#and the only thing missing would be the tiny team context

[constantvariations]

V9C3

What sites are y’all using? I had to go through like 3 before finding one that would work :/ either way, react time yeehaw

Post Ep: this is essentially a mental breakdown of an episode and I hated every minute of it

I think crwby put more attention into the trees than the story

Weiss for the love of cheese and crackers stop with the fucking wAcKy animations I am begging

Why does this little red shite sound so shitty? I wanna shove him in a locker and give him swirlies. Also wow an entitled dramatic flamboyant prince. What a totally unique idea. I am in utter disbelief at such creativity. How can we ever thank our crwby overlords for such a great character.

I unpause the video and immediately need to kill this stupid shitheel. I cannot believe we are getting all the most annoying characters in a single fucking volume. At this point I’d be willing to endure another fucking Jaundice arc if it meant never hearing the prince or Little ever again

I am losing my goddamn mind every 3 seconds. I’m going to start chanting latin and climbing up the walls and spewing pea soup everywhere

I’m going to go full Blaire Witch. The last y’all are ever going to hear of me is when the forest rangers find my shitty recorder at the torn apart campsite and the last thing you’ll ever hear is me going “Where is the fucking plot what are the themes what is this tone someone help me”

Ruby is red. Shouldn’t that like. Factor in at all? Dude’s so upset at the color green but is totally chill with yellow, black, and blue? Is it because green is the opposite of red?

So it’s a shitty chess game with some elements of wizards chess. Did these motherfuckers really pluck inspiration from Harry fucking Potter? Right down to the kids being pieces??? Are y’all for fucking real??

Wait a goddamn minute the pieces being advanced upon can fight back? What sense does that fucking make? Unless the framing is really awful and I can’t see the space the pieces are fighting over? It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense when Ruby’s calling out moves but the shitlord isn’t

And now it’s a full out assault? What is this game and why does it suck?

Normally I don’t notice music due to my auditory issues but the song coming out of nowhere with a jazz bit was so weird I missed like half the battle

Also RUBY YOU ARE HUGE SWEEP THE FUCKING BOARD DUMBASS

Wow .2 seconds of despair followed by an all out victory. Riveting

Ah the cat monstrosity. The first instance of gradients and it’s so atrocious

NOW LITTLE RECOGNIZES THE FUCKING CAT FUCK THIS GODDAMN MOUSE

Wait wtf Neo fell at the same time as Ruby right? Why is she just now shooting starred into wonderland. Why does she immediately waste energy shifting into Ruby and Cinder? Why would she even want to?

And why build up the twitch creature if it’s just going to be ganked off screen? I assume it’s going to be making a return considering the design but also why didn’t they have it do anything before being Neo’d?

At the very least this hints that Jaune won’t be appearing until later, if crwby can remember their own rules for 5 minutes. We might even be Jaune free a few more episodes! Took Neo 3 to show up so hopefully Jaune won’t make it til 6

[yannig]

Her French is really good, I'm impressed!

I'm used to cringing a bit when shows or movies use French with characters who are supposed to be fluent, because it usually doesn't work. But here it works perfectly!

Her accent is really good for one. Just a tiny bit of an accent, which is normal for someone who grew up in another country. Her emphasis is where it should, the phrasing works. Props to the actress for it!

And the translation is on point too! It's the correct level of familiarity to talk with your French grandma, and with all the little things that only make sens in French.

She's actually saying "kisses kisses". In French, it's a common way to say bye in a familiar way, like with friends of family. I use "bisous" or "bisous bisous" pretty often. And "bisous" is the familiar word for "kiss". It's exactly how I talk to my grandma!

The subtitles team however didn't really do their homework, because "kisses kisses" doesn't really work in English. The most literal translation would be "xoxo" but of course it doesn't work for translating speech, so something like "love you" or "take care" would be more accurate.

Similarly, the subtitles translate "mamie" as "grandma", while I'd go more with "granny" in this context, it's more familiar.

Also when she's saying "I miss you and grandpa too" technically she's saying "I miss you (plural) too" without saying who else in included in this "you", but since English doesn't differentiate between singular and plural forms for the second person, you do what you can. "I miss the two of you too" might have be a bit closer, but it's a detail.

[inkedroplets]

Random Lena/Peggy Snippet

I still don't have a title for what is clearly becoming another monstrously long fic but I can't keep prodding @sideguitars with random bits of the same snippet.

For a tiny bit of context, Lena messes with something she shouldn't, timey-wimey and she finds herself back in 1950 (After already getting herself stranded on Earth-616)

This can’t be happening again.

As Lena took in the details of the room she realized that there was a disconcerting harmony with the way she had first arrived on this Earth. Again, she found herself thrown into a nondescript room and made to wait. The first time around she had wound up on a completely different Earth and this time, if this all wasn’t some horrific fever dream, this go around she had gone back in time.

The symmetry was so complete that when the door began to open, Lena half-expected a man looking very much like Coulson to step through and begin to pry in that strangely friendly but wholly bureaucratic way of interrogation. But it was the same woman who had escorted her brusquely into the room that entered. She spared Lena a brief glance, holding what Lena knew must be another empty file and that feeling of harmony continued to chime, only louder this time. She’s going to ask if I’m an enhanced individual, Lena thought and almost felt like smiling at the memory of Coulson momentarily caught flat footed at his poor turn of phrase. But she was wrong again.

“In all the confusion,” the woman said, sitting down opposite her, “I forgot to introduce myself. I’m Peggy Carter.” She didn’t offer Lena her hand to shake but she did study her face closely, clearly hoping to see a fugitive spark of recognition there. Nothing showed on her face but there was a connection made, the result of the penny finally dropping upon hearing her name. She might have only retained a tiny portion of the footnotes-only version history of SHIELD that she had received in dribs and drabs from everyone  on the team, but there was no forgetting something as basic as one of its founding members and Captain America’s long lost love. 

Oh I am so fucked…“And now that you’ve had some time to think, is your memory any less fuzzy, Miss…” “Luthor. Lena Luthor. And I suppose that depends on the question,” she answered, not meaning to sound so cagey but not able to help herself either. “Then perhaps we’ll start with an easy one, Miss Luthor. The machine that you were found with—

The time machine.

“—where did you acquire it?” Lena shook her head. “I can’t recall.” The thin humorless smile that appeared on Peggy’s face didn’t surprise Lena in the slightest. Her answer ranked among the all-time greats with I was just holding it for a friend. But she still thought it a safer answer than telling her the truth. That she had found it in a hidden room of a Hydra safehouse. Not to mention that this all happened several decades in the future. No, that didn’t seem wise at all…

“Naturally. And if I asked you what the machine was made to do, you wouldn’t be able to recall that either.” “Afraid not,” Lena answered. Peggy nodded, that humorless smile never leaving her face. “How providential.” “I wouldn’t go that far. This is an interrogation, after all,” Lena said. “Bad time for things to get hazy.” “On that front we are in complete agreement. Which is why I’d like you to really think about my next question before you answer me. She sat forward in her chair, hands folded neatly on the table. “Are you working with Hydra, Miss Luthor?” Lena had expected the question-although she had also expected her to ask it more tactfully- and that gave her a little time to quickly mull over her best course of action. How honest should she, could she be?

“I know I told you to think this one over but honestly it's really very simple,” Peggy said.

It should be…

Lena shook her head. “No, I’m not working with Hydra. I would never work for them.” And I have the scars to prove it… Peggy nodded, not looking the slightest bit convinced. “Because the machine you were in possession of, has all the makings of it being Hydra-made.” A glimmer of disgust shone through on her face and Lena felt a momentary unease. 

“Miss Carter—” 

“Once Stark has had a little more time to pick through what remains we’ll know for sure.” 

Lena winced internally barely registering the fact that Peggy had mentioned a Stark. She had been too frazzled to think about just how many teeny tiny pieces the time machine was in now and what that meant about her prospects of returning home.

“So,” Peggy said, her stern voice intruding on her thoughts, “If you're lying, Miss Luthor, you could save us both some time and tell me what exactly you were doing with that device and who it is you work for.”

"And who do you work for, Miss Carter?" Lena asked, not even sure if SHIELD had been created yet. I should have just read that History of SHIELD doorstop that Jemma gifted me, she thought, kicking herself. The thin-lipped smile on Peggy’s face screamed: What does that matter to you? “You wouldn’t have heard of us,” Peggy answered. “We’re still only an idea, really, albeit a noble one. I work for the Strategic—”“Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division," Lena finished for her. “SHIELD.”

A long silence followed where the only sound in the room was that of a ticking clock in an adjacent room. “And how could you possibly know that?” Peggy asked.

“Before I answer,” Lena said carefully, feeling as if she were navigating a heavily trapped minefield, “I need to ask who else might be listening.”

“No one,” Peggy answered curtly. She didn’t seem pleased at all that Lena was dictating terms, especially in light of her somehow knowing about a top secret organization that was still in its infancy. “Stark,” she said a moment later and looked back. “He might be… “Stark!” Peggy bellowed. There was the sound of muffled footsteps and Lena found herself half-expecting to see Tony poke his head in the room, regardless of how impossible that might have been.

“You and those dulcet tones of yours, Peggy… I’m still picking through that mess of scraps you dumped in front of me.” He trailed off when he locked eyes with Lena. “This is her?” he asked and Peggy nodded. “She’s not handcuffed. Is she supposed to be handcuffed?”

“Oh my God,” Lena said, noticing the resemblance at once. “You’re his father…”

“Now wait a minute,” the man said, pointing at Lena and leaning closer to get a better look at her. “I have never seen this woman in my life.” He nodded, looking more confident in his declaration and then paused. “You weren’t at the Expo in 43’ were you?”

[zahri-melitor]

New(ish) Comics:

Batman #151: Zdarsky writes a competent Selina using her car burglar skills in this. Proof positive that Bruce & Selina make a solid investigative team.

There’s also a Tini Howard Harley Quinn backup, sigh.

Gotham City Sirens #1: I was mostly sampling this because I do like Selina and I enjoy Ivy, but a little Harley goes a loooong way.

Hmmm. The plot is a fairly weird and sort of forcing the three together, plus it looks like their main antagonist is going to be Punchline. That's...not exactly convincing me I'm going to enjoy this.

Blue Beetle #11: And that's the wrap for this series, as it's cancelled. I do wish that DC had given Trujillo one more issue to finish on #12, because it was clearly plotted as 2 6-issue arcs. So this issue is your classic "we shoved two issues of plot into one and ALSO threw in some pages of the future story we were drafting for year 2 because we liked it and wanted to show it off". Which means it reads as terribly disjointed: two separate relationships are announced by their participants; every page feels like a separate plot point, which normally would have some context and lead in; and things are hurriedly tied off without explanation. I think it probably would have gone more smoothly to read if Trujillo had left a few more threads hanging (like the Jaime/Ood'Li relationship, the Reyes family visiting, and whatever he was trying for with Traci and Nimue), but I get the desire to shove everything in so you can say you 'yeah I planned that!' and get the credit. I'll miss this. I would have liked to see the kids starting college together.

