#also i think my writing mojo is returning to me because i have written so much more stuff now that im not in school

[sonicenvy]

some concepts that more coherent me would like to explore with y’all later:

can i introduce you to a revolutionary new concept called “body neutrality”? the best answer to body hatred and the toxic, appearance--> moral value implications embedded in “body positivity” and “body love”. we exist in bodies yo and what we need to learn to do is accept our bodies as objects without inherent moral value that we need to learn to live in a balance with, understanding that physical form has needs that should be met and respected. we don’t have to love our bodies, we just have to sit in balance with them and decouple the acculturated moral value we’ve attached to the appearance of our meatsacks.

lets talk about how anti-curly/textured hair prejudice exists in all communities and is based in anti-blackness. i am writing a list of “curly hair” positivity picture books for my job (focusing on BIPOC hair especially). please recommend anything cute you know of. also everyone should be reading their child “don’t touch my hair”

what if we never said the words “i need to work off this food” “i feel guilty about eating this food” “this is a morally bad food”? again the moral value judgement attached to food is bad and we should stop that. food is an object with no inherent moral value -- the act of eating is a need that

skincare culture is the new, repackaged makeup culture for the 21rst century. here too there is moral value judgement based on physical appearance and expectations of performance of appearance that have standards that are impossible to meet meant to sell us shit we don’t need that can “solve” the problems they’ve created in our minds about our bodies.

why the “kid discovers they belong in new, secret world and have secret powers” narratives appealed so much to little me who was unknowingly: (a) queer, (b) bipolar, & (c) adhd. the idea of finding a place where the things that felt so different about myself were normative and had some greater meaning and purpose was somehow comforting, even as it conflicted with the ideas that i had about the day that the parts of me that i knew to be other without having names for them would go away and i would be free of them.

lets talk about how pandemic wfh has erased people’s work/personal life boundaries and made a lot of us put in way more hours of unpaid labour for our jobs (and our employers love this shit).

children should be allowed to set boundaries with the adults in their lives and expect them to be respect because they are people too, and establishing and respecting boundaries from a young age is an important part of developing healthy interpersonal relationship skills. so many parents have 0 respect for their child’s boundaries and needs as a little human and it shows... bad look y’all.

that history of anti-catholic prejudice in the united states (and how it relates in the white protestant culture and imagination to xenopohobia and, racism of conceptions of american nationalism, and how it has evolved as many tradcaths (uber conservative catholics) have made up with white protestant america (the pences, ACBs and kavanaughs of america for ex) by bonding over racism, xenophobia, male superiority, anti-abortion and homophobia gaining power and influence in a country where their (recent) ancestors faced prejudice (from people like ... the KKK, and the knownothings), and shifting the anti-catholic sentiment in the white protestant conception to face against Mexican, central and south american catholics who are immigrating to america in large numbers -- and specifically why the mysticism, aesthetics and practices of folk catholicism, saint veneration and specific regional culture practices in catholic communities make white american protestants deeply uncomfortable. also the fracturing of the church as its left and right leaning adherents and its white and non-white adherents are falling ever further apart and as the church has lost political power, money and adherents. also the centralist and structured nature with borders and land allotments that are part and parcel of the church clash with the decentralized and less rigidly structure lines of leadership in protestant denominations across america. basically the academic essay i wrote in my head this morning for absolutely no reason at all.

the rampant anti-semitism, and islamaphobia that exists in ex-christian atheist communities on the internet (specifically r/exchristian) and how these communities of individuals (rightfully) hurt by christianity impose their ingrained and culturally christian understanding of religion, faith and spirituality on other religions without any critical thinking. the conceptions of faith, spirituality and religiosity that exist in the popular (and even “secular”) cultures of the west are rooted in Christianity and the the christian imagination and worldview.

how queerness made me feel more comfortable in my womanhood and femaleness because it presented to me the view that my gender presentation and sense were mine and not something that was dictated from outside of me. the feeling of me, a cis being like ... im a woman, but also like .... gender hmmmmm 🤷🏻‍♀️

how understanding the bipolar disorder is, like, legitimately ... a disability made me feel less like blaming myself for having a “lack of control” and more gentle with myself

how i banished suicidal thought from my everday life so that cowardly bitchass motherfucker cowers in a fucking corner the 5 step plan complete with multiple stages of procrastination and avoidance -- usually flaws in my life, now utilised as a tool

the feeling of belonging and seen and comfort i get from m/f fanfiction because it centers itself on female desire, fantasy and the respect of women’s boundaries and desires and why that ROCKS

my journey with writing, fear, self-hate and academic struggle bus.

accepting and learning to do “bad” art because art is for me and me alone and is about the experience and process of creation and the joy of working with my hands to create an object.

why we really need to bring the joy of ART to children. let kids know that art is more than just, like, drawing and painting.

people who profess a dislike for reading are having one of the following problems (a) they have yet to find the kind of thing they like to read, (b) they have been shamed during prior reading experiences (c) they are having difficulty reading because they have not been provided the proper kinds of accessibility aide they need to make it a more comfortable/do ableexperience.

high schoolers reading “old” texts can’t find joy in these texts and hold good academic discussions about them because they haven’t been provided the cultural and historical context to understand, what is, essentially the “memes” contemporary to the text. also they have not been exposed to the fact that people have been writing and recording dick jokes since antiquity. people created writing and were like “hmmm i shall record my funniest sex joke”. the reading of “old” texts that are “problematic” is not about promoting them as a morally good text but about learning nuanced, educated and well thought out literary criticism skills that can be applied outside of lit classes to everything from new to internet discourse. “classic” texts continue to exist because they tell us something about the time and people from which they emerged, giving us windows into the past and presenting political issues that continue today.

[phoneybeatlemania]

I’ve been doubting if Paul truly loved John recently. Like maybe he’s just saying he did or convincing himself he did. This has been troubling me so could you try and convince me otherwise?

Hiya anon! As a firm believer that Paul did love John (regardless of how one interprets the nature of that love), Im very happy to have a go at convincing you otherwise! Not sure if I’ll be able to, but I hope this post will come as some assistance.

Its a little hard to tackle your question given that Im not sure what’s swayed you to believe that Paul only pretends to himself/the public that he loved John—perhaps its just a vibe you get from him, perhaps there’s more reasoning behind it etc.—but here are some things that convince me of his authenticity:

Firstly, there’s the actual breakdown of the relationship between the two. Paul was clearly heartbroken by the bands breakup, and to me, this speaks to someone being personally affected. Its not just that his groups broken up and he’s lost and doesn’t know which direction his life’s about to take, but even more-so in my opinion, its that he’s lost a close friend. He’s been pushed away and out of someones life, and seemingly he can’t understand why that is; he’s unsure what exactly went wrong (“what petty crime was I found guilty of?”). One of my favourite passages written on the Beatles comes from Mark Hertgaards biography, where he writes about The Long And Winding Road, and I’d like to share it cause I always find it rather moving:

…unlike his earlier songwriting persona, McCartney now seemed to accept that life did not always get better. What’s more, his lyrics again seemed to invite the speculation that he was, at least in part, singing to John. “You left me standing here / A long, long time ago” went one especially wounded line. Even more plaintive was the plea, “Don’t leave me waiting here.” But if one listened very carefully to that line, it seemed to be followed by Paul singing in the background, “It’s too late,” an apparent acknowledgment that he and John could never return to the miraculous state of grace they had shared for so many years. […] the dream was ending by then, and all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put it back together again. — A Day in the Life: the music and artistry of the Beatles by Mark Hertsgaard

But then there’s Pauls own commentary on the subject. The breakup took an emotional-toll on him, evidenced by the depression that ensued for him in 1969:

[The band] mattered plenty to McCartney. He and Linda went off to a farm in Campbeltown, Scotland, where McCartney drank too much, slept late into the afternoons, and then drank some more. He’d always enjoyed a drink or a joint. […] But now, he said, “there was no reason to stop.” He was depressed. “The job was gone, and it was more than the job, obviously—it was the Beatles, the music, my musical life, my collaborator,” he told me. “It was this idea of ‘What do I do now?’ ” — “Paul McCartney Doesn’t Really Want to Stop the Show” by David Remnick for The New Yorker (11 October 2021) via @thecoleopterawithana (x)

—

McCartney has since admitted that he “almost” had a nervous breakdown in the period when it became clear to him that The Beatles were collapsing. From the outside, there appears to have been no "almost" about it. Paul's sleepless nights were spent shaking with anxiety, while his days, which he was finding harder and harder to face, were characterised by morning drinking sessions and self-sedation with marijuana. And so, for him, the beginning of the home sessions for what would become McCartney were essentiallv music as therapy.

“Yeah, I think you're right,” he says today. “It got very heavy. It had been so painful, emotionally, to be splitting up with your mates…” — Paul McCartney via Mojo: The Collectors Series: Paul McCartney, 2021

At other times, he also makes note of how difficult that breakup was for him in likening it to a divorce, of which he’s hesitant to speak about because these things hurt. It wasn't a nice period of his life, and understandably he's reluctant to focus-in too on the times where his relationship with John was fraught with conflicts:

“I always liken [the breakup] to like a divorce, y’know, and you uh…somebody wants to talk about your ex wife and stuff and you don’t wanna talk about it, you wanna take your head somewhere else, cause its been— its painful. It’s pretty painful that, y’know as I say, just the rug being pulled from underneath you. — Paul McCartney on The Today Show, c. 1984 (x)

—

‘It’s just like divorce. It’s that you were so close and so in love that if anyone decides to start talking dirty—great, then Pandora’s box is open. That’s what happened with us. In the end it was like, “Oh, you want to know the truth about him? Right, I’ll tell you.

Obviously, I go over this ground in my mind. I was one of the biggest friends in [John’s] life, one of the closest people to him. I can’t claim to be the closest, although it’s possible. It’s contentious, but I wouldn’t…I don’t need that credit. But I was certainly among the three or four people who were closest to him in his life, I would have thought, and obviously it was very hurtful. […] Actually it was really nice [that] after John died, Yoko was quite kind in telling me that he did really love me. Because it looked like he didn’t.’ — Paul McCartney, interview w/ Anthony DeCurtis for Rolling Stone: The Paul McCartney interview. (November 5th, 1987) via @amoralto (x)

Then there’s his attempts to reconcile with John across the years. It doesn’t seem to me that Paul was only attempting these reconciliations with John with for the purposes of reuniting the band, because he appeared to be doing fine with Wings and his solo career, plus the issue with the group back together wasn’t just between him and John.

So when he’s reaching out to John in the 70s, trying to make amends with him, I doubt it was with the sole intent of Reliving The Glory Days. I think he just cared for John and valued their relationship—and although things were never going to be the same as they were in the 60s, that doesn’t mean they had to go no-contact. Here’s some extracts where he talks about that love he had for John:

“…And then with ‘Dear Friend’, that’s sort of me talking to John after we’d had all the sort of disputes about The Beatles break up. I find it very emotional when I listen to it now. I have to sort of choke it back. I’m not going to cry in front of all you lot though! [Paul gestures to the five of us in the room sitting on the edge of our seats, captivated by the story!] But, for me, it is a bit like that. I remember when I heard the song recently, listening to the roughs [remastering works-in-progress] in the car. And I thought, ‘Oh God’. That lyric: ‘Really truly, young and newly wed’. Listening to that was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s true!’ I’m trying to say to John, ‘Look, you know, it’s all cool. Have a glass of wine. Let’s be cool.’ And luckily we did get it back together, which was like a great source of joy because it would have been terrible if he’d been killed as things were at that point and I’d never got to straighten it out with him. This was me reaching out. So, I think it’s very powerful in some very simple way. But it was certainly heartfelt.” — Paul McCartney on Dear Friend, You Gave Me The Answer - Celebrating 50 years of Wings and ‘Wild Life’ (c. 2018) (x)

—

Well, I’m sure Brian was in love with John, I’m sure that’s absolutely right. I mean, everyone was in love with John; John was lovable, John was a very lovable guy. — Paul McCartney via Linda McCartney: A Portrait by Danny Fields (2000)

—

Sitting beside him on stage, Muldoon suggested to McCartney that what came across in their conversations, despite the occasional “wobble” in the relationship, was McCartney’s love for Lennon. “It’s very true,” said McCartney. “You say that I loved him and as 17-year-old Liverpool kids you could never say that. It just wasn’t done. So I never really said, ‘John, love you mate’ I never got around to it so now it’s great to realise how much I love this man.” — Roisin Ingle, ‘Paul McCartney on loving John Lennon, the Beatles break-up and his Irish family’, The Irish Times, 2021 (x)

But then what sticks out in my mind the most about Pauls relationship with John, is the amount of sympathy Paul had (and still has) for him. Of course there’s things John said or did that hurt him, but he still retains a level of understanding of both who John fundamentally was as a person, and what drove John to do those hurtful things:

I always find myself wanting to excuse John’s behaviour, just because I loved him. It’s like a child, sure he’s a naughty child, but don’t you call my child naughty. Even if it’s me he’s shitting on, don’t you call him naughty. That’s how I felt about this and still do. I don’t have any grudge whatsoever against John. I think he was a sod to hurt me. I think he knew exactly what he was doing and because we had been so intimate he knew what would hurt me and he used it to great effect. I thought, Keep your head down and time will tell. And it did, because in the Imagine film, he says it was really all about himself. — Paul McCartney via Many Years From Now by Barry Miles (x)

This extract from Miles’ biography has always been, and always will be, one of my favourite quotes from Paul. He recognises here that in the past, John did do a lot of hurtful things and did do wrong by him at times. But it’s not an attempted character assassination, because he’s not saying these things with the sole motivation to damage Johns image—he’s saying them because they’re apart of the reality of their relationship. It wasn’t always perfect, and the two by all means had their downfalls, but it was still always underpinned by an affection. 

Whether Paul recognises the severity of Johns mental illness issues is subject to question, but I think he’s made it abundantly clear over the years that he does recognise that John was somebody who was hurting. He was struggling, he was insecure, and that drove him to behave in a way that could be described guarded—but Paul isn’t without sympathy for him. He recognises these issues John had, and it seems he’s been able to reconcile the ways in which these issues often manifested themselves in Johns relationships—through hostility, acerbic wit etc.—with his acceptance that beneath it all, John did care for him.

Within this need to know that he was in fact loved by John, I think we can draw that its a matter of importance because when we love someone else, we want that sentiment to be returned; to love and to be loved:

John had a lot to guard against and it formed his personality; he was a very guarded person. I think that was the balance between us: John was caustic and witty out of necessity and, underneath, quite a warm character when you got to know him. I was the opposite, easygoing, friendly, no necessity to be caustic or biting or acerbic but I could be tough if I needed to be…The partnership, the mix was incredible. We both had submerged qualities that we each saw and knew. We would] never have stood each other for all that time if we'd just been one-dimensional. —Paul McCartney via Many Years From Now by Barry Miles

—

‘When we were younger, we used to swear a lot more…I’ve still had periods when I’ve sworn…It’s bravado, trying to be cool, man. John always had a lot of that bluster, though. It was his shield against life.

