#I’m basically famous/j

[vivianthepigeon]

MY POST WAS MENTIONED IN A YT VID??

It was for like 0.3 secs but HUH?!?

(Btw shes ColeyDoesThings on yt)

[dixonsstinkysock]

Twins

Pairing: Daryl Dixon x Reader

Era: Commonwealth (Halloween)

Pronouns: She/Her

Warnings: Kissing?

Word Count: 1,850

Summary: Your little boy wants to be just like his Daddy.

A/N: This was inspired by @bambidixon …I couldn’t stop thinking about it plus it’s Halloween time so why not. Kinda rushed so...Hope you enjoy! 

The smell of your famous homemade alfredo sauce wafts through the air. The freshly cut pasta is boiling away on the stove, made from the pasta maker Daryl got you for Christmas. You’ve always had a passion for cooking, making food from scratch whenever you get the chance. Daryl was different, he prefers opening a can of some vegetable and calling it a night. He deserves better than that, so you give him your best. Speaking of Daryl, He, Judith, RJ, and your son Beau sit in the living room watching an old movie, obviously Daryl’s idea. He’s a sucker for old movies, says it reminds him of the only good part of his childhood.

 After a while, your strawberry shaped timer went off, signaling the pasta was ready, another thing Daryl got you. Your kitchen was a mitch-matched mess but you loved it, it gave the place some character. After stirring the thick, creamy sauce you move to grab a strainer. Draining the noodles and combining them with the sauce, you add a bit of chicken you shredded prior, mixing everything together. 

“Dinner!’ You call out, hearing Daryl tell the kids to go sit at the table. You feel a pair of warm, strong arms wrap around you, and then the smell of tobacco.

“I can do the rest” Daryl leaves soft, sweet kisses down your neck. Slowly rocking side to side with you, gently taking the cooking spoon from your hand and stirring the pasta himself. You turn your head to look him in the eyes, his eyes are beautiful, a deep navy blue like the ocean. “Are you sure? I can do it— I don’t mind”

He gives you that sexy, lopsided, half smile. “Nah…go sit. I’m just puttin’ it on plates right? Can’t mess that up…” You reluctantly pull away from him, going to sit down with the kids as Daryl plates the food. After a moment Daryl starts to bring the food in, you stand to help him but he insists you sit and relax. He hands the kids their plates before bringing out yours and his.

The kids say their “Thank you’s” and dig in. You can tell Beau is Daryl’s son by the way they both eat. You always thought it was cute, how alike they both were. The hair, the smile, the attitude…Almost seems like the only thing he got from you was his eyes, well…one of his eyes. He has Heterochromia, one eye blue like his fathers, the other matching yours. Daryl said he was our good luck charm, the best of both of us. Halfway into dinner you decide to speak up–

“So, have any of you thought of what you wanna be for Halloween..?”

RJ was the only one who answered, having thought alot about this. Judith and Beau were silent, still eating.

“Really? That is pretty cool RJ. Judith? Beau? What about you two? Any ideas?” You look at the two, confused at why they were so silent. Usually Judith is the first to answer, and Beau is the same thing every year. He loves that stupid Dinosaur costume. You and Daryl tried keeping up with the holiday’s back in Alexandria, wanting to give the kids some type of normal childhood.

“I don’t know…I don’t think I wanna dress up this year.” Judith murmurs looking down at her food. Daryl finally looks up and stops eating. “How come Jude? You love Halloween.” 

Judith shrugs “I don’t know, I don’t even know what I would be. Plus I’m getting too old to be dressing up…” She takes another bite of her food, obviously done talking.

“Uhh, You're never too old to dress up J. Look at me, I dress up every year.” You look at her pretending to be offended. She looks at you with a “seriously?” face. 

“You’re the same thing every year, it basically doesn’t count.”

Knowing she’s right, you turn to Daryl silently asking him to take over. He shrugs, taking another bite of his pasta, “Okay…What about you baby? What do you wanna be?” Beau doesn’t look up and just shrugs, which is weird because he is usually ecstatic when we ask him, every year telling us he wants to be a Dinosaur. This gets Daryl's attention, and he questions Beau.

“What’s wrong buddy? You don’t wanna wear your Dinosaur costume?” Beau shakes his head and that’s the end of the conversation. 

After dinner, you’re in the kitchen cleaning up. Daryl is getting the kids ready for bed, Beau being more stubborn than usual tonight. Daryl walks in after a while, coming up behind you and leaning on the counter.

“Everything okay? Heard you were having some trouble with Beau..” Daryl sighs and runs a hand down his face.

“Yeah he uh…He wants you to put him down instead.” 

“Okay..Do you mind finishing these dishes for me?” He nods, standing up to take over. You give him a quick kiss as you walk by, a silent thank you while walking to your son's room. 

Knock Knock Knock…

Beau looks up from his picture book, he’s been doing amazing with his reading recently though he still likes to just look at the pictures. “Hey… What’s going on my love?” You make your way towards his bed, sitting on the edge with him. He leans his head on you, snuggling closer.

“Mommy…I know what I wanna be for Halloween…” You look down at him.

“Really? Did you not wanna say it in front of everyone at the table?” He nods moving to sit in your lap. “So…what do you wanna be?”

He’s quiet for a moment, thinking of the right words to say. “Can you promise to keep it a secret?” He looks up at you with his big beautiful eyes and his father’s half smile. 

“Of course, pinky promise.” You stretch out your pinky to lock in your promise, he does the same. 

“Okay…I wanna be Papa for Halloween…” A smile starts to creep in, already imagining the tiny version of Daryl’s angel wing vest, Beau living up to his nickname “Mini Daryl Dixon”. You’d have to get Carol to help with the sewing, it should be hard to find a pair of jeans that fit Beau, that boy is spoiled by Daryl. Finding a toy crossbow might be a challenge, you’d have to go on a few runs maybe…

“Momma?” Beau snaps you out of your planning, you look back down at him. Brushing his hair out of his face and moving to lay him down. 

“Listen, I love that you wanna be your daddy for Halloween, but it is time for bed…Guess what? Tomorrow we can go visit Aunt Carol and ask her to help make your costume okay? We’re gonna get you a vest and a crossbow just like daddy’s.”

“Really?” 

“Yep, and we don’t have to tell your daddy until Halloween. What do you think?”

“Okay..” He nods and gives you a big smile, getting comfortable under the blankets. You give him a quick kiss on his head and stand. “Goodnight Beau, I love you.” 

“Love you too, momma..” He flips over to look out his window and falls asleep. 

Daryl’s sitting on the couch, just having finished cleaning the kitchen. You sit next to him, laying on his shoulder and closing your eyes. “He okay,,?”

“Yeah, just wanted to talk to me..” 

Daryl looks down, carding his fingers through your hair as much as he could. “Bout what?” You smile, keeping your promise to Beau. “Nothin important, just about how much he loved me…of course” Daryl looked back up at the TV. “Right…Of Course.” 

It was the day of Halloween, everyone was getting ready to go trick-or-treating. Judith decided at the last minute she actually did want to dress up. Lucky for her you knew that would happen and prepared a few options for her, Now you were helping Beau finish his costume. You and Carol were able to sneak out a few times looking for a toy crossbow and a child-sized leather vest. You two found the crossbow no problem, the vest was a different story. Carol gave up looking and decided to make one from scratch, finding a normal-sized leather vest and cutting it down to Beau’s size. 

You and Beau are in his room putting his costume on, he was very picky about how everything was sitting so you two have been in there for a while. Daryl, Judith, and RJ are already ready to head out, the three waiting by the door for us. Daryl goes as himself every year…how original, RJ is going as a walker, and Judith is a Samurai, in honor of their mother Michonne. 

“You two almost done?” Daryl yells from the living room, impatient as usual. 

“Yes, one more minute!” You respond, doing the last finishing touches on Beau’s makeup. He wanted his Daddy’s scar as well, practically begged for it. After finishing his costume, he opens the door slightly and shouts out. “Daddy! Close your eyes, you can’t see it yet!”

“Okay..Okay..” Daryl complies, just wanting to leave and get this over with.

“You promise you aren’t looking?” 

“Yes! I promise! You better hurry or all the good candy is gonna be gone boy!” 

You walk out first, well..Beau pushed you out first, nervous of how his Dad was going to react to his costume. You two make it down the hallway, Daryl is standing by the entryway, waiting for Beau to tell him he can look. “Okay..now you can look…” Beau is standing beside you, fidgeting with his hands, crossbow strapped to his back. His vest Carol sewed up for him is identical to Daryl’s, blue wing and all. He’s got the stitched up jeans and a strip of red cloth tied around his neck to imitate Daryl’s bandana.

“No fuckin’ way…Are you shittin’ me?” Daryl looks up at you in disbelief, you can tell he loves it. Judith and RJ are so interested in Beau’s costume they don’t even say “Swear jar”. Beau looks up at Daryl, a bit anxious from his reaction. “Do you like it..?”

“Do I like it..?” Daryl crouches down to his level. “I think that’s the best costume I’ve ever seen, Little man. We’re basically the same person now…” Beau visibly relaxes after Daryl says that, now excited to leave. Daryl stands and opens the door for the kids, signaling that it was time to leave. You and Daryl hang back watching the kids walk down the hallway, glad to finally get going. 

“So..? You like it?” You lean on Daryl’s shoulder, wanting a moment to yourselves before being crowded by the hundreds of people outside.

“I love it…I love you. You’re amazin’..” Daryl leans his head on yours, leaving a soft kiss on the crown of your head. You lean into his touch, taking a deep breath and preparing yourself to follow the kids.

“…I love you too.” You and Daryl finally make your way out the door, closing and locking it, trying to catch up with the kids. 

[eimids]

NSFW alphabet: Top!Leah Williamson

All letters!

A = Aftercare (What they’re like after sex)

Leah is a sweet lover. She is treating you like a queen. She will whisper sweet nothings to your ear as she cleans you up. She will put some soothing ointments if she has been little more rough while spanking you.

B = Body part (Their favourite body part of theirs and also their partner’s)

Ass girl. Leah is the biggest ass girl. She just loves to grab, smack and fondle it. However she can touch it, she will. She loves to fuck you from behind just to smack your ass again and again with her hips.

C = Cum (Anything to do with cum basically… I’m a disgusting person)

Eats everything you have to give to her. Often times she is eating you out and you can just see her lower face covered in your arousal. She will keep going till she has licked you all clean.

D = Dirty Secret (Pretty self explanatory, a dirty secret of theirs)

She lowkey loves to film you during a fuck and later on she will happily watch them and touch herself. (She has a polaroid of you naked body in her wallet)

E = Experience (How experienced are they? Do they know what they’re doing?)

She is like a sexgoddes. She knows what she is doing and is freakishly good. She surprises you every time how she knows your body so well.

F = Favourite Position (This goes without saying. Will probably include a visual)

Not necessarily a position but she loves to fuck you in the kitchen. She sucks at cooking so every time you make some food, she is there right behind you ready to fuck you. Her favorite is to just fuck you with a strap while you cook something.

G = Goofy (Are they more serious in the moment, or are they humorous, etc)

She can be quite humorous. She loves to tease you and give you her famous smirk after. She loves to laugh and just take things chill but that doesn't mean that she isn't serious. She is still serious but like focused.

H = Hair (How well groomed are they, does the carpet match the drapes, etc.)

Leah has very blond and thin hair down there so she just shaves it occasionally. She doesn't really care but usually doesn't let it grow too long.

I = Intimacy (How are they during the moment, romantic aspect…)

She can give you whatever you want. Sometimes it is very romantic and intimate, but sometimes, (like in the middle of a fight), it's more rough and not so romantic.

J = Jack Off (Masturbation headcanon)

Ohh she loves to call you and make you masturbate with her. She wants to come at the same time or just see you do it but not let you cum. If she is away, she has an app where she can control your vibrator. That way she can still control your orgasms.

K = Kink (One or more of their kinks)

(Secretly loves being called daddy), but other than that she is very into bondage. She loves tying you up in positions where you look so good and fuckable.

L = Location (Favourite places to do the do)

As mentioned earlier one of her favorite locations is the kitchen. She love to just throw you on top of a table and fuck you or eat you out. Other than that, she loves just the bedroom. It's comfortable and she can do pretty much anything she wants.

M = Motivation (What turns them on, gets them going)

Again as mentioned earlier, she loves to see you being her little house wife and every single time you cook, she just neeeeeds to fuck you. She loves when you are just doing cute stuff around the house.

N = NO (Something they wouldn’t do, turn offs)

There isn't a lot Leah wouldn't try but one thing she isn't very into is anal. Well anal on herself. She will gladly fuck you in the ass, but does not want that to be done on herself. And obviously like anything that could actually cause danger or leave permanent marks.

O = Oral (Preference in giving or receiving, skill, etc)

She is a master of eating you out. She can have you weak in the knees in just a matter of minutes. So she is fucking good at it, and loves to show it to you. But one thing she likes more is to have your mouth on her. Like if it was up to her, she would have you always on your knees in front of her just lazily eating her out.

P = Pace (Are they fats and rough? Slow and sensual? etc.)

Fast and rough. (I mean look at her does this need any more explaining?)

Q = Quickie (Their opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc.)

Looooves to just quickly fuck you in some random bathroom. She will make sure that you are quiet (but if you are not the whoops). But yeah Leah will happily just fuck you quickly or on the other hand have you on your knees eating her out before prac.

R = Risk (Are they game to experiment, do they take risks, etc.)

Leah is a risk taker. She will (and has) tried pretty much everything and anything. She loves a risky fuck in somewhere quite public where someone could hear you.

S = Stamina (How many rounds can they go for, how long do they last…)

Leah can go all night (and has, so any times). Being a professional athlete gives her a very good stamina. She can take a lot, and she can give you a lot. That's all I'm gonna say.

T = Toy (Do they own toys? Do they use them? On a partner or themselves?)

Yes, yes, yes. She owns them, she uses them, she loves them. Leah thinks that sex is just so much better with the little toys than can make her and you feel just so much better. (Not saying that she can't please you on her own, because she definitely can)

U = Unfair (how much they like to tease)

Leah will tease you relentlessly. She wants you to be a puddle of neediness before she fucks you senseless.

V = Volume (How loud they are, what sounds they make)

She isn't very loud in bed or doesn't moan that much. She is more of a heavy breather but isn't scared to moan your name loudly. She is a big fan of dirty talk and constantly is saying something to you.

X = X-Ray (Let’s see what’s going on in those pants, picture or words)

It really depends. She could be wearing a strap, she could be wearing boxers, she could be wearing nothing or she could be wearing a sexy lingerie.

Y = Yearning (How high is their sex drive?)

She has a high sex drive. When ever, where ever, she will be horny.

Z = ZZZ (… how quickly they fall asleep afterwards)

As long as you are asleep, she will be asleep too.

[scekrex]

First off, LOVE your writing. Like, I’m literally obsessed 😫😫

But I wanted to request something, basically, just Adam wanting to experiment with Y/n cause he’s a little curious (bi-curious 😉) and just him being really awkward with it, like, HE. HAS. NOT. BEEN. THIS ANXIOUS AND SCARED about doing sexual stuff since his first time with EVE. Like, you’d think it would be easy to give a handjob while frotting but WHOOPS his hands are too. fucking. sweaty and the damn dicks keep slipping away and now he wants to die from the embarrassment. Like it’s THAT serious for him. (And it’s TOTALLY not because he has f-f-feelings for Y/n…. Definitely not…)

I really just like nervous bi-curious guys who need a little comforting in their sexuality. Cause I know that poor boy has internalized homophobia RIDDLED in his bones. (Like, how does he know that Angel is a pornstar in hell, but not know Alastor, one of the most famous overloads in hell?? Bro’s been watching that shit on the down-low)

All in all, he gives Church Pastor’s Closeted Gay Son vibes.

