#but I would probably feel less ick if I just did the damn things and then went back to my drafts so...we'll see lmao

[izzy-b-hands]

I want to write so badly; I'm waiting on the usual survey sites to get some more that I can actually do, and I have time to write...

And my brain doesn't wamt* to. :(

*wamt here meaning my brain feels physically tired and i just. don't want to do much of anything at all, but if I sit here doing nothing my brain also hates that.

[sonyadance]

Travels and Dancing 20

I like writing these.  They calm my nervous system down, help me figure out what the heck happened, because, damn life happens!  Some people tell me that that’s what my next book should be about: travels and dancing.  I agree, I want it also, but it’s not there.  I’ve tried many times to write a book and the only one that actually came out all the way to publishing is the one that had a clear structure, direction and just basically got vomited through my fingers.  A bit like when I write these texts… but these are like a glorified journal, not interesting enough to publish for the world to see.  Actually… for the world to buy.

I’m so happy with where I’ve come from in the last year and where I’m going, but, as always, I have to pace myself better: the new year barely started and I’m exhausted.  I have one day off in two months.  I don’t think that’s healthy… so reorganization is on the table.  Everything I hated before, I now understand how it serves me.  Having a routine allows me to spend less time finding where everything is and just going; having structure gives me the freedom to move, build and create.  There is definitely more work to do in those areas, but going from feeling the ick in my body just hearing those words (routine, daily, structure, authority, Québec, family) to wanting them.  Wow.  Path in my own back.

We did another iteration of Le Chalet wcs with Phil and Flore in August of last year.  I love these two so much.  As always, I was really slow in understanding that they wanted my friendship, they reached out so many times before my brain actually went: oh, ok, they want to be friends, they are friends.  They are amazing people, aligned in their values, hardworking, a beautiful example to have around.  And I know things are probably not always pink and fluffy for them, but if you read this: you inspire me to be a better person, and that having a family, being stable and dancing can all go hand in hand.  I love you.

Le Chalet was amazing as always: 35 people sleeping in the same house, eating together, training, dancing, playing games, sharing.  It’s definitely one of my favorite weekend of the year.  I love seeing how the community grows stronger by people having time to share more intimately, play and just sharing the same space.  This is definitely something that we’ll keep holding as long as possible!

Then it was the Country Festival of St-Michel-des-Saints.  Me and two of my best friend in this world drove there, rented a little cottage, cooked, ate, drank, danced into the night and partied at the Festival.  An honorable mention for your host who won the title of Mechanical Bull Queen of the festival!  What did I win?  Pride.  Lots of it.  Bruises.  Even more of it.  A bit of bleeding and shaky leg (where not going there).  Was it worth it?  100% would recommend.  100% won’t do it again.  We found the party with the line dancer and I don’t know if it was the euphoria of the whole thing, but I got carried into it for the first time in my life.  If you’ve seen me at events, I’ve been mostly on the side of the dancefloor for all line dance type things…  I has a blast there!  Maybe it was the weekend I had spent at the Calgary Dance Stampede in April, seeing videos of my then roommate Mackenzie Keister, who made it look really cool, but it made me want to do country.  Something might be brewing on that front. ;-)

September was for training and resetting.  Anybody knows Noah Kahan?  I discovered him when he released the Stick Season single and fell in love.  I had just bought my first car ever and listened to that tune non-stop while driving in BC.  I would go for cold dips in the morning as the sun would rise and blast it.  I honestly think this whole album helped me re-acclimate to Québec, which wasn’t my first choice of place to settle, but has so many of the people I love.  The melancholy of it.  Making winter, slowness and boredom feel attractive through the poetry of it all.  Sincerely, thank you Noah.  So last summer, as I was driving to Halifax for a contract with a student and friend of mine, I played Noah’s album over and over and mentioned that this is the one artist I would love to go see live.  My student found tickets for Toronto and there we were screaming our heads off at the Budweiser Stage in Toronto a couple months later.  Probably the best concert I’ve been to in my life (ok, I really have been to like 5 concerts ever, but still…)  I’m so happy for that memory before the tickets became 400$+.

I then drove to Sherbrooke to give a teacher’s training and a couple workshops.  Gosh, I love my job.  I love teaching so much.  Some dancers I know do it because it’s the part that pays the most, but, for me, it’s the best part!  Anything I do, I do it in the frame of mind of teaching it, if I don’t, I lose interest real fast.  Teacher’s training are the summit: passionate people who are interested in details and want to ingest as much information as possible to then share it with their world?  Gold.

I had a weekend home so I invited my new dancer partner to practice and actually meet.  Oh yeah, I didn’t tell you.  One day, I saw a video of a baby novice dancer and said to myself: I don’t know who that is, but he’s mine before he gets to All-Star and people finally realize that he’s as good as I know he is.  I then proceeded to stalk him (in a totally legal and respectful manner) and ask him if he was available for a call.  I told him what I saw in him, he told me his story and he planned to come up for two days.  Then in a fun turn of events, I happened to have to move that weekend.  So hi Aaron, nice to meet you, here’s half my family and thanks for moving my mattress and underwear and sleeping on a mattress on the floor in a half empty apartment with me.  Great introduction.  We had a blast anyway, sharing, constructing plans and trying liftwork for a potential routine.  The weekend after, I was in Austin to choreograph for us with Glenn Ball.  I love choreographing and I am always drawn to share a story I’ve created or seem important to share, and we needed a leader that knew more about swing.  It was a whirlwind of a weekend with awesome people having me over, a few games of laser tag, riding in my dream car (black mustang) and being dragged to a country evening… which also re-kindled/re-confirmed the country love affair!

Then came, one of the craziest thing I’ve ever done: registering for a pole competition after being grounded (literally, not flying… with apparatus, I still took the plane) because of a shoulder injury, having health problem that got me bedridden for a couple of months, basically being in the worse shape of my life.  I registered mid-august, so I had two months to choreograph, train, get in pole shape, create the music, and order costumes.  At the time, I also thought that I didn’t have a partner for The Open so it was going to give me the motivation to train for something else, but I ended up having two partners and creating two dance routines at the same time, finding and cutting music, getting costumes for that and trying to find travel time to meet my partners.

To my surprise, I won.  I didn’t even have a competitive goal in mind.  What I wanted to do was present something that was so clear that it gave me a business cards to get gigs with other polers.  I don’t need to become world pole champion, I want to help people who have so much more abilities and/or fire than me, create a routine that resembles them, has smooth transition and is sound.  I didn’t manage to run my full until the day before.  I rented an extra studio hour in Toronto and succeeded once.  Perfect, ready to go.  I told myself that a lot of things could go wrong with a pole routine (dealing with different poles, slipping, speed of rotation, angles, height, distance between poles, angles on static), but that I knew my routine, my song, my theme and myself enough, that I could make it work and present a show that I’d be proud of.  After 2m on stage to rehearse… which means you don’t have your music, you don’t get to run the whole thing, there are 3 other people on stage with you… I went on to do make-up, watch other performance, wait and finally get on stage.  It felt so good.  Pole audiences are normally very loud, but during half of my performance there was not a sound to be heard.  Which can be a really good or really bad thing.  I was so proud.  People came to me after to tell me I’ve touched them and that they heard my story and that’s all I needed.

For those who haven’t seen that routine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3PFKdHvSUKU&t=14s

Montreal Westie Fest came around.  The hometown event where I always felt welcomed, loved and seen no matter where I was coming from at the time.  Stephen came in town so we could choreograph and we won the pro strictly.  I hadn’t felt that good dancing in a competition in a long time.  That also felt like home.  We know each other so well, it just flows.  I had an awesome lumber jack and jill where you are randomly paired with different levels and performing battle style.  I drew Alex Glover who reminded me he did his first pro-am jack and jill (actually the winner of novices got to dance with a pro) at Montreal Westie Fest a few years back and now we were dancing together and we were sitting side by side as he was competing in the pro strictly as well.  I love full circle moments like that, they feel so warm and fulfilling.

Vidéo of Stephen and I:

Calgary was next and what a freaking weekend!  I got there a couple of days early to meet my best friend Kim who moved to BC a couple years ago.  We rented a hotel, roamed around, bought cowboy hats, and went totally berserk in the hotel pool.  Then I met Nelson at the event hotel and some of the shenanigans we got up to that weekend are definitely not shareable through this media.  All I can tell you is that there are videos of it and that most people thought I was drunk off my ass, but I actually had two glasses of wine in the entire weekend.  One of my great idea was to get inflatable costumes to do a two-steps before the real presentation.  I forgot to mention, it was Halloween weekend.  So Nelson and I got into these giant pig costumes, blew them up and went down for the show.  As we started, I realized that we hadn’t tried dancing at all in them and that every time my arm was lifted for a turn (and it is often in a two-steps) I couldn’t see anything; that every time a wrap happened (and it happens often in a two-step) it would squish my whole body and bounce me back out.  Then my costume started to deflate, the pomp dangling down my leg and… let me tell you it was the worse or the best demo you’ve ever seen.  It all depends on perspective.

I was home for a weekend after that (halleluiah!)  So I decided to do a house warming party in my new apartment: after all, one of the reasons to have a home is to be able to have people over, no?  I invited my closest friends and family with all their kids… and this stranger I had talked to online a few months ago.  I’ll explain.  I created an account on Hinge to show guys profile to my brother as I was talking from a woman perspective what I found interesting and might catch my eyes.  I kept it to swipe left on everybody when I was bored at night and feel better about myself with all the likes coming in.  For some unknown reason to this day, I swiped right on this guy’s profile, then forgot about it because I was never going to talk to him, but then he wrote again.  We talked for three weeks (I was always out of Montreal), it was easy and nice, but after some thoughts, I realized I still wasn’t ready to meet anybody after the disaster of my last relationship.  I told him so and expected to be told off.  Instead he sent me a really nice message with his number for if I wanted to contact him in the future.  Long story short, I meet him by chance in September, we talk for 5m, and I tell him it was really nice to meet him, that I’d like to meet again in a couple months.  Fast forward to October, we’ve texted a bit, I finally have my own apartment, my life is getting settled, I feel ready, so yeah, I invited him to my house warming party with a bunch of strangers (to him).  He came.  The rest will have to go inside of another story book, but we’ve now met most of each other’s family and friends, spent the holidays together and he’s coming on a dance cruise with me in May.

Back to our initial topic: dance.  As a last minute decision to get some time to rehearse with Stephen before The Open, I flew to Seattle to spend a few days at his place, meet his lovely life partner, rehearse like maniacs, chill and head to Sea to Sky.  Sea to Sky was a really relaxed event for me, which I’m not really use to: I didn’t have workshops to teach, no judging, just a few privates, rehearsals with Stephen, floor trial and performance after a grand total of a few hours over 5 days of training for that routine.  I’d say it went pretty well for the context.  It gave us the information we needed to know what to adjust before the big day… in our head because we could only meet on the Thursday of The Open. Loll.  You got to love the rush!

I went home for 36h (had a glass of wine with mystery Hinge man) and left for Philadelphia to train with Aaron.  We had a few hours between workshops I gave, private lessons we both had, leaving for DCSX where we had some coaching down, I taught some more, judged a few comps, competed and finaled in Champion JnJ and Strictly.  We also had the opportunity to see a basketball match live in the VIP section.  Freaking loved it (also sent tons of videos to mystery man who loves basketball)!

And there it was, the most expected weekend of the year for most of us: The Open.  After consulting with friends I trust and having hard discussions, we decided to scratch the showcase routine with Aaron.  My friends basically told me: you were right he’s extremely talented, you could run it, but your routine is not quite ready yet and it’d be better to leave a great first impression than an ok one.  Aaron was glad to also have a first year at The Open to be an observer soak in the vibe and feel more ready for when the moment will be right.  Stephen and I performed in Classic on Saturday.  I say performed and not competed because our intention was wildly different.  Not only we knew that a total of maybe 14 hours (with many curve balls thrown at us), was not quite enough to do something highly competitive, but also because we wanted to present something that was us.  A feel good routine.  Something you want to watch with a hot cocoa, wrapped in a big blanket.  A window into some other people’s inner world.  And we did just that.  I’m really proud of the results and especially proud of the fact that it inspired other artists around us and, for me, that’s one of the highest compliment… along with people writing me that it was their young kids’ favorite routine!!!

Stephen and I’s routine:

We rented a huge Airbnb by the beach with Stephen, Jacinda, Aaron, Brad, Jerome, Alyssa and Sean to get some rest and reset before TAP.  How did I rest?  By going to a silks` class, copying cabaret liftwork with Aaron and partying for Alyssa’s birthday.  It started all nice and fun until a party bus was called at 11pm and we got taken to a random karaoke bar and… the next day was hard.  Just thinking about it, I’m getting tired.  Another honorable mention for me who traumatized the young adult boy partying next door.

TAP came along and I did the classic mistake I often do: party like an animal and stay on the dancefloor until 6am on the Friday because I’m so excited to be there and then be completely trash for the Saturday night. A classic, loll.  I have to admit I was really sad about not making finals and being able to dance with my peers in strictly.  I don’t know why, but TAP is the only event that gives me that feeling: it’s like being left out.  I did have the chance to do a smooth demo with Joel Torgeson for the Invitational.  I also took a few privates which triggered some fire and interest in me that I hadn’t felt in a while.

I came back to Montreal on the 5th of December and got my wisdom teeth removed the next day.  Never too old to get wise!  NO, but seriously, the entire month of November, while I was in the States and gearing towards The Open, I had a tooth infection, got some antibiotics that knocked me out and was just in pain the whole time.  The extraction went really poorly, I had to take two sets of antibiotics, my jaw was so locked I couldn’t open my mouth, I couldn’t eat, I’m allergic to all anti-inflammatories so I was in pain, I couldn’t eat for a week, couldn’t work for two… it was a mess.  All the while mystery man came over (there is a specific reason I manage to swallow my pride and let him see me like this so early on, but I won’t get into it now) petted my hair while holding an ice pack in my face and talking to me for two hours since I couldn’t speak.  That’ll accelerate the bonding process…

Besides that mess to end 2023 kind of how it started, I had a great holiday season, got to see my friends and my family in Montreal, went to a fun chalet for the New Year (first year in a long time that I’m not working an event at that time, it felt kind of nice!) and spend quality time with everybody before my crazy winter schedule started.  I am now teaching every evening between pole dancing, aerial art, yoga, wcs group and private lessons of different levels at different locations, and I am gone most every weekends for different gigs.  I already miss seeing my people.  Once everything is settled and my life has a bit more of a rebuilt, I will free at least a weekend a month and an evening a week so I can have a social life with “normal” people. ;-)

I’m excited for what’s to come, but I also need a solid nap and some healthy food.  Help!

[onlyhereforangst]

Well now I must know what you think about tcr!!!!! Give us the details bestie

well. I will not be nearly as eloquent as you BUT. I definitely have only watched eps 6-8 and frankly. I don’t feel like I’ve missed a damn thing, glad I saved five hours of my life tbh.

the acting is phenomenal & the cinematography is v pleasing for the central theme of the show. what pisses me the fuck off (not having watched the first, slow five hours mind you or else it would probably be pacing) is just the general treatment of mental health & women that is not unexpected in a show set in that time period. like am I surprised? no. but having a DA who definitely nonverbally showed empathy for the defendant & his condition then go and say I’m not giving him a pass bc he’s white and the justice system is inherently racist so they didn’t get a pass AND go on about how she’s going to mercilessly make this man a monster in front of a jury?? anyways that scene is what gave me the ick. idk two things can be true at one time. the system can be fucked up against people of color but the system can ALSO be fucked up against people with mental illnesses. maybe she wasn’t supposed to read empathy in that pretrial meeting and then it feels less disjointed but at the same time it thematically makes less sense for her to NOT feel empathy there imo. idk I’m probably not explaining that well but regardless that’s what irritated me outside of everyone constantly telling rya to shut up and take up less space.

another thing! what is going on with her relationship with her son??? there seemed to be a clear turning point when she learned about adam’s (& likely Danny’s) past but then……..womp womp. nothing. feels like a misfire.

oh I almost forgot, I did watch the first like five minutes aka the shooting of the first ep and you weren’t joking. the very OBVIOUS foreshadowing smacks you in the face. ignore the show’s gd title, and one of the opening scenes is danny staring at like six of his reflections????? pls. we get it bestie. you’ve got alters. that’s the twist.

will I be watching the last two eps? of course don’t be ridiculous. I’m too stubborn not to know if these people stop being asshats towards people dealing with mental illness or not 🫠

[arson-the-clown]

Prompt 3: "I missed this" (From Suicide Mouse to the Dead Men)

I sighed dramatically as I slid down into my seat "Ahhh, I missed this." As usual our large round table was scattered with board game pieces "The fuck are you guys playing?"

Squidward's Suicide looked at me with his usual contempt "Ickbarr, Widemouth, and BRVR are playing Mouse Trap. Or attempting to anyway. They're probably going to give up soon."

"Well, it's rather difficult to play a game with half the pieces half eaten." Widey said exasperatedly

"It's not my fault I swear!" Ick giggled.

I sighed "You know, maybe I take it back."

An all too familiar hand grabbed my by my hair and yanked me out of my seat to face him. It was Happy Appy, his red hair with a single green streak sticking out at the top couldn't be mistaken for anyone else even if you tried. Despite being a full head shorter than Squiddy he was still much taller than me and picking me up like this was nothing to him. I couldn't contain the moan that escaped my throat.

"You slimey, rotten, good for nothing piece of garbage!" Appy growled "You-you think it's okay for you to just disappear for months on end with no notice and no word and then show back up like it's nothing?"

