#and honestly between us wasn't the best show ever from the beginning but the way the last few episodes went I WANTED TO KILL SOMEONE

[baifengxis]

not me every year having a drama on my top 10 list and then after i post the gifset the drama is ruined so bad that i regret putting it like.....please remind me to not put unfinished dramas on my top10 next year

[jamdoughnutmagician]

All The Man That I Need (18+)

Beefy!Bucky x Female Reader

Warnings:18+, Smut, Size Kink, Oral Sex (F Receiving), Squirting, Missionary Position, Kissing. If I've missed anything that you want tagged just let me know!

Authour's Note: There's literally no plot here whatsoever, just shameless smut. I haven't written for bucky in a while so I wanted to try writing for him again, but honestly writing this was a bit of a struggle so it may not be my best work.

Word Count:1,524

Masterlist Bucky Barnes Masterlist

There was no shred of doubt about it, Bucky was big. In every sense of the word. Tall, broad and deliciously thick. His hair falling down along his chiselled, strong jaw in soft chocolate tresses. 

There was only one word that came to mind when you laid your eyes on your Bucky. 

Beefy.

Bucky was also immensely strong, with powerful muscles padding along the length of his arms, both human and metal alike. His legs were long, his thighs just as powerful as his arms, with sturdy muscles running the length of them.

Never have you ever felt more safe than when you’re held in the comforting warmth of his embrace, resting your head on the well-defined muscle of his chest. His arms circling you to bring you close to him, just where he always wanted you to be.

Bucky also never misses the opportunity to show off to you his super-soldier size and strength. Every inch of his six foot tall frame towered over you, but never once did he ever make you feel intimidated.

His size and strength also came into play in the bedroom. Easily picking you up in his arms as if you weigh next to nothing, carrying you to the bed with a gentleness that others may have assumed he wasn't capable of, but you knew that wasn't true.

He caged you beneath him, stroking his thumb over your cheek tenderly. before leaning down to capture your lips in a kiss that was full of passion.

"You're so beautiful, Doll."  His steely grey-blue eyes sparkle in the moonlit-glow streaming in through the window, illuminating the otherwise dark room.

His lips descend lower, kissing his way down the column of your throat, occasionally stopping to nibble and suck hickeys into the crook of your neck. 

His lips trail further downwards, kissing his way across your collarbones and over the plump swell of your breasts. Taking the time to shower each of your breasts with its equal share of gentle kisses.

His tongue darts out from between his pink lips, swirling around one of your nipples, teasing the bud into a hardened peak. Whilst his human hand works to tease your other nipple, pinching and rolling it between the rough pads of his fingertips. 

His kisses continue to trail down your body, kissing in-between the valley of your breasts, moving down to kiss over the soft skin of your stomach, before laying a sweet kiss amongst the small thatch of hair between your legs.

Bucky wastes no time in raising your hips up and throwing one of your legs over his shoulder, opening you up to him.

He leans down to your core, the tip of his nose nudging at your clit as he begins to lick his way through your folds. His tongue flattens against you as he takes one long sweep from the bottom of your slit to the very top, using the tip of his tongue to quickly flick against your clit. He sucks your clit between his plump pink lips, before letting go with a wet pop.

With a desperate whine you find your hands tangling into the lengths of his shaggy brown hair, your chest rising and falling with shuddering breaths.

He listens and takes your desperate whines of pleasure as a sign that you needed a little more from him.

“You want one of my fingers, huh Doll?” he asks, drawing back from you to look you deep in the eyes.

“Please..” your voice rasps out.

“Which one do you want, hm? You want this one?” he asks as the chill of his cold metal hand softly squeezes the plump flesh of your thigh. 

You shake your head. 

“No?” his deep rumbling voices teases.

“Want your other hand…please…just wanna feel you..please” you plead, desperate to feel the warm touch of his human hand.

“Well since you asked so nicely..” he smirks before slowly easing one of his thick fingers into your tight wet heat. 

He begins to slowly draw his finger in and out, making sure to press against that spot deep inside you that has your hips wriggling against the mattress. His metal hand is held over your stomach, providing you with a gentle pressure that makes everything he's doing feel so much more intense. You're fighting the urge to arch your back from the pleasure, but the chill of his metal hand against the heated flush of your skin keeps you right where he wants you to be.

“Oh you need it real bad don’t you Doll?” he’s relentless in his teasing. He always is. Always knowing just the right things to say that will have you wordlessly nodding your head for more.

His finger brushes against the spot inside you that has you rolling your hips.

His lips are on you once more, working in tandem with his finger, as he tastes you with an unabashed confidence.

“Tastes so fuckin’ sweet baby..Know you’re close, I can feel you squeezing my finger..” he mumbles against you as tongue continues to flick against your clit.

“Come for me, Doll…” he pleads as he watches how your heaving breaths of pleasure turn into desperate whines.

With one more thrust of his finger inside you and the flick of his tongue over your sensitive clit, you felt your orgasm rush over you. Your tight cunt pulsing with a wet gush as you squirt out your release. 

You hear a deep rumbling laugh as you look down between your thighs to see Bucky pull back for a moment, only to see his face glistening with the evidence of your orgasm. His tongue is immediately darting out to savour your taste on his lips, never missing out on the opportunity to drink down every last drop of you.

Leaning back on his haunches you see him slowly stroke his hand up and down his cock, teasing the head by swiping a thumb through the pooling mess of pre-cum glistening at his tip.

“See what eating your pussy does to me baby? Swear nothing makes me harder than getting to taste your sweetness on my tongue, Doll.”

With his cock held firmly in his hand he lays the length of him down against your lower stomach, almost as if he’s sizing you up. His tip coming up to rest just below your belly button, leaving a stick smear of pre-cum as he taps his heavy dick against your skin.

You were all too aware of Bucky's impressively sizable length, but seeing him line himself up against you like that makes you realise just how big he is, and how much he fills you up.

He lines himself up with your entrance, pushing his hips forward slowly with a groan. Filling you up inch by inch with his thick cock. Working himself until he is fully settled inside you.

He gives you a moment to adjust to the stretch, knowing that you always need a quick moment to gather yourself when he fills you so completely. 

He feels your heels digging into his back and that's all the go-ahead he needs before he's drawing his hips back and thrusting himself into your tight wet cunt.

He rolls his hips experimentally before he feels your nails digging into his shoulder bringing him close as you whisper in his ear.

“Want it hard…please..” you whine, placing a sweet kiss below his ear.

Bucky immediately pulls you close to him, his metal hand squeezing into the plump curve of your hips as he begins to fuck his hips into you with sharp precise thrusts.

The feeling of his thick cock stretching you out straddles the thin line between pain and pleasure, with each thrust into you he satisfies you more than anyone had ever done before.

“Look at you, Doll…Look so pretty underneath me like this…fuck..take my cock so well..” he groans, capturing your lips in a bruising kiss.

His other hand snakes down to rub circles around your clit with practised ease, knowing your body as well as he did, he knew exactly the right way to touch you that would have you falling apart under his touch.

He continues to work your body, the feeling of him deep inside you and his fingers rubbing you so perfectly has you rolling your eyes back as your orgasm rushed over you.

“That’s it, pretty girl…come for me…wanna feel you squeezing me..” he moans in his deep raspy voice.

With a few more rolls of his hips, he buries his length inside you as deep as he can before he’s filling you up with rope after rope of his release, swallowing your moans in a deep kiss.

Taking a moment to gather himself with a steadying breath he slowly pulls out of you, his eyes never leaving you as he watches the flow of him drip out of you.

Laying down beside you in the bed he pulls you into his strong arms, once again keeping you safe in his embrace. He places a loving and tender kiss into the crown of your hair.

"My perfect Doll…I love you so much.."

tags @itsfreakingbats @sidepartskinnyjeans @buckgasms

[hugshughes]

august T. Zegras

Trevor Zegras x fem!reader

synopsis - You spend an amazing summer with Trevor Zegras, before realizing he was never yours.

wc - 3.3k

contains - NOT EDITED SO THERES PROB A FEWWWW MISTAKES. cursing, angst to fluff in a way, heartbreak, reader gets used, asshole/manipulative!trevor, implied sex (no actual smut), crying, cheating, no happy ending between trevor and reader, but happy ending for reader overall!!!!! not allllll of the song is used like in the actual like lyrics typed out but i just like didn't use some of the repeated verses more than once so yeah. let me know!

an - this hurt. love Trevor but this hurt. and it's honestly pretty short because I really didn't know what else to add so sorry!!!!! but also i kinda like this because i made up a hot man so. i would love new requests, for literally anything with anyone i loveeeeee writing requests but my inbox is literally barren rn.

-

salt air, and the rust on your door. i never needed anything more.

The summer had been perfect. You spent the whole thing in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, with your best friends, and a perfect boy.

You had traveled to the OBX in the middle of June, with your 5 best friends. You guys had rented a house for the summer, you'd been saving for the trips since the end of high school, and you were finally able to go.

You guys spent many days in the sun, getting tan and playing volleyball, swimming in the pool and ocean.

whispers of "are you sure?" "never have i ever before"

On your second week, a group of guys had moved into the house next to yours. One evening while you guys were on the beach they came out and set up next to your group, and one of them had their eyes on you from the get go.

Trevor was something you'd been waiting for for years, a guy that was invested in you, a guy that really liked you and was interested in you.

He would bring you to places you never thought you'd see, places you'd remember your whole life. The blonde would often wake up in your bed, he would smile sweetly and snuggle closer to you, asking for a few more minutes before you guys got up to go to the beach. He took you driving, hiking, you guys would go on runs.

but i can see us lost in the memory. august slipped away into a moment in time, 'cause it was never mine.

You all had to leave on the same weekend, it was the beginning of August, and you were all sad. Before you left, Trevor talked all about how he would miss you, and would call you, and text, and do everything he could to keep contact. You discovered that that wasn't true about two weeks after you guys had left, because his contact faded out then he completely ghosted you.

You were completely heart broken over it. Your friends tried to comfort you, but weren't sure how to. You'd had a whirlwind summer romance, and then abruptly lost it all.

and i can see us twisted in bedsheets, august slipped away like a bottle of wine. 'cause you were never mine.

You had the worst night of your life when your friend showed you a photo Trevor had posted on his Instagram story, which you couldn't see because he had blocked you. It was a picture of him and a girl, with the text reading, "happy 1 year with my favorite!🤍"

You just cried, and cried, and cried. You felt terrible, you had no idea that he was involved with anyone else. He never made an indication that he was cheating with you, he told you flat out he was single the first night you met.

your back beneath the sun, wishin' i could write my name on it. will you call, when you're back at school?

You had dreams of the nights you spent with him. You remember him telling you he'd keep in touch, he would tell you how excited he was for the week you were planned to be in Anaheim in November, since that's where your extended family lived.

Now you were in Anaheim, and all you could think of was Trevor. You sat on the edge of the bed you were sharing with your favorite cousin, sulking as you texted your friends.

"Babe, what's wrong? You've been different since you got here."

You looked up at her, smiling sadly. Quickly you shook your head, turning your phone off and standing up.

"It's nothing, just a long story."

"Well we've got five days, so you better start soon."

You turned and looked at her, and the look she gave you had you spilling it all. You told her every detail, starting July 2nd and ending August 7th, how everything happened after, finding out you were just his side piece while he had a whole girlfriend back home. You cousin was fuming by the end, ranting to you about how he didn't deserve you or your love.

i remember thinkin' i had you. but i can see us, lost in the memory. august slipped away, into a moment in time.

"Hun, it sounds like you need some dick."

You laughed out loud, your hand going to cover her mouth, shushing her quietly. You felt like you were 14 again, whispering to your cool 16 year old cousin about your secret first boyfriend while you slept over at her house.

"Oh my god, shut up! What if my dad heard you? What is grandma heard you?! I would not be let out of the house the rest of this trip."

She giggled as she pulled your hand from her lips, before beginning to beg you to go out with her tonight. She saw the perfect opportunity for you to get out of this house full of old people and little kids, and another to get your mind off of that dickhead.

It took a little bit of convincing, but you finally agreed. Even though you two were 22 and 24, your parents still probably would have a problem with you guys going out so you left the house with sweats over your dresses.

You two sat in the car for a minute, searching for a good bar to drive to. You found one that was only 10 minutes away and started your drive. Your cousin told you that she would have one drink then only water for the rest of the night so you could drink as much as you wanted to.

'cause it was never mine.

You guys found parking a little ways away then walked to the bar. It was crowded when you walked in, surprising to you guys because it was Sunday night.

Your cousin pushed you through the crowd with her hands on your shoulders. You guys finally found a spot open at the bar. She urged you to sit at the one seat while she stood next to you. You flagged down a bartender and ordered your first drink. You sat talking to your cousin for a while before she discovered a group of her local friends there, claiming she'd be gone for just a couple minutes. It'd been almost 30.

You sighed, sadly sipping on your cosmopolitan and checking your phone. You froze when you heard a certain name called through the loud atmosphere of the bar. You turned your head slightly, trying not to make it too obvious, and then you saw him, dapping up another guy you knew, Jamie. Fuck your life. You couldn't fucking believe that out of all the bars in Anaheim he had to be at this one. You turned back around towards the bar, closing your eyes and muttering curse words under your breath.

and i can see us twisted in bedsheets. august slipped away, like a bottle of wine. 'cause you were never mine

"You okay, darlin'?"

Your eyes shot open, looking towards where the unknown voice came from, only to find the owner to be the rather attractive bartender that'd been serving you tonight.

"Oh, uh yeah, thank you it's kind of a long story."

"Well my sections cleared out for now, if you want someone to tell."

You smiled at him, he leaned onto the bar in front of you. He was hot, if you were gonna be honest. He had dark brown hair, brown eyes that looked like honey in the warm lighting of the bar, and a beard that matched his hair. He was sweet, he'd been nice every time he served you. He was also southern, which was so sexy. You had had 2 and a half drinks, so you were a little buzzed, so you were more open to telling him.

"Well before I tell you my sob story, I need to know who I'm telling it to."

He smiled, oh my God his smile was perfect, his teeth were so perfectly straight and white.

"Well I'm Noah, and I'm from Texas, but my dad owns bars out here, like this one. I just work here whenever I'm home because they can always use more hands on deck, but I'm still in school in North Cali."

You started at him the whole time, he just seemed like such a genuine person, and he wasn't hard to look at. You thought the fact that he just worked here whenever he could to help his family was actually so cute.

"That's sweet! You just come here to help your dad?"

