#and like many americans watched it happen live on tv even if i as a child have no concept what was fully happening

[419jhat]

Russian Steve AU

Another plot bunny I've been unable to get out of my head...

What if Steve's parents were Russian spies and connected to the mall? What if Steve had powers? What if these were combined into two and turned into a Steddie thing?

I love the idea of Steve being like El but the Russian version, where his parents are spies and he's an experiment they willingly handed over to the government but still got to raise. They all go to the US to build the mall and Steve's trying desperately to be a normal American boy but Eddie Munson, King of Abnormality (which drives Steve absolutely crazy because who would want to stand out??) gets in the way and completely wrecks his whole situation.

TW: Dead Bodies

Steven Anthony Harrington died in 1979, sometime around midnight on the third of January. He had two parents, also lying dead in the master bedroom, a dog collapsed on the kitchen floor, and that was it. They were a reclusive bunch with an unlucky family tree filled with people that tended to die early anyway. So maybe it was fate. As the New Steve looked down at the still face of the boy he was going to replace, he thought that it's probably just the circle of life. People die, people live, and the world keeps spinning. It doesn’t have to mean much beyond that.

Old Steve felt cold. It wasn't the first time New Steve had touched or felt a dead person, but for some reason this one is different. This time, it’s his fault. He felt the body go cold and numb as it happened. He watched the emotions seep out of the body as the boy's dream ended without him waking up. His father made him watch, so he understood the sacrifice taken so he could do his job.

The weight of it makes it hard to breathe.

It was a bloodless death, caused by carbon monoxide poisoning. Painless and simple. While the house airs out, Old Steve, his dog, and his parents are quickly disposed of. There is no evidence left behind. On January fourth, sometime in the evening, the new Harrington family sat on a couch they didn’t buy, in a living room they didn’t choose, and drank a cup of hot tea, considering the moment of peace before the start of their journey.

They move without a word to the neighbors, who the Old Harringtons were never friends with anyway. Nobody knows, or cares where they are. There’s a money trail if someone bothers to look, but it doesn’t expose anything more than a house hunting vacation. Then, just before the start of the school year, they use Richard’s savings to buy a home in a sleepy little town called Hawkins, Indiana. And their new lives begin.

New Steve thought that the new home was too big. Every little noise echoed and bounced across the walls, making him jump and look around as if he’d find people hiding in them, watching their every move. When they’d arrived, he and his parents laid down on the soft, carpeted floor and stared at the pure white ceiling in silence, taking in the new world around them. They hadn’t said anything, but they didn’t need to. He knew things would be different from then on.

He spent that first week with his parents. Every morning like clockwork, they sat before the TV and repeated everything said out loud, practicing their accents and furthering their understanding of the strange phrases Americans liked to use, like, “take a rain check,” and “lipstick on a pig.” New Steve found he hated movies, where he couldn’t see people’s feelings like he could in person. They reminded him of Old Steve’s frozen body, huddled up in blankets as if he was just sleeping. Like soulless meat puppets waiting to be buried and never found again.

In the evenings, he and his mother worked through a cookbook she’d been gifted, perfecting American dishes like casseroles and meatloaf. On the second day, he helped her deliver a pie to their neighbor, and she introduced him as her shy little boy who never had much to say. It wasn’t true. He still had a hard time with the ‘th’ sound that so many English words used, so they’d decided that until he got it right, that’s who he’d be.

With his dad, during the day when nobody would question it, they cut open the wall in his office and installed a gun safe. Apparently, it was legal for normal people in America to own guns. Steve was too young to have an opinion on that, but his dad muttered in English about how it was the kind of irresponsible nonsense that made his job easier. So, maybe it was a good thing. Either way, they covered the safe with a wall once again, so they were truly out of sight.

When his parents weren’t home, New Steve quietly snuck out to dip his toes in the pool. He’d never seen a pool before. He didn’t even know how to swim. In the spot close to the deep end, where neighbors wouldn’t see him unless they stuck their heads over the fence to pry, New Steve would find the perfect stick- thin and light with no leaves, and drag it across the surface of the water, watching the ripples as they rolled across the heated surface. And that was how he found peace with his new house.

It took him a while to settle into the role of Steve, and even longer for him to climb the mantle of King Steve. But that was his job, so it’s what he did. King Steve was good at sports. Captain of the swim team, co-captain of the basketball team. Handsome, fond of parties, rich with mysterious parents who traveled often. Charming, just enough for people to wonder how he stayed out of trouble despite everything he got up to.

But secretly, Steve, just Steve, also known in his heart as Stepan, was terrified. He never let it show on his face, even more terrified that his parents would lose faith in his skills and dump him somewhere while they returned to Russia as heroes without him. He spent most of his time fueled with fear, balancing the careful images he’d built for himself as the perfect All-American Boy that his parents were relying on. Unfortunately for Steve, he hadn’t anticipated what would happen to his precious double image when he fell in love.

[beepbeepkazoo]

honestly the saddest part about like americans with how we are so desensitized to violence is that everyone like 30 years old or younger didnt even get a choice really in the matter

[f1byjessie]

HE LIKES MY AMERICAN SMILE ━━ OP81.

love is a wild ride, and logan sargeant's sister is about to find this out the hard way.

( oscar piastri x sargeant!reader )

━━ part seven.

INSTAGRAM.

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yourusername had to take these pictures myself bc apparently angles are “too hard”

view all 1,972 comments

landonorris maybe you should’ve just asked me 🙄

↳ yourusername as much as i love your results you turn what should be a quick 5 mins into a 20 min photoshoot

↳ landonorris yes and?? i’m not seeing what the downside is 🤨

user HOW MANY LETTERS IN SARGEANT???

user literally who needs boys when girls like y/n exist

↳ user REAL

logansargeant i know about angles

↳ yourusername yes logie and your future girlfriends will thank me for it 🫶

user that dress is stunning and i want it but i know it costs more than a month’s worth of my pay 🥲🥲🥲

user ferrari spotted = y/n for ferrari 2024

↳ user get that girl in a formula car and leT HER DRIVE

oscarpiastri in my defense your heels make you as tall as me 🫤

↳ yourusername methinks it’s just bc you only know how to take one type of picture and it’s the awkward dad kind 🫤

user OSCAR??? HAS OUR HUSBAND RETURNED FROM THE WAR???

↳ user mama y papa

user OP81 IS BACK IN THESE COMMENTS WAR IS OVER

With Oscar by your side, time passes quickly. You don’t bring up that the first night you shared a bed, you’d woken up in the morning with his arm wrapped around your waist and his breath tickling the back of your neck, and you certainly don’t mention that he’d practically whined in his sleep when you’d slipped out of his grasp. It doesn’t happen again, but there’s a part of you hoping that it does.

The days blend together into a haze of happiness, laughter, and exploring the beauty of Monaco. Lando shows you the best spots— a garden just off the Monte Carlo marina, a famous nightclub that takes your breath away, and a small cafe at the edge of the city that overlooks it all.

Things are good, great even, but you can’t help but feel like there’s still some distance between you and Oscar despite his reassurance that everything is fine.

When New Year’s Eve— and subsequently your birthday— arrives, you’re awoken to a flurry of texts. Your parents have both sent sweet messages wishing you the best, Sophia has left a voice message with sounds of traffic in the background telling you she’s planning to get wasted and if you do too then you can just pretend you’re wasted together, and Dalton has made a group chat with you and Logan and has spammed you both with pictures of yourselves from across the years.

Oscar’s already gone, and his side of the bed is cold, so you take your time responding to them all and then shoot off a message of your own to Logan before getting up. It’s your first time not celebrating with your brother, and it feels strange knowing that you won’t get to see him today, but you’re excited nonetheless for the plans Lando and the other drivers in Monaco have organized for New Year’s Eve.

The day passes by lazily. Lando and Oscar both greet you with birthday wishes when you make your way down to the living room and then they present to you a feast for breakfast, which you realize is the reason Oscar was awake so much earlier than you. It’s the best breakfast you’ve ever had, mostly because they make fools of themselves retelling how many times they had to scrap the failed waffles until they got it right. You spend lunch at a place close by, joined by Alex and Lily who have flown in for the New Year, and then the rest of the afternoon you wait around at Lando’s place passing the time watching the boys play games on the TV and helping either of them cheat when asked.

You’re happy.

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tagged: yourusername

logansargeant people say twins are like built-in best friends, and if that’s the case then i’m glad i got you as mine. i can’t imagine having anyone else stick by my side throughout all the crazy and wild shit we’ve been through in our lives. it feels like just yesterday we were 13 and acting as each other's lifelines in a place we barely knew, and now we’re 23 and somehow doing the same thing. you’re my best friend forever.

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yourusername love you to the moon and back again logie 🫶 (but omg these pictures are so OLD)

↳ logansargeant love you to the stars and beyond 🫶 (yea well when else am i gonna post them?)

user i thought the only reason i’d be crying today is bc i don’t have a nye kiss but here we are aND THE BABY HANDS OMG

user I CAN’T DO THIS 😭😭😭

user sobbing over a birthday post was not on my 2023 bingo but i’ll be sure to add it to 2024 if this is gonna be a yearly thing

↳ user birthdays are a yearly thing so yea 💀

user i can’t stop thinking about the fact that each other was all they had when logan pursued racing in europe and now logan’s made it to f1 and they’re still all they have 😭

↳ user the sargeant twins are genuinely gonna be the death of me one of these days

user Y/N HAS BEEN THERE FOR HIM SINCE THE BEGINNING OMG

williamsracing Happiest of birthdays to Y/N! We look forward to seeing you out on the paddock more in 2024, and can’t wait to see what the new year has in store for you! 💙

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yourusername 23 + 23 = 46. 4 + 6 = 10. 10 - 2 = 8 and that’s what we’ve done for the last 23 years 😎 but real talk, i’m genuinely so honored to get to be your sister, and to share so much with you. when you win i share that joy, and when you lose i share that grief, and even though we’re an ocean away, i’m with you today and always for the rest of our lives. you’re my best friend, and even if i don’t have anything or anyone else, i know i have you and that makes me the luckiest girl in the world ❤️.

view all 934 comments

user ATE ATE ATE

logansargeant went through all the stages of grief as i read that caption

↳ yourusername i do try

↳ logansargeant i know

user HAPPY BIRTHDAY SARGEANT TWINS

user these pictures of logan are SENDING ME

↳ user y/n always feeds the ppl the low qual pics

alex_albon adding these to my folder of embarrassing pictures to blackmail logan with

↳ yourusername happy doing business with you sir 🤝

user SCREAMING CRYING SOBBING

user my mental health is dependent on the friendship between y/n and logan and it is STRUGGLING today lads

user can’t wait to see more of them in 2024!!

Lando finds you as you’re getting ready, putting the final touches on your makeup. He enters when you tell him to, and then leans against the bathroom counter for a moment just staring at you before you quirk an eyebrow at him.

“How are things going between you and Oscar?”

You lower the mascara wand and shrug, “I mean, it’s good.”

“But?” He prompts.

“But I feel like he’s still… being weird?” You slip the wand back into the mascara tube and then tuck it back into your bag. “I don’t know. Maybe we were a bit too realistic with the whole ‘making him jealous’ thing, and now he believes you’ve stuck your claim and he’s distancing himself because he doesn’t want to step on your toes or something.”

Lando snorts, “As if. I made him share a room with you, how does that in any way imply that I’m trying to stake my claim on you?”

You run a hand through your hair because you can’t run it down your face without ruining your freshly done makeup, and heave a sigh. “Then maybe he just isn’t actually interested in me at all, and I was right about him wanting to pretend the kiss never happened.”

He hums, then nods once, twice, a third time, and finally leaves the bathroom without another word.

When you finally follow him down, a number of people have already arrived— Alex and Lily are among them, and you greet them again with smiles and hugs. You’re introduced to Max Fewtrell, one of Lando’s close friends, and then you’re dragged away by Lily to hang out in the corner of the living room as the house begins to fill with current and former drivers alike.

“It’s a sausage fest,” she jokes, and you laugh beside her.

You both make conversation for a while, catching up on her and Alex’s holiday spent in California with her family and then talking about your own in Florida with yours. She asks how Logan’s doing, and you tell her that he’s well, but he’s really motivated and wants the chance to prove himself in the 2024 season already.

“I think the online discourse about whether or not he deserved a seat got to him a bit,” you admit. “But I know he can show them that there’s a reason he was chosen.”

Lily nods. “Me and Alex have faith in him too. It was his rookie year and he was in a Williams of all things. Like you said, there was a reason he was chosen, he just needs the opportunity to show the world that.”

You jump from topic to topic for a little while longer, until you excuse yourself to go find where Lando and Oscar have run off to. The guests have all arrived from the looks of it, and while a number of them all know each other already and have split off into groups to stay entertained, you’re not sure exactly how you’re meant to handle things on your own when it isn’t even your house—

“I mean, it’s fine, yeah? It’s just awkward with her, I guess.” You pause. The door to you and Oscar’s shared room is ajar and Oscar’s voice is just barely audible over the sound of music and chatter filtering up from downstairs.

���Why d’you say that? It’s just Y/N.” Lando’s voice follows.

You press yourself up against the wall, heart pounding in your chest at the sound of your name. You can’t see anything, and that almost makes it worse— imagining what their faces look like as they talk about you.

“Just that it’s weird sleeping next to her, and I feel like I’m always having to walk on glass around her. I’m trying to make things normal again, but I don’t think I can. I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep being friends with her. How can I look her in the face, knowing what happened?”

You can physically feel the dread settle into your stomach. Your heart clenches painfully in your chest and it’s like your blood has turned to ice in your veins. Your face feels warm, but the rest of your body feels cold, and suddenly it’s as though your ribcage has become too small for your lungs.

As quietly as you can, you scurry away from the door, across the distance of the hallway, and then down the stairs. Instead of turning into the living room where everyone else has gathered, their laughter and conversations a jumbled bubble of noise that makes your chest feel even tighter, you leave through the front door just as you feel tears begin to fall.

It’s worrying how frequently this has become an occurrence for you— crying because of Oscar.

━━ tags: @f1-is-lovely-33 @chasing-liberosis @405rry @aquangxl @bellezaycafe @peqch-pie @formulaal @chonkybonky @mess-is-my-aesthetic @flippingmyshit @peachiicherries @spacegirlstuff @myxticmoon @landosgirlxoxo @k-pevensie28 @moonypixel

━━ a/n: ahhhh i'm sorry i cannot let them be happy!! also, wrote this really fast and struggled a bit because i genuinely couldn't decide if it was just too fast paced or not, so i apologize if it seems rushed or if there are any mistakes editing wise that i missed!