The Boy Wonder #4: oooh this is the Talia issue. I enjoyed the structure of how this was put together; echoing Talia's childhood against Damian's childhood and setting up the story of cycles of behaviour and the manner in which each of them chose to attempt to reach outside of the League's teachings. And they made different decisions! Talia chose to turn back towards the League, while Damian here is shown reaching out to change - BECAUSE he received that extra support from his brothers, which Talia did not get. It's just crunchy and really interesting framing and talks to a lot of things, because yeah. Talia did end up in a situation where she was pregnant, and her father and her lover were in opposition to each other, and she had to make a call about where she wanted to be, and where she'd raise that child. And she chose to stay with what she knew, rather than reach out and leave and tell Bruce and turn her back on her father. And that's an understandable decision she made, even if was probably the worse decision for all of Talia AND Bruce AND Damian.

Birds of Prey #12: mind empty, DinahBabs hug telling her "I love you. Never do that again!". Okay that aside this is still really good? It's a wild Xanthe appearance! I do agree that Kelly Thompson need to take a breath and slow down on trying to get to play with ALL the toys in terms of characters, but also I fully know if I were given a BOP run I would also have a cast list of at least a dozen characters who I wanted to play with, even if it was unwieldy.

Shazam! #14: Freddy has a lot of emotions and reminds you that he keeps it bottled up a lot of the time unless you're in his head. Also I enjoyed that Campbell has looped around to add Uncle Dudley back into the cast, after setting him up over in Power of Shazam; not only does he bring a lot of energy of his own but I think his thing of being unpowered and still fighting is going to link in well with the fact that Freddy, Eugene, Pedro and Darla are also still unpowered.

Plastic Man No More #1: okay, this is interestingly creepy. I honestly don't hugely care about Eel O'Brien, but it makes his condition fascinatingly horrifying plus leans into the fact that Eel's often used as a joke character. Even while on the League. Even by other characters on the League.

The Warlord #63: this week in Skartaris Travis Morgan and Mikola Rostov are off to see Jennifer to find out if she can cure his lycanthropy. Mikola brings up Mariah, because she was his student and lover, and Travis is like...oh yeah! Still trapped in the past.

At some point you'll get to come back to the story, Mariah. I believe in you. Hopefully you are busy spreading the good news of Communism among all the various gnomes in early Skartaris.

Also they drop in to see Aram's kingdom, where Shakira is spending all her time as a cat, and some fabled people who can talk to animals are visiting. They end up kidnapping Mikola.

[sometipsygnostalgic]

"Why is Alola so hated?"

Someone asked this question on Reddit.

The original post:

"Other than too much dialogue what is the worst thing about Alola. Alola is my favorite Pokémon games and region for a multitude of reasons but all I hear about it is that it has too much dialogue. I can understand that but later titles have just as much dialogue especially in the beginning portions of the game. So why is such an issue in these games than any other in the series. Also you thought the GD games were dark, the Aether Family are very dark concept if you want to look into them. Anyways back on topic, why are Alola considered the worst games besides the dialogue of course"

I thought about this question and I ended up writing a lengthy reply, see below. For context I should mention that Sun and Moon were my favourite mainline stories:

"So everyone is mentioning USUM, but since I was around for the launch of the games, I may as well throw my hat into the ring and explain what went wrong:

Everyone was really excited for the games to come out, but there was generally something missing from them. Promotional material was overly vague.

When the original Sun and Moon came out they had the following issues:

The story was very handholdy. I am a GREAT FAN of the story mode, but I have never replayed these games because they are basically visual novels. If you were a Nuzlocker, someone who wanted to replay Pokemon games, or if you didn't like the story, then these versions would automatically become your least favourite because of how long it takes to reach each milestone. It's also easier than a lot of prior games, not as easy as Gen 6 or 8 but up there.

While the region is IMO one of the most cohesive, it's also one of the least expansive. The Alola Region is fucking tiny. There's not nearly as many side things to do as in generations 4 and 5, and the new things they put into the Alola games were a lot less fun gimmick-wise. I like that they abandon the grid system, it needed to go, but Pokemon team don't seem to work well in 3d.

The online multiplayer was total ass. Of course, the online only got WORSE From here on out. How you get worse than Festival Plaza is beyond me, but I think Gen 7 is definitely when Pokemon jumped from having the BEST multiplayer system on Nintendo systems in generation 6 to one of the worst. Personally I was also disappointed the Festival Plaza wasn't a bit more like the Wifi Plaza, which was already a broken terrible mess but at least had some minigames. It seemed to take the wrong inspiration from Wifi Plaza, and tragically Pokemon only went downhill with online compatibility after. Because while technically the online is more fun in gen 8 and 9, it doesn't work.

The games leaked before they came out. Everyone saw concept art of the starters' final evolutions and they were SO MAD that Litten became bipedal. But there were very few surprises in Sun and Moon for people who prowled the reddit, who also seemed to be the least excited about the games.

However, what I don't think you understand is how much LOVE they had. Of all the pokemon games I've been around for the release of, I think Sun and Moon were most unanimously loved. Everyone was talking about the story, and the incredible new designs of the alola pokemon, and yeah they were having a lot of trouble playing online, but people persisted.

When Ultra Sun and Moon came out, people were veeeeery disappointed for three key reasons:

This was a dual release "third version" instead of a sequel. Again, everyone LOVED the story of the original games, by this point it felt that the "third version" idea was dated, and people wanted a damn sequel with their favourite characters! I think BW2 set a very high bar for what the Pokemon team could offer, and unfortunately I don't think they ever met that bar again after they started making 3d games.

It was on the 3DS instead of the Switch. I was NEVER expecting USUM to be Switch games, I knew Pokemon team were not ready for Switch, but for some reason people expected Pokemon Stars to be a Switch game. Everyone was reaaaaally excited for Pokemon Switch after the console launched, but Pokemon has always belonged on the DS, and I felt it had more potential for growth on that console before moving up on the chain. Of course, after the negative reaction to USUM and the begging for Pokemon Switch, Game Freak HAD to start development on Let's Go and Sw/Sh.

The things they'd added into the game were not as impressive as the other Third Versions. Pokemon Emerald and Pokemon Platinum were objective improvements from the original, though I have some things to say about Emerald's pacing. I like the minigames from Ultra, I fell SO in love with the Camera mode!!! Spent so much time fucking around in it and still have a folder in my computer to this day. HOWEVER, the people still yearn for a Battle Frontier! The Battle Factory they put in USUM seems to be based on community, which was already a pain in the ass, and as you know, it's now impossible to play online with others, so RIP to that as well. I like the changes to the Battle Tree, I love Rainbow Rocket, but while Platinum and Emerald were NECESSARY IMPROVEMENTS from the ground up, USUM only improved some of the battles and held down everything else with more, worse cutscenes.

The story was much worse than the original, choosing to cut and change content instead of improve upon what was there. The story of Platinum and Emerald doesn't come across as worse than DP and RS, but EVERYONE thinks the story for USUM is a downgrade. The reason for this is because if Lillie was the true protagonist of the games originally, the Ultra versions tried to cut her down, but only for a couple of her most important scenes. She and Lusamine basically have every scene intact except for their most important, climactic moments. It's like if instead of BW2, they made Pokemon Grey but it was split in half, and instead of being an evil fucko gunning for world domination, Ghetsis was trying to use the power of the two Dragons to stop Kyurem from freezing the world, except he still abused pokemon, and he still abused N from childhood, and N never showed up to become champion and N never realised the truth of pokemon or turned against his father. How terrible would that be?

No remakes or anything special at the end of the gen. For the past few generations we'd either had remakes or sequels, but Gen 7 released USUM and Let's Go. It's debatable whether the Lets Go games are part of gen 7, but I wouldn't consider them remakes the same way that HGSS or ORAS are, and they are CERTAINLY not a favourite with a hardcore Pokemon audience. At least Gen 8/9 had decent DLC and Legends Arceus as a halfhearted apology note, but unfortunately there was no swan song at the end of Generation 7.

I think ultimately that's what made people go from "Gen 7 could be the best yet" to "Gen 7 bad". The launch was very strong, but the followup was the poorest out of almost any gen.

My personal opinion of USUM is it is one of the best pokemon games for general battles, I think it would be a lot more fun to nuzlocke than the original Sun and Moon, but there's a lot of better pokemon games to replay than USUM, especially if you're taking modded into account. I think sun and moon were the most immersive out of the games I've played, at the very least because it had improvements like trainer models in battles without the uncanny as hell stuff you got in the next two gens. I remember the games fondly, even if I do feel bitter about the story changes."

I thought this reply was worth sharing on this blog. I put a lot of effort into it.

[once-i-stay-in-neverland]

Stray Kids Survival Show Reaction:

I'm currently watching the Stray Kids survival show for the first time and I've been noting down my thoughts while watching, so I decided I might as well share my live commentary on here as well:

Episode 1:

- Chaeryeong my love, my humble queen, skz fangirling for her was so cute

- Yeji and Ryujin already being heartthrobs before debut

- interesting how they only showcased the Itzy girlies individually of the girls team

- obviously grateful that skz got to debut through this show, but also grateful the girls team didn't debut bc I would've missed Lia

- Changbin and Seungmin were already such solid performers predebut it's insane

- OMG Jeongin was tiny, I 100% get the baby bread thing now

- Jisung somehow looked older predebut than he does now

- Hyunjin's predebut visuals!!! sir?!! leave some of those good looks for the rest of us

- wtf how does Felix look like he's 12 years old but has the same voice he has now??? my brain can't match his voice to his face, this is crazy

- videos of Chan as a teen are so cute, I can't-

- I do admire Chan's leader qualities which already show themselves really strongly here. He was 20, I believe, which isn't super crazy, he obviously will have had lots of experience by nature of having been a trainee for 7 years, but it's still an insane amount pressure

- Chan with Twice is so cute, my heart!!! Sana teasing him!! OMG!!

- Lily??!! OMG!! I love how instantly recognizable she is from her voice colour

- the girl team slayed, holy shit, my queen Chaeryeong loml

- from the showcase alone, I'd say 3racha + Seungmin were really their pillars they could rely on for live vocals/rap, apart from maybe Chan and Hyunjin they're all lacking in stage presence still tho

- Ryujin's resting pouty face, I love her

- Jeongin is so baby!!!