He nodded, his smile bringing a light feeling to your chest. You leaned your cheek against your palm, looking to begin your story.

"So Noah, you noticed my reaction to that guy walking in. That reaction was because this summer me and my friends were living in a beach house in the Outer Banks from like the middle of June until August. And so in like July this group of guys started staying at the house next to us and that guy, Trevor, was apart of that group."

Noah nodded, already giving Trevor dirty looks.

"He like was practically my boyfriend for a month and a half, then when he left he ghosted me, and then I see him post his one year anniversary with his girlfriend. One year! Like weren't you sleeping in my bed a month and a half ago?!"

back when we were still changing' for the better. wanting was enough. for me, it was enough. to live for the hope of it all. cancel plans just in case you'd call, and say, "meet me behind the mall."

Noah's jaw had dropped, his eyes wide as he looked between you and Trevor, whom he had a clear view of on the other side of the room.

"That guy fucked you over?"

You nodded sadly, before laughing about it.

"Honestly, I was upset about it but now, seeing him, it's just like he's not the same guy as I thought. He's not really the guy I'm upset about."

"That's real as fuck honestly."

You both laughed at that, you two kept talking for almost thirty more minutes, only breaking your conversation when someone came up for a drink. Your cousin had come over at some point, apologizing for leaving you alone for so long, when you told her you had totally hit it off with the bartender, and she giggled with you before running off when before Noah's smile dropped.

"Not to mention him, but that fuckhead is coming over towards my section."

You rolled your eyes, Trevor didn't make you sad anymore, he just pissed you off. You nodded, taking the drink he'd just made for you from him.

"Hey man, could I get a round of shots?"

He hadn't noticed you, you didn't know if you wanted him to or not. He was literally 5 feet from you, a guy that had seen every inch of you, and he didn't even notice you sitting there. Noah's cheerful demeanor dropped, giving Trevor a look.

"What liquor for how many people?"

"Oh uh um tequila for like 10 people."

"What tequila?"

Noah had known you for an hour and was already hating on your ex-situation like he was his mortal enemy. Trevor told him the brand he wanted and Noah turned to get to work. You kept your eyes on Noah while Trevor looked around aimlessly, until his eyes landed on you.

He was shocked, to say the least. He honestly thought he'd never see you again in his life. He immediately remembered how you told him you were coming to Anaheim for Thanksgiving, and how he told you he couldn't wait to see you then.

so much for summer love,

He liked you, but he also realized that he had a girl at home who still thought they were perfect together. He felt bad when he initially ghosted you, but then he forgot about it within weeks.

He couldn't deny how beautiful you looked, and how seeing you in person brought him right back to July. He wanted to say something, but he didn't know what to say. He had ended the relationship he'd been in just two weeks ago, he felt like seeing you here was a sign. He called your name, two times. The first time you acted like you didn't hear him, then the next you couldn't ignore him.

You turned to him, obviously irritated. You raised your eyebrows at him, a pissed off look on your face.

"What?"

Fuck. Trevor didn't know what to do after that. He stumbled over his words for a few seconds, suddenly nervous.

"Um hey, how are you doing?"

"Are you fucking serious? 'How am I doing?' How can you stand there and ask that after what you did to me?"

"Fuck, let's just talk, okay? I'll explain everything to you baby. Please?"

The name made you want to punch him in the nose. If you were being honest, you wanted to hear whatever explanation he had for it all. But no way in Hell were you gonna forgive him for any of it. You were done, this was just the closure you had needed for all those months.

and saying "us".

"Okay number one, don't fucking call me that; and number two, I will listen to you, but I'm not listening for your benefit, or to forgive you, I'm listening for the closure I need from you. Okay?"

"Yeah fine, sorry. Okay just come on so we can go somewhere more private."

You thought about it for a second, looking towards Noah behind the bar, secretly listening to the whole conversation. You made eye contact with him, mouthing, 'I'll be right back.' To which he nodded.

Trevor caught the interaction, which made his insides twist in anger. But he had no right to be angry, not one part of you belonged to him. You followed Trevor to the hallway by the bathrooms, leaning against the wall while he stood in front of you, far enough away so that you were comfortable.

"So I know what I did was terrible. It was a shit thing to do, but I had a lot of stuff happening at home and-"

"'Stuff' as in a long term girlfriend? Trevor you cheated on someone with me. You acted like you cared about me, ghosted me, then I have to find out I wasn't even the only girl, and that I was the other woman! That makes me a bad person! I felt like such shit for months because of you, and I shouldn't have, because it's all your fault! Not mine, not your girlfriend's, yours."

'cause you weren't mine to lose.

Holy shit. How the fuck did you know about Trevor's girlfriend? He had you blocked on his phone and his girlfriend's.

"Fuck um how do you even- Fuck just I know how bad that sounds okay? But you have to understand that-"

you weren't mine to lose, no.

"I don't think I'm gonna understand anything that comes out of your mouth. Just, leave me alone Trevor, you have had fucked me up enough as is."

Trevor leaned against the wall opposite from you with his head low, defeated. You felt a weight lifted from your shoulders, maybe all the closure you needed was to yell at him good and hard.

"Have a good fucking life, Trevor."

'cause you were never mine, never mine.

With your last goodbye, you sped away from him, before any more bullshit could leave his lips. He was never yours. You understood that now, and honestly it's a good thing he never was, because he was a fucking mess. You hoped he'd find a girl that fixed him, someone that could help him learn peace. But you knew you weren't her, you weren't a girl interested in making a man out of a boy, you wanted a man and that was that.

You walked back to where you sat at the bar, seeing Noah cleaning up the bar top. He looked up and saw you, smiling lightly.

"Hey, are you good?"

You nodded standing next to your seat and smiling back at him.

"So much better, to be honest. I just shouted at him and I think that was my version of closure."

"So you don't think he's coming to get these shots?"

You both laughed as you shook your head at him. You talked for about ten more minutes, before you decided it was time to find your cousin and go home. Noah asked for your number, which you happily gave him. You and your cousin exited the bar, both with smiles, though yours was a bit bigger.

"So you had a good night babe?"

"Very good, actually. That hot ass bartender was like the sweetest guy ever and asked for my number!"

You and your cousin talked the whole drive home as you both described the details of your nights. When you got home, you both slid your sweats back on over your dresses and quietly walked into your grandparent's home, informing your parents of your pre-prepared alibi, saying how you went and saw the Taylor Swift movie, then got dinner.

You both giggled like little girls while you ran up the stairs, then giggled even more ten minutes later in your shared bed when Noah texted you.

Trevor knew that he fully lost you when you walked away from him, but it didn't stop him from unblocking you and scrolling through your instagram.

but do you remember?

4 years later Trevor was single and still playing for the Ducks, he saw a picture from the summer of '23 and you came to his mind. He wondered what you were up to. He wanted to know if you were near Anaheim or anything. He pulled up Instagram, searching your name. What he found shocked him.

When Noah asked you to marry him three years into your relationship it was the easiest decision you had ever made. He was perfect, your dream boy. Then when you married him a year after that, it was easily the best day of your life. Your wedding in the hills of Northern California was absolutely gorgeous, and your honeymoon in Greece was breathtaking.

remember when i pulled up and said, "get in the car!" and then canceled my plans just in case you'd call?

Trevor saw the photos you posted from your wedding two weeks earlier and his jaw dropped, he recognized your husband as the bartender from the night the last time he ever saw you. You looked perfect in your white dress, the caption reading, "Mr & Mrs Moore, 7-29-27." Trevor was truly shocked, he didn't know why though. You were a perfect girl, and it was no surprise someone had lucked out and married you.

back when i was livin' for the hope of it all, for the hope of it all.

He liked the post, accidentally. When you saw the notification, you were confused, but smiled. You hadn't thought of Trevor in years, and now your time with him was all memories. He had made you happy in the moment, and you being sad and moping about him was what led your cousin to taking you to the bar, where you'd met the love of your life, your husband, the man who'd eventually be the father to all of your children.

You were grateful for Trevor Zegras, just for that.

for the hope of it all. for the hope of it all. (for the hope of it all.) (for the hope of it all.)

[aesethewitch]

Learning to Cook Like a Witch: The Absolute Beginning

So, you're looking to dip your toes into kitchen witchery, but you have zero experience cooking. Or, maybe you have experience that's not so great or that wasn't informative. Or, maybe you just don't know where to start, because no one ever taught you how to cook.

Great! Cooking can be intimidating to even approach when you're not used to it. I'm lucky in that I grew up cooking with my family and had the chance to take several cooking-based classes in high school. Not everyone has that sort of opportunity, so I'd like to pass on my experience to others!

(Note that you definitely don't need to be the best cook in the world to be a kitchen witch. No one's perfect! But it's okay to want to improve your skills, too.)

If you want to learn to cook, the first step is to familiarize yourself with the basic terms, measurements, and tools you'll be working with. Start with the following:

Learn the names and uses of the tools in your kitchen (for example, spatulas for spreading frosting vs. spatulas for flipping burgers)

Measurement conversions (how many teaspoons in a tablespoon, how many tablespoons in a cup, etc.)

Familiarize yourself with commonly used measurement phrases such as "dash" and "pinch," and learn exactly what they mean by that

Abbreviations for measurements (teaspoon = tsp = t, tablespoon = tbsp = T, etc.)

Various cooking terminology and the difference between terms, such as the difference between mixing, creaming, folding, and emulsifying

Read recipes and look up words you're not familiar with

Knife safety! Learn how to hold a knife properly and cut things without risking your fingers, and also learn how to keep your knives sharp. Remember, a sharp knife is a safe knife!

Once you've got knife safety down, learn how to cut an onion - dice, chop, and slice your way to delicious victory!

Learn fire, oven, and stovetop safety!

Familiarize yourself with what's in your spice cabinet; taste things if you've never had them, and look up common recipe usages for them

Learn about the Maillard reaction (this is what turns meat brown!)

Familiarize yourself with common substitutions, such as for cornstarch, buttermilk, and shortening/lard

Start with simple recipes; many chefs say you should start with omelets, white sauce, and homemade stock, and I tend to agree. Learning just these three things teaches a number of techniques that translate to a hundred other recipes!

Eat more food! Try new flavors, experiment with dishes from restaurants, ask questions about what's in what you're eating. Sample dishes and spice combinations from other cultures. Smell things before you eat them. Think about the flavors and how they're working together.

Watch videos from cooks on YouTube, or watch cooking tv shows! Honestly, Alton Brown's Good Eats was a foundational influence for me as a child, and I cut my teeth on Food Network. YouTube-wise, try Basics with Babish!

Pick a recipe you think looks good or that you've had before and just make it! Simple as that, just follow the recipe. Get the ingredients, follow the steps, eat the food!

Not everything you make is going to be good. And that's fine! Learn what went wrong and why. Figure out what tastes good and what doesn't. Let other people try your food and give you honest feedback. If you think your taste buds are biased or not "good enough," having someone else tell you "this needs more salt" or "this is really balanced" or "this would go nicely over rice instead of potatoes" is powerful.

Remember that you're learning. Look things up. Fuck up a recipe. Burn something. Realize you're missing an ingredient and figure out a substitute last minute. Leave something out, put something else in. Taste, taste, taste. Taste everything. Every time you put something in or complete a step, taste it. So long as it's not going to be a health hazard (such as with raw meat), taste it.

Take your time with it. Cooking is a skill that's earned over time via trial and error. Know that you're not alone in your worry and struggle. Millions of home cooks have stood where you stand, spoon in hand and apron tied tight. Practice, practice, practice.

Once you understand cooking by itself, you can more easily incorporate magic and weave spells into your meals, which I'll cover in another post, since this one is already quite long.

Happy cooking! 🍳🌿

If you enjoy my posts or would like to support my blog, consider throwing a couple dollars in my tip jar! ✨

[hellobitchlet]

Thoughts on Natlan act 3 and 4:

Act 3-

- there is seriously no point to giving Traveler an ancient name. They're very obviously just being given one bc the writers want to show off how amazing they are at everything again. If the whole point of ancient names is that it's solely a Natlan thing, then there's no point in Traveler getting one. Why were they and Paimon scrambling to get one? You're already being praised and given new abilities constantly, you don't fucking need it.

- that aside, Xilonen gave a decent explanation of how ancient names and the night kingdom work. I didn't feel like act 1 or 2 explained anything properly beyond "it sure exists and is important to the super special archon's plans", but Xilonen explaining that deeds have to happen inside of Natlan and be recorded and acknowledged by the Wayob (who will only acknowledge ppl from Natlan) was easy to understand and made perfect sense. My only problem here is that it should've been explained this cleanly back in act 1, before we started using ancient names for drama. Because, you know, maybe I would've cared more about it then?

- the Ororon stuff would've been much more interesting and tense if it wasn't introduced by... being randomly told to you. In the middle of an unrelated plotline. And then spending the whole fucking time assuring you that he's a great person while you follow a trail. And doing nothing else except experience Citlali's inner thoughts. That was literally the entire build up to meeting him.

- despite it being handled in the most boring way possible (and god, do I want to emphasize that they handled it in a boring way), I do like the plotline between Citlali, Ororon, and Capitano. It's a lot more interesting than the basic ass saving Natlan plot, which is about as much of a stereotypical hero plot as they could've made it. I honestly adore Citlali and Ororon now, they're definitely my favorites of the Natlan cast. Like, they had actual on screen conflict with one another for a few minutes! They care sooo much about each other and it was shown through their actions and interactions with each other instead of just monologuing it to Traveler. The bar is below the fucking ground...

- I especially enjoyed seeing Citlali getting drunk and accidentally spilling about her problems. However... it's funny (read: annoying) to think about how long it's taken for this to actually fucking happen when Kaeya and Venti have been here since the beginning, and about how much Kaeya and Venti have been shit on for being alcoholics. It was probably one of the best character building moments I have ever seen from Genshin, but man, a newly introduced Natlan character should not have been the first one to do this.

- "we've only known each other for a few days, right? What would you think of me if I were to start dumping all my complaints on you after we've only just met?" Oh thank god she has some actual self awareness. I wish other characters (playable and npc) would stop infodumping their entire backstories the moment they're introduced. Ultimately, the awkward telepathy moment that they're probably never going to explain served the same purpose. But that wasn't something she was doing on purpose, so I'm willing to forgive her for it and pin it on the writers instead.