He’d say, “My dad left home when I was three, and my mother got run over and killed by an off-duty policeman outside the house, and my Uncle George died. Yeah, I’m bitter.” He told me once he thought he was a curse on the male line of the family because his dad had run away, and then he went to live with Auntie Mimi and Uncle George. Then George, whom he’d really liked, died. His mum was run over after she’d visited him, while walking to the bus stop down the street where he lived. He idolised her. Just having to accommodate all that would make you want to put up a few defences. The point is that most people don’t tend to show their emotions unless they are in private, but deep down, people are emotional, and all I’m really saying in this song is, “Love isn’t silly at all.”’ — Paul McCartney on Silly Love Songs in The Lyrics, 2021 (x)

—

‘[Sarcastically] “you know, Lennon was the hardest sort of guy” John was not hard. John was a baby. A lovely little baby, John was. […] John had one of the biggest fronts—but then if you look at Johns history, father leaving home at three et cetera, this is a boy growing up on his own, so many insecurities, I can totally sympathise. Particularly now at this age, now that I’ve got kids and I can see what kind of stuff does to kids, boy can I see what it did to John.’ — Paul McCartney on NBC today via @sgt-paul (x)

—

‘I mean a song like ‘Help!’, I remember sitting down and writing this with John, and he’d come up with the uh…“when I was younger, so much younger…” and I suddenly realised ‘okay, so we’re talking about an insecurity thing—but this is great, it’s a song!’. And once we’d finished it we were very happy with it, but it was only later when I thought ‘wow, you know what, that was a real cry for help. He really meant it.’ And there were so many things like that about Johns life that, you know I could really sympathise with.’ — Paul McCartney in interview with Howard Stern, 2020 (x) 

—

John was going through a lot of pain when he said a lot of that stuff, and he felt that we were being vindictive towards him and Yoko. […] But we were actually quite supportive. Not supportive enough, you know; it would have been nice to have been really supportive because then we could look back and say, Weren’t we really terrific? But looking back on it, I think we were OK. We were never really that mean to them, but I think a lot of the time John suspected meanness where it wasn’t really there.  — Paul McCartney in interview w/ Chris Salewicz, 1986 (x)

—

That was John; just a jealous guy. He was a paranoid guy. And he was into drugs…heavy. He was into heroin, the extent of which I hadn’t realised till just now.

It’s all starting to click a bit in my brain. I just figured, “Oh, there’s John, my buddy, and he’s turning on me.” He once said to me, “Oh, they’re all on the McCartney bandwagon.” Things like that were hurting him, and looking back on it now I just think that it’s a bit sad really.

[…]

I’m beginning to think it wasn’t all my fault. I’m beginning to let myself off a lot of the guilt. I always felt guilty but looking back on it I can say okay, let’s try and outline some things. John was hurt; what was he hurt by? What is the single biggest thing that we can find in all our research that hurt John? And the biggest thing that I can find is that I told the world that the Beatles were finished. I don’t think that’s so hurtful. — Paul McCartney, interview w/ Chris Salewicz for Musician: Tug of war – Paul McCartney wants to lay his demons to rest. (October, 1986) via @amoralto (x)

Now, I can only guess as to why one might think Paul didn’t love John, but perhaps what you’re getting at anon with saying “maybe he’s just saying he did or convincing himself he did”, is that following an untimely death people are expected to express their love of that individual. And even detracting from PR, if someone were close to dies, we’re probably going to want to believe that we did genuinely love and care for them (because no one wants feel like a complete sociopath). Given that Paul has often paired his commentary on his love for John, following his death, with reflections on his inability and regret about not expressing this to him while he had the chance to, it could be suggested that this is largely just a PR-thing (i.e ‘if he loved him so much, why didn’t he didn’t he tell him that when he was alive?’).

But honestly, I very much doubt that’s the case. I can’t speak for Pauls own experiences in friendship, but I know that Ive rarely, if ever, told my friends/family I love them. It’s just not something that comes up regularly, and it's not something Id feel comfortable saying. And I think that’s the case for most people—I mean, it’s easy to miss those opportunities in which we could have told someone we loved them, because we take for granted the belief that they’ll always be here. We assume they’ll be here tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that and so on. And even when we do say the things we want to say, there’s still the question of whether it came across clearly or sincerely enough.

There was no way Paul could have ever prepared himself for losing John that suddenly (whereas with someone like George, he was at least given time to reconcile). So it doesn’t surprise me that, to this day, he is so emphatic about his affection for John—especially when we account for the assumption people had from things like Lennon Remembers or the Let It Be documentary which suggested there was only ever hostility between them:

"Y’know, as sixteen year old, seventeen year old Liverpool kids, you could never say that—it just wasn’t done. Um, so I never did. I never really just said ‘John, love you man’, y’know, I just never got round to it. So now, it is great to just realise…how much I loved this man." — Paul McCartney discussing The Lyrics w/ Samira Ahmed, 2021 (x)

—

“I never got to straighten things out like I would have liked to. But ah, what I have to take as my consolation–I’ll take anything I can get–…really the biggest consolation was that the last phone call we had together was really good. It was very warm; we were talking about kids, talking about hats, about his Aunt Mimi, and stuff that I could relate to….he was really very warm. And I kind of realised that even if we’d been bitching and stuff in public we still had affection for each other and I was pleased to know that. And I know Yoko later rang me up and said ‘look, you know, he did love you’. [Paul looks pained and fidgets with his ear.] So you know, you grab anything you can get. I know he did (love me); I know he came close to ‘love/hate;’ any strong relationship’s got that in it, I think. It’s a pity; be nice for everything to be wonderful smooth all the time, but it seems to be life, doesn’t it.” — Paul McCartney, c. 1980s, via @maclen100 (x)

The processes of grief and retrospect I think have encouraged him to value smaller details of their time together, aspects which otherwise could have been overlooked in the face of hostility. Despite the conflicts that developed between the two, love and affection was always there at the very core of their relationship. And in the end, that love is paramount to all else. 

— — —

Anyway, I wasn’t sure how to incorporate some extra things I came across while collecting these quotes, but I thought Id just throw in a little bonus for anyone who loves reading up on the happier side to their relationship as much as I do!:

John’s relationship with Paul always seemed warm and genuine during the 1964-66 tours. If there was any resentment simmering between the two in the Beatles’ heyday, it was certainly disguised. But all the time I spent with the boys touring America, I never witnessed anything between the two of them that even bordered on dislike, mistrust, backbiting, or malevolence. In fact, during the last filmed interview that Lennon and McCartney ever gave together, which I had the honor (unknown at the time) of conducting in 1968, the two of them seemed–despite the rumours that were already swirling–committed to each other as musicians and human beings. — Lennon Revealed by Larry Kane

—

“One of the nicest moments I remember from those years was when John said he liked ‘Here, There And Everywhere’ better than any of his songs at the time—there were those little things.” McCartney, after all, possessed the musical capacity to make people’s hearts sing. Lennon would also have relished the chance to thank McCartney for the love within the music which he gave to the world. He may not have conceded as much at the time, but it was also a pleasure for Lennon to hear McCartney sing. — Come Together: Lennon & McCartney in the Seventies by Richard White

—

“I was very good at sarcasm myself. I could really keep up with John then. If I was in a bad enough mood, I was right up there with him. We were terrific then. He could be as wicked as he wanted, and I could be as wicked, too.” — Paul McCartney, Playboy interview, 1984 via @aceonthebase (x)

—

‘No matter what’s happened, even though John’s dead, I don’t feel like we are ever gonna be apart. I think we’re a part of each other’s lives, we’re a part of each other’s karma, man! And, you know, there’s something kind of deeper than all the business troubles we went through. They were real enough! But… nah, I think through all of that stuff, there was always the John who would put down his glasses and he’d say: “It’s only me.” And that was it, I’d know what he meant! ‘Ya, it’s only Johnny! It’s only Lennon, he’s only having a laugh with us, it’s just a joke, really.’ There was always that feeling that at the bottom of things, no matter how bad it got - fights, sort of slanging matches, or anything - we still kinda liked each other. [Here Today starts playing].’ — ‘In My Life: Lennon Remembered’ interview w/ Simon Mayo, 1990 via @pizzaandfairytales (x) (x)

— 

This performance of Here Today sent to me by the wonderful @royaltyisshe64 :)

—

“I didn’t hate John. People said to me when he said those things on his record about me, you must hate him, but I didn’t. I don’t. We were once having a right slagging session and I remember how he took off his granny glasses. I can still see him. He put them down and said, ‘It’s only me, Paul.’ Then he put them back on again, and we continued slagging…That phrase keeps coming back to me all the time. ‘It’s only me.’ It’s became a mantra in my mind.” — Paul McCartney in interview w/ Hunter Davies, 1981 (x)

[clotpolesonly]

2021 Fic Year In Review

i was tagged by @rhyslahey, @inell, AND @luulapants so i guess i gotta do the thing now alkjdfg 😂

Total number of completed works: 32, which is more than i thought tbh, but it’s mostly been because of the stiles shipping central discord server’s monthly ficlet exchange, soooo thanks for keeping me going when i otherwise had no motivation whatsoever.

Total word count: once i get the ficlet i’m working on now posted, it’ll be about 53k for the year. which.....is decent, i suppose. but i fall into the trap of comparing myself to my previous self, aaaaand it’s by FAR the least i’ve written annually since i started writing fic again after high school. like, almost 1/5 of my most prolific years. trying to remind myself consistently that it’s okay and even good to have periods of rest and lowered productivity, especially under the circumstances. my brain juice will return from the war eventually probably.

Fandoms written in: Teen Wolf and Merlin, which yeah it was kind of nice to foray briefly back into the latter!! hadn’t written for Merlin in a long time.

Looking back, did you write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? my expectations for the year were pretty low, i think, after last year was also an extremely unproductive year and i wasn’t feeling much better about things. so, like, i wish i’d written more, but i’m also glad that i wrote anything cuz that was not guaranteed 😬😭😅

What’s your own favorite story of the year? honestly, none of the ones i’ve written this year stand out to me very much..... scanning through the list and it’s taking me EFFORT to even remember what some of them ARE, adlfkh. i guess if i had to pick one, i might say If We Exiled Our Sins?? i originated a pairing tag, first one to write it, and that’s pretty exciting lol. i think i like that fic a lot.

Did you take any writing risks this year? besides writing that pairing ^? not really, i don’t think. everything was pretty chill, low effort and low engagement, short and easy.

Do you have any fanfic or profic goals for the new year? write more, get my mojo back. try and write something longer than 7k. maybe even a multichap. i miss being able to write long stories 😭

Most popular story of the year? by hits, A Kiss To Remember (Merthur). by kudos, Reach Out, In Reach (Sterek). by bookmarks and comments, Love Is Blind And So Is Stiles (Sterek). by subscriptions, Kids, They Say (Stiles & puppy pack), which surprises and amuses me.

Story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: Things I Learned In The Storm maybe??? an Erica character study thing, which i quite liked but which got very little response.

Most fun story to write:  Love In The Age Of Sustainable Gardening Practices (Steter) was quite fun 😂

Most unintentionally telling story: uuuhhhh, i don’t think i projected much on any of my stories this year?? there wasn’t much substance to most of them, and 95% of them were based on prompts/requests from others, so they weren’t just things i felt compelled to put out there.

Biggest disappointment: i posted a couple of fics that were gifts for people who didn’t respond to them literally at all......so. that was fun. wonder if they read them......

Biggest surprise: talking myself into accidentally genuinely shipping Laura/Noshiko 🤣 

tagging: ......i can’t think of any writers whom i haven’t seen already get tagged aldkfjghadfg rip

[svnarintaro]

it’s too late to say sorry

update: part two is up and you can read it here 

authors note: IM IN A IMAGINE WRITING SPREE SOMEONE STOP ME PLEASE also i like using different names for the same characters im sorry :/

synopsis: hitoshi shinsou is known to be a top tier player, you only saw his as a jerk that toyed with other people's feelings, he was on his way for changing for the better; but he blew it.

word count: 1.9k words

warnings: !quirkless au! angst!!

!f*ckboy! hitoshi shinsou x reader 

him and his entire demeanour pissed you off, you were not someone that was hateful but man did this man get on your nerves. girls and guys were falling like flies case of his 'irresistible' aura, the thought made you scoff. he was just another one of those players that care for thing other than themselves and you were sick of this whole pedestal that people put them on, and him oh how you wanted to knock them down  and make them taste the reality of their destruction.

you and your best friends kendo and monoma were discussing what material you missed when you were sick on the way to the cafeteria, kendo perked up as if she remembered important information "oh also about the seating plan in chem.." you groaned and tilted your head back in annoyance, "don't tell me i'm sitting to this trust fund kid," you sarcastically pointed your thumb at the boy to your right, "shut it my dear peasant, you are a charity case to me so be grateful-" and as he was finishing up his sentence he got smack to the back of his head. "kendo that hur-" "be grateful that we haven't left you sorry butt yet." she let out a huff and continued what she was about to say as the three of you got to the cafeteria she took a shaky breath, "you kinda next to shinsou.."

you choked on air, "no no no no, i don't want o be next to a barney headed jerk-" before your rant even started you were cut off by the person behind you. "so you wanna continue talking about me behind my back or do you wanna say it to my face sweetheart, take your pick," you knew that voice, all too well. "first of all save your disgusting nicknames for a person that actually likes you." you turned your heel to give him the dirtiest glare you could fathom to show hitoshi shinsou.

"aww don't be like that baby.. i already know you'll turn around~" his smirk did not fall for a second, it only grew by the minute. "look i'm not looking to have anything on my criminal record, so if you want to keep your limbs in one piece i suggest you take my advice and piss off with my parting gift." you brought your fist to your mouth and shoved your middle finger in our mouth, and you proceeded to pull it out and flip him off and caught up with kendo and monoma who were laughing. 'they really are something else hm?' shinsou thought.

"man does he really put you in a bad mood hm?" neito teased and handed you the sandwich you wanted, "yeah she really did flip him off this time and threaten him?! i think that is the nicest exchange they've had all year!" kendo wheezed out, as you payed for your food you looked back to see shinsou sitting with his friends.

"so let's get this straight, you single handed moly pissed someone off so often they called you barney head, say they might break your limbs AND flip you off?!" kaminari screeched, while todoroki was purely confused, "did shinsou lose his ability to flirt his way out of this situation or something? cause honestly i feel like you lost you mojo a little bit." sero snorted at todoroki, "did you really have to say 'mojo'?" shinsou was just trying to figure out how to woo you now, his ultimate revenge as to get you to like him and break your heart and pummel it to smithereens.

now you had your chemistry class, and you were lab partners with shinsou, the given thought of being within a 2 metre radius of him mad you dread the class. the moment you walked in the class you saw a girl on his lap, her uniform was two sizes too tight, playing with his hair and her skirt rode up to show her red undergarments. "daddy~ can't we just skip?" you gagged at that nickname, the two of them stopped what they were doing and looked at you. the girl looked you up and down and she was obviously annoyed at your presence. "oh don't mind me i'm just a poor witness to see your panties on full display," you shrugged and made your way to your seat, "at least i have someone interested me," the girl smugly said, you rolled your eyes, "at least my coochie isn't free real estate."

the girl let out a 'hmph' and stormed out out the class, "free real estate? that's a new one." you didn't bother looking at him, and you opened your notebook and brought your data booklet out not even sparing him a glance. meanwhile the guy in front of you asked for a pen and you immediately complied and gave him one. hitoshi has never felt more offended from getting ignored and blown off again.

later in the class the teacher gave a worksheet to work on and you got stuck on a certain question and you didn't know what to do, "you forgot to balance the reaction so that's why you got the wrong answer." you looked to see shinsou looking at you, elbow on his table, "for someone who doesn't bother with class you remember a few things." you proceeded to add numbers to the elements that were written. for the rest of the class he continued to help you with your worksheet and the two of you got along for once. 'huh he may not be as bad as i thought he was.'

for the rest of the month he acted like this and it showed you that he wasn't the monster you thought he was, he was kind, considerate, funny and sweet. he avoided other girls too, "to think that you changed shinsou is actually kind of crazy, you're way more tolerable this way," you whispered as the two of you sat together and worked on some chemistry notes together, on his end of the story he was freaking out, he never felt this way, h heart was pounding out of his chest. he wanted it to stop, he was afraid. afraid of you not liking him back, he was afraid of commitment, he was afraid that he wasn't good enough for you.

