#best part is that I do not GET TO HAVE CONTEXT until the person uploading the event. finishes uploading the event

[ff2-soda-pop]

why did I go in twst tags when there's an event I haven't finished watching because now I'm seeing a bunch of stuff with no context and like

huh. wha.

[justawritterwithideas]

Boy Wonder and the Rockstar | s.r

✩ previous part | next part ✩

summary: Things start to get a little tense when Y/N and Spencer have to come face to face to find the person who wants to hurt her, but a clue leads to the total breakdown of everything.

general warnings: this series contains topics such as mentions of death, alcohol, drugs, strong vocabulary, as well as talk of heartbreak, disappointment and arguments. It also contains content regarding CM season 13, so it clearly contains spoilers.

chapter warnings: this chapter contains strong language, confrontations, mentions of murder, among other similar things. this is a spencer reid x famous!reader story.

words: 4,380 words.

a/n: hi guys, after days there's finally a new chapter of boy wonder and the rockstar, yay. sorry for the delay but it's been weeks without creativity, but finally i can upload a decent chapter. sorry if it's a bit (too) dramatic, but put yourselves in y/n's shoes, ok? this chapter has strong confrontations and a little bit of plot change, but don't worry, in the next chapter everything will calm down, trust me. thanks in advance for the love and also for the support for the previous chapters, see ya!

𝟎.𝟑: 𝐒𝐒𝐀 𝐃𝐫. 𝐑𝐞𝐢𝐝 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐮𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐫 𝐀𝐮𝐭𝐮𝐦𝐧.

Sometimes, our mind plays tricks on us, like remembering those embarrassing moments in life, but not remembering the formula to do an equation; remembering what that person told you and that marked you forever, but not remembering what your mother asked you to do.

Sometimes, also, destiny plays tricks on us.

Those times when you ask, please, that the earth swallow you up and spit you out anywhere else but there, that it take you to the deepest part of the planet and disappear until everyone forgets you exist.

I think that concept was the exact way to describe what Y/N and Spencer were experiencing after coming face to face, after 15 years.

On the one hand, the astonishment of the girl's friends and on the other, the confusion of the boy's friends.

Face to face, facing the reunion and the various emotions they experienced from head to toe.

"Reid, do you two know each other?" Emily's voice made them both turn in her direction, but Spencer without even being able to bring himself to answer, the words were snatched from his mouth and taken up by the opposite.

"It's not something I'm interested in being honest, but us knowing each other doesn't affect the investigation, does it?"

Bang, first bullet.

"No, it doesn't affect."

Spencer glanced in the blonde's direction, crossing glances again for the second time that day.

That warm look she always gave him when they met had become the iciest anyone had ever given him.

Bang, second bullet.

"Miss Autumn... Or Y/N?"

"I'm both, I don't mind being called one way or the other." The girl looked in the direction of the group of people, who were watching her trying to decipher where she and the tall one knew each other from. To divert attention, she changed the subject. "Please sit down, I feel a little embarrassed that you are up and we are sitting down." Commented the girl.

The group of people settled around the four individuals seated on the large couch.

But Spencer's eyes did not move from the girl, who stirred uneasily in her seat.

Y/N was more nervous about the presence of the man she hadn't seen in years than about what had just happened a couple of hours ago.

Her hands were shaking, her heart was pounding in the bottom of her chest, she was out of breath and her mouth felt dry, as if she had run a marathon.

She knew that at some point she would meet that boy, the thing is she didn't think it would be so soon. The situation they were in wasn't the best, and even less so with the context behind it, but clearly fate didn't care what was happening and made them meet despite Y/N's prayers not to meet the one-who-must-not-be-named again.

Spencer looked more mature, even though he was always mature for his age. She remembered that he used to do the fee slip for some older friends that Y/N used to have, plus he knew how to think maturely regarding his decisions; not like her, who chose her hair color based on which box of dye was cheapest in the market, but Spencer always said she looked good in any color.

"Miss Y/N." The woman's lost gaze went in the direction of the blonde girl speaking to her, blinking quickly to focus.

"Yes? Sorry, I was just thinking..." Her gaze went from side to side, noting that they were expectant of her answer. "Excuse me, what was the question?"

A sigh came out of Tyler's mouth, who was leaning against the back of the couch. One thing the guitarist hated was the police, more so the feds so, them being there was not at all to his liking.

"I was asking what you did prior to you getting the box."

"Oh yeah, well we were coming from a sound check of the venue where we would be performing. We did that and then we would go to lunch, but before that we were going to stop by the hotel for a change of clothes. I walked into the front desk and was talking to Felix, but before I got on the elevator the receptionist told me that a package had arrived in my name." The girl let out a soft sigh, refocusing on her story. "I wasn't surprised that a package would suddenly arrive, usually information about where you are and who you're with usually travels faster than light, plus it's not the first time it's happened to me."

"What do you mean it's not the 'first time it's happened to you'?" J.J. asked again.

"Well, usually brands contact the band's marketing people days in advance to find out where we are to send packages, to use at concerts or interviews as part of the publicity. It's not the first time a brand has sent a package to a hotel for us to receive." Suddenly, Y/N's face became a bit of an enigma to people. "Even though I was surprised that it was addressed to me, usually they tend to address it to Gerald because he is the manager, they don't usually expose our personal information because of possible leaks."

"That's true, they always send packages in my name by protocol, it's part of the contract that is signed with the brand at the time of sending it." Gerald stated.

"So them sending packages in your name is not a normal thing, is it?" asked Emily.

"That's right, there are usually packages that come with letters inside that indicate who they are addressed to, you know... 'Dear Autumn or Dear Paradox'." Spencer's gaze went in the direction of the pictures in the package and then to the girl in front of him, who looked distracted at the rings on her fingers.

None looked like a wedding or engagement ring, Spencer thought.

Even though that thought quickly faded, it was unprofessional to think about it when a madman was after her and sending her ghoulish gifts.

"So the person thinks they're close to you, or they're a person from the past who was close to you." Commented Tara, who simply kept leaning against a wall.

"It's kind of hard, a lot of the people who were close to me suddenly cut off contact or are stuck with me, like this group." A fake laugh escaped Y/N's lips, glancing in the direction of Reid, who was lowering his gaze.

Bang, final punchline.

"Thank you, miss. We know it's important information you've just given us, but we'll still have to conduct an interrogation with all of you separately." Before anyone could protest, Emily continued. "This way we can rule them out as suspects, we know they wouldn't hurt Y/N, but this way we can start working quickly and efficiently to find the culprit, before it gets any bigger."

"What do you mean by 'bigger'?"

Y/N looked in the direction of the woman in the suit, who simply let out a sigh.

"That it might come to hurt someone in your circle or... you."

All the air in Y/N's throat shot out, feeling her insides stir at what the woman had just said.

They could hurt her friends just by being friends with her, the only family she had left just by being close to her.

"Thank you agents." Gerald stood up as he pulled his phone out of his pocket, he had to warn the management straight about the risk of the tour at this point.

This was a disaster, a complete disaster.

It had been a couple of hours since the agents had set up at the hotel.

Since that couple of hours, Spencer had not been able to cross a single word with Y/N.

It wasn't because they wouldn't let him, on the contrary, he'd had plenty of opportunities to do so.

But the words in his throat wouldn't come out, it was as if they were trapped and his brain wasn't working at all.

"How do you know Autumn, Boy wonder?"

Penelope's voice snapped Spencer out of his chimera.

"What are you talking about, Garcia?"

"Don't try to fool me, it's clear you two go way back. You knew who she was with just a glance and she confirmed it, even though you'd never seen who it was. You didn't even react when we saw her pictures at Quantico, you didn't seem to know who she was until she spoke here, so tell me now, how do you know her?"

The woman's hands went to her hips, implementing pressure to get Spencer to talk about what was going on.

Y/N and Spencer were a couple of feet away, but they seemed like they were miles apart.

"It's a long story." Spencer began.

"If you don't tell me, I'll investigate under my own steam and believe me now that Hotch is gone, I'm not going to stop."

"Well, Y/N and I have known each other since college. We were friends for a long time, exactly three years..." A long sigh took hold of Reid, who felt all the memories together fall like an avalanche of sensations and emotions, just like how it was when he was in college. "I think he was one of the few people who put up with me during this time and who supported me the most. But when I was accepted to the academy I promised not to cut off contact with her when I moved to Virginia..."

"So what happened, why did it seem like running into you is the most horrendous thing that ever happened to her, even though she got a human finger this morning?" Penelope's own questions were answered as she looked at Spencer's embarrassed face. "Don't tell me that... Oh no, Spencer."

"I stopped responding to her letters within a month of arriving in Virginia, cut off all contact with her."

It seemed that admitting it made the pain stronger and stronger, like a stake through his stomach and his whole body.

"Why, Spence, why did you do that?"

"Well, the truth is-"

"Guys, there's security camera footage. Penelope we need you."

They both looked at each other before they could make their way to where everyone was.

They were all standing around the computer, where it was clear on the monitor screen as someone dressed as a courier dropped off the box, then handed a receipt to the receptionist and quickly left. Fast forwarding the recording, the moment where the band enters and the package is handed over can be seen.

"Well, the girl gets the package and then asks a question." Luke spoke aloud.

"She probably asks who sent it or who delivered it, to make sure it's for her." J.J. replied back.

"And then she goes to the elevator, the doors close and then..." The recording switches to the one in the hallway where the group is seen exiting the elevator heading to one of the hotel's private rooms. The new image is seen in the boardroom, where everyone is seen sitting around chatting and the woman opening the box.

The scene seemed orchestrated for a key scene in a horror movie: the girl screaming, holding her hands to her mouth and the others seeing the inside of the box, Felix trying to calm Y/N down, Tyler running out of the room, Gerald calling mortified to what appeared to be the police and Shawn calling on the phone in the room to what would be reception. In a quick lapse, the amount of people running in and out of the room is seen, leading people outside to leave the scene as close to what had just happened and soon stops when the police arrive, who do the procedure when faced with such situations.

"The group enters the room, Y/N opens the box, yells and soon everyone takes different stances with what they just saw, but no one touches the box except for Y/N..." Rossi watches Penelope replay the recording from the beginning, from receiving the package.

"I think it's common sense seeing that, I wouldn't touch a box with a human finger too." Garcia replied to Rossi.

Spencer watched everything in extreme detail, trying to figure out what he was missing. There was something that didn't add up to him, as if it was all set up to happen that way.

"Doesn't it look to you like everything was perfectly organized?" Spencer's voice made everyone turn to him. "Like everything all of a sudden was made to run like that, like that person wanted us to see what happened, every single thing that happened while we got there."

Every single movement of the band was on camera, from their departure from the hotel in the morning to their arrival at lunchtime; from when, Y/N, they received the package to when they opened it, what everyone in the band was doing at the time of the event and even after the event, every single movement was monitored by the cameras, every single one of them.

"It's as if that person knew their routine to the letter, every single schedule and activity..." At the time, all BAU members had one person in mind, the only person who could know every detail about them was the one who lived 24/7 with them.

"Thanks, big G." Y/N received the coffee between her hands, drinking it from the makeshift interrogation room. The five of them were looking at each other, trying to understand what they were doing there and how they had gotten there.

"I don't understand why they have us here, we haven't done anything. We've already told our story a bunch of times and to different people, what the fuck are they waiting for to free us? A divine miracle? For this crazy guy to come and turn himself in?" Tyler was the most dismayed at that moment, at any moment he was going to explode against anyone who stood in front of him.

"Stop it, Tyler. We're not getting anything out of your shitty attitude, they're shuffling through every possibility to rule us out of being a crazed psychopath out to hurt Y/N." Shawn gently patted Tyler to try to calm him down, but it seemed to have made him more prone to explode. "The more we help on this, the faster we can get out here and have a good nap."

"Shawn's right, guys. Let's try to make it easier for the agents to investigate, so we can get on with the tour as soon as possible." Gerald finished with his pack of gummies, tossing the wrapper in the trash.

"What did the bosses say regarding this?" Y/N's words made Gerald let out a sigh, sitting back in the chair where he was.

"As long as this won't calm down and that none of us were in danger, the tour will have to be paused or at worst, cancelled."

A wave of protests came out of the band's mouths, causing Gerald to have to pound the table to calm them down.

"Cancel it, G? We haven't been on stage for two years and to suddenly cancel it, our sales will go down." Tyler vociferated, rising from his seat.

"What's going to happen to the fans? We're going to disappoint them if we cancel it just like that, they've waited for four years for new music and two for a tour, are they going to keep us on indefinite hiatus again? You know how long we've waited for a tour, they know the level of fans we manage worldwide." Y/N was next to rant, bringing one of her hands to her hair to comb it.

"Can't you tell your fed friend to help us hurry this up?"

A current of electricity coursed through every part of Y/N's anatomy, who turned to look at Tyler for his words.

"No."

Y/N's words were harsher than breaking a diamond in two, causing the guitarist to raise his hands in a symbol of peace.

"Let's try to stay calm, guys. Let's not lose our peace, this will work out, I read that the BAU is one of the most prestigious groups in the FBI, they'll be able to solve this problem before this goes any bigger." Felix turned in Y/N's direction, giving her hand a gentle squeeze and invited her to sit next to him.

The silence and calm didn't last long as Spencer and Emily entered the room, along with two police officers.