-it really sucks that they're being so confusing about Citlali's age. You know it's because of Hoyo's refusal to make playable characters that aren't 1000% conventionally attractive. They're seriously trying to give us a teacher/student relationship in which the teacher is supposed to be significantly older than the student and NOT give her a single wrinkle. She also kept saying stuff that implied she would age to be hundreds of years old, so I want to be interested in that, but it just got caught up in the confusion of "wtf is her age?!"

- I got increasingly annoyed every time Traveler shared the Capitano stuff with others. You fucking idiot!!! He specifically told you not to do that!!! You barely even doubted Mavuika even though you barely know her and she's mostly just been standing around going "trust me on this bc I know what I'm doing" this whole time!!! Are you sure you even care about what he had to say?! Because he specifically said he would tell you if you actually fucking listened to him, which you are going out of your way to NOT do!!! Just a few real life months ago you were acting all buddy-buddy with Arlecchino!!! Can you be consistent about your opinions on the Fatui for one second!!!

- they were really trying super hard to make Capitano wanting to save Natlan mysterious, and make him have ulterior motives (like literally every other harbinger since Scara), but like... First off, this is the last gnosis the Fatui doesn't have, and second, he directly said that Mavuika failing would be bad for the rest of Teyvat as well. He already had perfectly good reasons. You don't need to make yet another harbinger have ulterior motives.

- I almost liked the Chasca and Chuychu moment. But I say almost because... there was no fucking point to it except to tell you that the Fatui found an ancient relic. You were just stuck in dialogue box hell that made a weak attempt at pretending there was gameplay by putting a timer on single dialogue options (not even being given multiple options? really?). That whole thing should've been a sneaking sequence with Traveler. There's literally no reason why it wasn't one. It wouldn't even require good writing to add that. Just have Mavuika say that someone found a large Fatui camp, and have Traveler volunteer to sneak in to check it out. Then, you could've had Traveler finding the relic, and maybe finding Capitano and Ororon and follow them to the domain while they discuss their plan. There you go. That would've saved you a lot of time stuck in dialogue boxes, by removing this sequence and the Ororon memory sequence and replacing it with an extended period of gameplay.

-However, the role reversal and the actually showing how good the sisters are at working together improved their characters a lot for me. Chasca doesn't feel as much like a Shenhe copycat when fighting with Chuychu. But even then, it was very annoying when it turned into "don't worry, we don't actually mean what we say! We're just stubborn!" immediately after their sequence. I could fucking tell, Genshin. I'm not a child.

Act 4-

- ...in theory, initially fighting with Capitano and eventually convincing him to help us is an okay storyline. But none of this felt like fighting him! We literally spent the whole fucking time following him and his troops around and debating what his intentions are! And no, a single fancy cutscene unrelated to Traveler doesn't count! We never got to hear his side of the story until after he failed, and he just had a 10 second spat with Mavuika, revealed that he's from Khaenri'ah, and reluctantly agreed to Mavuika's plan within 5 minutes.

- also, after Fontaine offloaded the majority of Furina's backstory onto an inner monologue in act 5 that just reiterated what we already knew about her, I am not a fan of poor Ororon getting a similar treatment in the end. It's not as bad bc it served a purpose in the story besides "look at how sad he is!", but suddenly becoming one of the special heroes his super special archon wanted and having no objections was a really boring ending to what started off as the first on screen playable ch vs playable ch conflict we've had since like... Childe in Liyue I think? Hoyo is lucky that it has cultivated fandoms that see monologues and sudden info dumps as good writing.

-I'm glad that seelies are finally confirmed to be angels, and that we're getting more proper Celestia lore, but once again, Hoyo is lucky that it has cultivated fandoms that see monologues and sudden info dumps as good writing.

- I have mixed feelings about Capitano's backstory and intentions. On one hand, I like that he's from Khaenri'ah, and I'm very glad that he knows the abyss sibling and Dain. I really like the Khaenri'ah related parts. On the other hand, I'm not a fan of the Natlan parts of his backstory. As I've said before, I'm really fed up with Genshin tailoring harbinger backstories so that they're part of the lore of the nation they show up in, instead of Snezhnaya. And I'm even more fed up with them making every harbinger have different goals that are unrelated to the Fatui. I've talked about this before in this post.

-going back to the point about his goals, his backstory can still perfectly serve as an explanation for why he's helping the Tsaritsa, with or without the Natlan part. You still didn't need to pull any of the special motives stuff. It would've made perfect sense to say that Capitano (+ Tsaritsa as well maybe) was afraid that the destruction of Natlan could interfere with their plan, so Tsaritsa has been sending him and some troops to deal with the situation and try to get the gnosis in the process. But, of course, Mavuika would fight back and be a powerful opponent, so this mini war between them has been going on for a while, which would tie back to Varka's letter from Weinleslfest first mentioning him going to Natlan 2 years ago.

-...oh, wait. That Weinleslfest moment and Mika's backstory was probably just to remind you that he and Varka existed and foreshadow him being in Natlan and didn't actually mean anything. I know this isn't related to Natlan at all, I just felt like saying it. We don't talk about Mika enough, okay?

- with all that being said, after how much I hated Arlecchino, and Dottore being used as a scapegoat to make playable harbingers look better, I had little interest in Capitano initially. But I do actually like him now. Maybe even just as much as I like Citlali and Ororon?

- speaking of the Fatui, I have to mention how weird it is that the pyro gnosis being the last gnosis the Fatui doesn't have isn't treated like a big deal at all. The idea of Capitano even bringing the gnosis to the Tsaritsa is barely even mentioned. We're literally going to Snezhnaya next, and the Fatui screen time is STILL not focused on the Tsaritsa's plans?! There is no worry about what will happen if he succeeds in getting the gnosis? No talk about what the Tsaritsa's plans could be? No talk about what it could mean for Natlan or the rest of Teyvat? No connecting this story to the overarching plot beyond a few lore reveals? Nothing??

- Genshin is seriously bad at stakes. THAT WASN'T A FUCKING WAR, THAT WAS A SINGLE BATTLE! It just... suddenly sprung up, and it took about 10 minutes, but I almost started feeling tense. There were actual corpses all over the place, and I was fighting non stop instead of being stuck in a dialogue box, even if the mobs themselves were fairly boring, and then... Chasca suddenly became one of the special heroes and everything was over. All of that was like... half an act of fighting? Literally any other game would have at least finished the 'war' at... the end of the story? Obviously? We couldn't have at least waited to finish this in act 5?? Seriously?? This whole thing was just a vehicle to quickly make Chasca one of the heroes, finish the 6 heroes plot point, and then show a hint of the false sky??

- gameplay wise, why did the handle the 'war' like that? What was with the slow ass hot air balloon I was forced to use 3 times- but was allowed to teleport to places the rest of the time? Why was I forced into a situation where I couldn't leave, when I was literally just in Natlan and not a domain? Why did we suddenly switch to a different dialogue box just for a few minutes?? Someone PLEASE explain to Hoyo that adding new stuff doesn't automatically make it good. Or, I guess 'novel', as their surveys put it.

- Chuychu was the closest I've ever come to actually being sad for an npc's death. Probably because I actually saw someone react to it, instead of Genshin just expecting you to care because Paimon is telling you to. Because of the Chuychu stuff, I'm actually starting to like Chasca, and I'm glad for it. Liking a character in theory despite canon is much better for rewriting stories than disliking them entirely and not knowing what to do with them (*glances at Fontaine*).

- I'm starting to see that the 6 heroes plot is probably just their current ploy to place the focus on the characters who have come out this update, or are coming out next update. Act 2 has Mualani becoming a Special Hero, because her first banner was up at the time. Then act 3 and 4 had Ororon and Chasca becoming Special Heroes, because Xilonen already is one and they're coming out next update.

- that being said- I feel bad for Kachina and Mualani. Kachina was the obvious 'main character' of act 1, with Mualani and Kinich as supporting characters. But then in act 2, the focus was shifted over to Mualani, because she's a 5 star and her first banner is happening, so they need to convince people to like her. And in the process, Kachina was screwed over in what should've been her plotline, becoming a supporting character whose role is to prove how good at The Power of Friendship Mualani is and introduce us to the 6 heroes stuff. ...and then both are screwed over in the very next update because they're already out and don't have anything else to do.

- I know that she'll presumably get more screen time when she comes out, but it's greatly worrying me (for reasons that should be obvious) that Iansan is barely being given any screen time. I am so worried that they're trying to pull a Xinyan or a Candace with her, because of course they would.

- literally what response are you expecting me to have to Xilonen slowly dying for Traveler to get an ancient name when it's revealed in the randomist and calmest way possible?? It's obviously supposed to be cheap emotional fuel, but both Xilonen and Citlali are being so calm about this random reveal that I didn't end up caring either. I don't care so much that I almost forgot to mention it in this post.

Overall, not impressed at all, but there are a few tiny gems in here that will be good for when I eventually have to get to it in my rewrite lol.

[liquidorcard]

Lily Orchard is very politically opportunistic and her posts on Palestine show how blatant this is. She presents herself as militantly anti-fascist and anti-hate, she claims to hate centrists who try to give fascists a space to speak (instead implying she'd be willing to use violence to stop them). But like, as soon as it comes to electoral topics, she aggressively, AGGRESSIGELY insists that the liberal centrist parties are the only viable option. Like, the guys she pretends to hate. To the point where she's victim blaming activists for Democrats losing the election and telling people not to listen to activists when they call for a boycott against the liberal centrists who are upholding the right for fascists to speak and politically act. She pretends to be a leftist, but it's blatantly performative, the reality is that she is centre right and she seems to hate herself for it. Kind of sad, honestly.

I've said something before here that Lily and I grew up in similar environments? Well, I honestly think that has something to do with it.

I grew up in a very right-wing household in a very right-wing community that like, I knew I knew from a very young age I wasn't ever going to be accepted in. Assigned Reject at Birth. You know, it's one of the many ways religious and right-wing spaces just tare apart interpersonal connections important to the human psyche. That makes a wound in people. I won't go into detail, but my home life was bad to begin with. Being queer just made it that much worse.

Before moving away for college, I very much believed I was the most left-wing any human being on this earth could possibly be. I thought I was going to be met with open arms and the unconditional human acceptance I had always wanted, even though I wasn't fully cognitively aware of that.

I wasn't. And I feel people were even less forgiving of my lack of leftist literacy because I was a queer AFAB and concluded there was no excuse for me to be as ignorant as I was.

Now, I know the discussion of the social policing and virtue grandstanding gets flattened of any nuance online so the right can use it against the left, so I want to make sure I'm clear with what I'm about to say. No, the left should not be tolerant of bigotry. No, not every right-wing nut job can be deradicalized by hand-holding them through their own come to Jesus moment. Nor is anyone owed that emotional energy from you. But when you were raised right-wing, even if you grew to resent it, a person needs time to be deprogrammed. And, I know this might upset people to hear, but you won't understand how much of a privilege it is to be raised in a more liberal household unless you weren't. People who were can sometimes be, what I feel is unreasonably hostile to those of us who don't know any better because we haven't had the chance to learn.

It also just so happens I started college in 2015, right when gamergate went down. And it was an art school. Really, it was a uniquely not very ideal environment to rid myself of right-wing brain worms. And in a very real way, it retraumatized me getting rejected for not having the sociopolitical context to understand everything I was expected to. I'm not blaming anyone in particular for that-- that is more an unfortunate symptom of the anti-social rot the right causes, but it wasn't a good time. I think some people could have been kinder, and to this day I do my best to be charitable with meeting people where they're at myself. And I do think there is a problem in the left, especially online, failing to read between the lines and respond appropriately-- especially when it comes to vocabulary choice. You know, sometimes people use dogwhistles without the proper context to understand they are dogwhistling, sometimes people are just genuinely misinformed and lack the language to ask the questions they have, and vocabulary does shape perception. Right-wing ideology only can survive on the basis of rigid, strict, conceptually or literally divine hierarchy. Right-wing language is shaped on the premise of that hierarchy. The reason why a lot of social progress doesn't make sense to right-wingers and is almost impossible to communicate properly in right-wing language is because it disregards the premise of that hierarchy. Right-wingers don't literally live in a separate reality, but they kind of functionally do. Mentally. For people who are more on the right, but open minded enough to genuinely learn and want to, it's better to use as their language as much as possible to explain to them things that can ease them out of the premise of that mental trap of explicit social hierarchy in a gentler fashion.

With all that said, the root cause was still that right-wing upbringing.

I feel I have more than enough reason to very confidently say Lily went through a very similar experience to me. A shitty childhood for a lot of reasons, but one of them for sure being a queer person in an extremely right-wing household. She has a hypersensitivity to feeling shame and will go to extreme measures to avoid it, she feels isolated and desperate for acceptance in an extremely unhealthy way. In one regard she was knee-capped significantly in her ability to function socially that I wasn't, in that her parents decided she was a simpleton when she was very young, basically wrote her off and conditioned her to never take accountability. Though being overly critical of children is equally harmful (though in different ways), dismissing a child of all agency because you think they're too stupid to handle it can result in a lot more damage to everyone around them aswell as themselves and is a form of emotional neglect.

Online I think she searched out for a community that would accept her, and when that did not work out for her, when she experienced that retraumatization again of rejection . . . She took some very interesting lessons away from that. The wrong ones.

And, glass houses, it took me a whole journey aswell to get where I am. But I was conditioned to internalize social rejection, for better or worse. Lily was not. She is aggressively, profoundly, depressingly incapable of self-reflection, in healthy or in unhealthy amounts-- and even though that's not wholly her fault, she's a big girl now, and she's the only one left to accept responsibility for that. As someone myself who feels deeply angry at the ways I was psychologically damaged, I'm speaking as someone who has accepted that dwelling on how unfair it is that I have to be held accountable for that isn't going to improve my situation.

Believe it or not, I don't think Lily is inherently stupid. I think she was treated like she was stupid since she was young, and has put a lot of energy into pantomiming intellectualism instead of actually learning stuff. Again, glass houses, I also learned how to pretend I am smarter than I actually am out of an extreme aversion to shame-- but I can tell I have more actual knowledge, interest and curiosity to learn than Lily does.

I don't think Lily has any interest in learning about left-wing politics, and I don't think she has actually deprogrammed herself from the right-wing environment she was raised in. She has no motivation to care, and likely still is deeply bitter about the social rejection she's experienced in left-wing spaces. However, she has a lot of social capital to gain by PRETENDING she is.

And pretending is enough for the people she courts in her audience.