"listen kaminari it is a reasonable plan, get them to like me, have them fall in love with me and boom i break up with her." for the past hour kaminari has been listening to shinsou on the phone go on and on about how he wanted to mess around with you, "they're an interesting person, they've got guts." the blond giggled, "i mean if you wanna quit the plan and hand them over to me-" "don't think about it rat."

meanwhile he was thinking about how he was so calm around you, he felt the need to drop his act and be himself around you. "looks like someone is getting attached~"

really? did he get attached? no what would be too cliché for his own good. so he sought his time to be taken by girls, other girls where were desperate to be in his attention span, "hey kaminari give me the number of every one of your flings i need to let off some steam.." shinsou needed to get you off his mind.

on the other hand you were talking to kendo, "okay look i know that i said he was trash and whatever but  he changed and.. i think i might like him." you were gushing over all the sweet things he did, all the sweet things he said, you saw all the signs that he returned your feelings. "i say go for it! shoot your shot when you can, just be careful and know that me and neito are here for you and will beat him up if he dares hurt you." kendo was really on edge with him, it was as if shinsou got possessed and she knew something wasn't right, but if he made you happy she couldn't stop you. "thank you kendo~"

it was as if a switch was flipped, the Hitoshi shinsou that you hated was back and had more playthings than ever, make out sessions in the halls, skipping classes to fool around with anyone and what hurt the most was that he was avoiding you like the plague. “he is going through a phase right now, i promise he is better than this you saw how he was weeks ago please guys you have to believe me.” you were crying in monomas room about your ruined week. you knew what was the truth and that was that you were played, you were a fool to think that he was changing for the better. “i knew he was a jerk, y/n you deserve better than this, you deserve someone that will really appreciate you, someone that won’t have to change and will be who they really are in front of you..” you looked up from lap and stared at monoma and kendo. ‘these are my people, they will never betray me.’ “i love you guys,” you declared as you threw your arms around their necks and cried your heart out. ‘hitoshi shinsou you will pay for doing me dirty like this.’

kendo forced you to stay home and rest, you were stressed and not in the head space to be at school right now. it was now lunch and kendo was livid, and was stomping down the corridor to give a piece of your mind to the jerk that broke your heart. “shinsou, i got a bone to pick with you.” she yelled at the purple haired boy, ‘finally i can see how y/n is doing’ he completely misread her words and saw them as an invitation to act buddy buddy with her so he jogged over. however he was not expecting a fist to the face, “you undeniable monster! do you know what you did to her?! you gave her false hope and you have the audacity to think that you can get anything about how she is right now?” her words truly leaked poison and showed she was not playing around, he had hurt you, and he needed to repent. “you think your pathetic superiority complex is something to sneeze at and turn a blind eye to? you think that just because you can play with peoples emotions you’re better than everyone else? well here’s what i think.” groups of people were surrounding everyone and were listening to kendo’s rant, shinsou’s heart dropped, he knew what this meant, he had hurt you. with each sentence the gap between the two got smaller until she got into his face and continued.

“it is disgusting how you can switch your act to lower other people’s guard and once they do so they are underneath your discrepancy and you crush them with no mercy,” flashes of you trying to talk to the guy you liked were flashing into keno’s head, she watched as he broke you down until you were pieces and now she was there for you as you were hopelessly trying to pick them up. a breath broke her flow of thoughts and brought her a second of peace. “stay away from my best friend.” and thats when the world stopped for shinsou, he did all of this to protect himself, he was scared cause there was a chance you could’ve liked him back but he ignored that and hurt you instead. “i’m sorry..” was all that he could say at this point. he couldn’t express anything right now, he was malfunctioning. “it’s too late to say sorry.”

[antarestyl]

Got not tagged but saw this meme and wanted to do it :D

I tag @namekian-maoh and whoever else wanna try!

How many works do you have on AO3?

56 so far.

What’s your total AO3 word count?

600021 at this moment... damnit, I like nice and round numbers more XD

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

29 XD well, some are crossover and some are almost-the-same (especially with Video games where I often take multiple entires in a series into account and tag them accordingly)

As for my fandoms:

Video games: Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Among Us, Bowser's Fury, Deltarune, Don't Starve, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Final Fantasy XV, Luigi's Mansion, Mario & Luigi RPG, Monkey Island, Pikmin, Pocket Monsters | Pokemon, Super Mario & Related Fandoms, Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Odyssey, Super Paper Mario, Undertale, (+ AU of Undertale)

Comic/Cartoon/Manga/Anime: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, Yu-Gi-Oh! (All Media Types), Homestuck, Gravity Falls, DCU (Comics), Booster Gold (Comics),  Blue Beetle (Comics)

Books/Movies/Divers: Harry Potter, Mystery Skulls Animated, Olsen-banden | The Olsen Gang (Movies), Ties of Lapis (Skyrim-AU),

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. PTA Sans and other glorious things       

73016 words, 3192 Kudos, so far my most successful work XD It’s still ongoing. Undertale Fanfic, Monster-on-the-Surface, True Pacifist Ending, PTA AU, SansxToriel in the Background, everybody is here, mostly happy, silly and only a small dose of angst from time to time. Later chapters with more story.

2. TrioBlasterSets AU - Six puppys and 3 flames                 

270813 word, 758 Kudos. I write this AU together with @namekian-maoh . Still ongoing. Undertale Baby-Blaster AU with some Underfell and Underswap thrown into it. Dadby, Badster, mostly family fluff and dealing with the experiment!gaster-blaster Background of 3 skeleton children. Also 3 flames who take care of them that have way more drama going on themselves than nessessary. Chapters are not in chronological order. Has a few Spin-offs too (including some NSFW oneshorts about the flames and their relationship ;) )

3. So I won't regret another day 

19214 words, 320 Kudos. Undertale Underfell AU, Underfell Sansby with some healthy relationships, the planning of a revolt against an insane king, monster still being monster and not really made for violence in an violent setting. If officially finished but I write new chapters when the fancy strikes me.

4. Grillby's                 

9894 words, 265 Kudos. Deltarune/Undertale fanfic with a Spin, named Plushyrune (aka Deltarune where eveything is the same, just with Sansby and Sans makes plushies). Started as just pure silly fluff, kinda got a plot now about the kids of Deltarune. Still ongoing, new chapter is 80% done ;)

5. Something old, something new... 

6579 words, 208 Kudos. Pure Post-Pacifist Surface Sansby fluff. Mostly from Grillby’s POV how they fall in love and be silly and in love. Still ongoing, haven’t really had to mojo to write more for it lately, but I WILL return at some point.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

I try to! I used to not comment on comments because I had this irrational feeling of “cheating the numbers” if I reply to comments but... screw that, I want to interact with people! So I try to answer any and all comments now :)

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Ufff, for me it’s a tie between The last chip  and Laughter in the Darkness. The Last Chip is a Yu-gi-Oh! Fanfic in a series of Kaiba spiraling downwards after the Manga/Anime ended and sets up the events of Dark Site of Dimensions. It ends pretty much with Kaiba ending up getting borderline suicidal in his Obsession with the Pharaoh.

Laughter in the Darkness is the Epilog I wrote for my Gravity Falls x Amnesia Crossover where Ford is pretty much an Amnesia-Protagonist and archives the very worst ending for himself. Mind the tags if you read this. It ends with Ford at the lowest possible point for himself and its open ended if he is going fully insane or if Bill Chiper really is still around. (and it’s not clear what outcome is the better one)

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Nah, not really. I am a chill writer in my own little corners of the fandom and most people leave me alone. I did get one “But Queer is a SLUR” comment way back in the day where it was still all “????” to say that out loud. But otherwise? Nah. I am not important enough for hate, lol.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

I have XD Not much thou. I wrote so far an mastubation scene with the one going down on himself heavily NOT BEING ALRIGHT while doing so XD Other than that I have 2 NSFW Undertale fics with some hot flame-on-flame action. I do like writing not-standard-sex (as in Sex that doesn’t requite human genitila) Otherwise I like to hint or describe feelings more than the act itself. More lime than lemon ;)

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I know of. As I said, I am not important enough for that.

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I had some ppl asking for permission to translate (which of course) but as far as I know there are no translations out there as of yet.

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

Yeah, I am writing the TrioBlasterSet AU with @namekian-maoh I did Co-write some fics way back during my fanfiction.de time too but that’s a long time ago.

What’s your all time favorite ship?

I ship a lot and am a dirty multishipper XD I have to many ships to really call one out as my favorite.

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

TrioBlasterSets AU because there is always MORE to tell with this AU XD

What are your writing strengths?

I am the Queen of Worldbuilding and Crossovers baby!

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Only do it if you have a REALLY good reason for it AND if you have a good gasp on the language. Like, nothing takes me out of a fic faster than reading stuff in horrible German written by people who were to lazy to just copy/paste the word from google translate (my time in the Apollo Justice fandom has seriously scared me. It’s Fräulein, not Fraulein or Fraülein! Also you can’t just swap ei and ie around THOSE ARE DIFFERENT SOUNDS! als we have the letter ß it’s a shap s sound you can’t just use/not use it as you please!)

Also in 90% of all cases it’s just not nessessary. Write what you wanna write, TELL us it was said in a different language OR let the POV character just tell us their hear something said in an other language they couldn’t understand.

What I want to say is: Have some respect of the language you want to use!

-

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

I THINK it was Harry Potter? IDK I wrote a cringy Star Trek Parodie when I was like 14 or so and those OCs went through a lot from that time on forward but Idk if that even counts XD

-

What’s your favorite fic you’ve ever written?

The Game of Our Life It’s a series of Mario x Homestuck Fics I wrote before Undertale came along and swept me away XD I love all my fics of course but this one was the first really big one I finished on english and it was the one I am most proud of of the world-building. It has angst, it has lore, my writing style was just really developing there and I am just proud of it. (Also it’s very self-indulging so yeah XD love it a LOT)

[depressedacadamia]

Book Review on The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

Overall, this book took my heart, smashed it into pieces and then proceeded to burn them. Suzanne Collins does an excellent job at portraying Coriolanus as a conflicted protagonist from the start; in doing so, she manages to make the reader feel sympathy for him. Thus when Snow starts acting up, the reader feels obliged to stand by his side and you yourself feel conflicted- similar to the protagonist.

This by far is one of the best books I've ever read due to the turning of the main character. He starts out as a guy who hates The Hunger Games and the war and over the course of the book, he starts to do small things that would be seen as immoral. By the end of the book, he's betrayed and gotten his best friend killed, killed the mayor's daughter, attempted to abandon and then kill his girlfriend. By the very end, we are met with the cruel and infamous President Snow that is featured in The Hunger Games trilogy. I think this turning of character is done well by Collins because by the end of the book the reader hates the acts that Coriolanus has performed but it's still hard to hate Coriolanus himself after getting such a beautifully written backstory.

I think another reason I loved this book was because it explained the background of the Hanging Tree song. I absolutely loved the song and the second I read the first 2 verses in this book and how it was written, I could just tell that Coriolanus was going to do something bad. I think the writing behind the character Lucy Gray was splendidly done and it reminded me of Luna Lovegood. I think the reason why Snow is pitied in this book is partly due to Lucy Gray. Lucy Gray is a character with morals- strong ones that she firmly believes in. Snow, as established by the end of the book, is an immoral character so the fact that these two characters have any sort of interest in each other, a love interest especially, really allows us to connect to Snow and sympathise for him- maybe even root for him. It's a complete juxtaposition of the characters as well. Lucy Gray and Coriolanus Snow are complete opposites and yet they are attracted to each other. It really displays how Corionlanus needed someone with a different perspective and for all his life that person was Sejanus. When he starts growing away from Sejanus, he turns to Lucy Gray. Snow is constantly selfish, as seen in the manner in which he uses people. Alas, in the end, Snow did try and kill Lucy Gray and then proceeded to run away. While his rebellious acts at the beginning seemed to be the right thing, we as readers witness how all along these acts were all for him, not Sejanus or Lucy Gray.

Oh my goodness, lets not forget the insight behind the white roses over here! Finally, we get the entire backstory to the roses and I think because of that, the symbolisation of them is emphasised. At first, the roses are seen (in the Hunger Games trilogy) as a malicious part of Snow’s personality- a sign of revenge. The white rose was a symbol of purity and innocence - something that President Snow clearly isn’t. To add on to my point, his name is Coriolanus Snow . The irony is unfathomable; his surname and symbol both suggest purity and yet he is the complete opposite. I’d also like to quickly talk about his first name, Coriolanus. For those who don’t know, Coriolanus was a Roman general who thought he was a bit too great and became an enemy of Rome. The fact that his name is the name of a traitor and his second name is Snow immediately foreshadows that he will become a traitor. Later on in the book, Snow disobeys many Capitol rules and is forced to become a peacekeeper where he breaks more rules and then tries to kill his own girlfriend. The inability to maintain loyalty to one side further suggests that Snow is indecisive and only does what is best for him in a certain situation. The white roses symbolise that he is deceiving due to the fact that white roses mean much more than just purity. The complete juxtaposition of character compared to his name and symbol further highlights the manipulative tendencies as well as his need to maintain a flawless public image. It really illustrates his desire to appear as a person of the people. However, White roses are also a symbol of death. This complete oxymoron of purity and death fits in well with Snow’s malicious behaviour. The white roses are alluring- something that one cannot help but be attracted to however once you pick the rose, you are more than likely to die. This perfectly sums up the characteristics of Snow. The roses are a trap, similar to his cunning and crafty behaviour. Snow’s white roses symbolize his obsession over maintaining a perfect public image all while manipulating those around him and destroying those he wants gone, in an elegant and discreet manner.

If I were to improve this book, I'd say there is a part in the middle where it just loses its mojo. I had to put down the book for a few days because I genuinely couldn't manage to continue paying attention to the book. While the mass majority of this book is very fast paced and full of plot twists- the middle just slows down- Of course, it's okay for book to do that and often times, the book itself often benefits from it but I felt that right here it didn't very well. Coriolanus is a peacekeeper and what else is new? I just felt like I was waiting for something that was never going to come. However, I kept reading and thank God for that. Sejanus's death was the saddest death scene I've ever read. I think the fact that we as reader don't know if Sejanus knows whether Snow betrayed him or not makes the death so meaningful. His last words is him calling out for his mother- who we know loves him very much. Lucy Gray is there mourning. Coriolanus is mourning and yet the whole time he is still thinking about himself. Does Sejanus know what he did? Does anyone else know? Worst of all, after Sejanus dies, one of Snow's first thoughts is that he is safe from the Capitol ever finding out what happens. This just goes to prove Coriolanus's selfish and immoral nature. But the ending of this book is what put the cherry on top for me. I think a specific part of the epilogue in particular got to me. It was went we find out that the Plinths and the Snows are kind of one big family now. In particular, Strabo treating Coriolanus like his own son. Earlier in the book it's mentioned that Strabo would much rather Coriolanus to be his son rather than his actual child, Sejanus. I think it is simply so heartbreaking to see Strabo treat Coriolanus like his son when he didn't treat Sejanus in the same way. At the end it is strongly hinted that Coriolanus poisoned Dean Highbottom which once and for all settles Snow's true nature. It reveals the truth that Coriolanus will kill for power and that he will stop at nothing to get what he wants. He just like his father Crassus- the person who stole Dean's idea of the Hunger Games and actually pitched it (despite Dean's subjections to it). Manipulative, deceiving and ruthless, Coriolanus Snow is the evil protagonist and Collins ends the book with a classic overarching loop. In the first Hunger Games book, Snow was evil, and now at the end of the last book ( well, that we know of), Snow has been portrayed in many different lights and has returned to the one that suited him most. Being a villain.

[plounce]

do u have any reccomendations for how to read only comics involving rictor and shatterstar?? i used to be into marvel comics so i am immune to the usual comic shenanigans but i would like to learn more about these boys

here is a guide to reading xmen comics for rictor and shatterstar, my favorite canon comics couple! they were the first on-panel gay kiss in a marvel comic! they’re very special to me!