"Mmmmhpf, Honey, I'm home?" I murmered

He must not have liked my snide answer because it got me sent hurtling onto the table, smashing whatever pieces of the game were left. I felt my back crack as I hit the hard, uneven surface and the wind completely left my lungs gasping for air. Clearly unhappy, Appy lifted his large red chainsaw and began to rev it up.

"Give me one good reason not to chop you to piece where you are, filth!" But despite the hard words escaping him, tears were streaming down from Appy's striking blue eyes.

"You mean besides the fact that it wouldn't actually kill me and would just make a huge mess for everyone else to clean up? God you really did miss me didn't you? C'mon babe, put that thing away." I forced myself up onto my elbows "Please, just give me a hug and a kiss. There's no need for all this."

"No need?! You abandoned us for 8 months! You abandoned me for 8 month! I spent every single day for 8 months worried sick about you thinking that you either left the Dead Men entirely or someone somehow finally killed you, you bastard."

I barely had enough time to scoot out of the way as he burried the chainsaw into the table, much to everyone else's irritation.

"Damn it, now I have to find another fucking table" Squiddy said tossing his hands up in the air.

Reluctantly, Appy turned his chainsaw off, but then went right back to pursuing me. One. Two. Three. He had enough time to get four good punches to my face in before Squddy pulled him off of me. My vision blurred on the right side and I could already feel a migraine forming. Inky black blood ran down my face and from the corner of my mouth. I had no idea how to react than to sit in stunned silence.

After a moment, I made an attempt to crawl forward, but I was so violently dzzy that my head dipped sharply to the left every move I tried to make. I could barely make out Appy crumpled on the floor crying in front of me. It took me an exhuberant amount of time to process Ick tending to my wounds.

"Are you ok, Mickey?" his voice was as soft as it always was "Appy can seriously pack a punch."

I laughed quietly "You're telling me kid."

There was a moment of silence all around where I closed my eyes and let Ick do his pointless work on me. Then after a time Appy must have moved closer because his voice was much louder.

"You owe me an apology" he puffed

"Oh, I owe you an apology? Motherfucker, I was stuck doing guard duty for the Carnivalia by Slenderman's orders no less for 8 goddamn months and came home hoping to rest, only for the man I'm fucking to try to murder me. But yeah, I owe you an apology." I spit a mouthful of blood in what I hoped was his direction. I couldn't help but be thuroughly pissed off. I'm not an emotional guy by nature but all of the stress of being surrounded by fucking clowns for 8 months, fighting off Lurkers and Zalgo Zombies, all caught up to me.

"Both of you need to apologize or I'm going to beat you both bloody." Squiddy interjected from somewhere "You're both being incredbily stupid. You love each other. Cut it the fuck out. Mickey, say you're sorry for the lack of contact."

I rolled my eyes and immediately regretted it as it made my head throb "I'm sorry for going no contact, even though I didn't have an option and had no place to try to fight Slenderman on it."

"Close enough I guess. Appy, apologize for beating Mickey up."

Appy harumphed, but finally let go after a moment "Fine, I'm sorry for beating the shit out of you even though you absolutely deserved it."

"Good, now both of you shut the fuck up for a while. Widey and BRVR are going to go look for a table since you so gracously destroyed ours. Ick, you're babysitting Mickey and-

"No need." Fighting my swirling head I stood up and made my way to the door despite their protests "I'm going to go see Isaac. At least he won't beat the shit out of me for something I had no control over."

"Mickey, I didn't- I just- I- " Appy floundered, sounding genuinly upset again, but I ignored him and pushed my way through the old double doors and out onto the cold, windy streets of Sauce City.

[painless-innit-colourful]

Invisible

Potions of invisibility grant the user the ability to disappear, functionally: the concealment of one’s self through magic, distilled into a draught easy to swallow. For better and worse, Tommy’s familiar with the taste.

It tastes sour, primarily. 

Looking at the ingredient list, no wonder. Nether wart and fermented spider eye. Gross. There are some things a golden carrot just can't balance out. 

It's such a disgusting taste he doesn't notice the shimmering feeling, instead focusing his attention on scraping a thin layer of translucent brown sugar-mushroom-spider ick off his tongue. Not until: 

"Tommy?" "Y- Bleh- Yeah?" "Oh!" Tubbo waves his arms in a wild arc, smile growing, before his hand collides with Tommy's arm, and he picks up Tommy's wrist. "It worked!" "What do you- Ohhh..." 

If he blurs his vision, Tubbo's fingers circle around nothing. If he looks properly, he can just about see the edges of his wrist, the lines of his shirt sleeve. "Dude, how does that work?" "Which bit?" "Clothes. My clothes didn't drink it too." "Dude, I dunno... My turn!" 

They learn to spot the tiny signs of an invisible person. They learn to disguise them. Tommy tries to tackle Tubbo and misses completely, and both of them fall about laughing. 

Call that a drug van success story. 

--- 

He sprints past it, hoping they aren’t following, panic filling his bloodstream. He chugs the potion as he runs, drops spilling down his front, staining his navy coat with off-white shadows as he shimmers and disappears into thin air. 

Please don’t see me, please don’t see me.

He stumbles into the shallow waters of the lake, wading - disturbing the water, too many signs, you're gonna be seen - towards Tubbo's tunnel. He takes three steps and slips under the surface, landing on his hands and knees on the tunnel floor, waiting, waiting- Where are they? 

There's the sound of an arrow seeking its mark and hitting true, and for a split second Tommy sees an arm with deft fingers and a dark blue sleeve fall over the side of the entrance, and then the body is gone and shit shit shit- 

Tommy sticks his head back out- Who was that? Wilbur? Tubbo? He feels the shimmering feeling again - "a quick escape", where are the others - and slowly drops back to the tunnel floor. 

Make a decision, what if they find you, Little Laddy One Life? He walks away, opting to live to fight another day, hoping that his friends will join him soon. 

--- 

Funnily though, while clothes disappear with the potion, armour doesn't. He doesn't know why; he's not smart enough to. And right now, as he yanks the shoulder straps of his chestplate tight, he doesn't really care. 

"Stop!" They don't stop, voices mostly drowned out by the overwhelming sound of rushing water. Dream, his face also hidden, but by his signature mask as opposed to the magic of an invisibility potion, holds his hand towards Tubbo and tells him "I need the disc." Tommy crests the wreckage of the Community House, no longer attempting to stay hidden as the water thunders down around his ankles, pulling him towards the platform in the centre. It's a bizarre version of the Pit. It’s an arena. It's a stage. 

"No!" He screams, as Tubbo takes half a step back towards the ender chest. Heads snap to his position, looking at the empty suit of armour that's just appeared beside and above them. Tubbo stutters something in quiet disbelief, and between that and the sudden attention, Tommy falters. If he took off his armour now, could he get out of there? Or would the same fate that once befell Wilbur catch him? The blame for this building is on him, after all. 

He jumps in, landing on his feet between Dream and the cabinet of L'Manberg. He is caught in the crossfire of their questions: "Tommy?" "Is that Tommy?" 

He shouts, and he screams, and he revolves like a merry-go-round, trying to keep his eyes on everyone, not trusting that his armour'll be enough to protect him from the sheer amount of enemies about. So many people hate him, he realises, it's 30 v 2. Technoblade would like those odds. Technoblade, who's standing beside him, not invisible because he went to get milk. He likes the protection; he thinks. 

They don't listen. Tubbo keeps insisting he betrayed them all by teaming with Techno, that he betrayed L'Manberg, but they don't understand, he didn't have a choice, "You don't know what he did to me in exile." Tubbo has the disc in his hands, and without having an inkling of where Dream's eyes are, he watches him consider simply snatching it from Tubbo's hands. 

"You're not gonna give him the disc." Tubbo looks at him like it's a dare, and why can't he see? Tommy's practically crying with the effort and exertion of watching his best friend betray him in slow motion, of being this close to his abuser, of being blamed for something he didn't do, of being beaten down every time he gets on his damn feet. 

"I don’t need to prove myself to you. This wasn’t me. Trust me. Jesus— for once in your life, Tubbo, trust me." Tubbo's eyes are cold, his mind made up. What happened to us against the world?  "I did trust you. Once. The first time all of this happened. And I won’t make the same mistake twice." 

There's a little moment where time stops, and everyone draws nearer like a crowd at the coliseum, and Tommy feels his invisibility ripple slightly, warning him it's about to wear off. Who the fuck cares. 

Tubbo takes a step towards Dream, and Tommy lunges to put himself between them. "Don't you dare." Tubbo's hand goes to his axe. "You betrayed me, Tubbo, you- Did you just-" Both of their eyes are on Tubbo’s weapon, when he puts the disc away, staring Tommy down plainly with his one hand returning to the axe at his waist, and the other taking out his shield. "I didn't betray you." His voice is level, all business. Okay then, Mr President.

"You betrayed everything that you'd built with presidents prior." Tommy's anger, and hurt, and frustration, and pain finally boils over, so much so that it's visible in the way he shakes as he brings out his axe. "You know what?" He bites into a golden apple, feeling its effects drown out the rushing water and the shimmering sensation of his invis. "You've got your axe up." Technoblade’s tone is surprised but light as he tells Tommy to make this decision wisely, but he’s already gone, his safety and conscience be damned. He throws himself at Tubbo, brandishing his axe as the pigman taught him, like he once practised with the brown-haired boy he’s swinging at, thinking You say I betrayed you? I'll show you a traitor. 

Poetically, perhaps, it's less like a fight, and more like a dance. They are a whirlwind - a hurricane - clashing and blocking and pushing and shoving across the otherwise empty floor. Somewhere in the gushing water, Technoblade's bloodlust has seized him, and he's gone for the L'Manbergians and the festival-goers and the unrelated parties that came when they saw the destruction, and he's scattering them this way and that, but who cares about that? 

They are not equally matched. Tommy shakes too much: there is too much of him vulnerable here, not just his mortality, something that neither invisibility nor armour can keep from being scratched and damaged. He's losing. He's quite badly losing, despite Tubbo's inferior armour and weapons and allies, and he leaps into the nearest watery wall, letting the Respiration helmet Techno made for him protect him as the water drags him under and away from his attacker. His best friend. He bites into another golden apple, his pleas swallowed by the torrent. He still hears Tubbo's shout though, permeating the water and being relayed through his communicator from wherever Techno is. 

"Where are you?" 

He pops back up, shaking and soaking wet and sees a familiar sight: an old friend, a brother - once - staring him down with death in his eyes from behind brown hair. He was wrong, oh so wrong, all those weeks ago: at once he is Schlatt, alone at the end of his days, and there's Wilbur, old pals who'll be the death of each other. No. 

No. 

"I didn’t betray you, you teamed up with the very person that destroyed us the first time!" He feels his invis shimmer one more time, and the timing is immaculate, really. Cinematic, one might say. 

"I went for the discs— Tubbo, the discs— The discs were worth more than you ever were!" "No... Wh- Th-" The world stands still, and it feels so good, it's so good to finally say it, to watch Tubbo's face fall, his shield slipping from his hand, listen to the reactions around their little arena, watch as Tubbo shuts his mouth and yanks on the strap of his chestplate and lets it drop to the floor, leaving him defenceless and open to attack and wait- no- wait- 

Mutely, Tommy’s gaze drifts skyward, and it should feel good because they know now, they know how he feels, but it's not, it's not good because that- that wasn't true. That wasn't right. 

And he looks back at Tubbo, and finally, finally, his invis runs out, and he hopes it shows on his face, that he knows he's fucked up because Tubbo looks destroyed, and a shiver goes through him because he no longer looks angry he just- He just looks sad. 

He takes off his helmet, breathing heavily from the ache and exertion, heart burning in regret. 

‘The discs were worth more than you ever were.’

How do you fix that? For one crazy moment, he considers the invis again. Turning translucent and running, back to Techno- back to Technoblade who'd congratulate him on 'moving on' and tell Phil like he was proud and probably write that line on the fucking wall, how could he be such a monumental ass- 

"Tubbo?" Their eyes meet. Tubbo says nothing. 

"Give him the disc." 

He looks bewildered, "You want me to give Dream the disc?" He says, the tiniest sliver of something they used to have peeking through, the bearest hint of kindness, and bless him, it's more than Tommy deserves. It makes him want to go invisible again. 

He smiles softly, and it can't reach his eyes, but he pours every ounce of good left in him into it and desperately hopes it's enough.

"Yeah." And because he's fucked up, because he knows they can never go back from this: "I'm sorry Tubbo." 

--- 

He's done it again, he keeps fucking up. Sam's hand is holding him down by the shoulder, firm fingers digging into him, keeping him from reaching Ghostbur. 

He tried so hard. His throat is sore from not coughing. His muscles hurt from the pure tension and adrenaline coursing through his bloodstream, from his stubborn heart to the ends of his fingers and toes. He thought he'd gotten caught when he drank the potion in the waivers room, and his heart had been beating so loud that he'd thought Sam could hear it. 

Yet, they made it. But it doesn't matter, because he pulled out the axe too early, and now he's busted, and Sam's gonna kill him or Wilbur's going to come back or both, and it's all his fault. 

Every time he tries. Every time he tries to fix things, or do what's right, or have something for himself, it's taken away, destroyed and he's kicked to the ground. Every time. 

It's enough to make anyone want to be invisible.

[tuanhood]

35,000 ft

pairing: mark tuan x reader

genre: smut, angst, some fluff?, exes to lovers

warnings: 18+, language, dirty talk, cheating, oral sex (female receiving), unprotected sex, public sex (mile high club ALERT)

word count: 9,800+

summary: two years have passed since you last saw your ex-boyfriend. when you’ve thought about running into him again, it certainly wasn’t at 35,000 ft and it certainly wasn’t like this. 

a/n: wow my longest one shot yet... UMMM it’s a little messy and all over the place but don’t hesitate to let me know what you think or if anyone wants to cry over the photos of Mark at home playing in the pool sMH. also i do not CONDONE cheating fyI 

part 2: 125 ft

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Yes, yes, yes I’ll call you when I land…” You mumbled through the phone, half paying attention and half trying to decide which sandwich would best suit your needs. 

“Okay but seriously… call me. I hate it when you’re over there enough so not getting a call freaks me out even more.” 

You wanted to roll your eyes and gag, but you stopped yourself knowing that it wasn’t what a typical girlfriend would do when on the phone with her boyfriend. You two were supposed to still be in the honeymoon phase, not the “he gives me the ick” phase already. 

Then again, you had never even been in the “he gives me the ick” phase before. Yay for new experiences you guessed. 

“Brian, it’s so fine. It’s one of the safest cities in the world, I’ve been so many times I don’t even need a map to tell me where I’m going.” 

“I hope you still do though… Use a map. I don’t want you to get lost and I know that’s easy to do in those modern, technologically advanced smart cities.”

Being with Brian sometimes felt like there wasn’t even a fourth wave of feminism. 

You weren’t sure why you were sticking around. Part of you felt pressured because you hadn’t had any actual relationships in… well awhile and your mom was constantly asking when you were finally going to get a ring on your finger and give her a grandchild. 

Judging by all the outside influences that were currently controlling your life, it felt like maybe there isn’t a fourth wave of feminism. You were setting everyone back just based on your own sad life. Maybe it was best to just dump Brian and go back to your hook up days, the year and a half before him that was just endless amounts of sex with random guys trying to fix a piece of you that would never be put back together. 

“Y/n? Are you still there?” 

“Yup, still here Brian.” 

Even after being together for almost 6 months you couldn’t bring it in you to call him something besides his name. It was always Brian this, Brian that. Calling him a pet name made you cringe. 

Yeah… Maybe it was definitely time to break up with him. 

“Listen… I should go. I want to get something to eat before they start boarding since it’s a long one and all.” 

But you’ll just do it later. 

“Okay… sounds good. Get a small sandwich or something so you’ll feel full enough before they actually feed you on the plane.” 

Suddenly you didn’t want a sandwich. 

“Got it… Bye.” 

“Love you, bye.” 

You hear a noise letting you know the call has been disconnected and drop your hand, gripping the device at your side. 

That was another thing. Brian had told you only 3 months of dating that he loved you – to which you had responded with “oh wow… that’s- that’s… so nice of you.” Being the nice guy, he was completely fine with you not saying it back, because he felt so sure that one day you would. He understood that you had issues with a past relationship that you weren’t quite ready to let go of yet, therefore your heart wasn’t completely available. He felt with time you would give in and love him too. 

As of now you weren’t too sure… Especially if you did end up breaking up with him. At a later date and time of course. Maybe when you came back? 

Your mind went blank as you looked at the shelves of the poorly made airport food in front of you. The sandwiches that had once looked good and enticing suddenly lost their luster and the last thing you wanted to do was waste money on one. Sighing, you glanced back down at the phone in your hand. The object felt more like a heavy weight and a burden rather than just a phone. It wasn’t due to work or family; it was just all because of Brian. 

You’re startled when your phone comes to life once again under your gaze, buzzing softly. 

Brian. Remember don’t forget to text me when you board! 

It was like he had a sixth sense for whenever you were thinking of him. And to be honest it wasn’t that often. 

A couple of weeks ago you were out to lunch with a few friends from college and when updating those who you hadn’t seen in a while on the goings-on of your life, you had at first redacted the fact that you had a boyfriend completely. 

“Anyone romantic in your life?” Your friend Alice had asked you. 

Without thinking you had begun telling her how he was in game design and was from LA just like you, but soon cut yourself off before you could talk about how cute his dog was. That’s when you realized you weren’t talking about Brian. Brian was in fucking accounting, not game design and was 100% allergic to any kind of animal. When your friend asked about your love life, you had him in mind and not Brian even though so much time had gone by.

You were starting to believe that you weren’t ready for a relationship at all.