But yeah, I just want this boy to know, it’s ok for him to want to suck a dick and MAYBE kiss the homies goodnight (IDK sounds a little gay/j) 😭🙏

Okay okay okay, so Adam struggling with being bi? Fuck yeah. Like it seriously messes with his fucking head and he doesn't understand it at fucking all.

Is this the life, the one from your dreams?

pairing: Adam x male!reader

warnings: language, handjob

note: not beta read bc fuck you I don't have beta readers

Adam's been acting kinda strange for the past few days - that means even stranger than he had been acting before. And somehow his strange behavior had led to the two of you sitting in your bedroom, dressed in nothing but boxershorts and having the most awkward conversation.

You and Adam had been close friends for a couple thousand years by now, he was your rotten soldier, your homeboy and you knew you meant just as much to him as he meant to you. But while you were okay with being queer, Adam had his problems with it. ‘I can't be gay, I'm fucking Adam, God didn't create me to be gay and suck dick' was one of the excuses he used the most whenever you addressed the topic. But this time it was different.

“So uhm, y'know how you're gay?” Good fucking job Adam, of course you would forget about something like that. You raised an eyebrow at his choice of words and crooked your head a little, “What kind of question is that?” Yeah, that he was asking himself as well, what kind of question was that? His sweaty palm ran through his hair in order to cool himself down, it wasn't helping. Not the slightest bit. He was still nervously sweating and twitching, leaving you confused. “Yeah, stupid thing to ask I- fuck. I was wondering-” how would you ask for something like that anyway? ‘So I know you've said you'd smash me in the past, is that offer still on the table?’ Fuck no. “Yeah, fuckhead, that offer’s still on the table,” was your more than casual response to his question - which he had apparently voiced out loud. The brunette’s head snapped towards you, meeting your eyes for the first time ever since he had entered your apartment today, “What?” He sounded so confused and overwhelmed at the same time, his eyes reflected both excitement and anxiety. He looked so confident yet so insecure.

“Y’know, if ya wanna fuck around to find out, I'm your guy,” oh and how Adam adored yet hated the sound of that - he desperately wanted you to be his guy, though not only in the context of sex but rather as his boyfriend - not that he'd tell you though. So he simply just stared at you because what the fuck had you just said? “So if I like-” You interrupted him by placing your hand firmly on his thigh, he looked at your hand, then sought eye contact. “If ya wanna hook up I'm cool with that.”

But were you? Were you cool with ‘just hooking up’? No. But it was the most you could get, the closest you'd ever be to Adam and if Adam wanted you to be his fuck-buddy, you wouldn't turn it down. If fuck-buddy was all the first man had to offer, you'd gladly swallow it. Adam seemed to have noticed the uncertainty in your eyes, yet he was too scared to ask if you were sure - he knew he should have asked, but he was too afraid you'd change your mind last minute.

Your hand slowly crept closer up to his crotch and the brunette sitting in front of you let you, his curious golden eyes watched your every move carefully and once your hand had finally reached its destination, a quiet moan escaped him. He immediately didn't like the feeling - not the feeling itself, the feeling itself was purely divine. It was rather the feeling of giving up control that he didn't like, he felt lost, vulnerable and exposed. So he grabbed a hold of your wrist and moved it away from his body entirely, that earned him another confused look by you. “I know what I like, don't fucking care if it's done by a fucking chick or a dude. I wanna fucking find out how to-” he wasn't even able to say it, to say that he wanted to learn how to pleasure dudes, how to pleasure you. But you understood him, of course you did. Aside from Lute you knew him best, you were the one who could look right through his tough guy act but you never said a word about it. You saw the tiniest of emotions in his eyes, mostly even emotions Adam himself hadn't noticed.

So you wiggled out of his grip, grabbed his wrist instead and guided it straight to your crotch instead. The feeling of Adam's palm against your most sensitive part was different from what you had imagined it - it was better. His large palm had no issue cupping all of you and you couldn't help but lightly thrust up against his hot skin. The brunette's eyes widened, not in shock but in lust, the way your body reacted to his simple touch was amazing, purely wonderful. The fact that you also managed to hold eye contact while thrusting up against his palm and tiny moans falling from your lips - though he was sure you just did that to tease him - all those things did something to him. “Are ya gonna jerk me off or do I need to do that myself?” Fuck, your words were tempting, so so sweet and tempting, how could he refuse? And seriously, giving you a handjob couldn't be any different than jerking himself off, could it?

Well it very much could. Once your underwear had been snapped away by the first man, his hand was so sweaty that it kept losing its grip, your dick kept slipping out of his hand and while you truly didn't seem to mind it all that much given the fact that it was his first experience, Adam minded. He wanted this to be good, he wanted you to remember how good he was in bed, that his hand was feeling so much better than yours but how could he make you feel that way when he didn't even manage to jerk you off properly? He looked stressed, his body was tense and he was feeling many things but enjoyment wasn't one of them. And of course you had to notice all of this.

“Adam,” your voice sounded so soft, so understanding, like he was a child that had just broken a mug and you were their father, telling them that it is okay and the world wouldn't burn down because of one broken mug. “Relax,” you continued to speak, his eyes snapped up, met yours and you couldn't hold back the sigh that escaped your lips as your eyes met his. Frustration and fear was visible in them and honestly, you understood his position, you had been there too. Of course it had been a while - quite a long while actually, but you had been there too. “I am fucking relaxed,” was his response as he tried to tighten the grip around your erection in order to jerk you off - yet his hand slipped away again. “Fuck- I-” you were quick to interrupt him, one hand came to rest on his knee, “We can stop, we don't-” “Fuck no, I'm not gonna stop.” Well that was certainly good to know, yet he didn't seem quite comfortable with the situation he was in, the exact opposite seemed to be the case - or was he just that nervous? Could it be?

You grabbed a hold of Adam's wrist, then guided his hand up and down by it. “Start slowly,” you hummed as you watched with delight how his hand moved up and down your shaft. While this was far from perfect, it was pretty good, better than using your own hand. The fact that it was Adam who was jerking you off added a lot of pleasure to the picture, it was always easier to get off when the person you fancied is the one doing the work. “I fucking know how to fucking jerk someone off, it’s not like I’ve never fucking done it,” he umbled, sounding slightly annoyed by you treating him like an inexperienced child - and while you certainly knew that, jerking yourself off and jerking your partner (or in this case someone else entirely) off were two completely different things to do. He knew how he liked it, he knew how he had to twist his own hand to cause pleasure to take over his body, he knew how fast and rough he liked it - he knew nothing about that when it came to you. So you let go of his wrist and watched as his hand slipped off your dick once again, frustation was written all over his face - fuck this was so . For that he had bragged about how fucking awesome he was in bed regardless the gender. He had said once or twice that he was certain he could pleasure a dude just as well as a chick, there was no big difference after all - his words, not yours. “Mhm, I can see,” you teased the first man with a soft chuckle, it wasn’t a big deal that he was nervous, you understood, you had been there too - that was a couple thousand years in the past, of course, but you had been there too. “Oh shut the fuck up,” he bit back - or well, at least he had intended to bite back, there was not a single bit of harshness in his voice though, if anything he sounded defeated. “This is not a competition, y’know? I’m not gonna go out of this and compare you to former experiences,” and in God’s mighty name, Adam truly didn’t know what he had done to deserve someone as patient and understanding as you. Because how? How could you stay so calm and collected yet looked so happy and pleased with the situation you were in while the brunette was going through one crisis after another? How was it possible for it to feel so right to have his hand wrapped around your erection and yet he felt so overwhelmed by it? Why couldn’t you simply yell at him for being a fuck-up? That way he could hate himself and you, but this way? This way the only person he could truly hate was himself. Because he wanted to pleasure you, wanted you to feel amazing, to come undone by his touch and voice and presence - simply by him and him alone. He wanted you to enjoy this, he didn’t want you, however, to guide him through this. But he knew that was part of the learning process. He had to learn what you liked and then he had to learn how to fulfill those desires of yours.

“This isn’t about how you have to be perfect,” your voice was filled with softness, Adam was sure at this point it was simply a warm, comforting blanket that you used to wrap around him in order to put his mind at ease. But it was, wasn’t it? Because who were to say you would fool around with him ever again if he wasn’t good? You’d either pleasure yourself or go and seek that somewhere else from someone else and that the first man really didn’t want. No way he wanted someone else to see how glorious you looked, drowning in lust and desire - he wanted to be the only one. His eyes seemed to be reflecting at least some of his wishes because your hand came up to cup his cheek and the second your warm, soothing palm made contact with his face - the gentle kind of contact, of course - he leaned into your touch like it was his second nature. “Lemme guide you, just this one time. Next time you can have all the control ya want.” The brunette’s eyes widened at your words, a promise for another time, “What?” You chuckled, clearly amused by his surprise, “You thought I’d let ya off the hook after I show you how I like my men?” Your men, your men, your men. Those words repeated in Adam’s head over and over again and while the logical part of him knew how you had meant it, the emotional side of him was going wild over your phrasing. Your men, your men, your men. He was your man - well, somehow that wasn’t wrong though, he was the one trying to get you off after all. His brain seemed to malfunction at the sheer thought of it, which caused another chuckle to bubble from your throat, “This won’t be a one-time-thing for as long as you don’t want it to remain a one-time-thing.”

Was that the right thing to say? Was it okay to offer more to him? You knew that one day you’d drown in this, one day the offer you had just made would backfire, would hurt you. It would crush your heart and leave a thousand little pieces, but right now you knew it was the closest you could get and you were willing to pay the price of ending up hurt in the future for as long as the present remained to feel so good, so pure, so fucking amazing. Adam pulled his hand from your dick, drawing a needy moan at the loss of friction from you, a grin stretched across his lips and a cocky, “Patience, babes,” followed quickly. The brunette wiped his hand off on the backsheets, getting rid of most of the sweat that had collected on the inside of his palm, then he went back to word and did as you had told him - he settled for a slower therefore firmer pace, and look at that, it worked. “Fuck,” you muttered underneath your breath as your head lulled backwards, exposing your throat to Adam and the first man wanted nothing more than to dive in and mark you up, he wanted everyone to see that you belonged to him, that he had claimed you as his and only his even though you didn’t know about that yet. But he didn’t. He wasn’t sure if that was a line he was allowed to cross, jerking you off and watching you fall apart by his hand was one thing, leaving marks that would stay for days was another level though. A level he had yet to reach. “Keep that- oh fucking shit, just like that,” you hummed as the first man twisted his hand experimentally and watched as your eyes slipped close. Pleasure was shooting through your veins and you made sure to be as vocal as possible about it to let him know he was doing a great job - directly praising Adam seemed like something that would scare the first man off, so you had to keep it subtle yet not hidden, he clearly needed the affirmation you offered him.

His movements became steadier, more confident and a little quicker as well, he was growing used to the feeling of having his hand wrapped around another dick and he loved to watch your face, he noticed the little details - how your eyes would squeeze shut whenever you were to moan for him, how your head twitched so slightly whenever he twisted his hand the right way. Adam had not known that someone could look this holy, like he had imagined you’d look absolutely heavenly falling apart underneath his touch, but the reality he was experiencing was so much better. Pride filled him as he felt you thrusting up into his touch - that meant he wasn’t completely fucking up which counted as a win in his book so far, yet he wanted to be better for you, he wanted you to remeber him as your best - not just any hook-up, his ego wouldn’t be able to handle that. He wouldn’t be able to handle that. “Talk to me,” you basically begged him with a needy whine and yet another thrust upwards and it took the brunette a moment to process your words and figure out what they were trying to tell him, then it clicked. Dirty talk. That would be the same as it is with chicks, right? “Look at the fucking dirty mess you are, fucking hell,” he breathed the words out as he leaned forwards, his lips were now gently brushing against your ear and he playfully tested the water by nibbling on your earlobe - a surprised yet not unpleasant gasp escaped your body, followed by a throaty groan and a harsh thrust of your hips, “More, please Adam.” And oh fuck, the brunette was sure he’d cream his fucking pants if you were to keep moaning his name like that. It was otherworldly, his name falling from your lips in the way they did, staining it, dirting it, and yet the first man couldn’t care less. His grip tightened a little, earning him a moan filled with pure desire and lust, to Adam it was music. “Keep it u- oh fuck,” the first man didn’t give you enough air to breathe, he had figured out how to move and twist his hand in order to get more of these delicious sounds to fall from your lips, he felt like you were an open book for him to read even though he basically knew nothing about your likes and dislikes yet. However, he planned on changing that in the future. For now, he wanted to make you cum. And his plan seemed to work out pretty well, because it was just a few moments later that you lifted your hips off the bed, your back hit the mattress as you fell backwards, exposing yourself to Adam in all your glory and the first man loved every single bit of it. “Close,” it was only a whisper, barely audible and the brunette had almost missed it - almost. He decided to try and quicken his pace a little, he swept his thumb over your slit, not only to tease you but also to use your pre-cum as lube - just how he had seen it in the demon porn he watched every now and then. The dudes that had fucked Angel Dust had made it all look so easy but now he knew better, it was hard word. But it was hard work he was willing to do if that meant he got to hear your soft cires and lusty moans.

And before his mind could even catch onto what was happening, your back was arching and hot white semen covered his hand and your stomach. You were breathing heavily and in amazement Adam watched as your chest rose and fell. “Fuck,” you muttered, your eyes were still closed as you tried your best to catch your breath, “Not fucking bad for your first time, big guy.” The grin on your lips was cocky, playful and definitely only there to tease Adam - he knew that. “Not fucking bad? I’d say I was pretty fucking amazing,” ah there it was his usual confidence. You had wondered where it had gone, it was good to know it was back. “Yeah, yeah, whatever you say,” you hummed and were about to turn around, yet the brunette stopped you by pinning your shoulders against the mattress, where the sudden return of his confidence came from he didn’t know, his body was on autopilot, he was done holding back. He had held back for too long and his body seemed pretty done with it. He looked down at you, your eyes met his as you opened them slowly. The first man was hovering above you, pinning you down firmly yet it wasn’t uncomfortable. “So?” you cockily asked, raising an eyebrow at the first man above you, “Are ya gonna kiss me now or what?”

[florsial]

Hi hi! Something has been eating away at my brain and i think it’s your cup of tea so who do you relate the pureblood brother duos to in media or in history? For example famous brothers like cain and abel or the grimm brothers etc etc i would LOVE to know what you think

That’s all<3

Admittedly I don’t consume as much media with siblings as I actually do lol. I’m sorry 😭 (the Orestia has been on the back burner and I just can’t see anyone as Antigone)

Sirius and Regulus relationship might come off as controversial so if it’s not ur cup of tea dw I won’t make u drink it <3

Anyways, I see Regulus and Sirius as Hansel and Gretel. The way their relationship (taking account that I see Regulus as ftm), their relationship is heavily gendered with a power imbalance. The best way I can describe is this (curtesy of @deathnguts):

(Best thing I’ve seen all day actually)

Sirius is given the power over Regulus as the eldest son of a Chinese family in a culture where the son is the carry the family name and thus, preferred. He has to power to hurt or care for Regulus and I see it as he does both but can’t tell the difference/isn’t taught the difference until he meets James (which where Regulus gains the upper hand).

