#I think I only got Soap’s proportions

[theartgremlin]

Soap’s escapin’, Roach is giving his biggest, wettest, saddest puppy eyes, Gaz is trying flattery, Ghost’s gonna bite, and Price is Patiently Waiting

[smellwell]

Male reader x König

M/N had always been a wild card. Absent minded and it was anyone’s guess on what he knew. He couldn’t tell you where any country was on a map but he could tell you more than five facts about any random topic. He was curious by nature. If he wanted to know more he didn’t care where he got the information as long as he got it. No matter who he had to ask.

As he sits there in the common room playing poker with Soap and Gaz as Ghost watches from the corner as usual he suddenly blurts out

“Do you guys think König is proportional with his height? Like dick wise?”

It goes silent. Soap stares, Gaz damn near chokes. Price. Price is the most disappointed. He just lets out a deep sigh and continues smoking his cigar. Ghost is the first to make a noise. He lets out a snort

“My bad” M/N says. Going back to looking at his cards like nothing happened. But before anyone could speak again König enters. M/N stares and König stares right back. Soap lets out a sigh, knowing what’s about to happen.

“How big is your dick?” M/N asks König bluntly. König stares at M/N bewildered. M/N stares right back before tilting his head slightly and staring a little lower. König places his hands in front of his crotch.

“If you don’t want to tell me then can I see? I won’t ask you anymore questions if you let me see. I promise!” M/N asks. A bit desperately to be honest. König lets out a sigh. He nods his head to the barracks. M/N stands up without a second thought and climbs over Gaz to get to König. Quickly approaching is side.

“Let’s go!” M/N says as he drags König to the barracks. König follows behind him, mask covering his face and silent as usual. The others just watch them leave. A bit stunned. Soap breaks the silence.

“What the fuck is wrong with him? Have we got him tested yet?”

Price just sighs again. Not responding. König and M/N stay in the barracks for close to an hour before König reappears like nothing happened. M/N is no where in sight. Price raises an eyebrow at this.

“You sure took a while to show him. Where is the lad anyways?” Price asks in a curious tone

“Resting” König finally responds after a second.

Price and Soap stand up and head to the barracks. A bit worried. They let out a sigh as they finally find M/N.

M/N is laid across König’s bunk with only the blanket covering his exposed body as he lays on the bed on his stomach. Bite marks and hand prints littered across his body as he lays there asleep with his hair disheveled and only the blanket covering his bottom half. His clothes littered across the floor.

Eyes turn to König. He stares right back. Soap is the first to burst into laughter with Gaz following right behind. Even with the laughs M/N doesn’t stir. Clearly exhausted from his time with König.

Please comment. This is my first time writing!

[snackugaki]

...visdev really is my enrichment activity for i am just a bored tiger in my enclosure, looking to figure out how to get this steak out of this metal ball.

________

my tmnt au (where everyone made it past their 20s, splinter’s alive just old, venus is here, and they deserve some goddamn respite and shenanigans)

tmnt au part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4

tmnt au omake 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

lny visit 1 | 2

also uhhh... i guess still idw, next mutation, and like 1 mirage spoiler? mostly for the kids who haven’t but were planning to read/watch

you’re about to perceive so much

p r e p a r e

so close to getting this AU looking as crunchy as i want it, almosttttt tttthhhhhere...!

just somewhere tasty between Mignola’s use of deep black shadow, what MTV Liquid Television woulda greenlit re: The Maxx, a dash of 2007, 1 part Next Mutation, 2 parts funny proportions

hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh str ugglingggg

Leo’s shortest because haha (family baby gang, get rekt)

this is so much thought for something I’m just doing to give these turtle ninjas some softness and the genx/millenial pop culture references gag comics

Splinter is full of ghosts

(specifically the onryo borne from the murdered Yoshi Hamato and Tang Shen [because oroku saki a bitch])

[ redacted ] and Tang Shen’s ghost gained control and guided Splinter to raise the boys in love and not [ redacted ] to [ redacted ] in [ redacted ]

Splinter was just a regular little rat... who on his 1000th birthday witnessed the death of his friend/unwitting master and his wife, and thus transformed into a wrathful kyūso (minus the kitten eating) and chased Shredder until losing his trail in New York

Shredder’s fuck around and Splinter’s rampaging as the find out caused the tengu to repo some of the mysticism from ninjutsu

now all the (remaining) ninja clans debuffed and mad about it

The tengu bestowed the ninja the ability to summon shit (kuchiyose), enact mystical effects upon people and objects (kuji kiri), going invisible, minor flight (actually just qinggong/light body technique), and manipulation of the 5 elements, and creating doubles (bunshin)

but again, Shredder fucked up so now ninja can like barely control anything bigger than a lit torch or a 16 oz bottle of liquid and that’s if you got in enough hours to do even that

I mentioned elsewhere but for me in any AU I make, Venus is a cultivator and the more I think about it the more I will die on this hill, not only does it fit better than her being a “shaman” or “shinobi” it’s sick as fuck

Jennika’s origin was pretty fkkn metal, she still falls in with the Foot, gets shanked, Leo gives blood-- bam, turtle time

Jennika goes to hang with Venus in China and get a better understanding of her new turtle body

Keno’s here, still tried to infiltrate the Foot (with Jennika) but bugged out when she couldn’t stay without being made (Jennika refused to leave womp)

teaches Leo some arnis techniques for Leo’s dual wielding; Donnie also just in case his bo is shattered... again. :)

Irma has made all the boys blush at least twice

Irma is also soap opera buddies with Splinter

they meet up at least twice a month to gab, gush, and groan over what’s currently going on in their stories, when Venus visits she also joins in, Irma also has a conversational grasp on Japanese and Venus’ regional dialect because of these visits

April has a full out shoujo manga romance with Chu Hsi

and he’s a hot dragon prince uhuhuhuhuhu

Irma is privy to all the steamy details

keeping Leo and Karai as character foils

both received scars from one another

both released each other from sealing wards from [ redacted ]

now they just meet every so often to eat the greasiest fast food and unclench of an hour

Raph still gets his ass worked by Ninjara, folded like an omelette sat on a lawn chair

Vam Mi is also here, she’s fought first (because honestly she should’ve been either brought in earlier in the season or had a few more episodes because that shit coulda resolved better)

Venus is brought to NYC for this antagonist instead of Dragonlord escaping (and murdering her father figure forcing her to seek out his friend Splinter for aid)

Donnie doesn’t take the news of real vampires or real magic well

Donnie and Venus have a knock down drag out fight over it (because they’re 17 at this point and being li’l shits to each other about their respective fields of expertise)

“The nerds are fightingggggg!” cries Mikey, Leo and Raph don’t believe it so imagine their surprise when they get a demo in real time on how scary competent staff fighters are

Leo gets Splinter when one of Donnie’s missed strikes cracks the concrete

Splinter breaks them up like talking a walk in the park and it’d be comical if they both weren’t bleeding from the mouth and peppered with swelling contusions

Venus begins accepting Donnie when his tech prevents her from becoming a thrall of Vam-Mi

Donnie begins accepting Venus when she uses a massive amount of chi to manipulate gravity just before he becomes street pizza when Vam-Mi throws him off a bridge

they also combine skill sets to save Mikey so there’s that

Venus goes from calling Donnie, “Horatio (derogatory)” to “Horatio (affectionate)”

they now have a dumbass long-as-fuck handshake that’s unforgivably nerdy 

April is still a magic drawing-brought-to-life baby, Venus puts her in a painted scroll when she starts phasing in and out of existence (she and Chu Hsi have a great time in the scroll... while everyone is shitting bricks until Venus and her sect stabilize her and get her made real, Pinocchio style)

April’s grandmothers gifted Venus 2 pieces of jade jewelry, and her family’s recipe for sweet potato pudding respectively for saving April

the boss fight against Dragonlord is dope as fuckkkkk, Chu Hsi is being cool as fuck, fiddled with some concepts* that has Leo and Karai being a champion of Genbu, Raph for Byakko, Mikey for Suzaku, Chu Hsi’s retainer (a good dragon, wink wonk) steps in for Seiryu because Donnie and Venus are siphoning and redirecting an enormous amount and variety of mystical power

*i’m just pulling from fushigi yugi honestly

splinter, the boys, and venus (and others) mutating from mutagen laced toxic waste was a pure accident

Splinter was investigating a lead on Shredder’s movements concerning the Foot the same night an animal liberation sleeper cell ‘freed’ some animals from the back of a pet store (that was a front for black market domestic and exotic animal trafficking) that is also the same night a stolen truck driven by some corporate spies filled with a competitor’s chemical waste, which then collides with said liberation sleeper cell’s truck and... ooze happens

Leatherhead, the Mutanimals, Mondo, Mona Lisa, Slash also get mutated from the events of that night, either leading up to or following the aftermath

plus some others etc etc

Venus still washes down the gutter, gets rube goldberg pinballed onto a crate of plums where Chung I finds her and still gets named Mei and taken to live in China and eventually learns to cultivate

Tokka and Rahzar get made, and unmade ala TMNT II; the mutagen made them a little silly tho, April adopts Rahzar and passes him off as a low content wolfdog, Leatherhead takes in Tokka

April went through a couple of major changes so now she’s a journalist with a computer programming background who now does a podcast as an informal neighborhood news reporter with a segment for chatting with people from around the street

Mikey’s the most frequent guest and co-hosts sometimes; Donnie troubleshoots free of charge

Venus brings her province’s regional delicacies when she comes to visit, Splinter and Leo both get pu er tea cakes (she managed to get one the same age as him; Splinter is too old so she got the oldest she could find, Leo has so many tea pets and a nice yixing collection); Raph, Keno, and Casey fight over the pickles, meat jerkies, and chili oil; Mikey has an artillery of cool shirts and a lifetime supply of haw flakes, Donnie has a mountain of doodads with increasingly specific uses, April gets neat accessories and the occasional care package sent with Venus from her grandparents, uncles, and aunties; Irma gets neat frames and coats that never fail to get a “Where did you get that??”

Raph rides a Kawasaki Ninja because it’s funny

A lot of bodegas give Mikey free snacks because the bodega cats love him, and he’s also saved some from being run over or ripped apart by stray dogs or the few large angry raccoons

Donnie’s the only one of his brothers to wear both a top and bottom with shoes because once he figured out how to integrate a motherboard and miscellany wiring onto clothing... he’s been a walking computing menace ever since

Splinter does his best to enjoy his time with his sons (because as a kyūso, he knows the chances of outliving his precious sons is very high (ᴗ‿ᴗ✿)  ...give or take one of the many opponents and obstacles his sons take on takes him out first ( ◕ᴗ◕✿ ) )

god whathefuck, I was just going to make silly comics for them. how did it come to this.

[azure-firecracker]

The X-Files Season 4 Review (First-Time Watcher)

It has been a minute but we are back!

(Full disclosure - I am actually a little ways into Season 5 as I write this. College has given me more time with energy for watching than energy for writing. Such is life!)

Life seemed to stand between me and this season. I finished the first half in about a week and a half, and then the second half in three times that because…college happened. But we got there! And oh boy did we get a lot.