[curioussubjects]

How is there a throuple on prime time TV?And why are they the medical staff on a luxury cruise?

I'm still not sure how Doctor Odyssey is a real show that's airing every week and not some fever dream, but since it seems to be that it is a real show, here's why I think it's yet another medical procedural drama...and on a cruise!

While polyamory has become more widely acknowledged in the mainstream, it's hardly normalized or even common in both media and people's lives. Likewise, queer representation, especially that of bisexual men, is still far from being without controversy (if it's allowed to be represented at all, as Supernatural fans like myself well know).

So, again, how in the world is Doctor Odyssey, which very explicitly centers the developing sexual and romantic relationship between Max, Avery, and Tristan a thing that exists? Or, to put it another way: if we have a story that is unusual for most people and even uncomfortable for many of them, how can that story be told without alienating the audience?

The answer: tell it in a way that feels familiar, and maybe a little detached from reality. So, medical procedural drama on a cruise! Ok, let me explain:

Why a Medical Procedural Drama?

Not only has the the genre been a staple of American television since the 90s (thanks, ER), it's a type of story that is told in formulaic ways. It is, after all, a procedural. Both its familiarity and predictability allow the audience to sit back and enjoy the story unfold with its expected beats. This type of TV is meant to be fun and easy to watch. Such shows might give you some current issues beats to ponder as you watch, but they're not making you do a lot of work.

But why medical as opposed to law enforcement, which is a much more common type of procedural? Because, thanks to the legacy of shows like Grey's Anatomy and House MD., medical dramas have a lot more leeway to be dramatic AND unrealistic while somehow preserving the veneer of realism. It's this allowance for dramatics and breaches of realism that create a comfortable bubble of "sure this might as well happen" that prevents the audience from being alienate when faced with a wide variety of topics that can be as accurate or fantastical as the plot demands.

Polyamory, within this broader landscape, can be a Very Special Episode that just so happens to span every episode, and viewers can be carried through that plot by the familiar patterns and conventions of the genre.

Why on a Cruise?

Oh, aren't medical procedurals so cliché? How can we make it interesting?? I know, put them on a cruise! We haven't put doctors on a cruise yet! (totally 100% real conversation on ABC)

Sure, the cruise premise stinks of gimmick, but what if that's the point? Surely, most people would see a show like Doctor Odyssey and imagine that what makes it different is that it's set on a cruise. Yeah, that's not completely untrue, but the cruise serves a much more important purpose than being a differential on a pitch.

In fact, the cruise, like the medical procedural, is another liminal space that allows for multiple ways to engage in fantasy or reality as the plot demands. Mainly, and most crucially, though, the cruise is a bubble, an illusion, which is a point the show itself makes in the pilot episode. It is unmoored (heh) from the expectations of land, like accurate representations of healthcare, or say...monogamy as default. As such, the cruise makes not only for a dynamic choice of setting, but a very intentional one.

Reality Check:

The interplay between genre and setting is crucial. The audience, with all its expectations, of what a medical procedural drama is know what they're tuning in for, and they can easily imagine the dramatic (or ridiculous) nature of the cases that will be present in a luxury cruise. True enough, as I mentioned before, the pilot episode starts by being very honest that the cruise is an illusion: the captain shows and describes all the craft and skill that goes into creating a safe space for passengers to engage in fantasy. The genre savvy audience is then invited into aligning not with the cruise passengers, but with the crew.

Except Doctor Odyssey isn't really about the medicine, or the cruise, is it? It's about Max, Tristan, and Avery. So the audience is given a choice at the metanarrative level: be the passenger or be the crew. Be aware that the point of the story is the polyamory or tune in for medical staff...on a cruise! Win-win! What I think is fun and clever about all this is that no matter who you choose to align yourself with, you can't ever truly escape reality lurking in the wings. The polyamory is simply there no matter how resistant the audience, but the setting and the genre create a buffer around it.

Sure you can have a threesome on a cruise, it's like Vegas. No big. Nothing threatening to social conventions. It's not real. But reality has a way of reasserting itself: in the tragedies that befall the passengers on the ship, or their mishaps, or the cherished memories they'll look back on. And while the crew upkeeps the illusion, they aren't immune or completely separate from its effects (good and bad). No one can divest themselves from what they experience on the cruise and neither can the viewer.

Through genre convention and its setting, Doctor Odyssey (and I mean, look at this title alone lol) navigates the unfamiliar waters of accepting the richness of the human condition (to echo Captain Massey), and brings the audience safely to shore with a new understanding of what relationships can look like.

And this is how Doctor Odyssey managed to get produced and make it to air, and we get to be unhinged about Tristan, Max, Avery, and the YEARNING. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk etc.

[slavghoul]

Interview from Metal Hammer 8/2023

LIFE LESSONS from TOBIAS FORGE

Shock rock, bad glam bands and wanting to be Venom: inside the brain of Ghost's benevolent overlord

Tobias Forge is the mastermind behind one of the 21st century's hottest metal bands, but even he’ll admit that success was a long time in the making. Hailing from the Swedish city of Linköping, the Ghost frontman dabbled in everything from death metal to glam before donning the iconic Papal attire and paint to transform into Papa Emeritus, transcending his roots to become a larger-than-life character. Here are the key parables he has to share, gleaned from more than 25 years on the heavy metal frontlines.

MUSIC AND MOVIES ARE GATEWAYS TO OTHER WORLDS

“Linköping was a nice city to grow up in. It wasn’t so small you felt like you were cramped in a village, but it’s small enough that you’d still want to eventually move somewhere else. You’d have access to all these gateways to other worlds through the record stores and the local video store. My dreams started there - everything I do now, I dreamt back there.”

I WAS A TEENAGE HEADBANGER

“I had a teenage brother growing up, so I had a free pass into teenage culture. Whatever they consumed, I got a whiff of - how they dressed, what they watched on TV, what films they rented... The lifestyle and expression that meant most to me was shock rock. Twisted Sister were a wrecking ball into my life with I Wanna Rock. That song made me want to bounce!”

THE HEAVIER IT GOT, THE DEEPER I WANTED TO GO

“When I first heard Candlemass, I was eight and I was blown away. I already liked Black Sabbath, Metallica and Motorhead through my brother, but Candlemass were local and sounded so heavy, it was like doomsday. King Diamond and Candlemass served as a segue for me to discover death metal and black metal in the early 90s. It became my calling. From the ages of 12 to 22, I spent my life in death and black metal bands.”

FOLLOW YOUR HEART (AND SOMETIMES YOUR WALLET)

“My mom is from Stockholm, so when I was 15 and started saying I wanted to move there, she was just like ‘Finish mandatory school’ and we moved together [after I graduated]. I moved back to Linköping when I was 25, because Stockholm is a big metropolitan place and it’s not fun living in those places if you don’t have money. Now I’m in Stockholm again; it’s more fun now I can afford it!”

HEAD IN THE CLOUDS, FEET ON THE GROUND

“I learned the hard way in the late 90s that wanting to play 80s-inspired death metal with my band Repugnant was     painfully out of touch with what was going on at the time. It broke my heart; I wanted us to be signed to Roadrunner and support Slayer. That never happened unfortunately - or perhaps fortunately, as it kept me grounded for a few more years and if those things had happened maybe I wouldn't be here today.”

TAKE CHANCES, BUT STAND YOUR GROUND

“Repugnant had a close shave with success. We signed to the label Hammerheart, which at the time felt like we’d made it because the first thing they did was take us out on our first tour, supporting the American band Macabre. They were a favourite band of ours - still are, and whenever we play Chicago they come to the shows - and at that point it felt like we might be going somewhere, but we quickly parted ways with Hammerheart because we couldn’t agree. It felt like our chance and we’d blown it.”

NOT ALL 80S BANDS WERE CREATED EQUAL

“With Crashdiet, we never really went beyond our home. I can’t say how many shows we did, but I don’t think it was more than a handful. For me especially there was conflict with the singer, Dave Lepard. We were friends, but he clearly wanted to take his band into some sort of glam-sleaze direction, whereas when I think of ‘glam’ I’m more Hanoi Rocks and Guns N’ Roses - never, ever the other bands. I know Poison kinda came before a lot of the latecomers, but to me they were repellent. Dave wanted to go all neon and I wanted it so that if we were glam, we’d be Hanoi Rocks meets Lords Of The New Church or The Dead Boys. I don’t want to be fucking Stryper! Fuck that!”

THERE’S NO POINT TRYING TO FOLLOW FASHION

“It was a confusing time in the early 2000s – rock was all of a sudden in fashion because of bands like Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs. Everyone was always looking for the next big rock band and in Sweden The Hives were huge, as were The Soundtrack Of Our Lives, The Hellacopters, Backyard Babies...so many rock bands! But there we were in Subvision, influenced by The Dead Boys, with a little-too-long hair, leather jackets, just a little too ‘metal’... yuck! You’re supposed to be more indie; heavy metal is about having the biggest dick and indie is the opposite.”

FIRST IMPRESSIONS REALLY DO COUNT

“I hated The Strokes when they first came out. Back then, everyone described them as being so natural, that they weren’t interested in being rock stars, and I was like, ‘No. They didn’t wake up looking like that.' They chose to do that to be rock stars. And they can really play! Then when First Impressions Of Earth came out it was like, ‘There you go! That's what they really sound like! After that, I loved The Strokes, because they were showing they actually did love the music, but a lot of indie rockers treated it like it was their sell-out record.”

HAVE A VISION IN MIND

“Ghost started with a song, Stand By Him, which ultimately came out on our first record. I wrote it spontaneously, as an experiment - almost a joke, if you will, in 2006. When I recorded it the first time, I had no equipment in my home, so I had to go to a friend’s house. We did this very rough demo. He said it was great. He’d been in Subvision, Repugnant and Crashdiet with me, but we’d stopped playing together. He was like, ‘Can we form a new band?’ and I was like, ‘This song is the only thing I have. If I can come up with two more songs and there’s a pattern, then of course.’ But they needed to be as playful and spontaneous, and sure enough they were.”

PRESSURE CAN DO WONDERS

“Around 2008, when Ghost were first getting properly started, my girlfriend told me she was pregnant with twins. I never said it out loud, but I was preparing for my dream not coming true - maybe I wouldn’t become a rock star, I’d never be successful... So I had to at least have something that I could live with, a hobby that I could feel strongly about and get all my inclinations filtered through. I wanted to play metal, but also write pop music, have this horror rock show with theatre... Still taking inspiration from Venom pictures in 1982 where they looked like bikers surrounded by smoke and red lights. Ghost felt like a combination of all those things. Lo and behold, when I didn’t have all the time in the world, like I had before and gotten nowhere, when I could only put so much effort in, everything changed.”

THE MYTHOS IS NICE, BUT ONLY THE MUSIC MATTERS

“It was so weird, being threatened with a ‘reveal’ [Tobias’s public identity was revealed after ex-members took legal action against him in 2017I, as if people knowing who I was would be such a turn-off that they’d never listen to Ghost again. Here I am, most of my life wanting to be known, but then I was fighting to be unknown? What a paradox!”

ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES

“I’ve always tried to be like a general – have a goal, like, ‘Let’s take that castle’, but knowing that things can change in the field. You need to conduct yourself with a certain level of elasticity. I know I’m a control freak and want things to be done in a certain way, but I’m also aware things never work out that way.”

CHALLENGE YOURSELF

“One of the biggest weaknesses with modern metal - and horror - is that it’s being created and curated by people who only like that thing, so it becomes regurgitation. The best horror movies I’ve seen - Jaws, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, The Exorcist, The Omen - were made by people who never made horror films elsewhere. They wouldn’t limit themselves. If you don’t like other things, that’s fine, but if you ever feel stuck creatively it might just be that you’re sticking too close to home. I can’t even imagine just sticking to one lane these days.”

[timegnosticproductions]

Ghosts: BBC vs CBS

It’s been almost a month since I finished BBC’s Ghosts, and I cannot stop thinking about it. It has quickly become one of my favourite TV shows. I watched the US-American version first because it had been plaguing my TikTok FYP. It was a fine show, but it didn’t have the grip the BBC version currently has on me.

This is an exploration of why I found UK Ghosts to be a much more compelling story than US Ghosts, even if they are “the same show”.

DISCLAIMER: There will be spoilers for both shows.

The Main Couple

Underappreciated in both shows, let’s begin with the two livings: Alison and Mike, and Sam and Jay.

Sam and Jay feel, to me, like they just spawned at the beginning of the show. They aren’t people, with lives before the fragments we see, which will continue after the show ends. Sam is the biggest offender of the two. Where are her friends from before she moved to Woodstone Manor? I would understand if she didn’t have any friends over, and we also have to consider that the US is massive compared to the UK, and her friends might live on the other side of the country. But not one call? No facetime? Not even one text message? And let me be clear: I don’t want this to be a show about her living friends, and I don’t need them to be characters in the show, but do Sam and Jay have to be completely cut off from the real world?

Alison and Mike, on the other hand, have a friend group, and when these friends play a role in an episode, the focus is still on the ghosts’ reactions. They don’t distract from the main characters, while still making Alison and Mike feel more grounded in reality.

Character moments vs. cheap jokes

I’m not the first person to point this out, and I certainly won’t be the last, but it’s still worth saying: why would you change a ghost’s powers from Mary reliving the moment of her death, being “burned at the stake” again, and subsequently making the living people that have passed through her smell the burning of the fire that killed her, to a fart joke. Isaac’s life/death is tragic, but his ghost power being “fart” get’s really exhausting really quickly.

Ghost lore

Expanding on ghost powers, let’s talk about the other ghosts. This point, I realise, is less black and white and more about personal preference rather than bad writing. I like that Ghosts (UK) doesn’t always directly answer the viewer’s questions about the afterlife. Some ghosts have powers, and some don’t and the ones that don’t aren’t searching for them. Mary gets “sucked off” but we don’t know what comes next.

In the US version, however, there is explicitly a hell and a heaven, and Elias comes back from hell to tell us what happens there.

That is one of the many charms of the UK version, the uncertainty. What comes next? I don’t want to know.