This is where Hansel and Gretel come in. Hansel in the story, like Sirius, takes charge, comforts, and leads and is the main reason why the siblings were able to get home the first two times. Then like Regulus, Gretel strikes last (shoving the witch in the oven). I find it a neat comparison, Sirius strikes first and then Regulus does (Sirius fights back against his parents and beliefs first and then Regulus turns his back on the Dark Lord last). And the two return home (afterlife).

At worst, I can see them as Helaena and Aegon Targaryen, not the marriage part obviously, just the overall dynamic of an annoying and rude older brother who still cares but just doesn’t know how and his younger and in-their-own-head sibling. (Cue scene of Aegon calling Helaena an “enduring mystery” in front of all the servants, it’s a sweet thing to call someone but he does it in a teasing/making fun manner). But I see it as it being when they are younger. I def think that the closer Sirius approaches running away, Regulus has a more emotional hold over him. Because Sirius feels terrible for their power imbalance and starts to view Regulus as equal while Regulus strictly adheres to the cultural values that they were brought up with.

That’s my version of them. The wider, more accepted version of them is basically Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian from mdzs copy and pasted onto a bunch of French white boys (NOT MY SIRIUS AND REGULUS) (/j)

And a funnier association if Tybalt (Regulus) and Sirius (Juliet). I won’t get into that but it’s meant to be funny I swear.

Not brothers but the Rosier twins. @/juniperpyre has once commented that my Rosier twins seem like a medical version of the twins from the Secret History, but I’ve never read that book. In fact, the Rosier twins were taken from Sam and Eric from the Lord of the Flies. Throughout the book, Sam and Eric experience a transition from Sam and Eric to “Samneric”, basically becoming one and that’s where my version of the Rosier twins from. (Plus med stuff)

Xeno and Lucius are who I associate with Cain and Abel. God (their parents) favor Abel (Xeno) over Cain (Lucius), Cain retaliates (Imprisons Luna and is a Death Eater/associated with a group who was willing to kill his family while he got away). Lucius is character I see as a calm facade with jealousy, envy, anger, dirty ambition, and perpetual hunger simmering under his skin and I think that contrasted with Xeno kinda makes them a neat parallel to Cain and Abel (if that makes sense?). Xeno is clearly favored (as the second son by his mother and as the carefree son by his father). And it’s also neat that Cain is older than Abel (Lucius is older than Xeno).

The Lestrange Brothers are their own mess and once again, I don’t know enough media to associated them with anyone.

[rusty-gloinks]

MURDER DRONES EPISODE 5 : Random details and favorite parts of this episode

Will be putting major spoilers under cuts if anyone has NOT seen the new episode, or has yet to see it. CW/TW: Blood, body horror, murdery stuff! SPOILERS!! AHHH!!! You get the point. I am not responsible for your actions :3

(This post is a mix of different things btw, Md related tho)

None of this will be in order, and I might need to make a PART TWO!!! Since the total is 45 images. :’)

FIRST UP. I would like to take the time to appreciate doll so have some LOVELY LITTLE images of her I took.

She looks so fucking awesome???? Like holy shit. She slayed!!!!!

not to be fruity .but. yea

SHE. also Isn’t that the campsite? Or just a different location with the same appearance.

OKAY. Next up. BABYGIRL . I SQUEALED AT LIKE EVERY SCENE OF THEM SHES SO FUCKING CUTE. MAN😭

BLEEEEEH (I’m going to make this my icon soonthat was the purpose of the screenshot. Also because I love them)

World is mine by Hatsune mi- cyn. World is mine by cyn. The famous vocaloid /j (HSES 😭😭😭😭)

Noticing how her balance is SOOO Much better while holding someone?. Also MOOD .just like me .real 💔

i lov e you🥺EEEK /p. Shes melting

MY SIB AND I WERE FUCKIJG DYING OVER THE PUPPY EYES.LMAO. I love their humor

J* , and they locked her in the basement. I am so SAD about this information

PROTECTIVE BIG BRO MODE…babys

Okay, listen, i know these 2 got shipped before the release but OUCH this makes things so much weirder!!! eugh:( (mainly saw em as friends.tttotallt not becsuse I project my friendship with my silly mutual onto them.no. /sarc)

anyways forget them being friends as my headcanon. THEYRE FUCKING SIBLINGS EVEN BETTER!!! (prjdedcts me and my elder sib onto th— *gets killed /j*

GAY RIGHTS(After the 2nd watch i realized she was making them kiss each other and I started laughing so hard my sides hurt)

Okay glitch QUIT SHOWING OFF. god damn !!!!! Literally appreciating this scenery so hard. 10000/10. :3

YKNOW HW I WANTED TO SEE TEARS IN THE NEW EPISODE!! LOOK. KIND OF CLOSE!!

LOOK HES SOBBING!!!! ALMOST. I GOT WHAT I WANTED OMFG!!!!! YAYYA!!!! (Love it when ppl cry /j

Lovely little lad. Reading abt dogs:) so cute…

subtle hints of favoritism..👀(she obvs likes J more I think,)

I love how immediately i could tell this was drawn by Liam. Canonically J in the show but like his style is so adorable and bouncy!!!! AND LIKE yummyys:3 eated

Cute detail in Uzi’s room. SHE LIKES BABY COWS GUYS. ITS TIME TO MAKE FANART OF UZI WITH BABY COWS. /J

Blushys:)!

For those wondering what this is it’s basically a ripoff of YouTube. The caption is titled "Top 100 Doors ever!!11!" and then the views at the bottom 😭😭. KHAN AND HIS FUCKING DOORS GOD DAMNIT

This part scared the shit out of me i was literally about to cry. I THIUGHTT SHE KILLED HIM

I had to slow this down and repeat the same clip OVER AND OVER Just to get it right, apparently the solver can swap roles? (The order is supposed to be yellow then purple since Uzi takes over as an admin instead of CYN.) very cool.

STP FIGHTING D:

BOTH VRY SCARY :(

Better glimpse of her backpack. Cute little skullbat zipper!! Also batteries. 👍

Apparently DEAD BATTERIES, aka the logo on Uzi’s sweater could be a possible band? Or reference to a band I don’t know? Like how they have my chemical robots (or something like that) as a ref to the band MCR (romance).

Sigh., N was that you.

Conlang? Fictional language? Glyphs? I’m assuming it’s VERY important (since liam lovessss foreshadowing, i will further elaborate). Hoping there will be ways to "simplify" it to english!

Yknow how in episode 2 Uzi takes braidens sentience or sumn like dat. Yea 💀

Alright I’ve hit the limit, gonna rb again with part 2!!!!! Soon. Maybe

[spacebonesss]

so me and a few friends decided to try the tumblr famous drink “the flavor” or at least get as close as possible to achieving it without alcohol, none of us are able to drink so instead of mikes cranberry lemonade we got calypso lemonade and walmart brand cranberry juice. we very excitedly got back to my dorm and mixed the lime cucumber gatorade with the cranberry lemonade. the flavor surely was quite the flavor and it was surprisingly good. not easy to describe but flavorful and sweet with a little sourness, it was kinda like sweet tarts.

after a few minutes one of my buddies (i’ll refer to him as j) asked me if i was doing okay and i said yeah, it wasn’t entirely true but i didn’t think i wasn’t okay enough. so we were talking and all of a sudden i felt a little strange and i take a moment to think before i come to the realization that i in fact am going to vomit and within the .5 seconds it took me to realize that i had already projectile vomited like reagan from the exorcist. i was incredibly embarrassed and continuously apologized (still am bc oh my god) as j the poor sweet man he is cleans up my puke as my other friend e stood on the other side of the dorm just shocked.

after we cleaned up a bit and j again the sweetheart he is asks me if i’m okay. the answer was no. i proceeded to hunch over the trash absolutely spilling my guts 7 times in the span of an hour for before we concluded “hey hospital may be necessary.” so we toddle our way up front desk and ask the security guard to get us help he calls an ambulance and i lie down on the floor fully convinced that i am dying. i cry a bit, i laugh and 15 minutes later i’m guided to the ambulance and taken to the hospital, e is transported by security to meet me there and once i get there i’m checked in and they basically tell me i have the worlds most expensive tummy ache. they pop an iv in me and give me nausea meds and it was like night and day i have never gone from 0 “death, dying, terrified” to 10 “oh shit i’m alive” and i don’t think i’m gonna die anymore. (water being put in your body after being severely dehydrated feels like actual heaven btw.) anyway e sits with me and confesses that he too thought i was dying. really appreciate him being there bc idk what i would’ve done without him.

we arrived around 1 am and didn’t get discharged until 4. we had to call campus police to bring us home and i got to arrive back to my room and continue to clean then call my mom and tell her about my visit.

turns out it wasn’t the flavor it was food poisoning. but anyway moral of the story don’t try and write fanfic on ao3.

[annimator]

I need to be sedated

(I JUST WATCHED TOMJAKE EP 4 AND I HAVE THINGS TO SAY, ITS ALL UNDER THE CUT BECAUSE SPOILERS)

• Lucia’s rewatching All Stars lmao. I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE QUEEN YOU LIKE REALITY TV AND CARE ALOT FOR TOM AS A FRIEND

• Tom’s quitting the police force, good for him. I’m saying this as a chaotic neutral-ish person

• YEA SHE ADMITTED IT, SHE CARES :D

• Intro time- OH OK NOW YOU SWITCH BACK TO THE ORIGINAL VERSION OF THE INTRO THAT WAS POSTED BY ITSELF, ALRIGHTY THEN

• Aw they’re setting up for Miriam’s party :D

• I almost thought Jake and Ellie were gonna get into another argument lmao. It’s nice to see them on good terms

• GABBY LOOKS SO HAPPY WITH THE PIÑATA I LOVE HER

• yoooo Ashley cameo :D

• OMG AIDEN’S HERE I LOVE HIM SMMMM

• “Aw, no James?” “He’s busy being a famous actor.” My disappointment is immeasurable, and my day is ruined-

• oh cool Lake’s here too. Congrats on getting a gf queen

• ngl I prefer Tom with a hoodie on. Anyways YEA MORE TOM & GABBY SCENES

• I still cannot get over the fact that Shawn and Alec have the same va lol

• I understand where Jake’s coming from tbh. I’d be pissed off if I had a sibling that wasn’t there when I needed him even though I’m an only child

• Aw Tom and Gabby are singing piggyback together in the car :D

• HELL YEA TOM’S GOING TO THERAPY

• “Yay! And you always have us to help you heal!” Gabby ily

• “Can you believe some people walk on the sidewalk? The audacity!” Lmao

• Jake and Shawn’s convo was rlly sweet :D I’m not gonna copy paste the whole thing cuz am lazy, but Shawn saying that their Grandma would be proud is making me sad :’)

• Event planning being Jake’s career is somewhat surprising to me. Wonder how twt’s thinking about it…

• AW TOM WENT BACK TO TIPISKAW TO GET THE HEART HE CARVED INTO THE CABINS THAT ADORABLE

• Gabby is truly the ideal homie

• “Between us, you’re my favourite Disventure Camp contestant!” Real take about Aiden right here /j

• NAH DID MIRIAM HAVE TO FAKE HAVING A HEART ATTACK AGAIN.

• “I couldn’t imagine a better man to be my brother’s other half!” I love Shawn being so acceptive of Tom :D

• Why did Tom have to get so defensive over Jake lmao. Did u rlly have to say that to his brother lol

• Annnnnd Gabbs broke the carved heart lol

• “It’s not the gift, it’s the gesture.” REAL

• YEAH ANOTHER KISS LETS GOOOO

• Oh damn, they’re… doing stuff (yeah I can’t get over that line from All Stars Ep19 lol)

• I’m getting too lazy to type stuff but that ending montage was rlly wholesome.

• AWWW TOM BROUGHT JAKE TO THE PLACED THEY HAD THEIR FIRST KISS THATS FUCKING WHOLESOME BRO

• I love seeing Gabby as Tom’s wingwoman. Queen shit right there

• JAKE GLUED THE CARVED HEART BACK TOGETHER THAT ADORABLEEEEE

• “Despite everything, we weathered the storm.” “And scars, inside and out. Makes it more beautiful.” I want to cry, but I’m in a public place rn

• “Anything big coming up?” “Well, I was thinking maybe… the next wedding I planned… was ours.” NO WAY. NO FUCKING WAY DID JAKE BASICALLY JUST PROPOSE TO TOM OMG I FUCKING WINNNN

• IT ENDS ON A SHOT OF THE CARVED HEART OH MY FUCKING GODAPXJDNIWIQQ

• OK OVERALL, GREAT EPISODE, 10/10, IM STILL KINDA SAD THAT JAMES DIDNT MAKE AN APPEARANCE BUT THAT PROPOSAL MADE UP FOR IT

• Bro im so hyped for Carnival of Chaos coming out by the end of this month. ALSO I WANT A SEASON TWO, PLEASE JARED I WANT TO SEE A DOUBLE DATE BETWEEN TOMJAKE AND JAIDEN-

[the-rewatch-rewind]

I love Poe Party too much to feel like any words will do it justice, but I keep trying.

Script below the break.

Hello and welcome back to the Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most frequently rewatched movies of the last 20 years. And today I will be discussing number 13 on my list: Shipwrecked Comedy and American Black Market’s 2016 mystery comedy Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, directed by William J Stribling, written by Sean Persaud and Sinéad Persaud, starring Sean Persaud, Sinéad Persaud, Mary Kate Wiles, Sarah Grace Hart, Joey Richter, Lauren Lopez, Ashley Clements, Tom de Trinis, Blake Silver, and a whole bunch of other incredibly talented and underrated actors.

Edgar Allan Poe (Sean Persaud) wishes to impress the beautiful Annabel Lee (Mary Kate Wiles), so he enlists the help of his ghost roommate Lenore (Sinéad Persaud) to throw a murder mystery party for Annabel and a group of famous authors. But then guests start actually being murdered.

So, first of all, I realize that this isn’t technically a movie; it’s an 11-episode webseries available to watch for free on YouTube, which you should absolutely pause this podcast to do if you haven’t seen it yet (link in the show notes). But there is a feature cut that’s about an hour and 45 minutes long, and that’s what I counted as a movie. If I’d kept track of the number of times I watched each episode, I’m sure that even my least-watched episode would easily beat number one on this list. But as for the feature cut, I watched it 12 times in 2017, three times in 2018, four times in 2019, twice in 2020, and three times in 2021. To a certain extent, every movie on the Rewatch Rewind has changed my life in some way, but this one has changed my life to a degree that I would never have believed possible. Every single day of the last seven plus years of my life would have looked different if not for Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party. All of the guests I have had on this podcast who are not my siblings, I met either directly or indirectly because of this show. So fasten your seatbelts: this episode is going to be a ride.