[viisoul]

★ ﹒ TRY IT FOR YOURSELF!

you don’t like girls… no way. but you’d take it into consideration after trying it for yourself.

cw : CORRUPTION KINK , cunnilingus

a/n : i hope i did this right

gothic mikasa! who's always staring at you, dirty thoughts running through her head when she looks at how short your skirt is and how it's so close to showing off your perfect ass.

gothic mikasa! who finally chooses to go to a party with eren, immediately realizing you were there when she noticed you uncomfortably sitting with a bunch of people you weren't exactly too familiar with, but had no choice because you didn't want to be alone.

gothic mikasa! who stole you away from the people you were uncomfortable with, deciding that this was a great opportunity to speak to you since you both were mutual acquaintances.

gothic mikasa! who guided you through your first time drinking and smoking.

gothic mikasa! who sat with you in a random, yet quiet bedroom, while smoking so much weed that both of your eyes had turned red.

gothic mikasa! who finally kissed you, and who you let touch on your body as she pleased, pinning you down on the bed without a care in the world before going down on you...

you were grinding against mikasa's face, fingers tangled in her silk black strands of hair. by now, her chin was glistening with your juices, middle and ring fingers pruny from fingering you for so long.

it wasn't supposed to go this way—, you didn't like girls. let alone would you ever let a girl do something like this to you. honestly, it was your first time ever getting head, or engaging in sexual activity for that matter. you'd only gotten as far as kissing, but no one needed to know that.

it was embarrassing, really. you've gone years—, being a sophomore in college without finding anyone necessarily trustworthy of touching on you the way mikasa did. it might've just been the alcohol and weed, it had to be. if anyone were to find out about this, seeing a girl have you whimpering, your reputation likely would've been ruined.

you were a pretty girl. you had money, fans, majority of your college knew you and loved you. a lot of the boys wanted you, and if they didn't want you, they probably wanted your best friend, christa, or were gay... or just had a girlfriend. whatever the case was, you were a stereotypical popular girl who always walked around in pink with a pretty little smile on your glossy lips that caused the boys to swoon over you.

but none of that mattered. your reputation didn't matter. okay, maybe it did, but not at the moment. what mattered was the fact that mikasa was so good at this. what mattered was the fact that she had you covering your mouth so you wouldn't be crying out, tugging on her hair and back arching.

"m-more, please, mikasa..." you begged. she could hear the neediness in your voice, and it'd honestly sounded like you were crying. she didn't question you though, only choosing to give you what you wanted.

mikasa used her free hand to spread your folds erotically, swiping her tongue up your pussy before closing her wet lips around your clit. you were sensitive there, so every movement she did while sucking on your clit had you crying out into your hand.

"ah—! i-i can't... mika~!" you whined.

you felt so close to such an unfamiliar feeling that you were desperate to discover, only knowing that it'd bring you to a blissful state.

mikasa's lips departed from your clit before moving down, flicking her tongue in your hole. her nose grazed against your clit, sending tingles up your spine.

"such a good girl f'me... so good," it was clear she was pussy drunk, beginning to babble muffled words and sending vibrations up your clit. she'd moan, curling and scissoring her fingers inside of you, alternating between rubbing on your clit with her thumb and reaching up your chest to squeeze your soft tits.

something about mikasa being the first person you'd ever did anything sexual with, along with her being the person making you into girls had her dripping in her own underwear. she wanted to do so much to you, but she couldn't. however, this moment was just enough for her to cherish, because she knew she was the first one to make you cum.

you had to roughly keep your hand over your mouth to hush the high pitched squeal you let out, tugging on mikasa's hair while doing so. there was a feeling that washed over you, one so overwhelming but so blissful. you slowly let go of her hair, resting your back against the headboard. you panted, the muscles in your legs spasming.

you could feel yourself throbbing from the aftermath, sweaty, a bit tired. maybe it was from all the weed. there were so many things you'd done that night that you'd never done before. drinking, smoking, letting a girl eat you out…

but, you kind of liked it. well—, you only liked it from mikasa. she made you feel good. she made you want more of her.

“m-mika…” you whispered.

“mmh?” she hummed.

“i… um… thank you. y-you’re really good at what you do. i mean, i didn’t even know i… y’know… would like that from a girl.”

“i’m sure you didn’t,” she spoke under her breath, a small grin growing on her face.

“huh?”

“nothing. are you feeling okay?”

“um, actually…” you crawled on top of her, despite your legs being weakened. “can you teach me how to make you cum? i wanna return the favor and make you feel good.”

[corsairesix]

Fallout TV show thoughts

Spoilers ahead because I'm like, talking about the show and what happens in it.

The first two episodes are the strongest definitely. The vault dwellers being culty trad weirdos and the brotherhood being technofascists is a great return to form. But after that, the aspects of both of those tend to get subsumed into "Lucy and Max are naive"

Lucy and Max kinda stop having ideologies pretty quick. It's easier to accept with Max because he's shown from the beginning to be less interested into the technocult aspects of the Brotherhood but Lucy has fully drunk the vault kool-aid and that kinda becomes secondary to "she's from a vault so she's used to good people"

The central tension of "if it's life or death, you'll abandon your morals" vs "but we have to keep being better anyway" is a really popular one for post-apocalypse stories to tell, but it's kind of a boring Fallout story for me.

The early Brotherhood stuff really hits the sweet spot between the creepy ritualistic aspects and the fact that a lot of them are just shitty bullies. Titus going from the helmet voice to his normal voice was a really good scene.

Tangentially, I don't particularly care for Ghoulgins. I thought the pre-war plot with Walton Goggins was great, but with Ghoulgins it felt like every scene he was in he walks up to someone, snarls a bit, kills everyone present, and walks away with no variation.

The best part of episode 3 onwards was all of the stuff with young Steve Buscemi solving mysteries

I laughed at the fact that they did Kid in a Fridge 2, but after the fifth time or so that they played that clip it was increasingly obvious that it was the only backstory that Maximus had. We know exactly five-ish seconds of his life outside the story. And sure, part of that was that he's like, raised in a high-control cult, but so is Lucy and we learn a half-dozen hobbies that she has in the first minute.

Also is it just me or did they put one black guy in every scene where Max was getting his ass beat? So like, invoking a certain imagery for sure but not textually saying anything about racism, which seems like the worst of both worlds

There's a running textual and subtextual dichotomy between "innocence/naivete/ignorance" and "willingness to do violence" but it's undercut a little by how often characters screw up by doing violence because they were ignorant or naive

Lee Moldaver call me

(side note, I'm not a "wouldve been way better if at the end the Black Panther turned to the camera & said "i am communist now" & then specified hes the exact kind of communist i am" person, but honestly Fallout is allergic to ever depicting American communists. McCarthyism can only be bad if it's aimed at the wrong target.)

I just realized Sarita Choudhury was in Gawain and the Green Knight and she was really hot there too

I *really* liked the plot device of "Vault-Tec has a fiduciary responsibility to the end of the world" but I thought every company we know the name of sitting around a table and going "we're going to do the end of the world" was corny. I'm surprised Slocum Joe wasn't there to pitch an iced regulah and strawberry frahsted vault.

Slight tweak that could be more compelling--vault tec wants things to be bad/drive up paranoia to sell reservations, but they don't actually want the world to end. It's like an insurance company that wants you to be scared of disasters, but doesn't actually want to pay out. That's the exact type of corporate hubris I could see them trying to thread. And it still works with stuff like suppressing Moldaver's cold fusion.

Wait why was the cold fusion in that guy's head? They injected a similar thing into the dog, so I assumed at first he could like, psychically communicate with the dog and that's why the dog could track his head. But the dog was injected before the guy so like, did the dog just have general cold-fusion tracking software injected? Like I know it was an excuse to have Dogmeat IV, but I genuinely want to know if anyone knows the deal with that.

A good amount of stuff that turns me off of the show is that I genuinely find the post-post-apocalypse of some Fallout games more interesting than just post-apoc.

This show seemed less built up than even Fallout 4. All the locations seemed kinda disconnected from any sense of space. I cackled when the snake oil guy showed up to treat the guy's foot. He's not anywhere near the other two places we've seen him. Is this even his building?

"The Governmint" being two guys and their boss who looks like every wasteland mayor ever was really good. Good enough to wipe out Shady Sands? Jury's still out.

I'm not particularly mad about "they destroyed the NCR!" but I wish they did something interesting. I do like how Moldaver flies NCR flags. That was probably the most interesting element of it

[mermaidsirennikita]

ARC REVIEW: The Trouble with Inventing a Viscount

4/5. Releases 9/24/24.

Vibes: cat and mouse, con artistry, heroine stomping her foot and going "ERRRGH" while the hero smirks

Heat Index: 6/10

Honoria Hartley doesn't want to marry--and that doesn't seem to be an issue, as she's been betrothed since childhood to the long-lost Viscount Vandemere. The last thing she expects is Vandemere showing up on her dootstep; and it's much worse than that. The man claiming to be the viscount is Oscar Flint, a con artist Honoria had a run-in with a year before (she probably shouldn't have told him about the missing viscount). She's determined to avoid marrying him--he's determined to pull off a con with his life on the line. Now, if they can only stop kissing...

One of the best things about Vivienne Lorret is her sense of humor as a writer, and this book is a perfect example of that. From the very beginning, you have this snarky interplay between the truly bratty (in the best way) and headstrong Honoria and the very smarmy yet very charming Oscar. It feels kind of like a screwball comedy, with the two of them--especially Honoria--going to increasingly ridiculous lengths to one-up each other. I'm talking like... disguises. Eyepatches. Honoria comes from a theatrical family, and Lorret takes full advantage of that.

It is a little cluttered at points, if I'm being honest--we have not only Honoria and Oscar falling in love and digging at each other, but an entire family attempting to get rid of Oscar. However, there's such a charming chemistry between the two of them--and so many hilarious moments--I could forgive a little plot lagging here and there. I wouldn't call this enemies to lovers, but it's definitely rivals to lovers, and if you're down with that... this is for you.

Quick Takes:

--I'm so used to romance novels starring plain heroines or heroines who are pretty and just don't realize it... Honoria is super pretty and very much realizes it. Oscar first meets her in total disguise (Honoria loves a disguise) and his dismay at realizing that she is in fact, just as pretty as she claimed to be, is excellent content. If only she wasn't hot!

Genuinely, the characterization of Oscar and Honoria is the best part of the book. They're both kind of disasters, and they act absolutely ridiculous over each other. It's just a lot of fun.

--At the same time, the stakes are fairly high. Lorret balances that tone with her turn of phrase, but she doesn't totally abandon the touches of darkness the plot necessitates. I mean, there is very much an executioner's bland hanging over Oscar's neck for a lot of this book. But he's so wry and clever that you don't always remember that. It's not a bad thing--the opposite, actually.

--It's honestly kind of nice to see a plot that's really zany, even if I think the pacing between the lovers could've been a bit faster. This reminds me a little of older historicals. You definitely feel the big swings coming, and I appreciate that.

--I love the Hartley family. So fun to read a historical in which the parents are into each other and the mom in particular is such a romantic. A romantic who wants her daughter to realize how important it is to get yours!

--I can't get into one thread that I was excited about... which turn out to not be that. It did make me wish that we saw more historical heroines who aren't particularly into the idea of having babies.

The Sex:

There are about 3.5-ish sex scenes, two of which sort of run into each other. They're all well-done and hot, though I think we definitely could've gotten a little more creative. But in my opinion, the hottest scene of the book is actually a RIDICULOUS picnic that has some of the most insane erotic eating content I've ever read. I was laughing, but at the same it was like... YES?

A con artist romcom is always fun, and this is no exception. Pick it up when you're in the mood for a romp, especially if you like the idea of heroines just! Not! Wanting! To admit! They're into someone!

Thanks to NetGalley and Avon for providing me with a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my won.

[theintrovertbean]

My statement about the drama

Hello!

This post will be about the whole Rai drama that they orchestrated against @asrabounding. But first, I would kindly ask anyone who hasn't read the post by @iliveforyouilongforyouvesuvia, aka brainrot, to do so. It can be quite triggering, so please, be mindful of that and make sure to put yourself first. The same warning applies to my own post.

First, I want to apologize. I did bad stuff, and I've been doing my best to mend my mistakes. I'm very sorry about the things I've done, but especially about the things I could have prevented. My friends got hurt because of something I was a part of and could have avoided if I wasn't scared to stand up for others and myself.

This is going to be a long post. Sorry about that too, but this whole drama was simply a lot.

Brainrot's part perfectly sums up what happened, but since I was there from the beginning of the drama, it would be fair to add some things from my own POV. It isn't nearly as professional as brainrot's statement, and it's more about my personal experience, which I think shows how this drama affected the well-being of the people involved. Again, this is my experience, but we all share the feelings.

The first time I posted from this account on Tumblr was in July 2022, and Rai reached out to me on November 1. Apparently, I was too intimidating, but as it turns out, Rai just needed me (and other people) for their plans. They specifically wanted to involve mainly Nadia fans, so it was only a matter of time before they messaged me.

Why Nadia fans, you might ask? Well, we could sit here all night and take guesses because no one knows for certain. Rai only pretended to like Nadia (because wanting to kill her is enough proof that they didn't like her), so their reason must have been something psychological. But again, we can't know for certain. Sadly, their actions put us Nadia fans in a bad light, and their friendship was never genuine.

I have a guess that Rai had been stalking a few bigger creators for a while and just waiting for one of them to make a mistake. Asrabounding (AB from now on) happened to be the unlucky one.

Honestly, I didn't know AB at all. We never interacted, and the first time I ever heard about him was through Rai. At the beginning of December 2022, Rai told our server about AB and how he and his girlfriend were harassing their "boi," Panda, who was completely incapable of taking care of himself, at least according to Rai.

I spoke to Panda a few times during the drama; he is nothing like Rai described, which You can tell by the screenshots as well. He is overly friendly and tends to overshare, and I would say he is pure evil, but that adjective would be far too generous in his case. I also have to add that there is no evidence of Rai and Panda being two different people. I've looked through my DMs, and a few servers that Rai is/was in and found zero traces of them ever having a conversation. I also asked around, and no one has ever seen these two interact with each other. Once, we even asked Rai to invite Panda to their server because we all wanted to get to know him, but they immediately refused, saying he is too soft and all kinds of weird things to say about one's partner. I suppose it would be hard to text from two accounts simultaneously.

The private server that Rai created was made in November, around the time when the drama began. It's crucial to mention that none of us knew AB. This allowed Rai to portray AB however they wanted.