I also think it helps the emotional punch of Mary’s death (re-death, moving on? idk) land better. If one of the CBS ghosts were to die, the grieving wouldn’t be as devastating, because we know what comes next, and how could we be sad when a character has, certainly, gone to heaven? It could still be made into an interesting episode, maybe exploring the other ghosts’ (especially the older ones) jealousy, who also want to get “sucked off”. Still, I much prefer the uncertainty of Mary’s death (would also very much like to see a main character from the US version move on, just because I would like to see how they handle it when it isn’t a fake out like with Flower).

Found family vs. pair the spares

CBS’s Ghosts has an obsession with romance, to the point where it is quite frankly absurd.

You know when in a fandom there is a four-person friend group (or other even number) and two of those characters are in a really popular ship, so the fandom decides to ship the other two characters together as if they couldn’t be happily single, or aromantic, or whatever? (Author’s note: yes, aromantic people can still date, doesn’t take away from my point.) Yeah, I feel like that watching CBS’s Ghosts. Some characters are single, but I still think there is too much of a focus on romance/sex, with Flower and Thor, Isaac and Nigel, Hetty and Trevor, Pete and Alberta/Donna since he discovered his ghost power, and I’m sure when the series is over I will have more examples. Maybe, if these couples had more chemistry and were properly set up, I wouldn’t be so hard on them, but my point still stands.

Both shows try to pull off the found family angle, but only one of them succeeds. You can’t call it a found family if your only “family dynamic” is “romantic relationship”, that’s just a regular friend group. The Captain and Kitty’s father-daughter relationship is one of my favourite things about the original, and I also love Julian being a sort of mentor to Alison in all things scheming. It can even be played for laughs, with Robin being the “family dog”. None of this charm is carried over to the US-American version, and I really, really wish it was, because it has made me fall in love with the BBC’s version.

Pacing

You know, for a show with 20-ish episodes per season instead of six, you’d think they could take more than an episode to develop a storyline properly. Let’s take a closer look at two storylines that appear in both shows.

Firstly, the one with Alison’s/Sam’s long-lost sister. In the BBC’s version, this is a season-long arch, and it is not solely centred around uncovering whether she is lying, but also discussing Kitty’s jealousy and possessiveness over Alison; and Alison’s deep desire for a family, and how the ghosts have become that for her. And, generally, it makes you believe that Alison would believe the lie, and wouldn’t see the holes in the story, because she just really wanted a sister. Sam’s story plays almost the same but is reduced to a single episode. I know it is the classic sitcom formula, things must return to the status quo by the end of the episode. Still, I wish it wasn’t so rushed.

Secondly, the Captain(s) coming out. In both shows, the queerness of these characters is very obvious, but in the UK version, coming to terms with his queerness and learning to express his feelings is the core of his character. However, the US version takes this in another direction, placing more importance on the budding relationship between Isaac and Nigel (see: my point about this version’s obsession with romance). The UK version is hardly subtle, but compared to the US version… I wouldn’t be so angry if they hadn’t decided to undo their development by having Isaac leave Nigel at the altar.

Bad people vs. bad characters

This discussion should extend beyond Ghosts and into literature/art in general. To quote Oscar Wilde, “It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” A character being a bad person doesn’t mean they are a bad character, those two qualities can coexist, but don’t always come together. CBS’s Ghosts seems wary of making any of the characters bad people. BBC’s Ghosts doesn’t have this problem. Julian (the equivalent to Trevor in the CBS version) is a bad person, especially at the beginning of the show. And he is probably my favourite character. He died of a heart attack while cheating on his wife, he didn’t bother to take care of his daughter and he attempted to kill Alison, which ultimately resulted in her being able to see ghosts. He is not nice, and the show doesn’t want you to think that. And you watch him grow throughout the series and it is great.

None of the characters in the US version are bad. This is mostly just a pet peeve of mine, but I do think it makes things much more static. Everyone in this version is just too nice. And too excited about everything. Why is Sam so onboard with the ghosts? Why is she never annoyed with them? And why do they never talk over each other? Do they never get tired of each other? I mean, some of them have been “living” together for centuries!

This topic in particular is something I want to write about more extensively, looking at other shows and fandom perception and that kind of stuff, so I’m going to cut myself here.

Conclusion

I don’t think that CBS’s Ghosts is, like, the worst show ever, it just doesn’t live up to its predecessor. That was just, from my point of view, a really high bar. There is one thing I think it does better than its BBC counterpart, and that is Jay’s relationship with the Ghosts (as opposed to Mike’s), which is to say, he actually has one.

So, yes, CBC’s Ghosts has lots of issues that may come from adapting the story for an American audience, or may just be lousy writing. Either way, I still enjoy it, although the episodes are definitely harder to get through.

[crooked-wasteland]

I've always seen Helluva boss as a show that try so hard to be something isn't, and after reading your articles about BoJack horseman and how hb directly borrowed some of its ideas . It's started to make sense so here's my take:

Helluva boss can't be BoJack or anti-BoJack , there is room for inspiration sure . But the difference between two shows make it odd whenever someone try to compare them. Since BoJack is story of American man who happened to have a horse head, therefore the protagonist is forced to obey the morality rules that we as audience have . Helluva boss is story of demons live in society that only value violence , the rules of morality is broken in this world so where it makes sense for the show to calls out BoJack's toxic dating patterns, why should i care for blitzø's that man cannonly makes fun of children deaths of cours he's not a good partner. Another thing that BH like other many adults cartoon is critical of American culture (Hollywood culture for BoJack case) and while HB trying to do the same it only water down its world , you can point out to something relatable to our society without loosing the fantasy elements in your world especially if your otherworldly character travel to the human world constantly and see it from stranger point of view, but hb didn't do that it just turned the hell to american , and maybe this is thing bugs only me as non-western . It would be more entertaining if we explore the hellish society as something new and fresh.

(out of topic sorry)

But even if we want BoJack-like show the writer clearly don't know why BoJack works but I don't need to tell you since you already wrote about that, I remember watching a clip of livestream where medrano admit she blind-love her favourite media without critical thinking and I think this is her biggest weakness, she's the kind of person who would see something cool in TV so she applies it to her OCs without a further thinking which explains the directe reference of others show like BH

These are excellent points. There's a saying in writing that goes "Write what you know". The team who wrote Bojack knew the ins and outs of that Hollywood bubble due to professional experiences. And because Bojack was written by a diverse team of creative people, they even addressed how eating meat would work in a universe with sentient animals. They had the experience and knowledge of setting as well as basic life experience to ask obvious questions in the name of world building.

It's why I argue that Medrano appears to be someone with very few life experiences. Not only does her story lack emotional depth, having a shallow well to draw from, but basic rules of world building are neglected in a way that is very obvious due to a lack of human curiosity.

Writing what you know isn't supposed to be limiting. Instead it's supposed to challenge you to ask more questions. Expand what you know to incorporate it into your imagination.

[trashpandato]

Twilight

“In hindsight, I probably should have known what it meant,” Alex groans, bringing both hands up to cover her face. “I made sure that I only hung up the posters that had Kristen Stewart on them.”

Kara remembers all those posters, the too pale boys possessively flanking the movies’ main female character. She’d always wondered why Alex was so into the Twilight series; they were all just…so bad. Now it made more sense.

“Aw, babe,” Kelly teases, ���let me know if you want me to reenact any of your teenage dreams about biting. I’m game.”

Alex groans again, but this time it’s accompanied by a bright blush. 

Laughter fills the room. They’ve been sharing stories about their first significant celebrity crushes for the last few minutes, the board game temporarily abandoned in front of them.

Kara has learned that Nia had a thing for Keanu Reeves after watching that bomb on a bus movie one too many times, but that she also “wouldn’t have kicked Sandra Bullock off her bed”, as she put it. 

Brainy mentioned that he went through a rather intense phase of trying to learn more about Earth culture, specifically American pop culture, and that he got stuck on the OG Wonder Woman, Lynda Carter, for a while. Not a bad choice, Kara thinks while Nia jokes that she’d be more than happy to tie him up with a lasso. 

Kelly then rattles off a few actors that Kara thinks were on the L Word, with a particular emphasis on Jennifer Beals. Kara half expects Alex to make a joke about Flashdance, but instead, Alex simply leans into Kelly and presses a soft kiss to her cheek. 

When they get to Kara, she has to disappoint.

“I don’t think I have anything to offer here. Not really.”

Alex hums. “The posters on your walls were all images from the Hubble telescope. I mean, I know you liked NSYNC for their music, but I don’t think you ever swooned over any of them. Not really. There was definitely a mental love affair with Lilo and Stitch, though.”

When Alex mentions the Hubble images, Kara feels a cool pale hand slip into hers to give it a short squeeze. It’s brief, a quick show of support, but it means everything to Kara. She turns to Lena and smiles gratefully. At the same time, the attention of the rest of their friend group shifts to Lena as well.

But Lena just shrugs. “I definitely wasn’t allowed to hang up any posters in the Luthor mansion.”

“Yeah, but what about boarding school? Come on, Luthor,” Alex probes, “you can’t tell me there wasn’t a ton of celebrity gossip going around at an all-girls school.”

“Oh there was gossip alright. I can’t say I ever really knew what it was about, though. I didn’t really watch movies or TV growing up, so most of the names the girls were talking about meant nothing to me.”

This time, it’s Kara who squeezes Lena’s hand. She knows that Lena doesn’t like to talk about what growing up was like for her. She doesn’t like the pitying looks, or the constant assumptions that just because her family was rich, Lena must have had everything she ever wanted. But before the mood in the room turns too gloomy, Lena sits up a little, a small smirk on her face.

“So maybe I was a bit of a late bloomer that way. I would say I had my first real celebrity crush in my early 20s.”

That gets everyone’s attention.

“Oh really? Who was it?” Nia asks gleefully.

“Well, I was still in Metropolis at the time. But I had watched them on TV, followed their budding celebrity status.”

Lena pauses for a moment before she turns to face Kara more fully.

“And then I gave Jack Spheer an impassioned speech about why I had to move to National City, about how important it was to me to be the Luthor living in the same city as Supergirl. I believe I even said I wanted to share my home with her.”

There’s a stunned silence in the room for a few seconds before Alex barks out a laugh.

“Really? Your celebrity crush was Supergirl?”

And Kara considers if she should intervene, tell Alex to lay off on the heavy teasing she knows is going to happen now, but Lena is looking at her and she’s still smiling, calm and confident, and Kara simply smiles right back.

Lena chuckles, her eyes never leaving Kara’s. “Of course it was. I mean, have you seen that skintight suit and very, very short skirt she was in at the time?”

“Ugh,” Alex huffs, “I didn’t need to hear that. That’s my sister you’re talking about.”

Lena shrugs again. “You asked, I answered.”

And then she leans in and kisses Kara and Kara makes a mental note to figure out how to send a message to Winn into the future to thank him for his incredibly “male gaze” costume design for her first Supersuit. 

(She does very much prefer the pants these days, though.)

[dangerousartisanwerewolf]

To all the Americans on tumblr rn...

I am not American, nor am I old enough to vote yet as I missed being the legal voting age for my province by only about a week- curse my extremely late birthday.

(which weirdly enough has also had such an incredibly tight election that they are still counting the votes right now even though it happened 2 weeks ago because the two parties are basically tied. }

but I am also very worried for you guys way down south. Hopefully America will put the right person into power this time and everything ends up being ok for you all. Not to be too cliché but I am sending thoughts and prayers and I hope you guys all stay safe down there. I honestly can't even imagine how you guys fell- I don't even live there and I've been feeling increasingly nauseous as the hours go by and I have had to offline for the most of the day.

Remember:

To take care of yourselves. Just in general, in whatever way you see fit

You absolutely do not have to live stream the election polling/results thing on TV, doom scroll election content the whole day long, watch the news, or consume any other election related content. As horrible as it feels to say this; the results will be the same regardless of whether or not you are watching it. Sometimes it is just better for you and your mental health to just log off of sm/screens for the night

If it all does feel like its getting too much for you, please log off/take a sm/screentime break

Most importantly, if you haven't already, please vote!!!! I am not American and am barley old enough to be considered a legal voter (Missed my own countries election *tears*) so I can't really help in terms of providing resources but I am sure there are all sorts that can help you I'm sure. I know that its getting late at night; some polls have closed already but not as many as you would think. I found out that most are actually open way later than I thought. As it turns out, some are even open til 1! You learn something new every day I guess!

Just Please, Please, Please go out and cast your ballot and make your voice known, with how close this is quite literally every voice matters!!! GO VOTE!!!

Poll closing times in case you need it (I only included ones that close 8pm and upwards because it is 7:30 at the time of writing this)

8 p.m. ET

Alabama

Connecticut

Delaware

District of Columbia

Florida (Polls in Eastern time zone close at 7 p.m. ET; part of Panhandle are in Central time zone)

Illinois

Maine

Maryland

Massachusetts

Mississippi

Missouri

New Hampshire (Polling hours vary by municipality and are listed by location here)

New Jersey

Oklahoma

Pennsylvania

Rhode Island

Tennessee

8:30 p.m. ET

Arkansas

9 p.m. ET

Arizona

Colorado

Iowa

Kansas (Polling locations close at 8 p.m. ET in all except four counties in the west)

Louisiana

Michigan (Polling locations close at 8 p.m. ET in all except four counties)

Minnesota

Nebraska

New Mexico

New York

North Dakota (Polls close at 8 p.m. ET in all but eight counties)

South Dakota (Polls close at 8 p.m. ET in the east)

Texas (Polls close at 8 p.m. ET for most of the state except three counties in the west)

Wisconsin

Wyoming

10 p.m. ET

Montana

Nevada (The polling location at City Hall in West Wendover closes at 9 p.m. ET)

Utah

11 p.m. ET

California

Idaho (Polling locations in the south close at 10 p.m. ET)

Oregon (Polling locations in Malheur County close at 10 p.m. ET)

Washington

12 a.m. ET

Hawaii

1 a.m. ET

Alaska (Polling locations close at 12 a.m. with the exception of Adak)

I'm not really sure what other useful info I could put as I don't know much about America or it's electoral system but I hope that helps.

A lot of people I have seen have been posting about how they feel sick to their stomach's and that they can't get off the news and how they just feel terrible so...

Things you can do to distract yourself for the rest of the night (And possibly the next few days, idk how long it takes to count votes)

Have an early bedtime/take a late nap (Only go to bed after 9 at least though, otherwise you'll mess up your sleep schedule and make you feel worse.) Just sleep your way througb it if you cant help it.