My journey to Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, or Poe Party for short, or Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Invite-Only Casual Dinner Party/Gala for Friends Potluck for long, began years before the project itself was even written. In the late 2000s-early 2010s, my sister was relatively plugged into the YouTube scene, at least compared to me, and she first introduced me to a group called Team Starkid around 2009-2010-ish. At the time, they were a bunch of college theater kids who had put together a Harry Potter parody musical and on a whim posted it to YouTube, where it went viral, so they started making and posting other musicals – which they are still doing. I feel like I might still have discovered Poe Party if I hadn’t been a Starkid fan, but that definitely helped. A more crucial step on my road to Poe Party started on April 9, 2012, when my sister posted a link to a new YouTube video on my Facebook wall, with the message, “Fictional vlogs by Lizzie Bennet. (actually Hank Green.) There’s only one so far, but I’m kind of crazily excited for this!” Hank Green, of course, along with his brother John, is basically one of the fathers of YouTube. I don’t think I’d seen a ton of their videos at that point, but I was familiar with and liked them. And of course, I knew Lizzie Bennet was the main character in Pride and Prejudice, a story that I loved very much – more on that in a future episode. So I was also very excited for this new show, called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, but I could not have imagined the intense emotional journey it would take me on, through two short episodes a week (plus spinoffs) for almost a year. There had never been a TV show that I was more invested in than LBD. I was double majoring in college and working part time, but the main thing I cared about was these modern Pride and Prejudice characters. The show was clearly very low-budget, but I was blown away by the writing and acting. I was particularly impressed by the person playing Lizzie, Ashley Clements, and the person playing Lydia, Mary Kate Wiles. And, like, it wasn’t just me – LBD had a huge following for what it was. Not, like, millions of fans, but hundreds of thousands by the end. As the finale approached, the producers launched a Kickstarter to release the show on DVD and – ostensibly – pay significantly more to the cast and crew who had been incredibly underpaid. If you’re at all interested in hearing more about that, I highly recommend checking out The Look Back Diaries on Ashley Clements’s YouTube channel; she just did a whole deep dive into the show and its aftermath in honor of its 10th anniversary that I found fascinating. But anyway, coincidentally, right around that same time, Starkid also launched their first Kickstarter, since most of them had graduated from college and no longer had access to the same resources but wanted to keep making more musicals. So they were raising money for Twisted, a Wicked-style villain redemption retelling of Aladdin, which sounded interesting. I had never pledged to a Kickstarter before, but I backed both the LBD DVDs and Twisted on the same day: March 25, 2013, according to my emails.

After that, I kept following Starkid and some of the cast members of LBD, but not particularly closely. In early 2014, Mary Kate Wiles was in a webseries called Kissing in the Rain that I think I watched part of at the time, and I thought it was fine, but I wasn’t particularly into it (imagine, me, an aromantic, not particularly into a show about kissing!) and there was a lot of other stuff going on in my life so I honestly can’t remember if I saw all of it when it was first coming out. I definitely couldn’t have told you that it was on a channel called Shipwrecked, or even the name of the actor she was kissing. But in May of 2014, a new Kickstarter launched for a series called Muzzled the Musical, which was going to feature several cast members from LBD as well as Joey Richter from Team Starkid (Lauren Lopez also ended up being in it but I don’t think that was known during the Kickstarter). And I thought, whoa, cool, worlds colliding, and backed it. And promptly all but forgot about it.

A lot of strange, confusing, and rather upsetting things happened in 2015 that I don’t really want to get too deep into here, but I will say that in hindsight most of them had to do with a combination of amatonormativity and heteronormativity, and I started feeling pretty bad about myself. Before then I had managed to convince myself that I was too young to seriously fall in love anyway, but suddenly I was 25 years old and had never had any interest in dating anyone, and I felt like there was definitely something wrong with me. I didn’t exactly want to change, since I liked not dating, but I had always thought that that would just automatically change when I got older, and facing the fact that it wasn’t changing meant facing the fact that I didn’t know what the point of my life was. I liked my job but I didn’t want it to be my sole purpose. I loved movies, but that didn’t feel like it mattered. All my life I had taken in the message that finding a spouse and creating a family was what made the struggle of life worth it, and I felt lazy for not even trying to pursue that. I remember hearing at some point in my late teens that if you didn’t find your significant other in college, you needed to look online, but I didn’t even know what I would be looking for. And I truly don’t know where this line of thinking would have ended up if it had gone on much longer uninterrupted – I may have discovered my identity a bit sooner, or I may have ended up hurting someone by trying to pursue a relationship I ultimately didn’t want, or I may have just continued to spiral – but what actually happened was I got an email in late October that that random fantasy musical series I had backed on Kickstarter a year and a half earlier was being released on YouTube.

So I watched Muzzled, and it was very fun and silly, but the main thing I got out of it was, man I miss the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. So I finally opened that DVD set I’d gotten from the Kickstarter, and I binge-watched the whole show (I didn’t count it as a movie because there’s no feature cut, and also it is very long). And then I re-watched the whole thing with the DVD-exclusive commentary. And then I thought, I wonder what this cast has been up to lately, so I started searching for them on YouTube. And that’s when I learned that Mary Kate Wiles had been posting two videos per week on her channel for years, and I had been missing it. As I got caught up on her videos, I learned that I had just missed a Kickstarter for a musical she was going to be in called Spies are Forever, made by the Tin Can Brothers, which were a group of people who were also involved with Starkid, and that she seemed to be getting ready for a new Kickstarter with a group called Shipwrecked Comedy, the same people who had made that kissing show. They had also made a show called A Tell Tale Vlog about Edgar Allan Poe and the valley girl ghost Lenore who was haunting him, in which Poe had been played by Sean Persaud (the guy from Kissing in the Rain, who was apparently dating Mary Kate in real life) and his sister Sinéad (who was in the second half of Kissing in the Rain, which I definitely hadn’t watched before). Mary Kate had made a brief appearance in A Tell Tale Vlog as Annabel Lee, and this new show was going to be related to that, but bigger. I was so intrigued by this new project that I started supporting Mary Kate on Patreon to ensure that I didn’t miss any updates about it.

The Poe Party Kickstarter launched on February 2, 2016. By then, I had watched and enjoyed everything on Shipwrecked’s YouTube channel, but that Kickstarter video was my favorite thing they had made. I initially pledged the same amount that I had given to the Lizzie Bennet DVDs, thinking that would be my final pledge, but I ended up giving almost six times that much by the end of the campaign. Every $5,000 they raised, they revealed a new character and cast member with a poster, and each reveal made me more excited. Joey Richter was playing Ernest Hemingway?! Ashley Clements was playing Charlotte Brontë?! Lauren Lopez, who frequently played male characters, was playing George Eliot, a woman with a male pen name?! They got Jim O’Heir from Parks & Rec?! And then, as if the reveals weren’t enough, they had weekly 4-hour livestreams that I found incredibly entertaining. It had become clear that Shipwrecked Comedy now consisted of four people: Sean, Sinéad, Mary Kate, and Sarah Grace Hart, who had played Emily Dickinson in a stand-alone video and would be reprising that role in Poe Party. Various other cast members showed up in the streams with the Core Four, and I distinctly remember thinking, if these people are this entertaining to watch when they’re just hanging out, this show is going to be so amazing! In the second livestream of the campaign, they started writing people’s names on papers to stick on the wall if they pledged or raised their pledge during the streams, which was an excellent incentive, but I would have kept raising mine anyway, because I was desperate for this show to get made. Apart from a few weird troll messages, the stream chat was full of lovely conversations between people who seemed like my kindred spirits. I had never felt more at home in a community. And I had never been more excited than when the Kickstarter exceeded its goal.

And I’m telling you all of this because I need you to understand how astronomically high my hopes and expectations for Poe Party were. Some of the movies I’ve talked about so far ended up in my top 40 partly because I had fairly low expectations going into them and was pleasantly surprised, but that was absolutely not the case here. I had seen excellent work from several of the people involved before, and they seemed particularly dedicated to this project, and I knew they were going to make something incredible. I also desperately needed something in my life to go really well, and this seemed like it might be it, although I knew it wasn’t fair to put that kind of pressure on these independent filmmakers. I tried to temper my expectations, reminding myself that they had only raised a little over $72,000, and Kickstarter was going to take a chunk of that, and some of it had to go to perk fulfillment, so they weren’t going to have nearly enough to make anything super fancy. They released some prologue videos that were very fun but also very small, and I tried to tell myself that the actual show was also going to be small. And I kept reminding myself how long Muzzled had taken to come out, and that I was probably going to have to wait a while for Poe Party too, so I needed to chill. But then in late July – only four and a half months after the Kickstarter had ended – Shipwrecked released a trailer for Poe Party, which said it was starting in less than a month, and there was no tempering my expectations after that. The trailer looked fabulous. It was witty and clever and dramatic and intriguing, the music was perfection, and, shockingly, it looked like an actual studio movie. Not like a super high-budget one, but like they had at least a million dollars. Certainly way more than $60k. My already-ridiculously-high expectations soared to new heights. Part of me was sure I was setting myself up for disappointment, but I couldn’t help it.

And then it was August 22 and the first episode (Chapter 1: The Bells) dropped and it was so much better than I was hoping for. First of all, the look set the tone perfectly. The lighting was exquisite, and the location – incidentally the same house where Muzzled was filmed – was perfect. And then there was the writing. One thing the Persauds had mentioned during the Kickstarter was that they were inspired by the movie Clue, which will be featured in a future episode of this podcast, so I was expecting similar vibes to that, but I was not expecting there to be so many direct references to Clue. All of them made me extremely happy. It felt like the show was made specifically for me. It was like Clue, but even better. I already loved every single character and knew I would be sad to see some of them get murdered. It was also very clear from even just that first episode that this was going to fall into the “everybody was having way too much fun” category of film that I love. But while most movies like that tend to have pretty weak stories and just overall mediocre scripts, and the cast having fun makes up for that, Poe Party was different. The writing was fantastic, AND the acting was perfect, AND it looked gorgeous, AND everybody was having fun. Again, I tried not to have unrealistic expectations, I tried to tell myself that not every episode could be quite the banger that the first one was, but I was still incredibly excited for the rest of the show. And I was not at all disappointed. Somehow it just kept getting better. The running joke about everyone forgetting Emily Dickinson was there or who she was just kept getting funnier. Ditto the joke about George Eliot thinking she needed to convince everyone she was a man when everyone was clearly fine with her being a woman. I remember at one point, when around three or four chapters were out, Mary Kate tweeted that they were working on editing her favorite part of the show, and I thought, surely it doesn’t get better than what I’ve seen already. But it turned out she was talking about chapter 8, and yes, it absolutely was better. The constables, Jim and Jimmy – played by Jim O’Heir and Jimmy Wong – and everyone else trying to fool them, are so delightful to watch. Even though chapter 8 features probably the second saddest death in the series, it’s overall the funniest episode. This show touches an incredibly wide range of emotions and moods, especially considering it takes place in one house over one night.

I want to make it clear that I would still love Poe Party even if I’d stumbled upon it years after it came out, and even if I didn’t recognize any of the actors. The show is excellent enough to stand on its own. But being part of it from the Kickstarter, being familiar with some of the actors, and being online as it was coming out, certainly enhanced my enjoyment of it. Shipwrecked had a weekly “competition” of sorts where they would give a vague prompt and people would make fan art or write fan fiction and post it on social media (#PoePartyFTW), and each of the four members of Shipwrecked would pick their favorite to re-post. I wrote a fic after each of the episodes, and several of them got chosen by Shipwrecked, and I hadn’t felt that good about myself in years. I loved the show so much that I couldn’t confine it just into weekly fics; I was shouting about it on every social media platform. I also started weekly speculation Tumblr posts, using Clue references as my guide, many of which led me astray – I was convinced there must be a secret passage between the kitchen and the study that didn’t turn out to exist – but I did figure out part of the solution relatively early on. While the mystery aspect of Clue is ultimately nonsense if you think about it too hard, Poe Party actually tracks. And if you’ve listened this far and you still haven’t seen Poe Party, please go watch it now, because I’m going to start getting into story specifics and spoilers, and I think everybody should get to see it once without knowing what’s coming. (I’m also going to spoil some of Clue, so you could go watch that too if you want, although I don’t feel like Clue spoilers matter that much.)

In her episode of A Tell Tale Vlog, Annabel mentioned that she had started seeing a banker named Eddie, and then in the Poe Party Kickstarter video, she asked Edgar if she could bring Eddie as her plus one to his party. So Eddie (played by Ryan W. Garcia) shows up late to the party with Annabel, and then becomes the first murder victim. EXCEPT, spoiler alert: he’s actually NOT DEAD, and is, in fact, one of the murderers. And from the very first episode, I recognized Eddie’s similarities to Mr. Boddy in Clue, who is also not dead when you first think he is, and I was therefore suspicious of him from the get-go. But I was still very much open to any possibility (or so I thought) because the Persauds had done an excellent job of making everyone at least somewhat fishy. But there was one thing I was not prepared for, and that was the end of chapter 9. Because it absolutely never occurred to me that Poe’s beautiful Annabel Lee would die, and I’m honestly still kind of devastated about it, even understanding why it had to happen, and at the time I was almost inconsolable. Mary Kate Wiles had led me to this brilliant show, in which she played the kindest, most likable character, only to be brutally murdered? Some fans at the time had thought Annabel might be the killer, which I never did, and honestly I would have been kind of angry if she had been because we need to have more genuinely nice characters in things. I was upset that she died, but I would have been more so if she’d turned evil. (Not that I have anything against MK playing villains – I’m all for it, under the right circumstances. And thankfully the Persauds know when the right circumstances are.) And like, okay, I know I complain about too much romance in stories, but Annabel’s “It was always you” as she died in Edgar’s arms – that got me. Annabel had been planning to marry Eddie because he was more respectable than the unhinged poet she actually loved, and I think that that whole trying to fake the life you think you’re supposed to have thing spoke to me. I had been so tempted to try that, and this was almost as clear of a message as the constables’ “Don’t Do Murder”: Don’t Fake Romance.

At that point, I was pretty much convinced that Eddie must have had something to do with this; why would anyone else kill Annabel? Also, chapter 9 reveals that Annabel wrote the invite list, and I thought it made sense that Eddie, her boyfriend, could have told her whom to include, especially since it had already been established that most of the guests had some connection to Eddie. The prompt for that week’s Poe Party FTW competition was “Confession,” so I decided to try something different from the short stories I’d been submitting, and I re-wrote the poem “Annabel Lee” from Eddie’s perspective as if he was the murderer. And I know this episode is already longer than most of my solo episodes and I have a lot more to say, but I’m still proud of this poem (even though it’s not completely accurate, since it turned out that Eddie didn’t kill everybody), so I need to share it with you:

It was many and many a month ago,

           In her cottage by the sea,

That I first read the words that Edgar wrote

           For my girlfriend Annabel Lee;

And he said that she lived with no other thought

           Than to love and be loved by he.

“He’s just my friend and I’m just his friend,”

           She quickly explained to me;

But we loved with a love which was worse than love –

           I and my Annabel Lee –

With a love that was founded on secrets and lies,

           Fueled by jealousy.

And this was the reason that, later on,

           Faced with opportunity,

I took advantage of an offer made

           To innocent Annabel Lee;

For when Lenore asked whom to invite

           To that cad’s dinner party,

Annabel deferred to my input

           Which I gave most willingly.

All authors, not half so worthy as bankers,

           Who had e’er quarreled with me –

Yes! – they were the ones (no one would know;

           I’d met them all secretly)

That Edgar would invite to his house that night,

           At the behest of “his” Annabel Lee.

For our love it was weaker by far than the love

           Of vengeance I carried in me –

           Of justice toward those who’d wronged me –

And neither the psychics who bring back the dead,

           Nor the cops fresh from Academy,

Can hinder my murderous plan; no one can!

           No, not even my Annabel Lee.

As I watch them point fingers I find my gaze lingers

           On the beautiful Annabel Lee;

When they mention invites, she suspects, knows she’s right,

           Out the door runs my Annabel Lee;

Can’t let her get away: who knows what she might say?