OKAY SO... ok. for anyone else using this, here’s a standard disclaimer that obviously there’s gonna be a lot in these that just absolutely sucks because 1. the 90s, 2. comics are an extremely cishet white male dominated industry. i do not vouch for everything written in these comics, but i think the gaycoding that eventually gets canonized is worth wading through a lot of stupid bullshit and very ugly art.

quick backstory on these two: rictor is a mexican teenager who was kidnapped by an anti-mutant terrorist group and was rescued by x-factor (the original 5). he hung around their auxiliary teen group the x-terminators for most of x-factor, being a delightful little punk (wearing a sleeveless leather vest a lot of the time!) and hanging out with boom-boom (who i love) and then got put into the new mutants for a very short time (where he had a thing with rahne/wolfsbane), before it was dissolved and transformed into x-force when rob liefeld took over the title. rictor hates team leader 90sdude cable because he thinks cable killed his dad in front of him. he tends to be the snarky asshole on the team.

the first part of this article has a lot of little rictor moments i’m not covering here. if you want the full rictor experience, check out x-factor (1986) and !x-terminators! x-factor starts very slowly but it picks up and improves when the simonsons take the helm.

rictor left the team. shatterstar was introduced by liefeld - he’s an Emotionless Warrior Guy Who Loves To Fight from mojoworld (a planet run by a despot who produces tv. it’s Commentary), where he was forced to be a gladiator from birth and doesn’t know a lot of earth customs and doesn’t have emotions (or rather, he represses them). 

x-force (1991) feel free to read through all of it, but in case you just want to skip to these two, all of these issues have one or two good little Moments - just do some skimming. i tend to focus more on rictor than star in this era because star is made more interesting than Emotionless Warrior Guy by butting up against rictor:

13-16 (rictor rejoins his old new mutants friends)

19, 21-26 (the first phase of their relationship where they don’t really get along. in one of these issues rictor stares at star’s ass. big moment of star being autism-coded in here too)

29-30 (rictor drives shatterstar around and they seem to get along better, you get to learn a bit about star’s past, adam-x the x-treme is there)

32-33 (just some little moments of them hanging out, a couple good rictor lines)

34 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor backstory issue! AND this has the first big Subtext moment: shatterstar reveals he learned spanish from tv so he and rictor can have “conversations of a highly -- personal nature” HELLO?)

35 (some little moments where you can see star and rictor are now Friends and star is affected by that friendship)

39-40 (more good friendship - rictor asks if star has been watching dating shows and they just seem close. rictor also has gotten a haircut! we learn shatterstar’s mojoworld designation! they ride some motorcycles!)

43 (VERY IMPORTANT - the two go to a club. rictor tells star he’s a virgin then asks him if he has a dick. i am not kidding this literally happens. star learns what sexual attraction feels like and says ‘i don’t know what emotions im supposed to attach to that’, and rictor tells him he’ll help him learn.)

44 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor leaves the team because he doesn’t want to have the team communicate telepathically (VERY interesting for a character who is eventually revealed to have been a closeted gay man). shatterstar begs him not to leave - “you’re my best and only friend.” rictor tells him that if he ever needs him, he’ll come back.)

cable (1993) #22 (follows up directly on rictor leaving the team - star accompanies rictor to the airport and has a lot of Feelings and has great hair. “julio. one last time. please, change your mind. what am i going to do without you?” oh so you’re dependent on your best friend who you’re in love with? oh?)

45, 47-48 (star’s weird biology, star brings up rictor as his emotional touchstone in a situation where he isn’t relevant at all. also, a plotline where tabby gets treated terribly by her friends and the narrative!)

49 (VERY IMPORTANT - star wanders around at night wondering why rictor hasn’t contacted him yet. he goes to the club he and rictor went to in #43 and turns down a girl who hits on him. he thinks “i miss julio...” (in an earlier issue, rictor tells cable not to call him by his first name - “only my mom calls me that”), then beats up some homophobes in an alley. I AM NOT KIDDING.)

51-52 (51 has more weird star biology. 52 has two pages of star and james talking that is a nice look at star’s developing emotional state - the rest of 52 is a fight with one of marvel’s extremely fatphobic villains, just a warning to skip the rest of it. although the letter page of 52 has someone go HEY ARE RICTOR AND SHATTERSTAR IN LOVE? thank you roeland looman from the netherlands)

54-56 (the start of shatterstar’s weird bad benjamin russell backstory that is quickly forgotten, disregarded, and uncared about by everybody. BUT in 54, there is some extremely loud subtext where star’s feelings for rictor are explicitly compared to a het romance subplot!)

58 (star is very chill and flamboyant for like two pages, it’s great)

59-61 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor returns because star Needs him in the midst of his identity crisis!! it’s so joyful and sweet for them both, and the subtext is so LOUD here - there’s just. so much going on, i won’t describe it all, but it’s very good content and their emotionally intimate relationship is very apparent - really excellent gaycoding. the weird shatterstar backstory wraps up circuitously and to no great effect, but the art in the last issue is very nice, and rictor’s plain and uncomplicated concern for star is great.)

63-65 (some little moments - shatterstar and rictor time travel and beat up some nazis, star has a lovely conversation with siryn,)

x-force/cable ‘97 (the team goes to asgard! the important thing is that star says some goofy “ah... warriors...” things, and then rictor teases star for liking delivery pizza. it’s very charming)

67 (they hang out with tabby in a van. shatterstar has pigtails!)

70 (VERY IMPORTANT - rictor and shatterstar exit the team together to go take down rictor’s crime family in mexico! they seem very devoted to each other. shatterstar’s hair is all the way down!)

post leaving x-force:

76 (VERY IMPORTANT - ricstar return for one issue - rictor gets held captive to force shatterstar to fight domino!)

x-force annual 1999 (VERY IMPORTANT - ricstar get their own story about what they’re doing in mexico! shatterstar has an ugly little goatee, but rictor looks great! they choose to share a room rather than sleep separately and then it kind of feels like they shared a bed! rictor has learned star’s alien language! they genuinely just seem so close and comfortable with each other, it’s incredible.) (if you’re using RTO, it’s within the rest of xforce’s issues)

they’re both in comics limbo for the first half of the 00s besides a couple random flavorless appearances. shatterstar at some point goes back to mojoworld to help with the war against mojo. then we hit peter david’s x-factor run in 2006, known as x-factor investigations (xfi). this directly follows the “house of m” event - what matters is that the vast majority of mutants have been depowered by the scarlet witch. rictor is one of them.

rictor is a main character of the team from the first issue (the series opens with him about to attempt suicide), so if you wanna read the run you can start from the beginning. x-factor is... well, there are worse-written comics. it’s an okay read, but i find PAD’s writing insufferable a lot of the time (he writes multiple man as a pretty blatant self insert, and literally every girl on the team wants to fuck him at some point or another). i read the whole thing and it’s decent comics, but you might want to skip to the ricstar.

PAD canonizes ricstar, which is great! but unfortunately: 1. he writes star as  “slutty bisexual just can’t stop wanting to fuck people besides his partner who is uncomfortable with that!”, which is biphobic and sucks hugely, especially since it feels so different from xforce original shatterstar (see this post). rictor also just seems so annoyed with him all the time, which also sucks - they’re best friends!! let rictor like his boyfriend!!

anyway. if you choose not to read all of xfi, here are the ricstar highlights:

first issue of xfi for rictor's horrible mental state after m-day

14 (jamie implies that star would be jealous of rictor hanging out with quicksilver)

43, 45, 49 (star reappears!! he’s mindcontrolled, but it gets fixed, and he and rictor have the first ever on panel gay kiss at marvel!! yaaaay!! then they talk about their relationship a little)

after issue #50 it changes the numbering, so if you’re using RCO youll have to go to xfactor (1986) #200 to continue

200 (SHATTERSTAR FIGHTS THE THING!)

continue to read between here for star apparently being unable to stop kissing people. sigh. star sleeps with adult layla, which... sigh. whatever

207-208 (rictor and shatterstar semi-resolve the stupid biphobic plotline, resolve to work on their relationship, rahne discovers them (she and rictor had been sleeping together earlier in xfi), rahne is pregnant and homophobic, rahne and star fight, star is a delightful bitch)

209 (shatterstar on a pirate ship. that's it)

210 (rictor confirms that he is gay and it wasn’t legit when he’s been with women. there’s a moment where it's like "oh star makes rictor laugh" which is epic)

211-212 (star is said to be frustrated about rictor and rahne, rahne’s baby’s actual dad is revealed)

213 (rictor and rahne mostly resolve their shit)

216 (star and monet hang out, star thinks monet tells him to pee on rictor, spiderman is there)

217 (there’s a joke about the longstanding theory that longshot and star are related, monet is revealed as muslim in a very dumb way)

220 (star and rahne have a pretty nice conversation about their relationships to rictor and rahne’s faith. rictor does an offscreen internalized homophobia)

221 (star and rahne continue to hang out but it’s not as good as the previous issue.)

222 (oh my god, rictor cares about shatterstar being hurt! rahne owns up to how she kind of treated rictor like shit!)

pop over to avengers: the children’s crusade (a young avengers miniseries with good ol’ billy/teddy and i like it! but if you don’t want to read the whole thing - rictor and shatterstar appear in #6, and rictor is the first mutant to be repowered! they’re more tender with each other over their five page appearance than they are in xfi, so it’s a balm)

225-226 (PAD decides the first thing rictor does with his powers is be a scab [DEEP SIGH], rictor and shatterstar discuss rictor getting his powers back, the biphobic plotline is resolved again kind of in a very PAD-y way)

235-236 (shatterstar gets to be the main character of a mini arc. fights a mojo guy)

238 (ricstar go with rahne to help her find her son)

242 (they find her son. not as important imo)

248 (oh my god... they joke together :) they like being around each other :) also shatterstar goodboy moment. then in 249 rictor’s life is spared bc of shatterstar’s goodboy moment)

259 (SHATTERSTAR’S CRAZY CONVOLUTED BACKSTORY THAT ACTUALLY MATTERS TO HIS CHARACTER! YAHOO! and star has a cute little bob)

after xfi wraps up, there’s a couple years of limbo before they appear in secret warriors (2017) #2-3 (end of #2 and most of #3), which is a big crossover event or something. i don’t know, it’s an inhumans comic, and as an xmen person i am contractually obligated to roll my eyes at the inhumans. ricstar both have mustaches, star doesn’t speak, and rictor has the ugliest costume ever (green tracksuit with no socks??) (tabby also has a terrible costume). it’s just more inhumans trying to be a match to the xmen and utterly failing to not look & act like total jackasses (except, of course, for kamala and moon girl). rictor’s jokes that daisy johnson should get more original powers (she also has seismic powers - rictor predates her!), and then daisy blows up the xmen’s jet. while it’s in the air. this is a very neat summary of most mutant-inhuman relations.

now we enter the current era of “on again off again” relationship limbo.

rictor appears next in iceman (2017). in #9 he states that he and star have apparently broken up offscreen! and then he hits on bobby! sina grace is a cool person but this writing decision is so... aghhh. the next issue he and bobby go out on a date and he’s immediately like “yeah i only have my eyes on star”, so it seems to be more “it’s complicated” than “we’re broken up for good.” he sticks around to help out with a mission in #10-11.

they’re on again in new mutants: dead souls, where rictor is a part of the team and he’s hilarious and has so many great lines! shatterstar also makes a couple cameos throughout and they’re all super sweet! they seem very domestic and comfortable and happy, i love their dynamic in this. my favorite shatterstar panel ever is in #6, where he is making rictor pancakes and is only wearing an apron. please ignore all the big plot things that happen at the end of this, especially everything with karma. they are stupid, dumb, and do not matter.

related to nm:ds, rictor appears in multiple man #1 as part of that team and looks very very cute. and he isn’t whitewashed like in nm:ds!

off again in the shatterstar (2018) miniseries. i have a lot of mixed feelings about this because i LOVE all the rictor stuff, the first issue codes shatterstar as autistic in a very characterful way, it doesn’t whitewash rictor for once, and the covers are GORGEOUS! but it also attempts to retcon a ton of star’s emotional backstory AND arc set out in xforce, casting a black woman as his emotionally manipulative ex. also star is a landlord (ew). my advice with this one is to treat all the flashbacks as not-really-canon since they suck.

star appears in extermination (2018) #3-4 and gets mind-controlled into trying to kill the time-displaced teen o5 (timetraveling baby cable is trying to put them back where they came from), and the art looks great and i feel really bad for him. rictor makes a follow-up cameo in uncanny x-men (2019) #9-10, where you can see that he’s at the school in order to visit shatterstar since he’s with cecelia reyes. he then goes to fight nate grey/x-man, where he gets sucked into the age of x-man pocket universe/event.

around half the xmen get trapped and brainwashed in that pocket universe where there is no love or family, merely friendship and comradery (it’s an attempt by nate grey to ‘fix’ the xmen by getting rid of all the soap opera stuff - it’s a bit meta wrt how xmen are the soap opera superheroes). there are a couple different titles for this event: rictor appears in age of x-man: x-tremists #4-5. people have mixed feelings about this title due to the gay characters (northstar and iceman) enforcing no-romance laws that very intentionally parallel anti-gay laws from real life, but rictor is just chilling and running an illegal romance movies theatre, and then he gets drunk and then starts a riot and he’s just delightful in this.

everyone outside of the pocket universe thinks everyone who disappeared was killed. shatterstar is part of the team in x-force (2019) (there are two 2019 x-forces: this is vol 5, written by ed brisson) who are trying to track down young cable (baby cable, or “bable”), who killed older cable, who formed good old 90s xforce. boom-boom is the best part of this entire run, hands down. the art is expressive and interesting but i Hate how they draw warpath (the one time he’s free from comic book limbo!). shatterstar is in full “i only like fighting please let me fight i am a difficult asshole” mode, and talks about grieving rictor in #7 and #10. this is never really resolved since age of x-man is thrown over for hoxpox (BIG status quo changes & current era of xmen comics), but aside from my little ricstar heart i can’t really mind.

rictor is currently appearing as part of the team in excalibur (2019), and has been very... cozy... with apocalypse. at the time of writing (halloween 2020), it’s very heavily ambiguous what exactly their relationship is besides “intense” and i still have no clue what to think about it. he and star have been stated by the writer to be exes, but i also know tini howard is a ricstar fan so im holding out for good things! and it’s cool that rictor is getting a ton of focus and a lot of powering up. i remember reading xfi #1 and being amazed at how rictor described how soul-deep his earth powers were and wanting more of that, and excalibur has that for him in spades. (i am still withholding a lot of judgment wrt rictor’s writing in excalibur until i see how things pan out)

after reading to excalibur #12, switch over to x-factor (2020). read the first three issues because i love northstar and prodigy and rachel. please ignore a couple cringe comments towards poor daken. shatterstar appears in #3, trapped on mojoworld, getting traumatized, and breaking my heart as i write this. that last data page... free my boy!!!!

after x-factor #3, read x of swords: creation. more rictor and apocalypse being Close. after that, read x-factor #4 for apocalypse being very Attached to rictor, and then rictor looking very good and freshly resurrected. then continue reading excalibur. in may, x-factor is going back to mojoworld!!

that’s all there is so far! i think within the next year there will be even more content for us, and im very eager to get to that content. i will update this post as things come out.

[aion-rsa]

Riverdale Creates Its Own Church Because Why Not?

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This Riverdale review contains spoilers.

Riverdale Season 5 Episode 16

“Being canonized has always been one of my life’s goals.”

And so it came to pass that Cheryl Blossom turned water into maple syrup.

Goddamn Riverdale is glorious trash.

In what is either very subtle marketing for The Eyes of Tammy Faye or just the best direction this show has taken since everyone was hopped up on Jingle Jangle, the Blossom family’s “Church of Jason” antics came into sharp focus this week. Although relegated to a B or C plot, this plotline — which works equally well as a satire on hip religions that popped up out of nowhere (see also: last week’s The Other Two) or as Cheryl’s latest brush with divine darkness.