There are screenshots in the pdf from the DMs between Rai and me. They told me quite a few things but purposefully left out important details. The screenshots Rai sent me were always sent in a way that would make AB seem like the worst person to ever exist. I (and the server) also received altered versions of AB's art, which were edited in a way to make it seem like AB was making Asra whiter or orange. Additionally, Rai maliciously gathered personal information about AB and his loved ones, which is both legally and morally wrong.

The call-out blog happened and didn't gain much attention, which was quite disappointing to Rai, but failure didn't stop them. They recruited more people for the sole purpose of hurting AB. We retreated to Rai's server until the previous drama, where Rai popped up every once in a while to stir up our anger and disturb our conversations.

Then we arrive at the latest drama. Rai's efforts paid off. One of our friends did a call-out post, and things went crazy. I don't have to describe what happened because it's in brainrot's statement, but there is one thing that I really want to highlight. Rai did nothing. Everything we did was because of them and their "boi," and they just watched us all get burned.

At some point, brainrot presented us with an opportunity to make peace with AB. Two of us even volunteered to talk to him, myself included. Rai didn't even react while everyone else was looking forward to ending the drama. Actually, Rai was unusually quiet. They gave us an excuse for being less active and just left us to deal with their mess.

When brainrot left, I almost immediately reached out to him for two reasons. 1. He is my friend. I was concerned about his well-being and wanted to make sure he was alright. 2. I was physically and mentally sick of the drama and considered leaving the server myself. There were days when I could barely function because of the anxiety I felt. I was a mess. Everyone was, but never Rai. I felt like I was in the middle of a battlefield, watching my friends get slaughtered while the person behind it all, Rai, was having the time of their life far away in a luxury tent. I desperately wanted to end that.

On multiple occasions, I muted the server for hours and sometimes even days because I could not deal with Rai. There was a clear hierarchy, and Rai would constantly try to compete with us and bring us down. Everyone else was behaving like normal human beings, and then Rai would randomly show up to pollute the air with their "hee hoos" and disturbing stories they claimed were true.

The same person who said they were gathering courage for months to text me never showed any care, remorse, or fear during our nine months of "friendship." Also, the very same person would go around texting random people on Tumblr, checking how intelligent and "mentally stimulating" (they said that, not me) they are, and trying to figure out if they hate Dorian and/or Asrabounding. They were also looking for people in a more vulnerable position, such as those who were new to the fandom and/or lonely. When everything on the list was ticked off, Rai invited them to their server. For privacy reasons, I'm not going to say an exact number, but about ten of us were "recruited."

Brainrot and I talked a bit, we both vented, and we eventually reached the point where I said that I would talk to AB just to end this madness. And so I did with brainrot's help, even though it horrified me, but I knew I had to do it for others. I expected AB to be just as Rai presented him to us, but he wasn't. The AB I was talking to was kind, understanding, cooperative, and tired of everything that had been going on. It often made me wish I met AB sooner than Rai. Our conversations with AB were and still are civil and friendly, and I am nothing but thankful to him. We compared our notes, then brainrot and I went back to DMs for a while to discuss everything.

We realized that 1. Everything Rai said about AB was a lie, and Rai just wanted to hurt him. 2. Rai lied to us and used several manipulation tactics on us. 3. Our friends were unsafe.

To include a lie, once, Rai texted me to ask if I wanted to know their legal name. They told me that they were named after a character from an anime. Later, I found from a friend that Rai told her their name too. It was from the same anime but a different character's name. This was just one example.

So we made a plan, and we had to act fast. I quickly gathered a few screenshots from the server that we could use, then we texted everyone involved about the news. Thank gayness, everything instantly clicked for the vast majority of our friends. It was tough, exhausting, and very emotional. Being betrayed by someone we considered a friend was no joke. Honestly, have never felt so much anxiety in my life. It was suffocating.

Then, three of us deleted every channel in Rai's server (every member had maximum permissions). In the meantime, we made a server of our own, a safe place where we could heal together, continue our friendship, and discuss what we were going to do next.

And that's how we got to brainrot's post. I created a document and put in whatever screenshots I had from Rai's server and my DMs. Then I asked everyone to send me all the screenshots they wanted us to include, and I put those in too. That pdf is the fruit of multiple days of work and immeasurable disgust. Even putting it together almost made me throw up more than once. It was available to everyone involved (our friends and AB as well) from start to finish. They were all free to make edits, give suggestions, and add screenshots if they wanted. AB added the anons he received and a bunch of other screenshots. Brainrot wrote his statement, and I did the group's, which is one of the reasons I didn't want to make another one. In the meantime, we found out more about Rai, and it was not pretty; the screenshots prove it all.

This wasn't the first time Rai tried to take someone down, and they bragged about it multiple times. They were also quite proud of how they were able to manipulate people. I mean, just look at what they said about how they got together with their "boi." We know of two people in the fandom who were hurt by Rai. From what I know, unlike AB, they weren't content creators. My assumption is that doing the same thing over again wasn't giving Rai the same thrill anymore, so they wanted to target someone bigger. Bigger drama = more pleasure for Rai.

There was one person who got kicked from the server because they didn't hate Lucio. Rai provoked them to make them act out of character, which resulted in a kick and ban. There were others that Rai wanted to kick out but didn't because they were still needed for the drama.

The things Rai sometimes said about characters and the people who like them were sickening. They constantly described Lucio as a mass murderer and a r*pist and harassed anyone who didn't agree with their opinions. Rai also headcanoned that Lucio SAd Nadia during their marriage. And a lot of other things...

We had to tiptoe around Rai all the time because being kicked out of the server wouldn't have been a big deal, but being separated from our friends against our will was not something any of us wanted. That small but loving community we created for ourselves (Rai excluded) was why we stayed on that server in the first place.

But also, we were scared. Whenever Rai was present, they turned us into an angry mob. I don't know when we started to feel this way, but we were uncomfortable and wanted out. However, when we looked at each other, the angry mob was all we could see. Even when an individual was in doubt, the others still put on their angry mask, and that one person felt alone. I often felt like that too, but we all knew what Rai was capable of. We were already hurting, and we didn't want to unleash the angry mob against us. If Rai were to come after any of us, they would most definitely twist everything in a way to make themselves seem like the victim(s).

Soon after the server was gone and I was no longer talking to Rai, I realized that the hate I once felt wasn't my own.

Once again, I'm sorry about what happened. We all are. I apologize for the hurt I caused to everyone and take full responsibility for my actions. I never intended for things to escalate things this far, and I regret everything I've done. The things we did were not done with a clear mind. If it wasn't for Rai and their mind games, none of us would have done anything like this.

And Azi, I'm especially sorry to you. Despite everything we've done, you treated us with kindness and worked together with us to make the fandom a safer place. You have no idea how much this means. I'm thankful for the chance of getting to know the real you.

I also apologize to my followers for bringing drama onto my blog. While I'm open to questions about what happened, I would like to get back to writing my silly little headcanons like I did before. I'm an open book, but simping for Nadia is why I made this blog in the first place. The good thing is that now I'm able to do the things I've always wanted without Rai constantly reminding me why this and that is so bad. And who knows, maybe you'll see me bring some Nadia content to a different platform as well...

Our friend group, I apologize to you as well because I didn't protect you when I could have. Things would have been different if I wasn't so scared.

Azi, Brainrot, and friends. Thank you for everything. Your support and cooperation helped all of us through these hard times, and I hope we can continue to heal together.

I don't expect forgiveness from anyone because what happened is truly horrible. While countless lies and manipulation were involved, a simple apology won't undo the harm we caused. We have been doing our best to make up for our mistakes and will continue to do so in the future as well. However, please, please be careful. Rai is still a threat, so if you see them anywhere, just run. Protect yourselves and, if you can, others as well. Please, stay safe and learn from our horrible mistakes.

-Eszter

[wevelocityteampresents-blog]

Pokémon Pocket Monsters BW Volume 1 - Chapter 12

After stopping Team Plasma from another one of their vicious plots. a Tirtouga invites Red and the others to his home in the Abyssal Ruins.

After tackling the Nimbasa City gym, the next obvious destination would be... ...Undella Town. For some reason, Anakubo decided to let Red, Pikachu, and Clefairy take a break in an area far off from their travel route. If you didn't know, Undella Town is on the other side of the country.

I guess the real reason Anakubo picked Undella Town over Driftveil City is because of the Abyssal Ruins.

Instead of being an expansive ruin with various ancient writing on the walls and floor, it's depicted in the manga as an underwater palace. I guess the main inspiration for this version of the ruins would be Atlantis. A more ideal look for one of your main settings if you don't plan on having your characters scour the sea looking for ancient treasure.

Moving onto the characters, Team Plasma returns yet again. This time making it clearer that they aren't as supportive of Pokémon as they claim. Even though they don't stay that long during the adventure, this chapter does a good job at showing Team Plasma's true colors. After seeing them talk about their purpose in "I Want To Talk To Pokémon!", kidnapping Pikachu in "Detective Clefairy's Solo Explanation!", and bullying Tirtouga in this chapter, we've finally seen Team Plasma's true selves unfold in real-time.

As for Tirtouga, he's a bit different from other prehistoric Pokémon. Instead of being resurrected from a fossil or having been discovered sleeping beneath the earth for centuries, Tirtouga uses the ruins as his home and has lived there for the past one hundred million years. He seems like a kind old tortoise who treats nice people well.

But if Tirtouga's been living there since it was constructed, then does that mean he's been around actual human beings once in his life? And if he's been living underwater for this many years, then does the same thing apply to other members of his species? That's a question that probably won't be answered.

This chapter wasn't that bad. We got to see Team Plasma as the true villains they are, a unique twist was made on a mysterious area from the video games, and most of the jokes are pretty funny. A nice ending to an otherwise excellent beginning of the Black and White saga of the Pokémon Pocket Monsters manga!

This concludes Pokémon Pocket Monsters BW. (For now at least...)

After all the series I've read through, the Black and White saga proves to be my absolute favorite. Certain story elements and plotlines are made clearer to readers who've never read any of the previous volumes, and the way newer characters and Pokémon were adapted into the Pokémon Pocket Monsters canon was done very well (most of the time, anyway...) and it's enjoyable to see them pair up with Red and Clefairy. On top of that, I've found myself appreciating the writing and dialogue between characters with the action scenes also being entertaining for how bizarre they get and the strategies Clefairy uses to win. Red also improves a bit as a Trainer and manages to defeat a multitude of Gym Leaders and Team Plasma members within a single volume. I'd say this is honestly the best Pokémon Pocket Monsters saga Anakubo has ever made.

Sadly, all good things must come to an end. We may have seen this manga's iconic beginnings, its obscure present, and its apparent non-stop rise in quality. But pretty soon we'll reach the point where Pokémon Pocket Monsters began to lose its charm. The XY saga is upon us...

TRANSLATOR'S NOTES

In the third and fourth pages, Clefairy dresses up as Urashima Taro.

Urashima Taro is a character from a Japanese folktale of the same name. One of his most memorable moments is helping a bullied sea turtle who took him to an underwater palace as thanks. This is reflected in the chapter as Tirtouga invites Red, Clefairy, and Pikachu to his home in the Abyssal Ruins to show his gratitude to them.

On page 4, Clefairy tries to bargain with the Team Plasma grunts by sharing some kimi-dango with them.

As Red states in the same panel, Clefairy's referencing another Japanese folktale. This time it's Momotaro, the boy who was born from a peach. He also carries kimi-dango which has varying effects on the people he feeds it to. With the ones Clefairy carries around, they just set Team Plasma's mouths on fire.

Ouch...

[evilwriter-originals]

Plastic Smiles

A/N: Sadly my mall horror story wasn't accepted into the anthology. However, that means I can share it here!

Rated: mature

Warnings: blood

Word Count: 4,437

Summary: A journalist named Blaine goes to investigate a mall where people seem to be disappearing.

The mall seemed to appear almost overnight. One day it had been an empty lot that was for sale, and the next it was a big, sprawling, four story mall.

But nobody talked about that in a way that implied it was unnatural. How could they when the mall was everything anyone could ever want? The food court was huge and diverse, even accommodating certain allergies (like gluten and dairy). The stores ranged from arts and crafts, to toys and games, to clothes. There was a movie theater with an IMAX screen on the fourth floor. An elevator and escalators transported shoppers between floors. 

Everyone loved the mall. It was like it was mandatory to love the mall. Or, that’s what Blaine seemed to be observing.

Blaine Fletcher was a journalist—maybe not the best of the best when it came to getting stories published—and he fancied himself an investigative one too. He was 28, and had a degree in creative writing and communications. The creative writing degree tended to make people brush off his stories, as they were usually rather strange. He thought this unfair. It wasn’t his fault that he was the only one that noticed the strange happenings of the world, and they most certainly were not made up. 

Recently, Blaine had heard about the mall through a nearly-forgotten newspaper printing. There were ads for it and its stores all over the paper. Blaine had been uninterested, but had skimmed through all of it anyway.

And he was glad he did. There, at the back, there was a list. At first it wasn’t clear what the list was, but looking at it closer revealed it to be one of those missing persons lists.

Oddly enough, an internet search showed that almost every person had last been seen at this mall. 

The mall had a name. Or, it had had a name. Blaine had been sure of that, but now that he’d driven one state over (an easy feat given that he lived in New England), and entered the mall, any memory of its name left his mind. He kept trying to recollect it, and it felt like it was there, just on the tip of his tongue, but he was floundering in fog. There was no name.

And honestly? He didn’t quite care. Maybe it hadn’t actually had a name to begin with and was just “The Mall.”

Blaine stopped at the food court first. It was a huge, tiled room with a massive fountain in the middle, bordered by all sorts of cuisines. He was hungry after his drive over from Connecticut, but now he was having trouble deciding what to eat.

He approached one of the shoppers. He was always a little shy when he first got into investigating something, even if that was just scoping out a place to eat, but once he got his rhythm going, he couldn’t be stopped. 

“Where’d you get your burger from?” 

The woman, probably in her 30s with red hair, looked around as if he was talking to someone else. He usually felt safer talking to women. He wasn’t sure if he, well… “passed” as a cis man, as it were. He was on testosterone, which had deepened his voice and made little bits of stubble appear along his jaw, but he still had his breasts. Currently, he was wearing a sports bra rather than a binder. Binders weren’t good for long days, and this one was sure to be.

“Me?”

Blaine nodded emphatically.

“Oh, that shop over there,” she said, pointing nearby. “I eat these nearly every day.”