So I kill her – I kill her – my eleventh kill today.

           Instead of revealing me,

           Her last breath says it was always he.

So yeah. I was deep into this. But then nobody in Shipwrecked chose it that week, and I thought, okay, maybe it wasn’t that good, or, maybe my theory is laughably far off the mark. Maybe Eddie’s too obvious. Maybe he really is dead. Then in chapter 10, Charlotte Brontë confessed, and revealed that her sister Anne had been there the whole time helping, and at that point I was pretty sure Eddie was also involved again. We clearly saw that Annabel’s killer was wearing pants, unlike either Brontë sister. And then it was Halloween and the finale finally arrived, and I was right about Eddie, but I was still completely unprepared for how awesome that final chapter would be. I think there was still a small part of me that didn’t believe it was possible for the end to live up to the buildup of the first ten incredible chapters. But it absolutely did. The finale was everything – everything, I say – that I wanted it to be and much more. The evil slow clap. The revolving villain trio of creepy neck touching. The flashbacks. The fights. The pet rock’s revenge. The literary references. And of course, the surprise reveal of Jane Austen, played by Laura Spencer, who had also played Jane Bennet in the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. The episodes were posted at 9 am on Mondays, when I was at work, so I couldn’t watch them right when they dropped, but after the first one I couldn’t wait until I got home either. My work’s wifi blocked YouTube, and I had an extremely limited data plan at the time, so on my lunch break I would walk to the McDonald’s down the street and watch the new episode using their wifi. And when the camera panned to Jane Austen, it was all I could do not to yell “OH MY GOSH IT’S LAURA SPENCER!” in that McDonald’s. I definitely audibly gasped, but I don’t think anyone noticed. The thing is, I would have still been blown away by the finale without that extra surprise. But that’s what Shipwrecked does. They make things that can appeal to a wide audience, and then they sprinkle in some extra treats for people who have been following them for a while. Of course, LBD was not a Shipwrecked project, but finding Shipwrecked through LBD is a fairly common path. And I’m still so impressed with how well they kept Laura as Jane Austen a secret. As a Kickstarter perk, I’d had a video chat with the Core Four that summer, and I’d mentioned that Jane Austen was my favorite author, and I was disappointed that she wasn’t going to be in Poe Party, and they were just like, “Yeah, we thought about including her, but we figured she would be too similar to Charlotte Brontë,” and betrayed not a SINGLE HINT that she was, in fact, in the show. Which is another thing Shipwrecked does: make a very specific, deliberate plan about what to reveal when, and stick to it.

As another example of that, the Poe Party Kickstarter had reached a stretch goal to produce an epilogue. I had completely forgotten about that, but other backers remembered and started asking about it after the finale. Shipwrecked was pretty cagey with their answers, but then directed us to a mysterious Twitter account that was dropping strange clues. I watched as the Shipwrecked fan Facebook group decoded them and ultimately unlocked the epilogue a day before it was released publicly. The epilogue is not included in the feature cut, and now I don’t really think of it as part of the show. Chapter 11 ends so perfectly – Poe stares at the floor as the heartbeat grows louder, a floorboard creaks, fade to black: chef’s kiss. But at the time I was feeling so many overwhelming feels about this show that I desperately needed that epilogue. I was so utterly relieved to see Annabel and HG thriving as ghosts. And I was so thrilled to be surrounded by such a great fandom, who all worked together and helped each other to solve the puzzles – it was a beautiful weekend. And it was also the last weekend before Donald Trump was elected president of the United States and I had to face the fact that the country was more broken and divided than I’d wanted to believe, which definitely adds to my nostalgia for that epilogue adventure.

The show may have ended, and the world may have been falling apart faster than usual, but I could not have gotten Poe Party out of my head even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t. For over a decade I’d been searching for something that felt like a classic movie, but with some modern sensibilities, and these independent filmmakers had made exactly what I was looking for, zillions of times better than I’d imagined it. That clever, witty dialogue, perfectly delivered by quirky characters, almost felt like it came from a 1930s screwball comedy. But it also felt fresh and new and different from anything I’d seen before. It had so many similarities to Clue – in fact, I taught myself how to make gifs, or [other pronunciation] gifs, in order to highlight specific parallels between Poe Party and Clue – and yet remained unique. Where Clue was mostly just comedy, Poe Party was comedy, tragedy, romance, and intrigue, and absolutely nailed all of those. (Sadly no ravens, though, they didn’t have the budget for that.) Anyway, the series held up shockingly well upon rewatch, and I could not get enough of it. And despite the socially anxious part of my brain that remains convinced that everyone always is annoyed with me, that I have nothing worthwhile to say, that I should just shut up and stop bothering others with my existence – people seemed to like what I was posting about Poe Party. Other fans would engage me in conversation, and I started making internet friends for the first time. And, shockingly, the members of Shipwrecked seemed to genuinely appreciate what I was saying as well. After the finale had aired, Mary Kate reblogged my Annabel Lee poem on Tumblr and said, “I legitimately thought this was brilliant, and only didn’t choose it that week because of spoilers. Every single fic Jane wrote for this ftw has been wonderful, and I have so enjoyed them all, but this was above and beyond.” And maybe it sounds like I’m just boasting at this point, but the reason I’m sharing this is because a year earlier I had felt like a failure of a human who had no place in the world, and now this incredible actress/producer I greatly admired, who had just made my new favorite show, was saying that I had enhanced her experience of releasing it. People were liking and appreciating me, just for being myself and enthusiastically enjoying a movie. And I no longer felt like I was supposed to change who I was.

In early 2017, I got the rest of my Kickstarter perks, including behind-the-scenes goodies that featured not one but two fabulous commentaries. I love them both, but the second one is particularly chaotic in the best way. Ashley Clements and Ryan W Garcia, true to the villainous characters they played in the show, keep derailing the conversation and it’s incredibly amusing. The commentaries are over the feature cut, so many if not most of the views that I counted were with one of the commentaries. And I also bought the feature cut without commentary so I could show it to other people and still count it on my list. Now I tend to watch it episodically because I want the Shipwrecked YouTube channel to get more views for the algorithm, although I’m not sure that actually helps. But anyway, the feature cut and commentaries and other bonus features are still available to rent or buy on shipwrecked.vhx.tv, which I will also link in the show notes, if you’re interested.

Also in 2017, the first episode of Poe Party was shown at a festival near me, so I got to meet the Core Four members of Shipwrecked and some fans in person. That was very exciting, but I was also extremely nervous, although I didn’t need to be. The Shipwrecked people were so lovely and actually wanted to talk to me and the other fans who were there. And then I got to see Poe Party win some awards, which was awesome. And then a few months later, Shipwrecked launched another Kickstarter, and I pledged even more to it than I had to Poe Party even though the goal was lower, and then they kept making more stuff and I kept supporting it, and also continued to love everything they made (yes, even the Fart Feud with the Tin Can Brothers). I continued to support Mary Kate on Patreon, and I also started supporting other cast members on Patreon, like Whitney Avalon who had played Mary Shelley and does a lot of her own stuff on YouTube, and of course Ashley Clements, as I’ve mentioned previously, and as soon as Shipwrecked finally got their own Patreon, I was all in at the top tier. And, like, I don’t want to go on about this too much, because I do truly believe that I would love their work even if I’d never interacted with them, but I don’t know that I’d be quite the die-hard, take-all-my-money-to-make-more-things Shipwrecked fan that I am, if I hadn’t had so many wonderful interactions with the members of Shipwrecked over the years. I didn’t set out to become friends with them, but I kind of have – although I still feel a little weird and presumptuous to claim that. I feel like this will sound to some people like an out-of-control parasocial relationship, but like, it’s not that, because they do know me. Other people in my life have referred to Shipwrecked as “the people you pay to be your friends,” but it’s not that either: I give them money so they can keep making things, and we also happened to hit it off as friends – which again feels like a presumptuous label, but I can’t come up with a more accurate word. They make what they love and I love what they make, so it’s not that surprising that we’d get along. And for similar reasons, it’s not surprising that I’ve made so many very close friendships with other Shipwrecked fans. Our love for these projects brought us together, and then turned out to be far from the only thing we have in common.

I feel like I’m talking way too much about my own personal experiences, I’m so sorry if this is boring. Back to Poe Party itself. I’ve hinted at it already, but I need to emphasize again both how incredible the script is, and how amazingly the cast brought it to life. The story was so well thought out: every scene, every character, every moment was there for a reason. Like, I thought George Eliot disguising herself as a man was just a nod to female authors having to use male pen names, but then that turned into an important clue that led to the Brontës. Yes, you can poke plenty of holes in Poe Party if you want to – not all of the characters based on real people were actually alive at the same time, some of the technology is anachronistic, etc – but none of that stuff really matters. It’s clearly meant to be silly and fun, so you don’t really need to know what year it is. But the fact that they managed to write something silly and fun that didn’t completely devolve into absolute nonsense is so incredibly impressive. Sean and Sinéad wrote an absolutely brilliant script, and then they assembled the perfect cast for it. Every actor is on the exact same page about what this project is, and they each know exactly how their character fits in. Even when they’re in the background, everyone is giving 100%. I want to especially shout out Joey Richter, since Ernest Hemingway is drinking all night, and Joey did a tremendous job of tracking how drunk he was supposed to be. By the finale he’s having to slap himself to stay awake in the background, and it’s hilarious. Everyone else is also a delight to watch, and I feel like I’m still noticing little background moments I hadn’t clocked before. There aren’t very many close-ups, which I think was mainly because they didn’t have the budget for the time it would take to shoot them, but it works perfectly because a lot of the funny moments become even funnier when you can see multiple characters’ reactions at once. If you’re watching the background acting closely enough, you may notice a few instances of people almost breaking, but personally I just choose to interpret that as the characters finding it difficult to keep it together when other characters around them are being silly, and who can blame them? I appreciate that the writers and director trusted the cast enough to let them play around and improvise, because some great ad-libbed lines ended up in the final cut, and many more went into the best blooper reel ever, which is 24 minutes long and I love every second of it. There are some moments from the bloopers that I find myself saying sometimes when I’m watching the actual show – Ashley’s “Don’t be mean to me!” is probably the one I quote the most.

There is definitely romance in Poe Party – the whole reason for the party is because Edgar is in love with Annabel. Lenore and HG Wells develop feelings for each other over the course of the evening…until he dies. And several other characters flirt with each other. But none of the romances end well, and throughout the story, there is a lot of emphasis on friendship, and acquaintanceship, and other types of relationship. And that’s a running theme in most of Shipwrecked’s projects. There hasn’t been a kiss in any of them since Kissing in the Rain. Of course, much of the Poe Party fandom was, and is, into shipping characters with each other – for any listeners who may not be terminally online, shipping characters means that you want them to be in a romantic relationship with each other. I joined in somewhat, mostly because I felt like I was supposed to, but I couldn’t have articulated that at the time. And, as I mentioned earlier, I was particularly fascinated by the Eddie/Annabel dynamic, but I was only able to fully comprehend how much I needed the “don’t fake romance” message in hindsight. This show and its fandom made me feel less alone and adrift, but I still didn’t figure out I was aroace for a few more years. Although it was friends I made in the Shipwrecked fan community who first really helped me understand and accept that part of my identity, so I can still say that Poe Party was an important step on that journey.

I want to say so much more about this utterly brilliant show – I don’t feel like I’ve even come close to doing it justice here – but there truly are no words to adequately express my love for it. It still holds up nearly 7 years later, but Shipwrecked has come a long way since then. When their most recent webseries, Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story, was about to come out, they said it made Poe Party look like it had been done by a bunch of kindergarteners, and I was upset at the Poe Party slander, but once I watched that series, I understood what they meant. Headless is so far above and beyond, but unfortunately it came out too recently to make it into my top 40. Currently they’re releasing an audio narrative called The Case of the Greater Gatsby, which should be on the same platform you’re listening to this on. That is a sequel to their short film The Case of the Gilded Lily, which I will be discussing in a future episode. I really hope that someday Shipwrecked gets the level of recognition they deserve – their fandom is still relatively small, although we are mighty and devoted. At the very least, I hope that the current strikes will help enable them to make a living from writing and acting.

Thank you for listening to me discuss another of my most frequently rewatched movies, or at least attempt to. Following this will be a two-way tie of movies I watched 25 times, both of which feature Cary Grant, my favorite leading man apart from Sean Persaud. As always, I will leave you with a quote from the next movie: “Hi! Mellow greetings, ukie-dukie!”

[twilightmalachite]

2×2 - Prologue 1

Author: Akira

Characters: Hinata, Yuuta

Translator: Mika Enstars

"(…I’m getting kinda sick of this already.)"

[Read on my blog for the best viewing experience with Oi~ssu ♪]

Season: Winter

Location: 2×2 Program Set

ES’ first year of establishment. Late March, the site for filming 2wink’s namesake program; 2×2…

Hinata: “And 2×2 (squared) begins again today!”

Yuuta: “This is our street where we rule!”

Hinata: “Talk about needlessly rap-like~☆”

Yuuta: “We’re in top form~♪”

Yuuta: (…I’m getting kinda sick of this already.)

Hinata: (What’s with my brother all of a sudden!?)

(You okay? Not enough excitement? I mean, you’ve been way mentally unstable lately!)

(Onii-chan’s worried. Let’s be more enthusiastic, okay? We’re about to launch our long-awaited namesake program for 2wink at long last, aren’t we~?)

Yuuta: (It’s not like this is our first time doing this, you know, it’s not really anything to get hyped over.)

(I mean, we’ve hosted a great number of variety shows in the past.)

(It’s starting to really show just how that much was barely recognized by anyone.)

(Now that we’ve gotten 2×2, we’ve started getting compliments from fans and peers all of a sudden.)

(“Congrats!” “What a huge breakthrough!” “Now you guys are big-time idols too!”)

(I’m nooooot an idiot!)

(Even though we’re doing the exact same thing we’ve always been doing, only this time the reactions of those around us has changed so blatantly. It doesn’t sit right with me.)

(“Congratulations” for what? They’ve been silent for us the entire time, but they’ll praise us all “good boy, good boy” only when we succeed in doing our “grown-up obligations”?)

Yuuta: (Hah! Acting like a grown-up is too easy!)

Hinata: (This is bad, baaad…)

(He sorta seemed like he had calmed down when he started growing his hair out, but Yuuta-kun was accumulating stress in the pit of his stomach, as he does…)

(Instead, he just hid that stress from even his own Onii-chan and turned it invisible. The poison within his stomach he refused to vent out to anyone increased in concentration—)

(And now, it’s about to erupt. Like a dormant volcano about to explode.)

(I-I need to calm him down somehow, before he directs it at those around him like what happened at SS.)

(O’ raging Aoi Yuuta! God, pacify his anger~!)

Yuuta: …Who are you praying to, Aniki? Gross!

Hey, what has God ever done for us?

Hinata: (H-Huh? I’m not sure if my feelings are getting across very well~…)

(Before, my feelings were always able to reach him without having to say anything, like telepathy unique to twins.)

Hinata: (Yuuta-kun really has changed.)

(No, it���s us both who have.)

Yuuta: Alright, let’s not slack off and get to work. Don’t worry, I’m a professional, I can get my work done even if I don’t feel like it.

Hinata: R-Right. Onii-chan has a lot on his mind too, but he’ll change his mindset too.