- Changbin 100% deserved that shoutout from JYP, I mean you wouldn't have guessed he's a trainee from how he looked on that stage, damn

- lmao not Minho keeping his clothes in bundles, what is wrong with this man

- the entire maknae line were such cuties back then omg

Episode 2:

- Chan being really harsh in dance practice bc it's important they get this right, and Minho stepping in to show Jeongin the dance in detail; it's like he observed the scene and saw that Jeongin felt a bit intimidated so he gave him some confidence by going through it with him

- Minho cheering everyone on before their performance, he's like the heart of the group atp, he keeps the cool for everyone, while Chan handles all the outward responsibilities, they really are like mom and dad

- 3racha + Seungmin again with their insane predebut live vocals

- Hyunjin's flow was a bit sloppy and Minho, Woojin and Jeongin sounded a bit out of breath (honestly didn't expect that from Minho)

- Han Jisung the ace of aces

- I sometimes see people make fun of Hellevator for its line distribution but it made sense for that context, Jisung was their most solid live performer and he could hit the high notes, so he should get the most lines

Episode 3:

- NOOOOO leave Minho to singing, don't make him rap, he's a singer and he has a beautiful voice, he's just not as stable yet

- Jisung holding Minho's hand while Changbin is supporting him during his rap is beautiful

- Minbin are truly the cutest, like for the song they chose, Changbin was like "this would suit Minho" and then later said "this song is mine, I'll do it with you" and an unsaid "I'll get you through this evaluation"

- the "there's no vocal" in relation to Minho, Changbin and Felix hurt my heart, let Minho sing!!!

- Seungmin's voice!! I am deceased

- the way Changbin is teaching Minho to rap, my heart

- Minho, Changbin and Felix are such a fun trio

- the Changlix kiss was too cute

Episode 4:

- apart from Chan everyone is super awkward at giving feedback which is so valid, but I'm impressed by Jisung who wasn't as harsh as Chan but at least tried even though he is one of the younger members

- my heart is bleeding for Minho who's like "I'm one of the older members, I should be helping the younger members, but instead they've helped me a lot" and Changbin who immediately takes the blame when Minho isn't rapping well enough and the fact that their entire performance is a mess bc the rap members are singing and the vocal member is rapping (although Changbin sings well enough tbf)

- leader Chan! the way he's serious and not afraid to tell the others off is honestly very impressive

- Minho's softspoken voice is just so nice to listen to

- Seungmin is so insane, I could listen to this man sing all day

- Felix is on the verge of tears, nooo :((

- when Minho cries, I cry, I'm so sad, and Changbin blaming himself again makes it worse

- Jisung has such a big heart, the way he talks about Jeongin and talks to Jeongin

- Han Jisung, the man you are

- it's really unfair, Minho's a dancer!! which he never got to show off at this point (which is their own fault for sure, but he was way too focused on the fact that JYP wanted him to rap)

- if anything, JYP's evaluation that Minho would hold them back is just wrong, he's no Changbin or Jisung who were already well-rounded performers at this point, but he is a solid dancer, he led the dance practice in episode 1 really well and he is the heart of the group. while Chan is responsible for making sure they debut and they're all doing good work, Minho is responsible for everyone's emotional well-being. it's honestly super interesting to me that Woojin, who is actually the oldest, doesn't take on any real older member role

- something I realized as well this episode is the leader qualities all of 3racha possess, they really took charge for these subunit performances

- as much as I love Changbin, I feel like Minho would've benefitted more from a collaboration with Chan for this evaluation. it would've removed this barrier that Minho built between him and Changbin because Changbin is younger and he felt like guilty having to rely on someone younger than him and Chan's tough love teaching style might've also spoken to Minho more than Changbin's much nicer method.

[sorribu]

You should tell us more about what Rory and Rhys did during the time they were separated

i would also talk about the og story but i really really need to talk about the swap au

tiny amount of context: rhys and rory were separated at 9 and 7 instead of 14 and 12 and were separated for a little over five years instead of six months ill get into more detail on how they were separated and rorys side of the story in a later post so ill be only talking mostly about rhys here

rhys:

rhys was NOT having a fun time. unlike rory, rhys did not meet team sonic until he was 12 and spent a lot of his time alone wallowing in guilt that not only could he not save his parents, he couldnt take good care of his little sister like he promised them. he would look for small jobs to be able to afford food and supplies, often looking for these jobs in towns closest to eggmans bases and just doing things that a 9-11 year old should not have responsibility for

rhys would come up with plans to try to rescue his sister from eggmans bases but was never able to actually make it inside the base until after he met team sonic

unlike rory, rhys never stayed with team sonic and was pretty much homeless the entire time, not accepting their invitations to stay with them until after they rescue rory

rory:

rory actually enjoyed a lot of her time with eggman. she was constantly tinkering with eggmans badniks and other machines and doing what she could to improve them. eggman never mistreated rory and actually grew to care about her (he has trouble showing this) she became friends with sage and constantly talked about wishing they could meet rhys

rory was not aware that eggman is the cause for her parents death and destruction of their town.

rory was taken in by eggman after an argument she had with rhys causing her to run away out of anger, she missed her brother greatly and regrets leaving him

[curio-queries]

Jimin's Production Diary: a rambling review

A few notes before we get into this:

I have not seen either Hobi's or Suga's documentaries, yet.

My friends and family hate watching shows and movies with me as I'm very critical. I honestly gave up watching most fictional storytelling content about five years ago because it frustrates me how much I'm frustrated with it. (Unless I'm on a plane, it's the only time that tend to watch any movies/shows. In Sept, I watched The Pez Outlaw - fascinating traditional-style documentary!)

Despite what I'm about to detail, I did enjoy watching all of the content surrounding Jimin's Production Diary and am very happy we got what we did.

THE INTRO: Set the Stage.... or Don't...?

The first two minutes of the Jimin's Production Diary (hereafter referred to as JPD) are clips of the very film that we're about to see, mixed with some that we don't see at all...so basically a Trailer. Now I know I'm in the minority when it comes to opinions on if Previews and Trailers just spoil things but two minutes?? At the beginning of the film we've paid to see? That seem excessive! I'm sure this is a trend on streaming platforms to convince audiences to not click away but I gotta say, I hate it. Jimin himself was confused by it during his live watchthrough.

We switch to an extremely brief meeting between Jimin and the team (hereafter referred to as SGMB), clearly gathering together to talk about the past events. They lead in by bringing up the timeline...And that's all we really get as far as what lead to the start of the documentary. I mean, credit to the editors, it was a perfect line about how Jimin would mess around on the keyboard, cut to the scene where he comes up with a melody they try for the Face-Off intro. It establishes the flow of how the rest if the film will progress - we'll be going through the clips of Jimin's contributions to the album, broken up by song but unless I'm mistaken, we don't see any more footage from this meeting for the rest of the film. I believe we hear a few more lines of it as voiceover but it's not clear. I don't know, it just sets me on a weird tone with this film. We establish the typical interview footage scene with the entire SGMB, so it gives us the impression that what is about to unfold will cover a wider perspective than just Jimin's but we never see any more of it. We go straight to the timeline and old footage.

As we are accustomed to with our beloved JM, he doesn't like telling us the reason why he does most things. There could be many reasons for this, the one that I like the most is that it doesn't predispose the audience to any specific conclusion beyond what meaning we get from the content itself. In my opinion, this is great for art...less so when you're trying to recount history (...but that's a whole debate into politics that we won't go into today!). Either way, the audience of JPD either needs to already know the circumstances, output, and conclusions of the event surrounding this album or they just need to be fine with missing context. (If you're interested in some tiny tidbits regarding the initial direction and overall vision of FACE, be sure to watch the last few minutes of the JPD commentary.) Which brings me to:

CRITICAL POINT # 1 : HYBE does not produce content to inform, they produce content to entertain.

Audiences should set their expectations as such and remember that even though we may feel like we're 'getting the scoop', we are only being given just enough to entertain us. (Sidenote: this is one of the keypoints I evaluate in my Run BTS watchthroughs BECAUSE I got frustrated very early on with how poor of a job their content does when it needs to be informative).

Some points that could have been covered in JPD to give better context:

Jimin deciding to make an album at all.

Jimin deciding to use the specific timeline and subjects in his album. We know it covers what he went through during the pandemic according to interviews he gave during promotions. Clips of those interviews would have been easy footage to insert.

Were these decisions made before he started talking to the team?

The little bit of behind the the scenes for the BE album showed BTS having a themes and keyword discussion extremely early in the project where they were outlining some rough ideas for the album regarding song quantity, general feeling and potential units. Did a similar process occur with FACE?

At what point where the other guys in the team brought in? Jimin only mentions PDOGG at the beginning.

How far did they progress before they decided to start filming for the documentary? From what we can see, most of the footage was self-captured and they even joked about the team being camera-minders during the Quiz Show so it was definitely by design that we got as much footage as we did; that doesn't just happen by accident.

(More on helpful context later)

What's the problem with this? Not much actually, provided the viewer isn't under the impression that they are being educated. We've come a long way from the general public only associating documentaries with National Geographic films about lions stalking prey but there is still the perception of factual evidence being revealed when watching one. And while I wouldn't classify anything in JPD as a lie, there's absolutely a bias at play here more than just selecting a favorite band member. I actually love that the title is Diary rather than Documentary, it's far more accurate. This film is a log of Jimin's highlights during this portion of the album process. The problem comes when people conclude that because that's all we see, that's all that happened. We see very little of the work that the rest of the SGMB did unless it's hyping up one of Jimin's contributions. In fact, we're never really introduced the the team and what their contributions and responsibilities are.

During the Live watchthrough,  Jimin referred to himself several times as the 'Idea Bank'. And yes, we absolutely have seen that in him over the years. I love that about him! He is very willing to contribute ideas (which honestly is a skill in its own and shouldn't be downplayed) but the other important parts of any creative process are implementation and editing (something I obviously didn't do here, this post is looong). Once an idea occurs, there may need to be some discussion on how to implement it and also edit out the items that don't serve the whole purpose. The rest of the SGMB demonstrated over and over the ability to take in Jimin's ideas, translate them into a workable format and edit it down. Jimin said it himself during the commentary, 'your discernment is amazing'.

Which brings me to one of the main wars I've seen waged in the JPD discussions: Namjoon's involvement. We see one tiny portion of a conversation with no context before or after. Jimin gave us a little more context during his watchthrough. This specific conversation happened after the team thought they were ready to finalize the lyrics but Namjoon sent them back to the drawing board. (I have vivid memories of English teachers giving me similar advice - usually in poetry units. 'Yes, you rhymed but it doesn't actually mean anything').  There is absolutely more to RMs contribution to be listed in the credits than this one conversation. What we saw here was him giving the team instruction to focus more on the overall direction and intent first to give better support to the labor of lyrics. The irony here is I see the same issue with the structure of JPD.

CRITICAL POINT # 2 : Jimin's Production Diary has little to no direction.

Not every documentary film will flow like a three act play with a classic 'hero's journey' type of storyline but it's very clear that this film was put together by an editing team aftrr the fact and not a director. There was no real narrative structure, journey, or storyline. It was just a portion of the process a very engaging individual went through with a handful of guys to create the music for an album. Something that could have helped would have been having an outsider interview the team, someone with training in putting together a narrative for film to help lead the stories and memories to a conclusion.

Again I go back to questioning the intent and goals discussed when it was decided to capture footage. This must have been a beast for the team to edit, not just due to quantity of footage like Jimin joked about during his Live watchthrough but with sheer lack of direction.

The main emotional journey I experienced as a viewer was when we'd start to hear the melodies and lyrics that would make it into the final version. But that requires the audience to come into this film not only knowing the output but being familiar with it to recognize it amongst other sounds being presented. That's a big ask for any subject matter, let alone in a process we don't regularly see or experience.