Sighing, you figured that maybe chips would be a better and less smelly option for the plane ride. Knowing yourself you would probably dig into them within the first thirty minutes of the thirteen-hour trip. 

You whip around to find wherever your newly desired snack choice could be when you catch a glimpse of someone out of the corner of your eye. The goosebumps that make their way to the surface of your skin and the hair on the back of your neck standing up so eagerly causes your entire body to freeze with fear. There was only one person who made you feel this way, one person who made your blood run cold. The person you had just indirectly been thinking of.

No, no it couldn’t be. 

You’re afraid to turn around, because more than anything you don’t want to be right. If you felt stressed thinking about Brian, you were going to have a panic attack from seeing him. Pivoting yourself to the left, you bite your lip anxiously unsure of how you’re supposed to react if you are right. Taking in the sight behind you, you’re met with a father and daughter selecting candy from the shelves of the store. The individual causing your anxiety nowhere in sight. Your entire body relaxes. 

The last thing you wanted was a fiasco in the international terminal at LAX. It certainly wouldn’t do you, your family and your company any good to make headlines. It especially wouldn’t have made Brian happy; he probably would have called you a hundred times in worry. 

“I can’t fucking believe it.” 

And just like that you’re snapped out of your daze, your false security vanished, goosebumps emerging once again. This time there were no questions. That voice. It was him. 

Turning back around you find yourself under the gaze of your ex-boyfriend. Your ex-boyfriend who you haven’t seen in over two years. 

You wish you could say that time hadn’t been good to Mark, but that would be a bold-faced lie. He had somehow become even more attractive in the last two years and the only real thing that seemed different about him was his hair color. The last time you had seen him he had been blonde, but now he had opted for a dark brown color. As much as you hated thinking it, it definitely suited him.

The last two years felt like a long blur of trying to forget him and everything or everyone associated with him. Those were of course difficult things to do, many of the people in your shared three-year life with Mark becoming some of your closest allies and the fact that Mark wasn’t an easy person to erase. Since the two of you met – even when you were just friends – you had a magnetic like pull to one another that couldn’t just be forgotten and dismissed. You were even feeling it right now after everything. 

He’s wearing a tight smile, almost as if he too can’t believe you’re standing here in front of him. It was as though you were the one inconveniencing him, when he had been the one to even say something to you. If you had seen him first, you would have turned around and ran the other way pretending like it never happened. For some reason he was willing to acknowledge you. 

“I didn’t think I’d see you here,” his tight smile soon fades away and his voice is smooth as ice, a nonchalance to it that makes you question whether he even cares about this run in.

“Me either. Good to see you… Now if you’ll excuse me…” You replied pushing past him to continue your previous task of looking for chips. Much to your dislike, he follows you as you embark on one of the aisles, your eyes scanning the items placed out oh so carefully. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me how I’ve been? What I’ve been up to?” 

The last you had heard of Mark was that he had moved to Beijing after being given a position at a video game development company. At first you had been surprised at Mark taking a job overseas, he had always expressed to you how even over his own dead body he would never leave LA, but ultimately him in China relieved you. No longer did you have to avoid your favorite spots in the city for boba or the park bench where you got most of you best thinking done. You didn’t even have to be worried about getting invited to a party or dinner with a friend, wondering if Mark was going to show up. With Mark gone you could freely have your life back and not walk around with the fear of running into him. But you guessed that it could only have lasted so long before fate – as cruel as she was – brought you two together again. 

“No that’s okay. I’m good,” you go down another aisle, he still follows suit.

Where were those damn chips? 

“If you’re looking for the chips, they’re over there,” he said pointing behind you to the back wall in a location that you should have noticed sooner, “and if you want your favorite brand of salt & vinegar chips, they’re on the bottom shelf.”

Your stomach churned, he thought after all this time he would be able to still just know you like the back of his hand? What snack you’re looking for? What chips you like? No way. 

Wordlessly you march to the back and stare at the shelves in front of you. You felt your hand dangerously moving forward to the bottom to grab the salt & vinegar chips Mark mentioned, but you control yourself and pull back not wanting to give him the satisfaction. Instead you opt for plainly salted kettle chips. 

“Thanks… you’ve been a big help. See you never,” you scoffed turning around to face him and pushing past him to pay for your item, leaving Mark in the dust behind you. 

“What you’re not going to even pretend that it’s nice to see me?” 

“What the fuck do you want me to say?” you practically spat at him, the father and daughter from earlier staring at the two you, the father particularly appalled for your colorful choice of language. 

Mark’s silent and you turn back to the self-checkout to scan your chips, hopeful to not think about your ex-boyfriend for the next thirteen hours. He watches you carefully as you take out your wallet to pay and tap your card against the reader. It isn’t difficult for him to sense the tension in your body, he can see it just from you performing the simple and mundane task of paying. The worst part is that he knows he’s the cause. 

Grabbing your snack, you exit the small store and Mark follows you, grabbing your wrist, he tries again, “you could say something nice? Like you care? It’s been two years y/n… Can’t we just be normal people with each other?” 

At this you feel something in you snap, “I don’t care how much time has fucking passed Mark… I’m never going to get over you just completely throwing our relationship out the window. I can’t believe I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with you… I was so fucking dumb to think you cared about me for even one minute. So, to answer your question… no we can’t just be normal people with each other. We were never normal people with each other to begin with.” 

The two of you had started off as friends, just friends. It was something new for Mark, being just friends with a girl and not having sex attached. Many people in your life warned you not to get close to him, that he was just a fuckboy who didn’t care about the emotional – it was only the physical with him. Ultimately you ignored him, becoming his friend and finding that you two just worked together. First you worked together as friends and soon you fell under his Mark Tuan spell, working together as lovers. 

Throughout your entire relationship you did your best to trust Mark, which you accomplished for the most part, but in the back of your head you would constantly hear the voices of everyone around you. You would hear the stories of the girls he had before you and how terribly he treated them, but you ignored it all. After a while you started to think of it all a little less, people even congratulating you on lasting so long with Mark – something that tended to annoy you. You knew that they didn’t see the Mark that you knew, the Mark that wanted to be something else for you, the best for you. Then after three years together, almost a month after your anniversary, you found out he had been with someone else. 

The old Mark had perhaps never truly vanished, but was just immensely good at hiding. 

Now here you were in front of him and you couldn’t tell who this Mark was. 

Mark scoffed, “you haven’t changed at all…” Now he was mad at you? “It’s probably better we just say goodbye here.” 

You rolled your eyes, “That’s what I’ve been trying to do this whole time.” 

He wanted to say more, but looking at how annoyed you were at merely being close to him, he let it go. It was hard for him to understand how he was feeling. He longed for you, but he also felt a lot of anger towards you that he wasn’t sure how to control. 

Both of you stare at one another, neither of you wanting to be the first one to walk off. Without a word, you both collect yourselves and assumedly prepare to embark on your respective gates. Mark gives you a final glance with his fists now clenched in frustration and turns to walk toward his flight. 

You realize he’s going the same direction as you and you follow awkwardly behind. After a moment – as if he can sense you’re still there – he turns around and scowls at you. 

“Why are you following me?” 

You snorted, the actual audacity of Mark Tuan. This is an airport for fuckssake, you can’t control where your flight is, “as if I would ever follow you! I’m going to my gate! I think the better question is why are you following me?”

“I’m going to my gate!” 

“Okay!” You yell a little too loud, “Okay!” he repeated, matching your volume. You can sense that people are starting to stare at the two of you for your truly unprompted yelling. 

Mark looks back at you once again, rolling his eyes. The two of you may have gates in the same area, but you can’t stand to look at him any longer – much less his back which you couldn’t help but notice has become much broader. Not that you would admit it to him… or anyone. 

You pick up your pace, passing Mark and causing him to trail behind. You expect him to say some snarky remark or rude comment when you go in front of him, but instead all you hear is an annoyed groan. It’s when you finally reach your gate and sit down in the waiting area that you feel Mark is no longer right behind you, but instead frozen in the main concourse, in front of the space you’re seated in. He feels his mouth go dry and he wants to scream. All he wants is to just be rid of you, to not be forced to think of you when you’re right in front of him. He wanted to wipe his brain clean. 

It suddenly dawns you on the reason why Mark is frozen as if he can’t comprehend what he’s seeing. You stand up abruptly, “this can’t be happening.” 

He snaps out of his trance with your words and comes closer to the gate, approaching where you’re seated. You’re just about to wave your hands, warning him not to come any closer when he huffs and sits down on a chair only few away from your own. 

“You’re going to Seoul?” He says it as if you being allowed in the Korean peninsula is a disgusting idea. 

“I’ve been traveling between LA and Seoul every 2 months for the last year and a half, so yes I am. Aren’t you supposed to be going to Beijing or something?”

He smirked, “I thought you didn’t care about what I was up to?” 

“I only care if it assures that you’re as far away from me as humanely possible.”

Your ex looks at his watch and at the screen of the gate alerting passengers that boarding would begin in a few minutes, “well since you’re so curious. I didn’t like Beijing, so I found a job in Seoul that I like much better. 

“Didn’t want to come back to LA?” 

He looks back to you and you almost wish he hadn’t, “there’s not really a lot left in LA for me anymore.” 

Both of you stare at one another for a moment, and you feel your stomach flip. Does he mean what I think he means? Your eyes drift down to your lap and you feel yourself pulling out your phone, not needing any more Mark. 

You manage to pass 10 minutes this way, aimlessly refreshing your emails and ignoring Brian’s latest text asking if you’ve boarded yet. Being so engrossed in your phone, you didn’t even notice Mark’s constant glances up at you, wondering what you were looking at or who you were talking to. 

There it is again, he thought to himself, Do I care? Do I not care? What the fuck, make up your mind dude. 

When the call for First-Class boarding comes to your dismay, both you and Mark stand up. You try to just tell yourself that it’s not important, you would probably both be seated aisles apart, not having to spend any more unwarranted time together. 

Even when you’re finally on the plane and find yourself behind him once again in the aisle, you tell yourself that this will be the last moment you have to see Mark Tuan. 

“Here’s your seat sir, can I get you any drinks or snacks before take-off?” the flight attendant asked Mark when she shows him his seat. He gives this shit eating grin that makes you want to slap it off his face, you couldn’t believe he was doing this in front of you. What? Did he think he was going to get to fuck the flight attendant as an extra First-Class amenity? 

“Ah no thank you, I’m fine for now, but I’ll let you know if anything changes,” you feel awkward standing in the aisle watching this unfold, especially since you can see the attendant is giving in, blush creeping up on her face from Mark’s smooth gaze. You clear your throat, reminding her that you too are there and she quickly turns to you, an apologetic look on her face. 

“And here's your seat Miss,” she graciously steps back to let you slide into your seat and you don’t move.

This had to be a joke. 

You looked from your seat, to Mark’s and then to the flight attendant. 

“I can’t sit here... I’m sorry but there has to be another seat available.” 

“I’m sorry ma’am, but there are no other openings in First Class. We only have seats available back in economy.” 

This couldn’t be happening. You had been saving all of your miles for a First-Class upgrade for forever, there was no way you were going to give it up, “Mark move to coach.” 

“Huh? Are you joking? My company paid for this; I’m not moving back there! You move!” 

How were you supposed to sit in front of Mark Tuan for the next thirteen hours? The man who had loved you so deeply, but also caused you the most pain. 

Just as people had stared at the two of you in the terminal, the other passengers in your surrounding area were also beginning to look. Maybe if the two of you got into one of your notorious screaming matches, someone would feel bad enough and offer to trade. You couldn’t do that to someone, you wouldn’t wish being stuck next to Mark Tuan on a long-haul flight on your worst enemy. Well… Mark was your worst enemy. 

Smiling, you turn back to the flight attendant, “It’s fine… I’ll just stay here. Thank you though.” She gives you a smile, but you can sense some annoyance behind her eyes. You can’t blame her. 

Mark looks at you wide eyed, previously caught up in organizing his space, but snapping out his activities when he hears your dismissal about moving seats, “uh… what are you doing? Are you seriously going to sit here?” 

“Yes Mark. Unlike you, I paid for my seat so I’m not moving anywhere.” 

He scoffed, “Fine.” 

“Fine!” 

-- 

hour one 

“Ma’am could you tell the gentleman in 3A to stop chewing so loudly?” You asked the flight attendant, putting on the sweetest voice possible. Mark was driving you up the wall and you were only an hour into the flight. 

It was almost as though you could hear every single cough, every shifting in his seat and it was all driving you up the wall. Just knowing he was there irked you.

The flight attendant looks clueless and as she opens her mouth slowly, unsure of how to respond. You hear Mark’s low voice grumble from behind you, also addressing the attendant, “uh ma’am can you tell the lady in 2A to mind her own business, pop a xanny and just go to sleep?” 

She clearly wasn’t expecting to deal with any difficult passengers this early on in a thirteen-hour flight. For her sake you wish you could deal with Mark and be more civil, but that clearly wasn’t going to happen. 

hour three 

“Y/n…” 

Be strong, you tell yourself, don’t look back, you can get through this.  

“Y/n?” 

It’s probably not important… He just wants to annoy you. 

“Y/n!” 

Screw being strong. 

“What the fuck do you want?” Being in semi-pods in First-Class it was difficult to just whip around and face Mark, to show him your annoyance under the lights beginning to dim. 

“Do you have any extra AirPods?” 

“Why the fuck would I just carry around extra Airpods around with me? Are you an idiot?” You sneered. 

“Jesus Christ I was just asking. You don’t have to be so vicious. Maybe someone should fuck the tension out of you,” he said, mumbling the last part. He says it so quietly and so half assed that you almost think that you misheard him. 

“Choke on a dick Mark,” you replied quietly, not wanting the other passengers to hear or disturb the few who had already drifted asleep. 

He scoffed, “maybe you should be.” 

You were wrong, the Mark that you had reunited with was just the same old fuckboy Mark who didn’t give a fuck about anyone. 

Placing your AirPods in your ears, you close your eyes and ignore the rest of Mark’s efforts to speak to you, just wanting nothing more than to fall asleep and wake up in your hotel room in Seoul. 

hour seven 

You pop your headphones out of your ears in frustration, feeling as though you hadn’t managed to get any real sleep during the hours that had passed. You look behind you to Mark’s seat, and feel relieved to see his eyes closed and a slow, shallow breath coming from his mouth. 

It felt weird to gaze at Mark and know you were no longer apart of his life. Sure, it had been two years, but you hadn’t seen  him or had to deal with the reality that there was now a separate you and a separate Mark. Two entities that had nothing to do with one another anymore. Although sometimes it felt like you were still anchored to him. 

Suddenly he shifted over onto his side, mumbling incoherent words in his sleep. The only thing you could make out was your own name. It made you feel uncomfortable, not because he was clearly dreaming about you, but you felt as though you were invading his private space, infiltrating an intimate moment. 

“y/n… please…” he mumbled. 

You felt like you’d heard enough. The flight was making you restless and you weren’t sure what you would do if you kept listening to Mark’s breathless calls for you. Standing up, you decide it’s probably best now to stretch and go to the bathroom, before you embark on your further slumber. 

When you finish up in the bathroom, you almost have a heart attack pulling back the door to be met with Mark’s tall figure.

“Oh my god you scared me,” you said placing your hand on your chest. You shake your head, stepping out of the bathroom with the door closing firmly behind you. Attempting to go back to your seat, you position yourself to move past him, but he moves along with you to keep you from leaving.

“What are you doing?” 

Mark doesn’t know what’s taken over him, he had woken up in a frenzy, his dreams not doing anything to help his mental state. He hadn’t dreamt about you in months, but of course as soon as you’re back in his life he has to have fantasies of you wrapped around him once again. It was torturous, especially with you only a few feet away from him. He dreamed about having you every way and any way, feeling like he was going crazy. When he saw you missing from your seat, he immediately got up almost as if in a sleep induced haze unable to control his actions.

"When are you going to stop pretending that you don’t want to be under me again?” he purred.

Your blood goes cold. Was he drunk? His words make you nervous, scared that someone could hear, but looking around the dark cabin it seemed as though everyone in First-Class was fast asleep. 

“Mark…” you begin, your tone clearly frustrated, but also weakening a bit, clearly evident that his words are affecting you. It had been so long since someone talked to you like this, and you felt that the hours you had spent on the plane already altering your sanity.

“You were always such a good girl for me, what changed? When did you become so stubborn? What happened to my girl who was always so willing and sweet?” 

“I was screwed over by an asshole, that’s what happened,” you mumbled trying to avert his gaze and prayed that maybe if you weren’t to look at him you could pretend that there wasn’t a part of you hanging on his every word. 

“That was in the past. I’ve changed now… But I’m still your boy. Even after two fucking years, I’m still yours.” 

You want to fight with him, say that if he was always your boy and still is then he would have never cheated on you. He would have never spent a night with someone else.  

“Let me fuck the anger out of you.” 

“What?” Okay he had to be drunk.

“You and I have too much sexual tension, and we’re both angry so let’s just fuck to relieve the tension.” 

“You’ve said some pretty fucking dumb things before, but this is… this is…” you drift unsure of what exactly you think it is. 

“A good idea?” 

“Mark I’m not having sex with you in an airplane bathroom.” 

“What? Like that’s bothered you before?” 

When you were with Mark, the two of you would have sex in the riskiest places, so you weren’t a stranger to the kind of sex where you could be caught at any moment, but you had never joined the mile-high club before. 

“We’re not together. I hate you and you hate me… for some reason.” You never understood why exactly Mark had been mad at you all of these years and acted as though you were the devil himself when he had been the one that ruined the two of you. Maybe it was because you hadn’t given him a second chance? Maybe it was from the influence of you hating him? Or maybe it was because you had never been enough for him, otherwise what would have caused him to spend the night with another woman? 