"Officers, are you bringing news?" Shawn asked, before he could watch as the officers approached Gerald's chair.

"Mr. Gerald Murphy, you are under arrest for being the prime suspect in the crime committed-" Emily's voice made all four of them stand up from where they were.

"Hey, what are you doing?" Felix was the first to react, trying to stop them from slapping handcuffs on the oldest of them all.

"What are you talking about, he didn't do anything! Gerald!" Y/N's loud voice made Emily's voice sound in the background, which recited the rights he had and escorted him out of the room. "Gerald! Please!"

"Hey! You sons of bitches, he had nothing to do with it!" Tyler went after them, along with Shawn who had him by the hip so he wouldn't throw himself at them.

"Shawn, call corporate! This is a misunderstanding, calm down." Slowly, Gerald's voice became more and more distant.

"Gerald! Please, he didn't do anything!" Y/N was more agile than the officers, so she quickly wriggled out of their grip.

She still didn't get very far when familiar hands held her back from going outside, where a group of paparazzi were waiting for some action for the morning news.

"'Stop it, Y/N... Enough fighting." Spencer's voice made her fidget, trying to get out of his grip, but starting to tire after a few struggles.

"Let go of me, Reid. Stay out of it, he didn't do anything." The girl's slender hands went to the chestnut's wrists, making them downward to signal him to let go.

When the boy released her, it made Y/N turn in his direction.

She was angry.

No.

She was furious, her face was red with rage and her voice was shaking.

"What's the matter with you people!? You just took away an innocent person."

"The evidence places you as the possible perpetrator, Y/N." Spencer was trying to sound calm, occupying his most professional voice in front of the girl.

"What the fuck are you talking about! He was with us when I got the package! And the last two months since he started the tour! We would have noticed if it had been him." Y/N's hand movements indicated desperation and exaltation, Spencer could tell with her body language.

"Have you been with him in the moments he's been missing to do unofficial things? Or in the spare moments between rehearsals?"

Y/N's voice was replaced by silence, leaving the most obvious answer in evidence.

"That person can be dangerous, Y/N."

"Then why didn't he ever do anything to me? Why didn't he ever do anything to us?" Y/N folded her arms, still wearing that annoyed expression on her face.

"Because I use decoys to take out his anger."

"What do you mean, a-are there more people besides Bruno?" Her voice trembled at the recent news, bringing her hands to her face as she realized Spencer's facial expression hadn't changed at all at the bad news.

"At least eleven cases have been linked, Y/N."

There's that scary expression again, Spencer thought.

Y/N had to brace herself against a wall to keep from losing her balance, feeling a sensation rise from the pit of her stomach to her throat.

Even though he was aware of what was happening, there was one thing that was clear to him.

"Gerald wasn't, Spencer. I can bet my voice on it, he's innocent."

"Y/N, the evidence-"

"Fuck the evidence, Spencer! He didn't do it! He wouldn't be able to! He bet his whole career on a broke shitty band, he bet his life on us." Small salty tears began to fall down the cheeks of the girl, who faced the young man. "Someone who bet his life, his career, his fate on a band with no future couldn't do that."

"Y/N..."

"No, Spencer! He wasn't, that's my final word." The petite girl's small body walked past the taller one, bumping her shoulder against the other's arm as she left the scene.

"Please, Y/N, listen to me."

Despite Reid's long legs, he wasn't able to catch up to the young blonde who was disappearing inside the elevator.

Everyone's attention was around the heated exchange of words between the two, it was impossible to let go of the situation they had just witnessed and even more so with the end of it.

The man leaned against a wall, letting out a heavy sigh before he could turn around inside the room where his companions were.

"Spence, everything okay?" J.J approached his best friend, who looked somewhat upset from what had just happened.

"Everything's fine, J.J. She was upset about the situation that just happened." He commented giving a long sigh, looking in the direction of the elevator door where the girl had just disappeared. "It's all right, okay?"

A new silence surrounded them with the people in the place, watching each other's faces for the next move they were going to make. Spencer was touchy, everyone knew the singer was detonating something even they didn't know if they could handle, a side of Spencer they had never seen.

"Excuse me, Dr. Reid?"

The brown-haired man's gaze went in the direction of the door, where the boy they identified as Shawn was standing.

"Can we talk?"

The cigarette between Y/N's fingers was burning away as time went by. The icy wind on the terrace gave her goose bumps, but she tried to forget the event that had just happened.

They had arrested her only remaining family, accusing him of being the person who might be sending her those horrible obsessive messages and also accusing him of possibly hurting her.

Along with this, she had just run into the person she thought she had forgotten after 15 years and would now have to be with him behind 24/7.

Footsteps sounded behind her, causing her to let out a whimper and, without looking back, she blurted out.

"Felix, please. I want to be alone, what part of that don't you understand?"

The smoke in her lungs choked when she heard the answer.

"I don't think it's a good idea to be alone on a rooftop, Y/N."

The girl's body turned, watching the tall man behind her. He had his hands in his pockets and had that look on his face that made her get on her knees.

"Least I want to see you, Reid. It's already too much to share with you for the last few hours." She commented sullenly, taking one last puff on her cigarette and flicked it to the ground, stomping on it with the toe of her boot.

The contrarian's arms crossed her chest, starting to walk in the direction of the door that divided them from the elevator and the terrace.

"Y/N, listen to me." Spencer's hand caught one of the girl's arms, causing her to turn sharply to push him away.

"I have nothing to hear from you, Spencer. Unless it's to get Gerald released."

"Gerald may be the person who wants to hurt you, Y/N. I'm doing this to protect you."

"Protect me or make a wash of your image?"

"You know better than that, I would never do anything like that."

"How can I believe you? Liars don't change, Spencer. Do me a favor and let me go."

Y/N's attempt to flee had been interrupted, again, by the older man who wouldn't let go of her arm.

"Please, you have to listen to me."

"No Spencer. It's been long enough that we could talk, and now I have to listen to you because you want me to? What's happen with me, I have to ignore the fact that you didn't contact me for 15 years and now I have to act like we're lifelong friends? No Spencer, it won't happen."

"Y/N, this goes beyond that, it's import-"

"Important? This is more important than you erasing the idea that I ever existed? That we ever had such a strong friendship? That I supported you in every way you could think of, what about me, Spencer? Do I also have to forget all the damage you did to me when you disappeared? It's not fair." Y/N's cheeks burned, all the pent up anger she was going to take out on him. "It was always 'Spencer this, Spencer that' you, you and you. For once, in your life, stop thinking about yourself and think about me, for once in your fucking life!"

"Things aren't the way you think, stop imagining things that aren't."

"Then how were they? Explain to me how things were. Go ahead."

The atmosphere between the two was so tense that they could cut it with a knife, as if suddenly all time stopped for both of them.

Spencer had a chance to redeem his mistake, to prove that the reason things were done this way was not because of his own arrogance, but to protect her. To prove the point of his absence for so long, of cutting off contact so suddenly, that he had done things right and always, always, thinking of her.

But he didn't.

"It's not the place and time to do it, Y/N."

Spencer could see the hint of illusion Y/N had in her eyes fade, as her pupils went completely black and on her face neutrality returned.

"Right, because for you it's never the place and time to do it, Spencer." Before she could turn around, she came back to face him one last time. "The day you have enough pants to face the problem, that day talk to me but for now, don't you dare cross me unless it's to get Gerald back here."

For the second time that day, Spencer watched Y/N's blonde hair disappear behind the metal doors.

Just like the last scent of their past together.

@alexa-33 | @ahhhhyesk | @imthefuckingleader | @narmothewraith | @kneelforloki | @niyahwhoreworld | @lexie0037 | @deadunicorn159 | @corpsebridenightamare | @preciousbabypeter | @sakuramadae | @zzz000eee | @runefirestarter | @sebastiansstanswhore | @whateverrrrrrrrs | @xsarcasticwriterx | @chris-seb-marvel | @bellaramseygfsblog | @lillysbigwilly | @dezibou | @astrophileous | @ily2lia | @sophiario | @valenftcrush | @oxace-of-heartsxo | @spencerrxids | @w31rdg1rl | @ineedsomezzz | @yeehawbitchs | @coolstories66 | @baku-hoes-blog | @bollzinurmouth | @louderfortheback | @flowersownme | @venomsvl | @strawberry--fawn | @maereasblog | @stevenknightmarc | @imaginexred | @chargrilli | @emrys-m | @queenofthedreaming1 | @lostinheavensworld | @sugarbutterbailey | @kaicyl | @fudosl | @read4funz | @mrsgweasley | @lazybot | @myfatbottomedgirls | @adaydreamaway08 | @narmothewraith | @dianalafleur | @basicallynotbreathing | @mj0801 | @augustinesletters | @clockworkballerina | @maereasblog | @niyahwhoreworld | @yourfavunsub

If you like it, don't forget to like and repost it.

a lot of love, alme. ❀

[dramarising-replacement]

Salt Mines Reborn - https://dramarising-replacement.tumblr.com/post/739...

well hello there

uh I think we're talking about me? maybe 

I was in the lightning dom team back in 2015 and I was def immature (I was barely an adult, not that it excuses anything I did lmao) and def uh, messed up

if you wanna know what happened i honestly don't remember it clearly because it was uh, 8ish years ago? all I know is someone came over to lightning, also got on the dom team and started complaining about how we weren't doing things well. They used to do raffles so had like a few supporters because they had a lot of money to throw around and stuff. Demanded another user give them control of lightnings dom bank. Kicked off at our dom head and some other people. I was annoyed because it felt rude and disrespectful I believe. I didn't really know the dom team too well, but it just didn't feel nice. I won't go into further detail (I don't remember most of it, and I don't want to frame what I do remember without context because this isn't about me starting drama tbh) but we got into an big argument and I think it was probably fairly nasty. I think our dom head and others agreed to stand down but I wasn't having it because I was upset someone could just walk in and make demands, and when I guess I wasn't getting anywhere/losing the argument I thought I was clever by taking screenshots and uploading them to the og drama rising to like dunk on this person but it was honestly a super childish thing to do. Obvs I don't remember exactly what I was thinking but I guess I assumed people would pick my side? But nah I just caused a mess and a bunch of people left lightning and I guess I haven't thought about it in years because I kinda obviously rightfully got called out on that and packed my bags for earth and then in like 2019 I stopped playing the game (until a few months ago when a friend mentioned FR in passing to me and I suddenly was like big nostalgia)

I used to have a big temper and an attitude for sure. I think some people in lightning already didn't like me before this incident and thats okay. I've moved to nature now and am living a happy lil chill existence with my auraboa trees and silly lineage project. I'm glad to say I've grown as a person since then and I'm a lot more mature - I still don't like it when people barge in and try and tell other people what to do, but I like to think I'd have handled it with a lot more tact and not post it all over a drama forum in order to idk, get some kind of mob justice? Idk what I was thinking would happen honestly. Probably for more drama? The only thing that happened was people complaining about me and the other person and there being like some sort of fight over which of us was worse (lol). 

BUT I guess, rambling sorry, I saw this (I guess I do gotta admit I still love to read drama, but I do my best to stay out of it) and my first thought was like 'oh if anyone does remember this and remember me I hope I didn't hurt anyone too bad' so like, yeah, its like 8 years late but I'm sorry about what I did. It was childish and I was arrogant and rude back then. The ONLY thing I did right in that drama was resign from the dom team and move flights (lol). I hope lightning all the best honestly it was a fun flight. And the person who came in and tried to take over lightning dom - I hope you're doing okay too. Don't get me wrong, I hope you aren't gonna pull this kinda stuff again but hey, who am I to judge past you from 8 years ago when I was also part of the problem?

[its-callum-everybody]

I CANNOT DRAW. That’s how I’m starting this off. You see dear readers, I lack skill in art, so, since I can’t share my twisted oc with you that way. I’ll be doing it the best way I know how: In Depth Character Analysis!

Part 1 — Basic Character Information / Relationships

Part 2 — Everything to do with her Unique Magic

Part 3 — Lore

Part 4 — Appearance

Part 2 ➤

Unique Magic Time!

Starting off, her Unique Magic and Backstory took inspiration and elements from the Disney movie: The Black Cauldron. A movie which, if you know you know, was very ‘graphic’ for its time period. So her unique magic is kind of gory and if you have anything Against the TWs below don’t read this.

TW(s): Blood, mention of Self-harm (kinda), mention of blood loss and its many after-effects

With that out of the way, I’m gonna start this off simply by giving you all the name.

" Teival’s Lamb "

Starting off, The cauldron in the movie was never given a name. Nor was the Evil Emperor that was trapped inside of it ever given one. So I’ve decided to give him a name myself: ‘Teivel’

Teivel is, from what I can source, a Yiddish name meaning ‘The Devil’ and at the very beginning of the movie the narrator is noted to say that the emperor was ‘so cruel, so evil the gods feared him.’ And as we know he obviously has some monumental power. So what can of course a god fear and have equal, if not more power, to them? The Devil.

Lambs, more often than not, are depicted as beings of innocence and purity. Tis’ why there are many phrases which depict their innocence begin sullied or used in guise of something else. Like a Sacrificial lamb is something of purity to be killed or used to appeal to a greater evil.

So in this context the name of unique magic can be understood to mean: ‘The Devil’s Lamb’ Now why would the devil hang onto someone pure? He wouldn’t. He’d want to destroy it. That’s when we start getting into her actual ability.