The focal point of this episode was clearly supposed to be Archie getting justice for his fallen comrades, but how can one be expected to pay attention to military intrigue when a line like “for I am Cheryl Blossom, Queen of the Bees” is delivered by Madelaine Petsch without a hint of insincerity? Disjointed as this season is, there’s been a clear effort on the part of the writing to staff to give the show’s secondary characters more to do. (Due to Petsch’s constant scene-stealing it’s easy to forget that she was previously a supporting character before the series’ producers made the wise decision to become an ensemble piece instead of focusing primarily on Archie, Veronica, Betty and Jughead). As a result, Cheryl has shone brighter than ever.

While Penelope clearly sees the Church of Jason as another shady enterprise, for Cheryl it has become a, well, bona fide religious experience. Since breaking up with Toni she has become, in the immortal words of The Lemonheads, “a ship without a rudder.” The Church of Jason gives her a purpose, even if it is only to satisfy her carnivorous desire for validation. Although this has some unexpected side effects, namely that her false divinity unexpectedly gave rise to an actual miracle when she controlled the bees and use them to dispel Penelope from the Church. “Something inside me has shifted,” she tells Kevin afterwards, “something powerful.” More than just quasi-literally becoming a Queen Bee, Cheryl has undergone a true religious awakening and tapped into a power inside of herself. How will this manifest? And what ramifications will it have for her and all of Riverdale itself?

Cheryl has always been more of a persona than a character, reliably outrageous with hints of an inner depth that go undeveloped as the series’ tears through its storytelling. I’d like to think that whatever is happening here is going to correct that wrong and give Cheryl the ability to be fleshed out more. Seeing how self-aware Riverdale has been of late (i.e. Josie’s takedown of the entire gang last week), there is a renewed effort to strengthen sidelined characters. Let’s see how Cheryl benefits from this in the few remaining episodes of the season.

Speaking of sidelined characters, there is none more so than Casey Cott’s Kevin Keller. Five seasons in and Kevin can be boiled down to “loves musicals and cruising for anonymous sex,” which doesn’t exactly befit the character’s GLAAD-award comic book counterpart. The continual lack of depth for Kevin and the show’s reliance on stereotyping him remains an absolute downer. Where are his multitudes? At least by pairing him with Cheryl he isn’t out in Fox Forest all the time. Again though, he remains sidelined without any clear definition. I give the series credit for not following the cliched “Bury Your Gays” trope, but by continually mishandling Keller the argument could be made that his lack of dimensions are a fate worse than death. I’m hoping that the show finally figures out what to do with him, as Cott and Keller — who was Archie’s first openly gay character — deserve much better.

The Church of Jason’s actual goals are unclear, and the miracles on display here were pretty much sacrilegious. Now that something has shifted in Cheryl, expect her to transform the religion into something based on her past trauma (and her mother’s scheming) into something entirely different, and perhaps dark. For now though, I’m willing to go on faith that the Church of Jason, and Riverdale itself, has some entertaining miracles up its gloriously bonkers sleeve.

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Riverdale Rundown

Like last week’s excellent installment, this episode was directed by Robin Givens, who is rapidly becoming one of this series’ best helmers.

I for one would have loved to have seen Cheryl and Kevin’s Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat medley. Thanks Penelope.

A nice bit of meta humor appeared when Jason was referred to as “a man of few words” as we have yet to see the character utter even a pre-death flashback syllable.

K.J. Apa’s hair seems to be rebelling against the red hair dye more and more each week.

This episode’s main plot was about Archie’s attempts to bring General Taylor to justice, but it is so disconnected from the other storylines that it ultimately results in a major shrug. Even the show seems uninterested in this, with the climatic tribunal — which would have at least provided some A Few Good Men pastiching — happening off screen.

Before it was cancelled, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina‘s next season was supposed to be a massive Riverdale crossover involving witches. One can only wonder if Cheryl’s new abilities are somehow tied into this abandoned event.

We learn that Reggie and Hermosa had “a thing,” and one that Veronica seems both revolted (and perhaps a bit jealous?) of.

Hiram Lodge storing his palladium in model of So-Dale is very on brand.

The book Jughead initially passes off as his own before coming to his senses is “Rules of Distraction,” (an obvious riff on The Rules of Attraction) written by the very Riverdale-named Cora Carter.

Jughead’s agent is named Samm, and this is perhaps not so coincidental. One of the greatest-ever Archie artists was Samm Schwartz, who has best known for his work on the Jughead solo comic. By giving the character fluid movement and hilarious facial expressions, Schwartz’s gag-packed panels remain the most pleasing take on the character in Archie’s 80-year history.

Copter Cab, a rideshare company that takes one-percenters to exclusive events via helicopter is such a douchey idea that I’m generally shocked it doesn’t exist in real life.

Jughead gets one of the best lines of the week when he remarks to Betty that she “solved like eight mysteries in high school and were still valedictorian.”

What with Archie’s crusade for justice, Veronica generally kicking ass in her battle to detach from Chad and regain her She-Wolf of Wall Street Mojo, all the aforementioned magic of Cheryl and Kevin, and Jughead’s attempt to get his life back on track, Betty’s search for the Lonely Highway Trucker didn’t get much screentime until the end of the episode. By pairing with Tabitha Tate on the road, she has a new ally, and I can’t wait to see these two trying to solve crimes together.

Speaking of, the Lonely Highway Killer has to be TBK, right?

It’s interesting that the past two episodes have worked overtime to make Mr. Lodge seem small and foolish. I’m not quite sure where this is leading, but it’s satisfying to see him get some comeuppance at last.

Fake brands this week include the Boysenberry pager and The Wall Beat Journal.

Now that Jughead’s The Lost Weekend-ing seems to be headed towards the backburner, I’m excited for next week’s installment which promises the return of Mothmen. Finally.

The post Riverdale Creates Its Own Church Because Why Not? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[sweetsoundsofignorance]

Currently running around bugging people and I want to know your thoughts on this: if you had full creative control of the show, how would you run season 5? You can pick and choose whatever leaks you want to include.

Thank you for the ask! 💕 A very fun exercise, and there has been some excellent speculation from the fandom. I’ve enjoyed reading everyone’s takes on it that I’m almost inclined to create bingo cards out of everyone’s nuttier speculations and play Riverdale batshit bingo for the season, a la Cabin the Woods.

I should say Riverdale speculation and leaks can leave me feeling overwhelmed at times, so I drift in and out when they are circling. Therefore, this rant is limited to the leaks/speculation/trailer gifs I have seen or heard about because I have no self-control. I’ve also not seen 4x17 or 4x18 (though I feel like I have through a mishmash of so many GIFs and recaps and speculations). In my mind, 4x17 is just *insert gif of Betty standing in the middle of the woods holding a bloody rock* Atm, no one knows how we got there.

Given the beginning of season five will be the tail-end of season four, perhaps start there? This got away from me, so it’s under the cut.

I imagine they will close four with the reveal of the voyeur and Chic/Charles plotline (with Riverdale you never know where they’re going to be selectively sloppy). In that case, I have fully adopted the following speculation/serenity prayer: see @sullypants theory here. It’s the perfect level of batshit Riverdale and it’s consistent with the hypnosis (cannot keep a straight face just typing it) plotline. I know, consistent and Riverdale should never be in the same sentence without some negative participle in between. So, that “cleans up” the Bughead infidelity but leaves Varchie in the weeds (sigh). It would ex out Charles/Chic. The fallout would break up Falice, possibly.

 FP gets busted for all the shady shit he’s done as sheriff and has to flee the country, so hi, Canada, but no wrestle mania with the grizzly bears this time. Or he gets eaten by a bear. I don’t care.

 Veronica gains some self-agency and leaves for college. Though I want her to get out from under her father, loyalty to family is so engrained with the Lodges that I don’t see it happening. Maybe we’ll get lucky and Hiram’s terminal illness kills him. If Toni and Cheryl break up, Cheronica may happen through their rum business, which takes off. I would not be remiss if Cheryl and Veroncia were endgame, but I know it won’t shake out like that, so. Also, if it is hypnosis, I hope Veronica and Betty would still be friends long-distance.

 Toni takes the reins for the Southside, ends the rampant Serpent misogyny, actually makes the neighborhood a safe space for the residents, and works to end the cycle of poverty. She manages the White Wyrm, and yes, there are still strippers because nothing wrong with that, but the Serpent Dance is barely a footnote. I am curious if they will shoot around Vanessa’s pregnancy, but if they incorporate it into the show, I would not be against Cheryl and Toni having a child together. If they did not break up.

 For Jughead, he got his MFA at Iowa, but in true millennial fashion, never made it past that (for a great fic on the plight of the underemployed over-educated millennial see @imreallyloveleee head underwater). He might have written a first novel that was semi-popular, received a few good reviews but overall lambasted by the bigger names. Head canon is that it becomes a cult classic in later years, perhaps a screenplay. Hard forever no to him being an alcoholic, but I can see some Sideways-level angst dealing with trying to get over writer’s block (plus anxiety block based on the mediocre success of his first) for his next novel and some bitterness about his first novel, which may be the driving wedge between Jughead and whoever ends up being his SO in this scenario.

 Jughead as an English teacher gels for me. I’ve written him as an English teacher. I like reading him as an English Teacher (*cough* *cough* @geekspen). Though they flopped with the Jug and Jellybean relationship in season four, I always imagined Jughead from season one and that brief moment in season three as a very present and considerate big brother type. Based on those brief interactions we have gotten, I would believe Jughead is good with kids, especially teenagers. He’s had experience dealing with dumbass adolescents, i.e. the Serpents, and (kind of) keeping them in line, mainly by out-extra-ing the morons (see declaring himself gamemaster by ordering Cheryl to shoot an arrow through a can on his head). I see him being that curmudgeonly teacher that gets along with those grab-bag students on the edge of committing a crime out of sheer boredom who linger in their English teacher’s classrooms during lunch and after school (that’s how we started our creative writing club in high school), and that leads me to a head-canon about him starting, yes, a creative writing club or running the Blue and Gold. I love full-circle shit like that. I think he would be an objectively bad teacher but a very good one in the context of Riverdale, if that makes sense.

 Bughead long distance did not pan out, and Betty being Betty immersed herself in her career – degree in criminal psychology, BSU at the FBI, the whole shebang. Reports of a giant man with red eyes and wings seen in the vicinity of places where people are disappearing. FBI!Betty investigates these at her alma mater until one happens in Riverdale, which drags her investigation thattaway.

 Veronica is unhappy with her SO for whatever reason (not exactly jazzed about her being with a douche but ok). She is successful but wistful. Her father dies. She uses it as an excuse to break up with her SO and return to Riverdale to help her mother manage the estate. Because Veronica is successful in her own right, most of the estate goes to her mother and Hermosa. She returns to Pop’s one night for nostalgia’s sake. She signed the diner back over to Tate years ago.

 Jughead is there struggling to write after a fight with his SO.

 Side note: I don’t like love triangles. Even less, I don’t like setups for more infidelity, even if it would lead to my ship ending up together. I understand that is often the reality (I’ve witnessed it), but I think it is bad writing. So, for any of the core four’s respective SOs, please no cheating on them. Break it off. Learn from your mistakes. Therefore, Jughead soon breaks up with his SO after meeting Veronica in Pop’s.

 Veronica sits with him. Cue some reminiscing. Perhaps the mystery starts in the speakeasy, of which Veronica is still the partial owner. This connects Betty and Veronica down the road. Because Jughead witnessed it, Betty crosses paths with him.

 Initially, Betty is reticent to let Jughead get involved with her investigation. However, Jughead is just as obsessed with the mystery (because he’s him), so they keep running into each other. He gets in the way a few times (more tension). Eventually, Jughead ends up discovering some important piece of evidence that Betty needs, so she gives in. Before he joins her investigation, he may be keeping his own personal murder board in the Blue and Gold at school after hours… Lots of sexual tension. I’d even be down for friends with benefits because *insert gif of Donna accusing Betty of being addicted to Jug’s vitamin D*. But Betty knows she isn’t going to stay in Riverdale and they’ve already tried and failed long-distance, so she keeps putting on the brakes. Jughead starts to get his writing mojo back, too, because I will never not believe Betty is his muse.

 Archie. Oh Archie. Deployed overseas for a time, though I cannot stand the idea of giving this kid anymore PTSD. He returns, and for a while, spends most of his time alone at the old gym and in the Andrews home. His old army buddy shows up out of work. He works with Toni to create a real community center for the Southside youth because I enjoyed that poorly executed plotline in season four. This also gives his army buddy a job. His army buddy is from New Haven, so he ends up being a Mothman suspect, given it started at Betty’s alma mater.

 Through his work with Toni, he gets dragged into Jughead’s orbit. Maybe they both try to reactivate the community center’s big brother program together. It’s just very difficult for me to imagine Jughead accepting/forgiving Archie, and though I cannot imagine how they would resolve it, I would like to see it.

[blindbatalex]

1, 4, 18, 20 & 22 please !

1. Tell us about your current project(s)  – what’s it about, how’s progress, what do you love most about it? im currently writing the gary makes an unfortunate bet and then finds himself accidentally in love with jamie fic i was talking about and i’m happy because thx to work i had rly lost my writing mojo but this past week i slowly got it back. currently have like ~3k written, it will be 10-15k by the time it’s over and i am so excited to have an active WIP im working on and can return to each weekend again.

4. Share a sentence or paragraph from your writing that you’re really proud of (explain why, if you like)

David is a small fifteen year old boy with golden hair, quiet but only because he doesn’t speak much Swedish, William thinks. The ice catches on fire when he is on it. They throw them on the same line and David has magic in his hands, his feet. He dangles past defensemen like it’s the easiest thing in the world. He can find William from the other end of the rink and when he sets up a goal, or when he scores, he smiles with his whole being, and his smile is like riding on the subway when it surfaces to cross a river. Light flooding in where there was only darkness a moment before, the water a magnificent shade of blue just outside the dirt-caked windows. Almost enough to make you believe in God. 

this is from between your love and mine, and probably the best description i ever wrote in my life 

18. Do any of your stories have alternative versions? (plotlines that you abandoned, AUs of your own work, different characterisations?) Tell us about them. YES. many. for example this one i almost wrote for the ghosts of you and me--where they still have the same Conversation at the end and sleep together, but in the morning go their separate ways, bc some wounds run too deep, with a vague promise to keep in touch that they know neither will keep.

20. Tell us the meta about your writing that you really want to ramble to people about this answer is already too long so i’ll try to be brief LOL but there is always a lot of light/dark imagery in my fics, and a whole lot of it in the ghosts of you and me.  i rly like taking an opposing pair like that and building in all the contradictions of it to further the mood or the story. for example, dark can be oppressive but also safe and intimate but also where secrets live and light something that’s beautiful or stark and harsh.

22. Do you reread your old works? How do you feel about them? I used to reread my fics a lot, bc sometimes only i know the exact thing i need and want to read, but i fell out of habit recently, esp since nowadays i notice a lot of flaws when i go back so sometimes it’s best not to.  i also have a couple of fics i will never ever re-read lol bc i find the mistakes super glaring 

[fanfic-scribbles]

Decked

Fandom: Supernatural

Summary: The holidays hold complicated feelings, especially for an archangel. You soothe him however you can.