“—Now, allow me to introduce you to our “friends” this time around! ☆”

Yuuta: “As you know, every time at 2×2, we begin by pairing up with a “friend” that Aniki and I each call in!”

Hinata: “Then as pairs, we compete with each other to various challenges!”

Yuuta: “One week, we lived either on 500 yen a day, or lived in a suspicious cult village!”

Hinata: “I told you not to call it a cult!”

Yuuta: “Ahaha, please cut that part out, then~♪”

“Anyways. Basically, the idea is the rebellious me challenging my oh so great and perfect big brother—”

Yuuta: *whispering* —Hey, just who is oh so great and perfect? Aren’t you getting a little carried away, Aniki?

Hinata: I-It’s just a scenario! Though truthfully, in part to Volcano Island and all that, I am now more famous and popular than you now…

Yuuta: Hah?

Hinata: Th-That’s just the public image, so this program’s just building off of that “feeling”, isn’t it?

I'd rather not do it either, you know!? A project like this that gives off the feeling that we siblings are on edge with each other~!

Yuuta: Really? I’m having fun with it, though~. ‘Cuz every time, I can beat you up with a just cause, Aniki.

But well, it does piss me off that I’m treated like the “more useless little brother”. But if I keep on winning every time, the public image of me will change, won’t it?

For better or for worse, this program seems to have gained a good amount of public recognition.

While their attention is on us, I’ll change the complexions of the ignorant people of the world who look at us carelessly… Fufufu ♪

Hinata: (Ah~, he’s acting like a bad kid again… I don’t like this. To the public, we probably look like all’s going well with us having our own TV program and all that, but…)

(Our relationship as a unit, in other words, between us siblings, is very, very rocky.)

[ ☆ ]

story directory | next →

[shadowthief78]

Thoughts about Ego’s Backstory

Warnings for manga spoilers for Blue Lock below the cut!

So Ego is obviously one of the driving forces behind Blue Lock: he’s the organizer, the head coach, and I’m willing to bet he probably designed a good portion of the building/Blue Lock holograms/etc as well. But for such a majorly impactful character, we really don’t know much about him.

What we do know is:

He had a restricted diet sometime in the past

He has some kind of old friendship with Noel Noa

He used to have a job that required a special diet (possibly an athlete)

Above: Proof that Ego had some kind of career in the past that restricted his diet so he couldn’t eat instant ramen.

Above: Proof that Noa and Ego knew each other before Blue Lock.

I would like to put forth the consideration that his backstory went something like this:

Very talented athlete, went overseas because Japan was too small for him (much like Sae Itoshi), met Noel Noa along the way, failed to score a winning/somehow very important goal, returned to Japan and faded into obscurity until Anri hired him for the Blue Lock Project.

Here’s why I think that, and also take this with salt because it’s really mostly circumstansial evidence.

Firstly, in chapter one. The imagination story that Ego gives: pass or not at the World Cup? Maybe he’s just being imaginative but from what has been shown, Ego isn’t the kind of person to tell stories for the sake of stories. They’re always an allegory, like the famous “luck is bird shit” one. Is Ego drawing form parsonal experience?

Now, I’m not necessarily sure that he’s played in the World Cup. It might have been another game. But the possibility is there.

I also find the following page intersting: even though Isagi is speaking/narrating the “nameless striker” part, Ego is the focus of that panel. Heck, Isagi hardly earns a spot this page! This might be me just not noticing a lot of things, but it seems odd that Isagi referring to himself is superimposed over Ego and not, say, a picture of Isagi having lost. So, is/was Ego also some “nameless striker”?

What really made me consider all this was the panel below, from ch56, when Ego is explaining to the JFA why Blue Lock is necessary instead of just natural talent growth. Again, this might be a strech, but I don’t think it’s too far off to say that Ego might have experienced something very similar.

Afew pages after, we get this shot: Buratsuta saying failure isn’t allowed and Ego without a snarky comaback, for once? I do think this speaks to Ego having some failure in his past that impacted his philosophy of Blue Lock today.

And finally, Ego is so careless about his life after Blue Lock. Take a look at these three pages in Ch 131:

Ego doesn’t care! He’s giving up! He’s completely abandoning the one single thing he’s spent months or possibly even years building and defending!

Why?

What could have possibly affecte him to the point of willingly and knowingly giving up on something he’s spent countless hours designing the best possible training regimen for?

Listen, I really think Ego wants to help the Blue Lock participants succeed where he couldn’t. That’s why he calls them “lumps of talent,” “diamonds in the rough,” etc. Yeah, he does it kind of insultingly, but those things... they aren’t bad at all?

And it’s also worth mentioning that in the three panels, he’s basically lying. Not about the end of Blue Lock, I do think he was genuine about that part, but about the whole premise fo Blue Lock. He said right at the beginning that 299 out of 300 would die (more or less as a metaphor but, still...) but here he’s planned for the future of the remaining Blue Lock members. I don’t know if this was a lie all along or he planned it this way, but his promise of making a single #1 striker would have been broken here had Isagi not refused to accept this future.

Anyways. Ego is such an enigma and I really want more of his backstory. Maybe someone smarter than me has said this all before and I’ve just given an incomplete summary. My brain is shot after all this.

[skylarmoon71]

Patrick Jane (Mentalist) - Chapter 5

From the second he made the suggestion you should have been skeptical.

Then again, you did invite him to your house so you have no one to blame but yourself.

“Just close your eyes.”

“Jane, I really don’t think this is a good idea.”

He insisted that he was trying to help. But it’s never just one thing with Patrick Jane. There is an angle he always works.

“I told you I could help you control it. Don’t you want to be able to touch people without acting like they have the plague.”

“I do but this is-”

“Just trust me.”

“Famous last words.”

“Hah ha, very funny. You’ll look pretty stupid when I actually do get you to control it.”

“Yeah, I’d look like a real idiot.”

Your sarcasm is expected. With a heavy exhale, you close your eyes. You have no idea what he intends to do. With your hands on your lap, you wait for instruction. He must realize that regular hypnosis won’t work on you. So you just wait. The second you feel him touch the top of your hand you pull away. You’re staring at him in fear and Jane lifts both his hands. You press your hand to your chest, breathing a bit shallow.

“It’s fine, everything is fine.”

You stand, sending him an accusatory look.

“What the hell are you doing, you said you were trying to help!!”

“I am. How do you expect it to be controlled if you refuse to use it?”

You shake your head, running your hand over your face.

“This was a mistake. You’re just messing with me. Trying to play one of your mind games. Trying to get into my head, is that it!!”

He rises and for a moment you think he’ll retaliate, but when he starts getting closer you panic.

“W-What the hell are you doing Jane stop!!”

He doesn’t and you back into the wall, forcing your hands behind your back. It’s useless, it’s not like that’s the only place he can make contact.

“J-Jane stop please I’m serious you can’t-”

His hand touches your cheek and you freeze, terrified.

“You have to learn to control it. Not block it out. I’d never do anything to hurt you. You know me.”

The intensity of his stare and the way his thoughts stream in are so different from all the other times you’ve ever unintentionally used your abilities. Your breathing has increased significantly, and you're still looking at him like a frightened deer.

“You have to train your body to hear it all, then pull them apart. Once you can do that, you’ll be in control. Do you understand?”

Swallowing, you nod slowly.

He smiles. He gives you a chance to calm down and you carefully remove your hand from behind your back. Now that you’re no longer shaking like a leaf, you try to be more at ease. Jane’s hand is still on your skin. It’s almost calming.

“It’s strange. It’s never been this quiet before. Usually I get them all at once.”

His grin becomes wider.

“That’s good. You’re responding to me.”

“This is so weird, you’re actually in my head Jane.”

“Technically you’re in my head.”

“Is this really the time for you to argue?”

“An argument indicates that someone is wrong. So that must be you.”

This man is insufferable.

“I heard that!!”

“Get out of my head!!”

He pulls away, clapping.

“Progress. You didn’t have a melt down. I’m a genius.”

“Are you kidding me, that was basically assault.”

“Meh.”

“What do you mean meh!! You’re such an asshole!”

“An asshole who is helping you control your supernatural powers. If anything I’m a hero.”

As annoying as he is sometimes, he is right. It’s crazy how calm it is. If you expected someone’s mind to be a mess it would be Jane. But it’s eerily calm. Like everything is tucked so carefully into place.

Jane raises a brow at your quietness.

“Hello, anyone there?”

He waves his hand in front of your face for a second, then lowers it. He thinks nothing of it when you step closer. Both your hands lift and you place them just behind his ears.

“Show me.”

A deeper tone rings in his head. You can see the way he looks less sure.

“Stop.”

You don’t heed his warning, because you need to know.

Why is he different?

What makes him immune and how the hell is he able to speak with you when no one else can.

“I said stop (Y/N).”

“No.”

His eyes become hard and he tries to pull out of your grasp, but you offer resistance.

“I need to know Jane.”

The frown on his face deepens and you close your eyes in hopes of putting all your concentration into figuring out this mystery. Your head lolls forward and you try to get past the barrier. It feels like there’s a wall. One you can’t break. You feel as though if you can just touch it then everything would make sense.

“I said stop!”

The echo forces you out of your trance and Jane is startled when your body is thrown back. You hit the ground harshly, sliding a few meters before your body comes to a halt. Raising unto your hands shakily, your eyes hold shock and a bit of fear.

Jane just watches, because there are very few words that can be used to explain what just happened. 

[boysplanetrecaps]

Produce 48 Recaps: Entrances (episode 1)

Hello there, National Producer! (That’s you. You’re a National Producer.)

Do you miss giant scale Korean reality shows? Are you fainting away, wishing there was one to watch? Or are you, perhaps, a fan of AleXa, Alice/Elris, Bugaboo, Cherry Bullet, El7zup, Everglow, H1-Key, IVE, IZ*one, k-dramas, Kep1er, Le Sserafim, Lightsum, Purple Kiss, Queenz Eye, Rocket Punch, Secret Number, or any of the 48 franchises - AKB48, HKT48, or NMB48? Did you watch Sixteen or Produce 101 and want to know what happened later? Did you watch GirlsPlanet999 or Queendom Puzzle and want to know what happened before? Are you bored and enjoy snarky recaps of tv shows from five and a half years ago? If you answered yes to at least one of those questions, then stick around! And if you didn’t, stick around anyway because this is going to be great. But if you’re not a fan of (a) honest assessment of skills and performance (b) curse words ( c ) sarcasm (d) long, chatty, rabbit-hole digging, silly recaps that take longer to read than it would take to watch the show, maybe not. 

You might be wondering, well, who are you, anyway? I’m an adult female human being living somewhere in North America. You can call me BPR-Unnie (or BPR-Noona, if that’s better for you. This link may help you decide!)  I know a smattering of Korean and a bit about Korean culture, but I’m not Korean. I know a smattering of Japanese as well but I’m also not Japanese. My favorite kpop group is EXO and from that you would be correct to conclude I tend to have a bias toward excellent singing. But if I sneak in the fact that I have watched more than my fair share of Kai fancams, you’ll learn that I am not immune to stage presence and dancing. I like girl groups and boy groups equally and am basically just the multi-est of multi-stans, though “stanning” for me doesn’t tend to include watching variety content or buying things. For the most part, I just listen to music and watch performances.

If you’re wondering, what the heck is Produce 48? As Wikipedia says, it was “the third season of the South Korean reality competition series Produce 101. It was a large-scale project in which the public ‘produces’ a girl group by voting for members out of a pool of 96 contestants from South Korea and Japan…. The show was a collaboration between the MNET series Produce 101 and the J-pop idol group AKB48.” The winning 12 girls were announced as new project group IZ*One on August 31, 2018. (Other side note: IZ*one is pronounced “is-one” not “eye-zone”, per the Korean phonetics.)

It’s fun to go back and rewatch this show because around a third of these girls went on to do other things in the world of Kpop, and it’s fun to see them when they were so much younger. Also, shows like this are fun and weird just in general. 

This recap will spoil some things, but not every single thing. I’m going to, as we go along, mention where various people end up -- I’m assuming that if you’re here, you either already know or don’t mind being spoilered on that kind thing. I will point out future members of Alice/Elris, Bugaboo, Cherry Bullet, Everglow, H1-Key, IVE, Le Sserafim, Kep1er, Lightsum, Purple Kiss, Queenz Eye, Rocket Punch and Secret Number.  I’ll also point out future Queendom Puzzle visitors. But I’m not going to go out of my way to tell you exactly who makes the final lineup of IZ*one, exactly when people will be eliminated, and where every single person is going to end up (I’ll tell you after they get eliminated). That seems like the best compromise based on the poll. Plenty of people become famous after a show like this without making the final line up of the debut group -- like G-Idle’s Soyeon on Produce 101. So if you don’t know the name of every member of IZ*one, you can watch the show along with me and enjoy it, while still knowing who everyone is. And if you do want to be spoilered on who makes it into IZ*one, you can just look up the names of the members and keep that handy as you read. I hope that all makes sense! 

I actually watched Produce 48 many years ago -- maybe 2019? It was after IZ*one had already debuted, so I was watching to get caught up. It was the first such show I ever watched and I wasn’t in the habit yet of taking notes to keep track of everyone, so for the most part I had no idea who anyone was the whole time. I mean, with 96 girls, many of whom meet certain beauty standards and thus can look quite similar to one another, and all of whom are in the habit of changing their hair/eye color/style constantly, it’s hard. So I have almost no memory of the show except for two things: (1) loving Huh Yunjin and (2) feeling sorry for the girl who the show made fun of for having intense eyes. I thought Yunjin was obviously the best on the whole damn show and was irritated that she was ever ranked anything other than first fucking place, and that other girl, I just wanted to give her all the hugs. We’ll meet her soon enough!

Finally, you may wonder, where am I watching the show? I watch it here: https://kshow123.tv/show/produce-48/episode-1.html I have to note that sites like this are really spammy and you’ll need a good adblocker and, to be on the safe side, working anti-virus software before you to click that link. Once you’re on the page, when you first click “play” on the video, it always opens a pop up ad that you have to close and then try again, when it will actually play. The pop-ups I’ve seen haven’t been offensive or gross in any way, and this site is less spammy than the one called kisstvshow, which bombards you with actual photos of actual peens like, immediately. Just close-up peens, glistening at you. No thank you. You can also find clips of the show on Youtube, but they’re kind of disorganized. There are some bits and pieces of episode 1 in this playlist. I’ll also provide links to individual auditions as we go.

Ok, let’s go!

We start off with some typical MNET self-congratulatory stuff -- all the buzz about this show before it even debuted! -- complete with a picture of THE SAKURA™, future visual queen of Le Sserafim. Then as a gentle piano rendition of our soon-to-be-favorite song Neko-ya plays, a voice over talks about what the 96 girls (and women) on this show think about their training journey, and we see the lovely profile of Huh Yunjin. Yay! My favorite!

We hear that it’s hard for them to be trainees and that sometimes they almost want to give up. But they keep pushing forward to try. 96 seeds working hard to sprout, and the national producers will shine on them like sunshine! Awww. Produce48 starts now!

An alarm rings, shocking us awake from our gentle piano daydream. We’re confronted with… this. Whatever this is. 

It’s Lee Seung Gi, the host this time! His bed is vertical! It makes too much sense! 

Ok, folks, for me personally, Lee Seung Gi being host is super important, because he’s sort of the reason I’m even here. He was one of the stars of the ridiculous, the sublime, the problematic, the perfect, My Girlfriend is a Gumiho. 