Mark clicked his tongue and it causes you to bring your attention to his mouth. It almost makes you lose focus completely. “So what if we’re not together anymore? Does that matter?” 

Does that matter? 

His words make you remember something. Something very important. 

Brian. 

“Yes, it matters. I-I have a boyfriend,” for some reason the word “boyfriend” seems to be hard to get out. It was always weird to associate Brian as your boyfriend or your “partner,” but saying it to Mark felt like the weight of a ton of bricks. 

In the dark lighting of the cabin you can just make out the frown that spreads across Mark’s face. Just as quickly as it appears, it’s gone and the cocky façade is back. 

“And that’s a problem?” your ex asked. 

As you’re about to protest and tell him that commitment in relationships is important to you, Mark reaches his hand out to rest on your bare shoulder, running it softly up and down your arms in a soothing pattern. It was a common gesture between the two of you, something Mark would constantly do whenever you were telling a story or the times you would fall asleep at night. It puts you at ease and you feel yourself close your eyes at his touch. 

Mark would be lying if he said the word “boyfriend” coming out of your mouth didn’t disappoint him. In fact, he felt a similar pain to the one he felt two years ago when you had broken up with him. Mark wasn’t daft, he knew what you thought of him – a player, a fuckboy and someone who never cared about you in the first place. It hurt him to know that you were just like everyone else around him who had a preconceived notion of who he was or what he did. At one point in time he thought you were different. 

But now looking at you and having you back in his life – even for only a thirteen-hour plane ride, he just wanted you back in his arms, back under his touch. He knew he should have felt guilty for not giving one fuck about this “boyfriend” you had acquired at some point during your two years apart, but he didn’t care. If he was going to have to be that cocky fuckboy who paid no mind to any consequences to get you, then so be it. 

“Come on… it’s been two years… let me feel that pussy that I’ve missed so so much,” he whispered seductively against the shell of your ear, “let me fuck into it so good, because I know no one’s filled it up so well since me. Especially not that boyfriend.” 

His words cause you to moan involuntarily and the noise awakens both you and him. You immediately shoot your hand up to cover your mouth, unsure of what’s getting into you. You were supposed to hate Mark, you had spent the last two years training yourself to hate him just in case a moment like this were ever to arise. But maybe that was an easier thing to imagine when you hadn’t seen him, because now with his hands gently caressing you and his request to be inside of you once again, you feel anything but hate. You feel want.

“Fuck Mark…” 

“Just say the word baby, and you have me,” he whispered, delicately placing an open mouth kiss on your wrist, slowly continuing up your arm. 

What were the pros and cons of this? If you were in any other difficult situation you would take a pause and list all of the good and bad things that could come from this. The big con was Brian… Even if you had been feeling strange about where your relationship with him was going and found him to be suffocating, you couldn’t do to him what Mark had done to you. Another negative factor emerged in your mind… you didn’t want to be put under Mark’s spell again, you couldn’t. Even being this close to him made you feel things that you had been trying to forget for two years, sleeping with him after all this time would only make it worse. That worried you. But judging on the primal way your body was reacting to Mark – your wet core being a clear sign – you knew this wasn’t going to be a logical decision where the cons outweigh the pros. 

“I-” you’re about to do it, you’re about to gain enough strength to tell him you don’t want him anymore, but when he pushes your hair away from where it lays on your shoulder and attaches his lips to the side of your neck, any willpower you had vanishing. His gentle sucking on the sweet spot of your neck that he knows oh too well causes you to let out a whimper and he smiles against your skin, knowing he has you. 

“Do it,” you mumbled, eyes still closed. 

Mark brings his lips back to your ear, “do what baby?” His cocky tone makes you want to roll you eyes. He had always done this �� torture you until you were begging to feel his touch. 

You open your eyes and give yourself a moment to readjust to the dark lighting of the plane and focus on Mark’s face in the small space in front of the bathroom. You want to see his gaze when you make your non-logical decision.

“Fuck me.” 

The corner of his mouth turns upwards as he brings his arm forward and behind you to pull open the bathroom door, pushing you backwards into the cramped space. 

It’s when he’s pressed up against you and locks the door behind him that the reality of what you’re doing sets in. Just as you feel yourself get used to the harsh lighting, you freeze at Mark’s intense stare. 

“What are you looking at?” You asked. 

He smiled and glanced down at the floor shyly, then back up at you, “You.” 

For the first time since seeing him again at the airport store you feel those feelings in your stomach. No hate, no indifference and no bitterness towards Mark - not even just lust. Instead you felt a warmth for him that reminded you of the good days, not the bad ones. The swell in your heart worried you and you didn’t want to feel or dwell on it so you lean forward and kiss him.

Mark’s lips on yours doesn’t do anything to eliminate the softness you felt for him moments before, if anything it only intensifies it. It feels as though no time has passed for the two of you and the missing piece of the puzzle that you had been searching for has finally found its way back to you. 

A low growl comes from Mark’s throat and it sends your hands to find shelter in his hair. When you were together you had always had a weird thing for Mark’s hair. You loved running your fingers through it, gently massaging his scalp and tugging at the roots. Mark would always joke that you would probably break up with him if he ever shaved his head, which you didn’t exactly argue with. And now it just felt so good to have your hands where they belong. It’s almost as though Mark’s read your mind and he smiles against you lips when he feels your hands, “pull as hard as you want.” 

You feel his tongue at the seam of your lips, urging itself through to deepen the kiss and you tell yourself that it’s not too late, this can be the moment that you opt out for what a mistake this would be. With his hands drifting down from your hips to your ass, you feel yourself part your mouth voluntarily, realizing that you don’t want to stop this. You want to make this mistake; you want nothing more than to let him feel you and taste you even more. 

“I want to taste you so bad,” Mark whispered against your lips, “see if you taste as good as I remember.” 

You want that more than anything. Mark had always been so good with his tongue and just thinking about the hours he had spent between your thighs in the past made you even wetter than when you were having sex with Brian. Judging however, on the space you were both in, you didn’t know if it was physically possible. He can sense your hesitancy by the way your lips begin to still against his. 

He breaks apart from you and gently rubs his thumb along your jawline and lips, “don’t think too much.” In an instant Mark’s crouched down in the very small space in the bathroom and you immediately find yourself worried about his comfort level, “are you sure you’re okay?” 

He looked up at you, a dark look in his eyes and waved you off, “don’t worry about me babe, I’m about to have the best meal of my life.” At the end of his sentence he reaches up to the hem of your leggings and pulls them, along with your panties down in one sweep, pushing them aside. You’re almost surprised at his loftiness, but you remind yourself that it’s Mark. He moves a hand around to the back of your knee, hoisting one of your legs up onto the closed toilet seat, pushing the rest of your body up against the small sink counter. Although the space was already limited as it was, the position brought your core closer to his face and as you looked down to see the way his tongue stroked across his lips, you felt yourself already get lightheaded. 

He began with leaving open mouth kisses along the inside of your lifted thigh and another on the top of your pubic mound. It was enough to make you feel shaky, as though the one leg that was supporting your weight would give out at any moment. You found yourself unfazed, you knew Mark would be there to catch you if you fell. 

Mark leaned in further, his tongue delving between you folds to gather up as much of your wetness as he could, giving you a noisy taste that had him groaning, head pulling back and licking his lips after his first taste in two years.

“You taste even better than I remember, how the fuck could you get sweeter? I don’t even want to go back to my seat after tasting you, I could sit in this bathroom with my mouth on you till the end of the flight.” 

You found yourself wanting nothing more than to be stuck in this crammed bathroom with Mark for as long as you both could get away with. The person who was contemplating whether or not this was a bad idea didn’t even exist to you anymore. One lap of his tongue on you and you were reminded of all the ways he could make you fall apart. 

He tongued your clit slowly at first, every stroke almost teasing – as if he was making up for the years you two spent a part. His tongue would slip lower, working its way along your gushing entrance to remind you how much he relished your flavor before returning to your clit, the wet sounds of Mark’s sucking not even embarrassing to you. It was when Mark began to groan against you and swirl his tongue and suck that you felt your hands go back to his hair, roughly pulling him closer. 

“Mark, I-I can’t… I’m gonna – fuck,” you moaned out unable to form a functional and coherent thought. As you feel your orgasm on the horizon and just around the corner, you tug at Mark’s roots further, which encourages him to pick up the pace of his tongue, wanting you to cum on his face just like you had many times before. He wanted to drive you to the brink of pleasure, but he also wanted to prove to himself that he could still bring you to the edge with just his tongue.

Any delicacy he had been exhibiting before is completely gone, the way he laps at your clit and swirls his tongue around your sensitive bundle of nerves causes your chest to heave and sweat on your brow. You’re so caught up in Mark that you barely notice your foot beginning to slip from its security on the toilet. Mark swiftly acknowledges your pending loss of balance and tugs the leg up onto his shoulder, not removing himself from you for even a moment. 

You could feel yourself twitch and the arching of your hips towards his face, “come on baby I know how close you are, I need you to cum for me. Cum for me like all the times before, all over my face. I want it so bad.” 

Mark’s muffled words against you and the final groans he emits from how much he loves your taste is the last straw as you finally let go and the waves of release crash over you. He doesn’t give way as you buck yourself further into him one final time, his back practically hitting the wall of the bathroom. Your body comes down from your climax and you look to see Mark gratefully clean up the release he caused. When he takes his mouth away, you feel your core wavering against the emptiness and loss of warmth it had felt, almost as though it wanted Mark to be a permanent attachment to you. You’re breathless, head falling back to the mirror behind you as Mark stands up, wiping the back of his mouth and jawline which had become messy and shiny with your juices. 

“I knew you were still my little slut,” he pushes the hair that had fallen in front of your face behind you, “letting me have you in a fucking bathroom at 35,000 feet. How else will you let me have you?” He asked attaching his lips back to that spot on your neck. 

It dawns on you that there’s no winning. You once again are completely under the spell and at the mercy of Mark Tuan, willing to let him do whatever he wants to you. “M-Mark whatever you want.” At your response he simply smirked, quickly pulling his joggers and boxers down, his painfully hard cock slapping against his lower stomach. 

“Fuck I’ve been waiting so long to have you around me again. I never thought I would, and I’m going to make every second count.” 

He positions himself in between your legs, gripping your hips and pauses for a moment, clearly contemplating something. Mark hadn’t planned on having sex on the plane, nor did he plan on even seeing you again. 

“Mark if it’s about the condom, it’s fine… I don’t care, I’m still on the pill and I-I trust you.” 

At your trust in him, something he had so deeply been wanting all these years, he doesn’t hesitant another moment at placing himself at your entrance. His teasingly slow rubbing against your slit causes you to let out almost a growl at how much you needed him to be inside of you.

“How much do you want it y/n?” 

“So bad.” 

He pushes into you suddenly, “you’re still my cockslut, huh?” The feeling is too good and too great to answer him, but he’s not satisfied with your nonresponse.

“Answer me.” He sunk himself inside of you further and you do your best to let out the smallest and most inaudible “yes” you’ve ever heard, which thankfully seems to be enough for him. 

“God,” he groaned, “you’re still so tight.” He looks down at the space where your bodies meet, fixating his gaze at the visual of his cock slipping inside your sensitive and swollen folds. Mark waited for a moment for your pussy to get used to having him inside you again, to get reintroduced to his length and girth which it had been so accustomed to in the past. Despite the time that had passed, you felt no discomfort except for the mental discomfort in your head that just wanted him to fuck into you quickly and harshly. 

“Taking me so well, squeezing every inch of me. This pussy knows who it belongs to, who it deserves to be fucked by.” 

“M-Mark,” a final moan of his name is all it takes for him to begin his first real thrust into you, pulling himself out almost entirely. You feel so sensitive and overworked from your earlier orgasm that you aren’t sure how long you can last with the way your walls are clenching around Mark. 

His pace soon became brutal and you’re thankful the loud sound of the engine could cover up the whimpers coming from your mouth and the sounds of skin slapping against skin. Mark’s fingers press into your hips so firmly that you know there will be bruises that you’ll have to explain later, but for now the only thing you can focus on is how full Mark is making you feel. He removes his hand from your side and brings it down between the two of you, fixating on your clit, rubbing until it ached. It caused your body to clench on him further, the continual touch and his fucking into you making you roll your eyes into the back of your head. 

Mark groaned at how snug you felt and how deep you were taking him, his head falling into the crook of your neck and against the bathroom mirror, “whose are you?” 

You know what he wants you to say, but you don’t know if it’s the right thing to do, even in the heat of the moment. It could lead to misunderstandings and a more complex outcome than just that of having sex with him in a fucking airplane bathroom. 

“Whose are you?” He repeated, this time a little bit softer and removing his head from your shoulder to look at you with worrisome eyes. Mark knows that if you say you’re his it’d most likely be untrue, but he doesn’t care. He just wants to hear it one more time, even if it’s a complete and utter lie. He wants to know he has you, even if it’s for this one moment. 

“Yours, I’m all yours,” you breathe out. It comes out on its own, without any time for you to process or comprehend what you’re saying. It surprises you so much that you aren’t even sure if it’s a lie or not. 

That’s all he needed and he thrusts into you even harder, hitting the spot inside of you that makes you want to completely fall apart and combust. You’re too caught up in the pleasure of him ramming into you that you don’t even feel the pain that comes with your backside being continually pushed into small counter of the sink. 

“Cum for me baby, I’m close and I need us to do this together. It’s all I want,” Mark said. His tone perplexes you. It’s forceful and authoritative something that you were no stranger to when it came to sex with Mark, but there was a clear tenderness to it that had you second guessing everything. Maybe this wasn’t just sex. 

It’s one more strum of his cock against your g-spot and the pinching of your clit with his thumb and index finger that has you climaxing around him. The almost violent pulse from your pussy around him due to your orgasm has Mark following close behind, spilling himself deep inside of you. The ecstasy coursing through you causes your entire body to shake and twitch, wanting to collapse completely onto the bathroom floor. You fall against Mark’s body and in his own exhausted state he holds you close, protectively wrapping his arms around you making you feel secure. 

You should want to get out of the situation immediately as a one-time thing, but somehow you can’t bring it in you to remove yourself from his grasp. You felt at home with Mark’s arms around you and him still inside of you. It was a comfort a sense of normalcy you hadn’t felt with anyone since Mark. He softly strokes your hair, placing gentle kisses on the top of your head remembering how much you liked it after a tiring session of sex.

It feels as though no time has passed, but soon you find yourself out of Mark’s hold. He removes his now soft cock from you and you can feel yours and his cum leaking from your core, down to your thighs. It’s almost as though this movement has finally woken you up. You delicately collapse onto the toilet, making sure to take extra care with your now jelly-like legs. With your head in your hands in disbelief at the actions you had just willingly followed through on, Mark stares at you. 

“Fuck… I’m so mad at myself.”

With the small amount of space, he has, Mark shifts his weight from one foot to the other, “why? That was so fucking great.” 

You looked up at him in a scolding manner, he still had no perception of reality, but apparently now you were one and the same. “Because now I did the same thing to Brian that you did to me.”

There’s a pause and Mark avoids all eye contact with you. He had imagined this talk so many times – the talk the two of you never got to have and he really didn’t want it to be here, like this. But by some strike of luck, fate had brought you back to him, even for a short period of time and he may never get the opportunity to come clean again. 

Choosing to continue to avert your gaze, Mark sighs deeply and busies himself with pulling up his joggers. 

“I didn’t cheat on you.”  

You feel like ice and your whole body goes numb, “W-what?” 

He sighs again, looking down, “I never cheated on you.” 

You think there’s no way you could have heard him correctly. Your entire break up, the reason you ended your passionate love story with the one person you saw a future with came from his cheating. It couldn’t be a lie… Could it? 

One thing was for certain, you knew Mark so well and judging by the fidgeting and fiddling with his fingers you can tell you still do. And he was telling the truth. Your stomach flipped. 

“Then why did you let me believe that you did?”

“You were the only person in my life who didn’t believe all those stupid rumors about me, the only person who didn’t believe I was a fuckboy like everyone thought… but then the moment someone tells you they think they saw me with someone, you pack your bags. I figured you wouldn’t believe me, just like everyone else.”

It’s ridiculous. The words coming out of his mouth are ridiculous, but part of you understands what he’s saying. Maybe you had been too quick to judge, too quick to believe everyone else’s preconceived notions regarding your own boyfriend, but what were you supposed to do when he didn’t even defend himself? 

“You know… even after all this time, I still don’t know why I hated you. I really don’t know if it was because I thought you cheated or because you never went after me when I left.” 

Mark’s silent, and the weight of the situation continues to hit the two of you like a bus. Part of you feels betrayed by him. More betrayal then when you first heard the rumors. The two of you could have been together this whole time, saved each other from years of pain, sorrow and longing, but instead it’s almost as though he forced it upon you both.

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. Jesus fuck Mark we’re not Marianne and Connell from Normal People, we can talk to each other.” 

He furrowed his eyebrows, “Who?” 

“I’ve been watching a lot of TV since we broke up.” 

There’s another silence between the two of you and in the small space it feels deafening and suffocating. You want nothing more than to go back to your seat and forget this even happened. Weirdly enough, the sex part you were fine with. It was this conversation that left you feeling like you couldn’t get a proper breath of air into your lungs, almost as if you were drowning. 

You take a piece of toilet paper from the roll beside you and use it to attempt to clean up the mess that had already begun drying on your legs. Mark watches you mindlessly, unsure of what to say himself. He knows he made a mistake from not telling you and effectively keeping the two of you apart, but every time he would reach for the phone to dial your number he would be reminded of the pain he felt and all the things you had called him that day. 