Quick facts: Romance – Gabriel/Reader – Nondescript Reader

Warnings: Nothing but plotless fluff, Reader is not explicitly gendered but Gabriel uses cutesy nicknames

Words: 842

Statement Prompt from @gabriel-monthly-challenge​: The mistletoe hung over the room, somehow exuding both holiday cheer and a sort of cold dread. (Tagging mods @archangelgabriellives​, @archangel-with-a-shotgun​, @archangelsanonymous​, @ttttrickster​, @warlockwriter​, and @revwinchester​)

A/N: I have a lot of things I want to write and very little brainpower to spend on the endeavor. I have at least two more holiday shorts I want to do, a long story sequel to begin…everything is in a stage of ‘sort of written already’ so right now I’m posting whatever gets done first, though it’s slow-going. I haven’t written Gabriel in a minute though and I am always down for holiday snuggling, with or without a plot. Thanks be to @gabriel-monthly-challenge for providing the inspiration.

  ~

 “Too much?”

You roll your eyes. “I’m pretty sure we all know how you feel about Baldr by now,” you say and eye the green-clad wall. Walls. And doorways. “Couldn’t you at least get the cutesy Christmas shit instead of the wild-looking bunches?”

Gabriel eyes the mistletoe, sighs loudly, and then snaps his fingers with all the eye-rolling drama he can muster. The wall suddenly looks more like it belongs as the backdrop for a Christmas special than it does a discarded set-piece for the first “Jumanji” movie. A marked improvement.

“Thanks,” you say and kiss his cheek.

“I don’t know what the problem is; I mean, you guys have machetes,” he grumbles and pops the candy cane back in his mouth.

You grab it by the hook and pull it right back out. Before he can complain you put your mouth to his and slip your tongue in for a very deep kiss. He tastes like peppermint, which is only right since he’s been sucking on candy canes all day long, but there’s also an aftertaste of something bright and burning that almost makes you woozy. Still, you know what you’re doing, and you hold out until his thumb teases at the waistline of your jeans.

You pull back and take a deep breath, but the sight of Gabriel, eyes shut and lips puckered as he searches for your mouth, almost makes you want to lean back in. It’s criminal how adorable he is sometimes.

“What the hell was in that bottle you were drinking from earlier?” you murmur and his eyes flutter open.

“Uhhh…oh.” He smirks. “Something really good. Sorry Sugarbutt, but it’s a bit too strong for human senses. However I can give you a little bit more of a taste…?”

He leans in but you put a few fingers to his lips and he stops. “Are you okay?” you ask softly. Gabriel stares blankly for a few moments, completely forgetting to put any energy into passing for human at all, including breathing, and when he sighs it’s much quieter than the one before.

“Yes,” he says and pops the candy cane back in his mouth. “I hate Christmas. But I don’t. But I do. But I don’t.”

“We can take down the decorations if you want.”

“After all the work I put into them?”

You stare him down. He waves a hand flippantly. “Hey, mojo like that doesn’t come cheap these days.”

“Says the guy who flew us both to Paris the other day because he wanted cake.”

“That was an emergency.”

“Gabriel.”

“I want them up,” he says, one jutted lower lip away from looking from a very big two-year-old. But he doesn’t say anything else and so neither do you. Instead you slip your hand into his and squeeze. In return he rests his head on your shoulder.

“I bet you were very impressive,” you say quietly.

He snorts. “Almost blindingly so,” he says and sticks his nose in the air, but he looks at you out of the corner of his eye, winks, and smiles. “You’re really missing out, Sweet-tart.”

“Oh I know.” You reach out and run your hand up his chest, going for soothing circles around the center. “You’re a real hunka’ hunka’ burning love.”

He shakes with silent laughter and then rebukes you with a look. You give him a quick kiss. “Sorry but bad jokes are part of the package.”

“That’s my line.”

“Mine now,” you say and use his collar to pull him in even closer. “Just like you.”

“Oh yeah?” he challenges, but his hands slip to the small of your back.

“Yeah.” You steal a small novelty ribbon from one of the chintzy bunches of mistletoe left behind and plop it on his head. “Best gift I ever got.”

“That’s cheesy,” he says, smiling fondly.

“Tis the season,” you say and lean your forehead against his. “I may not celebrate the season right, but love, togetherness…that’s good by me.”

His lips curl just slightly, but his smile isn’t so much Grinch-like as much as it looks weary and worn. But he pulls you flush against his body and murmurs against your cheek, “I think I can get behind that.” He dips down to kiss the skin of your neck just under your ear, so slow and gentle that you can feel the pull of his lips, the brief skim of his teeth, the flutter of his eyelash. But then he just rests his chin upon your shoulder. “Happy holidays, sweetheart.”

“Happy holidays, Gabe,” you say and just stand, embracing him in the quiet, gently lit and pine-scented room.

 “GABRIEL!”

You open your eyes and narrow them as Gabriel starts to shudder. You’re not fooled. That was Dean’s voice and Gabriel is not even remotely alarmed by anything Dean does. He must be laughing. “Gabriel. What did you do with the excess mistletoe?”

His snickers finally reach your ears, but just a moment later he snaps you both away. It’s probably for the best.

Dean does have a machete.

[eisforeidolon]

Episode: Atomic Monsters

I watched this at least a week ago, but just didn't get around to rewriting my notes into a post 'til now.  I did actually find this the best episode so far, but lets be real, that's such a low bar to clear at this point it says basically nothing.

The opening sequence is really fun!  I found the whole thing genuinely enjoyable, both the action itself and that it included exactly the kind of return cameo I can actually get behind.  No retcons or resurrections that make death somehow even cheaper or ruin the original finish to the character's story!  Not even to mention that, instead of existing just for the sheer fanservice of it?  A sequence like this is actively improved by giving us a familiar face we have investment in to keep it from being all just random unfamiliar cannon fodder getting offed.

Unfortunately, this isn't the rousing endorsement it could be when we know that both expanding to a big action sequence and bringing Benny back for it were actually Jensen's ideas.  Not even to mention that the thing which really works best in the episode?  It's the dream sequence that's not actually connected to anything else and doesn't have to worry about continuity to work. This is my surprised face.

I enjoyed the exchange between Sam and Dean in the kitchen.  The meat man conversation over the bacon was rather silly, but in a fun way. I've seen some people reading things into it (it's insulting Dean doesn't know the slang, Sam is randomly vegetarian now) that I didn't really see there.  I did appreciate how Sam was weirdly jumpy and had trouble meeting Dean's eyes after the creepy alternate world dream.  I thought it worked really well for both slice-of-life and Sam’s reaction.

In terms of the Winchester's case, well, for the most part it could have been worse.  I don't honestly believe even if I hadn't been spoiled that I wouldn't have immediately suspected the parents from their introductory exchange about how Billy playing in the big game was more important than a cheerleader's death.  I think it was supposed to be a retroactive subtle clue, but it was more of a clue-by-four.  So the “mystery” of tracking down the monster was pretty lost on me.  I did like that the one girl having braces was a clue!  But I also thought the scene with her rehearsing her speech on a live mic in an empty auditorium was weird and contrived.  I straight out cannot forgive that a girl was literally abducted from the school campus and NOBODY checked the security footage near her car fucking IMMEDIATELY well before Sam & Dean.  C'mon.  Then, of course, a couple random middle-aged suburbanite humans get the drop on Sam and Dean, because Dabbernatural really just loves to make them incompetent so plots happen.

Then the big reveal and blah blah blah, kid accidentally ate his girlfriend.  WHAT WERE WE SUPPOSED TO DO???  Um, maybe try not being scumbags?  Idiotic scumbags at that, abducting a second girl from their son's own school instead of somebody that wouldn't be missed or even, hey, maybe encouraging him to try harder not to eat people.  Don't try to sell me on this pseudo hallmark 'but they just love him so much' bullshit.  At least the kid has more self-awareness and conscience than his fuckwad parents.  

Then we get to the infuriating character assassination part of the programme.  Having Sam and Dean say that they'd do the same thing as the dad for Jack their “son”?  Fuck you very much, show.  I could maybe, maybe, see Sam or Dean kidnapping and draining the life out of an innocent to save the other at their most desperate worst.  Though I think the only time they even really get close to that kind of an actively, knowingly evil choice is with Doc Benton.  Not only do I not buy for a second that they would do that for the totally-really-their-actual-child-for-reasons albatross Dabbernatural has shoehorned into their lives?  Struggling to do the right thing even when it hurts used to actually mean something – it was always a very important qualifier that while Sam or Dean might make that choice, the other would not let them.  So having them both agree this kind of straight up villainy would be a-okay for oh-so-totally-loveable-no-really-woobie-blob Jack ...

Like carelessly assassinating every human in the BMoL headquarters, it fundamentally fails to understand what it is that keeps Sam and Dean from being the monsters.  Hint: it's not just that the show centers around them.  “We do the ugly thing so that people can live happy” - these moronic hacks seem to be actually trying to parallel Sam and Dean saving innocent victims and the world to human monsters that were going to selfishly help their son eat his way through the entire goddamn cheerleading squad.  Am I getting this wrong somehow?  Is there some other, less appalling, reading here that I'm missing? This whole scene honestly made me nauseous.

They talkity-talk on for a while longer, but it's really not much better.  Sam declaring that God was totally done with them was the writers putting those words in his mouth based on nothing.  At it’s very best, it was Sam’s bad habit of convincing himself conclusions he’s come to are true because he wants them to be.  So them both just deciding to believe it's true after Chuck has admitted to orchestrating their entire lives … I'm not sure if we should conclude the Winchesters have brain damage or if that's just the writers.  Especially when the underlying reason for it is nothing more compelling than , “Watch the Winchesters see-saw on the angst fulcrum completely at random!  Yay!”  If this was actually well written, there would be some precipitating reason for Sam to suddenly be the one being all fatalistic while Dean is accepting.  Instead, the writers  just slap some coin-flipped angst angst angst on the page and meander on in a supposedly forward direction.

So then there's the other half of the episode, the Becky storyline. Am I the only one a little disturbed that Becky's first reaction to seeing Chuck was to look scared and try to run away?  Like, they're exes and all, sure, but she doesn't know any of the god stuff yet – I think the only thing she even says about their breakup is that Chuck dumped her.  Is that reaction supposed to be yet another bit of “new canon” showing how Chuck was just that terrible all along? But then she does let him in, so maybe we're just supposed to take it as Becky still having a tendency towards dramatics?  I honestly don't know, but it was weird to me.  

I do genuinely love that they had Becky go to therapy and realize just how absolutely fucked up what she'd done was and ultimately sort herself out to become someone who seems to be a well-balanced adult. A well balanced adult that didn't have to give up being a fan for that!  Seriously, kudos to the writers for this, because 7.08 is such a loathsome episode that otherwise ruins Becky as a character.   Though I do have to nitpick a bit – while I get that they wanted to put SPN merch in Becky's home as a callout to her still being a superfan?   In the show's universe, Chuck's books were never that popular, so I'm having some suspension of disbelief issues that there would be Funkos for them.  We could pretend they were customs, but she's got at least one Impala, so even that doesn't quite work.  I'm not entirely sure who “people only want them sitting around doing laundry anyway” is a dig at, but I'm giving it the side eye.  

I also am not entirely sure what to make of Chuck's whole no one needs me I kinda hate me I'm all lost and don't know what to doooooo shtick.  Is this a game he's playing?  Is he really that wishy-washy? Did some of Dabb's sad internal monologue as showrunner somehow end up in a script by accident?  

He goes on like that and laments he's lost the Winchester's trust and had words with them or whatever, and then he zaps Becky and her family away at the end.  Like, if he cared enough about Becky to care about her opinion, why does he turn on her, too, just like that?  I guess we're supposed to see it as him having found his mojo in her space and vanishing her because taking over her space that's working for him currently is his latest whim.  I suppose they're intending to show Chuck as just being that capricious and flighty, but I don't know that it works for me.  The way they've been writing him he's acting so randomly and impulsively that it's kind of unbelievable he can even sit still at a keyboard long enough to write another Sam and Dean installment.  Again, I definitely find it unbelievable that the Chuck they're giving us now would be capable of playing the long game that he would have had to for him to be actively behind everything.  Until he suddenly got impatient and lazy and popped up in the cemetery at the end of the last finale ... for reasons … and is now just … like that … because.

Not to mention that his powers are, big shock, just as arbitrary as everyone else's in the current show.  He can't actually see what is happening to Sam and Dean because of the bullet sapping his power or whatever, but we're supposed to be worried about the ominous ending he's writing for them because … he's got those god powers to make it happen, I guess?  Uh...

I will grant that the ominous bobbing of Sam and Dean Funkos' heads to Chuck's furious typing was a wonderfully foreboding shot to end on.  

[thecoleopterawithana]

I have to once again thanks @vairemelde for her ask, because it brought to my attention this wonderful piece. 

‘Scared’, produced by Giles Martin, is the hidden track at the end of Paul’s 2013 New, an album inspired both by his new life with Nancy and a return to the simple happiness of his pre-Beatle days, with tracks like ‘On My Way To Work’ and ‘Early Days’. This last track - about the early days of his friendship with John Lennon - shares the spot with ‘Scared’ as the songs Paul is proudest of in the album.

On the general tone of the LP, Paul had this to say:

Is New a joyful album?

This is a happy period in my life, having a new woman - so you get new songs when you get a new woman. But in actual fact there is a lot of sadness mixed in on the record - the more you listen to it you’ll find pain getting changed to laughter - there is quite an undercurrent of that. But generally I’m having a good time so I hope that’s made it onto the record.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Francis Cronin for BBC News (4 October 2013).

Though, in my opinion, ‘Scared’ goes into the pain territory and stays there, offering no catharsis or transformation into laughter. 

Maybe that’s why it was included as a hidden track. Or perhaps, the fact that it was left ‘hidden’ is a clever play on - and emphasization of - the theme of the song: 

I’m scared to say I love you Afraid to let you know That the simplest of words won’t come out of my mouth Though I’m dying to let them go Trying to let you know I have to say I’m sorry Don’t feel sad for me But the beautiful birds won’t fly out of their cage Though I’m trying to set them free Trying to let you see, how much you mean to me I remember the first time we met Tears in our eyes reflecting Something connecting from so long ago It might have been told in the stars, maybe that’s what it was It doesn’t matter because I’m still too scared to tell you Afraid to let you see  That the simplest of words won’t come out of my mouth Though I’m dying to set them free Trying to let you see, how much it means to me How much you mean to me How much you mean to me now

If this sounds familiar, it’s because it is. Here Paul seems to explore more deeply and explicitly his fear of saying ‘I love you’, a demon that he has been trying to exorcise for quite some time.

‘Here Today’, written right after John Lennon’s death, was an exercise in just getting it out.

Songwriting is like psychiatry; you sit down and dredge up something that’s inside, bring it out front. And I just had to be real and say, John, I love you. I think being able to say things like that in songs can keep you sane.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Robert Palmer for the New York Times (25 April 1982).

And more recently:

It’s funny because just in real life, I find that a challenge. I like to sort of, not give too much away. Like you said, I’m quite private. Why should people, know my innermost thoughts? That’s for me, they’re innermost. But in a song, that’s where you can do it. That’s the place to put them. You can start to reveal truths and feelings. You know, like in ‘Here Today’ where I’m saying to John “I love you”. I couldn’t have said that, really, to him. But you find, I think, that you can put these emotions and these deeper truths – and sometimes awkward truths; I was scared to say “I love you”. So that’s one of the things that I like about songs.

— Paul McCartney, on the challenge of giving too much of himself away when writing meaningful and truthful songs. Asked by Simon Pegg and interviewed by John Wilson for BBC 4’s Mastertapes (24 May 2016).

Paul is also asked about ‘Early Days’ in this last interview.

In February 1985, Paul and Eric Stewart start working on a song that would come to be titled ‘Yvonne’s The One’. In the middle-eight, we find Paul’s first actual expression in a song of the regret of not having made his affections clearer to someone recently deceased:

She never knew how much I loved her I never got to tell her We never found a way to say farewell

The theme of his inability to express his feelings is revisited some years later, in ‘However Absurd’ (1986):

Something special between us, When we made love the game was over. I couldn’t say the words, Words wouldn’t get my feelings through, So I keep talking to you

However absurd, however absurd It may seem.