This season was hyped up to me even before I watched it (it won my favorite seasons poll a while back) and it DID NOT disappoint! I think this season managed to merge the melancholic energy of season 2 with the consistency of season 3. The first half was especially consistent (out of the first 10 episodes, there wasn’t a single one I didn’t like), and while the second half was a bit more uneven in terms of quality, when it hit it hit hard!

I thiiink Season 2 still takes my favorite spot among the seasons, but this is a close second. It’s just so good, and the second half especially has this looming sense of heartbreak that I haven’t seen in the other seasons. If Season 1 is a campy monster flick, Season 2 is an alien soap opera, and Season 3 is an action movie, then Season 4 is a Shakespearean tragedy of epic proportions, wrought with miscommunication, near-misses, and hurtling towards an unavoidable, doomed ending that lurks in the background even of the most mundane moments. I’m a sucker for a good tragedy, so I loved every moment we got. I was also happy that Scully got to have a real emotional arc. Especially in Season 1 and 2, those usually belonged to Mulder, but the cancer arc is first and foremost about her, and the show takes a lot of care to keep her at the center of that story - which I appreciate.

I found the MSR dynamic this season to be fascinating. It’s like they’re in this territory - even before the cancer arc but especially during it - where they’re realizing how much they mean to each other but also how much it could damage them both. They’re closer than ever and yet more at odds than ever. They’ll cling desperately to each other in the face of death but run away from each other in the daylight because they’re afraid of what it means. It’s tragic and less fun than what we’ve seen from them before, but it’s also fascinating.

As always, I do have a few gripes. My biggest is that, while the cancer arc is beautiful and heart-wrenching, I wish they’d explored it a little more. Only Memento Mori, Elegy, and Gethsemane center around it (and Never Again, if you go off of airing order instead of intended order). Maybe Zero Sum too, but that’s about Skinner and kind of its own thing. And I just felt like there was some wasted potential there. Scully was literally DYING and losing control of her life and Mulder was powerless to stop it. There’s so much plot and character potential there that really wasn’t touched on, and it felt like they really only scratched the surface. Of course, part of the fun of this show is that they leave a lot for us fans to do ourselves, but it feels a bit like a wasted opportunity on the show’s part (friends: please be kind and point me to the fanfic now!)

Also, while I love the cancer arc for emotional value, I do have some qualms about yet another major arc about Scully having her bodily autonomy taken away. Why must all of the female protagonist’s arcs have to do with this? (I wrote about it in Season 2 here).

But frustrations aside, I think this is objectively the second-strongest season after Season 3, and subjectively my second-favorite after Season 2. Its overall arc is maybe the most compelling of the show, and the individual episodes (for the most part) are all fantastic.

Speaking of which, let’s get into the individual episodes! Quick disclaimer- because this season took me so long to watch, it’s been quite a while since I watched the earliest episodes. Just something to keep in mind:)

Herrenvolk: Unfortunately, I feel that this was the show’s weakest season opener so far. It’s not bad by any means, but it falls victim to the same gripe I have with many mytharc episodes, which is that it prioritizes plot over character work, and that rarely works for me. On top of that, the plot here was kind of hard to follow, especially Mulder’s half (Scully’s half was easier because she was literally explaining everything like the scientist she is I love her so much). Also they were separated which is never fun. At this point, I sort of feel like the show is just adding more and more elements of the conspiracy without explaining what we already have, and it’s getting to be a lot. I did adore the hospital scenes between Mulder and Scully, though - it’s a vulnerability and openness we rarely get from both of them (and I think it scares the shit out of them both - hence why their dynamic for the next 3 episodes is kind of weird). Anyway I’ll give this one a 7/10

Home: I know opinions on this are mixed, but I really liked it. It was genuinely SO creepy, especially the scene where the Peacocks are beating up the sheriff and their car music plays in the background. I agree with @graciehart who says that Mulder and Scully’s dynamic in here was odd, but I kind of get it. Scully represses a lot of her emotions, and it would make sense that she might not think or talk about motherhood until she sees a distorted version of it, and she can examine it from a more scientific angle. For Mulder’s part, @theswisscheeserag said that this episode was sort of an exploration into Mulder’s privilege, and how he’s a little bit immune to the darkness that lurks behind the small-town American ideal (in part because that ideal is something he never had). All of that is interesting. I also liked Scully really taking the lead on the case, especially when they thought there was an innocent woman in danger. This show has a trend of victimizing women, so it was really nice to see Scully, who’s been a victim of this trend herself, fight against that. Overall I’ll give this a 9/10

Teliko: I am never safe from the ethnic flute, am I?

Plot-wise, this episode was boring. The pacing was slow, Mulder and Scully were fantastic when together, but that wasn’t a lot, and really not much happened the whole time.

But that wasn’t the real problem - the problem is that this is a “cultural episode.” And a bad one. They sort of half-engaged with all of the racial issues, and they said some super out-of pocket stuff that they then didn’t elaborate on, and it almost seemed like they got what they were talking about for a second but then they didn’t and the whole thing was weird but definitely problematic.

When I tell you I have never hated a score more - TRIBAL CHANTING AND DRUMS SHOULD NOT BE USED TO SHOW HOW OMINOUS YOUR VILLAIN IS! DO YOUR PROPER FOLK MUSIC RESEARCH!!

Alas I would love to 100% hate this episode, but I love the climax SO much. This is the first genuine kidnapping loss-of-bodily autonomy role rehearsal that I’ve been begging for since Season 2, and this is my favorite trope, so I devoured it. It’s also SO sweet. I wrote a meta about it. It’s here.

Anyway my love for the climax will bring this episode up to a 6/10 but without the climax it’s like a 3 lol.

Unruhe: Okay. Kind of like Our Town, I have to separate my feelings about this episode from its actual quality. Because in quality alone, this episode is fantastic. The villain is interesting, the tension is palpable, the climax is gut-wrenching, and Mulder and Scully’s dynamic has this fascinating push/pull that’s reminiscent of early seasons but starkly more intense. The way they yell for each other when he’s saving her from the van (trailer? Large vehicle) is haunting, especially for her part, because Scully never screams like that. And the outro of this episode - Scully talking about finally being forced to understand evil and how it can be inside her and come for her while a single tear slides down her face - is my favorite of the whole show.

But it seems I am not recovered from Season 2, and the second I saw violence against women I knew exactly where this was going. I spent the whole episode waiting for the other shoe to drop, and when it did I was more annoyed than anything else. There is one hilarious frame right after Scully wakes up in the trailer where Gillian stares into the camera and looks annoyed af as if to say am I seriously filming this kind of scene again? and I was like same, girl, same. But with the understanding that most of this comes from me and not the episode itself, I’ll still give it a 10/10

The Field Where I Died: I have mixed feelings. I like the idea of past lives here, and the idea that Mulder and Scully were always friends, I love. I know it bothers some people that they weren’t together romantically, but I don’t think they need to have been romantic in past lives in order to be romantic now. I actually really love the idea of the same souls reconnecting in different lives but always in different ways (I’m thinking of the musical Ghost Quartet if anyone here knows it). I also love the concept of Scully always dying before Mulder in past lives - it adds another layer to the tragedy.

But also this episode feels like it’s missing something, and introducing a one-off character to be in the reincarnation cycle was kind of weird, and even though I think the concepts are cool, I just can’t quite love it. I’ll give it a 7.5/10

Sanguinarium: Finally a short episode review! This one was spooky and fun! Nothing in particular to love or hate about it, just a really creepy good time. A good episode for spooky season. 7.5/10

Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man: Naturally, I missed Mulder and Scully during this, but I thought it was really interesting! I’d much rather take a tour of CSM’s past than see another meeting with the high school board of trustees shady government organization of white men that I don’t care about. I also love that he’s an aspiring author and that he sucks at it - he’s kind of a bad bad guy too if you think about it. My favorite thing about this is that it wasn’t a tragic backstory and that he wasn’t redeemed! A tragic villain who redeems himself is great, but it’s also great to let your villains just suck. 8/10

Tunguska/Terma: Okay Mulder/Krycek shippers, I may not live on your planet, but I now see the roots from which you sprung. Their dynamic in these was actually wild.

This was overall an excellent two-parter! It focused more on character tension than alien plot, which I feel is always better. I liked the juxtaposition of very different high-stakes scenarios for Mulder and Scully - the Russian gulag and Scully being held in contempt of Congress, and kind of the implications that all corrupt governments are the same with that parallel - all good stuff! Although, for being hyped up as inescapable, Mulder sure got out of that prison camp real fast. Also…Mulder being injected with the black stuff is a HELL of a plot point to never touch again, but it is in character for the show. But TELL ME why there are no post-ep fics for this! There’s so much angst potential! Anyway 9.5/10

Paper Hearts: *cries*

See this is what Oubliette could have been if it had properly utilized Mulder and Scully’s dynamic, because Mulder’s search for Samantha is him making all the wrong choices, knowing they’re wrong but always digging in the dirt anyway, and Scully seeing the inevitability of Mulder’s downfall but standing there and letting him hold onto her after he breaks, coming back again and again because he always needs her and she’ll always follow him.

I do think the climax was a bit underwhelming given the emotional weight of the episode. I think Mulder maybe figured the killer (forget his name) out too early. But the post-climax scene is, of course, phenomenal, as is this episode overall. Point me to the fics for this one too! 10/10

El Mundo Gira: And this time the ethnic flute is accompanied by a vaguely Spanish guitar! And a boring plot! And some actors who are supposed to be native Spanish speakers who are very obviously not! 2/10

Never Again: Yes, I did watch this before Leonard Betts, and I’m glad I did, because I think it’s more interesting to look at Scully’s actions through a lens of her reaching breaking point than as a trauma response. I know this is controversial- the wonderful @mulders-too-large-shirt and @thursdayinspace aren’t the biggest fans, but I’m going to have to disagree and say I adored this one. Scully episodes are always treats for me, and this one was no exception. I know that people don’t like the implication that she sees Mulder as a disapproving authority figure, but I saw that as more of a manifestation of her fears than anything else. Scully will always crave the approval of those she loves, no matter how much they show her that she doesn’t have to earn it, she will try, and especially with Mulder, who can be a bit oblivious, the extent to which he values her can go unnoticed, and she’s left feeling like she’s bending over backwards for nothing. She doesn’t feel this way all the time, but here that feeling reaches a peak for her, and she gets these desires to break the mold and do something else and just try everything she never tried before. And as someone who also has a good girl identity, this really resonated with me.

The ending is also killer. Mulder wanting to say it’s become mine but he can’t finish the sentence…especially knowing what’s coming for them…GOD. This is in fact a 10/10 for me.

Leonard Betts: I mean, this is really just cancer arc setup. All of that, and the last few scenes with Scully, are fantastic. Individually, this is pretty good! Nothing to really complain about. 8/10

Memento Mori: *cries* I seem to be doing that a lot this season.

What a fantastic introduction to the cancer arc. I adore that this episode starts with Scully’s narration, to really emphasize how this is her story, and she will be taking center stage. I love how this episode showed Scully and Mulder’s reaction to her disease, and really dove into their psyches in a way they really wouldn’t again. It’s Scully’s desire to maintain her strength, to keep going, to just accept it and keep working as she does so many things. It’s the way the fear of death hangs over her, and she accepts it with open arms because it would almost be more vulnerable to fight it, but Mulder fights it because there’s nothing he fears more than losing her, and yet when she calls him he’s there in an instant, because he’ll give up every answer to be with her. It’s One Breath all over again.

