#anyways hi its time for my monthly post. i had to speak my shit especially after the events of mafuyu5

[pomegranatecookiez]

female characters who yes are in fact terrible people but a lot of the hate that they get is in bad faith and from people who ignore any actual depth or nuance they have so they can beat on them endlessly while often giving their male counterparts a pass for similar or sometimes even worse actions

[cloudcountry]

just realized i NEVER posted this to tumblr??? HELLO??? if it wasn't for ao3 this shit would have been lost media because i literally cannot find it in my google docs??? HELP???

ANYWAYS!! WELCOME TO WHAT THE TWST BOYS LEFT YOU WITH AFTER YOU BROKE UP

its bittersweet. you guys broke up on good terms. post-formatting auburn here and omfg what was i THINKING this shit HURTED. OW. CRITICAL HIT I NEED A HEALER. FUCK.

Riddle Rosehearts leaves you with an appreciation for learning, a strong sense of awe at the bookshelves lining the walls of NRC’s library. He leaves you with a pen, tucked at the bottom of your backpack that you forget about until a late night study session. You find it and giggle, remembering the time he gave it to you when yours ran out of ink, and you begin to take notes with the red-rose ink.

Trey Clover leaves you with a sense of nurture. You pick up cues from people that you never would have seen before and know exactly how to act, and it isn’t until you find yourself “babying” Ace that you step back and laugh. Of course Trey rubbed off on you, he always was taking care of you with nobody to help out him.

Cater Diamond leaves you with extensive knowledge of camera angles. When you’re taking pictures with your friends or just you, it's like you know exactly which filter would look best with every shot. Sometimes you’ll stumble upon a filter you only ever used on his pics, and you’re filled with a bittersweet happiness. Simple photo editing holds so many memories, and you can only hope he’s making new ones, too.

Deuce Spade leaves you with a motivation to protect yourself. When you started dating him all that time ago, he insisted on giving you some form of self defense lessons just so you could protect yourself. He made you more confident, even if he never knew it. You’ll always be thankful for the way he unknowingly made you stand up straighter, like you were proud to be yourself.

Ace Trappola leaves you with a lighter soul. He’s always been a goofy person, and you know full well that he’s never changed. He made you way more optimistic just by dealing with things the way he did, always being true to his heart no matter who he was speaking to. You always admired that about him, and it made you feel like you could be more like yourself even when he wasn’t there anymore.

Leona Kingscholar leaves you with a piece of his pride. He always told you to keep your head up especially when you’re scared half to death. You find yourself using his advice every time you face a situation you’d rather not be in, and slowly conquer everything that used to freak you out. You finally glow with the pride that you know he would have been so proud of if he was still with you, but you’re starting to think that maybe he’s proud of you anyway.

Ruggie Bucchi leaves you with a determination to constantly fight for better. You need to make the best of your circumstances, being transported to a world where you’re powerless with nothing but the shirt on your back. He’s taught you to be crafty and resourceful, and to never let yourself be taken advantage of. You can’t thank him enough...and really, you can’t anymore, but that’s okay.

Jack Howl leaves a carefully planned school year in his wake. You find yourself planning out your day, little events scribbled into your calendar and schedules created in the margins of your notebook. Jack had always reminded you of things and you wanted to let him know how much you valued his efforts to keep you on track, so you started writing down his schedules too. It isn’t until you flip back through your notebook to find older notes that you see “Track and Field Meet - 5pm” and feel a pang in your heart.

Azul Ashengrotto leaves you with a ton of home-economics knowledge. Long after you two have broken up, you still find yourself checking on your monthly expenses and tweaking your meal plans, and it isn’t until you’re laying in bed one night that you realize you wouldn’t be nearly as efficient as you are now if it wasn’t for your previous sweetheart.

Jade Leech leaves you with a fascination for the world around you. He took things that you didn’t think twice about and twisted them into beautiful sights, and you never quite looked at them the same way. It’s not a bad thing, it’s quite the opposite, actually. Your world has never been more beautiful, even if the boy that opened your eyes isn’t there to see it with you.

Floyd Leech leaves you with a restless need to do something. Sometimes, during your down time, you’ll set down your phone and start pacing around your room, wondering why your legs just can’t seem to sit still. Then something clicks—Floyd used to barge into your dorm and dance with you at random intervals, but he doesn’t do that as much anymore. Laughing to yourself, you slip on a coat and decide to take a walk—anything to get the fidgeting out of your system.

Kalim Al-Asim leaves you with a brighter smile and higher patience. You’d always had to chase after him on whatever misadventure he decided to go on that day, apologizing to Jamil with a wobbly smile on your face once the day was done. Kalim never failed to make things brighter, even your breakup. You two still hang out sometimes, but you aren’t as close as you used to be, even if the memories of your adventures remain.

Jamil Viper leaves you with some of his best recipes. It may seem silly or insignificant to anyone else, but you know exactly how much time he spent cooking and baking for Kalim and his entire dorm on a daily basis. He even found time to bring you and his club snacks occasionally. You still know how to make his favorite curry, and if a recipe calls for dates you scratch them out from the ingredients out of habit.

Vil Schoenheit leaves you feeling beautiful. He never once looked at you wrong, whether you had just woken up or had gotten into another mud fight with Grim or if you were wearing a swimsuit. There was nothing but love in his gaze and a reminder to keep your head up on his tongue, because in his eyes you were precious. Because to Vil, you were unapologetically beautiful (and you still are. You always will be.)

Rook Hunt leaves you with an eye for detail. After picking up on everything you did and telling you about every habit he examined, you became keenly aware of your habits and how to manage them. You’re far more observant when it comes to your own self care, and you know you wouldn’t be as diligent if it wasn’t for the insistence of your ex.

Epel Felmier leaves you with a love for nature. You’re hyper aware of how long it takes apple trees to grow and what you can do to help them along. You whisper to your plants now and sing little songs to them and you water them. Your friends have even started coming to you for pointers, and despite the fact that Epel isn’t your partner anymore, you refer them to him automatically.

Idia Shroud leaves you with an absurd amount of techy knowledge. With all the gadgets Ramshackle has because of him, you’re thankful he took the time to explain how they worked. The gifts he made for you almost make the fact that he had to end things with you because of his...family business and that you’ll likely never see him again easier to swallow.

Malleus Draconia leaves you with a greater love for the night sky. You had a person to share the sight of the stars with for once, someone who loved looking up at them just as much as you did. You can still feel the chill of his hand over yours as he reached for it, holding it like you were the most precious treasure of all. Now, when you look up at the stars, you feel a pain of longing in your chest. You miss him.

Lilia Vanrouge leaves you with knowledge of the worlds you’ll never see. You find yourself drawing parallels between this world, your world, and the mystical places Lilia used to talk about. Even Trein has been impressed by the knowledge you’ve displayed in his essays despite not being from this world, and you can only force a laugh.

Silver leaves you with a safety net, something you can use to calm down whenever. His childhood lullaby. He sang it for you time and time again when you were having trouble sleeping in an unfamiliar place when your anxiety got a bit too much. Whenever you have a nightmare now, you find yourself humming the old Briar Valley tune, in hopes that it will give you some comfort.

Sebek Zigvolt leaves you with a greater appreciation for reading (and a pile of bookmarks tucked in an old leather box he presented when he started “courting” you.) You still find yourself exiting Ramshackle on the weekends, and heading to that very same tree you two used to read under. There’s a part of you that wants to look for him, to check and see if he’s also heading to your tree, but you don’t.

[pokemonswshbutionlyplayedsword]

I thought of this a long time ago but I never really put much thought into it. It's like a turf au or an apocalypse au I don't really know. But it's like it eternatus wasn't defeated galar went into this state of panic and basically collapsed. Now like everyone's against each other and like galars divided into the cities themselves based on the gym type. So most dragon trainers in hammerlock's and so on. The wild area would be life free war areas just thought it would be a cool postgame thing.

Okay, so I’m kinda new to the idea of turf aus, but I like what I’ve seen so far. As for apocolypse aus??? I love them. Like, a lot. One of my favorite types of aus. And now, Anon, you’ve got me thinkin about it, so sit down and lemme tell ya, cause I’ve got somethin’ to say. And tonight I’m feeling like ranting, so buckle up.

So here’s the plan, you’re on the right track. Eternatus demolishes Galar. There’s no leader that can ease the chaos that’s broken out. The economy is just gone. Wyndon fell apart and every other town was either mostly destroyed or abandoned. Now, what exactly is preventing Galar from putting itself back together? Good question. If you know me, you’ll know that my favorite game is Hollow Knight. In Hollow Knight, the player battles a plague caused by a godlike creature known as The Radiance. The Radiance creates this infection to gather the bugs of Hallownest and restore them to her hive mind (Yeah, I know that’s a lot to take in, but just go play the game. You’ll understand and you’ll also love it because it’s the best game.)

Now, I’m not saying that Eternatus creates a plague of sorts to bend the people and pokemon of Galar to its will, except that is exactly what I’m saying. That is what is happening. No other region can come help them because there’s nothing they can do, and even if there was some way to help, there’s no way for them to know if there’s actually anything left to save at all, and since Galar’s a big island, there’s no way for it to spread, so they’re on their own.

Here’s the vibe. Y’all ever heard of Darkwood? Yeah, another video game. Fantastic, incredible, intense and emotional. Aside from the fear and desperation to survive the night, the players of Darkwood will experience foreboding, hopeless and violent feelings. Protect what is yours and trust no one, essentially. Kill on sight kind of vibes. You know what I mean. And if you don’t, well, go play Darkwood, you won’t regret it. Warning, though, it’s graphic, bloody and can be really gross at times. But, like, that’s the aesthetic of it.

So, as a quick recap, what Eternatus has done: Effectively destroy most of Galar, especially the northern part of it; scorch the earth where Wyndon used to stand; spread plague and disease to technically enslave people and pokemon to only their base, animalistic instincts; and pretty much ruin the lives of the people who weren’t killed by the blast.

And, for the sake of convenience and my poor little heart, let’s say that no one was present for the event. Yes, Eternatus emerged in Hammerlocke, but it wasn’t defeated and it moved to Wyndon, taking possession of Rose Tower before creating the devastating blow that caused Galar to fall. No, no one we know dies, so that’s nice. But Eternatus is gone. There’s no tower to climb. No evil to defeat. No way out of this hell hole. Oh, and dynamorphing is officially cancelled, too.

ANYWAY, here’s where things get interesting. We now get to see what happens to our dear characters.

Milo is in Turffield. It’s a mess, but it’s not the worst place to be in Galar. He was there on his farm when it happened. Almost every plant was wiped out. Most barns were destroyed and the pokemon in them were either released or killed. It was hard, but Milo and his farmhands were able to salvage what was left and create a new, less impressive farm. Still, they have the most reliable food source in Galar. They had to build a lot of defense and acquire a lot of guard pokemon. They had to get really aggressive about defending their things because so many people would try to steal. But they get everything they need by trading with the other mini-societies that formed when the dust settled.

Nessa was in Hullbury. Things are extremely hard, but they’re on the sea, so a lot of the survivors tried to sail away. Nessa stayed, but she did help them try to leave. This was before the plague spread, so it was relatively safe, if not dire. After that, and when things get bad, she finds Sonia and Magnolia, and they go to Turffield to work and get protection. Magnolia definitely needs the sanctuary. Hullbury was abandoned.

Kabu is leading Motostoke the best he can. There are some survivors that follow Kabu, and they keep the production that comes from Motostoke, you know, metal production and shit. Most of Motostoke is abandoned. There’s a line of large warehouses and a nearby grocery store that the people made into a base. They’re a large crowd, but they do well because they’re so close to Turffield. There’s a lot of paranoia, though, because there’s not a lot of room for trust.

Bea is an excellent fighter, of course, so she protects Allister and the rest of the people who stayed in Stow-on-Side. They moved into the cave with the statue of the two kings. It’s so easy to fortify and, in fact, due to their pokemon, and the fact that a lot of people there have the right kind off pokemon, they are able to carve the cave out more and make an actually viable place to stay. They struggle with food a bit because they’re far from any reliable source, but they’ve made it work for their small group. There are very few of them left, so there’s a lot of trust.

Allister stays close to Bea. He’s terrified of what’s happening. He does his best to help, but mostly he stays in and tries to think of ideas. He’s come up with the idea of making tunnels to the other mini-societies. He understands that they survive if they have something worth trading. They have the power to make transportation possible. He’s currently looking for other ideas, too. If they make resources easier to access and they get means to acquire them, they’ll have a better chance of survival.

Opal knows that the woods around Ballonlea are thick and hard to traverse when the proper paths are not kept up. Thus, she has a choice to make. Does she make her town vulnerable or does she isolate herself from any other resources? She chooses isolation. They build into the trees to expand. They’re able to make farms of sorts, but they also forage. The survivors in Ballonlea isolate themselves from the plague and survive by living like the fairies- with the fairies. Most of the outside world don’t know if Ballonlea still exists. Opal knows she likely won’t live to see the end of this situation, she can only hope that she can teach her successor to lead the people of the forest.