To add on to point one I often use asmr if I can't fall asleep right away/to distract myself. My favorites are: Jaden Aliana Asmr, Oceans Asmr, Kaitlynn Reha asmr, and my absolute favorite Goodnight Moon ASMR (Check out her babble brook, 1920's, or valley girl series')

Listen to a podcast (I like Rotten Mango- informative true crime, Buzzfeed unsolved- funny true crime/ghost hunting, Look behind you- also true crime, and Chris Chan; a comprehensive history)

Never too late for some cleaning! Clean your house, bathroom, bedroom, closet, do a deep clean.

If your a student like me- do your schoolwork! I know you have some studying or homework that needs to be done! Get on it!! I use the pomodoro method if that does anything

Have a self care night- do an everything shower or fancy bath, make facemasks, mani pedi's ect.

Watch a movie or marathon t.v shows you love/that are comfort shows (Some of my comfort shows are; Bobs burgers, Gravity falls, the moomins 1990, the office, what we do in the shadows, black books, derry girls, moone boy, and all creatures great and small and M.A.S.H. Some of my comfort movies are; Little women, the cornetto trilogy, Emma, Legally blonde, Pride and Prejudice)

Never too late for some cooking! One of my favorite hobbies is cooking and baking (Mostly baking) Make some chocolate chip and snickerdoodle cookies, muffins, cupcakes or try a fun cake.

Go for a night walk! Just make sure you bring a buddy and some flashlights of you're in total darkness like I am right now. (Love me a Canadian fall! Already snow where I am so of course that means everyone now needs to immediately put up Christmas decorations lol. At least the lights are nice at night)

Spend time with loved ones. Call or text a friend, spend time with your family, roommates, whoever. If your on campus at a uni see if there's literally any activities or clubs open at this hour you can go to

Read. I know you have a tbr you keep meaning to get to

Go on a research rabbit hole about something interesting. Try to learn something new. Some topics to get you started relating to where I live cause why not; Try to learn about : The Animals of Canada, Indigenous cultures and peoples of Canada- ex: try to learn some Cree or Halqemeylem phrases, try to memorize all of our provinces and territories.

Get through any chores you still have to do

Make/do something creative: Play an instrument, record a song, make a collage, paint, draw

Play some music, listen to your favorite songs on loop (Spotify's still collecting data for wrapped!)

Download a videogame on your phone- just one to pass the time even if its total addictive trash. Some ones I like: Moomin town- Idle, relaxing, town building, slowpaced, free, Miriam webster quizitative- free, wordgames, has an end to it, Toca boca hair salon- not free, hair salon game, endless, Toca boca town- not free but there are dupes, dollhouse game, bird bnb- townbuilding, slowpaced, as well theres all sorts of cute isle cat games; I like the grocery store and cafe ones

Make sure to:

Drink water

Eat at regular intervals

take breaks from screens (It'll hurt ya eyes)

get some sleep at some point

Don't sleep all day (Try to get up at a normal time)

if you feel like you need- put screen time limits on your phone. Or as well, turn down the brightness if you feel you have to doom scroll.

That's all for now. Hope you guys are doing ok and that the results are what we are all hoping for. Just know that you are in pretty much everyone's minds and we are all thinking of you (Even if we don't live in America). Stay safe and take care of yourself and your mental health.

Love, thoughts, prayers, and support from Canada/Tumblr and have a good night.

Congrats if you managed to get through this absolute brick of text. I commend you. I'll probably check back in tomorrow.

[anyroads]

Hey, I know Gen-Z likes to joke about 9/11 but some of us were alive for it and it was legit traumatizing so just FYI if you post any jokes about it tomorrow I'm blocking you. I know no one cares and frankly it's kind of gross that I feel like saying this might be inviting controversy or whatever, but you're not an edgelord for making fun of dead people you're just disturbing.

No, the racist attacks on Muslim Americans were absolutely not even remotely OK. And yes, the government and military responses were disproportionate and very much about greed and oil. I know because I spent the entire war protesting and educating people about why it needed to end and getting people to vote in every election and standing up for Muslim people. I also walked past the crater left by the twin towers regularly for years and the fliers on the fence in little plastic protector sheets of people looking for loved ones who were still missing.

Civilians died. Regular people who happened to be on vacation, or had a work meeting, or their bagel and donut cart spot was on that corner, or they were on the janitorial crew, or their office just happened to be there, or they were a firefighter who ran to the scene and never made it out. Making jokes about 9/11 won't change how many civilians died in Afghanistan and Iraq and Guantanamo. And their deaths also don't justify making fun of the civilians who died in the towers and on the planes. It also doesn't justify the cost that rescue workers still pay to this day because of the damage to their lungs that they can't get help for because they don't have healthcare and the Republicans struck down the bill to allot funding for them until it was too late for a lot of them. Some of us saw saw the 9/11 attacks in real time. Our lives stopped completely along with the rest of the country. Some us watched for days on TV while nothing else was on as firemen and rescue workers and desperate civilians were out there in the rubble with literal buckets trying to dig survivors out.

So yeah, I don't like what I've seen the last few years from people who didn't live through it and have made it a joke and if I see you posting callous, soulless jokes on Sept. 11th I'm blocking you and hope you take a look at your choices as a human being.

[20kmemesunderthesea]

AMC's Nautilus

Action, political intrigue, plot twists and a healthy amount of sea monster skirmishes:

These are just some of the many reason why even those unfamiliar with the works of Jules Verne will find "Nautilus" to be an engaging SciFi adventure series.

Here are my (spoiler-free) thoughts on the show.

Note: as I write this, "Nautilus" is airing only on SVT: This is How I Watched it Living Outside of Sweden

When I heard that there was going to be a TV series about Captain Nemo's backstory, I was mightily aprehensive. The main reason for this apprehension was the mere fact that Captain Nemo's past is so dark and tragic. Thankfully, the series begins after the horrific events of the 1857 rebellion and just as the Nautilus is launched. What happened to Nemo's family is shown in flashbacks which explain the events without being graphic.

When I began the show, I honestly had very low expectations. I didn't really expect to like it. To my delighted asonishment, it turned out to be one of the best film tributes to Jules Verne I've ever seen - no hyperbole.

Throughout the series, there are fight scenes, periodic depictions of people bleeding and a couple "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" innuendo jokes, so I wouldn't watch it with a small child, but I think it would be appropriate to watch with most young teenagers (13+).

I believe both well-read Jules Verne fans and those who've hardly heard the name "Captain Nemo" will enjoy the intriguing storyline, likable characters and aesthetic scenery. There are many other factors which made me fall in love with "Nautilus" as well:

The Man of the Seas

The character of Captain Nemo has always facinated me. I was blown away by how perfectly and accurately Captain Nemo was portrayed in this series. Shazad Latif, in my opinion, is an immaculate Captain Nemo and he really brought the character to life with all his complexities. Out of all the film portrayals of Captain Nemo I've seen, I'd have to say his has been by far my favorite.

Tributes to Indian History and Culture

I'm American an my husband is Indian. He and I were both very impressed with the way in which Indian culture and history were presented. I want to see more shows like this to teach our son about his heritage. 

Many of the action scenes reminded me of South Indian cinema. In one episode there is a scene where the Nautilus crew is playing cricket against some Englishmen, which may seem a little disconnected from the rest of the story, but Bollywood fans may recognize it as a delightful tribute to "Lagaan."

The Writers Were Well-Verse in Vernian Lore

Although the story wasn't 100% accurate to the book, the writers obviously had read Verne's books and knew the nuances of Nemo's story and background quite throughly.

There were certain details which made me excited, such as when Nemo has an enigmatic exchange with an Englishman in which they greet each other warmly and seem to be thanking each other for...something. Nemo ends the conversation by saying, "Give my regards to Phileas!"

In Verne's other classic, "Around the World in 80 Days," Princess Aouda is the widow of the Raj of Bundelkhand. Since Jules Verne often dropped little hints that his books existed in the same universe, I always wondered if Aouda and Nemo were distantly related, since Bundelkhand is Nemo's kingdom of origin.

A question is posed: in this conversation, was Nemo thanking the Foggs for saving someone he cared about? This is the first time I've ever seen anyone address the detail that Aouda and Nemo might be relatives.

Tributes to the artwork of Alphonse de Neuville and Édouard Riou

I noticed several shots which were obvious tributes to the first-edition illustrations of Jules Verne's classics, such as Captain Nemo standing on the submarine deck with his spyglass, and the map of Lincoln Island on a cave wall. Those details absolutely thrilled me! 

Everything I've Ever Wanted in a Verne-Inspired TV Series - Except for That Cliffhanger!

Everything about this show absolutely floored me. It was everything I could have hoped for in a Captain Nemo TV series...and then it ended.

Such a well-done series ending with fairly significant loose ends felt like a punch in the gut more forceful than the maelstrom itself. I've been trying not to let it overshadow the rest of the show. I wish with all my heart that there could be a season two!

If anyone's curiosity gets the better of them, I compiled a list HERE of questions I desperately want to know the answers to. I hope someone may be able to answer my questions one day!

I want NEED more!

While I'm still coping with my post-series let down, I find myself pining away for more shows like this; shows based off of classic adventure novels which honor the spirit of the origional author.

I want shows which are imaginative, exciting and engaging, but have snippets of real-life science, culture and history woven in. Incidentally, I daresay these are the same elements which make the stories of Jules Verne himself so timeless.

[emotionallychargedtowel]

Since you're familiar with tokusatsu actors and their journeys into BL, what kinds of careers historically have tokusatsu actors had as they start to get more credits and mature?

Thank you for the ask! This is a great question. It’s something I’ve been curious about for a while, as you know.

I never get tired of this gif of Seto Toshiki (a Kamen Rider alum with two BLs under his belt) eating cake. (It's from Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, which he starred in with Iijima Hiroki of Our Dining Table fame.)

Oh, I should probably say at the outset that I'm talking about the suit transformation type of tokusatsu shows here. Technically the category is broader and also includes kaiju movies, but I'm focusing here on the kind of tokusatsu series in which human characters (or human-like ones) transform into masked heroes. I think that's what you had in mind, Ben, and it's the type of tokusatsu that tends to overlap with the BL world.

Another thing you'll notice is that I'm mostly going to talk about men here. Tokusatsu has been making some progress as a genre when it comes to gender equity, but it still has a long way to go. And since most of the progress that has happened, like the increase in female Riders, has been in the last few years, the actors who played those characters haven't had much of a subsequent career yet.

Now, to your question.

Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out a way to really look at this systematically. So, definitely take my conclusions with a grain of salt. (If anyone reading this knows more about this or has thoughts about how to get more/better info, I'd love to hear them.) The main source of information I have--aside from just soaking stuff up from watching tokusatsu shows and reading toku fans' tumblrs, of course--is looking at toku actors’ entries on MDL and seeing how many roles they’ve gotten, if they’re “guest,” “support,” or “main” roles, and trying to find out about the type of shows and movies they’re in.

One of the biggest weaknesses to this approach as an American viewer is that it's usually hard for me to tell what constitutes a popular or prestigious series or film even if I go to the listings for specific shows/films. I should also note that one thing that biases my “data” (to use the term loosely) is the fact that I’m more likely to look up this information about actors I like. Well, occasionally I’ll also look at info on some sample of actors out of curiosity, like a bunch of lead Ultraman actors’ subsequent careers or something like that. But it's usually more random.

A little background. As you're aware, tokusatsu roles often go to younger actors who don't have much previous experience. They tend to function both as a way of getting a foothold in the industry (building a resume, starting a fanbase, etc.) and as a way of learning on the job. Part of the reason they work so well in this regard is that they have long seasons. Ultraman seasons are typically around 25 episodes long, which is pretty long compared to many shows in Japan, but Kamen Rider and Super Sentai seasons are usually around 50 episodes long. This means two things: a toku part gets you a lot more of the aforementioned work experience than you'd get in other genres, and it provides a solid year of consistent work with additional work to follow (particularly hard to come by in Japan's entertainment industry, from what I understand). The additional work is substantial, too. There are typically post-series TV movies and touring live shows and there are often guest spots on other series in your franchise.

When it comes to landing other roles, as in other types of media, it makes a big difference what type of role you had. This is stating the obvious, I know, but there are some specific ways this works with tokusatsu series, and it relates to who ends up in BLs and in what capacity. So, all of the big three tokusatsu franchises are pretty ensemble-based but they still have distinct leads and some degree of a hierarchy of roles. Ultraman has the strongest leads, Kamen Rider has lead/title Riders and secondary (and often tertiary) Riders, and Super Sentai shows are especially ensemble-y (the word sentai basically means "squad," after all) but they always have some kind of group leader.

When I look up subsequent work by tokusatsu actors who had sizable roles in their toku series--lead roles, or other parts that are what MDL would call "main" roles--what I see most often is a lot of supporting and guest roles in a variety of TV shows and some films. You can usually find a smattering of lead roles as well, but if you look closely they may turn out to be smaller productions (but not always). When it comes to the number/frequency of credits, there's a lot of variation but an average case would be 2-3 such credits per year. Like I mentioned above, it's hard for me to tell how desirable/prestigious/well-paying those guest and supporting roles are. But they don't usually seem to be scraping the bottom of the barrel or anything. So, yeah. Lots of these actors have different paths, but this is what I see most frequently.

Given how challenging it is to make a career out of acting in Japan, this is nothing to sneeze at. Despite its relative influence, the Japanese entertainment industry is still comparatively small, and there are only so many opportunities. In that context, regularly getting guest and supporting gigs constitutes a pretty uncommon level of success.

Could these folks support themselves on this amount of work? I often see just a few credits per year, so maybe not. But when I like one of these actors enough to follow them on socials, it usually seems like they are supplementing those parts with other stuff like stage plays, toku fan appearances, modeling gigs, or other types of performance including music. Even with these different sources of income, some probably still can't live on their entertainment industry pay alone. But it appears that some can.

So that's the most common thing. One less common outcome is leaning really hard into being a tokusatsu actor for life. It's not typical to get significant roles in multiple toku shows, but it does happen. And some actors manage to play the same character in a lot of post-series movies, miniseries, etc. stretching out for years after their actual series. For example, Tsuruno Takeshi, who played Ultraman Dyna's human host Shin Asuka, has been in ten different Ultraman things including his main series, a short series, a lot of TV movies, and a special. Dyna aired in 1997, and his last appearance as Asuka was fairly recent, in 2016. That's almost a 20-year span. Yet Tsuruno has never had a non-Ultraman main character part. (Though this is partly because he seems to have focused more on his music career and related variety show type things post-Dyna.) There are even some actors who are tokusatsu superfans whose whole career plan is centered on the genre from the get-go.