Paul had this to say of the track:

There’s a sort of ‘Walrus’ intro to this track, but of course any time you play that style on piano it evokes that. It’s a style I know and love. The lyrics on this song are a bit bizarre, but then again they make a kind of sense, a strange kind of sense. […] In the middle section it explains itself a bit, less surrealist: ‘Something special between us… Words wouldn’t get my feelings through… However absurd it may seem.’ That’s taking off into The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran – there’s a line of his that always used to attract me and John, which was ‘Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you.’ So it’s that kind of meaning to ‘However Absurd’. 

— Paul McCartney, interview with Patrick Humphries for Club Sandwich nº 42 (Autumn 1986).  

And in another revelatory exploration of his love and his regret at not being clearer in his affection, we have ‘This One’ (1989):

Did I ever take you in my arms, Look you in the eye, tell you that I do, Did I ever open up my heart And let you look inside.

If I never did it, I was only waiting For a better moment that didn’t come. There never could be a better moment Than this one, this one.

In the video of the studio recording of this song, Paul can be seen imitating one of John’s characteristic silly smiles, after he sings the lines  “Did I ever touch you on the cheek / Say that you were mine, thank you for the smile?”.

When asked about the meaning of this song, Paul said the following:

Q: One of the new songs, “This One”, is it about a marriage?

Paul: A relationship. Yeah.

Q: And about, not expressing emotions and feelings?

[…]

Paul: You get those moments, late at night or when you’re feeling good and you think: “I hope I tell her I love her, enough”. And then come the morning, when you’ve got to get off to the office and it’s [brusquely] “Love you, goodbye!”, and so on. Life’s like that, there’s never enough time to tell them, like your parents for instance, oh god just what you meant to me. You always think, “I’m saving it up. I’ll tell ‘em one day”. Something like John, for instance. He died. 

I was lucky, the last few weeks, months that he was alive, we’d managed to get out relationship back on track. And we were talking and having really good conversations. But George actually, didn’t get his relationship right. They were arguing right up to the end. Which I’m sure is a source of great sadness to him. And I’m sure, in the feeling of this song, George was always planning to tell John he loved him. But time ran out. And that’s what the song is about. There never could be a better moment than this one, right now. Take this moment to say, “I love you”.  

— Paul McCartney, interview with Bernard Goldberg for 48 Hours (January 1990).

I find it amusing that here he uses a fairly similar expression - “just what you meant to me” - to the one he would trice repeat at the end of ‘Scared’.

About the meaning of this latter track, Paul explains:

Well, I’m just like anybody else, man! You know? You get those moments. I don’t normally write about them; but it’s a good thing to use. I was feeling it, as well. I was newly in love with Nancy, and I was finding it a little difficult to say, ‘I love you.’ Number one, I’m a guy, and that’s a big excuse, I know, but it is a bit true to form… That song is basically about she and I, and the middle eight is about when we met. And we did exactly as I say in the song, we welled up.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Miranda Sawyer for The Guardian (13 October 2013).

And a month latter:

Q: Like ‘Scared’ – a ‘hidden’ track on New – which is a stark confessional about baring your soul to another person. Did you find that easy to write?

Paul: You can actually say, “I love you,” to someone, but it’s quite hard. And so that’s why it’s usually easier when you’re a bit drunk. It’s like ‘Here Today’ [on 1982’s Tug of War], which was for John, and there is the line, (sings) “Du du du du du du du, I love you,” and it is a bit of a moment in the song. It would be a bit like Keith Richards saying to Mick, “I love you.” I mean he does, but I’m not sure he’s going to say it. I’m sure the Gallaghers love each other on some level, probably quite deeply, but that certainly isn’t going to get said soon. I think it’s quite an interesting subject and I felt it most recently with [wife] Nancy, I knew I loved her but to actually say, “I love you,” you know, it’s just not that easy.

— Paul McCartney,  interview with Pat Gilbert for MOJO (November 2013).

The quip about it being easier to say when drunk is probably in relation to the Night We Cried referenced in ‘Here Today’, an episode Paul describes as an “important emotional landmark” for it was “probably the only time we just got that kind of intimate with each other” and actually said the big ‘I Love You’. 

And though he says he faced similar challenges with being emotionally open with his new wife Nancy, he shared this pain at his lack of expression in relation to John as well.

The sole verse in which he deviates from this main theme is also very interesting:

I remember the first time we met Tears in our eyes reflecting Something connecting from so long ago It might have been told in the stars, maybe that’s what it was

Paul has also explained that the first half refers to the circumstances in which he first met Nancy, on a surf shop in Long Island:

Out of the blue, I met this girl and we started talking and she happened to say, 'I knew Linda.’ So that was emotional. I wouldn’t meet, typically, many people who knew Linda, and who knew her during her cancer treatment – and Nancy did. She’s a cancer survivor herself. So it got very deep, very quickly, and it was like, 'What the hell was that?’ And then I ran into her a couple of more times on the holiday, and we got to know each other and started dating. So the song is about that, about this depth of emotion, of feeling – but totally being scared to say or do anything about it. Like a tongue-tied teenager.

— Paul McCartney, interview with Miranda Sawyer for The Guardian (13 October 2013).

But it’s interesting how even here we could read a shared inspiration in his relationship with John. Could the tears in their eyes be also double a reference to the shared pain of both losing their mothers around the time they met? This emotional connection was always something that Paul valued.

And then, in the second part, he seems to get to the notion of them being Cosmically Connected, soulmates fated to meet, part of each other’s karma, that John held onto throughout his life and Paul seemed to also embrace, as the passage of time proved again and again just of special what they had was. 

It is also entirely probable that the song is exclusively about Nancy, with no direct references to John whatsoever. But we can’t deny how his relationship with John was also deeply impacted by this issue, and thus him facing this fear in relation to Nancy is invariably informed by his previous experiences with John. So even if Nancy was the motivator for this introspection, the exposition of his mental state is nonetheless useful in understanding what he was feeling in relation to John.

All in all, this song is a beautiful exploration of one of the core issues in their relationship, and I’m continuously grateful and overjoyed that their music to each other never seems to end, as I continue to explore their solo catalogues! 

[heamatic-a]

NAME:  Jessika NICKNAME:  Jester, Jess, Jessi FACECLAIM: Laura Bailey ( yas queen! ) PRONOUNS:  She/Her HEIGHT:  5′3″ (on a good day). BIRTHDAY:  july 30th AESTHETIC:   pastel goth, coffee, faerie lights in a jar, anxiety queen, red wine, the 90′s grunge, art, witchcraft, crystals, tarot cards, candles LAST  SONG  YOU  LISTENED  TO:  They All by Gr†ll Gr†ll FAVORITE  MUSE (S)  YOU’VE  WRITTEN:  Becky  (@desxderium ) my ghost oc. Cassie (Mortal Kombat) and Maria (Silent Hill 2) are both equal in second place tbh! (Both were/are on this blog before it turned into an MK blog lol )

* GETTING  TO  KNOW  THE  ACCOUNT:

WHAT  INSPIRED  YOU  TO  TAKE  ON  THIS  MUSE: I saw Cassie’s MK11 trailer and just fell in love with her. I decided I was gonna add her to my multimuse and see where it went. I was pretty close from quitting rp tbh, but playing her, and later Raiden, has returned my faith in the rpc enough that I’m sticking around. Now it’s exclusively and MK dual muse. :)

WHAT  ARE  YOUR  FAVORITE  ASPECTS  OF  YOUR  CURRENT  MUSE:  I like that Cassie’s so much more optimistic than the muses I was used to roleplaying. She’s energetic, strong, and isn’t afraid to say what she thinks. Raiden is much milder, but he has such a kind heart, and I like that (unless he’s dark!raiden then I get to play him in asshole mode x) ). It’s a fun change of pace compered to the depressing kind of characters I was used to writing.

WHAT’S  YOUR  BIGGEST  INSPIRATION  WHEN  IT  COMES  TO  WRITING:   music and reading: I’ll often put on music without lyrics, atmospheric music for the most part to get into the mood of the thread(s) or the muse I’m writing. And reading, from books to short stories online. I often read a bit before I start writing to get my mojo going. I’ll also sometimes have their intros running in the background to get their voice right.

FAVORITE  TYPES  OF  THREADS: oof how can I choose? I like them all! Angst, horror, happy, slice of life, smut… give me all!

BIGGEST  STRUGGLE  IN  REGARDS  TO  YOUR  CURRENT  MUSE:  Cassie comes pretty naturally, but sometimes I really need to get into the mood for Raiden. It’s harder, because he’s not snarky. But also I sometimes wonder if I don’t make him too kind or ooc? Hrm...

TAGGED BY: this cool beech @pxlariis

TAGGING:  uh anyone hasn’t done this  or hasn’t been tagged already?

[tybalt-tisk]

.day off

shallura inspired by @starrycove / @shalalalalura Protect AU. great thanks to @maggschuu who helped me find my mojo again. I haven’t written anything in months, so this is a big step for me because I’m finding my love to write again. Also, I did insert a “read more link” I hope it works. [ao3 link] //

It doesn’t surprise Shiro when Allura sneaks into his hotel room early that morning wearing only the hoodie she stole from him months ago and yoga pants that she uses strictly to sleep in. She does this often enough that he expects it, and the days that she doesn’t, he’s left disappointed because he feels like his day didn’t start off quite right. What does surprise him is that she has a fire in her eyes, the mischievous kind that’s usually only reserved for when she’s feeling impulsive enough to stress him out. One look at it and he lets out a defeated groan because he knows that whatever she’s planning on doing, she’s doing whether he wants her to or not.

She lets out a laugh; a sound beautiful enough to almost lull him back to sleep. “Oh, come on Shiro, don’t give me that look!” She pulls at the blankets that bury him in warmth but when his grip on the fabric is too strong for her to pull it away, she gives up and decides to pounce on his bed instead.

The vibrations from her movements are enough to fully wake him and he looks out the window and sees that the sun’s light is barely visible over the horizon. He turns to her sharply with suspicious eyes. “Allura, don’t tell me that we’re sneaking out again.”

She plops down on his bed with her legs folded under her. “Fine, I won’t tell you that we’re sneaking out again,” she says once she’s completely settled, but immediately follows it with, “but that’s exactly what we’re doing.”

His head hits the satin pillows again. “But it’s a bad idea and you know it’s a bad idea. Yet here you are, telling me a bad idea.” Trying to reason to her was a bad idea in itself because he knows exactly what she’s going to say next:

“You’re my bodyguard, Shiro, not my father.” He says the words at the exact time she does and it earns him a satin covered pillow to the face.

She leans over him and her silver curls fall from around her shoulders and cascade down, surrounding him in starlight. Watching her hair move is almost therapeutic for him. It’s better than any sunset or sunrise and he would be lying if denied that he doesn’t dream about running his hands through it. Her voice snaps him out of his daze. “Besides, you promised me that we’d go exploring before we left Osaka and I have meetings all day tomorrow, so today is absolutely the last day.”

Again she grabs at the blankets but this time she is quick enough to catch him off guard and it’s just enough leeway to snatch the covers away from him. She quickly wraps herself in the heavy material before she rolls off the bed to get out of his reach. “Now get up and get dressed so we can leave before everyone wakes up,” she says with her voice muffled from the covers.

She almost trips twice over the fabric as she made her way to the door. Before she walks into the hallway, she peeks out cautiously to make sure the hall is clear before she turns back to face him. “When I come back, you better be dressed and ready to go.” The fact that she’s comically smothered in a thick blanket weakens her threat severely. She pokes her tongue out towards him and with a dramatic flare of her blanket cape, she was gone.

He chuckles lightly to himself at her. It was times like this when he forgot that she was a princess. Sure, she was gorgeous, thoroughly educated, and although she definitely carried herself like royalty; with her head held high and her words spoken carefully, she so also had another side to her. The times when they were alone when he was just Shiro and she was just Allura, she would let her personality shine. She was playful, witty,  had the mouth of a sailor, and was stubborn as a mule. He learned the hard way early on that she hated being bossed around and when she set her mind to something, there was nothing he, nor King Alfor, could do to stop it.

He swung his feet over the side out of bed with a stretch before he decided to take a quick shower before she came back and kicked his ass for the fun of it.

When he emerges from the shower fully dressed, as he suspected, Allura is already in his room. She’s in the mirror wrangling her hair up into the scarf she uses to hide her unique silver locks and she leaves only a portion of it out to frame her face. It’s then that Shiro realizes that in addition to sneaking out, she also doesn’t want to be recognized and her silver hair is a sure fire way to immediately get noticed. Unlike her usual expensive clothing, she’s wearing an oversized, shapeless dress that would be considered ugly by anyone with basic standards. Even though there’s not a single ounce of luxury on her, her confidence alone is enough to make her look runway ready.

After she ties the scarf into a neat knot, she turns to Shiro with a bright, eager smile and it makes his heart skip a beat. She’s practically bouncing on the balls of her feet with excitement. “Ready?” she asks as she puts on her sweater.

He throws the towel he used to dry his hair on the bed. “As ready as I’ll ever be,” he says with a return of her smile.

She’s out the door before he can blink. He grabs his keys, wallet, and out of habit, he reaches for his gun sitting at his bedside. Before his hand could make contact, her annoyed voice from the hallway reprimands him, “Shiro, you promised.” He’s not looking at her but he knows that she definitely has her arms folded stubbornly over her chest and her frown is firmly in place.

He shrugs with a boyish grin. “Sorry, it’s a force of habit.” He backs away from his weapon and silently follows her out. He takes caution to let the door gently close to not alert the others who share the hall. He knows that today will end with a lecture, but seeing how excited she is, he knows it will be worth it.

When they reach street level, he leads her to the garage and she’s already having objections. “The cars all have tracking devices and I don’t plan on being followed today. I want to take the trains,” she tells sternly him with folded arms.

His mouth tenses in a tight line with a disapproving look at her suggestion. Sneaking out was one thing, but taking public transit? He didn’t like the idea of her being so exposed.

As if she read his mind, she took a step towards him. “Stop overthinking so much, Shiro. Things are going to be fine.” She took another step forward and laid her hands on his chest. The contact made his breath catch in his throat and his hand twitches. When she speaks again, her voice is vulnerable and almost pleading. “I trust you with my life and I know that you will never let any harm come to me. And I know that I can be…” she pauses to think of the right word, “demanding at times, but just for once, even if it is just for a few hours, I just want to feel normal. I don’t want to be a princess. I don’t want any special treatment. I just want to be Allura.”

He looks down at her for a moment. From his height and her body language, she looks so small and so fragile and he can’t help but roll his eyes with a sigh. She knows exactly what she’s doing and so does he. He knows it all too well because she’s used this tactic with him countless times before and it has a 100% success rate. But will that stop him from letting her get her way?

Absolutely not.

But the way her eyes light up with joy is enough to almost make his worries go away.

Almost.

When they reach the train station, he translates all of the destinations, arrival times, and connecting trains they need for their adventure. She tells him that she doesn’t want to go on a shopping spree. Instead, she wants to view landmarks and visit shrines throughout the city.

It’s something he loves about her when they travel. She doesn’t look for luxurious items to feed into her status. She doesn’t like to eat at the finest restaurants or stay in the most luxurious hotel her money and power could buy. Not only did she like to observe the culture and be captivated by all of the wonderful things it has to offer, but she also liked to be a part of it. She liked to attend festivals and ceremonies. And she always made sure to read up on the traditions and customs of the country she visited to make sure she never offended anyone. Even though at times she hated being a princess, she took her role very seriously. She was a representation of her country and she always made sure she made a positive,  lasting impression.

When he’s done making a mental plan of the destinations they should do and what order they should do it in, he buys them an all-day train pass and they make their way onto the platform to wait for its arrival.