Melony sets aside her problems with Gordie to protect her family. She works with Circhester to isolate herself from the rest of Galar. It’s hard to get to Circhester because the event caused the snow to come down harder. That makes resources hard to come by as well, though. The hot spring and a large home that houses the survivors are their stronghold. They’re not worried about being stolen from. However, monthly a group of people have to take their pokemon out and journey to the rest of Galar to trade and get resources. It’s risky, but its their only option. Melony normally leads these expeditions, and Gordie takes over while she’s gone.

Gordie is the second in command in Circhester. He’s the strategist, so to speak. He comes up with the plans. He takes care of everything while Melony is gone. He’s especially protective of his younger siblings. It’s going to be hard to grow up in a post-apocolyptic world. He used to sit around and think of what would happen in this situation, but now that he’s actually here...? He’s completely forgotten about his problems with Melony before the disaster.

Piers counts himself extremely lucky. Spikemuth has walls. It protected everyone within the city from the blast. But the walls are thin and they were already poor to begin with. The thing about Spikemuth is that they’re survivors. They may not specialize in anything, but they scrape by any way they know how. Piers may come off as an apathetic and careless person, but in this disaster, Piers steps up to lead Spikemuth. He fortifies the town with metal from Motostoke, he manages to barter with Milo to get food. They’re on cliffs right next to the sea. Some days it’s an Arceus send, some days it’s another way for Eternatus to laugh at them, but it does bring in food and scavenge sea garbage. In a town full of Zigzagoons, what else do you expect? One of the things they barter with is sending people to be temporary warriors/bodyguards. The people of Spikemuth can mf SCRAP.

Raihan fled from Hammerlocke with the rest of the survivors. They went to find Leon in Wedgehurst. There was nothing left to salvage in Hammerlocke. Some people split off from the main group. Raihan convinced Piers to let them seek refuge in Spikemuth. Some of them joined Milo. A few hoped to find Ballonlea, which wasn’t unheard of. Compared to the rest of the Galar, the rumors sounded like utopia. Raihan still has hope that help is on the way, and he’s used that to lead his people as far as they will go. His pokemon are strong and he can defend himself and his loved ones. He joins Leon in Postwick, where they retreat into the Slimbering Weald.

Leon evacuated Wyndon along with everyone else who was smart enough to leave. He immediately returned to Postwick to join Hop and his mother. The people there were pretty unharmed, since the blast didn’t reach quite far enough. Wedgehurt was abandoned for sure, but that didn’t really matter. They’re close enough to Milo to not have to worry about food so long as people came to help tend to the farms sometimes. Eventually, when things turned even worse than they already were, Leon led Postwick into the Slumbering Weald. With his powerful pokemon, he was sure he could protect them, especially with Raihan at his side. They’ve made themselves a home there, in that Weald, hoping that Zacian and Zamazenta reveal themselves to end this.

Rose is not safe anywhere. The people of Galar hate him for what he’s done, and there’s no one there to listen if he tried to explain himself. He’s not a survivor, he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He and Oleana end up leaving Wyndon with a certain small group headed towards Motostoke. He keeps his head down and his hood up. He wants to find the gym leaders and other authority figures around to make a plan to fix the region, but he can’t do that yet. He doesn’t have the means or the plans to make it happen. He eventually branches off from that path because he has no choice but to follow Oleana. She leads him to Spikemuth, and she convinces Piers to accept them. It’s not easy, but Spikemuth is probably one of the safest places for him now.

Oleana stays with Rose. She calls all the shots, but she protects him at all costs. She knows he never meant for this. She’s a fighter and good at surviving. Through rumors and travelers, she learns that Spikemuth is accepting of all stragglers who need walls to protect them. One of two things happen if she takes Rose. 1. They’ll be killed on sight or 2. Piers will accept them and they’ll be safe. Oleana doesn’t ask Rose, because she knows he’s still in shock and not of right mind right now. She thinks she’ll be able to get through to Piers, they understood each other. Luckily, she’s right, but she has to work extra hard to earn both their keep. She doesn’t exactly mind, since she rises through the ranks quickly and proves to be especially valuable to Piers.

Sonia goes with Nessa to Turffield with her grandmother. She regrets leaving Leon behind, but she had no choice. She had no idea if he was even alive. She hears rumors that he’s leading Postwick, but she can’t make the trip to see for herself. She won’t leave Magnolia behind, even if it means mucking around in Wooloo pens to earn her and her grandmother’s meals. It’s a simple life, not much to it, but she knows she’s extremely lucky. A lot of people never got this far. Plus, Turffield is an empire compared to the rest of Galar, and it’s one of the best places to be since they’re so wealthy there and Milo is so kind.

Magnolia is too old and weak to survive on her own. She knows she’s lucky that her granddaughter brought her with her. Turffield is the perfect place to be for them. Sonia earns both their keeps, so Magnolia lives a very easy life. She’s researching the phenomenon that’s happening, and Milo is happy to let her. She really hopes to find out what happened to everyone and to find a way to end this. She really needs Oleana and Rose to help her, but she thinks they’re dead, so there’s no point in looking for them. She’d go to Wyndon to look for answers, but there’s no Wyndon left to go to.

Hop was terrified when it happened. Luckily, not days after the disaster struck, Leon came home and led them all to the Slumbering Weald. He’s been Leon’s apprentice of sorts. He’s been learning to be a leader like him. He hopes that he’ll be able to help more soon. He misses his friends, and right now, he’s been looking into a communication method without cell phones or electricity.

Marnie is in Spikemuth, as Piers’ second in command. She’s incredibly important because she can see things that Piers can’t. He’s fiercely protective of her, more than he was before. She’s looking for solutions to all of Spikemuth’s problems, and she’s the one that convinced Piers to let Rose and Oleana into Spikemuth. She has been listening to all the rumors and stories that pass through, hoping to hear about anyone she knew.

Bede is in Ballonlea, being taught everything Opal knows. He was the one who suggested building into the trees. Opal’s proud of him, but he knows she worries. Bede doesn’t know how long they can last until they need to make contact with the rest of Galar. He’s stressed about the future and he doesn’t know how to fix any of these problems.

Anyway, the point is, Eternapocolypse AU is a thing now, and I encourage all of you to interact with it. I love apocolypse aus so much. Only post for tonight btw because I’m tired and this took an hour to write out.

[sailorshadzter]

JIMSA

all of the “jim frost” posts have been making me laugh so i decided to write about it. 

post season 8 with tyrion still as hand to bran because he’s the best one to troll with this kind of shit lmao. i also love imagining him going back to king’s landing to bran like “umm  jim frost?” & bran being like “yeah man totally, jim frost. what a good guy.” 

anyways, enjoy!

When the queen stepped into her court with a swelling belly on display, her people could do little but cheer for her good health and the future of their kingdom. After all the North had been through, their young unmarried queen having a baby out of wedlock was the least of their worries. In truth, they were overjoyed that their beloved queen was finally happy. Besides, it was well known who the father would be, though the queen would often remark her child was sired by the wolves, and none could be displeased with her choice.

She settled upon her throne and held her head high as the double doors opened, revealing her latest visitor. Tyrion Lannister had written some time ago to tell her he wished to make a goodwill visit to the North on behalf of her brother, King Bran, who sat upon the throne in Westeros. As Tyrion approached, he too noticed the swell of the queen’s belly beneath her dark green gown. “Your grace,” he bowed low before her throne, raising himself only when she spoke a greeting. “You look… Well.” He said, trying to choose his words as carefully as possible, recalling the young queen’s quick wit and temperament. He would regret dearly upsetting such a woman, especially in her condition.

Sansa can’t help but to laugh, her smile easy going as she leaned forward on her throne. "Thank you, my lord. I welcome you to Winterfell." She is as he remembered- charming, beautiful, her mid stage of pregnancy offering her a radiant glow Tyrion had never before seen in a woman. It gave her an ethereal look, in truth. "I hope your journey was not difficult, now that spring has come, I imagine the roads must be easy to pass." Spring had shown its face some months ago, the very same day she had first woke to the morning sickness of the same child she carried.

"Indeed, your grace, my journey was quite enjoyable." Tyrion responded, already enjoying this queen, finding her far more agreeable than the last he served. Though he was Hand to her brother, Tyrion found himself loyal to House Stark overall, and so he would serve this young woman as much as he served her brother. There was much to discuss with her and her lords, but he found he was much more curious about her growing belly than state politics. Though here in her court was the last place to speak so freely.

"I have had chambers prepared for you," Sansa says, her voice bringing him back from his own mind. "I'm sure you want to rest. I will have food sent to your rooms. Tomorrow, we can meet again, there is much to discuss between us." Her words are final and her smile dismissive, though her sapphire eyes are gleaming as she looked down upon him.

"Thank you, your grace," he replied before rising back to his full height and with a wave of her hand, he turned to walk back towards the doors he'd come in through. He paused for only a moment to glance back, surprised to see that Sansa had already risen from her throne, ducking out of the great hall on the arm of a dark haired man. A very familiar dark haired man, at that. Impossible, Tyrion thought before he pushed out the doors, though he was smirking as he shook his head. Though, perhaps not impossible at all.

[ x x x ]

"Might I ask a question?"

Lord Royce paused in his exit from his chambers, turning back to face the Lannister man with a nod. "Your queen... She is with child, but she's unmarried." Lord Royce does not respond but his expression is rather stony, which Tyrion at once can tell his directed at him and not the fact the queen is carrying a bastard. "And I have this strange notion that I saw Jon Snow leaving with her just moments ago, though he is banished to Castle Black."

"Jon Snow? Here, at Winterfell? Preposterous." Lord Royce says, shaking his head. "You must mean Jim Frost."

Tyrion doesn't know if he's being made fun of, but from the look on the Lord's face, he is quite serious. "Jim... Frost?" Really?

"Yes, he is the emissary for the Night's Watch, you see." Tyrion could swear the lord's lip twitched with a smile. "Jim has sworn fealty to our queen and he remains here at Winterfell, though he makes a monthly trip back to Castle Black."

Though he wanted to ask more, Lord Royce bids him a good night and now all Tyrion can do is ask the woman herself.

[ x x x ]

It took only a few short hours for the two of them to come to terms on a few things- namely trade between their two kingdoms. Securing peace between nations had been the utmost importance since Bran took the throne of the remaining six kingdoms and it had begun by the oldest practice in the book: weddings. Sansa had already agreed to wed Alys Karstark to one of Bran's own lord's oldest sons, the union already agreed on by the pair themselves. There had been talk of Sansa marrying the young Prince of Dorne, though such a thing was certainly out of the question now, though peace would not suffer for it. The Prince of Dorne would have a bride and someday, perhaps he would have a son or daughter to wed Sansa's own, should the gods wish it so.

"You know..." Tyrion's voice brings her from her own thoughts and she looked up at him, sitting across from her with a goblet of wine in hand. "I've been wanting to ask you..." Sansa chuckled at his expense, noting his uncomfortable expression. "About the... Father of your child."

Ah, she thought with a smile, leaning back to press a hand against the curve of her belly. "It is a child of the wolves," she spoke cryptically, reminding him of the king he'd left behind in King's Landing. "A new young, white wolf to someday rule the North when I am gone." She could already feel in her bones that this child would be a boy, a son with the Stark look, a son she would name Robb after the brother she had lost.

Tyrion took a long sip from his goblet before speaking on. "Yes, well... I have seen a familiar face among your court." Sansa arched a brow at his statement, but her rosy lips are still yet curved into a smile as she looked back at him, nodding for him to go on. "I am quite certain I saw Jon Snow on your arm just yesterday."

Sansa supposed she should have known he would find them out at once- this was Tyrion Lannister after all. And well, she and Jon had not been hiding so well now that her pregnancy was too far advanced to hide from the public. Her lords had long suspected her relationship with Jon since the first day he had returned to Winterfell, some six months after his banishment to Castle Black. "Jon Snow is at Castle Black." She spoke with that same smile, tilting her head, red hair cascading over her shoulder. "You must mean Jim."

"Jim Frost? Lord Royce mentioned him."

When the young woman laughed, Tyrion knew he was being fooled. "Indeed, Jim Frost." Her blue eyes gleamed as she settled back against her chair, hands pressed against the curve of her belly. "I don't blame you for mistaking him for Jon- he is as dark haired as any Stark, but I assure you he isn't Jon." When her gaze settled upon him, Tyrion knew the conversation was over.

And he also knew one other thing... Jon Snow was certainly the father of the queen's baby.

[ x x x ]

It was as he climbed into the carriage to leave, having said his goodbyes to the queen and her court, that Tyrion turned and saw them. Sansa was leaning on his arm, her red head tipped against his, laughing at something he was saying. As if feeling his gaze upon them, both she and the man turned for one last look, and that was when Tyrion caught sight of the man's face. Jon Snow raised his hand in a wave and Sansa smiled at him from where she stood, but then they both turned back and went on their way, leaving Tyrion to climb inside with a smirk on his face.  Jim Frost, indeed.

When he arrived back to King's Landing and reported back to Bran, the first thing the king asked was about his sister. "She is pregnant, is she not?" Bran asked as Tyrion poured himself a goblet of wine, his tone implying he already knew the answer to his own question.

"She is." Tyrion replied as he settled into his usual chair at the table.

