoy​ @aiofheavenandhell​ @honeyglaazed @carisle-mikealson​ @ineedtogetoutofhere​ @twist3dtinkerbell@cracraforfandoms@angel-dazey @leia-starly @smiithys​ @squiddyyyy​ @c0wc0ww​ @animeweeb019284​ @m00-bl00m-k0le @stqrs-thoughts @jenlouvre @uhhhguiltypleasures​ @trappedchest​ @punzrights​ @trashgremlin36​ @cyberrsoot​ @elebeleb​ @k3nn3dis-crap​ @karlshoodies​ @rascal-in-banishment​

[sluttywonwoo]

pretend || j.ww x reader

Summary: reading thirst tweets with your co-star/boyfriend’s best friend makes things a little tense

Warnings: swearing, smut mentions (18+)

Word Count: 1.8k

a/n:  originally posted on my tom holland fic account ( @wazzupmrstark )

Masterlist

The sound of Mingyu cracking his knuckles next to you sent a shiver down your spine, making you cringe instinctively. You turned to glare at him and leaned away from the noise.

“I hate when you do that!” you groaned.

He smirked. “I know, that’s why I like doing it.”

You looked over at Wonwoo, who was sitting across the room with the crew, and pointed to Gyu. 

“Can you tell your best friend to stop being annoying?”

“Can you tell your girlfriend to stop being dramatic?” Mingyu retaliated.

“I’m not picking sides!” Wonwoo shouted back and held up his hands in surrender.

You let your jaw drop. “I’ll remember that, Jeon.”

“Baby, I-” Wonwoo started to defend himself, but fell silent when the producer got up from her chair and approached you and Mingyu who were sitting behind the camera. 

“Which one of you wants to take this?” she asked, holding up a large insulated jug full of paper strips. 

“I’ll take it,” Mingyu offered and set the cup in his lap. 

“What a gentleman,” you said, fighting the urge to roll your eyes. 

“You’re lucky you’re pretty,” he muttered, “because you’re so fucking annoying.”

“Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

The producer gave you both a sideways look. “Are you guys alright? Should we take a minute before starting?”

“No, we’re fine,” you assured her.

“We don’t actually hate each other,” Mingyu added, “this is just how... we are.”

She didn’t look any less concerned, but nodded anyway. “Okay, well remember what your director said about playing up your chemistry to promote the show. And when we call action just give a quick slate and start reading the tweets.”

She walked back over to her spot next to the cameraman and took a seat before looking over a checklist that had been handed to her and writing some notes on it.

“Nervous?” Mingyu whispered to you as you both waited for your cue.

“A little,” you admitted. “You?”

“I’m a bit on edge,” he concurred. “Mostly because your boyfriend is about to watch me read filthy comments about you on-camera.”

You glanced over at Wonwoo who gave you an encouraging smile and a thumbs-up. “He’ll be fine. How bad can they be?”

From a distance, the producer you had just spoken to called for everyone to be quiet on set and signaled the cameras to start rolling. You perked up and straightened your dress, waiting for Mingyu to take the lead. 

“Hi guys, I’m Kim Mingyu.”

“And I’m y/n y/l/n.”

“You might recognize us from our new Netflix series, Breaking Curfew, where we play opposite each other in what you might call a... complicated romantic relationship.”

“We’re enemies with benefits,” you summarized. “And today we’re here with Buzzfeed to read thirst tweets about each other.”

“Ladies first,” Mingyu said and held the cup out to you.

You closed your eyes and sifted through the strips of paper with one hand, selecting one at random. 

“Okay, this one’s about you. ‘Kim Mingyu has the prettiest eyes’.” You grinned as you watched your co-star’s cheeks turn pink. “He’s totally blushing right now! We haven’t even gotten to the good stuff!”

“Thank you very much to whoever tweeted that,” Mingyu said and cleared his throat. 

“I agree with this person,” you continued, “you do have really pretty eyes.”