Everyone was right! Why didn’t I just fucking listen to them? Does a three year relationship mean nothing to you? I thought you changed… were different… but now I just feel like I wasted my time.

“I-I really don’t know what to say if I’m honest,” you finally stuttered out, grabbing your discarded leggings and pulling them on, “did you want me to leave you?”

Mark shakes his head vigorously, completely taken aback at you even thinking that, “no... Not at all... I just- it was complicated.”

“Right and you don’t do complicated. Got it.” You stand up and move to unlock the door, but Mark moves in front of you as he did earlier. 

“Y/n... Can we just talk about this? When we land can we just go to a cafe and talk about everything? I still- I mean... even after all this time I-” He begins, but you’re too scared to hear him finish the sentence.

“Mark we’ve had a lot of time to talk. Just please let me go back to my seat.” 

This time he makes no effort to stop you from leaving and you quickly slip out of the bathroom, fearful someone might see you. Luckily, everyone is still fast asleep and you walk back down the aisle to your seat wanting to forget about what Mark had said.  

You couldn’t deal with the what ifs, you couldn’t get lost in a fantasy of imagining that maybe you and Mark could be married already if he would have just said something. You couldn’t be that cruel to yourself.

After a few moments, you notice the bathroom occupied sign go away, signaling Mark’s arrival back to his seat. 

He knows he could just sit down and go back to sleep, falling back in to the way things were. But he had already not tried to go after you once before and he had been regretting it ever since. He had to say fuck that to all of the fears he had of being judged and put trust back into someone again. He wanted you.

Your eyes which had drifted closed soon shot open as you felt a movement at the side of your chair, turning to see Mark crouched down next you

“What are you doing?” You asked.

“I already let go of you once, I’m not doing it again. If I have to spend the next,” he brings his watch up to look at the time, “six hours convincing you, then so be it. I’m not letting walk away from me this time.” At his final word he moves his hand to brush a strand of hair behind your ear and goes to sit down. His eyes piercing into the back of your seat.

You felt Mark’s words, you felt them deeply in every part of you and it made you think that the Mark you love was still in there. 

Love.

You still loved him.

The beating of your heart made it difficult to fall asleep, but when you finally did you had a decision made and a smile on your face. 

[myownpersonaldemons]

Selftober Prompt 31

First ‘I Love You’

Gaster/Reader

So! I asked you guys who you wanted this last prompt to be of, and @Theyaremorethanjustfictional said: I think gaster x reader would be cute! Keep up the great work!

(hell yeah thank you~!)

Also like...might make this a multichapter fic because??? I...want it explore what happens later? So it might become it’s own thing.

Again, none of these are edited, so! Enjoy~! The last prompt. 

There were some things that are meant to be forgotten. Some things that we put effort into forgetting. Some things we only temporarily forget. Others that we think we forgot, but a simple nudge can reawaken even the most buried memories.

Unfortunately, you were wiped from the memories of your loved ones. Doomed to realize that you didn’t truly exist anymore. There was no trace of you anywhere. Well...that wasn’t true.  Your things were there, and they sparked people’s feelings of ‘I forgot something’...but they could never truly remember who owned them.

You huffed out a sigh as you leaned back, lifting your feet from the floor and allowed yourself to float freely in the void.

You sighed into the void as another day passed you by. Or…you assumed it did? Because, well, you couldn’t tell? Everything was the same in the void. Black inkiness as far as your eyes could see! There was nothing here besides you. At least, that’s how it was for…however long it was that you had been trapped here. Sometimes you couldn’t remember why you were in the void.

Did it matter anymore? You were stuck.

Nothing mattered from before.

What was it...day 1825? Or was it 1826? At this point the only way you knew was when the space between the void and your previous universe thinned. Typically during a RESET, LOAD, or if that one monster leapt through too many shortcuts in a short amount of time. It granted you the ability to transverse the universe as if you were part of it again...well, you felt more like a ghost. Some people could see you, but most just had a vague sense of someone watching them.

Frisk was the one who saw you the most, and every time they tried to talk to you...but your voice came out garbled. The effect of the Void corrupting your body slowly.

Another sigh.

Then a louder one.

Then you let out a frustrated sigh, tugging your knees towards your chest and tugging lightly at your hair.

“WHY!!” you shouted to the void, letting out all your anger in the following scream. You really didn’t expect anything or anyone to answer you. For the past five years you had been alone, floating in the nothingness. Honestly, you were shocked you hadn’t gone insane by yourself yet.

“WHO ARE YOU?”

It startled you bad enough you knee’d yourself in the face. Stars flashed behind your eyelids as you curled up tighter and moaned. Then the fact that someone had spoken sunk in. The eagerness in your chest outweighed the small voice wondering if you should be scared of the fact that something had been in the void with you.

You twisted around in the void until you spotted a distorted figure watching you. It was mostly a large black goopy mass with two white skeletal hands with two large holes in the palms. It’s head was reminiscent of a skull, but...melted. One eye was drooping, and it’s mouth seemed permanently twisted into a grin that looked more like a painful grimace. Cracks ran from each eye socket which looked painful.

“Who are you?” you blurted out, shifting closer to it.

It didn’t occur to you that it could be dangerous.

If you died...well that would be it.

You didn’t really care.

“I ASKED YOU FIRST.HOW DID YOU COME INTO THE VOID WITHOUT SUFFICIENT MAGIC?” its voice seemed to be an odd mix between sound and hand gestures. If...a voice could be described that way. Honestly, you couldn’t even pick up whether it was feminine or masculine. It just was. Either way, you couldn’t understand what the monster was trying to say to you, and when you voiced it, the monster seemed to deflate slightly.

“Oh...mood,” you mumbled, “of course I’d finally meet the only other creature in this god-damned void and I can’t even understand ‘em.”

That had been your first encounter with the monster. Actually, you hadn’t really left each other’s presence since seeing each other. Time meant nothing in the void, and you rarely felt the urge to sleep anymore mostly doing it to past ‘time.’ Even if you couldn’t understand them, there was something comforting of knowing there was someone else to share in your agonizingly boring existence.

Of course, since there wasn’t much the two of you could do when the void was separate from universes; you started to list off words for them to repeat back to you. Starting off with ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

Eventually, you figured out that his gestures corresponded with letters, and after committing them to memory you realized it was faster to figure out what he was saying. If there was a word that you didn’t understand audibly, you could just look at his hands to see the word spelt out.

Gaster, as you soon found his name to be, was probably the best companion you could’ve asked for in the void. He was incredibly smart, and had a dry-witty sense of humor and could pop out puns like no bodies business.

“You know,” you said one day, choosing to float upside down. Or was he upside down? You couldn’t really tell in the void. There was no gravity or anything like that. “You remind me of a skeleton I knew back in the real world.”

“Sans or Papyrus?” Gaster asked calmly, and you nodded. Nothing...really surprised you anymore. Maybe you were just becoming numb to it all, but it could also be because you were becoming corrupted. You wondered if Gaster really felt anything anymore, or if he just made jokes and puns out of pure habit. Gaster was silent for a while before he made a noise of triumph. “Ah. I remember you.”

Your eyebrows shot up, “Really?”

“Of course. Whenever the fabric of reality is weakened, I would visit my sons. You frequented Grillby’s establishment, correct?” Gaster questioned, a hand reaching up to stroke at his chin lightly.

“Establishment? Old man...” you teased, grinning at him. He shot you a withered look. “But yeah. I...guess you could say I ‘frequented’ it.”

The vagueness was an instant attractant to Gaster, his gloopy form moved closer. “Could you elaborate?”

“If you’re asking if I had a relationship with Sans? Ha! No! He’s...a greasy, geeky gremlin...no offense or whatever,” you waved a hand.

“Oh no. That is a very accurate description of my son,” Gaster’s skull nodded, “It is a blessing you were not with my son. He does not need to lose a mate and a father to the void.”

Father? That...made sense actually. No one knew where the two skeletons had come from, even Grillby who said he...swears he knew the brothers for longer than he actually did. Just something telling him that he didn’t have the whole picture. If Gaster was their father, and he was erased by the Void like you? Well, then. It explained a lot.

“Were you mated to anyone?” Gaster asked, and then hummed quietly, and added, “Is that the term humans use for their relationships?”

“It’s not really...we’ve got a bunch of different terms,” you mumbled, but the original question? That made your chest ache, and you shifted into more of a curled ball so you weren’t looking at him anymore. “Not anymore.”

Silence met your answer, before disembodied hands patted your head and then your back gently collided with the goopy semi-solid form of Gaster. “I too lost my mate when I entered the Void.”

You huffed softly, and allowed him to shift you into more of an embrace. The gooey black goop probably would’ve triggered your ick factor if you had actually felt anything in the past five years. However, the moment you felt the touch of someone else? Your felt tears prick at the corner of your eyes. You twisted slightly so you could wrap your arms the best you could around his large misshapen form.

You weren’t sure how long the two of you held each other.

But there was nothing better to do.

“It is unfortunate that you are here, but...I must admit, I am glad you are,” Gaster spoke up after what seemed like forever of silence. You nodded against his chest.

“I’m glad you’re here too. The void wouldn’t be quite as goopy without you,” you teased, pulling away from him, watching as some of the goop clung to your arms. It dissipated quickly leaving you once again just as how you entered the void. Gaster’s eye lights rolled in their sockets, but his smile seemed to grow once again.

There was a shifting feeling that was so jarring and familiar. You twisted around attempting to find the door in the darkness. Gaster’s disembodied hand twisted your head towards the source and you made a cheerful noise. It was a bittersweet feeling every time you saw the Void allowing you temporarily to see your friends and family. See how they were doing.

In a blink of the eye you were at the door, twisting the handle, and pulling it open. There was no hesitation in your movements.

You were going to be able to see him again! You were giddy with excitement.

Another blink and you were standing in Grillby’s bar.

A hand landed on your shoulder, and you jerked in surprise.

“I apologize, I did not mean to startle you,” Gaster apologized, grinning down at you.

He...was different out of the void. He was more...put together? There was less goop at least. Taller too. But then again...you didn’t really ‘see’ his goop in the void, more like felt it. It was black like the rest of your surroundings. Here, he was slimmer than you thought he was, and it looked like the goop was more of a cloak about his shoulders instead of his complete form.

You wouldn’t really know unless you...y’know, stuck your hand into the goop, and you weren’t about to do that.

Or maybe you would.

Yeah. You would stick your hand in the goop once you were back in the void.

You had little shame anymore.

You’d totally ask first.

Regardless, there was more...pressing manners to deal with.

Your attention whipped around to see Grillby chatting it up with Sans at the bar. You appeared at his side and smiled warmly up at him. He looked the same. Five years...and he hadn’t changed. Even his glasses were still the same, even though he kept complaining that he needed new ones. You reached up and your fingers ghosted his jaw. His hand came up and gently scratched at the place you touched. The most anyone would notice you were there...a gentle annoyance that they’d absentmindedly scratch, rub, or brush.

“Ah,” Gaster’s voice interrupted your thoughts, and you glanced over at him. “This is curious.”

“What?” you grumped, leaning against the bar. There was only slight resistance to tell you that there was something there...but you could walk through it. It would be like walking through chest high water, but you could do it.

Gaster’s disembodied hands patted his sons head, and Sans reached up and rubbed at the top of his skull as he joked with Grillby. “We are...more connected than I thought.”

“How so?” you questioned, following along as Grillby headed down the bar to talk to the Guard Dogs who were ordering another round for the poker table.

“I was so worried that my son would have been left behind by both his father and a mate...but I did not consider another possibility. Which...I wholly blame on my mind not being as...” Gaster hesitated as if he was trying to find the right word, “present as it used to be. It seems as if we share a mate.”

You freeze, staring up at your fiery boyfriend.

That...

What?

“Grillby and I were...together, once upon a time. Back when I was still whole and not shattered across time and space,” Gaster clarified, making you realize you had voiced your question aloud instead of quietly like you had thought you did. You glanced over at Grillby and slumped slightly.

“So...he lost two mates to the void?” you whispered, as you followed Grillby back over behind the bar. Grillby sat down in the bar stool next to Sans. You saw the skeleton briefly glance over as if he had spotted someone sitting down, but you and Gaster both knew he couldn’t actually see either of them. No one could.

Well, Frisk could sometimes see you, and every time that happened you cried and they reached out and patted your head in comfort. They would sign at you, but you had never learned before you entered the void as foolish as that seemed now.

“Thankfully, I do not believe Grillby knows that he has lost anyone. I do believe that Sans is aware that there is now two beings within the void, and he might have deduced who it was...but I cannot be sure, unfortunately,” Gaster explained, gesturing towards his son with one hand as he spoke. You leaned against the counter and let out a soft sigh. A hand materialized beside your shoulder and patted it lightly.

“What happens when we leave?” you asked quietly, “Will we ever get out of the void?”

There was a long stretch of silence where the two of you simply listened in on Grillby and Sans’ conversation. They were talking about Papyrus getting accepted into University, about the monsters in general, and about how Frisk was graduating from middle school. Finally, another hand materialized and turned your head away from Grillby to look at Gaster.

“I cannot promise you that we will ever get out...I...have given up long ago,” he said, voice impossibly soft. “I did not tell you that before because I was afraid you’d lose your own hope...and I did not want to cause it.”

You glanced down at the bar top and his fingers slid from your face as the hand disappeared once again. His two actual hands were folded on the bar top, and he wasn’t looking at you, but over your shoulder at Grillby. You saw the same bittersweet feeling in his eyes that you felt everytime you were given a chance to see your Grillby.

“Hey...” you said, reaching over and placing your hands on top of his. “At least we’ve got each other now. We’ll probably get bored of each other eventually, but until then? It’s better than nothing.”

Gaster searched your eyes for a moment and then his permanent grin stretched a bit more. “I agree.”

You squeezed his hands, and the two of you listened quietly to the rest of the conversations in the bar just holding hands. Eventually, the door beckoned you both back within it and with the greatest reluctance, you stepped back into the void. A few quiet moments passed between you and Gaster before you turned towards him. “Can I stick my hands in your goop?”

“Excuse me??” he blurted out, “What kind of question is that?”

“Are you all goop?” you asked, shifting closer, “Or  are you boney? Come on, Gaster, it’s for scientific research!”

Gaster huffed out, “I am mostly goo in the void.”

You tilted your head, but allowed that to be the end of that conversation as he seemed uncomfortable with it. Until he started questioning you about human biology instead.

Conversations flowed between the two of you easily, and sometimes the two of you would just walk around the void  holding hands. Occasionally you’d spot a distant blip of Sans or Papyrus slipping through the void in their very different ways. Papyrus never truly entered the void, it was like he slipped between the spaces between.

You stopped trying to count the days, and you found yourself growing fond of the goopy monster you spent your days with. The dry sarcasm, quick puns, and the endless abdunce of knowledge that satiated your craving to learn and to grow even if you were stuck.

Eventually, Gaster even let you stick your hands into his goop to your intense giddy excitement! It was warm and comforting as it always was when he hugged you, but you pushed past that outer layer of goo and eventually found a bone. It was…gross feeling, but you smiled brightly still. “Cool!” you blurted out, tilting your head in curiosity.

Time passed and you were practically glued to Gaster’s side, not literally. Though sometimes the goo stuck a bit longer to you until you flicked it off. You caught him blushing occasionally after a cuddle session or when you successfully shot back with a clever pun or recited some scientific knowledge back to him during conversation. The two of you were more likely to be cuddling together, holding hands, or anything that meant you could feel something…anything.

“Do you think if we get out of here…you’ll not want to talk to me ever again?” you asked suddenly one day, cutting him off accidentally.

His head tilted slightly, peering down at you where you were snuggled against his goopy chest. “Why would I not?”

“Just…you probably know everything about me by now. Will you be bored of me? I could see you being bored of me,” you admitted and he gave you the most offended look you’d ever gotten from him.

“I would not! The mere thought is ridiculous. I know who you are in the void! A stagnant version of yourself! Imagine what I could learn about you in an ever changing world? I, for one, would be more intrigued to spend time with you out of the void!” he said, a hand reaching up to brush aside some of your hair from your face. It hadn’t grown at all since you had been here. Nothing had changed. “Would you grow bored of me?”

You shook your head, “Couldn’t imagine it, Dings.”

A half-hearted glare was sent down at you before he  leaned down and nuzzled your forehead with his own. That surprised you a bit, that was a touch more affection than you were used to but…you nuzzled back. “There is no one I’d rather face a different world with than with you,” he said softly, “besides, who else better to help my goopy coccyx adjust to the human world again than a human!”

You snorted, “Sans can teach you how to floss.”

“Floss? I know how to floss?” Gaster said, sounding entirely too confused. You laughed.

“It’s a silly dance,” you told him, giggling all the while.

“Ridiculous name for a dance,” he muttered, shaking his head.

“Old goopy man,” you teased, nuzzling his face.

Time flooded by the two of you without meaning, and you found the fondness grow to deep affection. You were falling for Gaster and you knew it…but there was no pressure here. There was no reason to freak out about the feeling so you just embraced it. Allowed yourself to becoming more affectionate, compliment him…just everything you were too afraid to do in the ‘real world’ because of judging eyes.

The door between the two worlds opened again, and you found yourself wanting to stick with Gaster instead of flit off to Grillby’s bar. Instead, the two of you were watching as Sans tiredly sucked down coffee and compared notes with Alphys about the void. Gaster’s head tilted curiously.

“I…do not believe it,” he muttered, bending unnaturally over his son to read the notes closer. “They…are getting close.”

“How close?” you asked, looking over from where you were currently snooping around the lab.