For those who are looking to branch out, there are a lot of trajectories. So I'll try to talk about some of them through a few examples.

Takeda Kouhei

You probably knew I was going to bring him up. On Kamen Rider Kiva, Takeda's character was important but not the lead (he played the main character's father in the 1980s, in a timeline that ran parallel to the present day one). That was in 2008, when he was 22. Nine years later, in 2017, he was in Kamen Rider Build, in which he was the "tertiary" Rider. This character was a potato farmer-turned-antihero. As tertiary Riders go, he was pretty popular. But Takeda seemed to be mostly hovering at a certain level at that point. Then Old Fashion Cupcake happened. It's significant that he went from playing supporting characters (albeit important ones) to a lead character in OFC. It's also helpful that OFC came out at a point when the prestige of BLs was on the rise. It seems like Takeda has had more consistent and larger parts since then. The difference isn't night and day or anything, but it's observable.

If you look at Takeda's Build costars, Inukai Atsuhiro and Akaso Eiji, here’s what you'll find. Akaso has a similar trajectory to Takeda's only somewhat steeper. His role on Build (the secondary Rider) was a bit bigger, he seemed to get slightly bigger roles overall after Build, and Cherry Magic gave him a significant boost from there. Inukai had a bigger upswing early on followed by slower growth that still had him outstripping both Akaso and Takeda. From what I can tell, his “data” more closely resembles that of Yamada Yuki, who I’ll talk about in a second, though they have different niches.

Suda Masaki

Suda Masaki was only 16 when he played the main rider in Kamen Rider W in 2009, which is unusually young. (W has a unique premise where two different people inhabit the same Rider, so Suda played a lead rider but so did his costar Kiriyama Renn.) From what I can tell, he seems to have had a pretty organic path to larger and larger roles while varying genres and styles quite a bit. At this point he's definitely a very respected actor. (One interesting bit of trivia: Hagiwara Riku has said Suda is his biggest acting role model.) He's won two Japan Academy Film Prizes and been nominated three more times. I don't know of a more successful ex-tokusatsu lead. Actually, I looked him up for this post to fill in some details and found out for the first time that he also has a pretty successful career as a jpop musician. It's almost annoying that he's that talented in yet another area.

I don't see any indication that Suda has ever played a queer character, though he has definitely done some pretty bromantic stuff. He did kiss a man once in a drama series, but it was for plot reasons and was 100% played for laughs in a gross way. He also played a gender nonconforming character in the 2014 live action version of Princess Jellyfish. (Another bit of trivia: when another live action adaptation of Princess Jellyfish was released in 2018, the same character was played by another former lead Rider, Seto Koji from Kiva.) I wouldn't put it past Suda to play a queer character, if it was for a highbrow movie or something analogous to what Nishijima Hidetoshi has done in What Did You Eat Yesterday?, but I'm also not holding my breath.

Yamada Yuki

A less extreme case. Yamada was on Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. He was the blue member of the team, a soldier-turned-pirate. It may have helped Yamada along later on that Gokaiger is an especially popular Sentai series. Post-Gokaiger, Yamada didn't have any sort of big breakout role that I can find. It just seems like fairly soon after Gokaiger, he started having significant roles in TV dramas and has pretty much continued from there, with some upward momentum but no huge changes. When he was in a drama with Akaso Eiji recently, his part was first billed and a smidge bigger. Yamada's trend line seemed to have a biggish upward swing early and then just a slight slope from there. But I just saw him in something different: he plays the younger member of the minesweeper crew in Godzilla Minus One. I wonder if that will mark any sort of shift for him.

Yamada hasn't played any queer characters as far as I can tell. His Sentai role was shippy as hell, though. It's a tradition among Sentai shows that subtext-level queer ships happen between the red and blue team members, and that's exactly what happened in Gokaiger. Sometimes the subtext pretty much became text. If magazine images from that time are any indication, their relationship seems to have been a promotional angle for the show. There's even one where they seem to be in some kind of high school AU that looks like it's straight out of a BL.

what about women?

I tried looking up a few women I know from tokusatsu roles while I was looking up these and other dudes. Some of them were still in the business, at least. Some were getting the same trickle of guest and supporting parts a lot of men do after a tokusatsu show. A few had a slightly bigger trickle. But many of them seemed to have disappeared from the public eye entirely. Not only are women underrepresented in tokusatsu, and not only are their roles often relatively small and two-dimensional, but it doesn't seem like they get even a slight career boost after these roles.

It's possible this will change for some of the actors who got bigger, more interesting toku roles in recent years. Here's hoping!

The changing relationship between tokusatsu and BL

The relationship between tokusatsu and BL has been changing as BL gains more prestige, like I alluded to when I talked about Takeda Kouhei. There was a time when they seemed to be pretty analogous in terms of how hard it was to get a role and how effective they were as rungs on a career ladder. If you went from being a tokusatsu side character to a BL lead (like Takeda), that was a step up, but only because you were shifting from a supporting spot to a lead one. Tokusatsu leads usually didn't usually do BL or, when they did, only played straight supporting roles. I think it was seen as a lateral move. But now, BL is becoming a very established next step after tokusatsu. It's like BL has moved up in status so that the consensus is that it's above tokusatsu on the ladder, but just by a little bit. It's also kind of an organic transition since we're seeing more queer ships in tokusatsu that, while they mostly happen on a subtext level, are close to being canon (and in some cases, arguably already are). It occurred to me while I was writing this that there's also another type of role that is in a similar zone of accessibility and prestige to both tokusatsu and BL. It's a franchise, not a genre, but with so many movies and such huge casts it almost functions like a genre for the purpose of this discussion. I'm talking about the High&Low movies. If you're a fan of tokusatsu or BL, you'll see actors you know in every High&Low movie and if you're a fan of both, you'll see tons.

Case in point: Here's our ol’ pal Yamada Yuki. He's in quite a few High&Low installments. If only he’d do a BL and complete the trifecta! The only person I know of offhand who’s done a tokusatsu show, a BL, and a High&Low role is Takeda. I bet there are others, though.

the new (?) prestige tokusatsu

There's another piece to this I should probably point out as well. In recent years there have been some more high-budget, prestigious takes on existing tokusatsu properties. First, Anno Hideaki, who's best known for the Evangelion anime series/films, put out three live action features that are new, well-financed takes on three big tokusatsu properties: Shin Godzilla, Shin Ultraman, and Shin Kamen Rider.

Last year there was also a Kamen Rider series geared toward adults that had higher-than-usual production values called Kamen Rider Black Sun. It did that “you can tell our show is for adults because it's all gritty and grimdark" thing, which I'm not a fan of. But it definitely had its points.

Really distinguished actors starred in both the Shin movies and Black Sun, including Nishijima Hidetoshi, who's about as distinguished as it gets. Nishijima was in both Shin Ultraman (in an important supporting role) and Black Sun (as a co-protagonist--and he's the biggest highlight of the series). So these are examples of toku media that are too prestigious to be a springboard into the industry for most actors.

This seems to be a new phenomenon, though I could be wrong about that. I don’t expect the trend will continue at this pace (after all, so much of it is attributable to Anno alone and I don't think he'll continue down this path indefinitely), but I bet some other shows/movies in this vein will come out sooner or later.

Here’s Nishijima doing a henshin sequence. He does these moves with such commitment. Is there anything he can't do?

before tokusatsu

As I was writing this, it got me thinking about what actors do before their tokusatsu roles as well as after. It's not uncommon for toku roles to be someone's debut, but that's not really the norm. Even when it is, most of those actors were doing something in the realm of performing or modeling beforehand. I don't usually look at this sort of information as much as I do later roles when I'm investigating toku actors I like. So I looked up some people to try to get a sense of where the actors tend to have done before their toku parts.

There's one starting point that a whole bunch of tokusatsu leads share: winning the Junon Super Boy Contest. When I first saw references to it, I thought, OK, this is some kind of national talent contest. I guess there are probably lots of them. But when I looked for others, I didn't see anything come up. Maybe I'm just not looking in the right places or using the right search terms. But I think maybe this contest might be pretty unique in Japan.

It's run by a magazine called Junon and, well, if I describe how it works it's going to sound really familiar to you and anyone else who's seen Utsukushii Kare, because it's pretty much exactly the contest Kiyoi participates in. Like, if it's not what Nagira Yuu was thinking of when she wrote that part of the UK novel, I'll eat my shoe.

A ton of tokusatsu leads won, placed in, or made it to the finals of that contest. The Tokupedia fan wiki even has its own page dedicated to the contest with links to various winners' toku characters. The majority of Junon Super Boy contestants who ended up in a toku series went to Kamen Rider, but there are some Sentai dudes as well and at least one Ultraman lead.

So I guess if Kiyoi had won that contest, he probably would have ended up on Kamen Rider or something. Weird.

Inukai Atsuhiro and Iijima Hiroki both won that contest. Those are the only two Junon Boys (that's what people call the contest winners) who became tokusatsu actors and were on a BL that I know of right off the top of my head. But it seems likely that there are other toku-and-BL or just BL actors who won, placed, or made it to the finals of this contest.

Other dudes who ended up on tokusatsu shows started out in other ways. Some were simply signed to agencies as actors. There's a fair number of them who were in idol groups. (Though when an idol/ex-idol is looking for a gig as a transition into acting, BLs seem to be a more popular choice.) Some mostly did modeling prior to their toku series. Some already had quite a few acting credits, though usually not very big ones. Although he's a Junon Super Boy winner, Inukai had eight other acting credits before Kamen Rider. Takeda had the same number, and he started young--his first credit is for a TV show that came out when he was 10 (though it took another six years to get a second).

I also looked up some women who've had prominent roles in tokusatsu shows, including more recent ones. The most frequent things I found when I looked for information on their pre-toku careers were that they had been models or idols (or both). It's also not uncommon for women in toku roles to be former or present gravure models--basically models who pose in bikinis or comparably revealing outfits.

The coolest thing I found was that Imoto Ayaka, who played Igarashi Sakura/Kamen Rider Jeanne, was an award-winning ballet dancer. Which is not only incredibly cool but makes a lot of sense in terms of preparation for a tokusatsu hero role.

I mean, just check out this henshin.

Well, this has gotten ridiculously long. Sorry about that. I may have gotten a little carried away. But thanks again for the question.

And now, I have something to write for @wen-kexing-apologist...

[bluesest]

Did you hear nortovirus is going around? Sure would be a shame if you went out for a big night and drank lots of alcohol and ate lots of greasy food only to get home with a turbulent tummy and spend the night massaging it while running back and forth from the loo

A Virus

Greg is a young college student who loves to party and lives with his 3 roommates: Jake a cheerful jock, Drake who is relaxed even in the most stressful situations and Otto a nerdy blonde with a good heart.

Like a typical American university, young university students are anything but "Adults", they loved parties, they used them to free themselves from the stress of the constant homework and exams that make them suffer so much, they are just looking for an excuse to have fun, and what better excuse than the end of a semester? 

The holidays are here, the survivors of the final exam are already celebrating, the popular soccer boy announces a big party in the huge home of his elderly parents and Greg feeling a great dopamine thanks to almost failing the semester decided that this is a great opportunity to release it.

A day before the big party, Greg was shaving his face, he didn't want to go looking like a tramp, he might even have a chance to get a partner, but his fantasy was destroyed when someone knocked on the door, it was Drake:

*Knock* *Knock*

Drake: "Greg, are you going to be done soon?"

Greg: "I'm just starting to shave, and it's going to take a while."

Drake: "I just need to use it, it's urgent"

Greg: "Well, there's nothing I haven't seen from you anyway."

Greg opens the bathroom door making way for a sweaty Drake who smiles at him in gratitude, Greg turned back to the sink mirror and went on with his business until a rumble scared him:

*PFTFTFTFTFTTFFFTFT*

Greg turned his gaze and saw Drake naked sitting on the toilet.

Greg: "What the?!"

Drake: "I really wanted to shit, I think I ate something rotten or something"

Greg: "I mean why do you shit in front of me?"

Drake: "You told me I could use the bathroom..."

Greg: "But I thought you were just going to pee and not and destroy this bathroom."

*PFTFTFTFTFTFTF* *PRRRRRRRRRRR* *QHSSHQHHHSHQSHQSHSH*

Greg: "ughhh it really sucks, what did you eat?"

Drake: "It's not that big of a deal, calm down"

*PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS*

Greg: "Forget it, I'll leave you here alone with your pestilence."

Drake: "Before you go, could you pass me the toilet paper that's on the shelf? I wouldn't want to get out of the bathroom with my ass literally shit."

Greg: "As you wish..."

Greg opened the doors to the small wooden shelf above the mirror, inside were his classmates' brushes, combs, deodorants, and most importantly: three full rolls of toilet paper. With disgust and repulsion he extended his hand with the paper towards the already tired Drake who by a mistake his hand reached far from the target and touched Greg's fingers directly, he said nothing and fled from that place locking Drake only with his pestilences.

Greg went to the couch where Jake and Otto were watching TV.

Jake: "Wow what happened to your face dude? Do you try a new beard style or what?"

Greg: "I was waxing when Drake came in out of nowhere and had a bout of diarrhea in front of me"

Otto: "With diarrhea you're right, I think it's the 4th time Drake has had a bowel movement all day, but I'm not so sure if it's diarrhea or not, something doesn't add up..."

Jake: "Do you really count how many times someone goes to the bathroom in this apartment? You're disgusting..."

Otto: "Don't say that! I noticed it because my room is close to the bathroom and I hear them flushing the toilet, it's a noise that's hard to ignore."

Greg: "Anyway, I'm not going to let this ruin my day and tomorrow, I'm ready to go to the best party of the semester to date and the smells won't stop me from enjoying it."

Jake: "I'll go too, I hear there's going to be alcohol and wholesale food, and even a DJ"

Otto: "I... I'd rather stay and keep an eye on Drake."

Jake: "You're saying that because this week you're going to clean the bathroom and you don't want Drake to destroy it."

Greg: "Well it's decided, tomorrow from 7 p.m. until dawn."