“Aw, thank you, y/n.”

“You’re welcome.”

“My turn.” Mingyu closed his eyes and rummaged around the cup before picking one. “‘Someone tell y/n y/l/n that I’m single and I get a discount at Olive Garden if she ever wants to let me take her out on a date’.”

You chuckled. “I do like Olive Garden.”

“She’ll get back to you on that one, mate,” Mingyu said quickly and let the crumpled piece of paper fall to the floor. 

You took that as a sign to move on so you reached into the jug and pulled out another tweet.

“Oh, this one’s about me again. ‘Y/n y/l/n scissor me challenge’.” You clapped a hand over your mouth in shock and thrust the slip of paper towards Mingyu.

“You know what, props for being so bold. What do you think, y/n? Are you going to take them up on the offer?”

“I’ll think about it,” you managed to choke out, sending Mingyu into a laughing fit. You fanned yourself with your hand as you tried to recover and motioned for your co-star to read another one. “Your turn.”

“‘Kim Mingyu and y/n y/l/n are my dream celebrity threesome,’” he read. “What a compliment, don’t you think?”

“Oh, for sure,” you agreed and winked as you held your hand to your ear in a call me motion. 

“These are just getting more and more vulgar, aren’t they?” Mingyu asked. 

“I don’t know that anything can beat the scissoring one,” you pointed out as you fished another tweet from the bucket. “Another one about Mingyu, okay. ‘I wanna suck Kim Mingyu’s soul through his dick then spit it back in his face’.” You blinked at the piece of paper in front of you in shock, scanning back over it to make sure you had read it right the first time. “Jesus... christ.”

Mingyu smirked and nudged your shoulder with his. 

You ignored him and pointed a finger at the camera in disgust. “I cannot believe you made me read this with my own two eyes. I could have lived my entire life without seeing those words in a sentence together!”

“I think that’s the best compliment I’ve ever received,” Mingyu countered, running a thumb along his jawline cockily. 

“No, I have beef with whoever tweeted that now.”

“You’re just jealous that I like this tweet better than the threesome one.”

You sighed. “This interview was a bad idea. Your head is already so god damn big.”

Mingyu opened his mouth to retaliate, but paused like he had thought better of it and took a deep breath to compose himself. 

“Anyway, moving on.”

You watched as he sifted through the tweets and chose one from the bottom, reading it to himself and grinning slightly before reading it aloud. 

“‘Petition for y/n y/l/n to start an OnlyFans because I just know her tits are incredible. I can feel it in my bones’.”

You brought your hands up to your boobs self-consciously and laughed. “I don’t know about that, but thank you.”

“I’ve seen them,” Mingyu added nonchalantly, “and I can confirm that twitter user ‘geminisuns’ is correct.”

“Mingyu!” 

“What? Do you know how many sex scenes we had to shoot? We’ve seen each other naked plenty of times.”

You looked back over to the crew and made eye contact with the producer. “Do you see what I have to deal with?”

“Maybe we should take a quick break,” she suggested and motioned for the cameras to stop rolling. “Get a drink, freshen up and be back here in five.”

“Do you think they’re going to use that part?” Mingyu asked as he followed you over to the water cooler. 

“I don’t know, dude,” you sighed in annoyance, “but great fucking job. The whole world already thinks we’re boning.”

“I don’t know about the whole world.” You glared at him. “Wonwoo knows we’re not.”

Wonwoo. You had nearly forgotten that your boyfriend was there on set with you. You looked around for him, and saw him still sitting in his designated guest chair looking at his phone. You could only imagine what he must be thinking of all of this. You should probably say something to him. 

You told Mingyu that you’d be back and made your way across the room to Wonwoo. Even from a distance you could tell that he was upset. 

His knuckles were pale and his jaw was tight. He didn’t look up at you when you approached him. 

“Sorry this is taking longer than expected,” you said, brushing a stray curl out of his eyes. 

“Don’t worry about it,” he murmured in response, still not looking at you. 