Teival’s Lamb allows the user to morph their own blood into different objects or beings. Perhaps even to heal and rebuild matter. There is no limit to what they can create so long as they are willing to loose the blood.

Her ability can only be used if she is bleeding, or in most cases, causes harm to herself to make her bleed. Which is to be noted as to why she carries a dagger on her person at all times. Often referring to it as her prized possession second to her rapier.

This powerful ability is of course its own weakness. As blood loss comes with many side effects: confusion, drowsiness, dizziness, increased heart rate, vomiting, seizures, disorientation, shortness of breath, and just being very weak in general. She’s also more likely to develop Anemia than others.

In short, to us her unique magic she has to harm herself in order to ‘appeal’ to the devil. Sort of like in the movie we learn that one can use the cauldron but in the you can’t control it. It will always want more. Sort of like a monkeys paw. You can wish for something, but it will take something in return, often something a bit more than what it’s worth.

Her ability works in that exact same format. Even for something small, like, a tin can. She’d have to give blood to make it.

Now. I can’t go into much more detail until I explain her lore. So everyone’s going to have to wait until that part is uploaded. Until then, please, enjoy this lovely bit of analysis.

[cmrosens]

Worldbuilding a Hellscape: Workshop

My most popular posts here seem to be my worldbuilding ones, so I thought I should let people know that I'm opening an online conference marking 200 years since the publication of James Hogg's Confessions of a Justified Sinner, with a creative writing "Building a Hellscape" workshop as a way of engaging with theology in SFF.

My workshop kicks off 09:30AM UK TIME - if you can't make that, it should be recorded so you should get the whole pack of recordings in your conference pack, post-conference when they are all uploaded and accessible.

It's a paid gig for me but as Romancing the Gothic is a project run entirely by one, very overworked person, and exists solely on donations, I've waived the fee.

I'll be getting you to think about some aspects of what a hellscape could be in a SFF context, using prompts like the ones I've posted here, and seeing what people come up with in the hour we have to dig in!

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE: Romancing the Gothic presents its fourth annual online conference over two days - 24th and 25th August. The conference celebrates 200 years of James Hogg's Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner with a series of talks, events and workshops.

The conference is designed to cover different time zones so the days are long. People are recommended to come for as long as they want. The talks and sessions are recorded so that you don't miss anything even if you can't be there in person for specific times/sessions.

Early Bird Tickets, Concessions and Free Tickets

There will be early bird discounts on tickets until 24th June 2024.

Concession tickets are for students, the unwaged, retired people or anyone whose economic situation makes it necessary.

You can donate a ticket for those who are unable to afford to come.

You can donate directly to a person you know providing their name and email, or, for a random donation to help someone attend, enter the name "Sam Hirst" or "AN Other" in the name fields and email the donation ticket to sam[at]romancingthegothic[dot]com to help cover the cost of a free space for someone who needs one. 

(We offer a limited number of free tickets for those who cannot pay the ticket price, please email sam[at]romancingthegothic[dot]com for more information.)

Accessibility

We have live auto-generated captions. We provide slides and, where possible, scripts before the conference with alt-text for images. We have regular breaks and encourage people to take part in ways that are most comfortable for them. There is no forced participation.

If you have any accessibility needs, please get in touch at sam@romancingthegothic.com and I will do my best to make sure these accommodations are provided.

Book your ticket below:

PROGRAMME

(All times are UK time, BST. Please check your local timezone so you don't miss you chosen events)

Saturday 24th August

9am - Greetings and conference set up

9.30 - 10.30 - Writing Workshop with author CM Rosens - 'Create a Hellscape: Using Theology in World-Building'

10.30 - 10.45 - BREAK

10.45 - 12.30 - Panel 1 - James Hogg: Work and Legacy

Nick Smith - I have since been induced to look to you as my guardian angel': Hogg's Highland Journeys and their influence on the Jusfitied Sinner

Mizuki Tsutsui - An analysis of Ian Rankin and James Mavor's draft of the film script of James Hogg'sJustified Sinner:Demon, Union and Adaptation

Martina Jauch - Masculinities, Mania, and Modes of Religion - ETA Hoffman's and Goethe's impact on James Hogg's The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner

Laila Sougri - The parallax of Evil: Phenomenological Encounters with the Uncanny in the Works of James Hogg, Daphne du Maurier, and Mark Z. Danielewski

12.30 - 13.00 - BREAK

13.00 - 14.00 - Cooking Workshop and lunch with Allie Pino (co-author of The Gothic Cookbook) - 'Whistle While You Cook: Arepa-Making and Venezuelan Demonic Folklore with 'El Silbón' and the 'Dancing Devils of Yare'

14.00 - 14.15 - BREAK

14.15 - 15.45 - Panel 2 - Demonic Politics

Javier Mosqueda - Building the devil: indigenous and Christian elements in Jeronimo de Mendieta's concept of the demon

Jarrod DePrado - “A God is Not So Glorious As a King”: Religion as a Demonic Political Tool on Stage

Jan Marvin A. Goh - "holy mysteries/by the eyes of the dead': Exploring the Gothic in Divine Concept in Nick Joaquin's The Mass of St. Sylvester

Amy Coles - She has to be hammered into shape: Religion-Related Abuse and Female Suppression in Ray Russell's The Case Against Satan

15.45 - 16.00 - BREAK

16.00 - 17.45 - Women and the Demonic

Maria Belén Caparrós - ‘I’m not going to kill you. I’ m going to sacrifice you’: Patriarchal Spectrality, expressive violence and structural demons in Argentinian Contemporary Representation of Femicide

Vale McComb - WhatPuppet History didn't tell you: Examing a Trio of 17th cent. Possession Cases and What Happened Thereafter

Brenda Tolian - Down Into the Darkness of Anne Bannerman’s “Prologue”

Pauline Suwanban - Contemporary Devil Romances and Female Confidence (2020-2024)

17.45 - 18.00 - BREAK

18.00 - 19.00 - First Keynote - Adam Kotsko - 'Faust in the Anthropocene'

19.00 - 19.15 - Author Roundtable - The Modern Scottish Gothic

Anna Cheung, Helen Grant and further authors TBC

20.15 - 20.30 - BREAK

20.30 - 21.30 - Cocktail/Mocktail hours

SUNDAY 25th August

9.15 - Greeting

9.30 - 10.30 - Second Keynote - Martha McGill - "Evil Company": Internal and External Demons in Early Modern Scotland

10.30 - 10.45 - BREAK

10.45 - 12.15 - Panel 4 - Demons, Duality and Doubles

Gina Lyle - Literary Hauntings in Helen McClory's Bitterhall

Rowan McMonagle - 'Thrawn Janet'

Miranda Larsen - This is a merger, not a possession: Kurama's Complex Morality in Yu Yu Hakusho

12.15 - 13.00 - LUNCH BREAK

13.00 - 14.45 - Panel 5 - The Modern Demonic Imagination

Abhishek Sarkar - Religious Obsession and Murderous Zeal: The Fanaticism of the Serial Killer in Four Indian Films

Efram Sera-Shriar - From Demon World Village to Ghosts 'n Goblins: Popular Occulture, Videogame Censorship, and Satanic Panic in the 1980s

Máireéad Casey - Demon Possession, Sexual Grooming, and Resistance in We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021)

Kyria Van Gasse - I see his face but he's not me: the mental and emotional effect of playing the demonic and the monstrous in Live Action Role Play

14.45 - 15.00 - BREAK

15.00 - 16.45 - Panel 6 - Vampires and the Demonic

Mary Going - I Will not Lie Below: Demons, Vampires, and Contemporary Iterations of Lilith

Madhuchhanda Ray - At the Crossroads of the Hindu Demon and the Western Undead: Reading Satyajit Ray’s Quirky Vampire

Anca Simina Martin - The first Romanian Vampire Novel: The Case of the Vampire-priest Antagonist

Hayley Smith - Welcome to God's Army: Religion and Religious Extremism in Netflix's Midnight Mass

16.45 - 17.00 - BREAK

17.00 - 18.30 - Writing Workshop - Samantha Miles - Playwriting as Ritual: Summoning Demons and Constructing Hellscapes

18.30 - 19.00 - BREAK

19.00 - 20.45 - Panel 7 - Imagining Hell

Susan Vanderborg - "Hell is only a word": The Imperfect Demonic Translations of Event Horizon

Ruth-Anne Walbank - This deep hell of ills: Hellscapes and the Gothic in Lancashire Cotton Famine Poetry (1861-5)

Morgan Daimler - Tenants of Hell: Fairies, the Devil, and Folk Belief in Early Modern Scotland

Rebecca Marks - Blotting and Blurring Demons: Blake's Last Judgement

20.45 - 21.00 - FINAL REMARKS

As always, there is a code of conduct for our events. Please find it here. https://romancingthegothic.com/code-of-conduct/

TICKET PRICES

Early Bird Discount available now until 24th June 2024: £17.50 Full Price ticket after 24 July 2024: £25.00 (INCLUDES BOTH DAYS)

Concession for students, retired or unwaged Early Bird Discount available now until 24th June 2024: £10.00 (INCLUDES BOTH DAYS) Concession ticket for students, retired or unwaged: £15.00 (INCLUDES BOTH DAYS)

Donate a Ticket: £15.00 (for anyone at any time! to donate one, this price stays the same) (INCLUDES BOTH DAYS)

[buckee]

yuletide 2024 letter

Dear Yuletide writer,

Happy Yuletide! Thanks for being my writer this year! <3 More under the cut:

Hi Yuletide writer, thank you so much for your patience! I haven't had access to my personal computer for a bit, and I've tried uploading this from my phone, but I don't think it's been visible (?) until now. Anyways, apologies for the technical issues!

General likes: Dead dove content, darkfic content (any & all, I have no qualms with anything re: non-con, incest, underage, violence), NSFW stories, romantic comedies, character studies, sympathetic villains, unlikeable female characters, fraught relationships (platonic, romantic, or sexual), stories where two characters are isolated from others (e.g. quarantined, stranded on an island, etc), lovers to enemies, bittersweet endings, queer homoerotic toxic best friendships, one-sided love, fleshed-out backstories, villain/corruption arcs, power imbalances, age gaps, canon divergence AUs.

General dislikes: Stories about weddings (if the plot revolves around this topic), kidfic, single parent AUs, soulmate AUs, heavy-handedness, SFW stories, slice-of-life, coffee shop AUs, maternal abuse (if the plot revolves around this).

FANDOMS + potential prompts

Challengers (Art, Patrick, Tashi):

A post-canon fic exploring Tashi coaching Patrick while Art retires to be with Lily would be interesting–how does Patrick integrate himself into that family? How awkward and painful is it to discuss the years that went by, and what happened in-between? Do they have rules for intimacy?

Patrick and Art exploring a romantic & sexual relationship while Tashi mostly removes herself from that part of their dynamic would be really appealing–she’s part of their throuple, but in a remote way. I’ve always seen her as kind of their…coach? And also, that she’s aromantic, but not asexual. I think Art mourning a part of his relationship with his wife but gaining a new partner is really interesting. Art/Patrick have the most interesting dynamic to me, ESPECIALLY in the context of the throuple (no Tashi erasure), because Tashi has never seemed intensely invested in romance or commitment, even if she is involved with the both of them. And since she’s a parent and someone who could have a career comeback, this would be cool to see!

AU where Patrick & Art are Gen Z/zoomers who come of age in a time when gay marriage became legalized in the USA/queerness has a different connotation than it did even in the early 2000s. What would their relationship look like if it had started a lot earlier? If they had been involved in the queer community as a couple/in their young adulthood? And what would their relationship look like once they met Tashi?

The Acolyte (Qimir, Mae):

I really want to see a tense, psychosexual exploration of their dynamic while Mae was training under him. It’s fascinating that he becomes fixated on her twin afterwards–they’re identical, which means he had to find her face superficially attractive at the very least. Wouldn’t mind it getting darker on this end, especially with crossing boundaries in a mentor/mentee dynamic. How did they meet? Why is she so interested in his good opinion? Why does she stick around if she is afraid of him?

Push (Nick, Cassie)

Nick and Cassie blurring the lines between brother/sister as she grows older is always fascinating. Would love to see them be codependent and inappropriate and odd with one another, without realizing why until it’s too late. How do they handle being lovers? How does Nick deal with the conflict of self-hatred and desire? Does Cassie ever realize that no matter how much she loves him, he still groomed her? Do they ever try to make it work, white-picket-fence style? Do they live perpetually on the run? Do they grow tired of each other? Do they try to separate at all?

Alternatively, their romantic/sexual relationship starts at the age they both are in canon. Feel free to get dark here, so long as Nick remains horrified and conflicted and resistant to what he wants to do. Cassie can be coerced into increasingly inappropriate behavior, or she can instigate out of a childish crush. So long as it isn’t a vaudevillian, mustache-twirling event on Nick’s end, I’m interested in all ways this could go down!

Thank you so much! I'm so excited, and appreciate your time. :)

[aeridanus]

Anonym hat gefragt:

that map you made is stunning! do you have any tips/programs on how to properly make one? i really love looking at these but i never know how to make them myself

Hello there, happy to help! :)

So if you’re interested in making a map, you have several ways of doing that. Ask yourself some questions first:

What is the purpose of the map? Do you want/need a scientific representation of a region or planet (example: Satellite map of the Earth), or is it a highly stylized storytelling tool (example: Map of Middle Earth)? Something in between? Think about what you want to communicate with your map and decide on its setup. As you asked about the map I uploaded, I’ll talk about my approach to satellite/physical maps :)

My personal approach to those maps is pretty scientific because I like hard worldbuilding with a lot of logical thought behind it. The satellite map from yesterday functions both as a physical map for the setup of the planet, but it’s also a base for other maps. For example, the climate chart I worked out uses the physical map as its foundation.