And of course, the hallway scene. Gillian Anderson the actor you are. They both look at each other with so much care and grief and tragedy and love, and it’s fantastic. Though this is not the show’s first forehead kiss (there was a blink and you’ll miss it one in Irresistible) it was the first noticeable one, and it’s so tender but also heartbreaking. I was sobbing in my dorm room. 10/10

Kaddish: I did enjoy the parallel to Mulder not wanting to let go of Scully. And I loved the score, which actually drew on elements from Yiddish folk music (Yiddish is a very prominent folk music for Eastern European Jews). Makes me wonder why they couldn’t do that for the non-white “cultural episodes.”

They seemed to be a bit more clear on the messaging regarding antisemitism than they are when they’re dealing with non-white cultures, but it still felt a bit muddled to me, what with the villain being one of the Jewish people (sort of). I’ll give this a 7/10

Unrequited: What’s that? There was an episode? I must have fallen asleep. 3/10

Tempus Fugit/Max: My lovely friend @california-112 loves these - alas I must disagree. These fall victim to the “too much plot, not enough character stuff” thing that I don’t like. I want to emphasize that this is a subjective taste thing for me, but it does impact my viewing experience nonetheless. I was just annoyed that there was a big mytharc two-parter and Scully was LITERALLY DYING OF CANCER and it wasn’t about that. It felt like that whole plot was just sitting there, wanting to be used, and it wasn’t. And while the plot with Max was nice, it seemed like an awful lot of significance to give a one-off character. If he had been recurring, I might have liked this more.

But I did, of course, love the birthday bookend scenes. He finally celebrates her birthday because he thinks he may never get to again😭😭😭 And her explanation at the end. I love them❤️ Overall these two are a 7.5/10

Synchrony: I actually really liked this one! Maybe it’s because I’m a physics girlie but I liked the time travel elements of the whole thing, and I thought the continually unraveling mystery was really cool. I guessed some of the plot twists for sure, but not all of them! Also Mulder literally quoted Scully’s thesis at her, which was especially fun because, as a physics student, I now know what the Twin Paradox is. Anyway this was an 8/10 for me.

Small Potatoes: I need David Duchovny to star in a comedy immediately. This episode gave us some much needed levity in a pretty gloomy season. All of the jokes landed for me, and I love how pathetic of a villain Eddie is…and that’s exactly why he’s dangerous. I also love every second of body-swapped Mulder and the way the show takes the opportunity to make fun of itself. “Where do I sleep?” might be my favorite joke in the whole show.

I also like that this episode has layers, and kind of gets sadder the more you think about it. Read what I wrote on that here.

All that being said, I do agree with @california-112 that this episode falls into the trap of belittling women who were victims of SA, and I do think that that’s generally icky and a problem. With that in mind, I’ll give this episode a 10/10 for my personal enjoyment but an objective 8/10.

Zero Sum: Another Skinner episode! I do feel like Avatar gave us more insight into his character than this, but I still thought this was intriguing. I thought the push-pull between Mulder and Skinner was entertaining, and the thought that Skinner was willing to go to such lengths while Scully was sick is an interesting one - but most of this episode escaped my memory and I did watch it fairly recently, which I think is telling. So 6/10

Elegy: *cries* Scullyyyyyy

First of all, the ghost makeup in here? Terrifying. It got me. And I’m not easily spooked by this show.

But I loved Scully’s reaction to this. Her in therapy, only admitting how much she needs Mulder when she knows he can’t hear it, because she’s still fighting those same battles with her emotional walls and her self-image. Her refusal to believe in what was happening to her because of science, but also because she doesn’t want to admit that she’s dying and that things aren’t normal and they can’t be normal and they can’t go on. I also don’t know if this is the episode where she finds out her cancer has metastasized (what we learn in Gethsemane), but her final argument with Mulder hits so much harder if you think it is. I know what you’re afraid of, because I’m afraid of the same thing…and what that really is is being apart. And the final shots of her in the car…this season has so much Scully crying and I hate it but I love it. 9.5/10

Demons: Dare I say…tied with Irresistible for new favorite episode? I’ve already made a meta about this, so you know I adored it. Plus it takes place in my hometown which is awesome!

All jokes aside, this episode was so sad but so wonderful. Mulder feeling like his life is spinning away from him and he can’t save anyone, taking desperate measures to find answers, and just being fully swallowed by his self-hatred, willing to go further than he ever has because there’s no hope left.

And Scully, who is his beacon of hope, following him and believing in him when no one else does. She stays until the case is solved and she puts every single piece together herself because she has to. She follows him into the house and stares down the barrel of his gun because she will never fear him, no matter how far he goes, and he will run endlessly into the darkness chasing the truth, and she will run just as far to pull him back.

God. He’s so broken and she’s so devoted to him and this episode showed both things in spades. It was beautiful (and, on a more self-indulgent note, played into all of my favorite tropes. It felt like an upgraded version of one of my fanfics). Obvious 10/10

Gethsemane: Like Talitha Cumi, this is more of a precursor to Redux than a finale in itself, but it’s still a really good episode. High stakes all around! This really digs deep into the question of is it aliens or the government or both, and that’s an ambiguity I’ve always loved, so it was nice to see it back. Scully saying her cancer had metastasized absolutely killed me, but what really got me was the ending. Holy shit! 9.5/10

I think this may be my longest review so far, which is fitting for Season 4! Please feel free to tell me your thoughts on these episodes or the season as a whole, or to send me asks about TXF or anything at all! There’s truly nothing I love more than fangirling with all of you! I’ve had such a stressful few weeks with college, and you’ve all been so kind to me, sending me asks and commenting on my writing and chatting with me, and it’s just meant the world to me, so thank you❤️

On another note, my birthday is coming up in a few weeks, and I’d love to make something special for it, so if any of y’all have ideas, please let me know:)

Until next time!

[confessionsofacougar]

Watching mum in the shower

This is a role-play I did with my 31-year-old friend with benefits a few days ago... It was soooo damn hot I had to write about it :) Love to know what you think!

As Ben walked in the door, he could hear the shower running in the main bedroom. His mum must be in the shower again. He walked towards the main bedroom hoping the door would be open as it had been the past few days. It was. He quickly got undressed and snuck into the main room. The ensuite was off to the right and the door was open as usual. If he stood against the wall just near the door, he could see the mirror which gave him a full view of the shower. The shower screen was glass so he could see his mum clearly. She was using a loofah and soaping up her body. Ben started stroking himself as he watched the soap slide off his mum’s breasts and stomach. She turned and bent over and he watched as she lathered up her legs. He loved her round ass. She turned again and his heart skipped a beat as he saw the loofah brush against her pussy. He had been surprised to find that she was clean shaven. He loved it. He continued stroking his now hard cock as he watched her. He was watching his mum soap up her breasts again and he inadvertently stepped forward. As he did so, his mum glanced over at the mirror and saw him just beyond the door frame. She turned the shower off, opened the shower door and grabbed a towel. She held it in front of her as she stepped out of the shower.

“What the hell are you doing?” she asked him.

“I’m sorry mum. I just got home from work and was coming to let you know I was home when I saw you in there. You looked so sexy I couldn’t help myself.”

“You think I look sexy?”

“Absolutely! I love your body.”

“Thanks Ben.”

“I really am sorry mum. I’m usually gone before you get out.”

“Usually?? You’ve done this before??”

Ben went bright red as he nodded. “Yes. I’ve been doing it for a while now.”

“Really. I don’t know what to think about this.”

“I’m sorry mum.”

As he spoke, his mum noticed that he was still stroking himself. She allowed herself to look at him properly. He was naked, and he actually had a really nice body. Not skinny, but well proportioned. He’d been doing physical work lately and his muscles were becoming more defined. His cock was rock hard. It must be 7 inches long and it was quite thick too.

“Well if you are going to watch me, I guess it’s only fair that I get to watch you too.”

Ben looked at her. “Huh? You want to watch me shower?”

“No. I have something else in mind.” Mum dropped her towel and walked over to the end of the bed and sat down. She patted the mattress in front of her. “Come on. Sit down.”

Ben walked over to the bed and sat cross legged opposite his mum.

“I want to watch you masturbate.”

He spread his legs slightly and leant back against the headboard. He looked at his mum, unsure of what to do next.

“Go on…” said mum.

 Ben proceeded to stroke his cock again. Every now and then he’d run his hand down over his testicles and give them a squeeze. He was looking at his mum’s body as he did so. She could see the desire in his eyes and to her surprise, she was feeling quite turned on.

She adjusted her position so that her legs were slightly apart and she started to rub her pussy. Ben’s breath caught in his throat.

“Mum, what are you doing?”

“You seem to be enjoying yourself. I am enjoying watching you, so I thought I’d join in. Is that okay?”

“Um yeah of course”

Ben couldn’t take his eyes off his mum’s pussy as she rubbed her clit and slid her fingers in and out of her bald pussy. He could feel his cock throb as he watched her.

“You know what? I’ve got an idea.” His mum said.

“Yeah?”

Mum spread her legs wider and patted the mattress between them. “I want you to sit here.” She said. Ben shuffled closer to her. “Get on your knees,” she said. Ben did so. “Now, I want you to keep masturbating, but you can touch me. You can rub your cock on my pussy, you can press it against me… anything you want, but you cannot go inside me.”

“Oh my god. Really? You sure?”

“Yes”

Ben shuffled even closer. He continued stroking his cock but seemed hesitant to touch her even though he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“Touch me” she said.

He rubbed the head of his cock along the length of her pussy. They both held their breath for a moment. He held his shaft and hit her clit with the head of his cock a few times. Her pussy lips were slightly open and he pressed the head of his cock between them. Mum lifted her hips and pushed against him slightly. He rubbed the head up and down between the lips. She was so wet his cock slid easily between them. Mum pushed against him again.

“Fuck me” she said

Ben looked at her. “What?”

“Fuck me”

“Mum… are you sure???”

“Yes.”

Mum lay back on the bed with her legs wide apart. Ben held her hips and pulled her closer to him. He positioned himself and pressed his cock against her. He hesitated slightly and mum lifted her hips, pushing against him. He pushed his cock between her lips and slowly entered her. They both moaned. He because she was so tight and so wet. He’d never dreamt she would feel so good. Her because his cock was so hard and so thick. She could feel him stretch her as he pushed deeper inside her. He started fucking her slowly at first. Almost as though he were afraid he’d hurt her. Mum wrapped her legs around him and her hands raked down his back. Her enthusiasm encouraged him to go faster and harder. He lifted her legs and placed them on his shoulders. He was so deep inside her he could feel her cervix. Mum clenched her pussy tight around him and the pressure drove him wild. With a final thrust he pushed deep inside her and mum could feel his cock throb as he filled her with his warm cum. After a few seconds, he withdrew and lay beside her. They were both breathless.

“Well, we will definitely be doing that again” Mum said and Ben smiled.

“Absolutely” he replied.

[blond3ang3l]

Gaz x reader angst

How did it possibly turn into a fucking hurricane of emotions?