"And it is Jon's?"

Tyrion can't help but to laugh. "She says the child was sired by wolves, though she hangs upon the arm of a man that looks remarkably like Jon Snow." Bran blinked and shook his head, the look upon his face that of amusement. "They call him Jim Frost as if no one knows." It is Bran who laughed then, a sound unfamiliar to Tyrion- the usually stoic king rarely even smiled, let alone laughed. "They care so much for your sister that I think they would call him a horse if she asked."

"It would seem a pardon for Jon Snow is in order."  Bran gestured for a piece of parchment, which Tyrion slid to him but a moment later. "I think he has been punished long enough, don't you?" Tyrion gave a single nod and watched as Bran leaned over the parchment, his handwriting scrawling across several lines before he looked up again. "See to a wedding gift." Is all he says before sliding the now folded and sealed parchment back to Tyrion, who gives another nod. He got up and crossed the room, to the window where a single raven sat waiting and he tied the scroll to its leg, watching as it soared out into the blue sky.

[ x x x ]

No one was surprised when just a month later, a raven arrived announcing the marriage between the Queen in the North and Jon Snow, now Jon Stark, the new King in the North. Even less surprising was when two months into their marriage another raven arrived to announce the birth of the North's crown prince, already called the Young White Wolf by his people. It was rumored for all of his life that the prince had been born of the wolves, just as his mother had always said, though others would gossip about a supposed wildling lover the queen had before marrying her king. A wildling named Jim Frost.

[davidmann95]

I haven't been able to tolerate a comics news site since ComicsAlliance shut down so what news out of SDCC is actually worth knowing about?

I’ve gotten so many questions regarding SDCC-related news that I figured I’d just do one big post, and this seems as opportune an ask to build that off of as any. To kick off, in terms of news that’s not for me but is a big deal, there’s a trailer for the next season of Doctor Who, and Star Wars: Clone Wars is shockingly coming back for a final reduced season years after the fact. Congrats to the fans of both franchises! Plus yesterday we got the announcement of Orlando and Foreman’s Electric Warriors for DC (as well as Orlando’s Dead Kings with Matt Smith at Aftershock Comics) and the Wonder Woman/Justice League Dark October crossover.

So first and foremost in terms of the reaction it picked up, OH MY GOD:

It’s like the Bat In The Sun team handed over their production to their shitty kids but made them work off a third of the budget. I kept seeing the jokes about it on Twitter, and I kept thinking they were surely hilarious exaggerations, AND NOT A ONE OF THEM EVEN SLIGHTLY WAS. At least it now makes sense why Hawk and Dove is here, given the Liefeld connection: this is 90s as helllllllllllllllllllllll, and while a part of me hopes it swerves unexpectedly in a couple seasons into Fun 90s DC with Starman and Wally West and an Electric Blue Superboy and Titans One Million, I can’t pretend I wouldn’t gleefully hatewatch this if it wasn’t behind a paywall. What it really comes down to is that, as I saw someone mention, the over-the-top content warning at the beginning isn’t actually by any means to get rid of anyone under 18, but specifically to appeal to them over anyone over it: there is nothing about this show not precision-crafted to appeal to teenagers watching something they technically aren’t supposed to, since anyone older than that will just laugh until the stars grow cold. And while it’s one line in particular that’s rightfully drawn all the attention, to me the clear defining moment is Beast Boy taking his big goofy dramatic leap, and you expect him to transform, but that ain’t happening (I fully expect he’ll just have claws and growl and do assorted Wolverine shit instead), because that kind of thing is for STUPID KIDS, whereas this is RAD. 

RAD, dare I say…to the EXTREME.

Also, the pilot Robin’s scene was presumably drawn from was written by Akiva Goldsman, Greg Berlanti, and Geoff Johns. So was it the guy behind Batman & Robin, the guy behind the CWverse, or the recent President of DC Comics who ushered FUCK BATMAN into the world? Because all three of those possibilities are equally hilarious. In any case, the rubicon has been crossed: easily one of the top ten, probably one of the five or so most iconic superheroes of all time said fuck in a piece of mass media. Where we go from here, nobody knows. But at the very least I’ll take the L for my original certainty that this would take place in the CW DCverse, because that clearly isn’t going to be the case. Though boy, imagine if it was. Personally I like to imagine this is a totally normal DCU, and suddenly going full 90s and murdering a bunch of people is their universe’s version of normal teen rebellion.

Additionally, it’s now seemingly set in stone that the fourth DC Universe live-action show alongside Titans, Doom Patrol, and Swamp Thing will be a Stargirl show where Courtney Whitmore learns about her legacy and tries to track down the Justice Society, described as in the flavor of Superman ‘78 and Wonder Woman. Again, if it wasn’t behind a paywall I’d check it out.

And before turning to comics proper, we learned from WB itself that there are no plans to idiotically pour millions into making a functional Justice League Snyder cut a thing, unsurprisingly making some of the worst people on the internet be just the absolute worst (I’m interested myself in it artistically even if I don’t think it would be very good, but at this point it would feel like a validation of some really rotten people’s behavior if this happened). Meanwhile the first trailer for the Dragon Ball Super movie dropped, and yeah, I’m still happy to see Broly. This looks big in a way Dragon Ball for all its action rarely gets, and seeing Paragus suggests Toriyama understood what worked about the original flick, which is a very good sign. Did they swap out Vic Mignogna as Broly though? Wouldn’t blame him, I know he’s said he hates the part, but surprising nonetheless. And the Spider-Man game dropped another trailer, along with a ‘Velocity’ bonus suit designed by Adi Granov.

The big comics news of the day was of course the long-awaited confirmation that Green Lantern is being relaunched - apparently as The Green Lantern - in November by Grant Morrison and Liam Sharp. What’s surprising is that Morrison’s currently insisting that since the last decade or so of the franchise has dealt with constant upheaval and cosmic apocalypse, his run is going to scale back down to a character-focused study of Hal (“He’s a loner and a drifter and he’s an unreconstructed man. It was nice to do that and to go a little bit old-fashioned with it. He doesn’t belong here at all, you know? He’s longing for the heavens, and to be back up as a Green Lantern. We’re doing Hal Jordan where, you know he’s a good cop, but is he really a good guy? And we’re looking into his relationships and how he deals with people. And also the fact that, if you’ve got a job as a space cop, it’s hard to be stuck on the planet Earth. He has other lives on other planets.”) amidst him going about his duties and dealing with weird alien crimes and space threats, such as stopping aliens from ‘parking’ a planet-sized artificial megastructure near a sun and causing damage to nearby worlds, and solving the murder of a gaseous lifeform.

I doubt it’ll necessarily stay there forever - his Batman and Action Comics runs, after all, were both initially marketed as staying on the smaller side by his standards, and the one idea we know of Morrison having once had for the Green Lanterns back in the day was making them a multiversal force. But it’s remarkable how, well, normal this sounds coming from Morrison. Clearly this must be a passion project if he’s doing a monthly again for the first time in 5 years, especially since DiDio mentioned he had to be persuaded (ultimately persuading himself as his attempts to brush off the proposition led to him thinking about the possibilities and rapidly talking himself into it) to make time for this amidst an incredibly busy schedule of surely more profitable and creatively unshackled projects, but on the surface level? This sounds like the closest Morrison has come since his JLA days to writing a regular superhero comic. At this point in his career, I’m very, very curious what that’s going to look like. Just hoping he read the King/Shaner oneshot on whatever reread he surely went through to catch up on current continuity. And also hoping this guy was right that it’ll turn out “the REAL construct that was limited by our willpower and imagination all along was…REALITY.”

On smaller notes:

* Kelly Sue DeConnick and Robson Rocha are taking over Aquaman, with an opening arc that shows him washing up amnesiac on an isle of forgotten sea gods. DeConnick seems to be like the Jeffs Lemire and Parker where my appreciation of their work is limited to very, very specific slivers: none of her Marvel superhero stuff I’ve read did anything for me even if I could see the talent behind it, but her Lois story in the last issue of The Adventures of Superman was pitch-perfect (and also had a great Aquaman bit!). This gets at least an issue from me.

* DC announced new titles for DC Ink and DC Zoom, including Cassandra Cain, Oracle, Dick Grayson, Creeper, and Wonder Woman books, while also announcing some artists for the existing titles.

* Geoff Johns is doing (ugh) Shazam with Dave Eaglesham, who showed off a really great, fun cover suggesting the possibility of a tonal shift away from Johns writing the absolute worst version of that character imaginable. On the likelihood of said possibility though, I think @intergalactic-zoo put it best. I might just check it out in trade if word of mouth is overwhelmingly positive, but then, lots of otherwise rational people liked or at least saw merit in his original crack at it with Gary Frank, and you were all deliriously, impossibly wrong back then, too.

* And finally, speaking of Johns, he’s doing Batman: Three Jokers as a 3-issue mini with Jason Fabok, a smart move given that is precisely as much as I’m willing to invest in this out of morbid curiosity. What’s really baffling though is that it’s being released under Black Label. It would seem to destroy the stated purpose of the line by immediately releasing Very Important Continuity Comics under it, but maybe this means Batman’s gonna follow in his protege’s footsteps and say a fuck. Anyway, I’m mostly just hoping it isn’t revealed Fun Golden Age Joker is actually not the original in order to rub out the prospect that he was ever truly anything but a terrifying sidekick-butchering murder machine at the center of very serious stories, because that feels to be like a real possibility. And absolute no question one of the three is gonna turn out to be the lost child of Marionette and Mime in Doomsday Clock.

[missanthropicprinciple]

Super-long rant-review post about Werewolf of London (1935) with images and spoilers...

I love Werewolf of London, this 83-year-old film. It’s got some problems typical of 1930s Hollywood, but I still find a lot of value in it. 

The setting, the moonlit hills of Tibet. Accuracy? not so much. 

Apparently the “Tibetans” are actually speaking Cantonese...and the white actors are clearly not speaking anything. 30 years before Star Wars and it honestly sounds like they’re speaking Ewok...but it’s just gibberish. I think the only realistic part of this scene is the fact that there actually are bactrian camels in Tibet. At least it’s quite well filmed. 

The sequence where Dr. Glendon (Henry Hull) is attacked by the werewolf is really eerie and holds up well.

The actual bite is so quick but if you screencap that second it’s creepy AF.

Despite the attack, Dr. Glendon gets his coveted “Mariphasa Lupina Lumina” flower (sadly, completely fictitious) and heads back to England.

In his lab, Dr. Glendon lives out his mad-scientist aesthetic surrounded by some high tech equipment. He even gets buzzed by his wife on what is basically an old-timey FaceTime device that lacks audio. Even though we know it’s superimposed footage it’s fairly seamless. 

Next we get a little portrait of a marriage. He’s working on an experiment with flowering and artificial light and his wife Lisa (Valerie Hobson) wants to know what the hell he’s up to. He’s secretive and she’s understandably annoyed. But she calls him “dear old bear” which is quite sweet but ironically hints at the animalistic transformation to follow. He says that after the experiment he will try to be more “human” but we know that ain’t gonna happen. 

Henry Hull’s accent. It needs its own paragraph. It’s not bad for someone from Louisville, Kentucky, and in fact sometimes it’s really amazing, but other moments it crosses your mind that the dialect coach was out sick that day of shooting. He enunciates very strongly. His jaws much have hurt him a bit. He’s fun to listen to though and you gotta give the guy credit because he doesn’t shy away from being über-Brit. 

Enter Lisa’s old childhood sweetheart Paul, played by the adorkable yet suave Lester Matthews. He and Lisa, whom he refers to as “Lee”, reminisce about their joint childhood exploits. 

Cue Dr. Glendon’s jealousy:

Understandably, Dr. Glendon is quietly dying inside because he hates all the socializing that comes with being a world-renowned botanist. Seeing another man making his wife smile does not help his mood.  

Lookit ‘em; holding hands for heaven’s sake. Aunt Ettie also likes to stir up trouble and add to Glendon’s jealously which isn’t very nice of her. 

Side note, Dr. Glendon has some tricked-out plants: 

Now we meet Dr. Yogami (Warner Oland).

Warner Oland, who was often cast as Asian characters because he “looked Asian”, was actually Swedish. (One would think that 80 years later this casting of white actors in non-white roles would have come to an end but we’re still dealing with this crap.) While Oland is a fairly good actor, he’s still NOT Asian and it would have been so much better if they had cast Sessue Hayakawa as Yogami as he was not only gorgeous but a better actor. 

However, Yogami is implied to be Chinese or Tibetan and Hayakawa is Japanese. Still, if the character was stated as Japanese it would have been perfect. Ironically, later on in the film Aunt Ettie keeps calling him Yokohama which is the second largest city in Japan. And I can’t find the surname Yogami anywhere. I can find Yagami and that’s a Japanese surname, not Chinese or Tibetan as far as I can tell. Oh, Old Hollywood and your stomach-churning whitewashing. 

Dr. Yogami says that they met before in Tibet...in the dark. He’s giving him a really big hint that he’s the one who bit him (...either that or he’s implying they met for an evening liaison). Dr. Glendon is trying to piece it together. 