WANT TO HAVE A DRINK: The lost song. I don't expect to pick up everything in any film on first watchthrough,  especially if it's not in my native language. But it was only after Jimin's Live watchthrough did I realize there was a whole section for this scrapped song. This would have been a great point to highlight jn the developmental arc but it's basically disregarded.

One final tangent before I wrap this up:

SIDE POINT: Original development lyrics are not some hidden treasure trove of true meaning.

It's interesting to see where the thought processes wandered through until the conclusion that is the released version but those lyrics should not be used as weapons against others to determine the one-true-meaning. The artist changed them for a reason. And different versions will absolutely carry different weight amongst individuals but please remember that the development process is lengthy and artists are usually just trying whatever they can think of to get to the point they'd like their work to be, with many steps along the way.

CONCLUSION (I thought this post would last forever)

JPD contains very insightful footage of Jimin's journey in stepping into parts of the music development process that he may not have been so involved in prior. I'm very intrigued to see if it's something he's interested in further developing, both as part of BTS and in any future solo efforts. Like I said at the beginning, I'm very grateful to have seen it but I am not encouraged by any future 'documentaries' the company will be releasing.

Finally! it's done. I feel in a much better place to wrap up the analysis post I started in April comparing Like Crazy to the movie but it's been so long, I need to watch it again. We'll see how long that takes me!

If anyone actually read any portion of this, let alone the whole thing, you are amazing and deserve all the blessings of blonde-Jimin in your life! 💜

[raisindave]

[Chapter 16] Seeing the World Through Ballistic-Tinted Glasses

Content Warning: Themes of sexual assault. Please consider if reading about sexual assault from a second-person perspective may be upsetting to you.

Alejandro lifted himself into the doorless jeep, flicking the ignition into a rumbling purr. His brown eyes calmly swung over his surroundings as you identified the signature eye motions of someone checking for snipers. An unsettling thought, but perhaps it’s just habit. Flickering your eyes to the thick fauna on the treeline, you, too, spotted no white flashes from the glint of a scope. Stepping into the seat beside him, your mind surged between the need to pull your dress up to cover your chest more or shift it down to cover your thighs. To your dismay, sauntering teammates, armed to the teeth in heavy jackets and kevlar vests came sauntering over to send you off. They were probably seeking to catch one last glimpse of a dead girl walking.  

“Good thing you didn’t tell me,” he responded curtly. 

By the tone of his response, you would have assumed it was something spiteful, cold and disillusioned. Only after actually combing through the context did you gather that it was a joke. Though by the time you recognized that you should have laughed, his attention was on Price, receiving more orders about God knows what. 

"See ya' soon, Cricket," Gaz nodded, offering an additional nod in Alejandro's direction.

Gaz was called back, as they were running final checks on the firearms before carefully loading them into the back of a vehicle that mirrored your own. Your ride pulled away, leaving your teammates to disappear into a cloud of dust and sun glare. Having even a tiny Ruger, a Glock even, anything would calm your nerves and make you feel less like you’re walking into the viper’s den barefoot. A tablet that had been placed on your lap at some point, which offered a window into the images of a young woman only days before she was abducted. Samantha was laughing, volleyball under her arm in one picture, beaming a smile into the lens of the school photographer's camera in another. Another swipe. A missing person file. It described an 18-year-old girl with long brown hair with blonde highlights, grey eyes, a slender build and a stick-and-poke smiley face just above her thumb. All details burned into your eyes, risking burning a permanent image into your brain of a possibly dead girl, all in the service of potentially being able to identify her. 

The sensation of your seatbelt tightening around your waist snapped you out of your concentration, quivering fingers unclasping the latch attaching you to the Jeep. Adjusting your eyes to the blinding sunlight, you worked your mind to make sense of the surroundings, now acutely aware of the fact that your armed escort was soon to dump you. 

“Cricket is in position. En route to Bravo team.” Alejandro murmured into his mic on his shoulder, nodding curtly to you, then winding the wheel of the Jeep and accelerating away. His eyes lingered on yours for a short moment before he pulled away, radiating with a softness and kindness that caught you off guard.

The cloud of dust from your chauffeur’s departure took its time to settle, revealing a small garage. The vegetation seemed to recede from around the wide metal doors, leaving a clear view all the way to the back of the building. A short, slender man with a Red t-shirt that was draped over his hunched shoulders briskly approached you, whisking you into the warehouse. Taking the time to peek over each shoulder, the moment she shuffled you into the confines of the garage, you were hit with a powerful smell of must and gasoline. 

“You must be Olga,” he croaked, disappearing briefly behind a faintly translucent plastic sheet, “Julien. I’m Julien.”

The slightly colder air provided by the shielding of the harsh afternoon sunlight made goosebumps prickle over your skin, or it could have been from the sight of a stained mattress in the corner of the room. It could be a combination of either, but more likely than not, it was mostly due to your current wardrobe. Even though fresh air was only steps away, you couldn’t help but feel like you could suffocate in the vast open warehouse. You flinched at the sudden sound of chambering metal ringing across the floor, the consequence of Julien’s rummaging. He shrugged into a surprisingly well-tailored pinstriped suit jacket, finally providing a reason for his now matching pinstripe pants.

“So…” you folded your hands behind your back, standing at attention as a default position that had been drilled into your psyche since Basic Training, “What can I expect when I meet my companion, Mister Ogievich-”

“Aleksandr Ogievich, yeah, Mister Ogievich,” Julien was electric with energy, almost giggling with excitement as he spoke, “You’re in for a real treat little chica,” his eyes were wild, tilting his peach fuzzed chin at you as he spoke. 

He was trying to get under your skin. Trying to test you to see if you’ll crack. You’ve seen it before, almost regularly by now; people see a small woman in your position and presume they can be the smartass that can make you crumble. No. Ride it out, and let him get his fill. Just like a grizzly bear, you’ve just got to play dead and wait for him to get bored and move on. 

“Anything else I should know beforehand?”

“Guy’s always got blue roses. They’re his thing. If you see a blue rose, that's your guy. I hear he makes his girls get tattoos of 'em too if he gets them under his thumb." 

You wordlessly nodded along, subconsciously tugging the suddenly noticeably tight-fitting choker necklace to give yourself an opportunity to breathe. 

“Fat fucker’s always had a thing for salmon caviar and olives, so we'll keep them coming, and you'll keep his lap warn. We’ll get the liquor flowing, and hopefully, he’ll be inclined to spill everything… in more ways than one.” he tacked the curt comment onto the end of the sentence, continuing to murmur in hushed Spanish. 

It didn’t take an expert to gather that Julien didn’t care for any of these men whatsoever. It softened your heart to know he was so willing to pursue avenues to give his home government a leg up to strip down these corrupt cartel gangs. However, it made you wonder if it was virtuous in nature or an extension of his scramble to stay afloat, evident by his current living situation. The US government must pay big bucks to the guy who can slip an agent into cartel ranks, but so too, would the cartel pay to double-cross your mission and make an example of someone like you. The prospect brought back that lightheaded nervousness that invited your lunch to sit in the base of your throat, practically watching your own heartbeat increase through the window on your chest. He didn’t seem to know how to not keep his hands active, always finding something to check the integrity of, touch up, or screw back in. He was a handyman at heart, that’s for sure, but it made you wonder if he was like this when he wasn’t working on the clock of someone who could snuff out his life and make it seem like he never existed. Nobody will cry when one of Marín’s Dolly Managers trips and falls on a shank 34 times, and his job is equally as replaceable as the Dollys he manicured. Nobody weeps for spiders, snakes, or pimps, that’s for sure. 

“Now remember, little chica,” he spoke up, thick Baja accent cutting into your daze, “You don’t speak a word of English. Spanish neither. You’re just a dumb Russian hooker with a great pair of tits, and you don’t want to know what they’d do to you if they found out you’re a snake…”

His cutting words caught you off guard again, though the information he portrayed was far from something you hadn’t considered. Of course you understood the grave danger you were putting your life in. You understood the second Rhino handed you that oblong envelope with Laswell’s flip phone. 

“Understood…do you have any gum?” 

—

You stood at attention on the dock before the yacht, smacking pink bubblegum under your glossy lips. Though it had long lost its flavour, the intention wasn’t for your enjoyment but rather to sell the illusion of the expensive Russian escort. The exact one that would find the senator’s daughter. With a little luck, regular cold soulless stares, smacking gum, and twirling a strand of hair between your fingers will make you appear unapproachable to any unwanted attention. The salty ocean air wafting over you threatened to compromise your carefully crafted hairstyle, forcing you to hold your hair in place to wait out each gust. 

The other women stood shoulder to shoulder, lined up on the swaying wooden bridge connecting land to boat. The image comically calls forward memories of standing at attention when the Drill Sergeant bore into you as a young Private at basic training. You couldn’t afford to let the bubbling smile touch your lips though, letting the steady thumps of stilettos on the wood guide you to your assumed position. Other dolls stood in the row, and you counted seven other women, ranging in height and build, all wearing the standard issue uniforms of tight dresses with blistering shoes. Another risky flicker of your eyes down the lineup showed Julien in his suit, standing proud and pleased with his 'Dollys'. 

One of them sported fluffed, boxed dyed red hair, a crocodile-skin dress squeezing her breasts to accentuate the plunging neckline. The woman on your other side was darkskinned in complexion; she wore pale white lipstick and a shimmering nylon miniskirt. Her dialogue with the woman beside her swam between English and Spanish, carrying on like they were sisters. By the angle of the searing white sun that caught glares on your eyelashes, you gathered that it must be almost 18:00, and the guests should be arriving any minute. 

“Who’re you?” The box-dyed redhead spoke up in Spanish, you saw her tilting her chin to you from the corner of your eye.

According to these girls, you don’t speak a word of Spanish. Nor English. Despite something telling you that these women couldn’t care less if you were an undercover agent, you couldn’t risk it. Just keep resting your eyes on an osprey in the distance as it shoots like a bullet to catch a fish under the ocean waves. Sloping pebbled shorelines receding to concrete seawalls, leading to hazy red asphalt, all simultaneously radiating with a stifling humid heat, only momentarily relieved by the gusting ocean wind. 

“Hey,” She continued her pursuit, but after seconds of getting no response, her tone took a turn, “What’re you fuckin’ stupid or something?” Her tone was more agitated as the English rolled off her tongue with a thick accent. 

“I think she’s, like, French or something,” another woman spoke up from somewhere down the line. “That’s what Julien said.”

That seemed to have smoothed Boxdye’s irritation, leaving her to lunge into a new topic with another girl. Crunching gravel under a pack of trucks arriving in sync caught your attention, finally giving you a reason to lift your eyes from the glittering waves. Car doors slammed, and boisterous conversation from a gaggle of men grew nearer to your position. The girls at your side fell into a tight line, each matching your gaze that tracked the approaching suited figures. About fifteen men emerged from several glossy black cars. They formed a cluster that grew near, nearly bouncing on their toes with excitement as cackling laughter put the sloshing ocean waves to shame. All in suits, varying in colours and patterns, but predominantly navy in colour with thin, old-school ties that fluttered out of position in the humid breeze. 