This drama aired on a local Korean-language cable channel back in the day (I lived in a major city that showed foreign programming on cable), and I stumbled on it while changing channels and stood there staring at it wondering what in the actual fuck I was watching. Who needs subtitles or any knowledge of Korean when you have… this? 

It’s the first piece of Korean culture I ever consumed, other than kimchi. This was even before Gangnam Style! It led to me watching more k-dramas, including, eventually, It's Okay, That's Love, starring Do Kyungsoo, also known as EXO’s D.O. I was curious about what he’d be like as a musical performer, and the rest is history. So, what I’m saying is, Lee Seung Gi set off a chain reaction that led to me eventually recapping his own performance as host of this show. The circle is complete. 

Lee Seung-gi (born 1987) has been a singer, specifically a solo artist, as well as an actor, since 2004. He’s like Rain, but not as irritating. He hasn’t made much money from it because of his agency stealing from him. In fact, in April of 2023, a law was passed called “the Lee Seung-gi Incident Prevention Act” which requires entertainment companies to disclose their earnings settlement details to their celebrities at least once a year. Seems like a good thing to do. He’s still in demand, I’m sure, and quite loved, so he’ll land on his feet no matter what. Seung-gi, fighting!! 

Ok, back to the show! Seung-gi explains how to vote, which we can skip -- the only info of note is that only Koreans could vote back then, quite different from the modern era -- and go to about 5:30 for an extremely bombastic set reveal.

5:49 The girls start to walk in

Note: All ages given are the (international) ages of the girls at the start of the series.  

The first three to walk in are the Yuehua trainees.

Left to right: Yiren, Sihyeon, Yena 

Kim Si Hyeon (김시현), age 18, in the pinky/purpley long sleeved shirt 

She was also on Produce 101 (first season) as a “kaein” (individual/no-agency) trainee, where she did pretty well (made it to episode 8), but didn’t necessarily stand out. After this show, she debuted as part of Everglow, where she performs under her real name and is currently the leader, as well as a visual and “face of the group.”

Choi Ye Na (최예나), age 18, with her hair in a ponytail. We’ll be seeing a lot of her this episode!

Wang Yi Ren (왕이런), age 17, pink shirt with black edges, statement belt

She is actually Chinese, though she speaks Korean pretty fluently. You probably know her now as a member of Everglow, where she is lead dancer as well as a visual and also the “face of the group.” How many faces can a group have? Also, isn’t Mia the face of the group, as well as the body and the voice and the feet and the hands? Sigh. I really like Everglow. We just… all know the drill with line distribution and center time. 

They come in and exclaim how pretty and shiny the set is and say “daebak” a lot. They sit down in a row along the top, and faintly, in the distance, Bon Bon Chocolate begins to form in a songwriter’s head. 

Next in is Kim Min Ju (김민주) from Urban Works. She’s 17. She was a child actress before the show. The others are impressed that she’s here by herself and that she’s very pretty. 

I love how in Korea having a small face is a compliment. 

She goes to sit in the first place seat, then changes her mind and chooses 5th place instead so she doesn’t have to sit up so high. 

Up next is YG Kplus, a modeling agency not to be confused with regular YG, the agency that is home to Blackpink and Treasure. The trainees are Ahn Ye Won (안예원), age 17, and Choi Yeon Soo (최연수), age 19. Yeon Soo has a celebrity chef for a father but doesn’t want to just be another nepo baby. She has the black skirt, while her label-mate Ye Won is in all red. They walk in to the strains of Blurred Lines (🤢) and the other girls exclaim jealously about how tall they are. Yewon is 172 cm and Yeonsoo is 170 cm, making them both about 5’6. 

Next in is a group from CNC School, featuring some familiar faces!

Left to right: Kim Yubin, Kim Da Yeon, Lee YuJeong, Yoon Eun Bin, Hong Ye Ji

Kim Yu Bin (김유빈) is 16. 

Kim Da Yeon (김다연) is 15 and you may know her (now) from GirlsPlanet999 and Kep1er. Aww, this is before she got her teeth done! She’s adorable. I am a Dayeon apologist and will hear no words against her. 

Lee Yu Jeong (이유정) is 14 and you may know her (now) from Lightsum.

Yoon Eun Bin (윤은빈) is 14. 

Hong Ye Ji (홍예지) is 16.

Yena thinks that the CNC girls look like babies. I think she looks like a baby! And this old lady I tutored today told me that *I* look like a baby. So I guess everyone is a baby. 

Next is MMO, home to the sexy Kang Daniel, everyone’s fave from Produce101 Season 2 (often called “Broduce101”). The mere mention of his name sends Yena into a tizzy. I mean, low key same (though I’m more of an Ong Seungwoo fan [though not enough to watch his Pepsi commercial omg what was that?!?]). Anyway, out comes MMO’s Won Seo Yeon (원서연), age 18, a cute girl with a nice low voice and a pretty blue outfit. She seems worried about living up to her sunbae’s success. 

Next comes pretty, big eyed Ko Yu Jin (고유진), age 17. She’s from Blockberry Creative, and the Orbits out there are now resisting the urge to smash their device screen at the mere mention of that agency! [Side note: Sensitive is a great song even if Loosemble is a terrible group name. Check out the song, forgive the name.] She’s in a cute striped shirt and interviews that her role models are Taeyon and HyunA, and you know, same. 

The girls in the retro polka dot dresses are from How Entertainment. 

Yu Min Young (유민영) is 18, in the mint green.  Kim Min Seo (김민서) is 15, in the yellow and is a Jeon Somi fan, as are we all.  Wang Ke (왕크어) is 17, Chinese, and in the red. 

The next group, in white tops and black booty shorts, is from MND17 Agency. 

Left to right, they are:

Park Chan Ju (박찬주), unknown age. She has the tightest shirt. 

Park Min Ji (박민지), age 19, was also on Produce 101 and now (2023) is in Secret Number. She has the floofiest shirt and says she likes ChungHa, which, I mean, don’t we all, but also it’s kind of funny since she was on Produce101 with her so they probably kind of know each other. 

Lee Chae Jeong  (이채정), age 18, who now (2023) is in a group called Alice (formerly known as Elris). 

Another girl comes out in a big yellow shirt with purple… shorts? A skirt? Unclear. She is from an agency called A -team and is named Kim Cho Yeon (김초연), age 16. After this show she was in Bugaboo, a group that has since disbanded but certainly has its adherents. She also likes Chung-Ha, so much so that she also wants to be in fourth place just like her. Also, MNET hates her. HATES HER SOOOOO MUCH. 

Next out is someone from MNH Entertainment, the horrible agency that utterly mismanaged poor beautiful Chung-Ha for years. (Sihyeon, who must be practicing for later, says in Japanese that she loves Chung-Ha.)

The MNH trainee is little Lee Ha Eun (이하은), who, at 13, is the youngest on the show. She’s adorable, the way a little kid is adorable, and in a meeting with Chung-Ha herself, we see that little Haeun obviously almost worships Chung-Ha. Chug-Ha tells her to be herself and people will love her. Will this prove accurate? You’ll have to keep watching to find out! As Haeun seats herself amongst all her pretty unnies, she interviews, “This place is very pressuring.” I can’t imagine being in 8th grade and on a show like this. I don’t know how I made it to and from school every day when I was in 8th grade. I don’t know how I continued to like, breathe oxygen and use it in a redox reaction in my body without screwing that up and exploding. 

Side note to my loves in middle school who may be reading this: First of all, how dare you, this is for grownups, and secondly, go ahead and read anyway. Matt Groening, creator of the Simpsons, famously said “Middle school is the deepest pit in hell” and yeah, it is. So, please know that I love you. You can do this. It’s going to be rough, can’t lie, but it does keep getting a bit better. Please don’t let these years matter all that much to you. Don’t let it scar you. You’ll get through this by just trying to have as much fun as you can and not caring about crushes and whether or not they have a crush on you, or whether other kids are being nice or mean or whatever dumb middle school shit they’re pulling on you. It doesn’t matter. Just enjoy life and be as happy as possible. Once you get older, you get to decide on the kind of adult you want to be, and if you want to surround yourself with Squishmallows and watch kpop videos with all your free time, you can. Or whatever makes you happy. Hold on. You got this. Now, back to the recap.

Yena chats a lot with her friend Sihyeon, and the editors keep showing them. Yena’s charismatic and it’s fun to get her perspective. They’re sitting in those big chairs that are kind of far apart, so she has to lean way over to do it. They are talking about how they’re excited to collaborate with the Japanese girls, and that they’re excited. Yiren grins widely as she says she want to make friends with the Japanese girls. I’ve already seen more charm and cuteness out of Yiren than I have in any given Everglow video. She’s really engaging in real life -- wish we got to see a bit more of that during her performances.

Kim Dayeon is sharing what she knows about Japanese language with her teammates, but her pronunciation is a little sus. 

Stone Music is up next. The four girls come out nervously, and the other girls in the audience think they look familiar. 

Left to right, they are:

Jang Gyu Ri (장규리),  age 20, in pink.

Jo Yu Ri (조유리), age 16, in yellow.

Lee Si An (이시안), age 19, in purple.

Bae Eun Yeong (배은영), age 21, in mint green.

All four had already appeared on a different MNET reality competition show called Idol School, which had aired the year before this show aired. What’s interesting is that Gyuri actually *won* that show and debuted as a member of its winning group, fromis_9. A lot of famous folk were on Idol School, including a personal favorite of mine, Natty (who has since debuted in the absolutely phenomenal group Kiss of Life). I’m starting to think I should go back and watch Idol School! Anyway, that’s for another day. 

Next out is Cube -- everyone is very excited since Cube is a larger agency. Han Cho Won (한초원), a tall mature looking 15-year-old in a hoodie and red pants, comes out to the strains of (then) Cube artist HyunA’s “Lip and Hip.” She squints at the audience, trying to decide where to sit, and while she does that, I’ll tell you that now (2023), Chowon is in a group called Lightsum. The other girls think she’s cool and swaggy, but to me she just looks a little confused. Maybe she has bad distance vision. 

Next out is FNC, home of N.Flying and AOA. (If you watched Queendom Puzzle, you might remember Chanmi/DoHwa, who used to be in AOA.) We meet Cho Ah Yeong (조아영), age 16, wearing black, and Park Hae Yoon (박해윤), age 22, wearing white. HaeYoon has since debuted as a member of Cherry Bullet. Everyone seems to be very intimidated that they’re from FNC, but me, an intellectual in the year 2023, is thinking, yeah, but no. As far as I’m concerned, FNC stands for “FuckiNg over Cherry bullet” and if you’re like, but BPR-Unnie, that doesn’t really work as an acronym, I respond, EXACTLY. Nothing about FNC works. 

People are excited to meet the Starship trainees, and MNET definitely wants all of us to be excited too. And I mean. Yeah. Here they come: 

Left to right: Yujin, Kahyeon, Wonyoung

An Yu Jin (안유진), age 14, in the sleeveless shirt. She had previously been in music videos and commercials. 

Jang Won Young (장원영), age 13, the tallest one, in the pants 

Cho Ka Hyeon (조가현), age 14, in the collared shirt and skirt 

Nothing against Kahyeon, who is a lovely and talented girl, but it’s hard not to focus on the one-two punch of Yujin and Wonyoung, future stars of IVE. It’s entirely possible you’re reading this recap just because you’re fans of one or other of them. I’ll say that I’m more of a Yujin girl than a Wonyoung girl, but I like them both. True to form, they’re boisterous, showing off their smattering of Japanese knowledge, and flirting with the camera. They take turns sitting in the number one seat briefly, and then choose other seats. 

The trainees are talking about how pretty everyone is, much prettier than in Season 1, and I disagree with that part, but yeah of course they’re all pretty. Yoon Eun Bin laments that she’s “the only ugly one.” Aww, baby! And of course, we keep checking in with Yena, our unofficial narrator of this episode, as she jokes non-stop with her friend Sihyeon. It kind of reminds me of how in Broduce 101 we hung out with Kang Daniel and Yoon Ji-sung for most of episode 1. 

Out next is Pledis: 

Who could these tall, beautiful girls be? 

Huh Yun Jin (허윤진), 16, with her hair up in a ponytail, is about 5’8. Her family name 허 is sometimes transliterated “Huh” and sometimes “Heo”. Korean vowels are hard, ya’ll. 

Lee Ga Eun (이가은), 23, with her shorter hair down to just her shoulders, is about 5’7. Her name is also sometimes transliterated as Kaeun.  

The others girls recognize Gaeun as a former member of After School, an idol group known for their sexy concepts. (In the performance I linked to, Gaeun is the one with her hair in two braided pigtails -- she starts off on the pole on the far left. We actually see a brief clip of that performance on this episode at about 20:58.) The girls are abuzz to see Gaeun back in the idol sphere after a few years’ hiatus. That hiatus was just due to Pledis’s mismanagement. Shock! Horror! Who would have thought that PLEDIS of all companies would screw over a talented idol group? Surely, neither of THESE girls will get screwed over on this very show? 

Anyway, back to 2018. You’re going to have to accept that fact that I love both of these girls a lot, but I doubt that will be a problem, because I think you’re going to love them too. Most people do -- more about that much later! Yunjin is one of the reasons that I’m rewatching this show -- I loved her the whole time I watched it the first time, as I said earlier, and I was so incredibly happy when she debuted in Le Sserafim. 

The two Pledis girls sit down and we have a brief “coming up!” montage. When we come back, we can see that more girls have come in unobserved by us, the viewers, which is fine. Finally, strains of Heavy Rotation by AKB48 begin playing (“I want youuuuuuu… I need youuuuuuu…”), and the Korean girls are excited to meet the AKB girls! 

First, we learn a little bit about the franchise -- it’s like, what if a female NCT, or a TripleS, but with literally 600 members, and they’re all wearing outfits that make them look like they are members of the Piñata Marine Corps. Also, most of them can’t really sing and their choreography is mostly step-touch wiggle-wiggle. 

Bless their hearts.

There is, obviously, talent amongst them, as we will see. It’s just that talent is not really a *requirement* for being in the group. Girls in the AKB48 franchise are expected to be cute and cheery on stage, to approximate some form of “singing” like noises, and to learn and do choreography so easy even I could probably do it, and I’m about as coordinated as a newborn deer. Plenty of them are capable of more, and I take my hat off to those who pushed themselves to come on this show and face this challenge. They’re in for a lot, and I respect them. 

I also want to say that the biggest issue I have with the AKB48 franchise is that their fanbase is almost exclusively men in their 40s who think that 19 or 20 is over the hill. It’s like, soft-core kitty-corn and I know you know what I mean. I guess a similar allegation could be made about Produce101 in general. I don’t want to linger on this for too long because these girls just want to be entertainers and to bring some fun and excitement into their lives, and it’s not their fault that middle-aged men ruin everything. But I have to acknowledge it. I could post some really disturbing pictures here of AKB48 girls in outfits that read *really, really young* but also are obviously meant to be sexy, but I really don’t want to, in part because it might make the FBI knock on my door. Similarly, I don’t want to link to it here but I’m amazed there wasn’t a public outcry about the video for Heavy Rotation. They’re all in lingerie and rolling around together and kissing each other and bathing in a bathtub together while feeding each other cherries and whipped cream. Like, it’s not subtle. Meanwhile the song itself sounds like something from a Kidz Bop album. The juxtaposition between the cutesy childish tone and the obviously sexy, almost pornographic images is really… disturbing, there’s just no other word for it. Add in the fact that Japan might be the only developed country that’s worse than the USA in terms of how it treats and cares for women, and you’ve got a pressure cooker of ick. Poor girls. I hope they’re all safe and well -- in 2018, in 2023, and beyond. 