“You… come here every day?” Blaine found that incredibly odd. Who had the time and money to come to a mall every day?

“Nearly every day,” she corrected.

“Ah, well, thank you for the help.” 

Everyone at The Mall seemed friendly, a bit more so than Blaine was used to. Wasn’t Massachusetts supposed to be the “Mass-hole” state? Ah, well, at least he wasn’t dealing with anyone belligerent or sarcastic.

The line for the burger joint moved along swiftly, no one complaining, everyone getting exactly what they ordered. Soon, Blaine was paying and being given his food. 

“How long have you worked here?” Blaine asked the man at the register.

“Four years.”

“Four years?” Blaine asked incredulously. “I thought The Mall was new.”

“It is.”

“Then how—?”

“Next customer!” The man was suddenly acting as if he didn’t exist. Okay, so maybe there were rude people here.

Blaine found a small table rather easily despite there being a lot of people here. It was a convenient one, a good place to people-watch while he ate. The burger really was very good, and he enjoyed his fries a lot as well. People were laughing, talking, smiling. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

Maybe nothing was.

Blaine was questioning why he’d even bothered coming here. It seemed like a normal mall.

Sighing, realizing he’d wasted his time, he threw out his food wrappers and then made for the doors. Time to go back home, he guessed. 

That’s when he noticed an advertisement on the directory screen. There was a small bookshop called Death & Delights on the second floor. Blaine had always loved books (one reason he’d picked writing as a major in college), and was fascinated by the name of the place. 

Death and Delights. 

Feeling intrigued, he turned on his heel, away from the doors leading to the parking lot, and headed for the elevator. If he’d been allowed time to notice, he would have seen a heavy coat of pollen on many of the cars in the parking lot. (He hadn’t been given time though.)

Blaine felt more comfortable taking the elevator; escalators had always scared him from a young age.  He was followed in by three other people.

“Going up?” one of them, a smiling middle-aged woman asked.

Blaine looked at the buttons. “There only is an up.”

“That’s what I said.”

Blaine scratched the back of his head. “Yeah, uh, floor 2.” 

The woman just smiled and nodded, and hit the button for him. 

The people in the elevator chatted as if they’d known each other a long time, all smiles and laughter. Blaine felt like the odd one out—something he was quite used to feeling—and was happy to be let out on the second floor. 

Death & Delights was a little hard to find, but he came upon it in a corner of the mall near the floor-to-ceiling windows. He thought he heard modern pop music playing, but it was nearly impossible to make out over all the shoppers and their laughter.

A little bell rang as Blaine pushed open the glass door, coming into a shop that was decorated in purple and black, with tapestries hanging on the walls. He didn’t say hello to the man at the front counter yet, just gave him a polite little wave, and began his look around.

Something about the store fascinated him. It smelled of incense and something sweet he couldn’t put his finger on. The smells were new to him, but made him also feel oddly at home.

The tapestries were interesting, depicting skeletons and naked women with long hair dancing beside them, odd symbols that Blaine had never seen before in splashes of beautiful color, and a lot of other things.

Then there were the books themselves. They smelled old, musty, and some of them had a fine layer of dust on them as if they were never touched. The spines were all cracked leather, the pages themselves looking to be yellow and old.

“Don’t get a lot of customers?” Blaine asked of the man at the front counter. He had short white hair despite looking to only be in his 50s or 60s, and piercing blue eyes. 

“Most aren’t interested in the macabre and occult,” he responded, straightening. There was a twinkle in his eyes, almost like a challenge. “Are you?”

Blaine gave a noncommittal shrug. He’d been a little interested in the occult while in college, but that interest had died away. He felt a tiny tremor of something stirring in him though, like a pleasant tingling in his gut. 

“Ah, well, take a look around.”

“I’m… actually looking for someone to speak with,” Blaine said. “Just for a few questions.”

The man eyed him up and down, noticed the bag slung from his shoulder. In it, Blaine carried his laptop, a notebook, and a variety of pens and pencils that were always going missing.

“Journalist, are you?”

Blaine laughed. “Yeah, I am.” He approached the counter, laid his hands on the glass top, which, as he looked through it past smudged fingerprints, he saw there were various crystals and miniature skulls and skeletons  for sale. Staring at one of the skulls, admiring the detail in it, he asked: “Can I get a name?”

“Victor.” The man was smiling, just like everyone else in The Mall. You were supposed to smile in The Mall. “What kinds of questions do you have?”

Blaine was fishing his notebook out of his bag. Despite packing pens this morning, they seemed to be evading him. He sighed.

“Do you have a pen?”

Victor helpfully pulled one out of his pocket and handed it to Blaine, who gave him a grateful smile.

So, Blaine dove into his questions. He was glad he’d had them written down beforehand, because he was appearing to be forgetful today. Still, he smiled, and went on.

Victor painted a good picture for him. He’d been working at The Mall as soon as it had opened, thinking it was a good opportunity for his bookshop. The Mall was a few years old and everyone in town enjoyed it. People came from different states to see it. There wasn’t anything much going on there though, despite what that newspaper had made Blaine think. 

Wait…

What newspaper?

Blaine couldn’t quite remember. He also forgot to flip his page of questions to get to the seriously juicy ones about disappearances. 

He bought the miniature skull he’d been looking at before he left, a little thing made of ceramic or pottery. Victor gave him a pat on the shoulder and helped him with the door.

“Have a good day!” Victor called.

“You as well!”

Then Blaine was heading for the elevator, feeling satisfied. He didn’t know where he planned on going to next. Maybe the basement. 

He checked his phone briefly to see if anyone had tried contacting him, saw a text from his dad, and let it go unanswered. 

He could get to it later.

“Up or down?” a person in the elevator asked him, smiling.

“Down,” Blaine answered. “Basement level.”

The person just nodded and pressed the button below 1. 

The ride was silent, and Blaine was glad the skull was hidden in a paper bag so no one would see it. He didn’t want to potentially scare anyone with it. He didn’t even know why he’d bought it. It had just been calling to him.

Once in the basement, the two stepped out of the elevator. The doors slid shut behind them, leaving them in a concrete room that was as large as The Mall was wide. Dull fluorescent lights flickered overhead. 

It smelled sweet down here, like the bookshop. 

And it was filled with people. 

Blaine suddenly felt like he’d been punched. His gut twisted, his hands beginning to shake.

This wasn’t right. 

“We shouldn’t be here,” he said to the person who had come down with him, words tight and rushed like he was going to be sick. He remembered now, that before, there had been no button below 1. There was no basement. 

“Of course we should,” the person responded with a smile. Then they meandered away into the crowd of mingling people. Some were sitting on the concrete floor, some standing, and all around there was that sweet scent that was starting to smell rather sickly.

“No, no.” Blaine went to grab their shoulder, but they were already out of reach. He turned, frantically pushing the buttons to the elevator to make it open and take him from this wretched place. 

The elevator wasn’t working. The compartment didn’t even seem to be on this floor anymore. 

“Shit,” Blaine muttered under his breath. 

He turned around, looking at all the people. Something didn’t feel right. He felt like… he felt like a cow being left for slaughter. They were all in the same boat, but they were smiling, laughing, and chatting as if nothing was wrong.

Above the sweetness, Blaine could also smell unwashed bodies and sweat. Hair was lank and oily, or packed together and bushy, as if people had tried to finger-comb it. A lot of these people had clearly been here for a long time. He noticed, uneasily, that most of the people down here were people of color, or wearing cheap clothes, or possibly even queer like him. 

Easily expendable.

Now that “shit” exclamation turned into a terrified, breathy “Fuck.”

Blaine turned back to the elevator, slamming on the doors, the buttons, anything he could touch.

“Let me out! Let me out!”

No one heard him. Or, if anyone did, no one cared. 

Blaine pressed his head against the doors, breathing heavily. He felt like he was going to panic, chest tightening, throat closing, stomach twisting with dread.

That missing persons list had just gone up.

Blaine couldn’t help it: he screamed. He screamed so loud it could be heard over the din of happily chattering voices.

No one noticed.

No one cared. 

Crying in terror, wondering how he had even gotten into this mess, Blaine sank to the floor on his knees. 

And there he stayed. 

---

Hours could have passed. Blaine wasn’t entirely sure. He’d taken out his phone, had tried calling anyone at all, but there was no signal. The time on his phone stayed the same as when he’d arrived in the basement: 2:06 PM. There was no Wi-Fi either. 

Blaine had run his hands through his hair over and over, had pulled some out, even. His dark brown curls were now a mess. 

He sat near the elevator, tears wiped away, voice hoarse from screaming. He sat silently, and didn’t smile. 

Not like the rest of the people down here. It was like they didn’t know they were trapped. How long had some of them been down here? 

Most importantly, when would The Mall try to claim its next victim? Would Blaine be able to get out then, when the elevator came back down? 

He was hungry. It was long past his usual time for dinner. He was worried out of his mind. Was anyone trying to call him? Anyone from the office? Any of his friends? His dad when he hadn’t responded to one of his texts that he’d gotten before going into the elevator?

Or would no one remember him? Would no one care? 

Blaine sat with his back against the elevator doors. He got tired of looking at the cheerful people, got tired of wondering why he himself wasn’t affected by whatever power The Mall held. So, he took out the skull from the paper bag and began fiddling with it. 

Looking at it made him think of Victor and how kindly he’d treated him, and oddly enough, he found himself longing to be in that strange bookshop again. At least he wouldn’t be trapped down here to waste away with all these smiling people. 

The elevator dinged. 

Blaine jumped to his feet, careless of the skull falling from his fingers and cracking on the unforgiving concrete.

He was ready to bolt when the doors opened, but he crashed into someone, and  fell back out of the elevator with a startled sound. He landed hard on his rear, scraping up his palms in a bolt of sheering pain as he tried to brace himself so he wouldn’t hit his head. 

“I didn’t expect to see you down here.”

The voice was familiar. Blaine lifted his head, shaking hair out of his eyes.

“Victor?” 

The older man stepped out of the elevator, not wearing a smile, looking rather calm and collected. Odd. Was he not affected by The Mall either?

“Wait, wait!” Blaine rushed to his feet, but the elevator doors were already closing. “No! No! Dammit!” He slammed a fist against the doors, jolting pain into his skinned palms. He didn’t care about that very much, didn’t care about the way blood began to seep between his fingers.

Victor just watched him with what seemed to be mild amusement. Blaine turned to him, confused and desperate as ever.

“You’re… not affected by It?” Blaine asked.

“No.” 

“Then what the hell are you doing down here?!” Blaine was angry now. “You could have let me out!” He looked around at all the other people trapped here with him. “You could have let all of them out!”

“I think It might trap me if I try to do that.” Victor shrugged. “Besides, The Mall and I have come to an agreement.”

“An… agreement?” 

That’s when Blaine noticed that Victor held a satchel in one hand. He found himself slowly backing away from the bookseller, a nervous sweat popping out on his temples. 

“Look, you have to let us out.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that.” Victor took a step forward—Blaine, a step back. There was something dangerous in those piercing blue eyes.

“What agreement, then?” Blaine asked. “You can’t break it?”

“The agreement is that I feed It,” Victor responded. “The Mall can’t kill on its own, and time doesn’t work the same down here, so it would take too long for people to die.” He put one hand in his satchel. “So I come and do Its killing.”

Blaine’s eyes went big, his heart dropping  to his feet. 

“You— You— Why are you telling me this?”

“Because you’re not getting out of here alive. Or at all.” Victor smiled, and it wasn’t like those plastic smiles everyone in The Mall wore. It was genuine, and scary. It was like a predator showing its teeth before the final attack.

There was a flash of a long blade in the flickering fluorescents, and Blaine ran.

The problem was, there was nowhere to run to. There was the entire length of the concrete basement, large as it was, but the elevator wasn’t open. He was stuck. 

He briefly thought of rushing into the crowd, of using people as something to get in Victor’s way, a shield of sorts. But that would just hurt or kill someone that wasn’t him. 

Oh god, oh god, oh god. Blaine couldn’t think straight. He heard Victor’s pounding run behind him, could almost hear his breath. He was gaining on him.

Blaine abruptly turned, tore off his bag, and threw the entire thing at Victor, who was a mere six feet away. The laptop was going to add some weight to that.

It had the desired effect; it hit him square in the face, and he went down on his back with a cry, blade loudly clattering from his hand. Blaine’s bag and broken laptop pieces skidded away.

Blaine didn’t know what he was doing, didn’t give himself time to question it. He grabbed the weapon—a long, sharp, and slightly curved kitchen knife—and straddled Victor, shoving his satchel as far away as he could just in case it contained more weapons.

“You’re… you’re going to let us all out.” Blaine held the knife in two shaking hands, chest heaving with labored breaths. His vison was blurred, and he didn’t know if it was from the running or the ice that shuddered through his veins. 

Victor didn’t look scared, just mildly startled. Blood leaked from his nose, and for a moment he just stared at Blaine.

Then he smiled.

“You’re not going to use that, are you?”

“I will!” Blaine cried, his voice uncomfortably high-pitched. “Let us out!” 

Victor still didn’t look the least bit concerned. He didn’t believe him. 

The Mall’s business partner tilted his head back and laughed. 

“Oh, you’re pathetic!” he laughed. Blood ran into his mouth and he spat it out. “You don’t have what it takes! You don’t have the mettle!” He was struggling against Blaine now, trying to get himself free. “You don’t have what it takes to look someone in the eye and take their life.”

With an enraged shout, Blaine slashed down with the knife. A wound bloomed across Victor’s left cheek. 

“I don’t have to kill you,” Blaine panted. “I just have to get these people free.” He scrambled off of Victor, grabbed him by his shirt before he could react, and pushed him. He stumbled, but righted himself, turned on Blaine with a growl. 

Blaine’s bravado was false, but he leveled the knife at Victor. That had been the last straw.

“Walk.”

“And where are we going?”

Blaine grabbed Victor’s wrist and twisted his arm behind his back. The both of them were leaving blood stains on his clothes.

“You know where. Elevator. Move.” 

Victor walked forward, Blaine close behind, holding his wrist in a vise-like grip. He was still unsettled by how calm Victor seemed, how sure of himself. Then again, this was his turf, and Blaine had only stepped into The Mall that very day.

“And how do you plan on getting all these people out?” Victor asked with a tone as if he were asking about the weather.

“None of your business. Move.” 

That was the problem. Blaine didn’t know. He didn’t know how to free anyone from The Mall’s trap. Maybe something to do with Victor? 

He told himself he’d figure it out once he got to the elevator. 