Gaz came home up upset because of his teammates. The constant belittling of him and doubting of his abilities could only go on for so long before he eventually snapped. He could usually take it as a joke because he knew damn well he was a lot better than any of the team knew. But once Ghost made a comment to Soap about how “He’s surprised that Gaz is even part of team” something in him just couldn’t take it no more. For fuck sake he worked with the queen and they still think he’s just some amateur.

He couldn’t prove them by snapping at them. So what would he do to calm himself down? Well nothing good…

All you did was simply greet him when he came in. In return you got yelled at to get the fuck off his back and how he doesn’t need you bitching at him. You turned and looked at him like he had two heads. He must have lost his mind speaking to you that way.

“Excuse you?”

“Oh what now?! You to fucking dumb to understand what I’m saying?”

You laughed at him in disbelief it’s no way in the world he was talking to you that way. This set him off beyond belief. He got in your face screaming at you about how he bust his ass all day just for you to laugh at him. Of course you argued back telling him how he threw everything out of proportion.

It had been almost two hours and you’ve been arguing non stop. You had a pounding migraine and just threw you arms in the arm and told him you were done.

“Tsk of course you are that’s cause your weak if it weren’t for me who knows where you would be. Probably with that little bitch you dating before me”

You went silent as you looked at him in astonishment. He just had the audacity to throw your past in your face for no reason. And now you just both stood there looking at each other. He knew he fucked up but how pride was to big for him at the moment. You sucked your teeth and shrugged as you grabbed your phone and started walking to the door of your shared home.

“Who really knows, but I know one thing you got me mistaken with some other bitch right now.”

“Babe where are you going.”

He couldn’t believe that you were leaving but once he seen you step foot out the door his heart shattered.

“Don’t worry about me Kyle.”

“Kyle?”

“Mhm me and you we are done.”

“Babe wai-”

“Maybe you should take their advice Kyle, you still do act like a child.”

@silas-222

[ilove-masked-men]

”How much do her parents make?”

a y/n x Johnny (Soap) Mactavish forbidden love based fanfic

Y/N POV

Arguing about money again, ofcourse they were, my dad loves to start arguments about money when he can’t afford his whiskey because mom payed for the rent instead of cigerettes. It was horrible, you asked him to go to rehab again but he said it “only made him worse” we all knew he was lying. I needed out and immediately. I didn’t want to go into the living room through front door though, they would drag me into the argument. I only had one other way out - my window. Right outside my window was a skip we had hired to clear out the house but we had barely used it, the only thing inside of it were some pillows and old blankets, creating the perfect soft landing. 

I jumped out and down onto it, it hurt, but not as much as it would if there wasn’t any cushoning. I got up and started walking, it was cold, even with my thickest coat on. It was so late too, almost tweleve and i was out walking. I’m asking to be kidnapped.

I was too busy lost in thought to see the man i had bumped into, almost knocking both of our balance. I mindlessly grabbed onto him for stabilty with my eyes squeezing shut in shock.

“What’s somet gorgeous la’hk yo’ou doin’ all about this late at ni’ht?” A heavy Scottish accent asked me, he didn’t seem to mega uncomfortable, but i let go of him without hesitance to make sure.

I realised i still had my eyes closed and opened them up, to be blessed in my vision… i think. He had an uneven smirk on his lips as he looked at me, with an extremely noticable mowhawk and peircing blue eyes. His face was imperfect but in all the right ways that made him something amazing to look at. He had the perfect build, his whole body being perfectly proportioned in his skin tight black shirt and slightly baggy blue jeans, only tight in the right places. 

“Still waitin’ for me answer pretty.” He said with a slight scoff, he was so full of himself i couldn’t help but be flattered.

“Uhm, sorry i was just going for a walk.” I answered directly, looking down.

“At twelve o’clock at ni’ht? Are you sure tha’s it?” He asked, his voice rung with a slight concern in it.

“Oh.. i mean, you know how it is.. rough night..” I explained to him, becoming more and more nervous, which he clearly picked up on.

“Hey, i ain’ abou’ to try and kidnap yo’ou or other stuff. How old are yous? And what’s your name? I’m 18 and me name is Johnny, but yous can call me Soap.” He asked me the questions so gently and he sounded so sincere i fell undee his spell, i made eye contact with him and smiled slightly.

“I’m y/n and i’m 16.” I told him, i felt more comfortable with him now that i had felt used to him.

“What time have yous gotta be home lovie? You wanna walk n’ talk?” He asked me with a kind smile.

I nod and begin talking to him, walking down the road next to him. He bought us coffee at the 24 hour cafê and we got phone numbers, i hope we can keep in touch alot, tonight was amazing - i met him at 12:00 and i got back home at 2:00. He even walked me home, i was writing about him in my diary for ages, filling up 3 pages just describing and drawing him. I slept like a baby after hetting everything off my chest too.

[primal-slayer]

Charmed drama Mega-Post

Mid 2000: Per Jason Priestley

Shannen talks Charmed and the joy she gets from working with Holly/Alyssa:

2001:

2.6.01 - Wanda at E!Online reports that there is definitely something a-brewin' regarding the rumors about Alyssa Milano leaving the show. A source close to the set has told her that there is some not-so-charming tension between Alyssa and her onscreen sibs. Apparently it's stemming from jealousy over better storylines and Shannen's more expensive wardrobe, which is full of Chloe and Versace and has created a few budget problems. Link

2.28.01 - E! Online's Wanda reports that things are getting really ugly on the set of "Charmed." Doherty acts like a primadonna all the time, demanding the best clothes and to be in the middle of all the publicity shots, and Milano is sick of it and threatening to leave. Meanwhile, Combs has managed to pretty much stay out of it.

5.10.01 - This week's Soap Opera Weekly interviews Executive Producer Brad Kern in an effort to confirm the rumors behind Alyssa's said departure from the series in her on-the-set battles with co-star Shannen Doherty. "Nothing I've been told from the people that I work for indicates whatsoever that anybody's leaving the show," Kern says of the rumor that Milano wants off and that her character will be killed. "Alyssa and Shannen are professionals. Are they best friends? No. Do they have to be? No. Do they work well together? Yeah. They're sisters in character only. They come in and do their job well. That's all that matters to us."

TVGO: After all the rumors about why you leftCharmed— including backstage feuding with covenmateAlyssa Milano— would you like to take this chance to clarify things for the record? Doherty: You know, I don't really want to be given the opportunity to clear the record. I have absolutely nothing to say. Details magazine will be out in August — that's probably the most honest interview that you'll ever read with me. I picked one magazine to tell the true story in and... if somebody wants to read it, then great. My opinion is, it really doesn't matter. I moved on, they moved on and who cares? You know, everything gets so blown out of proportion by the press that after awhile, you just gotta bury your head in the sand and go, 'I'm done talkin' about it.' TVGO: Any parting advice for your replacement, Rose McGowan? Doherty: [grinning mischievously] No, I think Rose will do a fine job, actually. I think Rose can hold her own and she's very sexy and beautiful — and I think it's actually going to make for a very interesting show, to be honest with you. I wish them all the luck.

 "I think my passion for my work was too overwhelming," says Doherty of the fur-fly that became the Charmed set. Doherty claims the issue was one colleague's work ethic. "I mean, what do we do?" she continues. "Say a few lines, sit in our trailers, and get paid a fortune. That's really rough. And yet there was a person there that bitched about her job, day in, day out." According to Doherty, a "mediator" was brought in to diffuse all the poisonous estrogen. To this diplomat she said, "Are you supposed to be my shrink? Because I've already got one." Exchanges like these apparently so riled Milano, Doherty says, that the comely newcomer announced that she would not return to the show if Doherty stayed on. Doherty insists that she was the more politic star; to settle things, she took the matter up with the serge suits at Paramount, threatening to quit unless "changes" were made, though she says she wanted Milano to stay. "I would never wish another actor out of a job," she adds. "I think it's terrible karma." (Milano's reps did not return phone calls.) Six months later, at the end of the season, came a frilly pink slip. Though Doherty claims that she actually wanted to leave the show, she remains bitter that she's yet to hear from Spelling and that no one sat down with her to explain what happened. "You know what?" she says. "The lack of appreciation he's showing for me as a human being and as an actor is overwhelming." (Spelling's office issued a terse "No comment.") Others believe Doherty has her charms. "I worked with her for three years," says Charmed witch No.3, Holly Marie Combs. "I don't think she's difficult at all."

But trouble was undeniably brewing between Doherty and Milano by the time production started on the third season last summer. The fawning quotes to the press had stopped, as had the costars' time together away from the set. As Milano puts it, "I wasn't going to call [Shannen] on the weekend to go hand out." Rumors quickly swirled that Doherty was resentful of Milano's growing popularity, which had translated into several endorsement deals, including one with MCI. But those close to the situation claim it was more complicated than that. "There were no angels," Combs says. "We all had our bad days. We all [got] stressed out."

That's hardly surprising, says executive producer Kern. "People on a TV set work together 12 to 14 hours a day, five days a week. Rarely have I seen cast members stay, or even become, best friends." Adding to the friction, says Combs, was the stars' growing frustration with the show's direction. "We were in [a] rut, where we felt like we were doing the same episodes over and over again," she says. Doherty, in particular, "wanted to make the show bigger and better and stretch her boundaries," says Combs, who has been friends with the actress for eight years, and still speaks frequently with her. "I'd see her in the morning and she'd be like, 'OK, how are we going to fix this scene?' She was really dedicated and she didn't have a lot of patience for anyone [she felt] wasn't."

Whatever broke the spell, "we definitely didn't get along," admits Milano. "Shannen and I are very different people, and I think it's almost like a roommate. If you spend that much time with someone and there are differences anyway, you're not always going to get along.

Both Milano and Combs deny tabloid reports that Doherty would only speak to them when the cameras were rolling. But Milano acknowledges that she and her former costar could get downright witchy: "There were times when I'd come in and say 'Good morning, Shannen,' and she didn't say anything to me. And there wer times when she'd come in and say 'Good morning, Ayssa,' and I wouldn't say anything to her."

"The problems we had weren't things some big company mediator could fix," Combs adds quietly. "They needed to be fixed between us [by] going into [each other's] trailers and saying, 'All right, I don't like it when you do this.' Or 'I didn't like it when you said this.'"

That apparently never happened. Doherty has contended that Milano eventually got fed up and issued producers an ultimatum--either Doherty walked or she would--but Milano insists that isn't truel "I never even thought about doing that," she says. "I couldn't sleep knowing I backed out of something I'd committed to."

Doherty's eventual dismissal, then, came as a surprise. And the form Combs says it took--a phone call to Doherty's lawyer after the embattled actress had flown to Winnipeg, Canada, to start shooting Another Day, USA's upcoming Francis Ford Coppola TV-movie--still clearly angers her. "How do you go from directing the season finale to being [given] a pink slip over the phone, when [you're] in another country, at eight at night?" Combs says. "it was really a tacky way to go about it.

While no one's officially saying why doherty was ultimately cut loose, a series insider says, "It eventually became clear that [either Doherty or Milano] had to go." And Doherty may have been the safer choice, according to Stacey Lynn Koerner, an industry analyst with Initiative Media: "Alyssa is just as popular, if no more so, than Shannen. And when Shannen left 90210, the series did just fine."