A slight more of a head tilt, but he remained silent for a while. Sans and Alphys’ voices were the only that filled the room, but then Gaster straightened. “Two years if they keep on track at this pace,” he admitted, “Maybe less depending on whether they figure out which line of code is slightly off.”

“Two years?” you repeated, “That’s…soon,” you said in amazement.

He nodded.

The two of you were silent for a while longer.

“Holy shit. That’s…an end date.”

“It is. It may be longer…but they will get us out of here,” he said so softly you barely heard it.

The two of you looked at each other, and then you jumped across the small room at him and wrapped your arms around his neck. You shouted in excitement and his arms wrapped around your waist, babbling happily about how proud of his son he was and how he couldn’t wait to hug his children again.

You pulled away to grin at him, “I’m excited for you!”

“Just for me?” he repeated, confused, “What about you?”

“Dings! You’ve been here way longer than I have. You’re sons haven’t seen their dad since they were young. I know how much you’ve hated missing out on them growing up. Can’t I be excited for you?” you said, softening your voice and touching his skull gently.

“You can,” he said carefully, but then brushed a piece of hair away from your face, “and I am excited for you as well, my dear.”

“My dear?” you teased lightly.

“I…hm, it will be two years minimum I assume, until we are freed. However…I wish to…stay this close to you when we are freed,” he said choosing his words even more carefully, “as…I have…I love you.”

The admission wasn’t shocking or jarring. It was right. You smiled at him and nuzzled his face, “I love you too, goopy man.”

He sighed, and then in the driest voice possible he muttered, “I take it back.”

You gasped, fake offended, “Gaster!”

He giggled, “I’m teasing you, my dear. I am pleased to hear you love me in return…even though I felt sure that you have felt the same way for a while. Over the years I have become quite in tuned with your SOUL,” he admitted, nuzzling your face again. You kissed his mouth gently.

“I can’t wait to experience the world again with you,” you muttered back, “Two more years.”

[theconservativebrief]

Several stories showing racial profiling of black Americans by police and white Americans continue to go viral — in one video, a white woman calls the cops on a black man babysitting two white children in Georgia. In another, a white student calls 911 when she sees a black classmate sleeping in a dormitory common room. In this essay, a former police dispatcher remembers the racist calls she used to take every day and law enforcement’s rules that forced her to respond to every caller, regardless of the incident.

It was the end of an 18-hour shift. My butt hurt from sitting in one place with only a couple of five-minute bathroom breaks. My brain hurt from staying awake that long, and my stomach ached from all the coffee I’d drunk to keep myself alert.

But the phones rarely stopped.

“911, what’s the address of your emergency?” I said into the headset.

The man gave me his address and then said, “There’s a woman pushing a shopping cart in front of my house.”

This one stumped me. I worked in a large metropolitan area. Yes, the city where I worked was affluent, and most people used their cars to get groceries. But surely he’d seen a person using a personal grocery cart before.

“I’m sorry, I’m not getting it. What’s the problem?” I waited for more clarification as I racked my brain for the correct penal code under which this infraction might fall.

“You need to get out here now.”

“Um.” A dispatcher has to be cautious about how she phrases things. Of all the jobs in emergency services — firefighters, police officers, nurses, doctors — dispatchers are the only ones who are recorded during every single thing they do. Everything they say — and their whole job is speaking — is part of public record. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re reporting.”

“She’s black.”

My heart sped up as it did every day when I heard this kind of thing. This Northern California city was affluent and very white, bordering Oakland, much of which was neither. “Sir, I’m still not seeing the problem. Is she being loud? Is the noise of the cart disturbing your peace?”

His tone got harsher. “Where do you live?”

I was so startled by the question that I answered it. “Oakland,” I said.

“You wouldn’t understand, then. This isn’t Oakland. We don’t have people like her in this neighborhood. Just send someone out to get rid of her. I’m not talking to you anymore.” The click in my ear was his goodbye.

The worst thing about it? I had to send someone out. Dispatchers usually don’t get to choose which calls lead to the dispatching of emergency personnel and which don’t.

If a person wants to make a report, they get to make a report. You can think of police reports as being like lawsuits. Anyone can make one about anything, no matter how stupid. Shortly after 9/11, I had to send an officer to take a report from a citizen because she’d had a dream about a knife-wielding man from Afghanistan.

Of course, dispatchers do have a tiny bit of control. I sent our one Afghan officer to take the report from her. He was amused; she, not so much.

By now, you’ve probably heard about the white Oakland woman who called the cops because black men were using a charcoal grill at Lake Merritt. She’s been memed and mocked, and the department has been criticized for sending officers out. But it all started with a dispatcher, answering that first phone call.

According to the computer logs, which have been made public, the call came in 11:22 am. A woman reported a 40-year-old heavyset black man using a charcoal grill. The dispatcher spent less than a minute asking her for more information. He typed NFD at the end, which stands for No Further Details.

Here’s where I start guessing things, based on 17 years of dispatching in the Bay Area. I’m guessing that the dispatcher rolled his eyes at this call so hard they almost fell out of his head. Yet another white lady upset over what black people were doing. Every single day of my career, I took that call. Every single day, I wanted to slam down the phone.

Instead, the dispatcher typed NFD. That’s subtle dispatch code for “this caller was a pain in the butt and couldn’t give more information about this lame-ass complaint.” It was entered as a Priority 3 call, which essentially means “not important” — the police officers on duty at that moment had much better things to do in a city like Oakland.

Two hours passed, and police had not responded. But then someone called to report the original caller was still on scene and now fighting with the people barbecuing, which prompted an immediate dispatch. “Life before property” is the code by which emergency services run. Potential property damage reports will hold for hours, if not days, if officers are busy intervening in situations where people are in physical danger. Once it was reported that people were fighting, an officer arrived at the scene of the barbecue eight minutes later.

Am I saying police officers aren’t racist — that they question black citizens more aggressively than white citizens because responding to most complaints is obligatory? Heck no. Many are. We live in a country still mired in institutional racism, including its policing. I’m not in the business anymore, and the relationship between police departments and communities of color was one of the reasons I left to write full time.

But I am pointing out that those cops on the video didn’t look happy to be forced to take the complaint seriously. They had way better things to do that afternoon than investigate some guys cooking out in a park.

In every city in America, 911 rings around the clock. Dispatchers are usually too short-staffed to take real breaks, and they can’t shut the center for weekends and holidays. They are the ones who suck it up and keep hitting the answer button, no matter what.

My co-worker once got a call from a man who said, “My neighbors keep parking in front of my house. And they’re black.”

Dispatchers all have moments when they reach the end of their patience, and that was Bonnie’s moment.

She said, “It’s a city street. Unfortunately, anyone can legally park wherever they like. I’m sure it’s very frustrating for you. Why would you bring race into this?”

“Are you black?”

“I am,” she said.

“Put your supervisor on the phone.”

He filed a police report against her instead of his neighbors.

She went through an internal affairs investigation because, of course, any report against a member of the police department has to be investigated. She was cleared of breaking any technical rules — she had stated clearly that no laws were being broken; she hadn’t had an attitude in her voice.

But she was sternly advised to be more circumspect in the future or her job would be at stake. She told me later, “That was the moment I decided to leave the industry. Every time I answered the phone, I felt like I got punched in the face. And I had to shut up and take it.” A few years later, she became a therapist on San Quentin’s death row. She said her new job was easier than dispatching.

The phone rings again. You mime stabbing yourself in the eyeball as the next caller says that she thinks three kids outside the 7-Eleven are getting ready to rob it.

“Why do you think that?”

“They’re wearing hoodies. You never know what those kinds of kids are carrying in their pockets. Every one of them could have a gun, you know. They probably do.”

“Did you see a gun?”

“Just check.” Click.

You swallow your cold oatmeal, you roll your eyes at your cubicle mate, and you enter the call for eventual dispatch even though you wish you could pretend you never got it. (If you don’t enter the call and something happens, you could lose your job for negligence.) Then you grab the next call.

Of course people should call 911 if it’s an actual emergency. But think before you call the cops to handle your feelings about a barbecue, or where someone is parked, or if they’re playing music on a Saturday afternoon. If you get it wrong (and all of us, living in the privileged bubbles of our own creation, often get it wrong), you could be the reason someone gets hurt or even killed.

With some rudimentary math, I’ve worked out that I’ve answered at least a quarter of a million 911 calls in my career. Amid the meaningless, racially charged calls, I’ve gotten so many by concerned citizens who genuinely want to help someone who is hurt or in danger. Good typically wins over evil. But it’s awfully damn close sometimes. And we all have to pick a side.

Rachael Herron is the best–selling author of the novel The Ones Who Matter Most, named an editor’s pick by Library Journal, as well as more than 20 other novels and memoirs. She received her MFA in writing from Mills College, Oakland, and she teaches creative writing in the extension programs at both UC Berkeley and Stanford.

First Person is Vox’s home for compelling, provocative narrative essays. Do you have a story to share? Read our submission guidelines, and pitch us at firstperson@vox.com.

Original Source -> I used to be a 911 dispatcher. I had to respond to racist calls every day.

via The Conservative Brief

[dweemeister]

@loveless422 replied to your link: Oscars Won't Televise All Awards Live, Adds...

Your thought?

Plenty of them (if you have any thoughts yourself, I’d love to hear them). Look out loveless and my followers, it’s...

MY THOUGHTS ON THE RECENT OSCAR CHANGES: 

First, among the many reasons why I care about the Oscars is because it is the Academy’s (AMPAS) most important fundraiser of the year. On a daily basis, AMPAS preserves movies (short- and feature-length; narrative, documentary, and experimental; from anywhere and in any language) and educates professionals and students in the art of cinema. Those are worthy goals that need to be cherished and protected. OTOH, I care about the Oscars because I love film history. And though the Academy Awards are a flawed way to discover what the best films are, they are a starting point for budding film buffs and give us a glimpse of what a certain portion of people liked at a given moment in time. But as to yesterday’s changes..........

I have no problem moving up the ceremony to the second Sunday in February in 2020. It shortens the time I get to see all the nominees and messes up my annual 31 Days of Oscar marathon queueing on this blog, but those are small potatoes. The Grammys and CBS don’t like it? I don’t care.

Placing some of the lesser-heralded awards (probably sound awards and short films) into the commercial breaks to cap the ceremony at 3 hours is disrespectful to those nominees and to those branches - who I can’t believe would have approved those changes. A film is more ruined with godawful sound editing and sound mixing than it is bad acting.

The short films? Most of the people who are nominated in those categories are not multimillionaires - they’re typically just scraping by and their films have NO room for error. The non-Americans who get nominated for their short films? They’re probably being funded by who knows how many sources including their government.

The Academy Awards is the one time of the year where we acknowledge that it’s not just director, actors, and writers who make up a film. Those categories are important and represent the increasing democratization of cinema. They’re there for a reason; those nominees poured themselves into their work just as much as anybody else in that room and deserve their time in the spotlight. And anyone who says the Oscars are too long because they hand out too many awards should also use the same logic for the Super Bowl - which is 3.5+ hours long and feels interminable because there’s too much football, apparently.

If you still think this is all boring, maybe you’re watching the Oscars with the wrong people! I can always explain things to you folks if you ever have any questions about the Academy Awards!

But the big snafu is that damned Best Popular Film award to be instituted two ceremonies from now (it’s not too late to take it back!). Variety is reporting that this came about in a post-Oscars meeting in March in which ABC told AMPAS that it was facing irrelevance and should make some damn changes. The top of that list was the Best Popular Film award (so, for me, this is mostly ABC’s fault) - some apologists are saying the AMPAS has done this before because, at the first ceremony, they handed out a Best Picture (Wings) and a Best Unique and Artistic Production (Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans) Oscar. That example is not analogous!

I honestly think that the declining ratings for the Oscars is more reflective of cord-cutting more than anything else. All TV ratings are down and are more fragmented than ever - even live awards shows and sports championships, all of these once considered untouchable, are all down ratings-wise. AMPAS needs to find a way to maximize total audience delivery (not just traditional TV, but streaming and livefeeds). The Academy Museum opens in 2019, so hopefully in the coming years AMPAS will be less dependent on revenue from the Oscar telecast.

I think political polarization and the popularity of the films nominated for the major awards are secondary reasons. Regarding the popularity of the films, it does not help that the major studios are no longer interested in making mid-budget, mature comedies and dramas anymore (the mid-budget movie is endangered in Hollywood). It does not help that the major studios are no longer interested in making epic films that do not require tons of CGI or a tie-in to an existing commercial property anymore. The Academy cannot fix this problem alone. It is up to the major studios, producers, and movie theater chains and owners (who are among the most responsible in segregating “popular” movies from the “indies” and creating the cinematic culture we have now). Otherwise, I think the Academy has done an amazing job not bending to popular pressure and dishing out its biggest honors to the most popular films in the last few decades. It’s more than I can say for the Emmys and ESPECIALLY the Grammys.

ABC is owned by Disney and Disney - by purchasing Lucasfilm, Marvel, Pixar, and very soon 20th Century Fox - is no longer interested in anything that isn’t a blockbuster/franchise movie/tentpole. They have dominated the box office over the last several years. Maybe they’re just pissed the DCEU won an Oscar (Best Makeup & Hairstyling for Suicide Squad... ick) before the MCU did. Disney buying itself Oscars? Yup. ABC is not interested in movies or movie history and anything AMPAS has to do on a daily basis (film preservation, educating people in cinema). Viewership and money is the driving force.

This “Best Popular Film” thing is already covered by the People’s Choice Awards and MTV. AMPAS undermines the pedigree of an Oscar with this category’s creation. This award is insulting not only to the films we would expect to be nominated or contend for Best Picture, but to the films nominated for Best Popular Film itself (a movie can be nominated for both, however). It’s a consolation prize on top of the money already grossed - essentially saying that those certain films could never be nominated for Best Picture on their own artistic merits. No, I don’t think Black Panther or Infinity War or Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom are worthy of a Best Picture nomination. But there’s nothing wrong about not getting nominated or only garnering a Costume Design nomination. People should view the Oscars as a raucous, slightly tipsy party that gives out gifts rather than a definitive, high-stakes night that rewrites cinematic history in just a few hours.

Am I right MCU/Star Wars/F&F/DCEU/Disney animation fans that these movies don’t need Oscar nominations for you to love them more? Because if the answer is “yes”, then you know that “Best Popular Film” is exceptionally condescending to these movies you love. This will only make it harder for your beloved films to be nominated for Best Picture and other major categories if they deserve them.

To the Academy (@theacademy):

Hey, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? I am so happy you have been gradually diversifying your ranks to include more women, non-white, and non-American members. I know these last few years have been tumultuous, but you don’t need these changes. You’re overreacting to the possibility that you might not nominate Black Panther for Best Picture (which I would not nominate for that category in any case, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world). Whatever will be, will be. You can’t change what your current body of members thinks or will vote for, and that’s okay. Stop panicking. Stop bending to ABC’s pressure - they don’t know any better. Keep engaging in film preservation and education that few other organizations do as well as you do. I can’t wait to see your museum next year, and I hope it’s a success!

Seriously, this Best Popular Film thing is stupid.

[spectrumscribe]

exhaust trails through space.

commissioned by @stasispunk, some good old 2012 TMNT b-team shenanigans and bonding. in space!!

contains some themes similar to my fic These Days, so be aware. but not nearly as severe, since it’s mostly fluffy things.

AO3 version.

It’s not bad, in their home. It’s not. But sometimes it’s just… not good.

It’s not one person’s fault, and it’s not everyone’s fault, either. They’re not the most functional people in the world, even if they were counted as ‘people’ by the greater majority of planet earth. They all have problems, and bad nights, and moments where they just fuck up a situation that could have gone better. And they’re trying, honest, to make it work even with just each other and their friends to lean on for support.

Mikey knows all that, but it still sucks sometimes. Maybe a lot of the time, when rough patches pop up and take root. Sometimes things just suck and that’s a fact about his family’s life.

Doesn’t make it any easier, when it’s the third week in a row where hardly anyone has had what they could call a ‘good night’, and it’s the umpteenth fight about something stupid. The chores today, training yesterday, and attitude the day before that…

It’s always something, and it feels like one or more of them are always mad about it. Some nights it’s easy as avoiding that brother, and some nights it’s not.

Some nights its itchy, bitter frustration building in Mikey’s throat and a lot of words coming out that really shouldn’t. Some nights its Raph saying words just like Mikey’s, and both of their voices climbing higher to be heard over the other. Tonight it’s that, with the additional noise of Leo and Donnie telling both of them to shut up and let it just drop already, and Raph finally losing his temper to the point it gets physical.

They’ve all had it a hundred times worse, but a rough shove backwards, enough Mikey has to really pay attention so he doesn’t fall over, is a real pain in the neck to deal with. Enough that it’s one of the nights he doesn’t back down at that, and instead shoves right back.

Raph makes an angry snarl for the blow, and punches Mikey’s shoulder hard enough it’ll probably bruise. That’s when Leo and Donnie pull them apart, dividing them into B-team and A-team once again.

There’s a lot of yelling and not-yelling going on, and Mikey’s shoulder is smarting as much as his pride is, and all he catches is-

“Mikey, you apologize, and then we can all just put this behind us-”

“Excuse me, you want him to apologize? For not wanting to pick up Raph’s dishes?”

“Raph already did the sweeping today, it wasn’t that big of a deal for him to ask Mikey-”

“Raph can clean up his own shit, oh my god. Expecting other people to always do that for him is frankly ridiculous-”

“It isn’t always-”

“It sure feels like it!”

“Donnie.”

“Leo.”

And after a moment of glaring, Mikey suddenly finds himself being dragged out of the room as Donnie throws over his shoulder, “You know what? Fuck both of you.”

Leo tries to call after them. “Donnie-”

“No! Piss off, Leo!”