The bloody knife trembled in his shaking hand.

They made it around the crowd and to the elevator. No one noticed them. Conversation carried on as usual. 

“Open it,” Blaine ordered. 

“To you? I—”

“I said open it!” He dug the knife point against Victor’s back, hopefully giving enough of a warning. 

Victor pressed the button, the elevator dinged, and the doors opened. 

“Going up?” he asked, putting on a smile. 

Irritated with this man’s confidence, a plan snapped into place. Blaine stood in the doorway of the elevator, spun Victor around so he was in front of him, and pressed the knife to his throat.

He’d never spoken with a sentient mall before, but now was just the time for that.

“You let these people go!” he shouted.

“NO NEED TO SHOUT,” a voice came back. Or what Blaine thought was a voice. It was gentle and roiling, quiet and loud, all at the same time.

“You’re going to let these people go.”

“OR WHAT, DEAR BOY?”

“Or I kill him. No more food for you. No one helping you. You starve.” 

The Mall seemed to be considering this. 

Then, very suddenly, there was a rumbling. Blaine stumbled, but kept upright, kept his tight hold on Victor. There was no way in hell he was letting this man get away.

The rumbling continued, and it felt like something was expanding. Looking behind him, Blaine saw the elevator doing just that. The doors were widening, the space inside getting bigger and bigger.

And Blaine grew scared, feeling as if he could see every moment he’d ever lived and every moment he wouldn’t. What if this was another ploy to trap and consume them? Suddenly, the large elevator grew into a gargantuan mouth in his mind, and his knees almost started knocking together.

“How do I know you won’t trick us?”

The Mall smiled. It was like Blaine could feel it all around him, under his feet, crawling up his spine to raise the hairs on his neck.

“YOU DON’T.”

But this was Blaine’s only option of getting out with all these people. If he died trying to rescue everyone, so be it.

The people were suddenly all looking at him, a hundred tired, and slightly-crazed, desperate eyes fixed on him. Their smiles were gone, and there seemed to be conscious thought in them again.

“Get in the elevator,” Blaine said as calmly as he could. His hand trembled, and he accidentally nicked Victor on the neck, making the man flinch and wince. 

Hmm, what to do about him? He couldn’t just let him out to continue this whole agreement. 

Blaine moved aside to let the people enter, their scent rank in his nose, making his face scrunch up a little. They were murmuring quietly, looking at themselves and those around them in wide-eyed horror.

“What… what happened?” one older black man asked as he began to pass through the doors. “I just went shopping. I wanted to get my granddaughter a gift. I…” He trailed off, looking at Blaine with terrible confusion. 

“I’ll explain. Or… do my best to explain,” Blaine answered.

The man nodded, and he passed into the elevator. 

The basement was empty, the elevator full. Blaine still stood in the doorway, blocking it from closing.

“What’s your plan now, genius?” Victor asked, voice rich with condescension.

“This.”

Blaine removed the knife from Victor’s throat, and (he swore he’d read about this online once, but couldn’t remember where) kicked him in the backs of the knees so that he went down. He stumbled into the basement.

The last thing Blaine saw before the doors closed was Victor scrambling up, a loud, desperate “No!” leaving him.

And then the elevator began to go up. Blaine was surprised by this, given that he’d just broken The Mall’s agreement. Maybe it would enjoy Victor as recompense for letting them all go.

The elevator stopped.

“Okay, out! Everybody out!”

There was a rush to get to the doors as they opened. Blaine was helping to direct people. 

He made sure to be the last one out.

The Mall looked normal. The lights were on, though it was closed and empty. Tinny, cheerful music played from somewhere above.

Blaine didn’t realize that he’d still been holding the knife until he heard it clatter to the floor, staining the pristine white tiles with crimson. He sank down onto the floor, his head in his hands.

Now, he began to sob.

---

In a day, The Mall was gone, leaving the lot as empty as it had started. In two days, people forgot that it had even existed.

But not Blaine. Blaine knew now, knew that there were supernatural forces in this world he couldn’t hope to stand against.

And during each long, and all too frequent, sleepless nights, all he could see was that last look in Victor’s eyes: dread and doom.

[antvnger]

((I'm so frustrated right now. I keep seeing videos on Youtube saying that Ant-Man 3 is the worst way to end a trilogy or it's the worst MCU movie 'EVER' and other things. It's driving me nuts.

Can you do us a favour and tell us all the great things about it? 😭))

((GLADLY!!

*pulls out soap box and megaphone and stands on the box*

*speaking into megaphone* Testing, 1, 2, 3. Testing, 1, 2, 3.

Attention good people! I am here to remind you about the really good things about Ant-Man and the Wasp Quantumania! Because this movie deserves it!

First of all! To those who say this movie ripped off Star Wars, lemme tell ya, Scott Lang is a Star Wars nerd and if he was told a part of his life reminded people about Star Wars, he would eat that crap up!

And honestly, that was one of the coolest atmospheres I ever saw in an MCU movie. The Quantum Realm was beautiful and full of really creative creatures and landscapes and colors and it was better than I envisioned. I love how they portrayed the Quantum Realm.

While we're on this subject, the probability storm was ingenious and really fun to watch in my opinion. OF COURSE the QR would have something to that effect. It was an intriguing premise, and I would love to learn more just about probability storms in the QR tbh.

And what's even more beautiful is showing ALL of those Scott probabilities teaming up to help save Cassie because no matter what the challenge may be there is a 100% chance Scott Lang will do anything to help his daughter!

AND THEN if that wasn't enough, having all of Scott's probabilities and Hope's probabilities merging into one unit as if every probability led to them succeeding when they work as a team???? Poetic cinema, y'all!

I got ahead of myself, let's jump back to the beginning. Here we find Scott Lang living his best life, and I am here for it. He is successful, he is happy, he is loved, and he is loving people and life and getting the recognition he so rightfully deserves.

Those kids in the library dressed up as Ant-Man and with Ant-Man action figures and stuff? *cries* Scott deserves that.

And he also gets to enjoy life now. He gets to be a dad and tell dad jokes and finally relax and not have to worry about prison sentences or missing out on stuff or some crazy crisis pulling him away from his family. He's happy, and he's earned it.

Cassie calling Hank "Grandpa" gives me life.

Having my headcanon confirmed that one of Scott's favorite places to be is on top of the Golden Gate Bridge and him and Hope having a cute little date up there? I mean how cute are they?

Scott and Hank's relationship has grown so much, and it makes me happy like seriously. *so proud* "You read my book?" *so proud* "Every goddamn word." And when you read the book, there's a really nice interview there between Scott and Hank which makes that scene that much better to me now. Like it's wonderful.

People have been saying that Scott acted ooc in this movie, and I'm like no. No, he did not. He's not the same guy we met back in 2015. He's grown up some, he's figured some things out, he's got a better handle on life than he did back then, and he wants to protect and preserve it as much as he can. Especially Cassie's life and happiness. And why not? We all know he was like that before Endgame and then after Scott watching Tony with Morgan and knowing better than literally anyone else there (I take that back, literally everyone else there except for Doctor Strange of course) what Tony sacrificed...Scott's not ooc in this movie. He's growing. And good for him.

Paul Rudd's acting, I swear. He's amazing. The entire performance was phenomenal. Period.

This was a really good intro movie for Cassie as Stature. I'm really hoping that's what they'll go with because it sounds so much cooler than Stinger. And it's a really good intro because not only does she have her dad teaching her things midbattle that click for her later on, she is facing a ghost from her past that traumatized her. I think it was important she face Darren again. Facing him, evading him, and eventually overcoming him and her fear of him is a good jumpstart for Cassie, in tandem with the legacy her dad and grandad built, into this superhero role she so desperately wants. It was a growing moment for her too, and for her to realize that the monster that haunted her childhood wasn't a threat to her anymore was empowering for her. She's outgrown Darren Cross, and honestly, if I think about it a little more, there's a really good message for us in there too.

"This has been a weird day." Like Scott, my sweetheart, you're so relatable, I love you.

Could Hope have had a bigger role? Yes. *shrugs* I get what they were doing, but it could have been done better. But hey! She came in clutch at the end, which only underlines everything from AMATW: "Maybe you just need somebody watching your back, like a partner." And that's exactly what Hope is and did! My boy Scott was ready to make the sacrifice play yet again, and Hope swoops in and was like not alone you're not! All hail Queen Hope van Dyne!

And MicroSCOPE fans rejoice, I love you's happened! For those who are like "why didn't they kiss??" like hello? Covid restrictions, my dudes, so calm down.

Also what Hope's doing with that company of hers now? Like oh my gosh! She's doing what I've been saying Pym Tech should do with the shrinking technology, and I'm so glad Hope agrees because now I feel smart ;)

"She wasn't you, baby." Like please. I want someone to tell me this. That's love and devotion and a breath of fresh air from how Hank was in the comics.

Alright, I know you all have been waiting for this, so here it is. We get Kang the Conqueror. We set up the upcoming phase for the MCU. We show the importance, the intensity, the severity of what's to come without sacrificing the heart and humor of the Ant-Man movies. And honestly, I think they pulled it off.

And Kang was phenomenal. The controversy surrounding Majors aside, he was an incredible actor in this movie. He did such a good job, and I hope we do not suffer a recast.

Speaking of Kang, let's not forget that there is nothing quite as...fascinating as a character we know to be good and pure and sunshine personified just absolutely go ham. GiAnt-Man getting angry over Kang having Cassie in his grasp is really good, hot tea y'all, and I love it. After having imagined instances where Scott would get genuinely angry and imagining what that would look like and then to see it in canon? I feel validated.

I've said it a million times: Momma Bear ain't got nothing on Ant-Dad!

"I don't have to win. We both just have to lose." This quote still haunts me. It's so good and honestly it's so...Scott.

And also! For those who said it would have been better if Scott and Hope got stuck in the QR, shut up. No it wouldn't. No. It. Would. Not. It would have been predictable, and I feared it. I knew it was coming, and I was prepared to cry over it. Seriously. The intense relief I felt when Cassie rescued them genuinely choked me up a bit, I'm not gonna lie. It's good they're not trapped.

Also, I'm guessing those of you who are saying being trapped in the QR would have been better than the ending we got don't deal with anxiety and worry eating away at your insides until you feel like they're just gnawing at your bones, don't ya? Because my boy is seriously trying not to panic over the fact that he may have very well doomed the universe he just finished rescuing.

And honestly, that's more relatable. That's more human. We can relate with that, we can ache about that, and honestly, me just thinking about Scott trying not to have a panic attack over all of this is making my chest tight too like I'm in his shoes. The human element, very prominent in the Ant-Man movies.

Seriously. Did these people watch the same movie I saw? Because this movie has so many of the things we love about the Ant-Man films. It has heart, it has comedy, it has that familial love we love to see, it has a gorgeous and mysterious landscape, it has a badass villain, and most importantly it has ants.

And anyone who says this is the worst MCU movie probably hasn't seen all the movies because I can think of 4 off the top of my head that made me want to bang my head against the wall. And guess what? Quantumania is nowhere on that list.

I could go on, but apparently I hit a text limit in Tumblr, so I had to cut back. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk. No, I am not up for debating the amazingness of this movie. Any and all hate towards it will be removed from this blog, thank you.))

[alara-kahya]

"Things end, that's all. Everything ends, and it's always sad. But everything begins again, and that's always happy." - 12th Doctor.

Self Para: Post break-up, 3 days later. Involved: Jayden Cross (deceased), her mom & Kian. Mentions: Nate Donovan & Emiri Tezel. Location/s: Cemetery & her home. Triggers: Death, grief, heartache.

"So, yeah, that's it. Sorry to come and bring bad news, I just... Well, selfishly I guess I thought it would help." Sighing as she sat on the ground in front of Jayden's grave, she tucked her knees into her chest and decided to just wallow for a minute. It was day three since Nate had walked out and aside from this right here, she hadn't told anyone. Not her mom, not even Emiri. What was she supposed to say? "I don't know how to talk about it with anyone else, or maybe I'm just scared to." Yeah, that felt more accurate. Alara had worked so incredibly hard over the years to shape herself into a strong and confident woman, it was difficult for her to show that she was still capable of being hurt. "I know what you'd say, I even know what you'd do, you would hug me and tell me to call my mom. Actually, you'd probably call her yourself. You can't beat a hug from your mom." She chuckles, saying something that Jayden used to say about her mother. Honestly, he was as close to an adopted child as her mom had, it broke her too when he died.

The soft laugh soon turned into a sniffle and before she knew it, she was choking back a sob and desperately wiping at the tears that spilled over her eyes. "How did I let this happen again," she puffed out a breath, still somehow laughing between crying, though it was far from a place of amusement. "I did what you always wanted me to do and I took a chance. Now look at me, right back to square one and you're not even here for me to say it's all your fault." Joking, but the words only made her miserable. "I feel like a fool, I really thought if I just kept patience, he'd find his moment and talk to me. Now I'm wondering if I should have pushed harder? And then I hate myself for thinking this could be my fault, because it isn't, is it? I gave him everything, and it just wasn't enough, how am I supposed to accept that? How can I when I don't understand." Groaning, what she does understand now is why she chose to come here and talk to a headstone over someone who could actually support her. Emotional and manic wasn't her best look, she wanted to try and vent a lot of it out before she turned to her family and friends. "It just hurts, it... yeah, it hurts."

The ache that swirled all around her insides only rippled outwards until it felt like even breathing in was painful. "I'm so lost without you, Jj, I miss you so much. So much." It wasn't fair. A thought that she seemed to be thinking a lot lately. Nothing was ever fair and she couldn't stand it. "You don't know what I'd give to go back, even if it was just to see you one last time." She lost herself when he had died, that much was clear to everyone who loved her, but what a lot of them didn't realize was that she never truly recovered. A part of her was still lost, still trying to claw it's way back but it never would. There was an empty space there in her heart that belonged entirely to her best friend. Sighing, she swiped more tears away and climbed up to her feet, staying crouched as her brown eyes lingered over his name. "Love you. I'll be back in a couple days, I'll bring beer." With a sad smile and a soft hand pressed against the cold stone, she takes a deep breath and turns to leave. Hopefully looking a little less blurry-eyed by the time she got home to greet her mother.