You sighed and draped yourself across him, slinging your arms loosely across his shoulders as you leaned down to see what he was doing on his phone. He was scrolling aimlessly on Instagram, not even liking any of the posts. 

“If you’re bored you can leave,” you said curtly and stood back up. 

“I’m not bored.”

“You’re not even paying attention to the shoot.”

“Trust me, it’s impossible not to. I’ve been trying to tune it out for the past ten minutes with no luck.”

“Why would you not want to pay attention?” you demanded even though the answer was sitting right in front of you. “This is a big deal for me.”

Wonwoo swallowed and finally looked up at you. “I know, baby. It’s just- do you know how hard it is to listen to my best friend talk about doing all of these dirty things to you-”

“He’s my best friend too,” you pointed out in a quiet hiss. “The only reason we’re together is because of him.”

Sometimes you felt the need to remind Wonwoo that you had known Mingyu longer than you had known him. If Gyu hadn’t brought him to set all those times back when you were filming in the fall, you wouldn’t even know about each other’s existence. 

“I know that.”

“You’ve done interviews like this before,” you argued. 

“I know,” he repeated.

“Then why are you being like this?” He didn’t answer, so you kept going. “You know my bare ass has been on tv, right-”

“Don’t,” Wonwoo warned and grabbed your wrist.

You gasped and flexed your fingers gingerly in his grasp, challenging him. “Don’t what?” 

“Y/n,”

“Don’t... act like I want to fuck your best friend?”

He narrowed his eyes at you. “You’re enjoying this.” It wasn’t a question.

“Don’t pretend like I’d rather fulfill those tweets with him instead of you? Give the people what they want?”

You had to bite your tongue before you went any further and said something you might regret. Your words had already had the desired effect. You didn’t even have to look at Wonwoo’s lap to know that he was struggling not to get hard. 

You could see it in his eyes. The arousal that had turned the warm brown into black. The way he was looking at you told you everything you needed to know. You wondered if you would even make it back home before he’d break, if he would pull the car over on the side of the road and take you then and there. 

Your knees were weak at the mere thought of what you were in for later that night. Making Wonwoo jealous was admittedly one of your favorite pastimes, purely for selfish reasons. Possessive sex was arguably the best sex. The teasing, the hair-pulling, the choking, the face-fucking, all hit different when Wonwoo was reminding you who you belonged to. 

Wonwoo released your wrist from his grip and raised his eyebrows expectantly. “Are you finished?”

You shook your head and grinned. “Just getting started.”

lmk what you thought; i always appreciate feedback!!

wonwoo tags: @wonw00t

shoot me an ask to be added/removed from my taglist

[storiesforallfandoms]

the only one for me ~ machine gun kelly

word count: 1493

request?: yes!

“MGK Fluff ??”

description: the endless dating rumors regarding her boyfriend start to get to her

pairing: machine gun kelly x female!reader

warnings: swearing, insecurities

masterlist (one, two)

Logging onto Twitter and seeing yet another dating rumor regarding my boyfriend and some famous, beautiful female was basically a daily routine at this point. It seemed to be nothing new, but that didn’t make it hurt any less every time I saw a new post about it.

The latest rumored lady to have “stolen Colson’s heart” was Megan Fox, who had starred in Colson’s latest music video. The article I was reading stated how much chemistry Colson and Megan had on set and how it was “so obvious” that they had a secret romance happening behind the scenes.

I wasn’t hurt because I believed the rumors. I trusted Colson. I knew he’d never cheat on me, but seeing all these beautiful women and seeing his fans and media outlets commenting on how cute he would look with someone else so much prettier than me really did nothing for my confidence.

I wasn’t famous, I was just your average girl who worked an average hob and went to school on the side. Due to this, Colson and I decided to keep our relationship a secret so I wouldn’t be harassed by paparazzi and fans. I appreciated the privacy I had been getting, but it did make it hard to see all these dating rumors.