The day flew by, in the next time seemed eternal, but when it came to dressing in his best clothes, time simply became an excellent sprinter. It was time for the party and both colleagues left the apartment and walked to the host's home, it was very close and it was only a 15-minute walk where they both shared jokes in bad taste that no one else would find funny except them.

Finally they arrived at the huge house where the university students were already celebrating, and some even drunk, opened the door and were greeted by a young woman who kindly greeted them and invited them to drink the alcohol that was on a large table next to the snacks.

Jake: "College parties are the best! I'm going to see if there's any pretty women around here and make good friends, you know what I mean."

Greg: "You've never conquered a woman, I don't have faith in you"

Jake: "Oh come on! What are you going to do?"

Greg: "I tend to enjoy the holidays better when I'm drunk, and maybe I'll try those treats, they're begging me to let them into my stomach."

Jake: "Ughh however you want, call me when you want to leave"

Greg: "I'll never want to leave!"

The two companions separated and went about their business, Greg started with a whiskey that apparently was branded: "Heavens, how much money do the owners of this place have... wait a minute! Are those super spicy chips?!" Greg rushed to the snacks, they were really delicious and the best thing was that there were large portions and to digest the food he kept drinking beer and wine this time.

2 hours passed and Greg was talking to his friends when he received a message on his phone, it was from Otto: "Greg! I have something important to tell you about Drake!" he was going to answer until a loud voice caught his attention, between shouts he saw a large crowd screaming and in the distance he saw the host and Jake holding a large bottle of beer. The girl who welcomed them advertised the contest of "To the Bottom" which needs no description.

At this point Jake was drunk, even more so than Greg and with a "A Drink" they started the competition where Jake was no match for the party soul that was the footballer who used to participate in this type of contest just to get attention and keep his position as a popular boy.

Jake fell to the ground and the crowd began to approach the winner in a careless and abrupt manner, so many pushes and elbows that Greg received caused a sharp pain in his stomach:

*GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR* 

Greg put his hand on his stomach and began massaging it, a foolproof technique his brother taught him to control cramping, but it didn't work, it just soothed the pain and didn't stop it.

An hour passed and Jake pulled himself together and walked over to Greg.

Jake: "Hey! *hipp* are you enjoying the party as much as I do?"

Greg: "No, I'm dizzy and my stomach hurts..."

Jake: "HA! You're probably drunk! See if you want that pain to go away, just throw up in one of the bathrooms in this fucking *hipp* mansion."

Greg: "yes... Maybe... Hey, where are the bathrooms?"

Jake: "What do I know, I don't shit in someone else's house... HAHAHAHAH"

Greg: "You were always a bad drunk, whatever"

Greg ended the conversation and started looking for a bathroom to follow his friend's advice, he was quite embarrassed to ask anyone from that place, they were going to think he was going to shit and stink in the bathroom, although the idea of vomiting was no better.

*GRRRRRRRRRRRRR*

"Maybe there's a bathroom up the stairs... oh this is going to hurt"

He slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor of the home, unlike on the ground floor there were not as many people, but they did show more overt affection towards their partners. After searching for 10 minutes he finally found a bathroom and before opening the door a tall man came out and said, "I really overdid food... It's all yours bro." Greg, being part of 4 college roommates, already knew what that phrase meant, but he didn't care in the slightest and went into the bathroom locking the door.

The smell of the bathroom was fresh and fresh out of the oven, you could feel the constipation of that guy, with disgust Greg knelt in front of the toilet waiting for the signal from his body to throw away everything that was wrong in his system, but... Something was wrong.

No matter what Greg tried, nothing worked, his body just wasn't going to vomit, he was about to give up when a sharp prick penetrated his stomach, it was painful enough to just ignore it and give up. Greg slowly began to insert a finger into his throat to force his body to vomit, but another pain stopped him from doing so and began to massage his stomach.

*BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR*

"oh what's wrong with me..."

*GRRGRGRGR* *GRRRRRR*

"I think I'm going to..."

*GRRRRR* *PFFFTFFT*

"SHIT!"

Out of nowhere and without warning his sphincter began to fill with foul-smelling magma, his anus sent a desperate warning signal for the body to allow him to expel what he has inside. This wasn't what Greg wanted to do, he wanted the bad stuff to come out of his mouth and not out of his anus in a violent way.

Quickly Greg started to undress from the hips down, his skinny jeans made this task really difficult, he did all this while begging that he didn't have an anal spill in his pants right at a big party.

"Come on, come on, come on"

Greg was able to take off his pants in time and with his big sweaty ass he sat on the warm porcelain of a fancy bathroom:

*SQHHSQHSHSHHSQHQSHSHQHQHHSQHSQ* *PRPRPRPRPRPRPRRRR* *TRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTR* *HSQHSHSHSHSHQSHHQSSSSS*

Involuntarily, Greg started with a loud fart to give way to a torrent of volcanic diarrhea, he tried to compress and close his anus to make as little noise as possible, but was cut short by another bad move of his stomach.

*PFTFTFTFTFTTFTFTFF* *BRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBR* *SKKRRRRRRRRRRRR* *PSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHHHHHSSS* *PFTFTFTFTFTF* *PRRRRRR* *PFTFFTFFTFTF*

Compressed air came out of its sphincter as if it were a gas tank with a leak coming from a small hole in its structure, desperately releasing the gas to come out without having enough room for the air to exit in a calmer way. Greg tried unsuccessfully to hide his small moans of pain, but with each bout of diarrhea this task became impossible.

*QHSHQSHHSHQSHQSH* *SPLASH* *BRBRBRBRBRBRBBRBRBR* *GRGRGRGR* *PFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTF* *PLOP* *PLOP* *TRRRRTRTRTRTRTRT*

An anal turret invaded his nervous thoughts and embarrassed for doing something that he simply could not control, his anus and his entire digestive system got fed up and formed an anarchy against the authoritarian rule of the brain that with all its might tried to stop the rebellion and traffic in his rectum in order to preserve calm throughout his body and avoid more disasters.

*PFTFFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTF* *PPRRRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPR* *SQHSHHQSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH* *SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH* *PLOP*

After several wet farts Greg was finally able to regain some of his consciousness and digest everything that had happened: he had shit at a college party, and it wasn't just shit, he could swear it's the worst anal disaster he'd ever had in his entire life completely ruined.

Although his stomach was still rumbling, he decided to flee the scene of the crime and the party in general, even while sitting on the toilet he phoned Jake without any answer. Greg knew at that moment that he had to go get it, but without first cleaning his totally roasted butt, it was a difficult task because any pass of toilet paper he made felt like sandpaper was being sanded on his butt.

He started running from the second floor, down the stairs and desperately looked everywhere for his partner who was trying to claim a rematch against the host:

Greg: "Hey Jake, I'm really tired and I feel awful, let's get out of here."

Jake: "What? I was just having fun."

Greg: "You're already too drunk for this party, let's get away before you break something super expensive"

Jake: "ok hahahaha but you'll be the one driving this time" 

Greg: "We come on foot and we leave on foot"

They both left the party unnoticed, Greg gnawed inside at the fact that he had to run away from the best party in existence just because his tummy decided to feel bad just that day while Jake was laughing and complaining all the way to the apartment.

*GRGGRGRGRGRGRGR*

Greg: "oh no..."

Jake: "You're weird Greg, why are you massaging your stomach like that? Do you want to vomit again? Hahahahah you're weird"

Greg: "We've got to pick up the pace"

Jake: "Relax, just throw up on that tree, no one will notice, and maybe those nutrients will come in handy for that tree."

Greg: "I'm not going to shit in a public place idiot"

Jake: "What did you say? What are you shitting on? HAHAHAHAHA you're just funny and a shit, shit, shit in that tree then HAHAHAHAHAHA"

Greg: "No- I didn't say I wanted to shit, you're deaf drunk shit!"

Jake: "Let's check if I'm really *hipp* deaf"

Without warning Jake lunged at a distracted Greg, with his two strong athletic arms he squeezed Greg's stomach tightly and:

*PFPTPPTTPPPPTFPPFPFFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTTF*

Jake: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

Greg: "What the hell is wrong with you!?"

Jake: "That makes you *hipp* for being a liar HAHAHAHA"

Greg: "It's not funny! *GRGRGRGRG* and you only made it worse... I need to find a bathroom soon."

Jake: "But if you're in the bathroom right now bro"

Greg: "I don't have time for this!"

He began to run desperately straight to his apartment as he heard Jake's incomprehensible screams in the distance, every step he took made it to make a wetter and wetter fart make it out of poor Greg's tight, sweaty bubble ass: "I'm only 5 minutes away from the bathroom, I can hold out."

*PFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTF*

*PFTFPTPTPTPTPTPTPTPTPTPTTTTT*

*PRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR*

Before he got to the door he was already taking out the keys to the apartment, he entered and kept running in the direction of the bathroom ignoring Otto's greeting in the process and slammed the door slamming his.

*KNOCK* *KNOCK*

Otto went to open the door of the apartment and found a sweaty Jake about to faint:

Otto: "Did they try to rob them or because they're running?"

Jake: "None of that my adorable little nerd, Greg got and ran away from me to use the bathroom in the apartment."

Otto: "Hmmm that makes sense"

Jake: "I'll scold him so he knows he shouldn't abandon someone on the street at midnight hehehe"

Otto: "And then you say I spy on people when they're in the bathroom..."

Jake made his way to the bathroom door where he settled his ear and head.

*PFPPTFPTPPPTPFTPTPFTPT* *SQHHQSQHSHQSHSHSHSHQHS* *PLOP*

And in an explosive way, Jake opened the bathroom door that unfortunately Greg out of desperation did not lock the door. Jake's scream as he walked in scared Greg so much that it inevitably caused his stomach to loosen even more:

*SQHHSHSHSHSHSHHQHSHQS* *PRPRPPRPRPSPSPSPSPSPSPPSPPS* *TRTRTRTRTRTRRTRTRTRTTRTRTRTR* *PFTFTTFTFTFTFTFT*

Jake: "Wow you've got a waterfall in your anus!"

Greg: "Get out of here..."

*PRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPR* *SHSHSHSHSHHHHHHHH* *TRTRTRTRTRTRTRT* *FFFFFFFFTTTTTTTTFFFTTTTT* *PRFRFFFFFFFPRPRPRPRPSSSSSSS*

Jake: "I won't, I drink a lot and I really have to pee, and I'm so scared I can't do it in the free bathroom that nature gives us."

Greg: "Why me?"

*GLONRRNHHRHR* *PFPLFPFLFPLFFPPFLFP* *PLLPLPLTPLTPLTPTLTLTLTLTLT* *FPTPFTPPTPTPTPTFFTP* *SHSHSSHSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH* *PRRRRRRRRR*

Jake: "Heavens, what did you eat? HAHAHAHA"

*GRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRGRRRRRR* *PRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPR* *SHSHSHSHSHSHSHSSHHSHHS* *TRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTR* *BRBRBRBRBRBRBRR*

Jake: "I can't be here for a single minute, it's just that seriously ufffff the smell of shit here, it's disgusting, you're disgusting, I'll pee in the shower and I'm out of here"

Greg: "Rot."

Jake: "Look who's talking"

Jake started peeing in the shower, it was a big waterfall... but he couldn't overshadow the brown cascade coming out of Greg's battered anus.

*PRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRL* *PPLPLLLLLLLLRRRRRR* *SHQSHHSQHSHSHQHSS* *PLOP* *PLOP* *KRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR* *SPLASHSHHSHSSH* *PFTTFTFTFFTTFFF*

Jake came out of the bathroom and 10 minutes later Greg did, he arrived tired and saw Otto sitting on the couch and Jake asleep between cushions:

Otto: "You look bad"

Greg: "I know, that walked into the bathroom with me and acted like nothing happened."

Otto: "So... Did you see my message?"

Greg: "Which one?"

Otto: "But- ugh, to sum it up for you, I did an exam on Drake and took samples of... you know what and I concluded that he has Norovirus."

Greg: "And does that mean?"

Otto: "It's a disease that is transmitted by having contact with feces or with infected people, and yesterday you said that Drake went in to shit in the bathroom while you were using it, so it means..."

Greg: "But I don't feel sick! I just ate a lot of fried foods and drank a lot at that party, that's it." 

Otto: "Whatever you say..."

After the conversation, Greg decided that he had had enough fun for today so he went to his small room where he stripped completely naked to sleep, he could still feel small gurgles, but he didn't give them any importance "It's just stuck farts that's all", lying up straight he raised one of his legs to let out a big and powerful fart:

*PTRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRFFTFTFTTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFT*

The acidic air again burned the walls of his anus that screamed for help, his gurgling became louder as a sign of protest and massaging his stomach another fart came out without warning:

*PFTFTTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTF* *GRRRRRRRRR*

He was one smaller than the previous ones, his gurgling stopped for a few moments leaving his mind calm ready to have a good sleep session.

Suddenly he opened his eyes, his body flooded with sweat starting to ache as he was overcome by an unusual cold, he took his phone and saw the time: "Is it 4 AM, why did I wake up so early? I didn't even wake up at this time when I went to college... *GRGRGRGRRRRR* oh shit, I think I know why I woke up..."

With his eyes narrowed struggling to see in the deep darkness of the room he headed straight to the bathroom completely naked, it wasn't something to worry about, it was 4 AM, no one was awake at this time or at least it seemed that way.

*GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR*

"Okay, I'll release some gas to make you calm down a bit."

*PFTPPTPTPTFPPPPPTFPPTPTPFP* *RPRPRPRPRPRPRPPPPPPRPRPRR* *TRTRTRTRRT*

"Oh wow, I can feel it writhing in my gut, here it comes"

*FPTPPFPPTPT* *PRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRRR* *PFTPPFPPTPPTPFTPT* *HSQHQSH*

"Oh shit did I just shit? I think it's a couple of drops, but it doesn't make it any better, I have to find the bathroom, but I can't see anything... here it is!"

Greg opened the door and his eyes were completely struck and blinded by the bright light of the place, when he regained his sight he saw Otto kneeling in front of the toilet with gloves and some clinical apparatus.

They were both staring at each other without saying a word, until Greg began to speak.

Greg: "What the are you doing in the bathroom at 4 AM?!"

Otto: "I um... cleaning it! I always clean it up in the early morning."

Greg: "I know you asshole, don't tell me you're collecting my shit to do your weird exams!"

Otto: "If you notice that you're naked, you know?"