Dr. Yogami says, “The medical term is ‘lycanthrophobia’.” WRONG. The medical term is lycanthropy, if being a werewolf was actually real. (The uncommon thing were people grow all the excess facial hair is hypertrichosis.) Clinical lycanthropy is a rare psychological condition that is linked to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and/or clinical depression. (More on that later.) 

Here’s a cap of Dr. Yogami intimately stroking Dr. Glendon’s injured arm while making hella awkward eye contact. As modern viewers we may or may not have a strong impulse to read this as somewhat sexual, or maybe as an identification of repressed homosexual desire. Lycanthropy in literature and film mythology has occasionally been used or identified as a metaphor for homosexuality. 

In a world where stabbing yourself with a plant gets rid of monthly hair growth. I’m curious to know why it looks like his stabbing it into a dorsal metacarpal vein and not the palmar (inside) side of wrist....medical side of Tumblr help me out here. Maybe they just wanted to feature the hairy hand. 

Dr. Yogami essentially asks Dr. Glendon for a blossom of the glow-in-the-dark flower to save his soul (and his fellow botanist as well), albeit in a cryptic way. He says “But remember this Dr. Glendon, the werewolf instinctively seeks to kill the thing it loves best.” Sadly, Dr. Glendon thinks he’s full of crap and ignores his warnings despite knowing that stabbing himself with this rare flower magically makes his moon-grown hand-hair disappear. Dumb or in denial? 

So of course Dr. Yogami steals not one, but two flowers. For two of the four nights of the full moon. Technically there is only one night of full moon at any given time but I’m going to give this a pass. Maybe during the time that the moon is still almost full, though waning, it still have the power to change man into the “satanic creature.”

Meanwhile, skeptical Dr. Glendon does a little lycanthropic research: 

Lisa drops by and asks him to join her and Paul at a society party but he pegs out or course, and then adds a jibe about not wanting to hear anymore childhood memories. Is the werewolf infection making him bitchy or is he just like that? Hard to tell. 

Lisa is hurt. But he says she should go out and enjoy herself. She tries to show him this brocade he bought her but he flips out when she turns on the lights. Presumably being a werewolf makes you sensitive to light. 

He responds with the “I put some medicine in my eyes” routine and they clearly don’t buy it. 

Seems fake, but ok. 

I feel like this is one of many allusions to depression in this film: sensitive to light, wanting to be alone, disliking small-talk and society parties, general introversion and distrust of others. We get a sense that he’s kind of this way anyway at the core of his personality but the werewolf contamination has made that all worse. 

Dr. Glendon may be a jerk but it’s hard not to feel sympathy for him. He really does love her. She’s still too annoyed to reciprocate. 

Even his cat’s pissed at him.

When animals start rejecting you, ya know you got problems. 

And lo, he thought, “oh shit.” 

The moonlight transformation sequence is quite simple by today’s standards of physical and special effects, but it’s still effective. Using the shadows to break up the footage isn’t fooling anyone, especially nowadays, yet it has a kind of fluidity that makes it oddly very evocative. 

A word about Jack Pierce’s makeup. Believe it or not it was originally going to look like this: 

Oink oink. Thank heavens someone talked Jack into a more minimalist look. Jack Pierce, known for his incredible work on films like Frankenstein (1931), The Mummy (1932), and The Wolf Man (1941), to name but a few, appears to have been a tad stubborn depending on the actor he worked with. He had a great relationship with Boris Karloff as far as I’m aware but the harmony working with Hull didn’t last long. There was a rumor going around that Hull was super vain and didn’t want the makeup to obscure his face. The truth of it was there are a couple scenes when Lisa and Paul both recognize him and if the werewolf makeup was applied too heavily, this part of the plot just wouldn’t work. Apparently Hull went over Pierce’s stubborn head straight to Carl Laemmle to fix the problem. The book Universal Horrors: The Studio’s Classic Films, 1931–1946 by Tom Weaver and John Brunas has more on this. (And in the Svengoolie intro to the film featured on ME TV.) The incident paid off because the final makeup was stellar. 

That awkward moment when someone steals your flowers: 

Suddenly filled with jealous rage...

...but wait lemme just put my hat and coat on first. If he does that when he’s full-on werewolf can you imagine how much time it takes for him to get ready normally? Diva. 

The obligatory party scene...

...with a comic interlude from Aunt Ettie who drunkenly says to “Dr. Yokohama” as she calls him, pointing to a dodgy district visible from her flat, that people there would “knife you for a shilling.” But then they hear the howl of a “lost soul” which is the chilling call of Dr. Glendon and it’s time to go inside. 

Drunk lady trope scene. No point in rescuing her she already made a fool out of herself but off they run: 

There is a ring of sadness to Aunt Ettie’s drunk scene because she says “she gets so nervous.” Hello social anxiety. She is a tad obnoxious as a character but this part makes her seem so much more sympathetic. 

“A-woooooooooooo!” 

Ok, that’s not a dog. 

Dr. Yogami is quaking in his spats at this point. 

Even though you know that this is Dr. Glendon, this remains creepy. Who hasn’t thought of a monster clawing their way into your bedroom late at night? They really milk the suspense in this scene. 

Lisa is offended by Dr. Yogami’s seemingly sexist and controlling behavior but in reality he’s trying to save her life. He knows that Dr. Glendon is on the loose and can probably smell her and will likely kill her. But she goes up to comfort her friend anyway. 

Cue the “you just had a bad dream” scene. For once Ettie isn’t full of hogwash. 

Poor Ettie. Seeing a werewolf will sober you up pretty quick. 

Mr. Hyde? Oh wait, wrong movie. 

Apparently all young women of a lower class looked like Hollywood starlets back then. Pretty stylish. 

This is why I don’t have a Tinder. 

Dr. Yogami executes an A+ facepalm. His wrist-leaning skills are classic. 10/10:

I mean, what did he think was going to happen? You can’t blackmail a guy who’s in denial about being a werewolf, it doesn’t work. But then, if he left one flower there you wouldn’t have a second act. 

Paul says that it might be a werewolf attack. He’s almost joking but he makes the suggestion anyway. His uncle, head of Scotland Yard no less (now that’s convenient) thinks this is ridiculous.

Meanwhile Dr. Glendon reads about how he accidentally murdered a woman last night: 

“You’re being utterly hateful, Wilfred.” She sees that he’s not happy and we all know that he’s past the point of no return. Someone has already died. His bitterness at her relationship with Paul is exacerbated by this revelation. But he doesn’t storm from the room or hurt her. He actually acts like an adult, says he’s sorry, and says that he will go out horseback riding with her after all. A lot of reviewers don’t like his character but I find him continually sympathetic. 

Again, it’s a realistic portrayal of a marriage. Dr. Glendon “forbids” his wife to go out on a midnight horseback ride with her ex. As sexist as his I’m-the-man-putting-my-foot-down-with-the-wife routine is, he has a couple genuine reasons for acting this way. He’s worried about her safety cause he knows the moon is gonna make him crazy and he could unintentionally kill her in a fit of jealous rage. And of course he’s ticked off that Lisa is galavanting around with another man. She in turn is appropriately angry with his controlling remarks without having good reason for his concern...plus she wants to prove a point that he’s not making enough time for her in their marriage. 

Mrs. Moncaster explains how decking her “dearest friend” Mrs. Whack was an appropriate action to take in the sake of business.

Dr. Glendon calls himself “Singularly single, madam. More single than I ever realised it was possible for a human being to be...” Which seems to evoke qualities of his situation and depression. He feels so isolated. 

He prays that this transformation won’t happen again but it does.

“If I ran the zoo I'd let all the animals go”  - Dr. Seuss. This is Glendon’s way of causing a distraction so that he can attack another woman but it’s also symbolic of him releasing his inner animalistic nature. 

Ya gotta appreciate the special effects: 

Dr. Yogmai hails from the University of Carpathia. Here to represent.....an institution that I’m fairly certain doesn’t exist. Unless they mean Vasyl Stefanyk Precarpathian National University but that wasn’t established until 1940. Still, he’s a professor of botany so that’s cool. Kind of like Professor Lupin. 

Presumably, Dr. Yogami goes to Paul because he’s well connected and he wants to prevent Dr. Glendon from doing anymore damage. 

A+ usage of the scary uplighting effect. 

Dr. Glendon instructs a servant to lock him in until sunrise. Oh the upper-classes and their odd demands.

Paul still loves her. Duh. She can’t reciprocate because she’s married. 

Those bars are toast.

Henry Hull does a great job of prowling with just the right balance between animal and man.

Now that’s a scream:

Paul to the rescue. 

Paul recognizes Dr. Glendon. (Thanks, Mr. Hull.)

Dr. Yogami’s rooms “smelled like a kennel" when they found the mutilated maid. Yuck. Did he pee all over the room? Not something anyone likes to think about for too long. Especially the head of Scotland Yard. Just look at his face. 

Paul digs through the trash and finds the discarded flowers. 

Maybe Paul should work for Scotland Yard instead of his uncle. 

Hey how was your trip? So, Hawkins (J.M. Kerrigan) doesn’t think it’s odd that Dr. Glendon is hiding from the police? Does he even know why? Did Glendon tell him “hey I’m a werewolf and I accidentally killed people?” or does Hawkins just give him a pass like “it’s his life and none of my business.”? Well, as the scene suggests, Hawkins clearly does not know because he’s confused by how important this damn flower is to Dr. G.

I have to say, I get this excited about my sweet peas every year so I totally identify with his reaction. #humor

How does he even get into the lab?! Dr. Glendon needs better security or just, ya know, locks.

Somehow Glendon doesn’t see Yogami tip-toeing down the steps. How bad does your peripheral vision have to be?!

"You brought this on me that night in Tibet!” (You don’t say.)

The problem with stealing a plant that only blooms as the moon emerges is that the werewolf might kill you mid-transformation. Exhibit A:

They were both doomed anyway. 

Dr. Glendon goes looking for Lisa. 

Lycanthropy makes Dr. Glendon strong. Those chintz curtains and flimsy doors are no match for him.

Paul also lacks clear peripheral vision, apparently. Funny how ya don’t see a werewolf perched above a door you’re about to go into.

With all that jumping off buildings, werewolves must be prime candidates for knee replacement surgery. 

More great uplighting to do justice to some remarkable makeup:

“It’s Lisa!”

Who the hell is Lisa?

Maybe he remembers at this point. Hard to tell. 

A regular bullet does the job. The myth that a werewolf can only be killed by a silver bullet most likely dates back to the legend of the Beast of Gévaudan, in which a humungous wolf is killed by a hunter named "Argent" which is Latin for silver, who uses a gun loaded with silver bullets. The filmmakers clearly don’t feel that this is a necessary part of this movie’s mythology. And in a way, this is a good decision because it makes the werewolf more pitiable and certainly less mythological. If a werewolf has most of the same vulnerabilities as a human, most of the same human rules of existence apply because werewolves are not semi-indestructible. It also just makes werewolves more human and more sympathetic. Werewolf!Glendon is basically afflicted with a kind of disease that could hypothetically be explained by medical science; he isn’t some mythological beast.

We can presume his soul is saved. “Thanks...thanks for the bullet. It was the only way. In a few moments now, I shall know why all of this had to be.” 

“Good-bye, Lisa. Lisa – good-bye...I’m sorry...I couldn’t have made you...happier...” 

(This is immediately followed by the sound of my heart breaking.) Seriously, this isn’t a guilt trip like he thinks Lisa is some overly-needy wife. He knows that he’s not always equip to give Lisa what she needs out of a relationship. He genuinely feels bad. It isn’t because of the lycanthropy, he was like this before, as a scientist. Did he have depression anyway? He might have. He really does love her and they have an understanding. This is probably some of the best acting in the film, the way that Hull delivers his lines and the look on Valerie Hobson’s face tells you so much. 

Thankfully, his death means that he is free of lycanthropy. 

The sun comes up. 

A plane is in the air, presumably Paul and Lisa are off to California. 

And then we get a nice transition into the Universal Studios plane. 

What a trip. Hope you enjoyed my rambling. Until next time. 

[melforbes]

before the gunfire

He had a mental points system for their homemade dinners, a way to gauge whether or not a dish was good enough to make again: four points for each clean plate, a point for a little mmm she could give throughout the meal, two points for every line of inquiry about the spices, broths, et cetera. So far, he’d tallied up five points - three moans and an are there Herbs de Provence in this? - before he’d even managed to try each of the vegetables in the dish, so unfortunately, a challenging, time-consuming braised beef was going in the to make again category. Sometimes, he loved being boastful about how he knew his way around their rickety-and-then-redone kitchen, but other times, he wondered why he didn’t just fire up the grill, throw on some chicken breasts, and call it a day instead.

“Do you remember a couple of Easters ago, when Bill’s kids weren’t in high school yet?” she asked, half of her attention on him and the other half on the pumpkin, carrots, and butternut squash on her plate. “Mom made braised beef, but she did it with potatoes instead.”