And here they come, all 19 of the AKB48 girls, in red and black plaid outfits. This specific group is from Tokyo. (Each of the -48 groups is based in a different city.) We’ll meet these girls a bit later when they perform in smaller groups.

We see that one of them, 24-year-old Miyazaki Miho, can even write in Korean a little! Good for her. Takahashi Juri -- 20-year-old future member of Rocket Punch and visitor to Queendom Puzzle -- interviews in Japanese, “I think that the popular idol singers in Korea are really the best artists in the world.” Goto Moe, 17, says that Kpop idols are true musicians. Muto Tomu, a 23 year old palindrome, says she wants to learn from the Korean idols. She and Juri want to be the best in the world. Yes! I love the ambition. 

But where will they sit? 

Juri, in an outfit that would make Nina Garcia weep if she had tear ducts, is tempted by the number one seat. As she should be. We love Juri in this household. But the girls’ competitiveness gives way to their friendliness, and soon all the girls, Korean and Japanese alike, are giggling and waving and making heart signs to each other. AND THAT IS WHAT I’M HERE TO WATCH, by the way. I love this shit. Friendship is the best ship. 

Juri introduces herself to MND17’s ChaeJeong in careful Korean, and ChaeJeong responds in equally careful Japanese. Everyone is using the few words they know, combined with sign language and body language, to try to bridge the communication gap. They exchange hellos and names and try to figure out who’s older. The Japanese girls think the Korean system of adding a year to your age is kind of odd, but that’s how culture do. 

Next out are the girls from NMB48 - the Osaka team -- in blue outfits. Then the two SKE48 girls, from Nagoya come out, in different blue outfits. One of these two is Matsui Jurina, who is only 21 but somehow looks a bit older to me. 

Asai Yuka on the left, Jurina on the right. 

A lot of the girls recognize Jurina; per Wikipedia, “She is recognized as SKE48's absolute "ace", having placed in the top 10 in many of AKB48's annual general elections and winning the 2018 election.” Apparently she was in AKB48 for a while, and then chose to go back to SKE48, either for altruistic reasons (to support the smaller subunit’s success) or for her own reasons (to go back to her home city, perhaps). 

You’ll be hearing more about “elections”, so let me talk about that. In the -48 system, fans who have bought a copy of a 48 album are given the right to vote for the member they like best -- the general election. In other words, it’s a popularity contest, and only fans willing to spend money are allowed to vote. (There’s a story about a fan who spent $300,000 on CDs to vote for his favorite girl!) If Jurina has won so many elections, she is/was undoubtedly quite loved by her fan base. I approve of the fact that this woman, who looks like a woman and not a little kid, is/was so loved. 

Side note here, and it’s a real, real, real side note, so I'm putting it in a different color so you can skip past it if you want, but the story of the man who spent $300,000 to vote for his favorite member of AKB48 reminds me a bit of the story of Grant Amato. Let me explain. Grant Amato was in his late 20s when his life hit the skids for various reasons and he began spending a ton of time in a cam girl chat room. He began “tipping” her absurd amounts of money, convinced that this was creating a genuine bond between himself and her. He began stealing from anyone who left their credit cards in his vicinity, especially his parents, from whom he stole $200,000 or more. The family tried to put him in rehab, and told him he couldn’t talk to his “girlfriend” any more -- so he killed them, in part to remove the obstacle, and in part to get their money. Looking into this story more, I learned more about the psychology of tipping cam girls, and it seems really similar to the parasocial relationship between -48 girls and their fans. No other men in the girls’ lives; the illusion of sexy, available youth; the man feeling like a protector or guardian of the girl he's never met and never will meet…. This extremely NSFW guide to cam-girling has a lot of nuggets of wisdom, especially this: “A man wants to feel attention from an attractive women on him, and this is made even more satisfying when it’s to the exclusion of those around him. He is showing off his power by buying your happiness.” I know that Grant Amato is an extreme example when it comes to him literally murdering three family members, but other people -- nearly always men -- spend that much money on cam girls and on AKB girls and on other stand-ins for real love. I don’t have some big point to make here. Just that it doesn’t seem particularly healthy to me.

Pigtailed Sato Minami, age 14 and a member of Tokyo based AKB48, interviews that everyone in Japan knows Jurina. 17-year old Nakano Ikumi says she joined AKB48 because she idolizes her, and 14-year old Asai Yuka, the other SKE48 member in Produce48, says that they all admire her. 

They aren’t sure where to sit, as now only lower-ranked chairs are available, which is so silly since it doesn’t actually matter at all what chair you sit on today, but that’s the show for you. Jurina, befuddled, says “ehhhh?” which is sort of like “what” and sort of like “otoke?” It’s so characteristically Japanese that some of the Korean girls think it’s cute. Plus, they’re all eager to make friends. 

Jurina smiles with cute, puppy eyes, and then for a moment, a bit of avarice flashes over her face, and the xenophobic MNET editors make sure to zoom in on her, while letting one of the other girls give her a defining caption:

Bombastic opera music plays -- will she take the seat? She has been ranked number one enough times in her other life that it seems kind of fitting. But no. She ends up sitting down in a normal chair, interviewing that she didn’t have the courage. I don’t remember who sat in the number one seat and am starting to think it might just be whoever walks in last at this point. 

I feel like I could write a whole sociological paper about the difference between girl seasons of this show and boy seasons of this show and their approach to the Number One Chair. Girls eye it but don’t like to sit on it because it marks them as greedy and makes them unpopular. Boys fight over it, either physically with arm wrestling or via skill displays, like rutting caribou. It’s really interesting. 

Interlude! They’re all hungry. Juri shows off more of her Korean skills. The other girls at least know how to say the names of food and are building friendship off of a shared love of eating. Hey, that’s how you make friends with a cat or dog so it works for me. Food!

Here’s the RBW girls, who you might recognize: 

Na Go Eun (나고은), in the “Respect” shirt, age 18. She is now a main vocalist of PurpleKiss. 

Park Ji Eun (박지은), in the red striped shirt, age 20. She debuted in PurpleKiss but left due to an anxiety condition. Aww! Poor sweetie.  Hope she’s doing ok these days. 

The girls are excited for Banana Culture, partly because they’re hungry and want to eat bananas, and partly because it’s home to EXID, a group I’ve always liked too. 

Out come the two Banana Culture girls, who sit down immediately:

Kim Da Hye (김다혜), on the left with black accents, who I think is 16 (but reports vary). 

Kim Na Young(김나영), 15, on the right with red accents, who you may now recognize as a member of Lightsum. 

Next is Woolim, and the other trainees are impressed. They should be! Check out these four:

I know this screen shot is terrible, but I’m doing my best, folks. 

Left to right, that’s:

Kim So Hee (김소희), 14, who is now in Rocket Punch.

Kim Chae Won (김채원), 17, who is now in Le Sserafim.

Kwon Eun Bi (권은비), 22, who is now a soloist.

Kim Su Yun (김수윤),17, who is now also in Rocket Punch, and who you may also recognize from going on Queendom puzzle. She’s 5’7, if you’re wondering. 

I’m so excited to see Sohee and Suyun meet Juri! And for Chaewon and THE SAKURA™ and Yunjin to all meet each other! This is going to be so cute. 

And here’s WM Entertainment: 

Left to right, that’s: 

Cho Yeong In (조영인), age 16.

Lee Chae Yeon (이채연), age 18. Before this she was on Sixteen, the show that created Twice, and after this she will, among other things, make a brief appearance on Queendom Puzzle. She’s also the older sister of Itzy’s Chaeryeong, and they have a strong family resemblance. Everyone is pretty impressed by her, and I’m sure she’s glad about that.  

Lee Seung Hyeon (이승현), age 17. Ok, if you watched Queendom Puzzle, I dare you to try to recognize Seung Hyeon. Do you know who she is? Picture her with chin length hair. Hold your finger up to the screen and really try. Ok, give up? 

That’s Riina from H1-Key! I would have never guessed. I wonder if Chaeyeon recognized her on Queendom Puzzle? I wonder if she voted her up or down? Chaeyeon does seem to sort of do her own thing. Love how the show never mentioned that they knew each other.

It’s time for the Fukuoka-based HKT48 girls to enter, and their black logo prompts Million Market’s Son Eun Chae (손은채), 18, future member of Bugaboo, to comment to her label mate Cho Sa Rang (조사랑), 14, that black is her favorite color. Sarang replies, “Our faces must look black by now,” cracking Eunchae up. Aw, I like them. 

The other Japanese girls are excited, because they know that soon they will be seeing…. THE SAKURA™. Her name means cherry blossom, and she wants cherry blossoms to blossom in your cherry. I mean heart. Whatever. 

It’s always so odd to me the way that certain girls are picked out as stunningly beautiful, when to me they’re all pretty. It feels so random. Why is THE SAKURA™specifically the most beautiful? It’s like in Red Velvet. I think Seulgi and Wendy are every bit as pretty as Irene, maybe prettier. But what do I know? Also, I probably ranted about this exact same thing in one of my BP recaps. Anyway, Jo Yuri tells her labelmate Sian, “I made eye contact with Sakura and I almost fainted.” Ok, Jo Yuri is growing on me. 

Everyone thinks everyone else is pretty, and cool, and cute, and intimidating. We check in again with Sarang and Eunchae, who seem to be having a fun time. 

Who will be last to walk in? YG’s logo pops up on screen, shocking everyone, including our polka dotted friends from HOW Entertainment, one of whom is in the process of administering eye drops to another one when the logo pops up. YG? WUT? But no -- these are *former* YG trainees. Now, they’re here as “kaein yeonshipsaeng” -- individual trainees. Trainer-less trainees. Just… -ees. They walk out to strains of “I am the Best” by 2NE1, a song whose video I still watch whenever I need a pick-me-up. 

Park Jinny (박진희), 20, with dark hair, now a member of Secret Number.

Park Seo Young (박서영), 19, with light hair.

We cut back to an interview that must have taken place some time before taping began, when Seoyeong had brown hair. We find out that Seoyeoung was in the famous “Future 2NE1” video and both of them traineed with Blackpink. They’re here to make you wonder why YG let them go. 

There are only two chairs left -- the #1 seat and the #96 seat. The now-blonde Seoyeong plunks down on the number one seat and everyone applauds. When I watched it the first time, I thought even at the time that there wasn’t much chance of her making it after that. You just can’t sit in that seat and make it in to the final lineup. I’m with Yunjin, who says, “If that was the only seat left, I’d sit on the floor.” Yep.

35:10 Somi and Daniel

Two figures emerge and the girls go nuts as they recognize everyone’s favorites, Jeon Somi (ranked #1 on PD101 Season 1) and Kang Daniel (ranked #1 on PD101 Season 2). I’m happy to see them, though I’ll note that they’re both capable of looking a lot better than they do here. I’ll blame their hair -- they were both born to be honey blondes, even if it wasn’t in their DNA.

Must be kind of weird for Chaeyeong to see Somi again after they both competed on Sixteen together. But there are always all those ties amongst idols and trainees. 

Somi and Daniel talk about how only viewer votes will matter here. They don’t know that this is a lie, of course. Vote rigging was absolutely a thing on all four seasons of PD101. But we’ll talk about that later. 

The reality sets in for the trainees -- they’re really on PD101!  Or PD48, whatever you want to call it. S&D talk about how only the top producers will work with them, how they’ll debut in Korea and Japan at the same time -- this will be big. They talk about the specific producers, who have worked with some top groups, but the names of the producers don’t ring bells for me and likely won’t for you, either: Han Sung Soo, who writes kpop hits, and Akimoto Yasushi, the creepy old dude who created AKB48 and writes their most misogynistic lyrics. Great. I am just going to call him “Gross Guy” from now on. 

The girls find out that 12 of them will debut in the final lineup, which is great news, because now it’s a 1 in 8 chance of getting in. (Well, it’s a 100% chance for those whose agencies paid enough money!) Why couldn’t Kep1er and ZB1 have had 12 members? Then Park Hanbin would have been in ZB1 and I’m not sure who else would have been in Kep1er but I know it would have been great. Maybe Fu Yaning, who I will always love and hear no words against. 

Anyway. 

Say goodbye to Somi and Daniel because we don't see them again after this. It's time for the judges to come out! And that's what we'll pick up with next time, when we recap the first ten auditions!

[radicalfemimist]

it truly is such an egregious example of capitalism to me, that Illumination’s Sing (2016) bought the rights for 65 hit songs (a lot of which they only played little excerpts) instead of like, just writing a handful? You had a professional singer-songwriter as a voice actress, Illumination.

I’m sure the movie was liked well enough by the young kids watching it, whom have mostly watched other cash-grab garbage movies and the Disney classics that their parents put on for them. It’s a complete offensive to writing, but I’m sure little kids liked it.

Like… there’s a reason Disney and Pixar movies tend to have their own, original soundtrack, and why Disney writes songs for their movies. It’s probably cheaper than buying the rights to 65 famous songs, but also it makes a movie memorable.

It can’t save you from bad writing. The bad writing might even extend to the song (Wish is being roasted pretty hard)— but it gives the movie a piece of heart. Illumination’s Sing is basically a cover album where some of the songs get cut-off and they don’t appreciate J-Pop.

At least it’d be original garbage. At least someone would’ve tried to pour love into it. (Aside from the voice actors/actresses, they seem like they gave it their all.)

[luaspersona]

Park Jimin | reading masterlist

intro: basic disclaimers

⇢ DO NOT interact with this post or my blog if your under 18 (minors and ageless blogs will be blocked on sight, so please put your age in your description, babes).

⇢ this is basically #luareads, but organized under categories lol.

⇢ please, do not over analyze my use of trope, genre and au concepts 😭 my criteria was solely intuitiveness and aesthetics. 

⇢ think there's something missing? send me a fic!

interlude: clarifications and keys

⇢ drabble: works with word count up to 2k (anything above that that isn’t chaptered is a one-shot).

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✧ rating: explicit | suggestive | sfw

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[beachyserasims]

♡ Intimate Moments | Autumn & Judi |GENEVA ISLAND

~ Transcript below ~

*Autumn and Judi are sitting on the balcony together*

*laughing*

A : Oh.. My.. GOD! You did not!!

J : Yup, you should have seen it, he was slipping and sliding all over that dancefloor, it was awesome!

A : I wish I would have been there. You have been to THE most craziest parties!

J : Yeah, I love it. Probably making up for lost time to be honest.

A : How so?

J : Growing up, my parents were super hard on me and my siblings. The reason they had us was to be their proteges, to carry on their lineage of famous inventors and scientific scholars. I went to all the best private schools and every moment of free time I had was dedicated to my education. So my childhood basically didn’t exist.

A : Man, that would be tough…

J : It sucked. But eventually I moved out and stated living life the way I like it, on the edge and full of fun!

A : That is super brave of you!

J : Thanks! So what about you? What was it like growing up with your rents?

A : My parents weren’t as strict as yours, but they do expect a lot from me. I get to choose my own career path, which I’m grateful for.

J : Grateful?? Really Autumn, its your life no?

A : Yeah its my life, but my family means everything to me. I want to make them proud, they have done so much for me growing up. The life I live, I know how lucky I am.

J : Sure, we are lucky, but in the end, its our lives, not theirs.

A : Yeah, I guess you’re right.

J : Damn straight!

*laughing*

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