“That’s him. That’s Armundo Marín, the Cartel leader.” Laswell muttered into your earpiece.

Just then, a broad man stepped into view, the heels of his expensive loafers echoing over the boardwalk. Despite having deep brown eyes, his gaze could be described as nothing short of piercing, he pushed his greased hair back into position. He reeked of cigars and of someone who was heavy-handed with their expensive cologne, the kind of fragrance that sears your nostrils and lingers in the back of your throat. He took his time to examine each girl, his swaggering comrades puffing their chests behind him, one of them telling a booming anecdote about his recent golf game. 

Marín’s piercing eyes locked onto you, eyeing you up and down in a way that made your skin crawl. His eyes lingered on your chest, tilting his head in a thoughtful stare. After a moment, his attention on your chest made a shard of ice slice down your spine as the thought occurred that he could identify the hidden camera in your necklace. He seemed to be surveying you, considering something behind those dark eyes. It’s over. The gig is up. He’s snuffed you out, and you’re doomed to a fate worse than death. Marín’s thumb tipped your chin up, then to the side, then the other side, finally returning to face him. 

“You’re a muscular one,” Marín spoke in English, huffing out a breathy chuckle, “you must work out,” he posited, a sly grin creasing his crow’s feet. 

He was testing you. Tapping the glass, and testing out if you really were a Russian prostitute. No response, save for smacking bubble gum and thoughtless fluttering eyelashes. You must have passed, as he craned his neck, flicking his wrist to summon one of his comrades. Out of the flock of pinstripes and cigarette puffs emerged a short, stout man, his thick gut concealed by a dress shirt that sat snug against his stomach. Your eyes caught on one of the women in your lineup as she squealed in delight, her leg hitched up the side of one of the attendees’s maroon suit.

“Aleksandr Ogievich, that’s your guy, ” Laswell chimed in through your earpiece, though you had already gathered as much by the noble blue rose that was pinned to his lapel. 

“Privet, Dorogaya,” his grumbly voice spoke up, calling you dear in Russian in a silky tone that made your skin crawl.

You willed your eyes to spark with recognition, twisting your mouth into a smile and lowering your eyelids into a sultry gaze. Extending your arm, you offered the top of your hand to him, which he graciously accepted by planting a languid, wet kiss on your knuckle. You shivered, but not with delight. 

Snapping his fingers, he summoned the remaining flock and your line of female allies paired off to take the arms of patrons, seemingly at random. Pattern recognition sparked, and you snaked your arm into the crux of Mister Ogievich’s arm. Evidently satisfied with the walking amenities, the energy of the crowd escalated, turning from a giddy buzz to feverish excitement. Your range of motion was significantly hampered by your rib-crushing dress as the crowd was led up the ramp onto the vast yacht. This boat was absolutely massive. Like a floating castle. Sloping white siding and slick treated wood bounded over the waves, outfitted with mellow lighting and a smiling crew eerily beaming with joy at the entourage’s approach. You counted five floors above deck, and likely at least two below, multitasking by observing your scenery and taking care to hone your hearing to track the nearby conversing. 

The main deck was adorned with white low-seated sofas and lower set tables, sleek and modern, all over a rich lacquered wood floor. Low underlighting under each furniture item illuminated polished and angular decore, evidently worth the millions he must have paid. Access to the wafting ocean breeze did nothing to soothe your nerves, making relaxed movements to drape yourself next to your associate on the plush couch. The change in angle revealed a small hot tub under the sloping awning, the hazy steam rising illuminated purple with expensive underwater lighting. One of your fellow escorts had already taken it upon herself to settle herself into the bubbling waters, shimmering sequin dress laying dormant on the slat wood floors. Little did your companion know that thinly veiled under sultry smooth movements were muscles rippling with anxiety. He didn’t seem to notice, though, his imperfect Spanish carrying on eagerly to discuss the housing market in Italy with another suit next to him. It took Aleksandr about ten seconds after sitting down before he lunged to reach for the finger food platter, popping half a dozen olives into his mouth.  

Lively Mirachi music yawned to life, bassy thrumming shattering through your already aching ribcage, kicking the atmosphere into the infancy of a lively party. Now that everyone was seated on the expansive open deck, you got to gather a profile of the women in attendance. Your eyes flickered over the faces of your fellow escorts, mentally contrasting them to the mental image you seared in your mind of Samantha Moss. No matches thus far. Spotting movement behind the slanted glass of the inside cabin, you watched two smiling women in matching mock navy uniforms, in miniskirts, of course, bringing forward round trays of clinking cocktails. The dreamy Mexican sunset whispered that there you had about 40 minutes left of daylight before this party was beginning, and you were looking way too stiff. Swallowing your pride for the sake of duty, you urged reluctant muscles to settle yourself into the side of your target, his heavy arm handing on your back as he welcomed your movement. 

Animated dialogue spilling from your companion that had since shifted to horse husbandry left your senses wandering to latch onto a new target. Listening in to other conversations was made easy by the boisterous chatter erupting from nearly every patron, gathering useless information about financial success and recent football scores. Flickering back to your current specimen came with dire consequences, as your movement in his peripheral caught his attention like a cougar spotting its next meal. 

“Vodka . For me and my Paramore,” Aleksandr purred to one of the crew, pushing his hand on your back to urge your body to rest flush against his side. 

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Master List

[growing-yet-into-magic]

The United States of Cryptids by JW Ocker

Here are my horribly blurry photos. Behold.

Firstly: this book was written by the author who wrote the Salem book I read mid quarantine. I don't remember it being particularly exceptional. This book reads more as a reference book, which immediately makes it more tolerable than a rambling sort of narrative, and separates each region of the country to help further organize cryptid lore around the country.

However. LOOK at that block of text. It's formatted so tightly. It's not horrible to read, but in a tiny book...it's dense to look at. It's a lot. I wasn't pleased.

I forgot that people are more aware of the Jersey Devil now, so I was surprised to see the local mascot show up in the book. First off, when telling people how popular Jersey Devil iconography is, instead of naming a couple small sites and restaurants, you should probably point out that our hockey team is literally The Devils. I'm fairly sure that's our main export of Jersey Devil paraphernalia. It feels Relevant.

Secondly. There are two books on the Jersey Devil that I consider must reads. (The two books are The Secret History Of The Jersey Devil and here by The Jersey Devil by McCloy + Miller). Having read both of them, there are things the author missed that would have been GREAT to add. Without that context, the bulk of the books's description is a little...off.

My notes on the matter are:

The date is wrong. Or, more accurately, there IS no set date; Ocker gives us a definitive year for the Jersey Devil's birth, when the actual date for the events of the story depends on who's asking. There are only certain dates that are documented, and that includes a) The Magical Week, which is a week in which phenomena attributed to the Jersey Devil was published in newspapers for about seven days in NJ and PA, and b) That Time Napoleon's Brother Fucked Back Off To France (because he SWORE he saw the Jersey Devil). 1735 is a very specific date, and certainly not the only one attributed to the story. It feels disingenuous to add it very confidently to the story without further detail.

The book gets the Leeds family origins wrong— or, again, not quite correct. Ocker claims that the Leeds family was ostracized for being supporters of the British right to rule during the revolution, which ignores the way more relevant reason they were ostracized; the Leeds family owned a printing press and published almanacs that promoted astrology, which was considered evil occult knowledge at the time. There was a religious division in the community between the local Quaker population (against this) and the Leeds family (trying desperately to get on the ball of what the main man thought was a Hot New Science) after the book almanacs were published, which raised local tension pretty high. I could summarize this more but honestly just read The Secret History of the Jersey Devil book by Esposito and Regal; it's pretty thin anyway.

All the facts in the author's description are presented as if they're certain and true, BUT worded very vaguely as to obscure the actual situation: that there are many stories about the Jersey Devil instead of one carefully worded one. Instead of briefly mentioning different versions of different details that emerge overall, a pretty interesting story from an area famous for resisting colonial overtaking has been flattened down and ironed of all its cool details. Lame. He didn't even name the Magical Week, which has a name. Instead he just said "there was a week in 1909 in which a lot of stuff happened." It has a cool title!! Come on!! It was published in two different states!! Say its name!!

Also, respect the Pine Barrens more. They're an ecological wonderland. I'm also pretty sure they have the largest indigenous population in New Jersey. Add some respect when you say that name.

I can't do the same fact checking of every other cryptid in this book, obviously, as I lack similar expertise, but between this book and the author's Salem trip, I'm kind of over this author on the whole. I don't think I'll finish this book.

(I may skim it though.)

Best regards, readers;

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

I was think about those titles, the only one thats really popping into my head is Melli and Adaman. Also while I dont think EITHER clan would disrespect titles of the nobles, I do think they would throw hands at the galaxy team if they dont ise them. Kamado REALLY strikes me as someone who wouldn't acknowledge the Nobles by their titles, which would definitely be a point of contention

siiiiigh okay listen. LISTEN. this might be spoilers or i might cut this scene entirely and it might be irrelevant but listen. because like i said im obsessed with this lil bit of characterization generally. so im just going to. natter on for a minute.

this is also one of those things that i WISH i had been more attentive to in the beginning of oop, because there are some early points where it doesn't really hold together, but whatever i'm not making early chapter edits now if i start i'll never stop. juuust listen

but the symbology of a title is formality, right. tacking on a "warden" or "lord" or even just a "miss" onto the front of anyone's names communicates, simultaneously, respect and distance. and those are the two key things to me! someone who says, fx, "captain cyllene" instead of just "cyllene" or even "sinensis" is communicating that they respect her position and responsibilities—but, simultaneously, it may also imply that they maybe don't know her very well, and/or their relationship is strictly professional. or that this is a formal conversation and being casual is inappropriate at the moment. (this generally applies most at the start of a conversation—the more times you're saying someone's name in a row, the more acceptable it becomes to drop the title regardless of context i think.)

so anyway part 1 of this particular argument, the background, is that adaman almost NEVER bothers with the titles of the diamond clan wardens. especially not mai and melli, who he's so close to that he just drops it constantly. this is part of the thing where adaman's also not big on formality in general, and irida very much holds that against him. it annoys the shit out of her. so he tries to be a little more observant when he's in the presence of the pearl clan but he's still. not. very good at it. like a lot of things between them this is sort of a micro-scale of a broader argument and it's also very performative a lot of the time. like, a lot of drama between the clans has a lot less meat on it than any of them would like to admit, and this is no different.

...especially bc in this case irida's kind of a hypocrite because she doesn't always observe the titles of her wardens, either. actually there's one person in particular that she's repeatedly dropped the title of a few times and that's ingo.

and she slips up with that again, while she's walking with adaman, and he immediately jumps on it. like. at least i'm doing it because i'm close with my wardens. kind of presumptive for you to talk about him like you're friends, isn't it? and irida immediately starts spitting venom right back at him, because these two fight like it's a habit. aaand like, again, a lot of arguments they have, it's a tiny detail that's really just the vector for a much bigger conversation - in this case, irida's decision wrt ingo.

i could quite literally go on about this for so many characters like you mentioned melli and kamado and those are ALSO two who are HUGE on the formality-respect-distance sliders but i am going to stop before this gets too horribly long and also i go off on things that are completely unaddressed/vaguely inconsistent with the mainfic itself hgsksjhkjh.