“I do,” he said. That Easter, while Bill and Mulder had washed and dried dishes as the children, under the command of enough Scully women to keep candy consumption to one piece per kid, Bill had asked Mulder if he actually planned on marrying his sister or if they were - verbatim - some kind of those modern types. Though Mulder instinctively wanted to gloss over the matter, to say oh, we’ve spoken about it, yes, yes, it’s certainly a conversation, he instead told the truth and, miraculously enough, received Bill Jr.’s blessing, regardless of how unnecessary, unneeded, or unsought that had happened to be. Mulder couldn’t forget that Easter if he tried. “It was delicious.”

“It was a bit greasy,” Scully said, then glanced to him with a soft smile.

What was that, a halfway-backhanded compliment, a jab at the traditional heirloom known as her mother’s classic recipes, a way to tell him that their Wednesday night after-work dinner outdid any and all holiday fare? That had to be at least three points.

“This is delicious,” she repeated. “Local vegetables, I assume?”

A compliment and an inquiry. Three points. 

“Yeah, of course,” he said. “Had to make the most of the season.”

With you, he didn’t say. They’d skipped strawberry season because of their separation, raspberry season because of the end of the world, and nearly even apple season because one or both of them had been too sick to merit a trip to a you-pick orchard. After a whirlwind of a summer, all of it in retrospect seeming to be only a confusing blur, he wasn’t going to let pumpkin and squash season go to waste, and he wasn’t going to pass up handing out candy at the local library with her on Halloween, and he wouldn’t dare miss a chance to have a real Thanksgiving with his family, a genuine one in which he taught his son how to carve a turkey while Scully laughed at the other end of the table, her two boys surely making a mess. Nowadays, with you was more than just possible; it was probable, and it was impending, and if the changing leaves outside and the woman sharing a delicious, challenging dinner with him hadn’t already made his heart full, he would feel himself grow blissful now.

“Speaking of,” she said with her mouth full, and to himself, he smiled; the best of Dana Scully’s traits, he found, were the societally uncouth but wholly human ones that she showed very few people, mannerless chewing and beer pong tenacity and a monthly subscription to a women’s website about finding the perfect orgasm all included, “my lease ends on the first of next month.”

He felt the creaky house still, the kitchen light overhead fall heavily upon them, the world grow more vivid in an overstimulated kind of way; he was suddenly aware of the way she held her fork, her nails well-kept but unpainted, the skin of her arms soft against that purple tee shirt that had been sitting in the dresser here for weeks. When was the last time he’d had a bowl of fruit on the table? Last month, they’d managed to start grocery shopping together again, and suddenly, there was a bowl of fruit on the table even though Dana Scully, a scientist who must understand plant hormones, should have known better than to mix bananas with apples, and her breakfast teas were back in the pantry, her favorite blanket hung back against the couch, her library books stacked on her bedside table. He’d stopped spreading his clothes throughout the closet and had started letting it seem half-empty so that she wouldn’t feel odd about hanging her scrubs in there, and what had started out as a drawer for her pajamas and spare clothes had turned into a spot for everything, from running headbands to pantiliners to some of his things that had gone missing since she’d left. Even now, a pile of toys for her dog sat on the couch, and the pooch was sleeping soundly in the office, glad to be away from the city for - Mulder counted - eleven consecutive days now. 

“Okay,” he said. Because she had been the one to leave, she needed to be the one who chose to come back; he refused to coach her through this conversation, one heavy with meaning but light with words. 

“I was thinking,” she said slowly, absentmindedly moving her fork around her near-empty plate, “that I wouldn’t renew.”

Meeting her gaze, he nodded with objectivity. “It’s your choice.”

He watched as her lips turned down, an awkward look on her face; she stared at her plate, her emotions akin to a rejection reaction. 

“Is that something you’d want as well?” she asked with quiet trepidation. 

A big conversation. If a meal can’t distract one from the real world, then is it a proper meal at all? Minus fifteen points.

“Yes,” he said sincerely. “But it’s ultimately your choice.”

“I won’t renew, then.”

“You don’t have to-”

“The whole kitchen is already packed up.” She went back to eating as though nothing had happened. “Not much is in my closet there anyway.”

It was odd, how he only nodded while they both let the conversation slip away, as though it hadn’t had any gravity toward them. Though he could still see the grain of the table with alarming clarity, his awareness still heightened, he also found that he wasn’t surprised by the turn of events, had practically expected that topic to come along at some point. In movies, he always saw the biggest milestones of life portrayed as exciting surprises - marriage proposals, promotions, watching your team win the World Series - but he’d found that all of the pivotal moments of his life were dull and normal, nothing in comparison to their aftermath. Back when they hadn’t been together, the concept of Dana Scully asking to move in with him would’ve made him concoct a fantasy in which, all of the sudden, they were in a whirlwind of romance and excitement, pawning off furniture and making the best of a mismatched living room, the askance followed by him lifting her up and twirling her around while she kissed his cheek. However, when he thought now of those milestones, he found comfort in the expectation, in that there were eventualities he could count on. When - and he did use when for this, not if - he asked her to marry him, not even with a for tax breaks cop-out but because he’d never found someone else with whom legal binds made him feel near euphoria instead of despair, he knew the askance would never be a surprise, but afterward, watching her admire a ring, seeing her in white because Dana Scully loved to honor such traditions, he knew he’d feel such wonder that he would refuse to let those moments go. Who needed brash transitions anyway, especially when dinners with Dana Scully felt this good?

Two clean plates. Four points each, but recovering from the earlier demerit would be a challenge. Reaching out, she went for his plate, was going to wash the dishes, but he stopped her, his hand coming over hers, and softly, he set their joined hands down on the table, looked up at her, tried to read what was on her mind.

“I’m really glad you’re coming back,” he gave softly, sincerely, reassuringly.  

She brought her other hand over top of his, looked down at her fingers. Then, she smiled, said, “Me too.”

Leaning forward, he went to kiss her in the casual way they always used to do, a brief post-dinner thank you regardless of who cooked, and just as her eyes closed, just as their lips were about to meet, he heard the sound of a car engine, so he tensed, waited, and surely enough, the sound persisted, came closer.

“Shit,” he said, then stood quickly, their tangled hands falling apart.

Opening her eyes with dumbfounded surprise, she watched as he headed for the window nearby, followed him uncomfortably.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, but as she met him at the window, she saw a Suburban quickly approaching, the long driveway stalling it but not for long.

“You didn’t-”

“No, of course not,” Mulder said, then took her hand again, pulled her away from the window. “Where’s your piece?”

“It’s, um,” she stammered, “my bag, it’s in my bag. I didn’t have a chance to-”

“Mine’s upstairs,” he said, then headed upstairs, out of sight, all while the car parked outside.

She tried to make out the shapes of the people in the car, and though she could see a few men, she couldn’t recognize their faces, her heart pounding all the while. Next to the coat rack, her bag sat, so she pulled out her safety-on glock, looked back and forth for a hiding spot, felt all of her tactical training fall away while her gaze drifted back to the staircase. She couldn’t hear Mulder anymore.

This can’t be happening again, she thought, then managed to pull herself into the office, hiding behind the half-open door. The dog, stirred from its sleep, stared up at her with sad little eyes; she closed her own.

Is God listening? she asked herself, and even though she figured the answer was no, she still asked grant me strength as she heard the locked front door break open.

[builtinadaygames]

Scratch the itch: what I played last month #2

Hi, I'm Kevin Beissel and I make games under the name Built In A Day. I also lurk on Twitter @builtinadayKB and have a space shooter on itch.  This is the second itch game post I've done, you can read the first here.  I'm including this preamble from the first post since it lays out the ground rules:

The purpose of this post is to cover some of the free games on itch.io, from a developer and fan perspective.  I'd like to make it a recurring series, maybe a monthly breakdown but who knows.  Like Douglas Adams said, the best part of deadlines is the great WHOOSHING sound they make while flying by.

Before we get to the games, I just want to clarify why I'm doing this and what I hope it accomplishes.  So here's the what, why and how:

The WHAT

Discuss free games available on itch.io

I've got a list of profiles to check out, but please send along any recommendations.

There are no restrictions on genres.  The whole point of this is to be curious and ask questions.  So no dumb rules like "No walking sims" or "No puzzle platformers", which would prolly eliminate half of the available games anyways.

The WHY

I want to become a better developer and playing experimental/small/art/trash games could help.

Getting an audience is hard and getting constructive feedback is even harder.  I can't help the devs covered in these posts with the former but maybe I can with the latter.

The HOW

There is no rating system.

There is no alter ego here, these are not 'angry' reviews.

These aren't even really reviews.

The goal is to focus on the design choices that were made and discuss the reasoning behind them.

I don't really care about being right, I don't really care about sounding smart ("Yeah, no shit" the reader grumbles), I don't really care about agreeing with you.  I'm more interested in looking at the hierarchy of ideas (to borrow a phrase) that form game design.  By working at the ends and working in the middle we can find out more about it, right?

Enough with the formalities, let's get started.

Profile: Bedstuck (@bedstuck)

Game: White

Genre/Style: action, wave-based brawler, melee combat

I've been seeking out lots of action games lately and 'White' has a lot of the things I'm looking for in this genre.  You play through waves of enemies, with a black-and-white art style and fast-paced melee combat.

The visuals are immediately appealing, with great character design choices and fluid animations.  The art style manages to be simple but expressive (it was made for a jam in less than 17 hrs).  Looks like a cool ink based style, like a comic book.  One of my all time favorite movie fight scenes is from 'Book of Eli'.  The opening fight scene is under a bridge and shown only in silhouette, much like the style here.

Spoilers for 'Book of Eli' real quick, so skip to the next paragraph if you haven't seen it:  I saw that movie opening night and took a lady friend to it.  It was our first date together (sadly it was also the last) and she had wanted to see 'the Lovely Bones', that godawful looking Peter Jackson snoozefest, but I'm occasionally charming and persuasive so we saw 'Book of Eli' instead.  After the movie we're walking out to the car and I ask her: "Pretty crazy how his character was blind for the whole movie, huh?" and she goes "What do you mean?"  In her defense, she thought it was weird and boring, but it's still made explicitly clear at the end that the main character is blind, yet she somehow missed that.  None of this pertains to the game 'White', but that's what happens, man.

The combat is intuitive but challenging.  It is melee-based, so you have to get good at timing your jumps and slashing in the correct direction to get the airborne enemies.  There's a dash ability that is crucial for getting to wave spawners and taking them out quickly.  Using the jump and dash abilities in concert has so much potential, both offensively and defensively.

The enemy behavior is nicely varied between melee and ranged types.  There's some square enemies that shoot smaller squares.  At first I thought they might be targeting the player, but after watching them for awhile my guess is that they are based on some randomized pattern.  If they all targeted the player with each shot then even a small amount on screen would be deadly.  Not sure I'm right about this, but my first instinct would have been to target the player; based on what I'm seeing here, the random pattern is a better choice.

I was able to beat the easiest difficulty setting (health regens), but only got to wave five on normal (no health regen) and wave four on original (one hit kills you).  Of course balancing difficulty is a notoriously hard task and, while I hate a challenge in real life, a challenge in a video game is actually appealing.  The tiers of difficulty make sense here and ramp up nicely.  But don't get me started on the "tears" of difficulty, we've all been there.

===

Profile: Hempuli (@ESAdevlog, hempuli.com)

Game: Baba Is You

Genre/Style: Puzzle

If you grew up reading Roger Ebert movie reviews (you know, the ones that were scrawled across the cave walls), you're prolly familiar with the kind of review where he refused to talk about any plot points after the first act, so as not to spoil the joy of seeing it unfold for yourself.  He would go on about the atmosphere, the performances, latent/manifest content and other such things, but would not spoil the mechanics of it.  I'll have to use that format for 'Baba Is You', because you're better off finding out for yourself.

Each level has a set of obstacles and hazards that block the goal.  There are three-word phrases placed in the level as well, and the phrases can be rearranged to create new types of interaction.  For example, "wall is stop" could be changed to several things.  That's all I'll say, because the solutions and the mechanics of it all are so much fun that any more would spoil it.

If you enjoyed something like 'Stephen's Sausage Roll' or if you're a fan of NES/pre-NES visual styles then you should find something to like here.  Just a great concept, superb puzzle design, fun aesthetics, wonderful "eureka!" moments, a must play for puzzle fans.  Hmmm, can I do some more 'pull quotes' or is that enough?  It's a white-knuckle thriller, like nothing you've ever seen, if you play one puzzle game this year make it this one, a non-stop thrill ride, edge of your seat entertainment, breathtaking, gripping, an ending you won't see coming, Harrison Ford has never been better.

I guess you could describe this writing style as "talking to yourself", since this is clearly not written for an actual audience.  But it's important to differentiate between "talking WITH yourself" and "talking TO yourself".  There's a pretty big difference.  Who else am I supposed to talk to?  I'm the only one here, right?  Maybe this writing style is better known as "non-sequitur internet bullshit".  Hey, if Mark Prindle is retired, who else will keep the spirit alive other than yours truly?  Who else?  Maybe this giant peach over here, this giant peach that is wearing a top hat and a monocle, perhaps he can.

But yeah, please do check out 'Baba Is You'.  It communicates its ideas clearly, introduces new elements in a fair manner and controls easily (thank you for the 'undo' button).  I'm usually pretty harsh on puzzle games, put this is great work.