"Hey," calling out as she drops her bag at the door. "Sorry I'm late, work ran over and then I got talking to Jay," a statement that wasn't out the ordinary, it was never unusual for her to visit the cemetery just to keep her lost friend upto date on her life. "That's ok, sweetie. Little man is all tucked up, he's just waiting for a hug," her mom smiles, though she can't help but eye Alara with mild suspicion. "Everything ok?" Hard not to notice bloodshot eyes and tear stained cheeks when they were right in front of you, but it wasn't just that. It was something Kian had told her while they ate dinner. That he heard his mommy crying in the middle of the night. "Yeah, I'll go give him his hug," shying away from her gaze, she knew she couldn't talk about it right now, not while her son was waiting for her.

Making her way up the stairs, she does her best to rub the mascara away and go in his room with a warm greeting. "Hello my beautiful baby. Sorry I missed dinner." Walking over to sit on the end of his bed, her smile actually reaching her eyes just at the sight of him. "That's okay, but nanna made me eat sweetcorn," he pulled a blegh face and shuffled out his covers to envelope his arms around her. An action that had her eyes stinging with a fresh set of tears as she wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. "I didn't tell her sweetcorn is on the no no list now." Chuckling, she kisses at the top of his head, and holds him tight, finding a warm comfort that only he could ever really provide. It almost made her unwilling to tuck him back in, but she did, somehow resisting the urge to just lay down with him. "Mommy?" Innocent eyes peer up at her as she strokes his hair. "Are you sad?"

The question made her heart hurt, she never wanted to be sad in front of him but she should have known, he was always very perceptive. "I'm a little bit sad, yeah. Missing your Uncle Jayden a lot today." It wasn't a lie, and she obviously wasn't going to tell her four-year-old child about her breakup. "It's okay to be sad sometimes, as long as you know how to make yourself happy again, and I do, so don't worry." Nodding, she wasn't sure that part was quite true, not as things stood. "How do you do that?" He asks, making her laugh softly. "Well, I just look at you and all that sadness goes away. You know what I always tell you, I'm the luckiest mommy in the world to have a baby as kind and loving as you. But it's late, so close your eyes and dream nice dreams. I love you." Leaning forward to kiss his head, she waits for him to say it back and gently leaves the room, door ajar just how he liked it.

As soon as he was out of sight, she has her hands pressed over her mouth, silencing the hiccup and quickly making her way to her room. Washing up and getting into her pj's, she's surprised when she sees her mom still here, waiting for her on the sofa. "Now that your baby is settled, let me settle mine..." Patting a hand on the sofa, Alara looks between her and the spot, wary, almost timid. She didn't want to break, but damn, it didn't matter how old she got, a mother's influence was always the instinctive way to run. And so, she grabs a blanket and walks over, settling herself closely by her side, head on her shoulder and arm around her front, allowing her mother to just be there and hold her.

"Jayden was never wrong about this, can't beat one of your hugs." Smiling as she sits up, she doesn't bother to hide the sad defeat in her eyes, instead, she just shrugs. "Nate and I are done. He'd rather spiral than lean on me. I tried, but... It's pretty impossible to fight for someone who doesn't want to be fought for." The corners of her eyes crease as she tries to say it with a calm tone. As soon as she hears her mom say she's sorry, she shakes her head, trying to tell her she didn't really have anything else to say, except maybe... "You know what the worst part is? I never forgot how crap this feels, I broke my own promise never to put myself back in a position where I can be hurt because... I managed to convince myself that this time, it wouldn't end with tears."

And in a gesture to her own, she scoffs a sad half-laugh and tries to swallow the lump in her throat. She appreciates that her mom gives her the time to talk without interrupting, the squeeze on her arm is comforting enough without making her feel crowded. "Maybe I'm just not meant to be in a relationship. Some people aren't, and that's fine. I was happy by myself, I can be that way again." Nodding, "Yeah. It's fine. I'm- I'll be fine." Maybe if she said it enough, she would actually start to believe it. "Alara..." That soft tone of a concerned mother had her sucking in a breath as she shakes her head. "Don't. Please, just don't. I don't need you to say anything." She practically insists, misty brown eyes lifting up to hers only to close with a shaky sigh. "Okay, sweetie. I won't. But you should go get me some pajamas because I'll be staying here tonight." Her mom says, lifting a hand up to Alara's cheek, hoping that she wouldn't protest. Truthfully, she didn't have the energy, and not being alone sounded far better. "Thank you."

[seerofmike]

Mike's Media Medley--May 2024

hi welcome to mike's media medley where i talk about movies and games i experienced for the very first time this month yippeeeeee

feel free to give me recommendations for things i should watch or play! this month i did actually watch something recommended to me! here r the things i watched this month:

2024 movie/show releases: The Fall Guy, I Saw the TV Glow, Challengers

non-2024 movie/show releases: X (2022, recommended to me!) Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

games: : Little Kitty, Big City (2024), Hauntii (2024), Hades 2 (2024), Birth (2023), A Way Out (2018)

here are my thoughts on all of them, in alphabetical order: movies/shows first, then games, spoilers for most.

Bodies Bodies Bodies (2022)

so i saw a trailer for this movie a while ago, where after a whole town's private things get leaked online they all go crazy and start killing each other and a bunch of teen girls are at the forefront being victimized by them and also potentially victimizing other people so i saw that Bodies Bodies Bodies was on netflix and decided hell yeah let's watch that and i kept waiting for the thing to happen

turns out that trailer was for a completely different movie but anyways

Bodies Bodies Bodies was. pretty fun i think! i was NOT very confident it would be good for the first five minutes because they played some godawful song at the beginning that went smth like 'i'm daddy as fuck' and i turned to look at my friend that i was watching it with and went oh this movie might be bad

luckily it got better. i really enjoyed the lighting choices i.e. having a lot of the lighting come from characters' phones or glowsticks, and while i definitely got the themes of paranoia when the ending twist was revealed it made me look back at the movie in a whole different light and appreciate it more.

i think the movie is at its best when its satirizing of gen z takes the forefront ("your parents are UPPER. MIDDLE. CLASS" rachel sennott you are so fucking funny) but i think the rest was a good time. i might watch it again. it's not like the bestest movie ever but it's fun with friends

70/100

Challengers (2024)

it wasn't *bad*, but i don't think i enjoyed it as much as other people did

i do think the messy relationship dynamics are probably the strongest thing it has going for it, and choosing to use tennis to channel subtext (and sometimes, Just Text) was interesting. the fucking. tennis POV shots went insane and there were some directing choices i liked. personally a big fan of whenever the movie pulls a wide shot of the audience and everyone else is moving their heads in sync trying to track the ball but zendaya just Kubrick Stares ahead

other than that. idk i just didn't really like any of the characters nor have any sort of emotional investment in them. and i do think some of that was the point. zendaya's character in particular being so obsessed with tennis; it's such a core part of her identity, and you can just feel the way she resents her husband. but then her husband sucks too and so does their ex bf and when the movie hinges on the outcome of the tennis match (both literal and metaphorical between the characters) and i don't give a shit about any of them and want them all to die then i think the movie just doesn't work the way it should because i Do Not Care

anyways the score was good but also very funny. two characters will just be staring at each other talking quietly and the score is going the fuck off

my final most controversial opinion is i think this movie got so much hype because it made u guys horny. honestly good for u. still didn't care for it tho. didn't *hate* it but i would probably not watch it again it was just Perfectly Fine. middling. Mid, the kids might even say

50/100

The Fall Guy (2024)

finally some good fucking food

honestly it kind of hurts my soul this didn't do well at the box office. as someone who wants to go into movies i really loved the 'we're making a movie' part of it, the frantic nature of trying to shoot a project where things just keep going wrong, the coordination and effort required to pull off stunts and effects like pyrotechnics or hell even just filming a car chase. mwah

it's also pretty funny. winston duke is in there and he's so fucking good. romance was Fine but i think it was really carried by a lot of the movie's funniest scenes involving the tension between Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt.

between this and bullet train i just like the way David Leitch directs action. i don't normally rewatch action movies like this but i do think i'll watch it again in the future because you can feel a lot of the passion for the craft in here and that's what excites me the most about it

80/100

I Saw the TV Glow (2024)

GO WATCH I SAW THE TV GLOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW NOW

mane. i think this movie changed my life unironically. idk i have so much to say but i dont want to spoil anything on the off chance someone reads this and wants to see it PLEASE go see it. two friends who were obsessed with a horror TV show in the 90s grow up and consider the possibility that it was More than that and there's so much about just. time moving too fast, feeling empty inside, gutted, latching onto this thing in their childhoods so hard as a form of escapism, things are not supposed to be this way and it really hits hard.

the way the movie looks is gorgeous, the color grading lighting and cinematography just give it this offbeat feeling. one scene in this movie is scarier than literally all of the horror movies i have seen this year.

my only complaint is the delivery by both main actors. it was definitely intentional but sometimes it just...drags. especially when you don't realize at first that it *is* intentional. it just feels like bad actors reading off a teleprompter at times. (ominous foreshadowing)

anyways go watch it neow

90/100

X (2022)

(sexual assault mention)

i didn't really like this movie tbh so i don't have a lot to say about it. i found mia goth's accent to be VERY distracting. i'm from texas and i do know quite a few older people who speak with a typical southern accent but hers was so exaggerated it was hard to take any part of the movie seriously. i knew what i was getting into before watching so i wasn't triggered necessarily by any of the movie's content but i still didn't enjoy it much. probably fun if you like slashers more than i do and don't mind seeing a naked grandma molesting multiple people

i think it was competently made though, so idk 30/100?

games:

A Way Out (2018)

was looking for a co-op game to play with my brother while he's in college so we settled on this one. it was like. Fine. i don't remember much that happens in it but the cooperative stuff was implemented well enough

i think the most interesting thing that happened the whole time was when we finally escaped prison and got to a bridge with cops on it. i said 'we should just get in a car and run the cops over'. my brother said we should find a way to move under the bridge. then like 10 seconds later our respective characters made our exact suggestions in-game and we both burst out laughing

Birth (2023)

Birth is a point and click puzzle/hidden object game and I enjoyed it quite a bit! it has a unique and weird, slightly off-putting aesthetic but that's really a lot of its charm. i love the weird crunchy/clinking sound effects everything has. sounds like. bones idk

i like the themes of the game but it doesn't really have a narrative, just some nice concepts/ideas to sit with. none of the puzzles were frustratingly hard and i only ever had to google puzzle solutions like twice (and one of those times it was just because i somehow overlooked the 'interactive' part of the puzzle, i'm sure if i saw it sooner i would've figured it out without needing to look it up). cute little game, definitely give it a shot.

Hades 2 (2024)

do i really have to say anything its hades fucking 2

you can pet a FROG. goty

Hauntii (2024)

hauntii is a twin stick shooter about haunting objects in your environment to progress through mostly linear paths and it looks and sounds beautiful. the art reminds me of houseki no kuni a lot and i was always impressed by it

impressed enough that i played it a couple hours despite not finding the actual gameplay particularly compelling. i think it has a sense of humor to it and visually its a treat but at some point i just got bored and set it down. i have an extremely low tolerance for boredom in video games though, some of you might find this to be a really chill experience

Little Kitty, Big City (2024)

untitled goose game but instead of a goose terrorizing a small british village you are a cat terrorizing a large japanese city

this game was cute! first thing i'm gonna say is the controls were frustrating sometimes and the camera got kinda wonky with certain actions, the platforming elements were also kinda wack sometimes BUT i could overlook most of that because of how charming the rest of it was

i met most of the other animal characters and thought they were cute too. big fan of the magician chameleon. tasks like knocking over jars just to be a menace, earning emotes that let u make a disgusted face, dedicated meow button...im a cat im a kitty cat and it was fun yippeeeeeee

i finished the game in about...6 hours? as in i climbed back to my apartment. it gave me the option to continue my game to complete everything but i was fine with all the content i'd done so far. i didn't 100% it but i'd collected a lot of hats and done a majority of the side quests. cute small game.

HOWEVER. very expensive for what it entails. 15 dollars max for it sounds good but this thing is going for 25 dollar. i'd wait for it to go on sale.

[heyftinally]

Favorite shows from your childhood?

Ohhhh anon you have asked maybe my favorite question ever! Alright, here's a list:

Hey Arnold. This show will always be top of the list. It's *STILL* my favorite. I fucking love this show, and I'm *still* proud of us for getting TJM. Go us!

As Told By Ginger. Underrated show for upper elementary/middle and even beginning high school. Definitely 80% of the reason why I gave good advice as a tween/teen. Parts of it are painfully cringey, but so was I back then lol.

Lizzie McGuire. I was primarily a Disney Channel kid, and I was *obsessed* with Hilary Duff as a singer and an actress. That show had some damn good messages, was funny as hell, and the fashions were iconic. Yes, Lizzie made me want a hair crimper, and no, I never got one.

Kim Possible. Kim was everything I dreamed I would be in high school. I wasn't, but it was a nice childhood aspiration lol. Also just a damn good show. I still sing music from it over two decades later, because the naked mole rap and say the word are FIRE songs, and I won't hear anything to the contrary.

Zaboomafoo. Yes, I was also a PBS kid lol welcome to being homeschooled in a fundie christian family - if it's not educational in some way or on Disney Channel, it's probably banned. Zaboomafoo is the reason everyone thought I was a gifted kid at five years old. I wasn't gifted, spoiler alert. I was a massive fucking nerd with ADHD who absorbed information related to her hyperfixations like a sponge. Information I didn't care about? Might as well nail jello to the wall.

One Saturday Morning, aka Doug, Recess, House of Mouse, etc. Weekend classics.

Saturday morning part 2: obscure boogaloo. Cake TV, Horseland, Winx, Bratz, The Slumber Party Girls/4KidzTV, etc. I would alternate between these and OSM, but Bratz was a special treat because it was banned at my house, so I only got to watch it at my best friend's house.

Noddy Shop. Also on PBS, basically Toy Story but better.

Chalkzone. I was an artsy kid, chalkzone was basically my ultimate dream.

Rocket Power. Had a special place in my heart because I loved it, my dad loved it, and my mom hated it. But dad said I could watch it, so mom couldn't tell me no. Dad was often on my side when it came to my hyper-sheltering, and was the reason my childhood wasn't even more sheltered/restricted/oppressed than it already was. Rocket Power also had a girl who was a total tomboy, and I LOVED Reggie. Yes I was a baby gay, we don't need to call me out lmao.

I could honestly go on. I honestly watched a lot of TV as a kid, because with a five year gap between my sibling and I (and them being the last person on earth I wanted to do anything with), I spent most of my time either watching TV, reading, or playing some kind of imaginative game with my barbies/polly pockets or just a stick I found in the yard lol.