They are just early enough just to get hit full force with the chaos of the morning commute. He grew up in a city just a few hours away, so he knows all too well about how hectic this situation will get. Around him, the locals wait impatiently for a train that’s never late and he can see how their feet grow tired of standing still. It's like the calm before the storm and he knows that as soon as that train arrives, all hell will break loose. “Stay close to me,” he warns her when he feels the vibrations of the rapidly approaching train.

As soon as the train stops in the station and the doors slide open, it’s like a dam broke loose as all the people rush to fill in the void of the car. Everything happens so fast and Allura is immediately overwhelmed with the chaos of it all. For a second, she loses a sense of herself and panic is on the brink of her mind as people push and shove their way past her. The feeling of drowning in the crowd lasts only a split-second before she feels a familiar hand close tightly around hers and she’s firmly pulled through the masses. Before she can get her thoughts straight, she’s safely on the train with one of Shiro’s hands on the small of her back and the other holding on to the overhead handles for balance.

There is hardly any space to breathe and the surrounding bodies are close enough to press her further into him and she feels as if she’s suffocating. She doesn’t enjoy this as much as she thought she would.

Shiro knows better than anyone that she doesn’t do too well in tightly crowded spaces. She’s never told him that, but she doesn’t need to. He can tell by the way she sinks into herself with stiff shoulders and how she takes deep, uneven breaths as if she’s trying to ward off an oncoming panic attack. Immediately, he can tell that she’s starting to regret her decision to take the trains, but it’s too late to turn back now. He tightens his hold on her and brings her in closer to him and he begins to rub rhythmic circles in her back. “You’re okay,” he soothes her, “I got you.”

The effect is almost immediate as her heart rate slows and her breaths come out in even intervals. Once again, she feels grounded. She feels safe and secure. She wants to thank him but she doesn’t trust her voice just yet, so she can only nod her head in gratitude. A sudden jerk from the train unroots her and she grabs on to Shiro to steady herself. She looks for a handle to hold on to but when she notices that they are all taken and that there are no seats available, she decides to wrap her arms around him to keep her steady.

His warmth has her sinking further into him and it causes Shiro’s hand on the handle to tighten. It’s definitely not the first time she had to cuddle up against him, but the familiarity does nothing to stop the jolt of electricity that shoots up his spine as she makes herself comfortable.

The longer she’s on the train, the more comfortable she becomes. All of the mechanical sounds become mere background noise and the sudden jolts from the turns ease into a gentle sway. All of the tension leaves her and she can finally enjoy the ride for what it is.

She’s fixated on the distant rolling hills and the mountainside outside the window. “This isn’t so bad,” she says against his chest. Soon, the inner city lights fill her vision and the colors from the neon lights melt together in a blur as the train rushes through them.

He makes a sound of agreement. “You get used to it,” he responds. As much as he wants to enjoy the scenery, his eyes are sharp and his senses stay focused on his surrounding as he looks around for any suspicious activity.

His focus is interrupted when he feels a soft, but firm pull at his cheeks. Her hands are soft against his face and he’s forced to meet her blue eyes. “Relax.” Her tone tells him that it's more of a demand than it is a request. He smiles when he sees that she’s back to her usual bossy self.

“What do you mean? I am relaxed. As a matter of fact, I have never been more relaxed in my entire life,” he tells her through a chuckle.

She shakes her head. “You call silently threatening everyone relaxed?” she counters quickly. “I need a break from my duties, and so do you. Today is for both of us. We are going to have a good day, but in order to do that, you need to relax, Takashi.” Hearing his name on her lips always unraveled him and once again, he has to tighten his hold on the handle above him. Noticing his reaction, she pauses to take a look around. A sly smile reaches her face and Shiro knows that she’s about to test him like she always does. Whatever she’s about to do, he knows it’s going to ruin him. Her hands leave his cheeks so they could wrap around his shoulders. Standing on the tips of her toes, she leans in close to whisper in his ear. “Your princess commands it.”

This was the side of Allura that Shiro was terrified of. She was never afraid to test the waters with him and she made it painfully clear. The lines between the bodyguard were always there. They were tested; often stepped on and usually blurred, but they were never crossed. Her favorite activity was to rile him up just to see him go red in the cheeks and stumble over his words. He’s gotten better at handling this playful side of her but he’s far from an expert.

He has to take a deep breath to compose himself before he looks down at her. “Why are you like this?” he asks her with an even voice that surprises him.

She only shrugs and moves to place her arms back around his middle, making sure to touch every part of him on the way down. “I like making you blush like a little school girl. If you don’t start doing as you’re told, it’s only going to get worse, I hope you know that.” She always had the special talent of getting her way.

“Fine,” he says with a huff. You win.” He doesn’t like to put up a fight with her when she gets like this because it’s only going to end badly for him. “I’ll try to relax. Does that make you happy?”

‘No, you make me happy.” Her words have a double meaning and they both know it but will do nothing to validate it. She smiles and she lays her head back on his chest to watch the city fly by.

It isn’t long before their stop and it’s not much easier getting off the train than it was getting on. It was chaos, but they managed to get off with no major issues. It's much too early to explore shrines and little shops, so the decision to eat breakfast isn’t a hard one. They find a little cafe in the city and Shiro translates for her. Her Japanese isn’t bad, but it's far from perfect. She can hold a simple conversation but it doesn’t last long before the conversation meets a language barrier.

Breakfast is nothing spectacular as it’s nowhere near anything that she’s used to, but she enjoys trying new cuisine and cooking methods. As usual, when they are alone, they speak as if they were best friends and not royalty and their assigned protector. It always surprises him how easy Allura is to talk to. She has a way with words to where they come out easily and she lets her guard down because she doesn’t have to worry about offending anyone. They can joke and tease and there is no punishment for not being “ladylike” as her tutors tell her.

By the time breakfast is over, the city has come to life. It happens so fast that Allura didn’t even notice when the streets got so full. They explore shops with handmade items that make Allura marvel in the craftsmanship of it. The locals are fairly nice to them. By no means do they blend in but they feel welcomed overall.

They walk to a park and Allura is blown away at the Sakura trees and how the petals cascade down and blanket the streets in a sea of pink and white. Shiro has never seen her so happy. From all the stress of paperwork and constant meetings over the last few weeks, it’s good to see her smile genuinely again.

They visit shrines throughout the city and Allura accidentally wedges their way into a tourist group and for some reason, she decides that she wants to stay with them. She’s learning much more from the tour guide about the shrine than she did when she read about it.

Shiro doesn’t know when it happened, but he’s suddenly aware that Allura’s hand is in his. How long had they been like that? If he were to guess, it probably happened between the trip to the museum and the bird sanctuary. Allura doesn’t seem bothered by it so neither should he.

“Is she your girlfriend?” asks an older woman as they wait for the train. Shiro feels himself go red and he’s grateful that she doesn’t understand the woman’s question. When he shakes his head, she looks saddened at the news. “Oh, what a shame. She’s quite beautiful and her eyes hold honesty. If I were you, I would never let her go.”

Shiro can only chuckle at the woman’s words. She had no idea of the teasing he would endure if Allura understood what was going on. “I don’t plan to,” he tells her with a smile.

“What was that about, Shiro?” Allura asks him once they are on the train.

“Oh, nothing. She was asking if I was from here and if I knew where the park was.” It’s a lie and he knows that Allura knows he’s not telling the truth but she drops it anyway.

The day carries on and all too soon, the sun starts to set and the sky turns a gorgeous gradient of pinks purples and blues. Allura looks saddened because she realizes that tomorrow, she has to be a princess again. And it hurts Shiro’s heart when he sees how defeated she looks at the realization. He squeezes her hand to grab her attention. “I have one more place in mind that I think you would like,” he tells her honestly. “But it’s a surprise.” He laughs at her reaction because he knows that she has a love-hate relationship with surprises. She loved the idea of getting a present but she hates the idea of waiting for it.

It’s a surprise indeed. In front of her stands a huge aquarium. It fills up the entire space and never has she felt so tiny. It has fish in it that she’s never seen before that range from small tropical fish to giant nurse sharks. They all share the same tank and they look so at peace. The artificial lighting makes color scales dance and glows with each movement of their fins.

She can’t help but be captivated by the calming effect the gigantic tank has on her and Shiro can’t but be captivated by the calming effect she has on him.

“Shiro…” she suddenly speaks. Her voice is distant because her mind is elsewhere. “Can we...can we stay here for a little while longer?” She asks him cautiously as if she were afraid he would say no. Which is silly because he would never deny her anything.

He tightens his hand around hers before he answers. “We can stay here as long as you want to, Allura.”

Allura was right. This did turn out to be a good day after all.

~ Also, is this something you guys are interesting in seeing more from me? Little proctect au stories? Let me know, so I can plan things out.

[hufflepuff-ravenclaw-reviews]

Discovery of Witches Season 1 Episode 1

Yes, this is the TV series based off of that horrible book trilogy. People who follow my book blog will remember that I snarked it and had the absolute worst time.

Forget the Fifty Shades... sextet (It's a sextet now, not a trilogy). The All Souls Trilogy is, hands down, the absolute worst thing that I have ever had the misfortune to read.

But Ravenclaw, if you hated the book so much, why did you watch even one episode of the TV series?

All me curious, I suppose.

Going into the episode, my opinion is already pretty rock bottom. I'm expecting a lot of padding, if only because the book was 90% unnecessary bullshit that literally anybody should have told Harkness to cut out.

When they first announced that they were making the series, I joked with my friends that half of the TV show was just going to be Diana disassociating for half an hour as she stared at a sconce and explained how this light fixture once belonged to Henry VIII or whatever. BECUASE THAT'S HOW IT HAPPENS IN THE BOOK.

However, the TV series, as you might imagine, takes some... er... liberties. Already in the first episode, characters are introduced differently, and new POVs are introduced as well. If only because... No, Harkness. We don't want to see Diana dramatically pushing down the lever on the toaster. JFC why.

The show starts off pretty much like in the book: Meet Diana Bishop, who has a doctorate in magical history. She's a witch, but she's not very good at it.

In the book, especially right in the beginning before Harkness figured out what the fuck she was doing, Diana's magic waffled between “I WANT TO BE HUMAN SO I REFUSE TO USE MAGIC!!” and “I AM SHIT AT MAGIC SO I TRY TO AVOID DOING IT WHENEVER POSSIBLE.”

However, right off the bat, Diana talks with her friend, Jillian, and says that she has a lot of lingering PTSD from her parents being murdered because of their magic. Which is fair.

And it's also way more character development than Diana got in literally 15000 pages of trash Harkness wrote.

Diana calls up the famed Ashmole 742 (or as I took to calling it “Asshole 747”), of which the entire series revolves around.

See, literally every magical creature thinks that this book is somehow the answer to all of their problems. They all want it because they think that it's going to share the secrets of how they came to be. And they don't want the other magical species to get their hands on it because they think that the secrets inside will tell the other species how to destroy them.

And as I write this, I think to myself “There can be no winners in a scenario like this. Just mutual destruction over a fucking book.” But whatever.

Oh, and in case you need to be caught up, there are three magical species: witches, vampires, and daemons. I'm using the spelling from the book, because, in my mind, they were not the same thing as “demons”. In fact, I'm pretty sure that the book went out of its way to assure us that “daemons” had not crawled up from hell, etc etc. In fact, I even pronounced it like “day-mons”. The series, however, seems to think that “daemon” and “demon” would be too confusing, and has resorted back to just plain old demon.

First off... let me express my discomfort over the entire library scene. Diana goes in, tells the guy at the desk that she wants such and such books and gives him the call slips. He sends the slips down to where the really old books are stored. And it's interesting to see. But then the lady goes and she just... “Lol, here's this book! And let me grab this other book.” She stacks them up on her chest like they weren't four-plus centuries old. And if we were talking about copies of Harry Potter or whatever, I don't think that I would give two shits. BUT THESE ARE OLD, PRICELESS, ONE OF A KIND BOOKS. AND SHE'S TREATING THEM LIKE THEY'RE 98TH EDITIONS OF HARRY POTTER.

And then the guy goes over to give them to Diana, and he's like “Well, here you go.” and just kind of... tosses them onto her workspace. And Diana starts to look at the Asshole 747.

And not a single person handles any of these books with gloves, either. Diana even touches these old pages with her bare hands, which can't possibly be good for the pages or ink. And in one scene, she even forcefully rips a page apart from the one below it, which had sort of become stuck with the ink.

WHY.

Anyway, as Diana actually looks at the book, it's a very interesting special effect as all of the words swirl around on the page.

However, true to the book, Diana freaks out and quickly returns the book. However, unlike in the book, Diana thinks that she sees her father, and she has a complete and utter panic attack over the entire thing.

She later calls her aunt, who is more angry that Diana returned what is clearly a dangerous magical item rather than to investigate further... Rather than the obvious fact that it's clear that Diana is spiraling into some kind of psychosis what with seeing her father and having nightterrors.

Because priorities.

Also much like in the book, all of the magical species in the area were somehow alerted to Diana calling up the book. And I'm willing to let it slide, if only because MAGIC.

Jillian kicks off her subplot by her telling the head of the local coven about this. The head then calls up the witchy president, who's some old fat guy and I cannot remember his name for the life of me. He also brings along Satu. We were rather rudely introduced to Satu as old fat guy went to get her in Finland. And she murdered the random human that the old fat guy brought along with him.

HAHAHA, BECAUSE NOTHING SAYS 'I WANT YOU TO RULE ME' QUITE LIKE STARTING OFF YOUR REIGN BY MURDERING PEOPLE. HAHAHAHAHAHA /sarcasm

However, as this is likely going to be a long series (if it goes the full length of the books and isn't canceled in the meantime, which maybe it will be if the rest of the episodes are this awkward with clunky dialogue as this first episode), then Jillian's plot is just kicking off. We don't spend much time on it.

However, we do introduce Marcus, who is Matthew's vampire son. (Not to be confused with a biological son. They're vampires, for fuck's sake.) Marcus's friend was hit by a car, and he died almost instantly. Marcus felt bad about the entire thing and tried to turn his friend, only for the vampire mojo to not work at all.

Later, Matthew picks Marcus up from the police station, and completely reams Marcus out for... trying to help his friend. It's a head scratcher, but don't linger too much on it.

Matthew is, however, insanely insistent that the answers to why they suddenly cannot create any new vampires lies in Asshole 747.

So, he starts to literally stalk Diana. And, granted. This is very accurate to how things were in the book. Except, Diana was kind of like “Oh no, he's hot!” about the entire thing. We never saw what Matthew was thinking, because the books were written from Diana's first person POV. But... in the TV series, he comes off less like a smarter and more mature Edward Cullen and more like... Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, you trust him a little if only because he's good looking and smart. But at the same time, you're getting some seriously creepy “He's going to cut out my spleen and put it in soup and feed me the soup before he kills me for real.” vibes from him. Ugh.

It's the complete opposite of romantic, if you ask me. At least the Twilight movies tried to make Edward look like not the kind of person who breaks into a girl's bedroom to watch her sleep. With Discovery of Witches, no such attempt to de-creep-ify Matthew is ever made.

All in all, the episode seemed to drag on forever. Too many subplots were introduced too quickly. The dialogue was clunky and it felt overly forced. Especially from Diana. The actual academic side of the episode was so cringy that I literally wanted to cry and write an angry letter to whoever the fuck wrote this bullshit.

But, the simple fact that it's really, REALLY hard to talk about a pencil for three pages or bricks or the dorm where Diana's staying or her fucking hairbrush means that half of what made the All Souls Trilogy so unbelievably unbearable is instantly cut for more actual plot.

It wasn't nearly as horrible as I was expecting. And I'm as surprised as you are. I've seen way worse things. And the fact that I kind of want to see the second episode just to see where they're going to take this vs how the book was is always a good sign for a show.

Especially one as awful as All Souls Trilogy was.