===

Profile: Managore (@Managore, daniellinssen.net)

Game: Walkie Talkie

Genre/Style: side-scroller, level-builder, chat room

Every once and awhile you find something that really comes "off the top rope", so to speak, and conceptually 'Walkie Talkie' does just that.  It is side-scrolling level-building platformer presented as a chat room.  The levels are messages that users type in and most keyboard characters have preset behaviors.

So using the right set of symbols a user can create a solid platformer level, with ramps, moving platforms, turrets, bouncing boulders, disappearing platforms and other hazards.

The game's creator has gone through and marked some levels with a heart, and those are worth checking out for sure. But it's also fun to scroll through and look for random goodness, and some users are good at pointing out fun levels.

I'd recommended plugging in your X360 controller, since keyboard input was a bit tricky.  Even with a controller the movement gets a bit wonky, but two things: this was made for a jam and I'm unbelievably picky about platformer controls, so perhaps I'm overstating this.  And even if I'm not, this game is still worth playing for its conceptually audacity alone.

I was a day one fan of 'Mario Maker' and still enjoy it to this day.  But some of those levels are prone to cutesy bullshit, especially levels using names that scream "Hey, play this because its Pokemon themed!" and pointless levels based on Rube Goldberg-meets-auto-runner non-gameplay.  While 'Walkie Talkie' has plenty of useless entries, that's the result of having user generated content and not the result of authorial missteps.

And like David Mamet once said: "Everyone makes their own fun.  If you don't make it yourself, it isn't fun.  It's entertainment."  Of course, David Mamet has said a lot of things, many of which suck.  'Walkie Talkie' doesn't suck tho, far from it.  Unless you mean it sucks in all the praise, which is true, just really poorly worded.  

===

[taeinmycup]

Countdown To You | Pt. 1

Genre: Angst, fluff, maybe some smut in the future

Member: Park Jimin

Words: 3.4k

“Your soulmate clock is actually a countdown of how long your soulmate has left to live and holy shit you have to find your soulmate soon because your clock says you have three months left.” (source.)

A/N: Surprise!! :D A little present because I haven’t written and posted anything for a long time ;) I had this in my drafts for a while, and I decided to go on with it and post it because I love soulmate aus and especially ANGSTY soulmate aus. I think I will split up this fic into two or three parts. It won’t be a long one anyways. 

Partly inspired by this song. listen to it while reading this pls its an awesome song i love hyorin and hwarang dfjgkshkj

Pt. 2 | Pt. 3 | Pt. 4 | Pt. 5 | Pt. 6

You hated the concept of a soulmate clock.

The bright, red numbers displayed on the soulmate clock right next to your bed drove you insane, and you wanted nothing else but smash the stupid, useless object against your wall. You’d do everything to get rid of that clock and not lay eyes on these bright, red numbers anymore.

Ofcourse, you already tried smashing the clock against the wall, and ofcourse, the object did not bulge one bit, as the countdown kept going, and going.

Okay, a correction. You actually didn’t necessarily ‘hate’ the concept of a soulmate clock, but you just thought it was completely useless to have a countdown clock of your soulmate, signaling how many time you still had left to meet your soulmate until… he or she would leave this world.

Yeah. A soulmate clock was basically a countdown of your soulmate’s life.

You had seen the soulmate clock of your friends, and you could see there was a huge difference between theirs and yours. Their soulmate clocks contained numbers with multiple digits, signaling that their soulmates still had many years to live, and that your friends were given a huge amount of time to find their soulmate.

However, the digits that your stupid clock contained, did not have such multiple digits, and as you soon realized the situation, you couldn’t help but become angry, sad, and especially hopeless.

Because, according to the clock, your soulmate, whom you did not even know, and whom you had never seen in your life, still had three months left on this world, before he would leave it.

You had three months. 90 days. 2160 hours. You had this much time left to look for your soulmate, to get to know your soulmate, and most important, to fall in love and make precious memories with him.

To put it in simple words; you were completely fucked.

“Ninety days. Ninety fucking days left Namjoon and I still haven’t found him,” you mumbled angrily, slamming down your cup of coffee on the wooden table, causing your other co-workers turn to you with an irritated look on their faces.

Kim Namjoon was one of your many co-workers in this huge ass corporation. Park Inc., aka your workplace, was one of the most successful corporations in South-Korea, and you had been told that if you would be able to get a job here, your monthly salary would increase thrice, and your social status would get higher.

Well, part of it was true. Your salary increased, and you were not seen as someone with a low status. However, it felt like something was missing. You should be happy, seeing that you had a well-paid job that most of the people wanted to have. You were successful, and you reached the goals you wanted to have since your college days. But why did you feel so… incomplete?

“I can see that your hope is tumbling down,” Namjoon remarked dryly, his cup of coffee in front of his lips as he blew on it, waiting till it cooled off. You raised a brow at him, before letting out a defeated sigh as you dropped your head on the table, making Namjoon jolt a bit.

“Yes Namjoon, my hope is crashing down. Thanks for emphasizing it,” you sassed back, letting out a small whine of desperateness. Namjoon let out a small chuckle, putting down his cup of coffee before he stretched out his arm, only to pat your head softly, showing his sympathy to you.

“Are you sure the clock says 90 days? Not 90 years, or something?”

You lifted up your head, causing Namjoon to retreat his hand as you nodded your head as an answer, a small pout forming on your lips. “Do you think my soulmate knows that he has three months left?”

Your question had your smart co-worker in front of you shrugging, and you could only sigh once more, as your thoughts wandered to your soulmate again. You couldn’t help yourself but keep wondering every single day about what kind of person he was. Was he kind and caring? What would his age be? Would he be older, or maybe younger? Was he handsome? Was he healthy?

You could feel yourself going insane, so you shook your head slightly, trying to keep your thoughts about your soulmate aside, telling yourself that you needed to focus on your responsibilities first. The worries about your soulmate would come later, after you finished your work for today.

“My fucking head hurts,” you mumbled, massaging the sides of your head with the top of your fingers. Although these thoughts about your soulmate stressed you out, you were sure that it was better than the stress your own job gave you.

Was an increase of your salary really worth all this bull?

“How many work do you have left?” Namjoon asked you, his tone calm as always, and sometimes it drove you nuts how calmly he could maintain himself while you were basically in a sort of midlife-crisis.

“A lot. I have to replace Seulgi this week. She has fallen ill and Manager Kim has assigned me as her replacement.”

Namjoon raised his brows at you, putting his cup of coffee back on the table again, a soft tinkling sound emerging from it.

“Seulgi? Kang Seulgi? CEO Park’s personal assistant?” Namjoon asked in a surprised voice, his tone increasing slightly with every word he said. You nodded your head, your shoulders hanging as you kept thinking about how much work you had to do as the CEO’s own personal assistant. You recalled Seulgi constant complains about the amount of work she had to do for the CEO, but that she couldn’t quit her job because she claimed that she would not be able to find another job which would pay well like this one.

“Wow, good luck. You will need it,” Namjoon spoke up, aware of how much work it was, being the CEO’s personal assistant. Especially with Park Jimin as your CEO.

You mumbled a little thanks, and it sounded a bit insincere, but you knew better. And Namjoon did as well. The guy gave you a half-hearted smile, wide enough for his dimples to show, giving you a wink as he gave you a small ‘Fighting’ gesture.

You had heard a lot about your CEO. Although you had never met him directly, you saw him walking in the bright hallways often, mostly with Seulgi by his side, looking so tired and worn out that you thought she would be quitting her job any second. You never had the chance to ‘observe’ him, though, because the man walked as fast as lightning, and before you knew it, he already disappeared around the corner, and you would not see him for a couple of days again. Sometimes even for a couple of weeks.

You had never heard Park Jimin speak, but according to Seulgi, the guy had a velvet-like voice, so smooth that it could sooth you into a deep sleep easily. You were in a position where an encounter with the CEO was something you could not even dream of, so ofcourse, Seulgi was the one who would tell you all the little details about the handsome CEO.

You learned from Seulgi that he was a slow talker, always careful of his words, and thinking through everything twice. Sometimes even thrice. Patience was the keyword, and the main secret to being a good personal assistant for Park Jimin. Seulgi also told you that Park Jimin was a punctual man, and preferred to have his meetings and other appointments in the morning and early afternoon, so that he could have the evening all for himself. Seulgi did not know why he liked his evenings free, because she apparently never asked.

“Don’t ask. Just do.”

Seulgi’s advice to you was short, but powerful. So when you were on your way to the 13th floor, the sound of your clacking high heels echoing through the empty hallway, you repeated her words in your head like a fucking mantra, and you could only hope that you wouldn’t forget them.

The receptionist of the 13th floor had a respectful and nice attitude towards you, as she told you the right way to the CEO’s office in a friendly tone, her smile bright and wide as she pointed with her index finger towards the right direction. You thanked her with a slight bow of your head, but as you walked away, you did not miss her semi-judging look lingering on you, and you knew that she wondered why a regular office-worker would be here on the 13th floor, the fucking floor of the CEO, instead of her regular second floor.

You decided to ignore her judging look, and kept on walking towards your destination, the echo of you clacking heels even louder as this hallway was more empty than the ones underneath. You lowkey fumbled with your fingers, the nervousness eating you from inside out as you tried to steady your breath. You did not know the exact reason of your nervousness. Perhaps, because it was the first time you would meet him directly? Or maybe because of the fact that you might face some sleepless nights, considering the huge amount of work a personal assistant was obliged to do.

However, it was too late to turn back, and you couldn’t help but slowly regret agreeing with replacing Seulgi as Park Jimin’s personal assistant. You were desperately in the need for money, though. And you knew that Kang Seulgi’s monthly salary was literally thrice as much as yours.

“You can do this, Y/N,” you muttered underneath your breath, straightening your back as you already arrived at your destination, standing in front of the shining, wooden-colored door, eying the golden nameplate screwed against the surface of the door.

Park Jimin, CEO.

You took a deep breath, telling yourself that you would be fine, that you would be okay. You then knocked on the wooden door. Once. Twice. Thrice.

“Come on in!”

You jolted a bit in your stance, not expecting the CEO to holler at you like that. Taking another deep breath, you grabbed the golden doorknob with your clammy hands, before opening the door slightly. The door made a soft creaking sound as you opened it further, and before you entered his office, you first stuck your head into his office slightly, clearing your throat softly.

“Hello, Mr. Park. I’m Y/F/N, can I come in?”

The back of his chair was facing you, which was the reason that you could not see his face. The only thing that was in your vision at the moment, was the back of his head, his dark-brown hair neatly combed to the side. You quirked up your brows, as this was the first time you saw him having his hair like that, his bangs gone as his hair was styled upwards.

Not that you didn’t mind. You liked this style much better than his sloppy bangs anyways.

His huge, black leather chair made a soft squeaking sound, causing you to jolt up once again as you saw the chair turning around slowly. Soon, the front side of his chair was facing your direction, and so was the perfectly shaped face of the person sitting in the chair.

It was hard to suppress the small gasp you were about to let out as your eyes came into contact with his.

But what was even harder, was to ignore the burning sting on your right wrist, as you balled your fists silently, hoping that the sting would fade away like that eventually.

You knew he felt it as well. By the way his left hand flew towards his right wrist as his sparkling orbs looked right into yours, and his face slightly cringed into a pained expression, you were sure that he felt the same damn burning sting you felt as well.

The longer the two of you looked at each other, the more your wrist felt burned, so you couldn’t help but look away quickly. As your eyes were settled on his desk, the sting on your wrist already lessened a bit. The both of you were not looking at each other anymore, but you were still holding onto your wrist, as you were trying to convince yourself that it was not what you assumed it could be.

And you knew that your CEO was doing the same thing, as you slowly shifted your eyes back to him once again, his face retorted in utter shock. Maybe panic was a better word for this.

Falling for a certain person has always been a weird concept to you. It actually still was. You never felt these so-called ‘butterflies’ in your stomach, and you never let a certain someone occupy your thoughts throughout a whole fucking day, like someone would do when they were in love. Simply said, you never let yourself fall in love with someone, at least not someone who was not destined to be your soulmate.

However, you never expected the utterly handsome and unreachable CEO in front of you, to be your one and only soulmate.

You shifted your eyes to your stinging wrist, the known, red tail clearly visible to your eyes as you tried to hold in a shocked gasp. You let out a trembling sigh, closing your eyes for a moment, somehow not ready to eye your soulmate directly, as if you were afraid to fall for him at any second.

And to be honest, you actually were afraid to fall in love with the man in front of you.

Because eventually, you were going to lose him. And the lively red tail on your hand would change its color into a dull grey one, a thing that would happen when your other half would… die.

“Jesus Christ,” the man in front of you mumbled, a small chuckle following afterwards, his eyes shifting towards your face as he shook his head with a deep sigh escaping his lips. Your eyes were already opened at that moment, but instead of looking at him directly, you locked your eyes with the grey, marbled floor beneath your slightly trembling feet.

If you were not so messed up and confused, you would have laughed at your own, ridiculous reflection on the shiny floor.

“Fate really is cruel. I never thought I would meet my soulmate in this short-lived life.”