There are some pitfalls when it comes to map projections because we’re dealing with the problem of unwrapping a 3D globe onto a flat, 2D surface. With the standard maps we’re seeing today, areas closer to the poles get increasingly distorted. Just look at how huge Greenland appears on world maps - in real life, it’s pretty small. This is important to consider and I didn’t catch my own mistake until yesterday. If you want to be 100% sure, the best way to do it is to use a 3D program and paint your map directly onto the globe. Unwrapping the texture later gives you the correct distortions. If this is a concern for you, I’m happy to elaborate more, but I’ll stick to the visual side for now :) It’s all done in Photoshop, nothing else required. Screenshots are in German, but I added explanations.

The start of it all is a rough sketch of land and sea areas. It doesn’t need to be perfect or final at this point, just draw shapes you like. You can also add a bit of thought to it - maybe a landmass broke in several parts not too long ago and you still see the puzzle-piece shapes, but that’s another story entirely :) If it’s just about making a nice-looking map, go with what pleases you.

For surface details, I used satellite images and photobashed them onto my surfaces. I had worked out plate tectonics to have an explanation for the location of mountains and plains, but that’s also another story. If you want a mountain range somewhere just because, then put it there :) Collect aerial images which fit what you have in mind. Leave vegetation out for now, it’s just about highs and lows.

Then, roughly lay them over your landmass. I recommend keeping the landmasses on their own layer, separate from the sea, because you can “clip” the satellite image to the landmass layer by hovering your cursor between the layers and pressing alt:

Do this with plains and mountains (no vegation just yet), mix and match and blend until you get a setup you like. Also take a look at satellite images of coastlines so you can use them as a reference for your own. Give your landmass layer a mask on which you can draw to refine your coastline. To add a mask to your layer, select it and then press the button which has a rectangle with a circle on it. Drawing with black subtracts from your image, drawing with white adds to your image. You don’t destroy your base layer by using masks, and if you want to deactivate or delete that mask, right-click it for its context menu.

So now we landed on something similar to this. If you’re having trouble with coastlines, also search for aerial images and use them as references for your own. Where are flat beaches, rugged coastlines, fjords, islands? You can go with science (example: Fjords are valleys of former glaciers, so they’re unlikely to form in warm climates. Rugged coasts in warm areas probably have a different origin) or just do your thing.

I added the seafloor, basically the borders of continental plates, and a soft edge glow to the continents to simulate shallow water around them.

Now, placing vegetation can be a nightmare or ridiculously easy. For a first pass which you can modify later on by using layer masks again, do the following: Duplicate your landmass layer and switch off the layer style if you have one. Now, go to Image > Corrections > Replace color. Use the picker to select a color you want to replace with green. In my case here, I want to have vegetation closer to the mountains, so I pick a slightly darkened brown from my map.

It’s time for the magic :) Now use the three sliders at the bottom of the window to change the picked color to your target color, green in my example. Ho-lee sheeet! :D Use the tolerance slider at the top to narrow or widen the picker’s range, and just go with what you like.

Now you can play around with your vegetation layer as you wish. Add or substract from your layer and/or overlay it with some color variance. Do a second vegetation layer and pick a different color base, maybe the lighter deserts or the darker mountains. Set a different tolerance and color to it... and that’s basically it! Play around with those methods and have fun making maps! :)

[percabethfeelsfandom]

Headcanons: Percy and Annabeth as Tik Tokers (Part 2)

Part 1

at this point these two have been dancing around each other for the good part of nearly a year, they’ve both amassed hundreds of thousands of followers, both because they’re awesome and also because people want to know more about them 

The same day annabeth uploads her vlog at the airport

Percy uploads a vlog type video as well talking about how he’s going to go into city to meet up with a friend, he finishes the tik tok with a shot of roughly the same area Annabeth was just in and winks at the camera

The next tik tok goes up on Percy’s account and it’s him trying to convince her to get on his skateboard while she’s listing all of the potential injuries she could get if something goes wrong 

It becomes their most viewed tik tok EVER

Annabeth’s next tik tok is a vlog of her going around New York City and has 2 second glimpses of percy leading her around and pointing out different monuments to her (she’s a relatively private person so I feel like she wouldn’t flaunt him around) 

Percy on the other hand is releasing tik tok after tik tok about annabeth. Videos of her skateboarding, videos of her looking and walking about the streets of New York, of her eating her food and her hiding her face as he points the camera at her

Its almost tangible how much affection he has for her 

And this is the first day they’ve officially met, but its a culmination of nearly 10 months of them talking almost every day for hours on end so it doesn’t even feel like the first time, it just feels like his best friend is visiting and he hasn’t seen her for a long time 

In the month that Annabeth is in New York, she’s with percy almost every day. And their accounts are just full of each other

Percy manages to talk Annabeth into doing one (1) tik tok dance with her and Percy makes a tik tok on her account talking about the importance of climate change and helping sea turtles 

Behind the scenes, without the camera, percy and annabeth walk around New York until the sky is indigo and then he takes her to the rooftop of his apartment complex so they can continue talking and end up falling asleep as the sun peeks through the clouds, and in the morning he walks her to her hotel, bleary eyed but with the biggest grin known to man 

(Annabeth falls asleep with the smallest of smiles on her face and dreams of pink sunsets and green eyes) 

He introduces her to his mum, sister and step-dad (and adoptive brother Tyson) 

Neither of them directly address it, but they’re falling for each other and the month is ending and they don’t know what to do about it

The week before Annabeth is meant to fly back Percy invites her to a college party to meet some of his friends, Grover (who has been in Percy’s videos, also has a tik tok account that is solely dedicated to his plant collection and sharing information about caring for them), Hazel (has the sweetest most aesthetic jewellery making videos + baking videos, literally a pioneer for lesbian tik tok even though she’s in a relationship with frank) and Nico (e-boy tik tok duh), Frank (not an avid tik tok user but he does model hazel’s jewellery and Nico and percy have used him in transformation videos) 

Percy also introduces Annabeth to Rachel who Annabeth knows through tik tok because Rachel drew percy one time a couple of months ago and the spark of jealousy annabeth felt was so uncomfortable

But it dissolves completely when Rachel goes off on a tangent about the importance of asexual representation and talks about the importance of seeing yourself in media and Annabeth makes a note to herself to educate herself so that they can have something to talk about 

The party goes by without a hitch, except for the fact Annabeth hates parties and Percy doesn’t drink…

So they sneak off to walk around NYU campus and percy shows her all of his favourite spots (someone from the party (Grover) makes a tik tok of them not so subtly leaving the party together and grins at the camera no context) 

That becomes grovers most viewed tik tok 

(At this point percabeth has taken over tik tok and it’s on everyone’s FYP) 

Percy and annabeth remain oblivious to their phones going off about their mini escapade, and they end up In the NYU library and percy takes her to the architecture section “because I thought you’d like it”

She kisses him there

And he kisses her back 

“I refuse to regret this,” she whispers against his mouth, as she presses her forehead against his. He smiles and lightly brushes a curl away from her face.  

“I won’t let you,” he whispers back. 

[phati-sari]

Hi PS, I love your way of detailed analysis on each and every question. Thank you for your patience. This question is out of context. I just wanted to know about how you came up with this idea of creating a medium for all IPKKND users and when was PHATI SARI tumblr formed ? Thank you

Hiyya!

Hahaha, this is very flattering, thank you for the compliment :)

I just wanted to know about how you came up with this idea of creating a medium for all IPKKND users

I think the short answer is that I didn't. I see this space as, first and foremost, for myself. It's about what I see in the serial and how I interact with it. It's not an india-forums like space for all IPKKND fans where everyone can be seen and heard.

However, I appreciate that the ask feature (particularly because it can be truly anonymous) opens up the blog for more interaction that it'd otherwise have. I've always appreciated and loved interacting with other fans of the serial :) I think it's the best part of having this blog on tumblr as opposed to wordpress or similar -- other places would just be me yelling into the void but I get to talk to other fans here. The ask feature allows people to ask the questions they may not otherwise be able to articulate, and for this reason, I want to keep this space as open as I can without degrading my wellbeing.

when was PHATI SARI tumblr formed?

I started writing the recaps in 2012 on a Word document on my laptop. It was a way of keeping all my thoughts together in once place. Eventually, the document became too big, so I uploaded them online where I could access and edit them whenever I wanted. I moved them onto Tumblr later, publishing around three a day until I caught up to where I'd been. That's how this blog started: a place for me to keep all my thoughts regarding the serial.

I'm not entirely sure how it evolved to become what it is today! That's largely down to the wonderful friends I've made along the way :) That's not to say that I don't appreciate the growth, but it remains in my mind an online space for me to keep thoughts and recaps.

There’s a tendency for some people, when they find this blog, to treat it like an IPKKND google service. They want to send in every question they’ve ever had, they want real-time responses as they watch an episode or read a fanfic, and generally start behaving like I have to validate every thought they have. I don’t. In fact, I don’t see myself as a gatekeeper into the fandom at all. I firmly believe that if folks want their thoughts seen and heard, they should create their own blogs. I’m just a person on the internet, what I think and do hardly matters in the grand scheme of things!

Thanks for asking, I’ve never been asked these questions before!

[bbbqlays]

다섯: 강한 감정

5: Strong Feelings

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

It was a new day, and after your encounter yesterday with the man in charge, you were sort of on edge with everything.

“Hey there Eri. I heard you got new books to read.” Your hand reached to a box, opening it you found picture books along with fantasy chapter books. “Do you have a preference for any of these?”

She picked out the most colorful picture book. “You want to read the Paper Dragon?”

You picked up the book and looked at the cover. It was very colorful. She smiled widely, reaching out for the book with awe. “Okay!” You chuckled playfully sitting on her bed, she followed behind and brushed up against you.

You began reading, trying your best to make it entertaining, you even got one of the guards to laugh, a golden blonde haired man. You’ve never seen him until now, his eyes were a boost in mood, and you could tell he was smiling at certain moments.

The book was finished and Eri was way more excited about books, she jumped up but only fell on top of you as she laughed loudly.

“Ms, L/n, could you read another?”

“Why dont we do something better?”

Eri’s eyes lit up, wondering what could be better than a book. You stood up and went up to another box, you looked through to find one pair of child scissors and a bunch of colorful paper. You pulled out stacks and stacks and put them on the ground.

You waved eri over and pulled out a stack of papers. They were orgami papers with various colors. “We can make a paper dragon and hang it up on the ceiling” eri’s eyes brightened at the suggestion. “Oragami is one of the best things they teach you in school. Only because you can create anything out of paper by just folding.”

You divided the colors as quickly as you could before guiding eri through a talk. “Choose the colors and 12 pieces of paper.” She started picking out the colors, mostly being blues and purples, and everyone watched as she chose.

“Okay, and then now we are going to take the first piece.” You grabbed a random sheet of paper and sat on the ground across from her. You started to fold the paper and looked at eri to see if she followed. “And fold it... like that.” She did as she was told and smiled cheerfully while doing it.

Continuing, you explained and showed her every step. She followed delightfully. And the end result came to be two dragons long and proud. “And so now choose a color.” You offered the marker case and she randomly chose. It was purple. You picked out a black marker and picked up your dragon. “Draw a face.” You drew two little dots to signify eyes and a smile.

She did the same but instead had the tongue stick out. You both chuckled as you stood up, stretching. You looked at the clock on the side of her bed and sighed. “Looks like I need to go.” You groan and she followed with a sigh.

“Eri, I will be back tomorrow to hopefully do another fun activity. Maybe we’ll draw tomorrow.” Eri ran up and hugged, tightly gripping on your pants. She let go, but her stare seemed extra saddened. “See you tomorrow. Eat well.”

She nodded to that and you were escorted out. The man guiding you out had long golden hair. His mask fit snugly on his face, his green shirt adorned with a pinkish red tie.

You breathed softly as he guided you back to your room. “Does anyone ever talk?”

He looked at you, as if to smile. “Yeah, but usually to each other. Not really to the head.”

“The head... oh you mean Overhaul right?” He nodded in agreement. “What’s your name?”

“If you need to know, I’m Setsuno Toya.” He said it as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders. He was glad about the short lived conversation.

“Well, thank you Setsuno. Hopefully we can talk again.” He unlocked the doors with a bow, and you bowed again.

When entering you ripped off the mask and dropped it on your desk looking at the warm food displayed on the corner. It looked to be an American dish, specifically pizza. Toppings were placed on the side of the plate mostly meats.

You nodded to yourself and dug in, loving the warmth of the food. You closed your eyes enjoying the savory taste. It was a simple dish, and it tasted homemade. You wondered who made it and where, since you hadn’t smelled anyones cooking while with Eri.

You finished up, and looked around the desk, clothes laid out on the top and a new mask. You rolled your eyes feeling like a doll with all these clothes.

You rummaged through though, curious as to what they were. It was a blue short skirt, with black shorts, and a white button up blouse to match. It was as if it was made for a summer evening, or a date.