While answering questions at the TCA press gathering in Los Angeles, a number of WB's own addressed what happened this last year on CHARMED regarding Shannen Doherty's exit. The network's Jordan Levin spoke of the matter, saying, "We knew last year that there were some decisions that probably had to be made in the best interest of Aaron Spelling and his company, our company and Shannen. And everybody came to the decision that they felt was mutually beneficial for all parties involved." When asked if the season finale was geared crafted in order to set up the entrance of a replacement for Doherty, Levin says, "We had an idea that we wanted to give ourselves some flexibility." More specifically regarding the addition of Rose McGowan to the cast, Levin adds, "There's a history within the mythology that there could be another sister because of the Lighter. We're still sort of hammering that out, and we haven't heard the full pitch yet and how that's going to work. But we're looking to bring in someone who could provide some conflict within the group and someone who could bring a younger audience into the show. We feel like Rose does that for us."   

Early/Mid 2001

Alyssa claims that Shannen is out to destroy to her and it caused her to gain weight. Upon Shannens termination, Alyssa secures a substantial raise for S4

”I think it’s hard when you put…[long pause]…two very different people together. I’m very laid-back and passive. I have my Buddha,” Milano says, gesturing to a small shrine at the back of her trailer. ”I come in here and meditate. [Shannen’s] got a lot of energy, she’s very headstrong, she wants to get the job done…. I think it’s unfortunate that she left, and that she needed to bad-mouth everyone involved and the audience,” continues Milano, alluding to the former 90210 star’s recent dismissal of Charmed as ”a show for 12-year-olds.” (Doherty declined to comment for this story.) ”She sounds really angry. I just hope I didn’t contribute to that anger.”Shannen’s not the only one who’s miffed. ”It was done very poorly, in my opinion,” says Holly Marie Combs (Piper) of the producers’ postseason decision to allow Doherty to leave the coven. ”We should have had an opportunity to have her character, Prue, make a graceful exit and have our story writers properly plan for that.” Instead, writers were compelled to turn last season’s standard-issue cliff-hanger — Prue and Piper get thrown through a wall by a cranky demon — into a makeshift tragic send-off. ”Now,” adds Combs, ”we’re scrambling to explain why I live and she doesn’t.”

That stuff's hard to wash out. You're even more famous for those MCI commercials. Oh, yeah. Little kids only know me from those spots. They don't know from Who's the Boss? and aren't allowed to watch Charmed. It's a great night job, especially if Charmed doesn't last. Speaking of which... Shannen Doherty? You know, if you remember the way Shannen left Beverly Hills, 90210, it's almost exactly the way it happened on Charmed. She left for personal reasons, then it started coming out that she didn;t get along with the other cast members. It seemed she was so angry and upset over leaving another hit show that she had to lash out at me. Suddenly it's my fault. I think she did the right thing by leaving, but once she left she attacked many people—not only me, our audience, too, and almost everyone on the show. She lost credibility. She was like a bad roommate. There was a lot of tension on the set. I have a fear of confrontation, and she can be aggressive, so I was afraid of her. Shannen doesn't hate you—she hates herself. I haven't been able to figure it out, and I might die not knowing. And that's OK. OK. You and Shannen Doherty in a celebrity death match: Who wins? Sarah Michelle Gellar.

2004: Alyssa fires her agency over them signing Shannen. Agency sues and apparently wins their lawsuit against Alyssa for $1mill

2021:

While Milano said she's still so very proud of Charmed, she didn't always have the easiest time on set, especially when it came to her co-star, Beverly Hills, 90210 alum Shannen Doherty. After years of tension between the two during the show's eight seasons, Milano said she and Doherty are now "cordial." "I would say we are cordial," she shared. "You know, I could take responsibility for a lot of our tension that we had. I think a lot of our struggle came from feeling that I was in competition rather than it being that sisterhood that the show was so much about. And I have some guilt about my part in that." While the 48-year-old actress admitted that she still has some guilt for her part in their feud, their decades-old spat didn't stop her from reaching out to Doherty when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2015. 2022/2023: Shannen speaks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHisM0QLPEw&t=85s&ab_channel=Let%27sBeClearwithShannenDohertyPods

So it was interesting that when I had a problem after this all transpired and I wanted to discuss leaving the show and all my reasons why they put me in a room with Jonathan Levin, which I don't know that I had seen since we went to network, and you had told me about your background with him, which is varied and interesting, and he obviously has a very fond spot, shall we say, for you, And I don't know why they chose him to do this meeting, but I can tell you that during the meeting where I said this is not the show I signed on to do, I hear that you're looking for other people. And it's not about the list of names. It's about this was not a show that I wanted to do without Shannon. She didn't want to do it without me. Therefore I don't want to do it without her, and that should be fairly clear. And he hadars in his eyes already because he could see I was getting upset. As you can hear me getting upset, And I said, why would you hire her again just to fire her? And he said, we didn't mean to, And he said, but we've been backed into this corner. He said, you know, we're basically in a position where it's one or the other. We were told that it's her me and Alyssa has threatened to sue us for a hostile workplace environment, which because she went to the therapist or the mediator or the corporate mediator, whatever the heck his title is, she built a case for herself where she was documenting every time she felt uncomfortable on set and for whatever reason, whereas you and I refused to speak to him. So that's where the deck was stacked There was no either even like harsh words exchanged. It was all behind the scenes, it was all in the trailer. It was nothing that anybody or any of our guest stars ever noticed or noted. And you know, there's not a director that would not work with you. Again, there's not any one of our crew members that did not have a great time working with you. So by today's standards, it wouldn't fucking fly, right, And I don't think being laid as a teenager on a set called nine O two one zero would fly for being fired either. Like it's just it's just doesn't make any sense anymore. There are people that actually behave badly and get away with it, and there are men that you know, abuse people, throw things, screaming fits and get away with it. Alyssa/Holly Speak:

Guest stars speak throughout the years:

Michael Bailey Smith aka Belthazor/Shax/Grimlock I did 14 episodes on “Charmed” and had a great time. Whenever I showed up to the set as Belthazor, Alyssa Milano would always give me a kiss on the cheek and say, “You’re not scary.” Holly was really nice too, really down to earth. And I know the rumors about Shannen Doherty, but for me, she was always nice and very professional. I would always see her doing extra work off the set with the stunt people just to make sure her fight scenes looked good. I remember one time when we were preparing for a scene, she got a box of roses from someone. When she opened them, they were dead roses. People can be so cruel. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10157836541399125&set=a.404883944124&type=3&theater

Brian Krause (leo)“ I can just tell you that she was the hardest working person on the set. Yes, she could be terse and abrupt, but she wasn’t always wrong, I’ll tell you that.”“She had everybody’s back, she was part of the family, she was the family. And when she left, we all wondered how the show was gonna last, and it’s honestly a miracle that we did and kudos to Holly and Alyssa and Rose [McGowan] that we did, they kept it together. But I have nothing but love for Shannen Doherty.”“Most of those comments come from guys, men in power with money who don’t like to be told what to do by a woman, especially a strong opinionated woman,” he said, adding: “She wasn’t always right, but she stood her ground.”https://www.pedestrian.tv/entertainment/brian-krause-interview/

James L Conway (producer)"Shannen was nice to almost everyday, she had script problems, always nice to the cast, she was the HEART AND SOUL OF CHARMED" That really says it all doesn't it? She viewed Charmed as her baby.Source: Charmed blu ray special feature

Christine Rose (Claire)"It was all with Shannen, and I thought she was absolutely darling. I had worked with her years before on Life Goes on. That was about a boy with a Down’s syndrome, and I was guest-starring as the boy’s teacher. Shannen was on that episode, too, and I was setting them up to be married, for what that might be like. I was new to L.A. then because I’d mostly been on the stage, and I was relatively new to being on camera. And I remember thinking, «This girl is a pro”. So I was aware of how good Shannen was, and she was very nice when I did Charmed. I enjoyed working with her, Holly Marie Combs, I had played her biological mother on Picket Fences. We didn’t get to work together on Charmed, but it was fun just getting to see her again. Otherwise my experience was pretty straightforward.

Actually, one other thing I remember was being at a table and another guest star was having a hard time. In between takes Shannen said something very encouraging and nurturing to her, and I thought she was very nice. So those are my memories, as sparse as they are"Source Unknown via: https://thecharmedcafe.proboards.com/thread/11658/guest-stars-working-shannen-doherty

TW King (andy) I think some of it is rumor, but a lot of it is based on truth because she was young when success hit her. The great thing about Shannen is that she is a total professional and is always prepared, and she expects everyone around her to be at the same level - and I like to think I am the same way, so I respect the way she is around the set. We get things done, things rapidly and according to the script, so I certainly can't complain.Source Unknown via: https://thecharmedcafe.proboards.com/thread/11658/guest-stars-working-shannen-doherty

Scott Steiner (Wrestling W/Demons demon) Steiner is asked about appearing on the TV show "Charmed" while working in WCW. He said that while explaining to Shannen Doherty's stunt double that he would have to put his hand in her crotch to perform a press slam, Shannen came up to him and said that she would do that and when Steiner told her that he would have to put his hand in her crotch, Shannen told him that is why she asked. Steiner says that she was cool and gets a lot of bad press.https://www.rspwfaq.net/2014/05/rf-video-shoot-interview-with-scott.html

Armin Shimerman (The Wizard) "I hated the ladies on "Bewitched"...um...uh..."Charmed!" "Charmed!" And there's a reason they were cast as witches. I...of all the shows I've ever worked, that was by far the ugliest." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zl24cHSS-w (8:10)

Danielle Harris (Aviva) First AC guy was talking to me - Shannen kept walking by, she wasn't very nice to me anyway but she kept getting mad. Wasn't sure what was going on. Wasn't a fun experience. A lot of fighting between the girls. If I pick Shannen, Holly would be mean. If I picked Holly, Shannen would be mean. Alyssa kept telling me what to do as if I didn't know anything. The AC was using me to get back at Shannen. He had been her boyfriend for 1.5 years. Thats why I was getting stink eye.

Scout Compton (Thistle the fairy) I did 7 or 8 episodes and it was interesting. I wasnt on (when Rose was on NOTE: She was only on 1 episode with Shannen. The rest with Rose)The women were always fighting in the makeup trailer.

https://talkscarytome.podbean.com/e/talk-scary-to-me-e9/ (22:00)

Geoffrey Blake (Four horseman) Alyssa was very welcoming. Most of them were except one that wasnt so nice**. (Shannen was largely absent this episode)** https://podcasts.apple.com/be/podcast/geoffrey-blake-podcast-apocalypse-not-part-2/id1573860155?i=1000526963557

Elisabeth Hernois ( Brooke in the season 3 episode "Magic Hour"):

The dynamic on set was “interesting,” she said, as she ���hadn’t really ever witnessed anything like that on a set — where people really aren’t hiding not liking each other.”

“Definitely as a young person, I sensed the tension on the set,” Harnois, 44, said, noting that her overall experience was “actually really good” as she shouted out Alyssa Milano, who she said “was a sweetheart to me.”