This rumor got to me in a way the others hadn’t before and I had an overwhelming urge to call Colson. He was probably asleep or preparing for the show that night, but I needed to hear his voice.

I was shocked when he answered on the third ring. “Hey babe!”

I could hear a crowd on his end of the call. “Hey! What’s all the noise?”

“We’re celebrating before I go on stage.”

“Before?” I asked, teasingly. “What are you guys celebrating?”

“The Bloody Valentine video hit a million views in less than 24 hours! None of my videos have ever done that before, so we’re celebrating.”

“Oh my God, Colson that’s amazing! Congratulations!”

Someone called out to Colson on his end. I could hear him responding, but his response was muffled as I realized the voice was a female voice.

“Is that...is that Megan?” I asked.

“Yeah! We invited her since she’s the leading lady of the video.” Another comment was made by Megan, to which Colson said to me, “She says hi!”

I couldn’t respond. I could feel tears starting to well up in my eyes and I was afraid Colson would hear my voice breaking if I spoke. Instead, I managed to squeak out a “gotta go” before hanging up.

~~~~~~

As I expected, there were articles published about the video celebration, specifically about Colson and Megan. A handful of pictures were taken outside wherever the celebration was taking place of Colson and Megan laughing as he puffed on a joint. The captions posted under this picture from numerous sites and fan pages were all the same: “look how cute Megan and Colson are!”

I had to go offline for a while because I was getting more upset than I had before.

It seemed like Colson didn’t notice as much as I did, so I never really brought the issue up. I didn’t want him to think he couldn’t be friends with women, or think of me as a jealous girlfriend or anything.

But I knew he could tell something was off. He kept trying to coax it out of me, but I wouldn’t budge. I figured he would grow tired of my refusal and would let it go. The last thing I expected was to come home from work one day and find Colson waiting for me in my apartment.

“Hey!” I said when I found him sat in my living room. “What are you doing here?”

“We have a few days before the next show, so I asked to come home before then,” he said. “I wanted to talk to you.”

The six worst words to ever hear. I felt my worry rise as I approached him and sat next to him on the couch.

“What’s on your mind lately?” he asked. “I know you keep saying it’s nothing, but I can tell it’s not nothing. I’m worried about you, babe. You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

I looked down at my lap as I shrugged. “It’s nothing. Just work and school, I guess.”

“Is this about Megan?”

For some reason, hearing him say her name felt like I was being stabbed through the heart. I had to bite my lip to try and hold back my tears.

“When you hung up so suddenly during the video celebration, I realized something was up,” he said. “And then you started deleting your social media accounts, or making them private, and you were acting different. It all started that night. If it’s because we invited Megan to the party, I’m sorry if that upset you. There was no underlying meanings behind inviting her, it was just because she was in the video and we decided she should be at the celebration.”

“It’s not because she was there!” I finally snapped, unable to hold myself back. “I don’t care if you’re friends with Megan, or with any woman, but I do care that everyone thinks you’re dating every female who so much as breathes in your direction. And it really doesn’t help my self-esteem to see people saying how happy you look or how cute you’d look with someone who is, like, a million times prettier than me.”

“Babe, that’s not true,” he said. “I mean, I’ve seen the rumors about me and Megan, but it’s not all the women I’m friends with - ”

I laughed, humorlessly. “No, not all of them. Just Chantal and Noah and Ash and Sommer and now Megan. So no, not all of them, just most of them.”

I could see the gears turning in Colson’s head as he thought about it. Maybe he didn’t see the same stuff I did, maybe I just saw more because of how insecure it made me. But those rumors were there, and they had been nearly our entire relationship.

“I’m sorry,” he said again. “I never realized...I don’t attention to shit like that. I never thought much about the way I acted around my female friends.”

“You treat them the way you treat the boys,” I said. “I’ve seen how you are with Ash, the two of you are just friends. But people don’t believe that men and women can just be friends so when they see men and women acting as friends, they assume that means they’re dating. There’s nothing you can really do about it.”