Your eyes widened at his words. His voice was smooth and tender, yet the tone held something… harsh in it, as if he was trying to let out his anger in a somewhat neat way. You slowly lifted your head towards the man, trying to control your semi-irregular breathing, as you mentally prepared yourself to look at him.

As you laid your eyes on the CEO, you felt an intensity that you had never felt ever in your life. As if you couldn’t control it anymore, your heartbeat went insane, the speed increasing drastically. You laid your hands on your stomach, in which it felt like a million of butterflies were flying around, the feeling so intense that happiness was the right way to describe the feeling.

Is this what it felt like to meet your own, beloved soulmate?

“I don’t even know you, yet I already feel like you’re making me nuts,” he stated, the corners of his thick lips moving upwards as he looked at your form, scanning you from your slightly messed up bun to your black heels, your own feet trembling in them. You felt vulnerable, intimidated as his brown-colored eyes scanned you thoroughly. You learned from Seulgi that it was a usual habit of his when he would meet someone for the first time, and you couldn’t blame him for that, of course.

However, why did it feel so… insanely intense?

You cleared your throat once again, straightening your position before eying him directly into his eyes. Ignoring the shiver you felt going down your spine, you took a deep breath, your mind working hard to come up with some words which were acceptable enough to say out loud.

“Then, I think it’s the right time to get to know eachother, isn’t it?”

No, these bold words were not what you originally intended to say at your first meeting with Park Jimin at all.

You already imagined the anger on his face, the image of your CEO scolding you as he would show you who the real boss was here. Seulgi would be disappointed in you if she would be here, shaking her head disapprovingly with her arms crossed over her chest. You had to resist the urge of rolling your eyes at the thought of a disappointed Seulgi.

But instead of being furious at his temporarily personal assistant, who also happened to be his dearly beloved soulmate, Park Jimin could only smile at your bold words, his head tilted slightly to the side as he watched you from behind his desk, his black-raven hair swinging to the side as it followed the movement of his head.

“You might regret getting to know me better, Miss Y/N.”

You lifted up your brows, your lips pouted slightly as you gave him an impressive look. Rich, handsome and well-mannered. That was something to be impressed of, if you had to be honest.

Park Jimin rose up from his big-ass chair, looking like some kind of Goryeo king that was standing up from his throne, his expression not telling you anything as he took some steps forward, coming closer towards your figure. It took him five steps until he stopped, making him stand right in front of you. As you looked up, you realized that he was not as tall as he looked like, causing you to chuckle softly.

The idea of a ‘not-so-tall’ CEO amused you, really.

He touched your chin with his delicate fingers, the contact causing your wrist to burn slightly, but the feeling was more pleasurable than painful, and you didn’t know whether you liked it or hated it. His hand moved to your cheek slowly, as you saw his own eyes following the movement of his hand as well. His soft touch made your legs tremble and your scarred, or rather tattooed, wrist throbbing, the small distance in between the two of you driving you crazy.

“I feel bad for you being my soulmate, love,” he whispered out loud, causing your confused heart to skip a whole beat as you eyed him with wide eyes. You knew exactly what the guy was talking about.

And Park Jimin knew, that you were aware of what he was talking about.

“You’re my soulmate. You’re my freaking soulmate. I’m glad to inform you that you will live a long and healthy life, sweetheart.”

You wished he could stop with giving you these sweet nicknames, as the lively color in his eyes slowly faded away, his watery orbs slightly showing. You didn’t understand. Meeting your soulmate should make you happy, as you should be jumping around in joy once you would feel the burn on your wrist, before jumping into his arms as he held you in a warm bear-hug.

But all you could feel after meeting Park Jimin as your soulmate was confusion, sadness and pain. Maybe also some slight relief, but there was no happiness, nor joy found in your inner feelings.

“I’m sorry, Miss Y/N. I’m sorry that I have to be your soulmate.”

His sad and painful words stabbed you in your drastically throbbing heart, and before you could even stop them, tears were already flooding over your face. You did not exactly know why you felt sad all of a sudden. Maybe it was the fact that he felt guilty about being your soulmate, because he knew he did not have much time left on this world, and had to leave you before you would be able get to know him well. Or maybe you felt sorry for him. He had just found you, his soulmate, only to be taken away from him soon because he knew that he would had to leave eventually.

On top of that, you knew exactly why he felt sorry towards you. And you hated it. You hated it so much.

Because you knew it shouldn’t be like this. The both of you did not deserve to be treated like this.

Park Jimin was right. Fate was indeed, very cruel.

[broadway-book-badger]

May Reads

Hello from exam hell! 5 down and 1 to go for my final exams of the first year at uni. I actually can’t believe that that’s my first year just about done, considering how slowly it seemed to go at first when I was struggling to find my feet. Time definitely flies when you’re having fun!  A week on Sunday I’ll be coming home for the summer, well, for like 5 days before I go off to America for the summer. Speaking of which, this might be my last long and rambly post for a while. I’m not planning on taking my laptop away with me, and tumblr mobile is shit, but we’ll see how it goes. I might try to keep doing my monthly life update/book posts, but without pictures etc, just because I enjoy doing them and don’t really care if nobody reads them. I don’t actually know how busy I’m going to be and whether I’ll have time, so yeah - until I post again!

I’m excited for my trip, but its come round far too quickly. Still I’ve got all my stuff planned for travelling once I’ve finished working, and I get to play piano for some really good shows while I am working at the camp, and I can’t wait! I was in a concert last night too, getting back into all my musical theatre stuff - because I wasn’t busy enough! Nah, I figured it would give me a nice little break from revision, which is slowly killing me, but I’m almost there!

In the month of May I managed to read 4 books, which is pretty good going considering exam hell. Admittedly, there were a few train journeys where I just read the whole time, and in several cases I just had to sit and read because I knew that no more work was going to get done until I finished the book... Anyway, my thoughts on what I read are under the cut, and major spoiler warnings apply to all of them because there are important plot points that will be discussed.

1) Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo

It feels like a really long time since I read this, even though its only been a couple of weeks - I need to back to writing stuff down when I finish a book so that I can remember things that I wanted to say! Never mind... So, I’ve finished this trilogy. As I think I’ve said before, its pretty decent YA fantasy, not one of my favourites, but I did enjoy it. Part of me wonders if I would have maybe enjoyed it a little bit more if I’d read it a couple of years ago, before I’d read quite so much of certain tropes. Sometimes I wonder if I’m starting to outgrow YA a little bit, but then I’ll read something else YA and love it, so I guess it really just depends on the book.

Although I enjoyed it, I do have a couple of frustrations. I don’t think Alina’s the most interesting of main characters, and all the love triangle angst was super annoying, although those are criticisms I know I’ve had with other books in the past. I thought the whole Saint/cult thing was kind of weird, and the Darkling and Alina’s attraction/connection continued to be weird and uncomfortable to me. I feel sorry for Nikolai; I really like his character, just not as a love interest to Alina, but he went through some shit in this book, and is now the King, and I just hope he’s ok and gets some kind of happy ending eventually. There were also some nice moments with some of the other side characters; Genya, Nadia and Zoya (off the top of my head).

I liked that the firebird wasn’t the third amplifier, because that would have been a little bit too easy - having it be Morozova’s daughter and passed down through her line was cool. I thought that Mal’s tracking skills might be some kind of Grisha power - so I count that as being technically right. Although, I thought they were going to find some kind of loophole to him having to die, like “he’s metaphorically given his life to her so that’ll do” kind of thing. I was not expecting Alina to stab him! Although he didn’t die, but they both lost there powers, which I thought made at least some kind of payoff, and was a fitting end to Alina wanting the amplifiers to get all the power. I thought the epilogue was cute where they went back to Keramzin and the others came to visit them and stuff. Now I can read Six of Crows!

2) Strange the Dreamer by Laini Taylor

Wow, did I love this book. Laini Taylor has one of the most beautiful writing styles I’ve ever come across, super poetic and just lovely. I was expecting great things from this book, although I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect going into it, and let me tell you it did not disappoint. Unlike Daughter of Smoke and Bone, this is entirely set in a fantasy world, one which I just loved. The mythology is pretty interesting, although all the stuff with the Gods taking the citizens of Weep was pretty dark and messed up.

Our main character, Lazlo Strange, is just perfect. He’s so precious, and kind and just wants to know everything and find magic and I love him so much. Especially how he looks tough, but his nose was actually broken when a book of fairytales fell on it - I think that tells you everything you need to know about him really. I love a lot of the other characters too, Calixte was cool, and Eril-Fane and Azareen were quite interesting, but I really loved the Godspawn. Sarai is also great, and the Muse of Nightmares is such a good name, and I liked Sparrow, Feral and Ruby too. Minya is creepy as hell, and horrible, but she’s kind of complicated and I think she’s a good villain.

One of the issues I had with Daughter of Smoke and Bone was the insta-love between Karou and Akiva in the first book. I feel like you could possibly make a bit of a case for this being slightly insta-lovey too, but honestly, if it was, I didn’t mind it all. The relationship between Lazlo and Sarai was just so cute and lovely, and all the descriptions of them exploring Lazlo’s incredible dreams were just beautiful. I’ll say it again, Laini Taylor is one hell of a writer.

The only problem now is that I have to wait for the sequel, and I have no idea when it’s coming out. That ending was not ok. I was waiting the whole way through the book to see how the prologue was going to fit in to the rest of the story. I wasn’t sure if it was something that had happened in the past, like when the Gods were killed, or if it was a moment that everything was building towards. When I realised it was the second thing, I was hoping that it wasn’t going to be Sarai, but then she had all the plums in her pockets and I was like, shit. They never actually got to meet properly, face to face! And then the bit with Minya controlling her and using her to get Lazlo. I have so many questions that I need answering, especially about that plot twist involving Lazlo. Like, if he’s a Godspawn too, but he’s older than the others, so somehow he must have gotten out of Weep as a baby, way before all the shit went down there, but how and why? And why did he only turn blue when he used his powers? Also, where the hell is the plot going to go in the next book and how will it all get wrapped up? I have to know!!! When is it coming out??? 

3) Lord of Shadows by Cassandra Clare

I’d like to start by saying WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK WAS THAT?!?! Just needed to get it out of my system. I will come back to that in a little bit, but I’m going talk about some of the other stuff in here first. I’d been looking forward to this coming out for a while; I love the Shadowhunter books, they’re a hell of a lot of fun to read.

I continued to love all the faerie mythology added to the world in this one, and especially loved that they got to go to faerie itself and have some cool adventures there. My love and emotions for Mark Blackthorn have definitely continued if not grown, and I did grow to like Kieran a bit more too. While I went into this shipping Mark and Cristina, and I still do, I’m really interested to see how the love triangle will play out. I sort of can’t believe I just wrote that. Normally I HATE love triangles, but I kind of like both sides of this one so I’ll be interested to see what Mark chooses in the end. Hell, I’d be down with “a hot faerie threesome” to quote Emma! Speaking of Emma, I was so frustrated by the rift between her and Julian. I know why she did what she did, and I thought that the friendship between her and Mark was really sweet, but I was just like Tell the Poor Boy the Truth! Please!!!

Another dynamic I loved in this one was the relationship between Kit, Ty and Livvy, and how they got to go off and have their own little adventures and solve mysteries and stuff. I’d say I’m looking forward to more of that, but... Again, I’ll come back to that. Kit really grew on me over the course of the book too, and I loved all the little callbacks to the Infernal Devices, especially when they were in the London Institute. Although, how the hell is Bridget still alive??? Although, I am super concerned for the Wicked Powers now, as I assume that that’s when Clary’s visions and whatever’s happening to the warlocks is really going to come into play. 

We finally got to learn Diana’s backstory, and what she’s hiding. I don’t know what I was expecting, but that definitely wasn’t it, and I thought it was really great. And her relationship with Gwyn is so cute too - “Now I know you’re the bravest woman I’ve ever met.” Dru also got to have some of her own development and adventures, and I know I’m not alone in wondering who Ash is. I know a popular theory is that he’s Sebastian’s demon baby with the Seelie Queen. My friend Emily told me this theory before this book came out, and I wasn’t sure, but I’m not going to lie, it does have some merit. That, or Ash is the Unseelie King’s heir who got kidnapped all those years ago. We shall have to see.

Final point before I come back to the big one. Zara Dearborn is such a bitch and I hate her. Originally I thought her engagement to Diego was going to be because she was pregnant, but I’m glad that turned out not to be the case. But yeah, her bigoted, self-righteous behaviour is just awful, as is the fact that she has all this support, but you can’t deny that it’s very topical at the moment given current events if nothing else. Some of the characters gave her some epic burns and put-downs though which were very much appreciated. I hope something terrible happens to her in the last book because she absolutely deserves it.