“She really took me under her wing, and a lot of my stuff was with her too, so that was helpful,” she recalled.

Shannen Doherty and Holly Marie Combs, who made up the other ⅔ of the sister witches who led the show, “were nice to me but not as effusively kind as Alyssa was,” Harnois said.

“And they were always off in their own space and [Alyssa] would sit all the way on the other side of the set by herself," she continued. “There was a major divide on that set, even back then, and I don’t think that was that long into the show.” https://people.com/charmed-guest-star-recalls-major-divide-on-set-shannen-doherty-alyssa-milano-8604809

[idontlikejazzsonowitsmyname]

I need a homeless/no caretakers Deku where he struggles to have proportional responses to situations AND has realistically bad hygiene NOW.

Apologies in advance for my awful writing, I'm posting this without checking any grammar or helped of autocorrect at 3 40 in the night/morning idk which it is.

Also alot of the ideas here are based off of what I know about homeless people in my country so it's probably not accurate to Japan at all, if you knkw anythinf else please, PLEASE, feed me more information, I love knowing things.

Has REAALY bad patches of matting in his hair but it's so thick that he can't deal with Jr most of the time and doesn't really bother unless it's showing on the outside.

I know Asian people don't grow beards as early as other ethnicities but I'm still gonna imagine Midoriya having really bad patches all over his face that he can't shave off.

Also really bad acne.

He goes into fight, flight, freeze or fawn mode so fast at the smallest things.

Someone tries to nab a tiny piece of food off his plate, the carnage CAN be described but I'm not gonna.

Someone makes eye contact with him after he's just relaxed, he's gone, didn't even see him run, looked like he teleported, he was gone that fast.

He spots someone doing something against the rules, rock solid, not a muscle moving, he's a statue now, please don't notice him, he won't say anything to anyone about anything.

Someone sits where he was sitting or was gonna sit, he's nodding along, playing it off, desperately hoping this won't became a fight over nothing.

He KNOWS what a toothbrush is, but it's been so long that he thinks you just have to brush once and that's it.

Everytime he's given fresh fruit he has to hide it while he's eating it and tries to savour it.

HATES owing anyone anything and will do whatever it takes to get rid of the "debt" as fasf as possible, alot of the time there's no debt at all but he's not used to people willing to do anything for free.

Doesn't like talking to people alone or in private and gets stressed when he's not able to have his back to the wall, he doesn't have to in order to be comfortable but losing the option makes him wary.

Goes to school early to take full advantage of the showers and free soap, probably washes his clothes there too.

100% becomes a really bad hoarder once they get dorms, now that he has an actual place to stay he can KEEP THINGS, he's so happy tk have stuff to come back to he struggles to notice when the cereal boxes start falling apart from the damp.

I need Midoriya to SUCK at cleaning his dorm and other spaces, this boi has two mattresses stacked on top of eachother with no duvet and the only form of "cleaning" He's done is occasionally swap the top and bottom one after something spills.

He's got dust everywhere and god bless (I'm atheist which makes this worse somehow) whoever the poor smuck is that got the dorm under his cause there's gonna be SO MUCH WATER DAMAGE in their ceiling.

He's got atleast three different types of mold growing in the corners of his room and they've all developed sentience, declared war on eachother, held peace treaties, and are now attempting to merge into one mold and ASCEND.

I need that bush boy's breath to smell likes he just ate a rotting corpse, and his teeth to be so yellow they make Denki's hair feel insecure.

If you wanna be extra dark about this you could also throw in some kind of addiction, not sure if that's as common for homeless people in Japan, but in my country its really common for people to become involved with substances to either get rid of pain cause by periodic starvation, never staying dry, the freezing cold, the constant bruising or to help stay semi-lucid while dealing serious injuries like broken limbs, or of they need medication which they can no longer access legally.

So you could give him a medical issue which requires certain drugs, like insulin or antihistamines, pain meds, etc, and since those are hard to get without a legal address or prescription, he'd have to find second hand access, such as ✨️drug dealers✨️

I'd imagine constant arguing over Midoriya not wanting to arrest dealers over this and getting into really heavy debates with people at UA over this, especially the more privileged like Todoroki or Iida.

I'm not really sure if Ururaka's family is consistently-poor or if her family just raised her with a really unstable income so I think other way she'd probably recognise Midoriya had no money growing up but she might not be able to figure out he had no house or care-takers entirely.

Bakugo preferably either exploded or just doesn't exist because I wanna read about a boy trying to become a hero to the society that's abandoned him, not whatever beautiful tragic thing he's got going on for Deku that's too complicated for my puny brain.

I've run out of gas rn but if anybody has any idea of something new to add...

GIVE IT TO ME

GIVE IT TO ME NOW

[fourseasonsfigs]

Many Seeds Many Blessings

There's a lot of reasons I like this set, not the least because we have Zhang Zhehan and Gong Jun in their bright blue and red Wenzhou colors.

I also like figs that have a leg kicked up, like Zhehan does here in his inspiration photo:

I love active poses from Zhehan, he's always so athletic and graceful looking in motion.

Here's the inspiration for Gong Jun's outfit and pose:

What an absolutely beautiful smile from Junjun. I wouldn't think a Safeguard soap ad would feature one of my favorite smiles of his, but here we are.

I really, really love the bandana on his wrist - not only does it highlight the strength of his arm and the beauty of his hand and fingers, but it also has the pop of bright blue. Which I know is for Safeguard's logo, not the Wenzhou blue, but the associations are still really nice for me!

Before we get started, with fig pics, I just wanted to say I'm DISAPPOINTED in these figs. Well, not the figs, they're innocent. The FIG MAKER. She posted a pic of the figs looking like this:

Notice the smooch on Zhehan's sliver of chest and of course right there under Gong Jun's beauty mark. I was so charmed! Then I got these figs, and saw the kiss on Gong Jun's face, but where is the kiss on Zhehan?!? NOT there in the final product!

I don't know about you, but I'm a fan of equal smooch time, and I have a feeling some of you may be too. More to come on that.

These two arrived safely! They were part of the experimental batch I didn't air column wrap, so thankfully they were not victims of my own hubris.

Zhehan looks a little woeful here, no doubt because he's lacking a good solid smooch. It's OK honey, we'll see what we can do about that.

I'm just tickled that these figs can actually stand. They're pretty heavy, so I was a bit worried to experiment with them, but they stand beautifully. AND, not only can they stand, but Zhehan can stand on either foot!

Actually, the fact that he can stand on either foot proved difficult (for me) as I very carefully noted that he was standing on his right leg in the magazine picture, and mentally chanted, right leg right leg right leg as I was taking pictures. And then promptly managed to take a pic of him on his left leg.

Ahh it's been a while, but we're back to the typical JZP fig maker fig silhouettes. We've got Junjun's very slim runway model proportions, and Zhehan's lusher frame.

Both of their sets of legs are cute! I like we've got a little bit of movement for Junjun too.

This is such a cute angle on Junjun! Adorable.

Even a cuter angle! Good shot of the silhouettes too.

I wish we had gotten the scarf around Junjun's wrist, but that would likely have been quite difficult.

Well, since I took the photo anyway, here's how he stands on the other leg!

Nice and clean paint. The clothes are simple but executed quite well.

The pants aren't as shiny as they look, I just have late afternoon sun pouring in through my window and lighting up the figs!

Oops. I got here and realized I had not taken a top down picture! I had already finished up and put the figs on stands and away on my fig display. Alright, they came back for a photo encore.

I had been so focused on poor smooch-less Zhehan, and making sure he got all the kisses he so rightfully deserves!

I had this water sticker pack that was part of the Zhongpei fig set, and as you can see it had quite a few little lip stickers.

As you can see, the little lip print is quite a bit bigger than the one on Junjun, and a little bit darker. I don't mind the darker color, since Junjun's eating a pomegranate, after all, but the fact that it's bigger is problematic. There's very little real estate there on Zhehan's chest.

You can see there's definitely no room on his chest for the entire print without it looking strange, so I trimmed it to have just enough peeking out.

Well, I'll cut to the chase...somehow I bungled the first couple tries. The first time I have no idea what happened, the kiss like smeared into a little red ball before I even was able to try to apply it. The second time I don't know what happened either, but the sticker would not stick for anything, no matter how much water or what I tried to do, either side. The third time I realized that the sticker is the opposite side, so I could only stick it on his right side.

The third time was the charm! There's a little bit of a line where I wasn't able to get it snug enough against the lapel, but honestly it was a miracle I even got it on. I'll get a little bit of acrylic paint and paint in the little bit of the line so it looks like it's under the lapel. I still have one kiss sticker left, but I didn't dare take this off and try to reapply - it was very difficult to get on as it is! It also bunched up, but I ran my finger over it and it stretched out somehow. I'm not rolling the dice that I'll be able to do any better!

This also came with a magnet as a free gift. And look! They put the kiss on the same side I did! Looks like that worked out.

Material: Resin...and some smooches!

Fig Count: 423

Scene Count: 29

Rating: 💋💋

[link back to Master Fig Index for more posts]

[verycharismaticdragon]

Tag 10 People You Wanna Get to Know Better

tagged by @mu-qingfang-stan-account ty <3

relationship status: single (as in "too scared to try finding someone to date considering the state of queer rights here rn")

favorite colors: *james pokemon voice* its lavender (but honestly purple in all shades. my life have improved immensely when i started dyeing my hair purple and getting clothes to match)

favorite food: this is so broad uh... if its sweet stuff I gotta go with ice cream because whatever u want. it got u. and if we are talking about proper meal foods i think i gotta say chicken. shes so versatile what cant she do

song stuck in your head: oughh i cycle thru so many... i guess Leia (Rondo cover) came up a lot in the last few days

last thing you googled: spelling of some word, dont remember which. i often do this bcus im not confident in my spellings, esp with longer words, because I only learned them visually and that doesn't necessarily mean all letters or in the right order. wait i think it was resurrect, i keep forgeting if its two "s"s or two "r"s in there (yes i googled it again to spell it rn)

time: 13:40

dream trip: listen this is just gonna be sad if i answer it, so lets not

last thing you read: I'm currently super mega slowly rereading Scum Villain - like, taking notes every page slowly - so that's been going for the past month or so. If we're talking finished, then pipi's You Fei.

last book you enjoyed reading: I did enjoy Fei a whole lot! As usual, I'm a sucker for priest's ability to entwine some absolute clownery with so much subtle (and sometimes not subtle) heartbreak. Also the more I hear from my friend who branches out into BG cnovels/cdramas the more I realize how special a female protagonist like Fei is.

last book you hated reading: a danmei novel that shall remain unnamed bcus it was recced by a mutual. meanwhile i regret finishing it. the plot was such a friggin soap opera. literally almost Every soap opera trope. i'm surprised nobody's clone showed up, it wouldnt have been out of place! the ship dynamic was good so i finished to get their happy ending but. kinda felt that it wasn't worth it in the end.

favorite thing to cook/bake: gotta be meringues, as long as you know the perfect time for your particular oven theyre literally SO easy to make. and tasty. I like making blini too but they are kinda stressful because you gotta stay on them the entire time.

favorite craft to do in your free time: cross-stitch, it's somehow just the right proportion of mindlessness and engagement for me

most niche dislike: there's this special kind of annoying fans that make me dislike thing that they are fan of literally just because it becomes associated in my mind with their annoyingness. (I don't know how to explain every nuance of how they are annoying, but most often it involves being shitty about something else, that I already like.) And it kinda pisses me off not just on its own, but also on behalf of the thing they are fan of. Like - it usually doesn't deserve my ire! it's literally just the fans, and only some specific ones! But I can't stop my brain from cringing at the sight of the thing. ugh. So: hate it when this happens.

opinion on circuses: im more interested in the aesthetic concept of circuses than in any real ones.

do you have any sense of direction: yeah im pretty good with it, both in "reading maps" way and in "understanding where things are located relative to each other and alternate routes/shortcuts" way

tagging: god please I always forget every single person I ever seen or talked to when it comes to tagging. Literally any of my followers, I'm interested, I wanna hear about u, if you'd like to do this say i tagged you and go off

[amyisherenowitsokay]

HEY! how come I don’t see any of those silly-Willy emoji writing prompt questions? I got you boo.