The thought made you chuckle as you threw them on the bed. To think you had a secret admirer was funny to also think about. The world built itself on soulmates, why would anyone play around with that.

The thought then hit you. “Fate... wouldn’t put me here right?” And you couldn’t play around with the thought of that because you couldn’t physically touch anyone.

Everyone had protection and you feel like you’d be killed if you were to touch someone. You tried to laugh the thought away but it lingered, and it scared you.

The clothes fit perfectly. Of course, and you felt good in it despite the earlier thoughts. You honestly thought you looked good in blue.

You enjoyed twirling around in it not being bothered to hear the door click open. You stopped twirling to feel good about yourself only to be met with the man in white.

Your face matched a shade of tomato as you went to try and hide yourself. You bowed to him apologizing silently. He simply bowed to you as well verbally apologizing for disrupting.

“I just came to get you for the meeting.”

You cleared your throat as you nodded. You grabbed the mask on the desk and threw it on still blushing embarrassingly. You walked out with him trying your best to slow your heart rate.

“Chrono right?” He nodded. “You’re like his right hand man, correct?”

“Yes, despite his demeanor he’s actually good.”

“I wasn’t doubting him, I was just going to ask... Why all this?”

Chrono looked at you not understanding the question. “Why this whole base? It seems eerie and too much.”

“Overhaul.” Chrono paused and thought about what to say. “He want’s to change the world. He wants an old image to come back.” Chrono nodded to his statement and continue guiding.

“So, it’s to better society... Correct?”

He nodded and that seemed to lift a burden from you somehow.

Chrono slowly opened the door and to welcome you was the same masked face you had seen last night. This time his tie was loosely around his neck, and he seemed more stressed than anything.

“Welcome Back!” Overhaul greeted you with open arms as he watched you sit. “Hopefully today wasn’t too overbearing.”

“No, of course not. Me and Eri simply read and did origami. Which I thank you for getting supplies for that.”

“So, I see you guys are getting along.” He adjusts his tie and looks off into the distance. “Do you have any other requests?”

Your eyes darted to his face immediately wondering what context. “To take care of Eri.” You were shaky now. Your head wanted to explode as you thought of other things to request that wasn’t for the benefit of Eri.

“Just supplies to draw with.” He nodded and looked at you pleasingly.

“And do you need anything? Specific things you had in your living quarters that you need here.”

You pondered. “If possible. A small library.” Your request seemed to peek his interest, and he simply chuckled.

“Very well.” His hand issued you away, and Chrono guided you out.

“Chrono. How can you tell when Overhaul likes someone?” It was a bold statement and you felt as if he wouldn’t answer properly.

“Don’t worry. He likes you just fine.” He gave you a genuine answer, making you think.

“Now, get some rest. And leave a note of all your favorite breakfast items under the door. Our ‘chef’ wants to make your stay here interesting and home-y.” He left with a nod.

You smiled, not a big smile, because what was there to smile about. You turned on the small lamp light on your desk and scanned your room feeling something off.

Flowers were on your nightstand. Not the ones from before but new ones. White roses. They filled the whole room with a beautiful scent.

You rushed to find another note under the vase, your hands feeling the hand writing. Beautiful cursive saying

‘You’re like a beautiful dove amongst a trash filled park. You stand out like a sore thumb. You please me without knowing it, and for that I keep you near.’

You couldn’t help but shiver as you read it. A smile wider than usual filled itself along your face.

“Beautiful.”

Someone is playing with the strings of fate, and falling for you evidently. You held the note close to your heart laughing loudly as you thought of who it could be.

Your heart fluttered as you thought of the man in white. He seemed to have more personality in this place than anyone else, and he’s seen you the most.

You giggle at the thought, and the thought of not even seeing his face filled you with mysterious happiness.

It was like being in grade school again...

Hey hey! Its Lay. I am sad to inform you that I am sick. I have covid and so it’s hard to get things done while sick. So sorry if uploads are delayed, and or not posted weekly. I’m trying my best, and hopefully you guys support me all the way through.

And if you want content from me everyday, I have a tiktok. I try my best to post everyday, but if you like overhaul here, you’ll definitely like overhaul over there! Thank you so much for reading and hopefully you stay healthy!

TAG LIST (OPEN)

@inanabsentia @wormxunii @lalachanya @cth-l @a-monsters-love @irisallenm @awkward-confused

[definitely-not-karen]

My unnecessary and irrelevant reviews about the transformers media I have consumed.

Please let me have this. I was doom scrolling and transformers is my comfort fandom.

G1: I have not watched all of it, I do plan on doing so but I did watch it when I was younger and does invoke nostolgia. I watched it on Teletoon Retro (does that even exist anymore?) ((just googled it, rip teletoon retro)). For some reason I really like the episode The Ultimate Weapon. I am a huge fan of First Aid and it was because of this episode and I have no idea why. Rodimus is the main character of that episode with First Aid just having a very prominent role in the side story of that episode. I really liked the Aerialbots and their storyline with the time traveling and the not knowing if they’re on the right side was really cool. Honestly the animation errors and weird inconsistent story are part of the charm I guess.

RID 2001: another show I’ve only seen tidbits of. I watched this one via random episodes illegally uploaded to YouTube in the early to mid 2010s and now all those videos are taken down. As a lover of camp, this is camp. I love it. Transformers as a concept is pretty camp (which is why I adore it) and I definitely will watch all of this one day. Though Sideburn is cool and all, I do wish he didn’t chase a red sports car every episode. Otherwise he’s one of my favourites cause himbo rights I guess.

Transformers IDW 2005: So... I read the entirety of the idw comics purely because I found out Thundercracker was a screenplay writer and I wanted to read the entire story so I got the complete context of his development from scary fighter jet to an Oscar winner. I was not disappointed, I was met with queer and trans representation of all sorts, a diverse storyline with action filled parts, comedy elements, slice of life, political drama, adventure, horror, and the best road trip through space. Honestly I was not expecting transformers of all things to have queerness represented so casually and quite well in my opinion (though technically they are guilty of bury your gays, I don’t count it cause there was a clear reason for that death) Thundercracker was marked as one of my favourites cause of this series. I did experience a wonderful story because I wanted to see how he got his happy ending. My biggest criticism of idw transformers is that I love their interpretations of characters and sadly I know I’ll probably never get to seen them like that again. But if I want to experience those characters like that, I’ll just re read it I guess.

Transformers Animated: I have watched the entirety of this great show twice and it still love it. Funny characters, a human character that has a purpose, and a fun change to the formula, Transformers Animated has one of my favourite Optimus and made a Bumblebee so lovably loud they had to take away his voice so he wouldn’t become too powerful. Loved all of the characters except the human villains, Headmaster did not age well and I wasn’t in love with Ratchet’s design but his personality more than made up for it. If you want more animated, I love Transformers ReAnimated the void is filled by that series and channel. While I wish it got another season, it’s ending was satisfying enough I guess.

Transformers Prime: Smokescreen is great and was underutilizes -100/10. Just kidding, kind of I really enjoyed Prime. I’ve only watched through it completely once cause when I was a child I did not like the designs since apparently as a child I was a G1 loyalist I guess. Though now Prime has one of my favourite styles that still holds up today. Dramatic story with actual character development, I can over look that the plots a tad slow. I wish Breakdown was utilized more and it also could have benefited from an extra season but the movie wrapped it up much better than animated’s ending. Knockout is an amazing character and I was spoiled while I was watching it that he turns Autobot though I didn’t realize that wasn’t until the literal end of the series. Would’ve like a completely fleshed out Breakdown and Knockout or at least Knockout redemption arc but there’s always fanfiction I guess.

Robots in Disguise 2015: I didn’t hate it? It definitely helped that I watched this before Prime for some reason. I liked the designs, Sideswipe... himbo rights. Biggest flaw is the lack of character growth. I just want nice things for Sideswipe, Strongarm and Fixit. Grimlock was fun, I like Bumblebee trying to be a good leader and Optimus should have stayed dead. The crossover and referenced to Rescue Bots was fun and Blurr and Sideswipe was the rivalry I didn’t know I needed. But the one I really needed was Smokescreen in there too. The ending arc was interesting though not executed the best and Steeljaw did a lot of the heavy lifting for the villain side to a point where they over utilized him and his character suffered as a result. Windblade was not as bad as people online said she was, splitting the group up into two was stupid cause I’m bitter and still don’t want Optimus there. Also long list of underutilization: Denny and Russel Clay, Jazz, all the characters from prime except Optimus and Bee, Jetfire and Jetstorm, More Rescue bots, and many more! Like that girl that’s Russel’s friend that I literally don’t remember because I’m pretty sure the writers forgot about her! Anyways, in retrospect the show probably wasn’t great but I liked it I guess.

Rescue Bots: This show is way better than it needed to be. I actually love the no Decelticons and war. I’m a sucker for slice of life and especially slice of life with a twist. Human villains that were actually interesting, actual character development, continuity (somewhat), great human characters all while being target for children. I’m so happy I watched this show while I was kind of the target age and rewatching it for the third time was great cause some of the science jargon actually made sense to me. Satisfying ending too and honestly it can just appeal to everyone. Love all four of the main rescue bots and constantly wish they made evergreen designs and toys for them so they could at least make cameos in other transformers media. Sometimes it’s nice to have transformers being wholesome I guess.

Rescue Bots Academy: ... I was not the age democratic for this show and I somehow still liked it? Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve been gravitating to more wholesome content due to current events but it was actually good? Love all the students, I do miss the old crew and characters like Doc Green and Frankie are under utilized and the Burns family is almost nowhere to be found :(. Once again there’s some actual character development and Hot Shot’s mentor relationship with Heatwave is super sweet. Also actually having positive post war Decepticon and Autobot relationships in this children’s show? Woah. Biggest issue is like RID 2015; the lack of continuity and characters completely disappearing. Perceptor was fun and I was not expecting him to appear. And I love me some microscope dude. It was a good send off for the aligned continuity I guess.

Cyberverse: ending too soon. I was about to be upset that bumblebee didn’t have his voice but he had his voice in his head which was great. Episodes like the velocitron one was really good and it definitely got better with each season and peaked in the Quintesson arc and then rolled to the cancellation date. Thundercracker shouldn’t have been killed off but I’m very biased. Seeing the rebuilding of Cybertron was cool. Windblade and Bumblebee had a fun relationship. I really liked this iteration of Grimlock. Perceptor was super interesting but then they did nothing with him after the Quintesson arc which was a shame and I would have liked to see better relationships between the Autobots and Decepticons after the team up. Also wholesome Whirl was fun. Honestly this needed one more season so bad. I just think it could have been great if it got one. But it’s still good I guess.

War for Cybertron: ...let’s see how I feel after Kingdom comes out but right now, meh. For me my favourite transformers characters usually end up being side characters due to me wishing they had more screen time so in this case, Red Alert is great please show me more of Red Alert. I get what all the people are saying about the voice acting and whatever but I can look past it (though please give us Peter Cullen or let the current VC make his own Optimus voice). But one thing is that all the YouTube reviewers be saying that I completely agree with is that it’s dark. Like lighting wise. I occasionally had trouble making out what was happening because it was dark. Honestly my biggest issue isn’t a fault of the show. I like development of multiple characters to be shown so I can fall in love with a multitude of characters but due to short seasons, it makes sense to focus in completely on one character at a time. Siege in my opinion at least let me see more of the background characters rather than Earthrise but I’d probably like Earthwise more if I was a bigger fan of Optimus. I’m going to watch Kingdom but I’m not expecting to be wowed I guess.

In conclusion, I should watch Beast Wars, I’m going to re read the ending of Lost Light again and revel in the melancholic ending I adore and I really like Thundercracker and First Aid. One great thing about transformers and other franchises that have been around for awhile, if you don’t like the current thing, there’s plenty of last media and you probably won’t need to wait too long for the next piece of media you’ll hopefully like.

Please be good idw 2019, I’ve read a bit of you and I have a scrap of hope. Oh please please please be good. Give some characters the Thundercracker treatment.

[supertransural]

Beyond the Mat, sort of meta?

Ok so for some personal context, I’ve been rewatching all of Supernatural and i have the firm intention to keep the show on repeat on my computer/tv until i’ve fully binged it 15 times (never fear, I am already perfectly aware of how bad a decision this is). I wrote this post with a frantic need to get all the thoughts out, but it happened to be 3am at the time, and I realized I had to make gifs and upload them which was obviously too much work for a sleep deprived brain. I put it off until the next day, but ended up procrastinating and now it's been sitting in my drafts for 3 months and I thought hey this is a good time to finish it up (it could be argued that i'm polishing up this thing at 5am and this doesn't seem to be an issue for my will to get this done this time around, although I am heavily caffeinated so maybe that has something to do with it, go figure).

Anyways that’s besides the point. At the time I had just gotten to 11x15, Beyond the Mat. I’ve seen people write a lot about how parallels between Sam and Dean’s love lives/interests are part of the subtext about Dean’s bisexuality. I’ve also read people's works about how Gunner is pretty obviously one of Dean’s youth celebrity crushes. But (and I might just be a bit blind or haven’t looked hard enough) I haven’t seen a lot about the parallel between Sam/Rio and Dean/Gunner.

So let's get down to business, shall we?