[thelastbraincellofthehive]

Volume 2 Is done! Man this Is the one with my second favorite opening <3 It's just so epic it pumps my blood!

Anyways, thoughts with no order whatsoever!

Emmerald is another of those characters I love to see the progression of. We must protect. Emmerald baby you're insuferable and you deserve the world<3

Burning the candle is the moment <3 that was when we knew. It was also the moment Yang was cemented as my fave and she never stopped being it, props to Barbara for that classroom scene, it holds a special place in my heart.

As a side note, I can't think about Burning the Candle without remembering Explosivesky's Hollywood AU <3 that fanfic is on another level. Even during my angry-about-Penny era, I would read it from time to time because it's that awesome fg

Glynda and Ironwood's talk is one of my favorite scenes in the volume. Honestly, I miss Glynda, Glynda is a badass.

Cardin bullying Velvet makes so little sense after meeting CFVY lmao! Like, you expect me to believe Coco, Yatsuhashi and Fox didn't beat those idiots to a pulp just for existing around her?! How?! How are they alive?!!!

Also while we're on the CFVY note... Coco please step on me, please.

I will keep believing that Summer, Taiyang and Raven were in a poly relationship for the rest of my life, that's just how my brain works. Don't try to change it.

While on the STRQ note... Raven is a bitch but she can also step on me anytime she wants, thank you.

Seriously Penny being a robot being a 'secret' will never not be funny lol!

"I don't really know how to... Girls" Jaune, honey, so true 🙌 me neither honestly.

Neo <3 God how I've missed you you tiny tricolor sociopath! Honestly, she and Roman will be one of my OTPs forever

Also do you guys know Chuuya Nakahara from BSD? Look at him and tell me he is not Roman and Neo's child. Seriously.

Speaking of OTPs, you know what my NOTP for Weiss has always been? Neptune... Like, I'm not part of the 'Weiss is a lesbian' train...but god why is that ship so boring? So glad that never went anywhere

Also I am on the 'Neptune is gay train'... Like... It just makes so much more sense...

The JNPR dance™ Iconic, perfect, just one of the many reasons I was hoping for another Dance/Ball down the line in the story.

Speaking of Iconic: The. Food. Fight. Just that. What a way to start the season.

Watching this volume really makes me miss Pyrrha... Not just her as a character which I do miss she is awesome in every sense BUT HER FIGHTING STYLE!!! God fights with her were always such a treat to the eye!!

James Ironwood, I had so much hope for you, but I get why your story progressed the way it did. The signs were everywhere now that I look into it.

Ozpin's 'I hope they never have to (win a war)' and 'right now they're only children, it's not a role they will have forever' hurt so fucking much...

Jaune has listened to Weiss singing. I feel the unexplicable need to know in which context this happened. Does Weiss sing while studying? Did they had some kind of recital? Did they go karaoke-ing on a missing scene? Is Weiss secretly a popstar who's writting songs about her partners and travels and Jaune owns one of her albums??? Yes I'm still into that dumb headcanon lol.

Jaune wearing a dress:

I hope more boys wore dresses, boys in dresses are awesome.

ZWEI!!!! Also cat blake lmao

Roman and Cinder scenes were always a treat to watch, look at my two dumb villains who share one single braincell with Neo and she has it 99% of the time. I really had such a great time with villains in the early seasons. Also, once v3 happened Neo took the cell hostage and Cinder hasn't seen it ever since. makes sense.

Yang's dance dress missing it's pattern is another thing that will never not be funny to me lol poor girl was stuck dressed as an extra!

The Oobleck Zwei combo fight is one of the best things ever lol always one of my favorite parts when watching reactors lol.

Team CFVY, my beloved<3 I hope we get to see more of them in the Vaccuo arc. Bring us the return of Caffeine!!!!!

Weiss' Ice flower to shield the team from the train crash is still one of my favorite moments of her. Weiss excels at the support mage role in her team, and it always delights me seeing her taking care of her team <3 they're the family my girl needed.

I've seen so many critic viewers complain about thr girls leaving Yang fighting Neo because it was clearly a bad match (which doesn't make sense because it literally was the first time we saw her fighting????) But honestly, it wouldn't had made sense any other way. Yang had some kind of personal vendetta against Neo at this point, just like Blake had against Roman. I get the logic conclusions, but characters in the heat of the moment don't usually get to logic conclusions before acting. They are friends, they trust eachother, they had no reason to fight any other way.

I gotta give a shout out to the v2 soundtrack. I love every soundtrack of this series, but v2 is supperb in every sense. Sacrifice is still on my Top3 songs in general (War and Smile being the other 2 and Miracle barely behind). Boop? Amazing, unparalled, that's how you take a beloved character and ship and give them an anthem. Dream come true is just lovely, Jaune, I wished you had seen it sooner... Caffeine? I listened to that song non-stop for a month after I first saw the finale, and it's still that awesome~ All our days holds a very special place in my heart because I used to sing it to my niece to sleep when she was a baby, and it's just the perfect Yang to Ruby song yes I know it's Jeff to Casey and Taiyang to the girls, but it will always be Yang to Ruby for me.

Raven is such an interesting character to me. It's said personality influences semblances or the other way around, and hers is a way to check on her family no matter how far away she is... We're missing so much about her story.

Anyways, that's all for today! Join us next time to take a trip for PTSDland with V3! Damn that Volume seriously traumatized the whole FNDM, and keeps doing it lol

[jcmarchi]

Modeling Extremely Large Images with xT

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/modeling-extremely-large-images-with-xt/

Modeling Extremely Large Images with xT

As computer vision researchers, we believe that every pixel can tell a story. However, there seems to be a writer’s block settling into the field when it comes to dealing with large images. Large images are no longer rare—the cameras we carry in our pockets and those orbiting our planet snap pictures so big and detailed that they stretch our current best models and hardware to their breaking points when handling them. Generally, we face a quadratic increase in memory usage as a function of image size.

Today, we make one of two sub-optimal choices when handling large images: down-sampling or cropping. These two methods incur significant losses in the amount of information and context present in an image. We take another look at these approaches and introduce $x$T, a new framework to model large images end-to-end on contemporary GPUs while effectively aggregating global context with local details.

Architecture for the $x$T framework.

Why Bother with Big Images Anyway?

Why bother handling large images anyways? Picture yourself in front of your TV, watching your favorite football team. The field is dotted with players all over with action occurring only on a small portion of the screen at a time. Would you be satisified, however, if you could only see a small region around where the ball currently was? Alternatively, would you be satisified watching the game in low resolution? Every pixel tells a story, no matter how far apart they are. This is true in all domains from your TV screen to a pathologist viewing a gigapixel slide to diagnose tiny patches of cancer. These images are treasure troves of information. If we can’t fully explore the wealth because our tools can’t handle the map, what’s the point?

Sports are fun when you know what’s going on.

That’s precisely where the frustration lies today. The bigger the image, the more we need to simultaneously zoom out to see the whole picture and zoom in for the nitty-gritty details, making it a challenge to grasp both the forest and the trees simultaneously. Most current methods force a choice between losing sight of the forest or missing the trees, and neither option is great.

How $x$T Tries to Fix This

Imagine trying to solve a massive jigsaw puzzle. Instead of tackling the whole thing at once, which would be overwhelming, you start with smaller sections, get a good look at each piece, and then figure out how they fit into the bigger picture. That’s basically what we do with large images with $x$T.

$x$T takes these gigantic images and chops them into smaller, more digestible pieces hierarchically. This isn’t just about making things smaller, though. It’s about understanding each piece in its own right and then, using some clever techniques, figuring out how these pieces connect on a larger scale. It’s like having a conversation with each part of the image, learning its story, and then sharing those stories with the other parts to get the full narrative.

Nested Tokenization

At the core of $x$T lies the concept of nested tokenization. In simple terms, tokenization in the realm of computer vision is akin to chopping up an image into pieces (tokens) that a model can digest and analyze. However, $x$T takes this a step further by introducing a hierarchy into the process—hence, nested.

Imagine you’re tasked with analyzing a detailed city map. Instead of trying to take in the entire map at once, you break it down into districts, then neighborhoods within those districts, and finally, streets within those neighborhoods. This hierarchical breakdown makes it easier to manage and understand the details of the map while keeping track of where everything fits in the larger picture. That’s the essence of nested tokenization—we split an image into regions, each which can be split into further sub-regions depending on the input size expected by a vision backbone (what we call a region encoder), before being patchified to be processed by that region encoder. This nested approach allows us to extract features at different scales on a local level.

Coordinating Region and Context Encoders

Once an image is neatly divided into tokens, $x$T employs two types of encoders to make sense of these pieces: the region encoder and the context encoder. Each plays a distinct role in piecing together the image’s full story.

The region encoder is a standalone “local expert” which converts independent regions into detailed representations. However, since each region is processed in isolation, no information is shared across the image at large. The region encoder can be any state-of-the-art vision backbone. In our experiments we have utilized hierarchical vision transformers such as Swin and Hiera and also CNNs such as ConvNeXt!

Enter the context encoder, the big-picture guru. Its job is to take the detailed representations from the region encoders and stitch them together, ensuring that the insights from one token are considered in the context of the others. The context encoder is generally a long-sequence model. We experiment with Transformer-XL (and our variant of it called Hyper) and Mamba, though you could use Longformer and other new advances in this area. Even though these long-sequence models are generally made for language, we demonstrate that it is possible to use them effectively for vision tasks.

The magic of $x$T is in how these components—the nested tokenization, region encoders, and context encoders—come together. By first breaking down the image into manageable pieces and then systematically analyzing these pieces both in isolation and in conjunction, $x$T manages to maintain the fidelity of the original image’s details while also integrating long-distance context the overarching context while fitting massive images, end-to-end, on contemporary GPUs.

Results

We evaluate $x$T on challenging benchmark tasks that span well-established computer vision baselines to rigorous large image tasks. Particularly, we experiment with iNaturalist 2018 for fine-grained species classification, xView3-SAR for context-dependent segmentation, and MS-COCO for detection.

Powerful vision models used with $x$T set a new frontier on downstream tasks such as fine-grained species classification.

Our experiments show that $x$T can achieve higher accuracy on all downstream tasks with fewer parameters while using much less memory per region than state-of-the-art baselines*. We are able to model images as large as 29,000 x 25,000 pixels large on 40GB A100s while comparable baselines run out of memory at only 2,800 x 2,800 pixels.

Powerful vision models used with $x$T set a new frontier on downstream tasks such as fine-grained species classification.

*Depending on your choice of context model, such as Transformer-XL.