💖 what made you start writing?

❌ what is a trope that you’ll never write?

WABAM.

Have a nice day or my son Winnifred gets it 🐟🔫

I think because I take awhile to answer them lmao, but nah I just put things out there for fun. Whether ppl want to participate or not is totally chill, I'm just here for vibes.

💖 What made you start writing?

Even looooong before I wrote fanfics, I wrote a unique series about like magic and time travel and war and romance and shit. It was 6 books, at roughly however many pages are in those journals you can get at Barnes & Nobles (I think around 250 pages?). It had insp from Teen Titans, Kingdom Hearts, Artemis Fowl, and some other fandoms I loved as a kid (and still do).

I've never let anyone read them, but their existence did end up being weaponized by my parents against the school district into letting me into AP English classes lmao.

❌ What’s a trope you will never write?

I have a few -

Disclaimer that I respect anyone who writes whatever they want, and support you wholeheartedly in your creative pursuits, this is just for me and mine.

1 ) Romance bait. Like something where it's extremely clearly a formula that's disingenuous and not in the vein of a slow burn, but solely dragging out the will they/won't they of the situation for the sake of baiting the reader into digesting more content.

A really good example of this would be Lucifer (tv series). The amount of times these characters got together at the end of the season only for something stupid and absurd to happen that just equated to 'take backsies' was fucking dumb and really killed my interest in the series. It feels disrespectful to the audience and is painfully annoying to experience.

2) Forced misunderstandings that cause things to blow wildly out of proportion. Overhearing a snippet of conversation that causes really unnecessary drama. I'm not talking about like people keeping secrets deliberately, or people being angry, or not admitting feelings they're not ready to admit to. I'm talking about like, for example, let's say Gaz walked in and heard Zim talking about a meeting he's looking forward to. She just assumes he's cheating, and runs off, trashing his place on the way out and leaving a note about how they're now broken up. Zim the whole time was actually talking to Skoodge! Gasp! And about a gift he was making for Gaz that he inexplicably needed help with! Gasp x2! But now that she's trashed his place, he doesn't even notice the note, and think she's betrayed him! Gasp x3! And just spirals from there. Just really soap-opera level overreactions and miscommunications.

I really feel like arguments make a story so interesting. I enjoy making characters escalate a situation together. I think you get juicier content out of two characters screaming at each other rather than two characters misunderstanding. Communication is interesting and fun. It just feels like the writer is reluctant to actually make the characters pick a fight because they don't know how they'd resolve it afterwards if it isn't instantly all solved by saying "no! it wasn't like that! it was all just a gift for you!"

3 ) Pregnancy-based stories, but one trope in particular. Like specifically the 'drunken-one-night-stand-caused-pregnancy-and-now-the-protagonists-will-fall-in-real-love-over-the-joys-of-pregnancy.' It's super annoying. Let the characters fuck. Also 99% of the time they don't really have a mature discussion about abortion options, financial obligations, etc. I think I'd be down to read an unintentional pregnancy that wasn't just a forced proximity trope in disguise.

Also it's basically ignoring that being drunk is a consent issue, but smoothed over with 'well but they actually wanted to the whole time, being drunk just created the opportunity.'

[senatortedcruz]

Ask meme for people in their 30s but only the prime numbers

2. What proportion of your meals do you cook?

I would say like 50%. Most weekday breakfasts and dinners and like half my lunches depending on how i feel about the office cafeteria. On weekends anyting goes tho

3. Foaming hand soap or normal hand soap?

No strong preference whatever's on sale tbh.

5. Least favorite chore?

Every part of doing laundry sucks severely tbh

7. Any groceries you've been getting into lately?

Bought some bagels last week....havent had those in a while.

11. What's something you saved up for and then regretted buying?

hhhmmmmmm cannot think of anything!

13. Which filter are you most likely to go "eh, it's probably fine" when you find out you need to change it?

AC or my range hood tbh.

17. What's a movie you saw recently that you liked?

Anora, Conclave, The Substance all banged tbh.

19. What's your go-to tape?

Just a good ol fashioned scotch tabe tbh.

23. Paper bags, plastic bags, or reusable bags?

IIIII prefer reusables but we get a ton of paper bags for recycling.

29. Go-to holiday card format?

Have not sent out holiday cards besides like birthdays because I'm the worst...........

31. Do you still own your first car?

I have never owned a car and inshallah I never will

37. Do you still listen to the same music you listened to in high school?

Oh for sure. I was a taywarrior in high school and now I'm 30 and still a taywarrior.

41. What's the oldest thing you own?

Probably stuffed animals from when I was a baby.

43. Favorite book you've read recently?

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow!!! omg could NOT put it down.

47. Lamps or overhead lighting?

overhead lighting hive rise up

53. What's worse, the DMV or the Social Security Office?

I've only been to social security office once and it was fine so I gotta go with dmv tbh.

59. If you died and your ghost was stuck in the outfit you're wearing right now for the rest of time, would you be happy with it?

I mean it's comfortable but not especially stylish (Nili Lotan striped sweater and American Eagle trousers I got on clearence 2 sizes too big)

61. Do you have a favorite brunch spot?

OMG YES!! Lincoln Tavern in Southie is goated.

67. Do you keep any stuffed animals on your bed?

They aren't on my bed but are somewhere in my room...

[ivoryminitower]

Echoes of Home: 13 - Steve ("recipes")

Echoes of Home: FFXIV AU OC – WoLs on Earth

Substitutions didn't work.  The deer meat didn't work in the antelope recipe.  At least it didn't botch and cost us materials...it just failed to trigger.

Nor did the wheat we found work as we'd hoped.  We found rye, and rye is apparently rye, but what we'd've found in the same place as rye in Eorzea is sunset wheat, whereas what we found northwest of Wyatt is apparently "prairie wheat", which doesn't work in the sunset flour recipe.  Even grinding it by hand (which is annoying if you don't have the tools for it) didn't produce a flour that would work in our crafting log.  We could make conventional pancakes with it, but not fill an Eorzean crafting recipe.

So we made our own.

Our journals are magic books with an indefinite number of pages.  As we gain more knowledge by exploring or harvesting or learning or whatever, the number of pages goes up even though the book doesn't occupy more space.  But there's always a few blank pages at the ends of certain sections.  So we tried to see if we could just write new recipes in.

Ballpoints didn't work.  Gel pen ink wouldn't stick.  Sharpies smeared, which I'd never seen before, but a little soap and water cleaned the pages again.  We tried quills and bottled ink (which was really hard to find in this town), but the ink just sort of sat on the paper like drops of black mercury.

Fortunately we'd found copper sand near the wheat, and a couple deer I'd killed dropped beastkin blood, so we mixed up some enchanted copper ink.  That worked, at least for these low-level recipes...we'll have to see if we need stronger ink for higher-level ones.  With that we could write up a recipe for prairie flour, made from prairie wheat.  And that at least got a reaction, though it got a lot of botches until we got the proportions right.  Eorzean recipes call for particular units of things, like "one" wheat, which does not mean one grain.  Working out what one unit of wheat was took experimenting.

We didn't find moko grass like in Eorzea either...we found "okie" grass. (What will we find in Montana?  Monty grass?) But we did find that we could make a second hempen yarn recipe that used okie grass.  So we're on the verge of being able to make extra clothes, even if they're a little hippiesque.

In Eorzea I never really thought about how I could see the names of things, and now it's weird that I can do that here, at least for Eorzea-skill-gathered stuff.  My prairie flour from my prairie wheat "looks" like prairie flour, while store-bought flour just looks like flour.  I may need to see if I can combine them, pad my prairie flour with Earth flour, to see how much I can mix in before it's not prairie flour any more.  Hope Tsu'na likes my pancakes.

Tsu'na's been quiet today, but cooperative.  I think she's taken what I said to heart.  I hope she can think of herself as a pioneer, a vanguard leading the way to Earth-based Eorzean discovery. Like, for instance, honestly I didn't know Return would work.  We haven't found any aetherites ("yet"), so the place we appeared on Earth is apparently our default "home" point.  That at least means we only have to fly to our destination and can Return home afterwards.  Great discovery, my love.  And thank you for scaring the hell out of me watching you disappear not knowing where (or if) you'd show up.

I hope she knows I love her and value her and treasure her and don't mean to objectify her, but this stuff is important.  We'll probably be (re-)learning stuff here for a long time.  If we're copies that were created here we probably won't be leaving, even if we find yet another Circle, so our life is here.  We need to know what our capabilities are.  I need to know.  And I may need her to show me.

Now, where the hell am I going to find buffalo milk?

[allthemusic]

Week ending: 15th March

Back to multiple songs, one of which is a cover, and one of which I definitely know - in fact, one of the lines has become practically proverbial, which is how you know a song's made it into the collective consciousness. Or how many other songs do you know that have become a sort of call-and-response greeting?

Memories Are Made of This - Dave King (peaked at Number 5)

I didn't massively love this song in its original Dean Martin form, but I didn't hate it, and a speedy google tells me that Dave King was a British actor and comedian, who got his first ever break in a comedy group called Morton Fraser's Harmonica Gang, which means I'm already in his corner from the get-go. So we shall see!

I can tell already from the intro that the speed has been upped a bit, and a jolly trombone added, both of which are very welcome additions. It turns it from a bit of a lecture into a swinging song you could genuinely dance to. And the little changes continue as the song wears on, with the addition of some church bells after the wedding bells lyric, and a separate female set of backing singers who take over the more religious with His blessings from above section while Dave steps back and briefly takes over the backing singers' lines. It's an effective little swap, and all the more so for the way it avoids slowing the song, which I remember not appreciating when Dean did it.

These are all little things, but they're enough to massively improve the song, at least for me. I was ready for Dave to add some comedy beats or a sort of comic sensibility to this à la Max Bygraves, but it turns out he didn't even need to, which I respect. This is just a solid cover, no comedy needed.

I would also be remiss not to mention that Dave gives us what I think is our first (but surely not our last) overlap between the words of British popular music and British soaps, having played a character called Clifford Duckworth in Coronation Street. He also appeared on an episode of Heartbeat in the 1990s, which is notable only because it's a police procedural set in the 1950s and 1960s, and what song did they play over the top of his exit? If you guessed Memories Are Made of This, well done! It's the kind of twistiness I really like, so kudos to their casting department, I guess?