Greg freaked out and grabbed a towel hung on the bathroom door, again the awkward silence returned:

Otto: "Well yes, I've seen some of your feces stain the toilet and I collected it, I want to show you that if you have norovirus"

Greg: "And the best way to show that is to collect shit at 4 AM?"

Otto: "Well, if you say it like that, it sounds pretty bad..."

Greg: "But that's literally what's happening! *GRGRRGRRRR* ohhhh... Hey, I need you to get out of the bathroom right now."

Otto: "Okay"

With Otto blocking the way to the toilet Greg finally had a chance to free his bowels, he took off the towel covering him and sat down on the now cold china:

*PFTPTPPTPPPTP* *SQHHSHQHSHSHSHQSQSHSS* *SKRKKRKKKRRRKRKRKRR* *PLOP* *PLOP* *PFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTF* *SHSHSHSHHHHHHHHHHH*

Greg: "Oh finally... [turns his head] what the fuck!? What are you still doing here, Otto?!"

Otto: "I came out of the bathroom"

Greg: "And what are you doing looking at me?!?"

Otto: "You didn't close the door"

Greg: "*PRPRPRPRPRPRPR* Then shut it down!"

Otto: "Come to think of it, you exhibit the same behavior and symptoms as Drake, but you can't be sure."

*QSHQHSHSHSHQHSHQSHQSHQHHSQHSQHSQS* *PFFTTFTFTFTFTTF* *TRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTTTT* *BRRUBUBLBBUBRRRPPRPRP* *PSSSHHHHHHHHH* *GRRRRRRRRRRR*

Greg: "Just go!"

Otto: "Okay with this... hey it really sucks, yuck"

Greg: "Why?!?!"

*RRRRRRPGPRPGGR* *PPPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPR* *PSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS*

Otto: "I'd say you're worse off than Drake, I'll leave you alone"

The nerd closed the door of the small bathroom as he headed to his room to sleep, it was finally the moment in which Greg had achieved the privacy he deserves and without shame freed the gates of hell:

*QHSHSQBSHSBHQHQQSHHQNSHQSHSHSHSH* *FPPTPFTPTPTPTPTPTPTPTPTPTFPFPFFFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTF* *PSPSPSPSPSPSSSS* *RPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPR* *TRTRTRTRTRTRBBLBLLLSLSLSLSSSSSSSSSS* *PLOP* *PLOP* *FFFFFTTTTTTTTT* *BLRRRRRRRRRRRRR* *PRSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS*

"oh finally... ughhhhh *GRGGRGRGR*"

*PRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRPRRR* *TLUC* *TLUC* *TLUC* *PFTFTFTFTFTF* *PTFFFT*

"Oh shit"

*SQHSHQHSHQHSHSHQSHQSHSQ* *PTPTPTPTPTPT* *PFTFTFTFTFTF* *QSHHSHQSSQH* *PLOP* *PLOP* *PFTFTFTTFTFTFTFTF* *TRTRTRTRTRTRTR* *PLOP* *PFTFTFTFTFTFTF*

"ohhhhhhh"

*PFFFTTFTFFTFT* *PLOP*

"I think I'm done...*PFFFTT*"

Greg relaxed his mind and body, both tired from the great marathon of flowing diarrhea, took toilet paper, folded it and began to wipe the sweat from his forehead thinking about the atrocities that had happened in less than a day in a room as sacred as the bathroom.

He started to fold more paper and rubbed it on his ass rubbing it as slowly as possible but she still felt a lot of pain, which is normal after his anal lip expelled there literally washes for 10 minutes without stopping.

He got up from the throne, pulled the chain, and finally came out of the bombed-out bathroom. Before returning to his room he searched for signs of Otto around him without success, apparently stopped doing his strange things and went to sleep, something Greg would also do but not before farting a couple while trying to fall asleep.

*DIIIIIIIIIIIIINNNNNNNNGGGGG*

Greg woke up again sweaty and looked at his alarm alarm annoyed, apparently he had forgotten the fact that he was on vacation.

"It's 7 AM *GRRRRRR* I'm hungry..."

He went down to the kitchen of the apartment, opened the refrigerator and the only thing there was for breakfast was a carton of milk: "Well, cereal without cereal it will be" and in one sip he drank the entire carton of milk, burped and began to feel his stomach.

"Haaaa, and it didn't work! Otto and Jake were wrong which is a relief, and speaking of which... Where are they? Hmm, wait a minute..."

*PFTFTFTTFTFFTTFTFTFTFTTFTTTTTTTT*

"Nope, I was wrong"

Greg ran desperately from the kitchen to the bathroom, even on his way he took the opportunity to undress while running leaving the few clothes he was wearing on the floor, he arrived totally naked at the bathroom, opened the door and...

Drake: "Hey good morning Greg, is walking around the house naked the new fashion?"

Greg: "This must be a joke..."

Drake was in the bathroom shaving his legs with his trademark smile. Greg, hugging his stomach and bending his legs again and again, asked:

Greg: "Can you please get out of the bathroom?"

Drake: "Uh? I see, you have diarrhea, right?"

Greg: "I just need a few minutes alone"

Drake: "I would leave, but when I started shaving I felt something heavy in my stomach, and we both know what it is, I thought I could finish shaving before I sat on the toilet, but now I'm scared to stand up and have the poop come out of my ass automatically"

Greg: "aghhh, there's no time!"

Greg made his way into the cramped bathroom and reached the toilet and never mind that Drake was there, he just fully opened the shattered back doors:

*PFTPTPTPTPTPFTPTPTPTTTTT* *BRBRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR* *PSPSSSSSSPSGSSHSHSHSSHHHHHHHHHHHHH* *BRLLLRRRRRRRRRRRR* *PPPPFFFFFFTTTTTTTTTTT* *BLURRRRRRRRRRRR* *SHQSHSHSHSHSHSHQSSHQSSS* *PLOP* *PLOP* *PLOP* *PLOP* *PFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFT*

Greg: "WOW I shouldn't have drunk milk, I shouldn't have defied the virus, and I shouldn't have defied fate"

Drake: "That explosion made me want to explode even more"

Greg: "Don't even try."

*PFTFTFTFTFTFTFTTFTFTFTFTFTFTF* *LRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR* *FFFFTTFTFTFFRTTTT* *BLRRRR* *PFFTT* *PLOP* *PFFFTTT* *QHSHSHSHSQHSSSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSHSH*

Drake: "As you say, I'll get up and try to go to the shower... Another cramp, I don't think I can move, I'll have to sit on the toilet."

Greg: "Aren't you hearing that I'm occupying it?"

Drake: "oh come on, it'll be like last time, you've seen my ass and I've seen yours, it won't be any different, plus I'm telling you I really can't move, the only thing I can do is ploop down into the toilet"

Greg: "Of course not! You'll stain my legs!"

Drake: "That's what we have a shower for"

And regardless of Greg's complaints, Drake dropped his bare butt on top of Greg's legs letting the demons fall inside:

*PFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTF* *TRRRRRRRRRRRF* *BLRRRRRRRRRRR* *SQHQSHQHSHSHSHSQHSQHSQHSQHSQHSQHSQHSQHSQHSQHSQHSQHSQHSQHSQHSQSHQHSHQSHQSHQS*

Greg: "Aggghhhhh yuck!"

Drake: "Calm down, we both need to help each other because we both have this inside of us... damned... virus... AAAHHHGG"

*QSHQSHQSHSHSHQSHSH* *PFTFTFTFTFTFTTFTFTFTF* *BLRRRRRRRR* *GRRRRRRRRR* *PLOP* *PLOP* *PLOP* *PFTFTFTFTFTFTFTFTTF* *SQHSQHQSHHQSHQHS*

Greg: "Well, you're right about that..."

*TRRTRTTRTRTRTRTRTRTRTR* *BLLRLRLRLRLRL* *GRRRRRR* *FRRRFRFRFR* *CRRCRCRCRC* *SQHSHQHSSHQHSHSHQS* *TFTFTFTFTPFTFTFTFTFT*

[wittyno]

My thoughts on seasons one and two of the x-files.

Background: I knew nothing about the plot of the x-files before starting the show. I knew I would like it because I love Delta Green, which is just the x-files as a TTRPG and I knew Joel McHale loves it and proposed to his wife while watching it. I watched the first season about six or so months ago. I really liked it but life got busy and I wanted to give it the attention it deserves. I just watched season 2. yay

Here are some random thoughts

- that pilot is fire. It’s so fucking good. It hooks you in right away. It feels like a classic of the genre. The I lost time idea is done so well and not in a over the top way.

- this show is way more visceral than I thought it would be. Maybe because I’ve seen so much current cop-focused shows but this show grips you way better than any of the current copaganda on the market. It’s an actual drama not just pretending to be one.

- Season 1 is 24 episodes and season 2 is 25 episodes long. That’s an insane schedule. Not just by today‘s standard but just in general. I watched most of it on Freevee, which gives you little trivia about each episode, which is fun. It also means I know the horrifying fact that only two weeks after giving birth Gillian Anderson went back to work on this show. That’s probably just the tip of the iceberg.

- even for TV Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny are very good looking. The choice to cast Boy Scout looking ass David Duchovny as the primary believer in the supernatural is so smart. Anyone else and he might come off as scary. The reason „am I spooky?“ is so funny is because the obvious answer is „no, not even a little“.

- because this show is so good. I can absolutely see how people who are already conspiracy-minded individual could take this show and really run with it. That’s not a criticism or a reason to not watch the show. It’s also not the fault of the creators nor a call to not make this type of art. I don’t even think this is a American History X type blunder. It’s just a warning. If you start believing in stuff like this to maybe take a break.

- the genetic memory episode is stupid. Also Phineas Gage lived a pretty normal life after his accident. He didn’t become violent. That’s not how the brain works.

- Scully gets kidnapped at least three times in season 2, which is too many. Even in a season with 25 episodes that’s too many. I know, the first one was because Gillian Anderson was pregnant but come on.

- while it is still copaganda and has some of those traits (choking suspects), it feels less like it because it pitches our FBI Heroes against impossible things and overwhelming forces (both human and extraterrestrial).

- it does a good job of balancing its insane runtime without overstaying its welcome. The middle of the season doesn’t sag or stagnate because they put mid-season finale.

- I like how often Mulder and Scully loose. Usually the military comes and covers it up or the evidence disappears and I like that. It gives the show a weight most cop show is don’t. Most cop shows, they either find, convict, or kill the suspect. It usually ends „well“, at least according to the rules of the show. Some of that happens here but more often than not. More innocent people get hurt. I like it because it shows the true overwhelming nature of what a job fighting the occult and extraterrestrial would look like.

- as for the political stuff. I think it’s important to remember that this show started airing in 1992 so you have to balance any sort of unsavory remarks or storylines against the age of the show. On the whole it actually does a pretty good job so far. As far as I can tell, at least.

- additionally you have to remember that in this world aliens are real and already among us. Spirits and other occult and extraterrestrials exist. The way you handle that is going to be different than we would in the real world. Especially with episodes like Calusari.

- the tech. So many examples on how old this show is. The big ones are the cars obviously, any sort of use or lack of use of the internet, and anything to do with phones. No texts, the prominent use of answering machines, hell I haven’t heard anyone talking about screening calls in over a decade. but the one I hadn’t thought of was flashlights. Flashlights have come a long way in the last 30-odd years.

- scully is a doctor of everything. Pathologist? Yes! Immunologist? Yes! She just keeps calling herself a medical doctor, which is technically true but is insane. Her knowledge base is just as wide as the writers need it to be and just as inaccurate to fit the plot. Honestly? Good for her! Woman in STEM.

- it’s also nice to see double breasted suits again. I feel like they are due for a come back. Though not some of those hairstyles. The only reason Dana looks good in hers is because she’s played by Gillian Anderson.

- that intro is doing the most. I love it so much. We don’t do intro like that anymore. It explains the entire premise of the show. With visuals and everything.

- yes, of course I ship them.

[pensat-i-fet]

Trick...and treat her well (Pedri x Reader) / Halloween '23

Masterlist

Wattpad

After another long day at uni, you just wanted to go home and sleep. Thankfully, the following day was a bank holiday, so you knew you could just sleep in and sort of do nothing all day. But your boyfriend had other plans. Plans that interrupted your own plans.

“What are you doing in bed? Come on! Let’s get ready”, said Pedri, in a too loud voice, when he got to the room. You usually liked how hyper and excited he got by the smallest of things but not at that exact moment.

“Ready for what?”

“It’s Halloween!”

“Pedro, we live in Spain, not America. No one cares about Halloween around here”, you rolled your eyes and laid back down in bed.

“But we talked about going to that party…do you not want to go? I bought us the costumes and everything”.

It was so rare for him to want to go to something like a party that you felt bad saying no. His mood got so much better after being back in training with the team too, and he wanted to celebrate. So you got up and put the costume on, even though you kind of hated it, and you both left for the party.

But it was impossible to concentrate on having fun. Your mind was somewhere else. In all the classes you had to go to, the assignments you had to get done, …it was a bit overwhelming at the moment. People were drinking and that always made your anxiety worse. You didn’t like how hard it was to guess what a drunk person could do next. And when a few of them bumped into you, that feeling only got worse.

“Trick or treat?”, screamed Pedri, making you jump.

“Treat?”

“Here”, he said, offering a bag of sweets and pecking your lips. “Double treat. Just for you”.

You smiled at him but the smile was soon gone when you checked the time and saw how early it was. You had only been there for twenty minutes but it felt like hours.

The only good thing about the party was that Pedri stayed with you the whole time. You definitely didn’t want to be left alone somewhere where there were so many people. You didn’t know who many of them were either. And, even though Pedri was busy chatting and laughing with people, he knew you well. So he soon noticed there was something wrong.

“You ok?”

“Sure”, you answered, trying to smile.

“You don’t look ok. Are you not feeling well or something? Is that why you went to bed earlier?”

“Kind of. But you’re having fun so forget it”.

“No, I’m not having fun if you aren’t too”.

Despite appreciating his kindness, you also felt bad about his reaction. Your mood was not only annoying you, but it was now going to annoy him too. Great. It only made you feel worse about yourself.

“Let’s go home”.

“Pedri, we don’t have to…”.

“We do. I don’t even like parties anyway. You know that”.

“But…”.

“Shh”, he said, placing his index finger on your lips. “You come first always. Let’s go”.

It didn’t take you long to get back home and Pedri told you to go to the sofa and wait for him. He was going to make a drink for you.