Why This Matters More Than You Think

This approach isn’t just cool; it’s necessary. For scientists tracking climate change or doctors diagnosing diseases, it’s a game-changer. It means creating models which understand the full story, not just bits and pieces. In environmental monitoring, for example, being able to see both the broader changes over vast landscapes and the details of specific areas can help in understanding the bigger picture of climate impact. In healthcare, it could mean the difference between catching a disease early or not.

We are not claiming to have solved all the world’s problems in one go. We are hoping that with $x$T we have opened the door to what’s possible. We’re stepping into a new era where we don’t have to compromise on the clarity or breadth of our vision. $x$T is our big leap towards models that can juggle the intricacies of large-scale images without breaking a sweat.

There’s a lot more ground to cover. Research will evolve, and hopefully, so will our ability to process even bigger and more complex images. In fact, we are working on follow-ons to $x$T which will expand this frontier further.

In Conclusion

For a complete treatment of this work, please check out the paper on arXiv. The project page contains a link to our released code and weights. If you find the work useful, please cite it as below:

@articlexTLargeImageModeling, title=xT: Nested Tokenization for Larger Context in Large Images, author=Gupta, Ritwik and Li, Shufan and Zhu, Tyler and Malik, Jitendra and Darrell, Trevor and Mangalam, Karttikeya, journal=arXiv preprint arXiv:2403.01915, year=2024

[the-bau-quinjet]

Trending

Summary: Steve thinks you’re too young to like him despite the obvious hints you’re dropping.

Warnings: unspecified age gap

Word count: 2246

a/n: I’ve clearly spent too much time on TikTok recently, but inspired me to write something so that's good. It was loosely based on a request for a young reader x Steve, but I forgot part of the request so I'm gonna write something else for that one! Also, I wrote this on my phone so please excuse any typos I missed when trying to edit it lol

Masterlist

Messing with Steve is one of your favorite things to do. Tiny pranks, over the top flirting, poking fun at his lack of understanding of technology. Anything you can do to get him to roll his eyes and chuckle.

Nat would say it’s because of your feelings for him. She would be correct. Not that you’d ever admit that to anyone. Nope. So instead, you have your fun, and enjoy the way his eyes crinkle and his cheeks redden.

Your newest method of hearing the sweet sound of Steve’s laugh? TikTok. It’s a double whammy. One because he doesn’t understand the app and two because a lot of the trends make him blush.

It started as a fun way to blow off steam. Sometimes, being one of the younger and newer team members made you feel like an outsider. Of course, Peter was younger than you, but he had his own friends outside of the team. You didn’t have anyone else. When Tony found you and invited you to join, it was you against the world. Now you have this makeshift family.

Having your account on TikTok helped you when you hadn’t really become a part of the group yet. You bonded with Peter because of his account, and you found a new way to make Steve blush.

Anyway, you’ve learned way more TikTok dances than you ever would have thought just to see his pink cheeks. It’s not even always over the top dances that have him chuckling. The last trend you did had him laughing the entire day. It was that sound about Wednesday Adams having one thing on her mind. Only when it said homicide, instead of a deadpan expression you panned the camera to show Bucky and Sam arguing over who got the last donut.

Of course, you knew when you made the video it would appeal to Steve’s sense of humor. Sam and Bucky feature in a lot of your videos for that exact reason.

In general, you make a lot of videos featuring the Avengers just to keep Tony happy. He likes to be the center of attention, plus the only way he would approve of your account was if it could also feature as PR for the team. You agreed, as long as you had final say over what you posted. There’s nothing scripted or designed for a specific reason, you just feature the team sometimes.

Like when that sound from the Big Bang theory was popular amongst Avengers fans, you made a video confessing to Pepper that you’d been thinking about the Avengers, panning to show the team during training.

Of course, the text on the screen said “you are an Avenger” instead of “I believe that”, allowing you to play off the joke. But still, it was fun to include the team.

One of your favorite videos features none other than Scott Lang, mostly because nobody else would do it. Scott thought it was hilarious though.

Using the sound from New Girl, Scott played Schmidt and you Jess. The text on the screen read as follows:

Scott: You just walk around all day thinking about America’s Ass?

You: Yeah, don’t you?

Scott: No! How do you get anything done?

You: It’s hard…

Steve blushed like crazy when everyone cornered him to watch it. Bucky, Sam, and Tony wouldn’t stop bringing it up for at least a month. A part of you hoped he might make a move after that video, seeing as you put yourself out there, but he just assumed it was a joke and laughed it off.

Honestly, you were running out of trends that you could use to get him to understand your feelings. You only had two ideas left, and one of them would be mortifying if it didn’t work out…

-

“Steve. You’ve got to be kidding me.” Bucky sighed, exasperated with Steve for the umpteenth time that month. “You’ve been pining for forever, just make a move!” he whisper yelled, doing his best not to throttle his lifelong friend.

Steve rolled his eyes, purposefully ignoring Bucky’s pointed glare. The two men had spent the last hour looking through your TikTok account. Bucky was adamant that you liked Steve, but the blonde didn’t believe it, despite the so called proof Bucky kept forcing him to watch.

“Buck, would you please just back off? We’re friends. She’s too young to want to be with me like that.” Steve blushed, thinking about the context of his words.

Before Bucky could say anything about how repressing his feelings is bad for him, a new video popped up on your account. Bucky smirked when he saw the thumbnail was once again a picture of Steve, this time with a beard. Steve took the silence as an opportunity to escape, walking into his closet to change.

The video opened with a video of you and Natasha just hanging out, you lip syncing to the words “I like you have a cupcake.” You repeated the words as the video cut to you and Tony.

Bucky nearly dropped the phone when “smack my ass like a drum” blared from the speaker. He cackled bending over in a fit of laughter when he realized that’s what Steve’s picture was used for- and one where he had a beard to boot.

“What is it now, jerk?” Steve emerged from his closet, having changed into loungewear. The sight of Bucky fully cackling had him nervous.

Bucky tossed him the phone, doing his best to stop laughing long enough to tell him to watch the most recent video. With a hesitant sigh, Steve obliged.

Again, Bucky rolled his eyes at how obvious Steve’s feelings were. The second he saw you on the screen, he smiled. And not one of those half hearted polite smiles, a full on happy smile.

Steve’s eyes widened, nearly bulging out of his head when he got to the end of the video.

“‘She doesn’t want to be with me like that.’” Bucky mocked his friends earlier words, grabbing his phone back. “Punk, I don’t know how much more obvious she could be.”

With one more glare in Steve’s direction, Bucky finally left him to his own thoughts. Okay, so you made a lot of videos about how you find him attractive. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’d want to be in a relationship with him. Leave it to Steve to talk himself out of everything Bucky had spent so long trying to convince him of.

-

You were desperate at this point. You honestly thought the cupcake one would send him over the edge, but it didn’t work either. It has been three days, and you know Steve’s seen the video because everyone likes to tease him about it.

“Naaaaaat, it’s not working,” you whined, dramatically throwing yourself onto her bed. She laughed at your antics, briefly looking up at you before deciding to stop what she was going and give you her full attention.

“Look, not only is Steve one of the most clueless people I’ve ever met when it comes to women, but he can also talk himself out of believing someone’s interested in him. Especially you.” Nat watched as you lifted your head from her comforter, slowly turning to stare at her with narrowed eyes.

“Especially me?” you questioned. Why would you have a different standard?

“Y/N, Steve’s from the 40s. He’s super old fashioned. You're a hot young thing, super up to date on modern trends. He thinks you're just messing around as friends because he doesn’t believe someone as young as you would be interested in actually having a relationship with him,” she spelt it out for you, sick of trying to get you to figure it out on your own.

You took a minute to fully understand what she was saying, but then sat up when a new idea struck. “So you’re saying I need to be more direct?”

Her eyes narrowed, but she nodded nonetheless.

“I’ve got an idea. Thanks Nat!” you ran from the room before she could question your newest plan, instead checking to make sure her notifications were on for posts from your TikTok account.

-

“Steve!” you shouted when you saw him down the hall, about to turn a corner. He immediately stopped, turning back to see you running at him. “I need your help!”

You pulled him into the gym, briefly glancing around the room to make sure it was empty. Confirming nobody else was present, you set up your phone on one of the weight racks to record the two of you. It was already open to the recording section of TikTok, the sound you needed queued and ready to begin.

“What’s going on?” Steve looked between you and the phone, nerves heightening as he realized what you were doing. All of your videos about him thus far hasn’t actually involved him filming anything.

“I just need you to react to this trend, okay? It’s kind of old, but that doesn’t really matter,” you spoke quickly, trying to start the video before he could decline.

The music started playing instantly, with Steve awkwardly looking between the screen and you. He wasn’t sure what exactly he was reacting to, and it had him on edge. Just as the song reached the chorus, you turned and grabbed his face. Throwing caution to the wind, you followed through with your plan before you could back out, kissing him with all the passion and emotion you’d been holding back.

Steve froze, clearly surprised by your actions. Before you could pull away, he wrapped his arms around you and pulled you closer. He kissed you with equal passion and emotion, no longer paying attention to your phone recording the moment.

Neither of you noticed when the music cut off, too wrapped up in each other. When the need for air overpowered the desire to keep kissing him, you pulled back to gasp in a few breaths. Steve leaned his forehead against yours, eyes closed and breathing erratic.

The two do you spent the next few moments just breathing, trying to come to terms with what just happened. You gasped when his hands moved, one resting on your waist and the other cupping your cheek. His eyes were still closed when you chanced a glance at him.

“What was the trend?” he breathily whispered the words, still coming down from the high of kissing you.

“Huh?” you mumbled, unable to comprehend the question when he was still touching you like this.

“The TikTok trend? What was it?” his grip on your hip tightened, but his hand framing your face remained gentle.

“Oh, uh, it was- it was kissing your best friend/crush.” You whispered, heart still racing from his proximity. Your nerves had never been greater. Yeah, Nat always tells you that Steve has feelings for you, but what if he was just being polite? Maybe he didn’t know how to reject you when you kissed him out of nowhere, and now he’s trying to find a way to turn you down gently. What if-

“Was my reaction good enough to post?” he broke your train of thought with another question. You took a minute to think about the question, your brain still moving like molasses

“Um, that depends…” you froze when his eyes opened and stared into yours.

“On?” he prompted you to continue.

“Which caption I can use.” you finished the thought, finally remembering the two most common outcomes of the trend.

“What are the choices?” Steve smirked when you looked flustered, clearly not expecting this conversation.

“Uh, the two-” he began rubbing small circles into your hip with his thumb, effectively cutting off your train of thought again. It wasn’t until he lightly squeezed your hip again that you remember you were answering his question.

“Right! The two most common captions are some variation of ‘this was so awkward’ or ‘we’re dating now’,” you managed to blurt out the choices, blushing when he smiled at you.

“Well, I know which I prefer…” you waited with bated breath as he prolonged the silence, enjoying seeing you so on edge. You nearly whined when he let you go, moving to pick up your phone from the weight rack.