See You Later, Alligator - Bill Haley & His Comets (7)

Come on, you know this song. Just about everybody I know, even in 2024, even in the UK, could quote you the response when somebody says "see you later alligator", and I'm sure a good proportion of them could also hum you the tune of this song. It was a phrase that was apparently already in currency when the song came out, but the song popularised it internationally. And honestly, I can see why.

There's just such a sense of fun to the track, from the pitched-up See you later, alligator line at the start, to the silly playground rhyminess of it, to the relish with which Bill launches in with each wellllllll and the way that the saxophone echoes his lines. It's not a song that takes itself too seriously, and I love that playfulness.

With all this, it's easy enough to ignore the fact that that yes, that iconic line is a break-up line from a cheating lady! From the moment that Bill saw my baby walkin' with another man today, to her iconic brush-off, to the even more devastating line where she tells Bill Can't you see you're in my way now / Don't you know you cramp my style, this song pulls no punches whatsoever. This woman, whoever she is, is going straight for the jugular!

Which makes it all the more satisfying when she comes crawling back and apologising, and Bill, now recovered from his heartbreak, can turn her words back on her, calling her out for how she doesn't really mean it, and bidding her farewell in the same callous way. His glee at this reveral makes the whole enterprise worth it, honestly. I particularly love the wild energy of Bill's final so long, that's all, goodbye line! He's just so glad to be shot of this woman, and you know what, good for him. It's a good, satisfying story, one you could absolutely find in a pop song today - think Forget You by CeeLo Green, or something of that ilk.

It's also catchy as heck, which, as I've probably said before, is really the main thing that matters in these early rock and roll songs. They're music for dancing along to, not for listening too hard to, and this song is repetitive, silly and has a heck of a riff to build on, with the way that the melody bounces between Bill and the saxophone. Plus, we get that sax / drum / guitar break in the middle, where the sax in particular cuts loose. It rocks, and I can absolutely imagine the youth going wild when it comes it!

It's also a very intense, full sound. I've noticed that about these rock and roll numbers - there's no space around the vocals or quiet bits, like it's been engineered for maximum volume, even on tinny radio or a jukebox. We're a way away from Phil Spector and the Wall of Sound, but we're already gunning for maximum loudness, and I kind of love it?

Well, those were two quite different songs, and while I did enjoy both, I think the sheer volume and dancability has to take it this time. While the adults are getting maudlin about marriage and kids, the youths are having all the fun, it seems.

Favourite song of the bunch: See You Later Alligator

[wild-wombytch]

Anyway, if any of you come and visit Brittany or just go to this fest, DM me! I'd be more than happy to be a tour guide and I have a 3P tent for the fest if needs be! Can also teach you some French if you want to talk to vendors or we can just fist bump.

Some of the female owned businesses I bought stuff from : (if you need, I can translate stuff from the artists' websites or help you write a message to the artists in French)

Art Celtique a small business owned by the sweetest mamm-goh! I'm 100% coming back next year to eat pastries with her over a tea, idc. Lots of Breton-themed curios. Pins, patches, handmade soaps, Saints statues (Sant Ivo, Santez Anna, Sant Konan...) [btw Saints in Brittany are more like a remnant of a cult of the deads that was Christianised than something really recognised by the Church], shirts, local leather-crafted bracelets and the traditional white and blue bowls with your name on (that aren't Made in China like most of those you'll find elsewhere, you actually have to order them or be lucky. You can call in advance so you pick up yours after the festival! The shop is essentially her house, so she can let you get them at your discretion)

She's a bit of a punk at heart and was really sweet to talk to. She has a lady cat, Minnig (small name of "Hermine", also the nickname of Anna of Brittany, Duchess of Brittany and later Queen of France) watching over the shop and begging to be pet!! Careful, the doorbell is a bit surprising! Butches : she also sells ties and bowties and axes pendants!

Shirt reads "Breizh Metal"

[No pic available]

Ose small metaphysical shop. I only bought some incense and balm so nothing you won't see elsewhere, however the owner is more of an artist than anything and makes her own candles and decorations. She has decorative potions that are like snowballs but cooler, changing colours and stuff. She resells a lot from local crafters and artist. Her brother is a tattoo artist nearby and designed this year's Motocultor's shirt, so she had pins and stuff with that design and other exclusive stuff. Also sells keychains with colorful wichy cats and beautiful gemstone jewels and gems. Some tarots, of course. She also sell hand gathered and hand made plant balms and tinctures from a friend and second hands books and tarot/oracle decks (her philosophy is that books are to be read by as many people as possible). She's very kind and upbeat and was delightful to talk to. She's obviously a lover of craft arts. She drew me in with her music and incenses.

I don't have the name of this business. Forgive me, it was 2am and I was piss drunk.

Anyway, ma'am is a middle-aged Latina who does the leatherwork herself (lots of macrame) and does the most STUNNING jewels. Lots of them were beautiful but too femme for me, just like the lacey clothes also sold here. I didn't think of taking a pic either. I found a "labrys" earring there. Anyway, she sold her stuff directly on the festival's lawn, and apparently is here every year (again, I'm not sure anymore, I was a few liters of cider ahead of sobriety 💀). Lots of these shits would likely have a lot of you alty and lesbian girlies to succumb to the evil of spending money. It's not even much in proportion of the handiwork that got into the items. That small business is a treasure!

La-Lori is such a talented illustrator and was very patient with my drunken ass, like the following seller.

I fell in love with her (non-sexualised nor beheaded...it's harder to find that one may think) Medusa (who got the owner of the metaphysical shop Ose gush about when she saw my shirt. Three women, three based tastes). My blurry pics don't do her work justice, it's extremely detailed and the colors aren't toothpaste white, they actually blend amazingly on the shirts! Her dark aesthetic is so tasteful and you can tell a lot of thinking and spirituality got into the symbols and the way things are drawn. I'm in love for real!

Texts reads "Medusa" and either "Horned You" or "Horned God" depending on how you read it.

Poulettes-Sisters and their sister site for activism Poulette d'Assaut. The aesthetic here is more pin-up/femme, and I think more libfem, but I really wanted to support these queens! The staff is female only except for the photographer and treasurer.

I couldn't see their other stand, but they proposed to glitter up your faces while discussing feminism and selling mugs and stuff. I think they might have been near the SSV table, which sold anti-drug cups lids and condoms and talked about sexism.

In terms of activism, they do girls only nights in bars (wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't sex-based), take donations to gift menstrual products to women and girls who don't have the money for that and they also take second hand bags to give to modest kids along with school items while talking about feminism to students. Their photographer also shot portraits of female festivalers last year, to show the face of those who are often erased from punk/metal. You can support them on their second page.

Since the pics were a bit awkward to take : the first tops says "Born to kick your ass", "Fucking Fabulous" and "Irreducible". The pin is "Power Rageuse" (rageuse = female hater) and the last shirt says "All women are witches", "Fuck Misogyny" and "Unchain your Poulette power" ("poulette" could be translated to "chick", which is often derogatory -but less and less used- when said by men but usually affectionate and not sexual at all in nature when used by women, often close to each other or addressing a little girl). Illustrator is credited as Cerise-la-Castagne! They also gave me a sticker and their wrapping was super cool.

Motocultor 2024, Friday the 16th, Karaez, Poher (Kernev) and neighbouring cities and landscapes

(Too many passerby/friends in my other pics that could be identified, that's why I'm not posting much of the festival itself)

It was my first Motocultor. A friend kindly abducted me into going there. Honestly, great experience. If the organisation stays as it is, it is safe for women to go alone. There is a libfem association that was patrolling to ensure it. There were a lot of women (including in security and staff), it was quite accessible for people with physical disabilities. Toilets are clean and well thought. Everyone sleeps about everywhere on the festival undisturbed. There are many tasty vegan/vegetarian options in foods (and a good selection of Asian and African foods). You can dress however you want without being harassed (some women were in bras for comfort -yours included- and there were male travestites and they seemed to feel safe). Also, you can wash yourself/brush your teeth, fix your muddy shoes etc about 5min of walk outside of the fest (technically there is water on the fest but it's less crowded outside and actually made for that purpose (it's a sport's spot).

The vibe it gave was very libfem, so don't expect some activist radical lesbians everywhere, of course, or to not see bdsm stuff or performances of feminity. But it was still better than most festivals with a lot of very toxic macho males a lot of people don't feel safe around. They had stuff to protect your drinks and your ears. They had power banks. You have a market so if any of your clothes for some reason tear or whatever you can find some stuff. The light is well thought so there aren't dark isolated corners. The control of items at the entrance is good. You can have a cashless account you can add money to in advance as soon as you have your ticket, so you don't need physical money. You just need a credit card if you want to buy merch, but you can 100% come to the festival without credit cards or money anywhere else than in the bracelet they give you at the entrance. Also, Nazi symbols were explicitly banned in the rules THANKS FUCKING HELL. But according to the girls who were our tents neighbours, the other fest in this city, Les Vieilles Charrues, had some of those guys as well. Be careful for festivals in France in general (especially WOC), the people are becoming properly insane and violent these days. For the head up, as far as I know this is a far left separatist city, so people here are Bretons, not French. We unite in hatred of Paris.

The musics were a bit of everything. It depends of the days. We had Faun and Opeth at the same time, to give an idea. Some groups were rap/metal, other electro/metal, folk/metal, symphonic/metal and uh....well, just listen to Igorrr yourself, I can't explain it but it was fire and rhe female singer was fucking POSSESSED she was amazing and touching and funny as hell. We had punk on the Saturday, a good amount of female bands in comparison to other fests. Not just metalheads in the public, a lot of punks and other alt cultures as well. Booze was great (and unlike the previous fest I've been to where we got harassed by homophobic white supremacists, there was coffee and energy drinks, as it should).

Camping was crowded but had a good mentality. We had about twenty people cheering for us when we were trying to put the tent back in its bag. We asked for a Qeshua expert around and ended up at five people trying to wrap it up like idiots. Then -of course it was a woman 😭✨- Our Lady of Qeshua came out of thin air to our rescue and wrap that shit up on her own in about 30s, like a proper badass. I love you my sister in tent. Also we had the honour of witness a 4am dumpsters joust and the next day to talk with one of the dumpster warriors. So uh...maybe bring earplugs if you intend on actually sleeping. There is also the Makumba here, where it's purposely shitty and memeish old pop songs being played and remixed for people who are still alive and not dead-drunk after 2am. We did shitty dance. It was funny. Except I was tired, in sandals (because honestly fuck combat boots after one to many miles of walk and pogo) and it took about 2min for someone to spill his whole beer on my feet and for another dude crowd surfing in my back and falling from the sky on me (I'm fine, I believe he is?). The morning, if younre early you may miss the queue for a well-deserved watery coffee.

Honestly the ticket is expensive for my budget (now kinda dead because I shamefully admit I fell a bit for the capitalist evil. But I'm wealthier of sturdy leathers that will last a lifetime and supporting a lot of female owned businesses) but it ended up being a wonderful investment! 100% recommand (maybe 1-2 day for a start, because you need a medal if you survive to 4 days).