The scene I will be focusing on starts out with Dean utterly star struck, sort of mumbling awkwardly his reasoning for coming up to Gunner (x) (x). Interestingly enough, Sam does the exact same thing with Rio (x) (x), while Dean is in the other corner clasping Gunner's hand for way too long and way too tight, and giving him the “i’ve loved you ever since i met you” look (x) (x).

Now since Sam’s crush is strictly heterosexual and we all know Sam’s interest in women, he outright says it to Rio (this is, after all, the CW) (x) (x). Dean on the other hand doesn’t verbalize it in so many words (the CW), but cmon... That fluster when Gunner winks at him later on?? (x) (let's not forget the little leg pat (x) that is probably still etched in Dean's memory amongst the 20 best things that ever happened to him, behind the previously-mentioned-wink and the Cartwright Twins) Or his reaction to Gunner patting his arm, "ok ok don't panic, it's not like your childhood crush just touched you oh wait". And Literally His Unwavering Smile The Whole Way Through. Jacting choices, people, Jacting choices (x).

Sam saves himself by steering the conversation towards a type of "where are they now?" interview, and Rio follows his not-so-subtle attempt, with a heavily implied tint of nostalgia for the good old days (x). Dean pulls a very similar stunt, mentioning something about his and Gunner's past (x) (x). Rio and Gunner's faces in those clips resemble each other quite a great deal: the emotion is the same, regret.

I really love that parallel because it’s really just “in your face”. You see Dean getting all flustered, at that point you could still say “hey i love [insert celebrity] and i don’t have a crush on them, but i’d probably still react that way around them”. (First of all, if I were you, I'd go on a journey of soul searching because hello, it’s ok to have crushes on celebrities you wish you didn’t, we’ve all been 12 and we’ve all seen Twilight and we’re all ashamed, and second of all, would you really and I mean really react that same way?) But then, enters Sam and his old crush, from the same field, basically the same time period, the same place and roughly the same "community". And it’s an unapologetic crush, not just a “hhhahaha i loved your uh.... your work.... as a uh kid haha.....”. Nonono. He says it, he tells her that he “used” (i’m not sure it’s completely gone, just like Dean) to have a crush on her. And then boom, parallel.

The way the two interact with both “celebrities” isn’t that different, if anything, Sam is less awkward around Rio than Dean is with Gunner. I’m betting the reason why is that since Sam’s crush is a woman, he has 1: talked about it openly before with his family (a poster of your crush on your wall is a good way to do that) and 2: talked to other crushes like her before. Dean, for obvious reasons, has not. Not a man, maybe some girlfriends, but he was never open (specifically not to John) about a potential crush he had on the big wrestler man in the ring, because he’s supposed to be this manly manly ladies man. He’s much more awkward because he hasn’t had much of an opportunity to talk to his crushes that might have been men, so the entire ordeal is wayyy more foreign to him. And he was also just a fan, so the whole “oh my god oh my god” of the crush is added to the already existing “oh my god oh my god” of his inner (and outer let's not kid ourselves) fanboy self.

Dean’s reaction is incidentally very similar to the one he has in the Fat Spa in 9x13, The Purge, with the character called Larry, Maritza’s husband. Dean’s awkward, goes too far, slightly flustered, and he’s pretty clearly not thrown off because of Maritza in that interview room, his gaze is mostly going from Sam to Larry then back to Sam. He lightly brushes over Maritza but barely looks at her (x) (x).

I’d also like to point out that when Gunner enters the stage, there’s a hint at a bi flag created by the light show, blink and you'll miss it (x). But then again that could just be the fact that those lights look pretty together and I'm completely insane. I’m not going to push that one too far, but since Gunner winks at Dean after that, which as I said before, makes Dean look adorably happy and flustered..... Take that as you will.

There's a thousand other scenes relevant to Dean being very blatantly bi-coded in Beyond the Mat (seriously, it's almost as obvious as the siren episode) but I really just wanted to focus on the parallel this time. I might go even more in depth on that episode (or do it bit by bit) if I ever find the will to make more gifs and string intelligible words together to create coherent sentences, and give off the impression of a sane mind. Might even throw in some The Purge meta for fun. Yes my definition of fun is quite warped.

[shijiujun]

On Translations

Once again, I’m just plain incensed by dumbasses who think it’s okay to firstly, steal someone else’s hard work and secondly, think they’ve got some right to edit that person’s work because they think they’ve got a better grip on English (not true btw) - It didn’t happen to me (well, as far as I know) and I’m not in the Guardian fandom and I don’t personally know the person who’s dealing with this ridiculous shit, but oof am I angry after seeing the tweet.

Just saw on twitter that some asshole stole a translator’s works (Guardian, Chinese to English) and edited it - Yes it’s just like the MDZS saga a few weeks ago when some white person who doesn’t have any Chinese language knowledge, tried to ‘improve’ translations done by another person who actually knows what they’re doing in both Chinese and English - And then put in on Wattpad with a ridiculous letter and intro where they said: “Great things can be made greater” to explain why they edited the English of the original translation.

“Great things can be made greater,” said the thief.

“I hope my actions will be appreciated,” said the thief again.

Like wow, once again, the audacity - There’ve been extensive arguments on translations since the MDZS saga a few weeks ago and obviously the fan who took ExR’s translations and ‘made them better’ stupidly stepped on a landmine by fucking with the MDZS fandom that has a longer history, more resources and clout than the amount of time she’s been exposed to MDZS via CQL, and got bitch-slapped by the rest of the fandom where there exists a majority of fans knowing clearly what to do and not to do.

Unfortunately, the same can’t be said of all fandoms, especially smaller ones - The user i saw is a translator for Guardian and the mofo 1. Stole their translations 2. Edited the translations to ‘better english’ 3. Wrote that they don’t know who did the original translations but “they know where to find me” *cue my eyeroll* 4. And after op commented to say please credit at the very least in May, they’ve been ignored so far - but luckily they’ve got some supporters as well to help report the mofo.

Aside from the ridiculous thievery (not crediting, blatantly lying and stealing, being an arrogant, indecent person stuck on that high horse) of course, the “I believe that great things can be made greater” is a fucking load of bullshit in this instance, and I mean taking someone else’s translations and adding your own spin to it because you think you’ve taken tests in English as a first language in school all your life (fuck off, a lot of these translators did too), that you’ve got some superiority over English or because you think it reads funny?

Granted, most fan translators don’t put up flawless translations (once again, these translators are FREE LABOUR), but you get it for free and you don’t have to (and can’t) read the original text, so suck it up.

Moreover, the disgust that I feel at the claim that the thief’s work is now ‘greater’ is extremely visceral - It’s not a greater piece of work because the thief stole it, period. No one asked for the thief’s help.

(In case you guys are curious the stolen post on Wattpad is here: https://my.w.tt/7dehLj7D56 and if you’d like to report just follow the instructions)

On Chinese to English translations:

1. If you don’t have good grasp of the original language, you have no right editing the translated work after, regardless of language. Until you can clearly understand the original idioms, context, characters etc. or have at least lived with the language for a substantial part of your life, honestly, just stop, you’ve got no right! 

Sure, some translators aren’t as good as you like them to be, but the argument is always, well, you wouldn’t even have this minimal translation if they didn’t do it, so yay you’re like a few sentences and words closer to the text than you were before. If it’s really that bad, hopefully there are better translations and you can ignore the one you’re looking at, but the same rules apply across all translations!! Don’t disrespect the translator (especially when they’ve done nothing wrong except try to give you access to more content).

2. For Chinese, it’s even worse because the language is known for its hidden nuances and complexities within just two to four characters that, when translated into English, can sometimes take up to two long sentences to explain. That’s why sometimes shit reads funny. It’s not that these translators can’t do English, but Chinese to English acrobatics is beyond your comprehension, hell sometimes it’s beyond translators’ comprehension, so thanks for editing something you’ve got no idea about. This user Bee made a very good argument thread IMO about this on Twitter which I suggest people read

3. Adding your edits to a translated piece of work especially without permission or discussion with the translator, honestly who the fuck are you to do that? Either work your damn ass off by painstakingly translating the original and then editing it however you like, or just... enjoy the free content. Chinese BL novels (in this instance and as in many instances i’ve seen) and some of these translators have been around for longer than you’ve been in the fandom, so suddenly when you have an interest in the content, in a culture and language that you’ve never seen before, are unfamiliar with and have zero knowledge about, you think that as a fan you now have the right to edit someone else’s work that was already done correctly? 

The fact is if the translator wrote a bogus line in the English translations, you wouldn’t have known, and when you upload it as your own and ‘improve’ it, you would be a joke, but you didn’t read the original text did you, so what makes you are any sort of authority to edit the translations?

4. Of course this is not to say that non-Chinese speaking people can’t enjoy the same content or have excellent, poignant discussions and understanding over the content, but honestly a lot of translations don’t capture 100% of a Chinese novel because the nuances are just that complex, and translators do their best to convey it regardless - This is why RESPECT FOR THE TRANSLATOR IS IMPORTANT. And I don’t mean simply paying lip service and typing “we respect all translators for their hard work on this work”, and then disrespect it entirely by not crediting, by the simple act of editing without permission etc.

Respect their interpretation and translations, because it can differ from translator to translator translating the same sentence (and people who don’t speak the original language want to compete with that, I don’t understand?!)

5. Honestly, considering how people are still arguing on the semantics of the Bible for example, not only in its original language but also in English alone - if people can’t agree on every sentence of the holy text and what each sentence means to different people, fan translators get a fucking pass

6. I read in Bee’s threads where someone disagreed with their argument of ‘only people who understand the original language can translate and edit’, saying that it’s okay if the editor doesn’t have a grasp of the original language - I understand that yes, someone else’s English might truly be better (for e.g. actual editors but also please don’t proclaim that you’re one just because you think the translator hasn’t lived with English for most of their lives or whatever), but even then, the editor has to work really closely with the translator because the translator is the primary source of the translation i.e. they know exactly what is going on in a particular sentence in their heads that may not have been translated fully, so how can non-Chinese reading editors truly understand the translated text on its own, editing in silos?

7. Perhaps in actual publishing houses that deal with official translations, this is a fallacy that is ever-present and editors do that anyway without understanding the original text (not sure about this, I’m bringing up the point for consideration, hypothetically putting this out here), but my issue with ‘editors’ in the fan translations space is that they come off sitting on some high horse because they think they’re better in English than you are (which of course yes, might be true, but then read points 1-6 again)

8. A thief is a thief, don’t put up an open letter or disclaimer explaining your motivations. It’s plain and simple, you stole someone else’s work, claimed it for your own and are riding on the great (sometimes not so great but still great, if you get what I mean) work that the translator did. You don’t get to claim ownership for any part of it, even your edits. And once again, “original work belongs to the translators” without actually naming the translators? Fuck off.

9. God, I hate Wattpad and Instagram (okay sometimes Twitter but Twitter seems to be a halfway point) - The Sanctuaries for Lazy Content Thieves Where The Platform Endorses Their Shitty Behaviour

10. Aside from translations, I’ve also seen assholes stealing like shitposts and jokes - These are the hardest to prove as well and it’s almost impossible to claim ownership when someone steals your jokes. Thieves only wish they had as creative a brain as some of you (didn’t happen to me but to a mutual) do. The audacity. The audacity! if the work was actually done and paid and recorded, if TurnItIn.com was available for fandom posts, these thieves would be out of gas.

11. Fan translators are not obligated to answer to any of their readers when it comes to why they translated something a certain way. You don’t like it or don’t agree with it, simply ignore, close the tab and go find another translation you like, it’s that simple. Nowadays readers 1. Threaten/Diss the translator directly and rudely 2. Steal the work 3. Add their own spin on it without understanding the original content and say: Yay! Look at this I made it so much better so give me some attention 

*****

The point of this post is not to claim ownership over any fandom or content just because translators or Chinese-speaking/reading people in the fandom know the content better. It’s also not to say that non-Chinese speaking/reading people can’t enjoy, understand, have great discussions over original Chinese content, because just from MDZS alone you can see that they can. Of course there are also individuals who might not be able to speak the language but are familiar with Chinese culture etc. because they’ve studied or lived it well, or maybe they’ve actually watched decades of Chinese drama to be able to analyse it properly now, all that’s awesome. 

Also, I’m all for people who are learning Chinese (or any language for that matter) to translate something as practice. That’s great, that’s good, that’s to be admired!! 

It’s non-Chinese speaking/reading people who claim they know the original content better than translators without any discussions, claiming some superiority over the content because they think the translation is not done well enough without doing any of the ground work that I really have an issue with (and also the fuckers who steal of course XD).

*****

And unfortunately I had too much time on my hands today and got pissed off after seeing the tweet so some of you have to read through this drivel XD

[d-criss-news]

Darren Criss acts as playwright when he writes songs. He’s far more confident, and certainly more vulnerable, when he allows himself to play the part. In such a way, songwriting opens up a whole new world that pulses with untapped potential. So much of what he has accomplished in 15 years resides in his willingness to expose himself to what his imagination and intuition have in store. He steps into a playwright’s shoes with considerable ease (just look at his resume), and always one to put on plenty of bravado, especially during our Zoom face-to-face, it’s the natural order of things.

“As I get older and write more and more songs, I really recognize that I’ve always preferred to write for another context other than my own,” Criss tells American Songwriter. He speaks with a cool intensity, gesturing emphatically to accentuate a sentence, and when you let him go, he’s like the Energizer Bunny 一 “I can tell by just how quiet you already are that you’re fucked,” he jokes at the start of our video chat. But he remains just as engaged and focused when listening.