Just like that, Mikey finds himself in his brother’s lab, and the doors being slammed behind them. He rubs his sore shoulder absently while Donnie paces, muttering and cursing and being generally upset.

“I cannot believe- you know what, no, no I can believe he’d think that was okay. Like Raph wasn’t the first one to make things physical, like always-”

Donnie slams his hands on a table, facing Mikey from the other side of it.

“I am so sick of their bullshit,” he says.

Mikey rubs his shoulder a little more, massaging the forming bruise. “Same,” he replies.

Donnie walks away from his table, pacing a bit more, and then rounds to look Mikey dead in the eye.

“We need a god damn vacation,” Donnie states.

Mikey thinks about that. They actually… haven’t ever taken one of those?

“Not many places to go when you’re a turtle, Dee,” he points out, which is one of the reasons why they’ve never done that.

Donnie mutters grudgingly that that’s true. Then he snaps his fingers and says, “But in space, we can go anywhere!”

Mikey tilts his head.

That’s… very true. He says so, then adding with a slight are you kidding me tone, “And how are we supposed to get up there, genius?”

Donnie pulls out his t-phone, tapping away on the screen.

“Bishop owes me a few favors at least, considering how much we’ve helped them out in the past. Plus, I walked him through how to set up Netflix across dimensional planes. Three hours of that definitely warrants a spaceship loan.”

  ---

 It takes less time than Mikey would have thought to have a ship.

No longer than half a night, and a ship is ready for them to fly into the stratosphere. Brought straight from the remaining reserves of the Kraang armada, now the Utrom armada; basically with Mikey and Donnie’s name on it.

They pack their bags and weapons. It takes shorter than ten minutes, what with how much practice of having to grab essentials and just go they’ve had. Years of life or death situations are good for something.

Once they have everything together- and have made sure April will come and take care of ICK, because Mikey couldn’t ever leave without making sure his cat would be cared for properly- they stand in the technical living room of their home and announce,

“We’re going to space,” Mikey says proudly, and maybe a lot smugly. “See you guys in a few weeks.”

“What,” Leo says, staring at them.

“April will keep an eye on ice cream kitty,” Donnie assures. “so don’t bother feeding her at all.”

“What,” Raph says, also staring.

“Stay out of the lab,” Donnie says.

“And my room,” Mikey says.

“What?”  Their brothers say.

“See you!” Mikey cheers, and absconds with Donnie before anyone can stop them.

 ---

 For Donnie, laying his hands on the controls of the formerly Kraang ship is a clean breath inwards. Bringing it online, activating it’s cloaking, and taking off from the ground of the military compound is literally like flying.

The stratosphere rushes to meet them, and Donnie finds himself grinning as the blue of earth fades from the viewpoint. Only endless stars and space ahead of them, an entire universe full of options.

Donnie glances to his side, where he finds Mikey. His brother beaming at the smears of starlight all around them, so excited he’s nearly jittering.

Mikey glances up at him, and Donnie finds his own mouth copying the wide excited smile. Already this trip is an improvement. Mikey barely seems to be feeling the bruise on his shoulder, and Donnie hasn’t found himself thinking about certain arguments in over a half hour.

Their phones are now thoroughly out of range with earth, and they’ve got all the time in the world to explore to their hearts content. Now the only question is…

Where will they go first?

 ---

 They find out unfortunately quick that Kraang are not welcome. Literally anywhere.

After the fifth misunderstanding, and subsequent terror/grudge inspired firefight, Donnie announces they’ll be getting a new ship. Because getting shot at every two hours is the opposite of a vacation.

“But we have zero space dollars, dude,” Mikey points out as they pull into a space dock, planetside of a well populated area and after haggling the local law enforcers into believing that no, they are not a lone Kraang ship here to wage short and stupid war on a tourist planet.

“Weeellll….” Donnie says slowly as they pack up their meager possessions. “We can get an okay price for ship scrap, so that’s a start.”

“Enough for a new ship?” Mikey asks as they clip on the air conversion collars Bishop loaned them.

Donnie makes an Eh, not quite noise. Mikey looks at him for a moment, and then says, “Oh. Okay. Right off the bat?”

Donnie shrugs. “It was bound to happen eventually,” he says as he double checks all his weapons. “We’re bad at staying on people’s good side anyway, might as well do it on purpose for once.”

Seeing as this is their second time on a space voyage, and they’re older and more skilled at it now, it’s actually very easy to steal a new space ship. Sleek and small and fast, perfect for outrunning law enforcement and formerly wasted on the alien equivalent of a trust fund baby.

They then begin the 2.0 version of their vacation, adrenaline hot in their veins and somewhat maniacal laughter filling their ship as they warp away from the long arm of the law.

 ---

 Seeing as no one is hunting their heads this time around (excluding that one quadrant where they stole their ship from), there is abruptly a list of options longer than Mikey’s whole body of what they can do. Their options have always been so limited, even the last time they’d been out here, and it makes Mikey’s head spin for a few minutes.

Best yet, there’s only Donnie here with him in the cockpit of their ship. That’s only one person to convince, and Donnie has always been easier to try that with than any of their other siblings. Donnie’s more likely to listen, as long as it’s not too stupid a suggestion.

“Theme park!” Mikey says, snapping his fingers.

“Theme park,” Donnie agrees, writing down the idea on the little holopad that came with the ship.

“Oh and, um, shit, what’s that wet one of those?”

“Waterpark?”

“Yes,” Mikey says reverently. “I wanna use an actual waterslide at least once before I die.”

“Same, honestly,” Donnie says, adding that as well.

Mikey thinks a little more, about parks, and water, and things to do with both of those. And he arrives to a suggestion that seizes him with a strong sweep of fervency.

“Beach!” Mikey yells. “OH. My god. We have to go to a beach. Everyone has to visit a beach at some point.”

He glances at Donnie, who is looking at him funny.

“What?” Mikey asks, and then feels tired trepidation that of all his suggestions, the one he wants most is the one he’ll have to fight for.

Donnie snorts, chuckling as he taps on the holopad. “Nothing, it’s just for a second there I thought you called me a bitch.”

Mikey relaxes. “Not that time,” he jokes. He leans forwards in his pilot seat, towards his brother’s. “But seriously. Beach. We have to go find a real beach. Please?”

“Way ahead of you,” Donnie says. He taps the holoscreen one more time, and a map of stars pops up on the connected ones to the controls. He grins at Mikey. “I think a beach day is an excellent way to kick things off.”

Mikey chest is full of bubbling joy, and he throws his hands up with a whoop as Donnie sends their ship speeding towards the destination.

 ---

 Half a cycle’s voyage and twenty minutes of bickering about which spot to land on later, with brilliant blue waves crashing against the shore and golden beach that stretches for miles each way, and their air converter collars functioning just fine in the new environment,

“You should totally eat it,” Mikey says.

Donnie gives his brother an incredulous look. “It’s an unidentified alien organism on a deserted planet. I’m not going to eat it.”

“It’s an alien organism on a deserted planet that looks exactly like an earth lobster. We gotta eat it.”

Donnie gestures at the space crustacean between their feet on the sand. “It’s bright green! I’m not eating a neon green lobster from space.”

“Technically,” Mikey points out. “we’re green turtles from space, and he just lives here.”

“I’m not eating it.”

“Suit yourself.”

It’s only later, when the two suns have set and they’ve set up camp outside the ship for dinner, that Donnie looks at the lobster again. And considers.

“…that smells good,” he comments, watching Mikey crack open the shell of the lobster he’s boiled to a dark blue.

“’bout to find out if it tastes good,” Mikey replies, and takes a bite out of the pale flesh inside. Donnie waits for Mikey to keel over and the rush to find the right medicinal injection to begin, but all he gets is his brother chewing, swallowing, and saying, “Whew!”

“That’s like getting punched in the nose with flavor, oh my god,” Mikey says, wiping his nose and grinning. “Dee, you sure you don’t want in?”

Donnie looks at the dry ration bars in his hands, and his stomach rumbles as the scent of (probably) shellfish wafts past him.

“Gimme,” he finally relents. Mikey hands him one of the claws with a grin, and Donnie finds out eating lobster does in fact feel like getting punched in the nose with flavor. But it’s a good one, if a little overwhelming at first.

They polish off the lobster, and then go looking for more. Two more end up in the pot taken from the ship’s tiny kitchen, and they methodically shell them under the moonlight by their fire.

 ---

 In stark contrast to the beach destination, Mikey lets Donnie drag him to a planet at least several centuries ahead of earth with technology, if not more.

Not exactly where he would have wanted to go next, but hey, fairs fair. This is a joint trip, and Donnie didn’t even fight with him on going to the beach. Mikey’s gotta share control of their list.

So, rather than hitting up one of the artificial planets made specifically for partying, or one that’s built all its cities in the sky, they land on one that’s long past its phase of military might and moved into intellectual ventures. Transferring their old military research into betterment of the galaxy and all that.

They pick a showcase for tourists, since that’s what they are, and it’d be a big mess for sure if they tried to sneak into the top secret research facilities (which Mikey suspects they might end up breaking into anyway, at some point).

A lot of it goes way over Mikey’s head, but he’s alright with that for the most part. A laser beam works the same either way, even when you don’t understand exactly how it blows up stuff. All that really matters is the seriously sick laser show it creates.

Donnie makes a series of needy, high pitched noises at the end of the show; eyes shining as the demonstrators move on to the more technical part of things. Opening up the interior of the machines for those in the crowd with a head for that kind of thing, while all the normal folks start moving on to the next exhibition.

Mikey glances after the crowd, hearing distantly loud speakers in the ceiling tell visitors are welcome to witness another demonstration of technology- this one an aquatic vehicle, and involving a splash zone to get caught in.

Mikey fidgets a little, because that sounds really fun, but Donnie is still enamored with the speakers on stage. He wants to leave, but also not.

Donnie notices Mikey’s wistful glances, and grimaces sheepishly.

“Sorry for making you wait, this is just really interesting,” he says, rubbing his neck and looking awkward. Then Donnie offers, “You can go on ahead if you want.”

Mikey chews on that for a moment, and then says, “Nah. I’m good. Not like we haven’t seen stuff like that before.”

It would be neat to see the aquatic car thingy- plus get splashed during the demonstration, or be quick enough to not get splashed, that’s even better- but it would be more fun to do it with Donnie, instead of on his lonesome.

They don’t have much in common that’s fun for both of them, so. Why walk away from the chance to share something? Especially something that lifts all the stress that tends to sit on Donnie’s shoulders, and makes him smile like he had when they were younger, holding his first IPad with an intact screen.

Donnie scrutinizes Mikey for a brief moment, and then gives a small smile.

“Let’s move closer to the front,” he suggests with a tinge of giddy curiosity in his voice. “I might be able to copy some of it from memory later.”

“Sure,” Mikey agrees easily. “The Shellraiser would be like, twice as cool if we gave it lasers.”

“That’s the plan,” Donnie says, a glint in his eye. Mikey grins. Cool weapons are definitely something they can agree on.

They end up staying after each demonstration to hear the what’s what of things, and Mikey’s attention definitely wanders during them, but Donnie is focused intensely enough for the both of them. It evens out.

Plus, Donnie takes Mikey to the biggest, baddest, most epic theme park of three systems right after they’re done- just on the other side of the planet, how did Mikey miss that in the brochures- and then he is far too busy trying to ride every single ride possible to care about anything else.

It’s a good vacation spot. Loud, teeming with people, a bright sun hanging over their heads- they’ve seen plenty of this stuff on television, but never actually experienced walking through halls of valuable and ingenious inventions, rarely experienced the thrill of adrenaline that didn’t come from danger and certainly never experienced being pressed into a huge crowd, hundreds of people around them and not giving a second look their way.

It’s a good spot to stop, like the quiet freedom of the beach was. Miles and miles of untouched nature, not another soul to disturb them, and an endless sea they could swim in all they wanted. Just the two of them, all on their own, and for once an easy balance struck between them.

It’s good to see the lingering exhilaration in Donnie, once they leave that planet. Mikey almost interrupts a few times, a little bored but mostly just confused by all the scientific stuff Donnie is rambling about, but then he stops for a moment and looks at the bright excited smile his brother has, and just… doesn’t want it to stop.

Like it usually does, when someone tells him enough is enough and changes the conversation topic.

So Mikey keeps his mouth shut for the most part, and gives his best at trying to understand the things Donnie goes on about. He notices after a bit that Donnie tries to include him, bringing up potential redesigns to their cars and the lair’s facilities that Mikey could get interested in.

Donnie could’ve just kept on about the more complicated stuff, but he’s actively trying to make their conversation something Mikey can contribute to- which doesn’t often happen. It’s a little clumsy, faltering here and there as Donnie backtracks to water down the jargon, but that attempt at inclusion makes Mikey smile.

 ---

 Their ship breaks down after about seven different stops, and they have to pull over planetside to get into a repair shop. One thing leads to another, a wrench and fission torch end up in Donnie’s hands, and then he’s arm deep in the engine of their ship and drinking up every bit of information their mechanic gives him.

And there’s another three ships in the shop, all with totally different engine designs and aeronautic exteriors and Donnie wants to take every single one of them apart, haul every manual he can find into his lap, and commit the contents to his memory. He wants to spend time here even more than he did at the massive intergalactic library they visited, because tangible knowledge is even better than books.

But. That would take a few days, at least. Donnie is good, but he’s not good enough to get everything down like that in one night.

But he still desperately wants to- this is one of the nicest (and one of the very few) individuals he’s met that is willing to teach him something useful and interesting. He doesn’t want to depart before he can at least enjoy the experience.

Donnie is waiting for Mikey to start complaining about the time it’s taking to fix the ship, needle at Donnie for being a gearhead and a nerd and using up their precious vacation to learn boring stuff. But it hasn’t happened yet.

Mikey is alternating between sitting atop the ship, reading comics on the holopad, or messing around in the scrapyard surrounding the shop and traversing rusting piles of ships. He’s only stopped a few times to peer over Donnie’s shoulder, and every time Donnie expects his brother to finally start up, finally say “We’re just wasting time, come on Donnie,” he just… wanders off again.

The next time Mikey swings by, sliding down the side of the ship to hang above where Donnie is working on the engine- while their helpful and kind mechanic takes zir dinner break- Donnie chews his lip, and then asks.

“Aren’t you getting… impatient? Or something?” Donnie questions. Mikey cocks his head to the side, like a curious bird.

“No?” he says. “Why, are you?”

“No,” Donnie says, because how could he? “but… I thought maybe you’d… I dunno. Want to go do something else already?”

Mikey shrugs. “Nah. We’ve been on the go for a few days now; a rest is cool by me. ‘sides, you’re getting your nerd-on for all this- stuff,” he waves vaguely at the shop. “so I’m good to just hang out ‘til you’re done.”

“Oh,” Donnie says, blinking, taken a little aback. “You sure?”

“Sure am,” Mikey says, and clambers back up the side of the ship with a wave goodbye. Donnie is half certain his brother is going to double back, turn around with a “Gotcha!” and be kidding about what he’s said, but Mikey just jumps up into the rafters and goes exploring again.

Donnie scratches his head, but decides wondering is ultimately looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Mikey is patient the whole four days it takes for Donnie to be satisfied with his learnings, and barely fusses about anything the whole while. Donnie is a little disbelieving it’s actually happened, but largely touched for the gift of time and space.

 ---

 Mikey gets to choose the next destination after Donnie’s binge on spaceships, and he picks a planet made of softly glowing plant life and deep, fathomless seas.

It’s the seafood, in all honesty, that draws him. Mikey can’t help it- good food, like seriously good food, is so hard to come by. He gets teased for it by his brothers, but he can’t help his passion for food. Baking and cooking comes easy to him, and getting to experience space fine cuisine isn’t something he can pass up.

They end up combing through the smaller markets, where local fishermen- literally, with their scales gleaming- show their wares. Mikey trails his hands over the fins of large exotic looking fishes, takes cautious sniffs of fruit only found on this planet, and mourns he can’t take the time to try every single item for himself.

He expects sometimes for Donnie to complain about the smell of raw meat, or maybe about the stickiness of some patches on the market road, or about wandering in aimless circles and eating things. But he doesn’t.

Mikey is still cautious though, because as much as he really, really wants to take his time, he also doesn’t want to start a fight accidentally. Not when things are going so well, and they’re getting along so easily, and Donnie is still carrying himself with content gait he only gets when he’s accomplished something that makes him happy.

Until he gets to an open cookout, Mikey manages to keep himself from getting invested in anything. It doesn’t seem so much a cook-off, but instead a gathering of locals. Sharing food, showing off skills at a grill. Family things. Mikey’s hands twitch around an imaginary knife- wanting to get in there and let his translator do its thing, let him learn what these people are all talking about to each other.

But… that would take hours, and there’s no way…

Mikey glances at Donnie, hardly keeping his feet from dragging him right towards the gathering.

Donnie looks at him, bemused.

“What are you waiting for?” Donnie asks, smiling. “Go already.”

Mikey smiles brilliantly, and does.

He spends the rest of the afternoon, then evening, and then late evening enjoying the party of food. It’s a local holiday, it turns out. A time to share food and bounty from the sea, and pay tribute to their two sided ocean goddess. The one who provides and the one who takes, they tell him over a grill, three slices of seasoned fish on it.

Mikey focuses on the providing side of things, like the rest of the participants in the communal barbeque are. Whenever he glances towards Donnie, he finds his brother relaxing comfortably to the side of things. Reading, or maybe writing, on the holopad while locals mill around his spot at one of the many tables.

Mikey slides dish after dish in front of his brother on his quest to learn all of the local cooking tricks, and he is pleasantly surprised again and again that the plates are empty when he swings by next.