Colson put a hand on mine and gave it a squeeze. “You don’t believe any of that shit though, right? You know it’s all media bullshit.”

I nodded. “Yeah, of course I do. I know you’d never cheat on me. I trust you so much.”

“And you can’t possibly believe that they’re any more beautiful than you are.”

I chuckled. “Okay, that one I can’t agree to considering the person you’re currently in a dating rumor with is Megan fucking Fox. I mean, have you seen her? She’s the most beautiful woman in the world!”

“Not to me she’s not.”

I looked away from him again, feeling my cheeks heat up and a small smile tugging at the corners of my lips. “You don’t mean that.”

“Of course I do.” I felt his finger gently touch my chin, lifting my head so I would look at him. “(Y/N), I hope you know you mean the world to me. You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever known, and you own my heart. You’re the only one for me and I love you more than words could ever say. I’m sorry you’ve had to witness all these stupid rumors, and I’m sorry I never noticed them so I could assure you of all of this sooner. But I mean it, you’re everything to me. I love you so much.”

The tears I had been holding back for so long finally started to fall down my cheeks. I awkwardly laughed as I tried to wipe them away, but they just kept coming. “That was so cliche.”

“You loved it, though.”

“I love you, that’s a whole different thing.”

Colson smiled and pulled me in for a kiss. Warmth filled me as my lips touched his, and it was just another reminder that he was mine. I ran my hand through his hair and leaned into him until we were both laying back on the couch.

When we finally managed to pull away from one another, Colson rested his forehead on mine. “Did you have any other plans today?”

I shook my head.

“Good, because I don’t intend on letting you leave this apartment any time soon.”

He wrapped me into a tight cuddle, and I gladly accepted these plans he had made for us.

[aoitrinity]

Why Do I Have to Feel Like a Fucking Conspiracy Theorist -- OR -- How I Find a Semblance of Peace on Sunday Night

I’m also going to start this out with a GIANT DISCLAIMER.

I am about to theorize about what may have happened to the SPN finale. I have absolutely no insider knowledge. I am merely speculating here based on the panels and a bunch of Twitter and Tumblr posts that I have been reading over the last few days. If you are not in a good place to read such things, TURN BACK PLEASE. Go take care of yourself and your mental health. You and your feelings are valid and deserve to be handled gently right now.

Additionally, if you are here to give me shit for being unhappy with the ending, please walk away as well. I am here to reach out and share my feelings with people who might be struggling to make sense of something that upset some of us in very deep-seated ways. I am not here to bother you or critique you or tell you that you’re lesser because you liked the ending. If you felt it was good, then go enjoy it.

Long-ass post beneath the cut, everyone.

Alrighty folks...I debated whether or not to do this because I have been spiraling down the hell that is the SPN finale since Thursday. The travesty of what happened to our show--to this beloved show that seemed to have been so perfectly and precisely written for at least four years that it had basically already paved its own tarmac on which to land its plane and we all thought we knew exactly what we were going to get. And then we didn’t. We had a nigh Cas-less and entirely Eileen-less ending. We had no goodbye between Cas and Jack. We had Dean dying young after finally finding his freedom, only to ascend to heaven with no one but Bobby. We had the weird, weird, weird incest-y death scene. We had the bridge crane shot thing because...sure. You do you, Robert Singer.

It was so terrible, so truly awful, and I couldn’t seem to square any of it with anything we had known going in. I tossed and turned and cried and didn’t eat or sleep all weekend. I spent hours just reloading tumblr and twitter, going to the Misha panel, reading and reading and listening and trying to figure out what the fucking hell is going on because I needed to know exactly where to direct my anger. And after a fuckton of talking with @winchester-reload, I think we have at least a very plausible theory about what happened here--I’m laying it out below as much for my own peace of mind as anything else, because otherwise all of these thoughts are going to continue to spin around in my head for weeks and I won’t be able to do jack shit.