He soaks in the world, taking astute notes about behavior and emotional traits he can later use in song. His storytelling, though, arrives already in character, fully formed portraits he can then relay to the world. It’s not that he can’t be vulnerable, like such greats as Randy Newman, Tom Waits, and Rufus Wainwright, who have all embroidered their work with deeply personal observations, it just doesn’t feel as comfortable. “I’ve always really admired the great songwriters of the world who are extremely introspective and can put their heart and soul on the chopping block,” he muses. “That’s a vulnerability that I think is so majestic. I’ve never had access to it. I’m not mad about it. It’s just good to know what your deal is.”

Criss’ strengths lie in his ability to braid his own experiences, as charmed as they might be, into wild, goofy fantasies. In the case of his new series “Royalties,” now streaming on Quibi, he walks a fine line between pointed commentary on the music industry, from menial songwriting sessions to constantly chasing down the next smash, and oddball comedy that is unequivocally fun. Plotted with long-standing friends and collaborators Matt and Nick Lang, co-founders of Team StarKid, created during their University of Michigan days (circa 2009), the show’s conceptual nucleus dates back more than a decade.

If “Royalties” (starring Criss and Kether Donohue) feels familiar, that’s because it is. The 10-episode show ─ boasting a smorgasbord of delightful guest stars, including Mark Hammill, Georgia King, Julianna Hough, Sabrina Carpenter, and Lil Rel Howery ─ captures the very essence of a little known web series called “Little White Lie.” Mid-summer 2009, Team StarKid uploaded the shoddy, low budget production onto YouTube, and its scrappy tale of amateur musicians seeking fame and fortune quickly found its audience, coming on the heels of “A Very Potter Musical,” co-written with and starring Criss. Little did the trio know, those initial endeavors laid the groundwork for a lifetime of creative genius.

“It’s a full circle moment,” says Criss, 33, zooming from his Los Angeles home, which he shares with his wife Mia. He’s fresh-faced and zestful in talking about the new project. 11 years separate the two series, but their connective thematic tissues remain striking. “Royalties” is far more polished, the obvious natural progression in so much time, and where “Little White Lie” soaked in soapy melodrama, the former analyzes the ins and outs of the music world through more thoughtful writing, better defined (and performed) characters, and hookier original tunes.

“Royalties” follows Sara (Donohue) and Pierce (Criss), two struggling songwriters in Los Angeles, through various career exploits and pursuits. The pilot, titled “Just That Good,” features an outlandish performance from Rufus Wainwright as a major player in dance-pop music, kickstarting the absurdity of Criss’ perfectly-heightened reality. As our two main characters stumble their way between songwriting sessions, finally uncovering hit single potential while eating a hot dog, Criss offers a glimpse into the oft-unappreciated art of songwriting.

In his own songwriting career ─ from 2010’s self-released Human EP and a deal with Columbia Records (with whom a project never materialized) to 2017’s Homework EP and Computer Games’ debut, Lost Boys Life, (a collaboration with his brother Chuck) ─ he’s learned a thing or two about the process. Something about sitting in a room with someone you’ve never met before always rang a little funny to him.

“You meet a stranger, and you have to be creative, vulnerable, and open. It’s speed-dating, essentially. It’s a different episode every time you pull it off or not. All the big songwriters will tell you all these crazy war stories. Everyone has a wacky story from songwriting,” he says. “I slowly realized I may ─ I can’t flatter myself, there are tons of creative people who are songwriters ─ have prerequisites to just put the two together [TV and music]. I’ve worked enough in television as an actor and creator. I can connect the dots. I had dual citizenship where I felt like it was really time for me to go forth with this show.”

But a packed professional life pushed the idea to the backburner.

Between six seasons of “Glee” (playing Blaine Anderson, a Warbler and lover to Chris Colfer’s Kurt Hummel), starring in “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” on Broadway, and creating Elsie Fest, a one-day outdoor festival celebrating songs of the stage and screen, he never had the time. “I was lucky enough to be busy,” he says. “As Team StarKid’s star was continuing to rise with me being separate from it, I was trying to think of a way to get involved again with songwriting.”

At one point, “Glee” had officially wrapped and his Broadway run was finished. It appeared “Royalties” may finally get its day in the sun. “I went to Chicago for a work pilgrimage with the Langs. We had a few days, and we put all our ideas on the map: every musical, feature film, show, graphic novel, and animated series we’ve ever thought of,” he says. “A lot of them were from the Langs; they were just things I was interested in as a producer or actor. We looked at all of them and made a top three.”

“Royalties” obviously made the cut.

Fast forward several years, Gail Berman’s SideCar, a production company under FOX Entertainment, was looking to produce a music show. Those early conversations, beginning at an otherwise random LA party, showed great promise in airlifting the concept from novel idea to discernible reality. Things quickly stalled, however, as they often do in Hollywood, but Criss had at least spoken his dreams into the universe.

“I finally had an outlet to put it into gear. It wasn’t until two to three years after that that things really locked in. We eventually made shorts and made a pilot presentation. We showed it to people, and it wasn’t until Quibi started making their presence known that making something seemed really appealing,” he says. “As a creator, they’re very creator-centric. They’re not a studio. They’re a platform. They are licensing IP much like when a label licenses an indie band’s album after the fact.”

Quibi has drawn severe ire over the last few months, perhaps because there is a “Wild Westness” to it, Criss says. “I think that makes some people nervous. Being my first foray into something of this kind, Quibi felt like a natural partner for us. If this had been a network or cable show, we would’ve molded it to be whatever it was.”

Format-wise, “Royalties” works best as bite-sized vignettes, charming hijinks through the boardroom and beyond, and serves as a direct response to a sea of music shows, from “Nashville” and “Empire” to “Smash.” “Those shows were bigger, more melodramatic looks at the inside base of our world. I’ve always been a goofball, and I just wanted to take the piss out of it,” he says. “This show isn’t about songwriting. It’s about songwriters… but a very wacky look at them.”

“30 Rock,” a scripted comedy loosely based around “Saturday Night Live,” in which the focus predominantly resides around the characters, rather than the business itself, was also on his mind. “It’s about the interconnectivity of the people and characters. As much of the insider knowledge that I wanted to put into our show, at the end of the day, you just want to make a fun, funny show that’s relatable to people who know nothing about songwriting and who shouldn’t have to know anything.”

Throughout 10 episodes, Criss culls the “musicality, fun, and humor” of Fountains of Wayne’s Adam Schlesinger and Max Martin, two of his biggest songwriting heroes, and covers as many genres as possible, from K-Pop to rap-caviar and classic country. While zip-lining between formats, the songs fully rely on a sturdy storytelling foundation ─ only then can Criss drape the music around the characters and their respective trajectories. “I wanted to do something where I could use all the muscles I like to flex at once, instead of compartmentalizing them,” he says. “I really love writing songs for a narrative, not necessarily for myself. I thrive a little more when I have parameters, characters, and a story to tell.”

Bonnie McKee, one of today’s greatest pop architects, takes centerstage, too, with an episode called “Kick Your Shoes Off,” in which she plays a bizarro version of herself. “She has her own story, and I’ve always been fascinated by it,” says Criss, who took her out to lunch one day to tell her about it. Initially, the singer-songwriter, known for penning hits for Katy Perry, Taio Cruz, and Britney Spears, would anchor the entire show, but it soon became apparent she would simply star in her own gloriously zany episode.

In one of the show’s standout scenes, Pierce and Sara sit in on a label meeting with McKee’s character and are tasked with writing a future hit. But they quickly learn how many cooks are in the kitchen at any given moment. Everyone from senior level executives to publicists and contracted consultants have an opinion about the artist’s music. One individual urges her to experiment, while another begs not to alienate her loyal fanbase, and then a third advises her to chronicle the entire history of music itself ─ all within three minutes or so. It’s absurd, and that’s the point. “Everyone’s been in that meeting, whether you’re in marketing or any creative discussion that has to be made on a corporate level by committee. It’s the inevitable, comedic contradictions and dissociations from not only rationality but feasibility.”

Criss also draws upon his own major label days, having signed with Sony/Columbia right off the set of “Glee,” as well as second-hand accounts from close friends. “There are so many artists, particularly young artists, who famously get chewed up and spat out by the label system,” he says. “There’s a lot of sour tastes in a lot of people’s mouths from being ‘mistreated’ by a label. I have a lot of friends who’ve had very unfortunate experiences.”

“I was really lucky. I didn’t have that. I have nothing but wonderful things to say,” he quickly adds.“It wasn’t a full-on drop or anything. I was acting, and I was spreading myself really thin. It’s a record label’s job to make product, and I was doing it piecemeal here and there. I would shoot a season [of ‘Glee’] and then do a play. I was doing too many things. I didn’t have it in me at the time to do music. I had written a few songs I thought were… fine.”

Both Criss and the label came to the same conclusion: perhaps this professional relationship just wasn’t a good fit. They parted ways, and he harbors no ill-will. In fact, he remains close friends with many folks from that time. So, it seems, a show like “Royalties” satisfies his deep hunger to make music and write songs ─ and do it totally on his own terms.

“I still say I want to put out music, and fans have been very vocal about that. I feel very fortunate they’re still interested at all,” he says. “That passion for making music really does come out in stuff like [this show].”

“Royalties” is Darren Criss at his most playful, daring, and offbeat. It’s the culmination of everything he has tirelessly worked toward over the last decade and a half. Under pressure with a limited filming schedule, he hits on all cylinders with a soundtrack, released on Republic Records, that sticks in the brain like all good pop music should do. And it would not have been the same had he, alongside Matt and Nick Lang, not formed Team StarKid 11 years ago.

Truth be told, it all began with a “Little White Lie.”

[thefloatingstone]

We’ve gone from Self-Isolation to Quarantine and in some places to gradual relaxation phases, but that doesn’t stop the need for more nonsense you can watch on youtube while you wait for things to get back to normal. And recommending things and making lists are some of my favourite things to do but I have not yet figured out how to start or structure a video myself, you guys get another rambling tumblr post of things you can watch on youtube.

This time I’m once again just gonna recommend individual videos rather than full channels like I did in part 2.

Part 1

Part 2

In no particular order; 

LOCAL58: The Broadcast Station that Manipulates You

I recently started watching the Nexpo channel when I went on a binge of creepy youtube videos. Most of his videos are really good although the ones where he himself goes into theory crafting can be a little asinine. However, this video is REALLY good. And before you get nervous, LOCAL58 is not a real TV station. LOCAL58 is a youtube channel created by the same guy behind the Candle Cove creepypasta. This video by Nexpo covers the various episodes of LOCAL58 and discusses them. Just be aware going in that this is abstract horror, and will probably get under your skin regardless if you’re unaffected by certain topics or not. although cw for suicide mention.

I also recommend most of the rest of this channel, although be careful where you tread. I don’t recommend his series “Disturbing things from around the internet” as it can sometimes include real life crime, abuse and such caught on security cameras. Everything else is really good tho. (although I was really annoyed by his 2 videos on KrainaGrzybowTV)

The Search for D.B. Cooper

LEMMiNO has a new video out covering one of the most unexplained crimes in the past century of the US. LEMMiNO is the guy I’ve recommended before who did videos on the Universal S. He is very down to earth and not someone prone to conspiracy or even really that fanciful of thinking. (He’s like the one person I feel covered the Dyaltov Pass incident and was confused by why this was even a mystery because if you read the Russian Autopsy reports and documents associated with the case it’s all pretty logical and easily explained)

D.B. Cooper is the name given to a man who, in 1971, hijacked an airplane with a bomb, asked for a large sum of money, and after receiving it, parachuted from the plane and was never seen or heard from again.

The Austrian Wine Poisoning | Down the Rabbit Hole

Down the Rabbit Hole also has a new video out, this time covering the Austrian Wine Poisoning event from 1985. A scandal that involved literally the entire country of Austria, affected multiple countries, and forever changed the way wine was made world wide. As someone who is generally pretty allergic to most artificial substances this one made me personally very angry. But luckily, it has a happy ending and a better world for us all... if I could drink wine which I can’t do anyway.

The Turbulent Tale of Yandere Dev - A Six Year Struggle

The Right Opinion is another channel I only recently subbed to after watching his cover on Onion Boy. I put off subbing to him simply because of his channel name and I thought it meant he would come across as smug and elitist. Luckily this seems to merely be one of those “I chose a bad channel name and now I’m stuck with it” type of situations. (IHE has a similar problem).

Anyway, I have a weird interest in bizarre internet personalities, so I’ve been enjoying his channel as he simply discusses and presents a timeline of events of certain individuals. In this video, he covers the developer behind the much maligned Yandere Simulator. It’s a tale of hubris, arrogance, immaturity, and an unwillingness to accept your own shortcomings due to ego.

Oh and there’s a meme game about Japanese school girls with anime tiddies in there as well.