“Trick or treat?”, he asked again, this time without yelling.

“Can I have both?”

“Greedy”, he laughed. “You can have this cup of tea I made for you and all these sweets I took from the party”.

“Oh my God”, you said, laughing too. “That’s so much. It’ll take me a week to eat all of it”.

“I might help you finish it”.

“Is this how American kids feel after trick or treating? I don’t even know what to eat first”. “I guess. My only source for it is the movies I watched. And the videos where parents pretended they ate all their sweets”.

“Those videos are horrible. So cruel”.

Pedri sat down next to you and brought you closer to him before turning the TV on and finding the channel you liked. More Buffy reruns were on. Perfect.

“So…wanna talk about it?”

You sighed. Did you want to talk about it? Maybe. But it wasn’t easy to put into words things you didn’t fully understand.

“I don’t know. It’s just…life, I guess. Uni kicking my ass and I just feel very defeated sometimes”.

“Did something in particular happen? Or is it just a general thing?”

“General, I think”.

“That’s…well”, he laughed. “I don’t know if better or worse. I guess if it was just one problem, we could try to fix it but if it’s just a general thing, it’s a bit harder”.

“I suppose it is like that, yeah”.

“What can I do to help?”

You looked at him and smiled immediately. He was always so eager to help. “You’re doing well so far. But I guess just be there when I need you. Talking is helping me right now. And, I don’t know, maybe you could pamper me a bit”.

“So it’s all just an excuse to be treated like a princess, got it”, he joked and your smile became wider.

“I can’t fool you, can’t I?”

[stvrdrops]

the american actress pt 1 | pt 2 ☆ shuri x fem!reader

an invitation to the most lavish and private wakandan ball suddenly makes its way into your lap, despite you being only a regular old actress compared to the world leaders who usually attend. could it be the princess invited you herself..? surely not.

warnings : some implicit actions , fluff & cute flirting between the two !

word count : 2,861

note : this is the first shuri fanfic i’ve written after coming back from my terrible writers block so i apologize if it’s not the best lol i’ve just been so obsessed with her lately that i had to write something for her :)

wakanda is a kingdom of utter extravagance. ever since they opened up their walls they had begun throwing lavish balls and galas to keep the countries distracted from stealing vibranium. the world leaders saw it as an elite gala while wakanda saw it as a way to share their wealth without actually sharing. only the most classy and most important of people could even dream about attending the wakandan dances. the most famous of these balls being the wakandan international gala. something so simply named would have to be but a simple event, right? you would be incredibly mistaken. women dressed to the nines while men wore their most expensive designer suits. governors would discuss politics while tribe leaders ate and danced. princesses and daughters of government officials would gossip and flirt with the many men eyeing them down. most importantly, the avengers themselves would attend. they treated the night as one of their many vacation days from work. the black widow would forgo her iconic black suit, captain america would drop the shield for a glass of whiskey, tony stark would still bring his suit but only to show off, thor’s cape became a tuxedo, hawkeye managed to go without his bow, and bruce banner left the green man at home.

this was your first and what you thought to be your last time attending the infamous event. you were certain to be an outlier compared to the world’s most important people. you happened to be just a simple actress. you didn’t sign treaties or protect the universe. all you did was read off a script and perform some stunts for a living. it was safe to say you believed the invitation to be a mistake, but your agent assured you it was not. apparently you had been invited allegedly by someone with high wakandan authority. they had left their identity a mystery which drove you wild. it made you laugh to think the person who invited you was the princess of wakanda, shuri. you happened to form a crush on her some time ago after seeing her on tv discussing world politics. somehow she made the war over vibranium sound sexy and adorable at the same time. which was quite insane.

you often found yourself wondering if the princess had seen any of your movies. she was far too busy to sit down and watch some silly academy nominated films. after all, she was the princess of a whole nation and led only the best scientists all on her own.

you currently stood in front of large doors made purely out of vibranium. it was carved with thousands of little people telling the story of how wakanda was formed. the attention to detail had been nothing short of incredible. it was so incredible, in fact, that your breathing even hitched a little. you had never seen anything quite like that with its craftsmanship. yet again, you hadn’t seen anything quite like wakanda.

the trip to wakanda had been fairly short despite the long distance needing to be traveled. a limo showed up at your quaint loft in nyc right when the invitation said transportation would arrive. after that you were taken to what seemed to be an army base. wakandan jets were lined along as you watched others enter. they went in groups, while you had a jet all of your own. the next thing you knew was arriving in wakanda and standing in front of these doors. everything had happened so quick!

“ehem.”

your gaze shifts from the top of the door to the two women standing on both sides of it. you blushed out of embarrassment, the red on your checks too bright for your brown skin to hide. out of your astonishment you forgot the two women had even been standing there. they oozed poise and bravery. not to mention they were incredibly sexy.

somehow you felt underdressed when you stared at them. they were wearing their normal dora milaje gear, but still it matched the regality of the gala. you looked down at your thousand dollar gown and frowned a little. it had stuck to your body like a glove, showing off every curve. you felt a little self conscious due to the low back and high leg slit. it almost felt too grown for such an event, but your stylist assured you it would be the right choice for the occasion. so maybe you weren’t overdressed, but perhaps just feeling like you didn’t dress for the right kind of gala.

it made you feel so much older than nineteen. the black sparkles shined bright as the lights in the hall hit every single one of them. your dark stilettos positioned you higher than normal, but you were just of the same height as the dora milaje women. your hair had been done up in a bun style updo, showcasing your collarbones and soft neck. the makeup you wore was soft glam, and that was just how you liked it. you knew you were beautiful but the nerves of keeping up appearances was eating you alive.

you move closer to the door and smile to the two women. they do not reciprocate the smile, but you know they would if they could. their training probably prohibited them from doing such things at events like these.

spears hit the ground causing the large vibranium doors to open. it caught you by surprise seeing how easily the moved open despite how much they had to of weighed. once they opened it revealed to you just how many people were truly at this gala.

your eyes land on everyone below and grow wide at the realization that everyone is staring back at you. you even make eye contact with one of the avengers, natasha romanoff. you quickly turn your eyesight away out of embarrassment, however, it’s just your luck that your eyes land right on princess shuri right after. you could feel yourself freezing as a wide smile grew onto her face. she looked happy? like as if she was happy to see you attending.

“introducing y/n y/l/n, the american actress.” a thick accent shouts before the spears hit the ground again.

everyone’s eyes linger on you for a second while you make your way into the room. the doors close suddenly behind you. you can’t help but feel totally exposed. somehow being in front of a million people at a premiere is better than this, because at least you know those people love you.

music fills your ears as you see the band has begun playing again. people go back to normal as the music starts and you can’t help but let out a sigh of relief. you finally allow yourself to go down the stairs without the risk of tripping from your anxiety.

the room looked much smaller from above, but as you’re in the middle of it all you realize the room is quite large. you can’t help but allow your eyes to scan the room as you take in all the lavish decor and beautiful greenery. the walls were covered in flowers and vines native to wakanda. sculptures of panthers made purely out of vibranium lined the walls and the pillars reaching from out of them. dora milaje stood in little doorways towards the top of the walls, watching down on the guests.

the large glass roof allowed for the stars to shine so beautifully on your sparkly dress. it also helped to create the perfect atmosphere as people danced and laughed. it was just the perfect amount of light.

you hadn’t realized you made your way to the bar until someone tapped your shoulder with a sharp nail.

“are you lost?” a sultry voice spoke.

“oh,” you quickly turn yourself around to see the black widow standing in front of you. you find it hard to form the correct words, only saying, “i’m sorry.”

she laughs, “for what?”

“i- i just…” your mouth goes dry, “i guess i don’t know.”

“hm,” she raises a brow, “you’re just as pretty in person as you are in the movies.”

you gasp, “you watch my movies?”

“who doesn’t?” a thick wakandan accent speaks from behind you.

you feel your legs go weak when you recognize who’s voice it was. it couldn’t be, could it? you turn to the side and your eyes land on the princess of wakanda, shuri. she flashes you a charming smile and you can feel your face heat up once again. she’s not that much older than you, but she looked incredibly mature. she didn’t wear a typical dress, instead opting for a suit that had no under shirt. you could see the most modest part of her chest and how toned her collarbones were. it’s almost as if you could see her muscles underneath the suit. shuri could feel you undressing her with your eyes, but said nothing about it.

“you do not mind if i take my guest, do you romanoff?” shuri spoke to natasha while gripping your hand. the russian spy looked down at the hang gripping and then up again.

“not at all.” she said before going back to sipping on her incredibly dark red wine.

“come y/n, i must show you something.” shuri speaks while flashing another smile and dragging you away from the party. you’re far too starstruck to even say anything, only nodding as a response.

you’re lead through the many corridors of the wakandan palace before reaching the least guarded area in the whole place. the doors were white and looked futuristic. you watch as shuri begins to type some password into a keypad.

“you’re the princess”

ugh, you cant believe you’ve said that out loud.

“yes, i am.” she chuckles, “and you’re a famous american actress.”

“why does everyone refer to me as that? i have a name.” you cant help but frown.

“hmm, fine. i will refer to you as y/n, the princess of all american actresses.”

what a stupid nickname, but it sounded so cute coming from her that you couldn’t help but smile. she noticed this and beamed with pride. her little flirting had been working nicely.

“that works.” you joke with her. for the first time tonight you didn’t find yourself feeling anxiety.

“ah! here we are.” shuri speaks as the white door begins to open. it slides from both sides to reveal what seems to be the infamous lab. you don’t have time to register much of anything due to shuri dragging you inside and up some stairs to a ledge. she stops in front of a table covered in different little trinkets and inventions.

“forgive me princess, but what am i supposed to be looking at?”

“hm?” she looks up at you, tearing her gaze away from the table. “oh yes, hold on.”

you watch as she picks through the items.

“to be honest i didn’t know you knew of my existence.”

she laughs and you can feel butterflies forming inside you. your schoolgirl crush on shuri was truly getting worse and worse by every moment you spend with her. surely she could never see you that way though. hell, you didn’t even know if she was into girls.

“i watch every movie of yours. you are quite an incredible actress. which is why i wanted you to test these for me.” she says while handing you what seemed to be a pair of black glasses. they were the exact same frames as ones you wore in your last movie.

shuri sees you raising a brow at this realization and says, “i liked how well they complimented you.”

“i see.” you say as you hear the subtle cockiness in her voice begin to dwell. you couldn’t help but think about how much taller she was even in your heels. so to look up at her with the glasses on made you feel a bit silly. you enjoyed it though.

suddenly words appear in your eyesight. the glasses lenses turn into screens that display what seems to be a script. it tracks what you read and what you haven’t, highlights certain parts of the text for you, and seemingly more. your mouth can’t help but gape open at how cool it all is.

“did you make these?” a stupid question, but you had to ask.

“of course, with you in mind.”

“why me?”

“it gave me a good excuse to get you in my lab, and trust me, i needed to get you in here somehow.”

oh. my. god.

“why wait until this fancy gala?” you blushed as you spoke, still searching through the words on the lenses.

“i just wanted to see you in a pretty dress. i guessed you’d look amazing based off your premiere pics, but somehow it’s so much better in person. you’re so much better in person.”

suddenly you feel her hand resting on your hip. you don’t refuse her, and she can feel you’re enjoying the reaction. she took pleasure in knowing your hairs probably stood up under that tight dress from her finger tips. she lifts the glasses up, allowing for you to make eye contact with her. she was looking at you like you were the only person in the world. she was looking at you as if she wanted to devour you.

how suave.

“you are much shorter in person, but i prefer it this way. much easier to do this.”

“do what—“ you begin to ask, but unable to finish as a gasp escapes from your plump lips. shuri had lifted you up onto the glass table so easily that it caught you by surprise. you swore you could feel your heart beating out of your chest. your body aches for her and she could tell.

her fingers trail up the slit in your dress as you both hold eye contact. she smiles as they slip under the dress, finding your black panties. the space between you two becomes much less by every passing second.

“i should’ve flown you out to wakanda much sooner if i knew you would let me get this far. perhaps even request you film a movie here.”

“a movie? for the wakandans?”

she laughs, “no silly. our own personal movie. one that involves little clothing. i’m sure you’d be a natural at it since it involves no real acting.”

holy shit she’s good.

she leans in while keeping eye contact. you began growing impatient so you grab her face and push your lips into hers. suddenly the space between you is no longer existing. her hands are on your hips as you attempt to chase some kind of high.

shuri takes pleasure in knowing just how fast you crumbled beneath her. you two didn’t even know each other for two hours and here you were grinding yourself into her and the table trying to chase a high.

your hands dug into the curly hair on top of her head as she dove to your exposed neck. her nails dug into your skin when you pulled slightly on the hair. her teeth sank into your neck and you moaned from the contact. it was almost as if she was a vampire with the way she was sucking and biting on you. she just couldn’t get enough of how fruity you had tasted.

you couldn’t help but melt underneath her and turn into a mess as she pushed your legs up. she was incredibly charming and the best kisser you’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. this certainly isn’t what you had planned for the night, but it would do nicely.

“princess shuri—“

“not,” she came up from your neck and kissing you to speak, “now.”

“but—“

shuri ignored the voice speaking from the walls. you were too busy taking everything in to notice the voice.

“princess shuri!”

a voice booms through the lab and suddenly shuri is pushing herself off of you. you quickly fix your position to keep from falling off of the glass table as you realize someone other than the both of you was in the room.

“okoye, how many times have i told you to not enter when the doors are shut?!”

the woman only raises a brow as she looks between you and the princess. you give a weak but embarrassed smile. her expression drops into a slight smile when she sees shuri’s hand still on your waist.

“i apologize to break up whatever this is, but the queen is requesting your presence.”

shuri sighs, “i better not keep mother waiting.” she looks back at you and attempts to hide a smile from seeing how flustered you look, “i will be back. do not move a muscle!”

you can only find it in yourself to nod your head, already missing how good it felt to have her lips on your neck.

she hurries after okoye and the doors to the lab open.

“must you have sex in the lab?”

“we were not going to have sex okoye!”

“lying is not good for the soul shuri.”

“hmph. you know how long i’ve been crushing on her.”

“oh yes, you never shut up about her last movie. such a lover girl aren’t you? at least take the girl out on a date first.”

“maybe i will.” shuri states in a matter of fact manner.

the doors shut cutting off the conversation to you. however, you heard all you needed to hear, a smile spreading across your lips.

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