Now to start off, unfortunately I do think Dean was slated to die from the beginning of this season. I don’t know WHY they thought that was the best way to go, and I wish they had listened to Jensen on this one. Part of me wonders if it was an order from on high based on the discussion between Becky and Chuck earlier this season--the writers knew it wasn’t a great choice, but they were trying to signal to us that we should feel free to write our own endings to the story because they’d be better (I can wax poetic on the signs of why many of the writers probably wanted Dean to live, but that’s another post). I’m not defending that choice by any means, just laying it out there that I think they didn’t necessarily all want to kill Dean like they did.

However, what I THINK I can explain now is what happened with Misha and why we got so jerked around with Cas’s story. Consider what we know (I can’t immediately source all of it, but I did my best):

At the end of episode 15x19, Lucifer has been returned to the Empty after being killed AGAIN. He talks with Cas. Maybe harasses him a bit about Dean, idk. But then...Jack shows up. New God Jack. And he picks up Cas and pulls him out of the Empty, leaving Lucifer behind, because seriously. Fuck that guy (also leaving behind his abusive father is character growth for Jack, so yay for that).

-Misha was contracted to film 15 episodes this season. He was only in 14.

-Misha told Michael Sheen he had to go back to film 1.5 episodes after the shutdown in March. (Starts at 6:13)

-Misha was in Vancouver during filming of the finale.

-Mark P said at Darklight Con that the last scene he filmed was with Alex and Misha (and Mark P was only in episode 19).

-Misha implied that he was present for various filming moments, including Dean’s death (start at 35:15), and said that it felt like a “mini-reunion.”

-Various sources have mentioned that Jimmy Novak was supposed to be in the finale.

-After episode 18, Stands tweeted a fan who was angered and hurt by Cas's death that they could talk about the “bury the gays” issue after the finale aired.

-In episode 19 we know there were takes of the parking lot scene where the only thing fans observing could hear was Dean yelling “CAS” at Chuck (fuck I can’t find this one right now, but it’s definitely out there)

-Also in episode 19, we had a very strange, awkward montage at the end of the episode.

-In episode 20, we know there were a FUCKTON of missing scenes

-We also had no opening montage, but three other separate montages.

-Carry on My Wayward Son was played TWICE, back-to-back at the end of the episode.

-Episode 20 was shorter than normal and had surprisingly little dialogue. The pacing was VERY strange.

-The cast and crew has been almost completely silent about the finale since it came out. When they have spoken, it has been with an awkward excuse of “Uh...COVID?”

-Samantha Ferris has specifically noted that, despite the Harvelle’s being back in play and a big heaven reunion having been planned pre-COVID, neither she nor Chad Lindberg received any such invitation to return.

-Cas and Dean POP Funko figures were pictured together in a replica of Harvelle’s in 15x04.

NOW with all of this in mind (and I’m probably missing some stuff too because there is so much--feel free to add on to that list), please bear with me because here is what I think we were SUPPOSED to get POST-COVID (after it was determined that the reunion couldn’t happen because of the virus):

In episode 20, we start with our NORMAL OPENING MONTAGE, like always. It traces everything that happened during the season. We are reminded of Cas. The confession. Rowena. Eileen. Jack. Billie, God, the Empty, all of it. 

Things then follow along in the episode where they did up until Dean dies and wakes up in heaven. After his conversation with Bobby, he drives off to find Cas (who, in the script, was listed as “Jimmy Novak” in order to protect against script leaks--who wouldn’t want to do their best to avoid spoilers about the finale with the wrapping of a fifteen-year show?). He does indeed find Cas. We get Dean’s end of the confession. Hell, maybe we even get a kiss. And then Dean sets up his new heaven home in the recreated Harvelle’s. Maybe Cas even fucking moves in. 

Years pass. We get Sam having his life on Earth (still can’t explain why they cut Eileen and couldn’t even have Sam signing vaguely to the blurry brunette in the background; if anyone wants to take that on, go for it). Eventually, Cas tells Dean that it’s almost Sam’s time. Dean takes Baby and goes to meet Sam at the bridge. The cover of Carry on My Wayward Son plays during this much shorter sequence. End of episode.

But that’s not what we got. Instead, much of what I just wrote about was excised from the episode. The remnants were stitched together after shooting had been wrapped. Filler was added in the form of montages and long, unnecessary extra shots to get the episode to something approaching a reasonable length. 