The Most Relaxing Anime Ever Made | Yokohama Kaidashi Kikō

Kenny Lauderdale is a youtube channel which is slowly becoming bigger which I’m very happy to see. He exclusively covers anime and live action Japanese television no younger than the mid 90s (as is the case with YYK) and which usually never saw a release outside of Japanese Laserdisc. I do wish his videos were a little longer, but if nothing else his videos serve as an excellent starting to point to find some older and underappreciated shows... or hot garbage fires. In this episode he talks about the 2 OVA episodes made based on one of my favourite manga, Yokohama Shopping Log. A Post apocalyptic anime about an android who runs a coffee shop outside of her house, and the quiet solitude of living in a world of declining human population, brief encounters with travelers and other people, and just... existing. The anime was never released outside of Japan and is only available on Japanese VHS and laserdisc.... but hey guess what!! Somebody uploaded both episodes, subbed, to Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2HCVOH6DtA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqSTwfkobME

YMS’ slow descent into madness as he uncovers just how bullshit the Kimba Conspiracy is

I’m linking a full playlist for this one.

YMS is busy planning his review on the “live action” Lion King remake as the original 1994 movie is probably his favourite movie all time (and also self declared what made him a furry). As part of the 2 hour review, he decided to what all 2000 hours of Kimba the White Lion just to mention how The Lion King potentially stole the idea. ....until he actually watched all 2000 hours of Kimba and realised that if you actually WATCH Kimba, it has VERY little to do with the Lion King at all apart from having the same animals in them because AFRICA. Watch as one man slowly loses his mind as he realises just how stupid this conspiracy theory is, just HOW DECEITFUL and straight up LYING people can be. People who write BOOKS. People who teach LAW AT UNIVERSITIES. Because NOBODY bothered to actually watch the entire show and just parroted the “Disney stole this” lie which got started by like 2 salty fans on the internet.

The man set out to just mention how Disney stole an idea, and uncovered one of the most infuriating rabbit holes on the internet. Screaming for SOMEONE to provide him with sources or evidence.

YMS will be publishing his full Kimba documentary this month which he has said is around 2 hours long before he continues to work on the Lion King one.

Science Stories: Loch Ness eDNA results, Poop Knives, and Skeleton Lovers

TREY the Explainer has a video giving us some updates in Archeology from 2019. In this video he discusses the findings of the eDNA results conducted on the Loch Ness to see what animal DNA the lake contains which will tell us what living animals currently inhabit the lake, ancient knives made of poop and if this is a real thing that could have existed, and a skeleton couple found buried together which were at first thought to be lovers, then revealed to be both male, and then how in this instance we cannot let our modern sensibilities dictate what we WANT this burial find to be, but to look at the evidence as presented to us and place in context finds of this nature. The worst thing an archaeologist can do is look for proof to a theory they already have.

The Bizarre Modern Reality of Sonic the Hedgehog

Super Eyepatch Wolf is back and he’s here to talk to us about the very very strange existence of Sonic. a 90s rebellious “too cool for School” answer to Mario, a lost idea as the world of video games changes and culture shifted, a meme and punching bag amplified by a unique fanbase and poor quality games, a transcendence into a horrific warped  idea of what he once was, and modern day and where Sonic and his fans are now. As usual Super Eyepatch Wolf knocks it out of the park.

Kokoro Wish and the Birth of a Multiverse: A Lecture on the Work of Jennifer Diane Reitz

I don’t even sub to this channel as I’m not entirely sure what Ben’s usual content is about. But every now and then he has a “101″ class, where he explains to a room full of his friends in a classroom setting (complete with Whiteboard) an internet artist and oddity, the timeline, and what it is they have created. (wait... didn’t I say this already?). Unlike TRO however, the 101 classrooms are not a dark look into disturbed individuals (although the CWC 101 is debatable) nor is it a “lol look at this weirdo” dragging. Instead, of the 3 he’s done so far, it’s usually a rather sympathetic look at some of the strange artists on the internet who through some way or another, left a very big cultural impact on the internet space through their art. Sometimes they may not be the best people, but their work is so outside of what we’re used to seeing that just listening to him run you through these people’s internet history is fascinating.

In this episode he talks about Jennifer Diane Reitz. And although it is titled Kokoro Wish, the lecture is more about Jennifer’s larger work back in the early internet when being a weeb was unheard of, how being trans influenced her stories and characters, and her world building that is so rich and in-depth with it’s own ASTRO PHYSICS it puts any modern fictional world found in games or movies to shame.

Jennifer is not exactly a nice person... and in many ways can be seen as dangerously irresponsible, but she created something truly unique in a way that you kinda struggle figuring out if it’s terrible or a work of genius.

Anyway I think that’s enough for now

[pochapal]

rank every year of the 2010s from best to worst i want some pochapal lore

[warning for discussion of my fucked up mental health and my myriad traumas. we’re really opening the pandora’s box here gang]

ok time for me to overshare on the internet again! super long post because i can’t shut up and you asked for it. anyway, by objective ranking: 

#1: 2012 - halcyon era, my personal peak. spent the whole year writing hunger games oc fics with my deviantart fanfiction besties whom i still think about all the time and always hope are having the best possible day. if you were here for this era understand i still hold you so closely and dearly in my heart <3. 

#2: 2013 - god i was such a good example of a human being back then. was the year my writing like actually took off and i had a healthy balance between creative stuff and a social life (said social life consisting of spending lunchtimes at school breaking into classrooms and discussing fandom shit with five other people. reading homestuck updates in the music room on one person’s really shaky mobile data...legendary). highlight of the year and maybe my life was in the april of 2013 when i got out of failing to submit a hard deadline essay by telling my english teacher i wrote a whole novel over the two week break and then producing said novel. god i wish i had that level of like. fucking confidence back me back then knew what i wanted and how to get it. 

#3: 2010 - the last year of childhood. i was 12 and played pokemon all the time with my friends and went places and had a moderately successful youtube channel and it didn’t matter that i was bullied so badly at school because i was basically high off life. summer of 2010 was so good specifically. i’d used to get the bus with a friend and go see movies and break into historical sites and get into normal childhood mayhem and maxed out my pokewalkers twice a month and i was buzzed because i had two (2) whole friendship groups to choose from and that was such a huge deal to me the terminal social outcast. it was so simple and carefree and even though everything and everyone involved in this era grew up to suck except for one specific person i kinda really miss it.

#4: 2018 - this was the first year i wasn’t depressed to the point of nonfunctioning. it was 20gayteen, i was on antidepressants, i was as close to thriving as i got at uni (going into town with people once a week, attending art and culture events, getting good grades across the board), i started to write for fun again, i got my cat whom i love dearly, i was exhibited in my uni’s city’s literature festival, GOD i actually nearly attended a pride event that year can you imagine. this year was basically my life’s second peak. miss getting the 8am train and daintily sipping on a cherry coke to keep me from passing out. wish this time could have lasted longer.

#5: 2019 - kinda absolute middle of the road year not for lack of anything happening but because the overwhelming amount of good and bad things cancelled each other out. so like there’s the fact that i was at the top of my uni game this year, was basically making the first steps into a professional writing career (covid i will never forgive you for killing all that dead </3), finally saved up enough to buy myself a gaming pc, and the summer after the homestuck epilogues, but equally 2019 was the start of the Pochapal Gender Fiasco which is by far the most horrible thing i am still currently undergoing and i burnt myself out mentally about halfway through the year (being stuck overnight in a hospital for a panic attack absolutely horrible horrible irredeemable) and then got like super death plague flu that i was sick with for three months (literally recovered less than a month before rona hit. god’s cruel karma.). so like...it kind of averaged out? the good shit was good but not as great as other years and the bad shit was awful but nowhere near as terrible as it could have been. gotta give a shoutout to 90% of my current mutual cohort for following me in 2019...omelette route gang make some noise !!

#6: 2014 - oof. this year essentially marked the start of a four year long downward mental health spiral because everything fell into awful alignment. i’d just turned 16, finished secondary school, had all my friends up and ditch me at once, was home alone for a whole summer, and was hit with Sudden Intense Body Image Issues that i couldn’t explain until uh. after very recent developments lmao. this one goes out to the me of july 2014 who did nothing but lay in bed and listen to the same two marina albums on a loop because fuck i’m attracted to men and also my facial and body hair are really starting to come in and if i think about this for too long i will literally kill myself because oh god i can’t handle getting older which is clearly and definitely the issue going on here. my brain fucking broke super hardcore and it’s a miracle that an overeating disorder was like the worst thing i walked away with. 

#7: 2015 - downward spiral year two!! i was so volatile this year it was such a mess. i was totally socially isolated after a brief stint of falling in with a group of people at the start of my first year of sixth form until january where in quick succession a) it turned out every single one of these people was friends with the person who sexually assaulted me whom i obviously had a lot of complicated feelings towards and b) baby’s first crush came out as bisexual but in the “women and also trans women” kind of way which tore me up so terribly in ways i couldn’t begin to understand. no words for the experience of seeing a girl kiss a boy and crying so hard at night you threw up because you could never be her no matter how much you wanted it. actually kinda get the sense what was going on there was bigger than just some crush lmao. then after that i was so mentally ill i basically attended school less than half the time and it was the only year in my life i failed my exams. i ended up having to resit my entire set of first year a level exams because jesus christ was i in such a bad way it was a miracle i even showed up to them. all i did was either have anxiety attacks or enter bedbound depressive slumps for weeks at a time. but it’s okay because it gets worse.

#8: 2016 - downward spiral act iii: the spiralling. prefacing this by saying that i actually had two whole good months (april - may) in that i was functioning enough to do my exams and finish school with decent grades. the rest was super extra mega terrible. my school attendance for year 13 dipped below 65% and literally the only thing that kept me from being kicked out was the fact that i was naturally smart at the subjects i took and also because the school would have a lot to answer for after letting me get to that state despite having a hefty file on how damaged i was. keep in mind every single part of this was fully untreated btw - i was just floundering around and letting it all fester. i spent three solid weeks going to school but locking myself in the bathroom all day every day and having mental health episodes then going home like nothing else happened only to continue the breakdown that night. then things got kicked into fucked up overdrive when i moved out to uni and was cut off from what little support structures i did have. it was so bad all i did was cry all the time and never went anywhere to the point where three separate sources recommended me to the wellbeing and crisis counselling service that i stopped going to after two sessions because i was fucked up in ways cbt techniques could not even touch. at least i tried to make an effort for the first two months of uni which like. good for me?

#9: 2017 - what lieth at the base of the spiral. helltrench year. i was at literal rock bottom. i stopped going to class, i didn’t hand in a single piece of work. i lied to my parents and would book trains each day only to go back to my student flat and sit there and contemplate suicide. like i would just slump on the floor in a catatonic state and vividly contemplate one of four or so ways i could end my own life. i only didn’t because i wanted to wait until the summer to collect my last student loan and transfer it to my parents as an apology for my death which obviously didn’t end up happening. honestly i can’t remember much of the first half of 2017 that’s how bad it was. i remember taking a gender studies class and the teacher made it Weird that i was the Only Male Student in the room and then she sent me a scolding email after i walked out halfway through a class and never returned. apparently i got into a lot of online discourse in this year but i don’t remember anything other than being put on a blocklist by the milkfic author over ace discourse which is funny if you have the context. mostly i just baited terfs and weirdo freaks to get them to say horrible things to me as what i guess amounts to some kind of digital self harm. anyway breaking point came in late august when i got kicked out of university and then nobody could ignore it any more so there was no choice left but for me to seek out help and recover enough to function which luckily i did. i really Do Not remember 2017. you could tell me anything about that year and i’d probably believe you.

#10: 2011 - extra circle of hell for this little fucked up gem of a year. on the surface it wasn’t actually that terrible, until the Summer 2011 Domino Effect Of Bad Shit. up until like may/june it was a pretty all right year! i was 13 and had a surprisingly successful youtube channel uploading pokemon soundfont remixes to an audience of i think ~350-400 subscribers at my peak? anyway then i got hit with the early summer triple combo of childhood friends moving away, cute and quirky sexual assault at the hands of a person in my friend group, and then having some Really Great and Super Appropriate interactions with adults on deviantart. like obviously there’s the actual ptsd-inducing event which totally disrupted and killed the person i was right up until that moment and reshaped every facet of my life for better or worse (there’s an alternate timeline where that didn’t happen and i got into electronic music and/or coding instead) but really it’s the events that followed in its wake which were kind of more fucked up. so like all of a sudden i was super aware of my body and me growing my hair out and being mistaken for a girl in class suddenly became this Less Innocent thing and i ended up spending hours overnight going to transgender questioning forums and looking up hrt timeline videos and having the wikipedia article on tracheal shaving saved because it was a life raft to me whose voice was imminently gonna deepen and i was simultaneously reeling with constant trauma flashbacks and the whole thing was so so fucked up. then i was on deviantart and i don’t remember exactly how but a small group of furry guys ten to fifteen years older than me started messaging me and encouraging and requesting me to produce nonsexual fetish stuff for them and talking to me about stuff like if i’d ever thought about growing up to be gay and i didn’t think anything of it for a long while because they called me a very talented writer and it felt so good to have someone be nice to me after being so alone and isolated for months on end. anyway the only reason i got out of that before it got bad was because they invited me to one of the big furry sites and i was weirded out because i thought it was a porn site and thinking about sexual stuff was a huge trauma trigger so i just ended up blocking them all and pretending like it didn’t happen. at the time half this shit didn’t bother me but in retrospect holy fuck 2011 was such a damaging year. to think if like three events didn’t happen i wouldn’t be the fucked up mess you see before you today.

god fuck this turned out super long but i’m not apologising because this was a therapeutic exercise for me and also constitutes as one of the biggest pochapal lore dumps of all time. come get your food or whatever.