Now, the deaths. I knew before I went into this that 4 characters were going to die. Here’s what I thought of each of those scenes. Jon Cartwright - He was kind of a knob in Shadowhunter Academy, but he was alright really, especially compared to the other centurions, and I was quite sad to see him go, especially like that. Arthur Blackthorn - I’m not going to lie, I didn’t think that the odds of him surviving the series were very good, and I was right. Still, it was sad to see him go, especially since he sacrificed himself for his family like that. Also what the hell - Malcolm came back? And Annabel?! Finally, the big two, that I did not see coming at all. I’m not going to lie, there was a hell of a lot of shit went down in that last chapter, a lot of big things happened in a very short space of time. As soon as one person had a knife out in the council hall, I though, oh shit, is this going to be like the Red Wedding? And honestly, Shadowhunter Red Wedding is a pretty apt description of the end of Lord of Shadows. I felt quite sorry for Annabel, until she fucking murdered Robert Lightwood and Livvy! I was not expecting Robert to die at all, and it was made worse by the fact that there had just been the bit where you could see how proud he was of Alec, and yeah... And Livvy!!! I thought that the odds of the entire Blackthorn clan surviving the series were slim to none, but I still had hope that they might. Yeah, nope. It was just so sudden, and Helen had just come back so they were finally all together, and Julian holding her in his arms, and then the book ended. It just ended there. I think I sat there in pure shock for a good 5-10 minutes after I finished it, just in a state of AAAAAAAHHHH! WHAT DID I JUST READ?!?!

So yeah, I have a lot of questions that need answering in Queen of Air and Darkness, which we have to wait 2 YEARS for. I’m excited for the Last Hours, but this was just not ok. I’m very worried about what Livvy’s death is going to do to Julian - he already has this dark, ruthless side where his family is concerned, which I’m not going to lie, I quite enjoy reading, but I’m afraid that this is really going to tip him over the edge and he’s going to do some bad stuff. I also wonder what Emma and Julian are going to do about their situation, because Emma clearly can’t go into exile now, and I don’t think(?) they’d take the Seelie Queen’s deal, or maybe Dark!Julian would. Then all the stuff with the Cold Peace, and the Cohort and the warring faerie courts is all coming to a head, and I honestly have no idea how it’s all going to get wrapped up in one book (it’s going to be a bloody enormous book), but I’m so excited to find out! 

4) All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

I love a historical novel, and World War 2 is one of my favourite eras to read about, although I’m not 100% sure why. I first heard about this book as something to try if you liked The Book Thief, which I very much did. I don’t know if I liked this quite as much as the Book Thief, but I still really enjoyed it, and felt all the emotions. Given that it’s a WW2 book, compared to the Book Thief I was expecting it to be sad, and it really was in places, but there were all these little moments of happiness in amongst the bleak and sad bits that were just really lovely.

I enjoyed how it was two parallel stories, and followed both characters from when they were young, right through the war and afterwards. I haven’t read much set in occupied France, so I found all the resistance meetings in the kitchen and the siege in Saint-Malo quite interesting. I thought that Marie-Laure was such a great character, and how even though she was blind, she still managed to do so much. She loved her books and learning and managed to play her part in the resistance and survive all the bombing, and I loved that she went on to get a doctorate in molluscs and travelled the world and everything.

Werner’s story on the other hand, was so heart-breaking. Like, he was just a kid, who wanted to escape the mines and he happened to be really good at maths and fixing radios, and then he got caught up in all the Hitler Youth Academy stuff, and got sent to the front far too young. And he did some terrible things, but I think because you’d followed his story for so long, you felt so sorry for him, because it was such a difficult situation that he was in. I know I was really rooting for him to do the right thing, but because of everything that had happened it was sometimes difficult for him to know what the right thing was, and I think it would have been incredibly difficult to rebel and get away at that point. I mean, what happened to Frederick was probably one of the saddest, most awful parts. 

Following the 2 parallel stories, as well as the one about the guy trying to find the diamond for so long, I was wondering if/when they were all going to join up with each other, especially when you found out that it was Etienne’s broadcasts that Werner and Jutta used to listen to when they were little. But yes, I really loved that Werner saved Marie-Laure, and the scenes where they were together were really sweet, like I said before about the little moments of happiness. But it was too short-lived. I was hoping that maybe they would find each other again after the war or something, because I knew it skipped ahead to the 70s and then 2014. I’d been doubtful that Werner was going to make it earlier on in the book, but at that point, I thought he might. I was wrong.

I’m glad at least, that by saving Marie-Laure, and not taking the diamond, that Werner sort of redeemed himself a bit, and managed to make something right. But then, he stood on a land mine. After everything he went through, what a way to go. Werner Pfennig hurts my heart guys. I did like that after the war, Jutta took her son to France and managed to find Marie-Laure, to try and get some closure. I think her complicated feelings about her brother make a lot of sense, and it was good to see, although not the happiest. I really liked the writing style of this, and thought it was a good, emotional story, and you can see why its won some of awards that it has.

[viralhottopics]

In defense of Snapchat, a manifesto

Image: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images

YeahI’m a business and tech reporter, who reports on social media networks. And in order to do the job correctly, it’s on me to maintain a degree of objective remove. That said: I’m not a reporting robot without ideas, preferences, or a life beyond my gig. And while part of that job also involves spending time on social networks, like all of you, (A) I still do it for fun, and (B) If you looked at my phone, it’d be pretty obvious what my favorite social networks are, and how I spend my time using them.

SEE ALSO: Here’s why all the sudden the banks love Snapchat but still hate Twitter

Here’s a good snapshot:

Which brings us to Facebook, down there, towards the bottom of my usage. They just unleashed their latest attempt to squash Snapchat on Tuesday with Facebook Storiesthe experience of Snapchat Stories, now available on your Facebook News Feed, something nearly 2 billion people could have access to, if you let them. There’s more about that here.

It’s nothing new. Snapchat’s faced down a full-on assault for your attention from Facebook-owned properties, in the forms of Instagram Stories, Messenger Day and WhatsApp Stories, each trying to replicate the very things that make Snapchat, well, Snapchat, but under a different, Facebook-owned app.

Instagram Stories is, thus far, the big winner, with everyone from the network’s most influential creators to its most typical users embracing the feature. Instagram Stories went from 0 to 150 million monthly active users in six months. My colleague, Mashable deputy tech editor Damon Beres, is one of those culprits, and openly admits it (“My #thirst has driven me to abandon Snapchat for Instagram Stories“).

Damon found that “Instagram’s rate of coolness per capita is higher than Snapchat’s. There’s just a bigger audience of interesting people to communicate with on Instagram.”

‘Kay, fine. Fair. But let’s be totally clear: Damon’s saying that he’s Team Instagram because his account is getting what he feels are more highly-valued views.

Thing is, I’m Team Snapchat for the exact same reason.

“Snapchat,” continued Damon, “will likely remain my favorite app for sending incredibly weird things to a handful of close friendsits selection of stickers, face-transforming filters, geolocation tags and so forth.”

And that’s exactly my point, and why Snapchat’s the more valuable of the two appsbecause the mouthbreathing annony-succubi followers of Instagram (especially Damon’s, lol) might be more proliferate, and might be more influential, but I still don’t really know nor care who the fuck any of ’em are.

Snapchat’s where my friends areyes, my real friends. On Facebook and Instagram, I’ll add you as a friend, and you can feel free to stalk my high school photos. I don’t really care. But when it comes to my life, in real-time, in the momentwhat I do every day before work, or after work? That’s on Snapchat.

But when it comes to my life, in real-time, in the moment, when it comes to what I do every day before work, or after work? That’s on Snapchat.

And I’m not inviting you in, unless you gain my trust. It’s kind of like building sources as a journalist: I’m giving you access to my personal life. And yeah, you could take a screenshot of my Snapchat, and share it to the world. And while I’ll know that you did it, it’d be too late to take it back. So as far as my Snapchat’s concerned, you need to be vetted before I let you in.

That’s not to say I’m doing anything too racy and posting it to my Snapchat Story. In fact, that’s another reason why I love the app. For the people that do enjoy seeing it, who I very much trust with my private life, I can send them personal messages. They disappear. And that’s great. They don’t have it saved on their phone because they honestly don’t need it there.

And neither do I.

Shocker: I sext. I’ve sent my fair share of nudes to boyfriends and to others. I’m not ashamed. And if you’re wondering why I don’t just text them, it’s because Snapchat just makes it way more comfortable for us all. Like I said: I don’t need these on my phone, and neither do they. And if they doit happensthey can screenshot. All the more flattery, to be honest.

To be sure, I was once a Snapchat hater, too. One of my best friends tried to convince me to download it in 2012, while I was a sophomore in college. I told her I was too busy with school. Still, I downloaded the app four months later, and I don’t regret it.

To be sure, I was a Snapchat hater too once upon a time.

And while I report on Snapchatas well as other tech companiesfor a living, it’s not reporting on Snapchat that makes me love Snapchat.

What I love about Snapchat is the joy it provides me. I go to Facebook if I want to stalk my ex or a high school classmate. It not funthere’s no real joy in itbut it’s cursory, I do it anyway. I go to Snapchat when I want to genuinely see what my friends are doing. Sure, it creates FOMO; but it’s also an opportunity for me to easily reach out or reply with a funny face or sticker or Bitmoji. It’s a different language, for me and my friends. Not the randos in my life.

And I love Snapchat for the news and the stories it shares. Beyond watching whatever my Snapchat friends are doing, the app (usually) presents me with daily, well-packaged content from media brands, like, say, Mashable’s (Disclosure: Mashable is a Snapchat Discover partner) are enjoyable reads, or tap-throughs.

On Facebook, most of the time, news articles come with obnoxious commentary from friends. My brother-in-law leaves an angry reaction on everything I post (okay, I know, it’s a joke). But: It’s just not fun. If I want to read news through a filtered bubble, I’ll go to my Twitter.

Snapchat’s breaking news coverage is also an incredible product in and of itself. Props to Peter Hamby, Snap’s head of news, for making sure they curate stories with smart news judgment (*cough* Facebook Trending Topics disaster *cough*). It’s pretty inarguable: Snapchat’s got some of the best news coverage on social media.

And the lenses. I know Facebook copied your lenses, Snapchat. But damn, your puppy filter will always bring me joyno matter if Facebook completely mimics it. I’ll never forget the many times I’ve played around with filters with my exes, my best friends, and my mom.

Lenses are fairly new on Snapchat, as in the last two years, but they embody the Snapchat aestheticone they’ve been developing for the last five years.

I’m a confessed, admitted Snapchat fangirlnot unlike those “Apple fanboys” you might be familiar with. Shamelessness goes both ways, guys.

I remember when Snapchat first began selling merchandise branded with Ghostface Chillah (that ghost logo of theirs, who I love, and who you secretly love, too). I immediately requested for everyone to buy me everything. Now, I’m the proud owner of an Official Snapchat Ice Tray. It makes Ghostface Chillah-shaped ice. Which, of course, eventually melts away. Perfect.

Of course I own Spectacles. I carry them in my bag with me everyday. I don’t wear them oftenmostly because I’ve got pretty bad eyesight, and I haven’t gotten prescription lenses because I just don’t want to be separated from my Spectacles for too long.

But I love them. I love wearing them to partiesI Snapped moments of my friend’s wedding. I wore them around Universal Studios. They’re absurd, sure. But they’re also a uniquely fun way to show the world what you’re living through, the moment you’re living through it.

And I absolutely loved their release. Snapbots: Those minion-looking vending machines, dropped in arbitrary locations around the country? They’re fun, dorky, ridiculous, and unique to Snapchat’s strange aesthetic. Instagram and Facebook have rarely had a tangible, real-world presence. Snapchat wants to make itself real in the world off of our phones.

As of this week, there are Stories in the Facebook News Feed. Which brings us back to the elephant in the room where Snapchat’s concerned: Instagram.

And I hate Instagram.

Go to my Instagram feed, which I think is public? Honestly, don’t know, and not gonna check. I love going to my Instagram feed and viewing the posts and Stories of the accounts I follow. Why? Because they’re mostly fluffy puppies. Go check out Chloe the Mini Frenchie and Teddy the Corgi. They’re the reason that I’m a weekly active user of Instagram.

I hate that Instagram is all about the number of likes and followers. I hate the Kardashians.

Instagram isn’t my go-to social network, and I’m pretty confident it never will be. Because, to be quite honest, I hate filtering my life. I hate the vain, highly-styled, carefully-crafted, unsurprising, deliberate nature of it. I hate that it’s a network all about the number of likes and followers. And I hate the Kardashians.

I know Snapchat isn’t perfect. Their racially-insensitive and scientifically-inaccurate lenses are, uh, not a good look. The fact that they don’t really prioritize Android devices and instead cater to iPhone users is just kind of weird at this stage. And I don’t like that they have a weirdly one-way, non-supportive relationship with its creators. I know from speaking to many of the most popular Viner users that this strategy didn’t work out well for themor Vine, either. And of course: Evan Spiegel said some bad shit in college. Snap’s also never released a workplace diversity report, unlike their peers in the tech industry. So, it goes without saying: They’ve got some work to do.

And yeah, at the end of the day, it’s just an app.

But these platforms are also places we’re spending increasing amounts of time in every daythey’re frames that we’re living our lives through, articulating something, creating something, sending some part of us out into the world. And so much more than its contemporaries, Snapchat, if nothing else, stands for things: Authenticity. Spontaneity. And that’s why I love Snapchat. It’s where you’ll find me at my most authentic. It’s where you’ll actually get to know who I really am.

If I let you, of course.

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Read more: http://on.mash.to/2ooWLHc

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