But why? Why would they spend all that time and money and quarantining on Misha, only to almost completely cut him out of the finale? I struggled with why the fuck the CW would want this mammoth show to go down as the greatest queerbait in TV history when they had the chance to do something truly beautiful and monumental with it? It couldn’t just be sheer homophobia, right? Well, I think that factored into it, my friends, but here is where my head is at right now.

It was about cold, hard cash.

Now I could be wrong, but this is what I’m thinking at the moment: Supernatural is going off of the air. Supernatural, the CW’s cash cow for fifteen years. Sure there is still money to be made on blu-rays and merchandise and cons...but they need people watching their shows. They need that sweet advertising revenue. And you know what show they have about to premiere? A show that could, potentially, bring with it a chunk of that SPN revenue?

Walker.

And if any of you know anything about the original Walker Texas Ranger, you know that the show was predominantly a show about a very heterosexual white man being very excessively heterosexual. And for SOME REASON over the years, many of the execs at the CW still seem to think that this show, Supernatural, is really attractive to a lot of middle-American white men...whom they desperately want to watch this new show with this guy from Supernatural that they already know.

Now here’s where COVID fucked us. I think Destiel was greenlit by TPTB, at least in SOME form, before COVID. But then the pandemic happened, and they panicked. They got the cut of the last two episodes and watched them in their original, probably queer form. And then, the execs at CW looked at the economy. They looked at their cash cow, about to make its journey to the great beyond. And they looked at this new little calf Walker that they were so desperately worried about. And they made a choice.

They decided that it would be too risky to take the step with Destiel. They were worried about frightening off their ever-so-valuable hetero male demographic with the possibility that a traditionally masculine man in his 40s could be in love with another man in an overt way. It was homophobia mixed with greed, spun up by fear for their revenues because of COVID.

So they called in Singer, possibly Dabb, although I wouldn’t be surprised if they went straight to Singer. They told them that Destiel had to go: executive orders. And the only way to make it go in a way that removed any trace of what had been there was to rewrite what happened to Cas and cut him out from the last two episodes entirely. It was too late to reshoot anything. They had to just cut and stitch and fill with bullshit montages. 

They removed the scene at the end of 19, probably because Cas and Lucifer discussed Dean. All that was left of Misha there was his voice on that fake phone call. They may have cut other things too, but I would bet my life that they cut a scene from the end of the episode and replaced it with that very strange montage. Then they moved onto 20. They cut out every scene with Cas. And left in only two platonic mentions of him, neither made by Dean. They tried to imply that Cas might show up in Dean’s heaven at some point, but that was as far as the editors could go in the time they had. They filled in with montages, awkwardly long shots, anything they could do to fill all of those missing scenes.

And they even had to take the opening montage, because literally everything in it pointed to Cas being there at the end of it all. They wouldn’t be able to leave out his scenes, they were too critical to the season. They couldn’t cut his confession without raising eyebrows. So they cut the whole thing and moved “Carry On My Wayward Son” to one of the newly-added driving montages at the end. Which is why we awkwardly had both songs play back-to-back--again, such a strange choice unless they were out of options and couldn’t exactly buy rights to a new track or compose anything else.

And so we were left with the shadow of the finale that we deserved, that Cas and Dean deserved. We were left without resolution or happiness or words. Bobo told us the most important thing about happiness is just “saying it” and our characters were silenced without anyone ever knowing the truth.

I think the writers might have known and been given the new party line that “Misha never filmed, he couldn’t, sorry, it was COVID, no one’s fault!” But I don’t think most of the cast even knew it had happened until they watched the finale on Thursday with us (though they might have been confused why the bit from 15x19 was sliced, they could reasonably have assumed it was a time thing and also BL episodes don’t make sense anyway). Why do I say that?