You watched in silence as he typed out a caption, tapping each letter with his pointer finger. A small smile formed on your lips at his adorable old man behavior. He then managed to find the post button, adding the video to your account before handing you the phone to see what he chose.

Your smile only grew after you read the caption, dropping the phone and immediately kissing him again.

-

Meanwhile, Nat had gathered the rest of the team that happened to be around to wait for whatever video you had planned to be posted.

Tony, Sam, Bucky, Wanda, Vision, Peter, and Clint all watched as the new video popped up on the screen. Peter bounced with excitement when he heard the song, instantly recognizing the trend. The rest of the group watched as you kissed Steve, mouths gaping open when he actually kissed you back.

Fans were already commenting about how long it took for the two of you to get together, but the team was too focused on laughing at the caption to pay any mind to the comments.

She said the trend was kind of old, but that fits because I’ve got a habit of waiting too long anyways.

Permanent taglist: @averyhotchner @jesuswasnotawhiteman @strawberryspence @sebastnstn @jswessie187 @ellobruv

Marvel: @leyannrae @livstilinski @oceaniamaddness @justreadingficsdontmindme

[halfabreath]

Holster goes on Survivor after graduating, part 2

here! we! go! part one here, tag here

so Holster's got a strategy to update and an ex lover to deal with and like. He and Esther didn't end great.

I feel like we don’t talk enough about why Holster’s chirped so much for hooking up with Esther in canon? Like there’s mention of a rash and a saga that requires an email but we don’t really know?

but essentially Holster likes Esther and is made fun of for it and I can’t imagine that feels good for her? And they probably didn’t do it in front of her but surely that’s not great for anyone’s mindset

Holster and Esther start dating after Winter Screw and she’s so enamored with this sweet dork who sings to himself while he brushes his teeth but the second he’s around his friends she feels like he doesn’t change per se but he showcases such different parts of himself and she likes what he doesn’t show! She’s into that! But that’s Holster like a large percentage of the time and Esther’s got a life of her own so they’re on again off again, Esther doesn’t come to kegsters or games and things fizzle and reignite a couple of times until Holster becomes a captain

Esther knows in her bones Holster will never ever ever ever ever ever choose her over his team (especially Ransom, like what’s the deal there?) and honestly Esther Does Not Enjoy having intimate conversations about how things make her feel and she’s really good at talking her way around her problems so when They break up Esther’s trying to articulate how she feels around SMH she says “I hate who you are when your uniform is on” and for Holster, who’s entire identity rests on being on A Team (literally his position on the team is being part of a tiny two person team within the larger team) this is his life this is what makes him happiest this is how he feels most himself so Holster hears “I hate the thing that makes you you”

So yeah! They broke up and then avoided each other and didn’t really get closure but also neither of them are bitter, it just felt kind of like “man I miss hanging out with them but yikes who was I at that point??”

of COURSE the first challenge involves the exes having to work together in pairs for their tribe and it’s a clusterfuck and Esther is downright cold to him. She’s sending him all the bad vibes in the world and Holster’s now legitimately worried he destroyed her life with their breakup because there’s some tangible animosity there and then they lose the first challenge and Holster’s wondering why he even got out of bed this morning when Esther pops up behind him and says “come with me, I need your long ass arms for coconuts”

The SECOND they’re out of earshot from the camp Esther‘s like “I’m really sorry I was so mean but I think it’s a huge advantage for the rest of the exes to think we hate each other so they don’t suspect an alliance”

Holster: So you don’t hate me? We’re good?

Esther: Good isn’t the word I’d use, Adam

Holster: That’s fair, I wasn’t a very good boyfriend. But I’ve got your back and we’re going to the top three, you good with that? Here, have a coconut wait let me open it for you

Bada bing bada boom, alliance

Don't get me wrong, it's awkward. Like, really awkward. The vibe of this island is uncomfortable and the near-constant rain for the first five days certainly doesn’t help and their tribe loses three immunity challenges in a row so this alliance is TESTED but Esther and Holster always surreptitiously check in by having lightning fast strategy sessions by the well or when everyone has left camp and they’re SO careful to maintain the illusion that they hate each other when they’re actually earning back trust day by day

Holster’s SUPER helpful around camp. He always offers to carry heavy things and makes people laugh and always knows exactly where the machete is and delivers coconuts to people when they’re resting but it’s miserable

There’s this SWEET moment where, after watching Esther shiver for three days straight Holster takes the machete to the woods and cuts off the bottom half of his sweatshirt to make a scarf/towel/wrap for Esther and they pretend like she did it out of spite and honestly? It’s a power move that helps Holster gain access to this smaller faction of people so they have more intel because the other contestants are like this helpful strong idiot need someone to look out for him

It also means Holster’s running around this island in a cropped sweatshirt and compression shorts

The Himbofication of Adam Birkholtz is complete

And even though Holster’s constantly surrounded by people, hungry, wet, participating in incredibly strenuous physical challenges, and at Tribal Council every night it’s still better than having to hear Ransom say they’ll never be together

Esther can fully tell Something Is Up. At first she just thought it was the stress of the game and the circumstances but then during a challenge she and Holster are on a platform way out in the water waiting for their turns on a relay race and they’re actually completely alone for the first time in days and she absolutely uses that time to interrogate Holster because she’s efficient, damn it

And Holster’s annoyed she’s taking his head out of the game and he’s exhausted and hungry and he’s the last leg of their team which means if he loses they all go to Tribal AGAIN and he can’t let his team down, he really can’t so the whole thing bursts out because he just wants her to stop and it goes like:

Esther: Look, I know you’re annoyed but you’re not telling me something and I think you can see why that would be concerning to me given the fucking context

Holster: It doesn’t have anything to do with the game, you know I’d never jeopardize this for us

Esther: No, that’s not what I think it’s just -

Holster: Holy hell, all I did was tell Ransom that I’m in love with him, are you happy?? NOW SWIM, SHAPIRO

Esther, while diving: I FUCKING KNEW IT

Holster, under his breath: that makes one of us, you could have told me. saved me a lot of time. Rude.

So now Holster’s just admitted this before his ex and 7 million viewers and oh yeah he’s gotta swim through an obstacle course so he and his team can eat today

And finally, FINALLY, their tribe wins. Holster gives it everything he’s got to gain ground (water?) and win it for the team and he’s just laying in the sand, trying desperately to catch his breath, Jeff Probst screaming in the background, while his whole tribe swarms him and if he closes his eyes he swears he can feel the ice under his feet and hear the clack of the sticks and pucks and it’s the first celly he’s earned in years and it feels incredible but it makes him ache for Samwell

Jeff notices that he’s tearing up and of COURSE asks what it’s all about and Holster’s swallowing back tears when he says “I’ve spent my whole life playing on one team or another and after graduating from college I suddenly wasn’t? And I didn’t know how much I missed it until I was on a team again and I even though I love my friends I think this is the first time I’ve let myself admit that things aren’t like they used to be and that I’m not, either”

So Ether’s watching her ex cry on national television and for the first time she understands exactly how deeply he loves his team? And how hard he tries to make them proud of him? And suddenly a lot of their relationship makes a hell of a lot more sense

After the challenge Holster’s laying in a hammock and Esther rolls into it with him and just says “We’re good. Top three?”

Holster, beaming: Bro! Top three!

Esther: What did I tell you about calling me bro when we’re cuddling

Holster: I thought that only applied to post-coital romantic cuddling? Unless of course you’re trying to tell me that you’re ARDENTLY in love with me

Esther: shut up

Holster: a heart full of LOVE a heart full of SONG NO FEAR NO REGRET A NIGHT AS BRIGHT AS DAY -

Ether: Hi, guys?? can someone vote me off this island please?

Part 3 coming soon!! This is so much!! But I fuckin love it!!

[dizzyduck44]

This week’s Lando based rant

OK deep breath. I thought I was getting a week off. Should this become a series at this point?

I appreciate for some of you this is the first time you have come across a driver outwardly appearing to bad mouth their teammate, but please trust me, what has been said today is nothing and people are taking it far to seriously.

I actually believe that Lando said what was reported, clearly in context to Daniel joining the team and not as some people are trying to claim about mental health. Why do I believe it?

Well last year he was asked did he feel sorry for Charles Le Clerc and how bad the Ferrari was. The interviewer was obviously expecting he would have sympathy as he was a “friend”. Lando’s response was “No. Charles has had podiums and wins poles that other drivers would kill for so why would I have sympathy for him now?” That was a televised driver’s conference and bears a lot of similarity to what has been said today.

Let’s not forget, Lando had no sympathy for Carlos when he failed to start the Belgium Grand Prix last year, quipping “one place up”. This attitude is nothing new from Lando.

Do I think that Daniel feels exactly the same? Yes. He has gone from team to team in recent years. He has never expected his teammate to help him. It is not Lando’s responsibility to help him get familiar with the car, it’s not up to Lando to solve issues Daniel has. Asking does he have sympathy is ridiculous, of course he doesn’t and Daniel probably isn’t looking for it.

Daniel comes across as someone who owns his own mistakes. He knows full well that he laid it on thick with Lando last year telling him he’ll “end him”. Now he’s eating a bit of humble pie but Daniel knows the only one who can fix the issues right now is Daniel.

Daniel himself has sat in press conferences and taken the piss out of Lewis and Seb and Fernando to name but a few. He dishes it out but he can also take it. I’m pretty sure fans are more upset than Daniel himself will be right now.

Why do I think this is nothing? I’ve seen drivers put themselves first for as long as I’ve watched the sport. If you watched the last race so have a you. Wasn’t what Bottas did exactly the same?

I’ve just finished reading a book that explained in the 2007 season the relationship between Lewis and Fernando got so bad that when the press cottoned on to the fact Fernando was complaining to the team, Lewis would fan the issue in press conferences painting himself as the angel of the story. The mechanics started hating both of them for their behaviour as Lewis was stirring up as many issues in the garage as Fernando.

Please go and look at some of the comments Juan Pablo Montoya had about other drivers. If nothing else they were hilarious but did he have sympathy for anyone, no, absolutely not.

Ayrton Senna once told his team principal, either I come out of the first corner first or I’m not coming out of that corner. This preceded him taking out his championship rival at the first corner.

Let’s not forget that George Russell has said things to put Lando down more than once, Lando has done it to George. Do you think when Lando managed to single handily screw his own F2 championship up and effective hand the title to George in Russia, George had one tiny bit of sympathy? God no! You go to the wrong pit box, line up wrong on the grid and then crash out, not my problem but thanks!

The winners in this sport get there because they are willing to climb over everyone else to win. It’s ugly yes, but only one person is World Champion. That means that everyone else’s misfortune (including your teammate) is your advantage. “Friends” in F1 are not the same as we know the meaning of the word. It literally means I don’t despise you, I’d miss you if you left, I might even apologise if we crash into each other rather than outright blame you, but if it’s you or me for the win, it’s always me. Best example of that, Hamilton v Rosberg.

So let’s stop acting as if Lando has done anything wrong here. This just feels like this week’s excuse to hate on Lando if you want to hate on Lando. Same thing happens with Lewis. People need a second hobby.