Well, first of all, Misha started sending out a bunch of excited texts to fans with some old BTS pictures about an hour before the show started airing on EST. He also wanted his children to see the episode, his YOUNG children. Why would he show them such a traumatic episode if their Dad wasn’t in it? What if it was because he wanted them to witness what was going to be a monumental moment in queer television history that their DAD got to be a part of? And then that was all dashed.

Which is why I think the cast and crew went almost completely radio silent the next day. I don’t think they knew. And based on how they have been acting on social media since then, I think many of them are absolutely furious, but they have been silenced because of NDAs, because they want to find work again in a cutthroat industry, because they don’t want to bring down the hellfire of Warner Brothers Entertainment upon themselves. So the most we have gotten is a little acknowledgement from the MERCHANDISING COMPANY trying to validate our pain (god bless Shirts, she is a LIFESAVER) and a response to my salty tweet about keeping good stuff in the closet from Adam Williams (the VFX coordinator) that seemed to acknowledge the validity of my complaint.

Then there was a scramble behind the scenes, I would bet my life. Talking points were fed to the boys who had panels today, to CE, to all the cast and crew:

Toe the party line. Misha never filmed. This was always about COVID. Do not mention Destiel. Do not mention Dean’s feelings for Cas. Do not promote the Castiel Project or anything that validates the idea that this was anything less than a superb ending.

And that is why we have heard so little from the cast on this front, and what we have heard has been muddled and contradictory. That is why the writers are saying nothing. That is why we have been left adrift.

Now before I close this out, I do want to say that I really, genuinely do not think this was on the writers at all. I feel like they tried to give us the best ending that they could, in a writers room that we know is notorious for splitting along party lines about the overall story (BL and Singer, who have always been about the brothers and their man-pain vs. Dabb and the rest who always seemed to want more for them and for Cas). I think they did everything in their power to at least end with Dean and Cas happy together. If they could give us nothing else, they wanted to give us that. And then the network took it from them. From us. From everyone.

For the sake of fucking money. 

And the WORST PART OF IT ALL, for me, is that in the wake of this disaster, the fans have been left to try and figure out what happened. We have had to wade through a mire of conflicting information in the midst of all of our collective anger and grief over this garbage ending of a show many of us have loved and even relied on for YEARS, all the while wondering if we’re just fucking crazy, if we have all fallen collectively into the hole of conspiracy theories. That hurts ESPECIALLY badly because we have taken so many hits over the years from other groups on social media saying we were crazy for seeing things that weren’t there (especially Destiel), for writing meta and analyzing tropes and believing the evidence of our eyes and ears. The network has made us relive that entire nightmare WHILE processing our grief for a show we wanted so badly to celebrate and which instead we now have to mourn.

So again guys, I cannot prove that this is exactly what happened at all; this is simply my idea of what may have happened. But right now, it’s the most sense I can make from this mess, and to be honest, the act of typing it out has helped me enormously in my processing of it all. I feel like I can see more clearly, like I know where to target my outrage and where to direct empathy. I feel like just fucking maybe, I might be able to do my job tomorrow without bursting into tears at random moments. 

I really hope that this post has helped some of you to, in some small way, process this too. We get through this the way that Misha told us at his panel this morning, the way the writers have told us to do all season long...we throw out the story God gave us and we make it better. We write our characters the happy endings they deserve. 

We save them.

One last thing--if you have not already, please consider channeling your rage into a donation to one of the five causes our fandom has put together to pay tribute to our beloved show and to mourn the ending it should have had:

-The Castiel Project

-Dean Winchester is Love

-Sam Winchester Project

-The National Association of the Deaf

-The Jack Kline Project