They don’t leave until the last vestiges do, wandering off into the ambient glow of the town around them. Donnie doesn’t complain even once about the long wait, and for that, Mikey is more than happy to share the last of the sweetly crispy desert he made.

 ---

 The wealth of planets they can visit never decreases, and even as they check off more and more things on their list, it never ends. Just keeps getting longer and longer, and it’s..

Incredible. The endlessness, the unlimited time, so much freedom.

After spending so many years, especially the years following their father’s death, in a world that felt too small and too crowded and just so hard to deal with some nights… it’s intoxicating in the best way.

Neither of them has felt this easily happy in years, if ever.

 ---

 “What if we just stayed out here forever?” Donnie hears Mikey whisper, sitting on the edge of their ship’s tail while they dock for a sleep cycle. They’re taking a moment to enjoy the endless swirl of stars and planets around their rest station, and Donnie doesn’t react with surprise at the suggestion.

Because in all honesty, he’s been thinking the same thing.

“Earth is our home,” he says, because that’s true. “and we said we’d go back already. We told our family we would.”

Mikey sighs, curling over his knees and resting his chin on them. “I know,” he says. “but…”

But what if? What if they never gave up this freedom? What if they kept going forever, taking what they needed and working for what they couldn’t get, seeing the edges of the universe and going farther. Never again boxed in by anything, or anyone. Not like on earth. Not like at home.

Donnie sighs, and leans back on his palms.

“We said we would,” he says eventually, because that’s all there really is to say. They will go back, one way or another, and how could they ever really stay away? No matter what, they couldn’t ever leave their family behind. Not forever.

Mikey seems to know that fact as well as Donnie does, and sighs a second time. As the quiet pause draws out, Donnie puts an arm around his brother’s shoulders; pulling him to his side. Mikey’s arm comes to rest around Donnie’s shell, and remains there with a loose grip.

They enjoy the view until their personal atmosphere filters start to let in the cold of space, and then head inside to sleep.

 ---

 Somewhere, after another dozen planets, they start talking. About home, about themselves. About how things are. About how they were, before war, before their father’s death, before growing up.

It’s not a bad conversation. But it’s not a good one, either. It fills up the space of their dark bedroom, laying on a large bed they’ve been sharing. Big, heavy… hard to think about…

It’s doesn’t feel good to talk about, but it doesn’t feel exactly bad, either. Feels like a long time coming, if they feel like being honest about stuff a little longer.

It’s okay, afterwards. Maybe even better.

They’re better for it.

 ---

 They go home, after another few weeks. With a ship full of souvenirs- all theirs, all things they got because they wanted to and could- and time spent in just each other’s company, it’s… easy to go home. Easy to land the ship in one of the many warehouses that the military and the Utrom share, and disembark with all their gotten (and stolen) booty.

They feel steadier. Better connected. Things are exactly perfect per say, but its better now. They understand each other better. They feel closer for their vacation.

And like the saying says, walking back into their home is a swell of fond emotion. Space is huge and endless and full of possibilities, but this is where they grew up. Where they became who they are, for better or worse, and the feeling being enclosed in a too small space is absent.

Their brothers greet them with a range of emotions. Relief they came back- happiness they’re unharmed- upset they did this so out of the blue- kind of pissed off they didn’t invite anyone else- and ultimately resigned, but somewhat fond and amused, grievance about the whole thing.

Donnie exchanges a glance with Mikey, who grins mischievously.

“You know…” Donnie starts, interrupting the barrage of questions and thinly veiled scolding.

“Maybe you guys should try taking a vacation sometime, too,” Mikey finishes for him, and just grins at the sudden silence from their family.

Donnie puts their holopad into Leo’s hands, information on screen about the start-up sequence to the engine controls. Mikey passes Raph a physical notebook, containing info about all the places they visited.

“It’d probably do you guys a world of good,” Donnie says cheekily, and they both have to laugh at the truly baffled looks on their brother’s faces.

Commission info & Kofi link.

[barpurplewrites]

Catch - Chapter 6

(AO3) (Tubmlr)

-x-x-x-

Had you told him a week ago that he would be arguing for his right to take part in the raft building Gold would have suggested you lay off the booze for a few days. Yet here he was trying to very gently persuade Ariel and Jefferson that he was perfectly capable of taking part in this morning’s activities. The point of contention was the bang to the head he’d received from Gaston drunken flailing; Ariel was concerned about him being near the lake with a possible concussion, and Gold was concerned that their team was already two people down because of Gaston’s arrest and Killian’s hangover.

He wasn’t sure if it was Mal’s stern warning that he best do as he was told, or Belle’s promise that she would keep an eye on him that swayed Ariel, but in the end they reached a compromise; Gold could take part in a limited fashion as long as he was honest about any blurred vision or dizziness.

Belle took his arm again as they made their way down to the lake.

“Are you really feeling alright?”

“I’ll be fine, fresh air will probably do me good.”

In truth he was feeling much better already, but he suspected that had more to do with Belle’s care and attention than the warm sunny day.

“Good morning! Can everyone here me!”

Ariel was back to her chirpy self after the trying events of the morning, and her enthusiasm was infectious. The grim air that Gaston’s idiocy had caused began to lift as Ariel explained the task. There were three parts; one find the equipment they needed; two build the raft; and three retrieve the ‘treasure chest’ on the pontoon in the middle of the lake.

The first stage of the task was probably going to be the easiest part of the day; the supplies they needed to build their raft were hidden in a small wood. Jefferson handed Gold a checklist since he wasn’t allowed to go into the woods, he’d be homebase and keep track of what the rest of the team found. It took him less than two seconds to spot a problem with the numbered list.

“There’s no number three, we’re only looking for six items.”

Emma took that information with a curt nod and carried on splitting people into groups and assigning them an area of woodland to search. She was affectional known as their Seeker because her work involved tracking down previous owners and provenance, occasionally when they did estate work she also tracked down people. This part of the task was certainly her area of expertise. Jefferson leaned on the table next to Gold with a grin.

“Well done, usually takes people longer to spot that little detail.”

Gold snorted, “We’re antiques dealers, details are our livelihood.”

“Any nautical specialists among you?”

“Yes, he’s inside sleeping off last night’s rum binge.”

“Ah, oh well, I’m sure you’ll all rise to the occasion.”

Jefferson jogged across to the path to help Leroy and Lefou with the rope they had found. There was so much of it both men were almost mummified in it. How big was this raft going to be? Gold was distracted from his musing by Mary Margaret, Mal and Regina rolling huge blue barrels out of the woods, suddenly the amount of rope made more sense.

“There is three more of these and Belle’s found a pile of planks, but it’s going to take all of us to collect them.”

Regina wipe her hands off on her jeans; “These things are covering snails. Ick. Any idea what we’re supposed to do with all of this lot, Gold?”

Now he’d got a look at some of the components Gold could see how they might come together to make a raft. There were pencils and paper on the table, so he began sketching out a rough idea.

“Ok, this will look like a raft, but I won’t promise it will float.”

“Well if it doesn’t and we all get soaked we’re committing mutiny and throwing you in the lake Captain Gold.”

“Ha ha, thanks.”

 It took the best part of an hour to get everything out of the woods, by that time Gold had a rough plan.

“The biggest problem I can see is this involves a lot of knots. Now, I can only tie neckties and shoelaces, so anyone got any rope experience?”

Mary Margaret and David both blushed and raised their hands. Mal gave a low wolf whistle as Regina said; “Kinky,” and set off a round of sniggering that only deepened the couple’s blushes. Gold gave them a surprised look, and swallowed hard as the penny finally dropped for him. He decided he could live without knowing any more details, so hurried along with the plans.

“Okay, so you two are in charge of knotwork. Everyone else know what they are doing?”

There wasn’t much confidence in the chorus of ayes that followed, but Ariel stepped in and injected some of her enthusiasm by pointing out how much better organized they were than many of the teams that had done this task.

The raft started to come together rather well. There were a few problems that Gold hadn’t foreseen, mainly that the barrels were prone to rolling and bouncing all over the place. Leroy waded into the lake to recover the one that got away.

“Hey at least we know they float.”

Gold ended up helping brace the damn things in place with his cane while Mary Margaret whipped the ropes around them. He had promised himself he wouldn’t think about how she’d come by these skills, but a morbid curiosity persisted. Belle, who was kneeling by his foot doing her part to corral the barrels, nudged his knee with her shoulder.

“Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

She nodded her head towards Mary Margaret with a grin. Gold leaned down a bit so he could whisper; “I’m trying not to think about it.”

Belle gave a filthy chuckle; “Don’t worry, after a few drinks tonight I’m sure everyone will be asking questions.”

Gold groaned; “I’m hiding in our room.”

“Hey! Belle, Gold pay attention!”

They both jumped at Mary Margaret’s barked order. Gold offered Belle a hand to get her to her feet and muttered; “Guess we know who’s the Dom.”

As he straightened up his head swam. Belle noticed and gripped his arm to keep him on his feet.

“I’m fine.”

“Of course you are. Now sit down”, - she frowned at him when he didn’t move, - “Sit down or I’ll ask David to show me how to tie you to the chair.”

A hot shiver ran down Gold’s spine and pooled in his groin. He licked his lips and nodded; “Yes madam.”

Belle’s eyes widened, and he was convinced he’d overstepped until she gave him a wink and nudged him towards the chair. She watched him until he was seated, and only then did she turn her back on him and get back to work on the raft. Gold inhaled slowly, his head was swimming, but he was pretty sure it had very little to do with the bump he’d received and everything to do with Belle’s flirting.

Fucking hell, she was flirting with him, and he was flirting with her, and they were sharing a room tonight. Oh fuck. He was older than her, so much older than her, but Belle know her own mind and she was flirting with him. Oh fuck, he was in trouble. Fuck it all, this was the best kind of trouble to be in.

Gold grinned happily at the team building the raft. He couldn’t guarantee that it was going to float, but the building of it was making Belle laugh and he would do anything to see her smile.

Oh fuck, he was in so much trouble. It was good trouble, at least he thought it was, considering the smile Belle had just given him.

[gascon-en-exil]

The interminable generation war of the Pokémon fandom is not something I’m inclined to wade into, not least because I am one of those strange individuals who play the games in part for their stories and worldbuilding. As reliably underwhelming as those attributes of any given game in this franchise may be, it’s nonetheless evident that Gamefreak puts some effort into elements of the franchise that aren’t competitive tournaments or Battle <name of building>s or gimmicky mini games. Sometimes. 

As such, in the spirit of my modest contributions to the FE and Zelda fandoms on this blog and as further proof that I am capable of judging aspects of video games aside from the desirability and inferred sexual prowess (or lack thereof) of their men, here follows my current opinions on each of the regions of the main series...so nothing about Orre or those Ranger spin-offs or whatever. And yes -  regions rather than generations, so the remakes will be grouped with their originals.

So. Very. Blaaaand. As with Archanea from Fire Emblem and the NES Zelda games I can respect the historical significance of the Kanto games; hell, unlike FE and Zelda I was actually following the series back when RBY were in their prime...and yet they are so unremarkable. Kanto feels utterly devoid of distinctive personality despite appearing in all of the first four generations, and even today there’s really nothing I can say about it beyond the relatively realistic villain team and the emphasis on modernization in contrast to Johto. Supposedly, anyway...it’s more like Kanto cares less about historical preservation which I suppose is probably the closest these games comes to commenting upon the real world inspiration for the region. Combine this with a contentious roster of Pokémon - some are great and still hold up today, some are meh, and almost all of them get disproportionate amounts of exposure and new toys in later generations, for better or worse - and an infamously loud fanbase wearing some very thick nostalgia goggles and you’ve got a setting I have no interest in revisiting. I absolutely wouldn’t put another round of remakes past GF, though 

(But having the protagonist and his rival hook up in their later years was a nice twist.)

Not much more developed than its predecessor, but the Johto games benefit immensely from throwing in Kanto as a bonus (sort of) postgame region, both for the aforementioned contrast and for the additional content. Sure, the level curve is kind of screwy, the Pokémon could be better (Johto has my least favorite starter line-up, for instance), and Kanto feels half-formed in Gen II, but it’s not bad for what it is. I like that these games are set three years after the first ones, in that it conveys a sense of the passage of time - something that would only get more vague as the series progressed. I’m not much interested in the nods to Japanese culture and folklore strewn throughout Johto, but at least the region is identifiably Japanese. Also, the implementation of elements like a day/night cycle and days of the week appeal to me, even if in practice they’re more annoying than anything else. And I know the entire internet agrees with me, but HGSS did substantially more for Johto and Kanto than FRLG did for Kanto. That’s kind of sad, honestly.

While I’m bringing up remakes, I would however like to disagree with most of the internet and say that ORAS were good remakes - good enough to where I could actually finish Alpha Sapphire when the original left me so unimpressed that I actually stopped playing the series outside remakes until Gen VI. The beloved Battle Frontier (which doesn’t seem all that interesting? Someone explain the appeal of this thing to me) may be missing and you can’t re-challenge gym leaders and various other things you can only do in Emerald, but on the flip side the story development is much improved and better paced - yay for convenient cutscene warping - and the Delta Episode provides a decent postgame capstone. What’s more, Hoenn is absolutely beautiful in the remakes, looking as lush and tropical as it ought to and no longer bogged down with water routes that are a slog to traverse or much backtracking. Soaring is a wonderful addition as well that shows off the region and cuts down on HM usage, and the DexNav is excellent for reducing the tedium of catching them all (or some approximation thereof when stupid things like event legendaries and untradeable-on-GTS version exclusives still exist).

I haven’t even mentioned the villain teams. I know full well that Tumblr is ahead of me on this one, but they are so gay. I picked up the gayer version with Matt outright professing his love for men (somewhat ruined when you consider that he’s talking to a ten-year-old...ick), but via extensive research *ahem* I’ve learned that Omega Ruby has its moments too and that Teams Magma and Aqua are best enjoyed as a pair. Their goals may be patently stupid, but they all learn something at the end of the day and can go home and have an orgy together. I haven’t even mentioned the Steven/Wallace subtext one of my mutuals cued me into, which is sweet revenge indeed for Emerald fanboys whining for years about femme Wallace with his predictable team becoming champion in that game. It’s enough altogether for me to forgive the game for constantly teasing Brendan/May - because obligatory heterosexual romance doesn’t have to wait for a little thing like puberty.

The only region for which I can’t really give a full assessment. I started a playthrough of Platinum on emulator, but the game felt so slow and clunky that after the second gym (which I’ve read is an especially dull and pace-breaking stretch) I couldn’t bring myself to play any more. I’ve watched speedruns and video reviews of this game, and they’ve only confirmed my initial opinion and caused me to hope that most of Sinnoh’s copious issues will be addressed in the inevitable remakes. The over-reliance on HM slaves (poor Bidoof...), unintuitive region layout, periods of severe environmental slowdown in the form of marshlands and deep snow, and other factors do not appeal to me at all, and while I know Platinum fixed this particular problem I assume that the Diamond and Peal remakes will not have to contend with a limited roster as they did. The characters could do with some work as well: Barry seriously needs to calm down, I still don’t know how to feel about Fantina (will she be Kalosian? What about in the Japanese and French versions where she’s apparently from an English-speaking country?), and Cyrus really doesn’t work as the charismatic leader he’s built up to be. Say what you will about the Hoenn villain teams or Team Flare having idiotic goals, but at least I can say what those are. I still got nothing on Team Galactic caring about Prof. Rowan’s evolution research or stealing energy or what have you. Sinnoh is severely in need of a second - or third, I suppose - draft. 

Confirming that Volkner and Flint are a couple would also be nice. Just throwing out ideas.

When I downloaded White and Black 2 for emulator I didn’t expect to be very impressed by these games. Unova is the MURICA FUCK YEAH region, as we all know, and I shouldn’t have to point out to my regular followers that that fact alone would be enough to unfavorably prejudice me against the place. And yet, in spite of that, it works for me. A big part of that is that Louisiana is absent from this loose celebration of the US as interpreted by Japan; there’s an oil baron dressed like a cowboy, a Californian or Hawaiian surfer bro, a gay (or straight hipster, hard to tell these days) artist with a loft gym in Castro the Village Castelia City, a Southern mammy for some casual racism that was actually too casual for international release, counterparts to Coney Island, Broadway, Hollywood, and American sports, and numerous Pokémon like the Trubbish and Vanillite* lines inspired by the shallow consumerism that passes for culture in the US, but nothing representing my own stubbornly French state. I’m actually warier about the bizarre attempts to insert bits of medieval and early modern Europe into the region via PETA-by-way-of-the-Knights-Templar (what) Team Plasma and the trio quartet of legendaries based on les Trois Mousquetaires. Did whoever came up with those not get the memo about where the series was going next?

With that said, although I’m not as enamored with N as some people his characterization was if nothing else a step up from anything that had come before. While Ghetsis and Plasma make no damn sense aesthetically until the sequels they are intimidating villains who raise serious questions about how humans treat Pokémon...that are naturally never considered in their full complexity because friendship or something. As I stated with Johto I do like the sequel model of region development since we get to see how Unova has changed over two years. I also appreciate the season mechanic that only appears in these games for lending some variety to the geography, though in execution it’s kind of a pain.

*But hey, I’m thankful at least that this is I think the only region that lets you catch (decent) Ice types before lategame. I will absolutely take the ice cream with a face.

Perfect, or rather just imperfect enough to perfectly capture the essence of France and its culture in this silly world of fantasy cockfighting. Unashamedly biased I may be, but as Kalos gets a lot of hate online I feel the need to push back against popular opinion a bit. X and Y were in my opinion the first games where GF really went all in on characterizing a region, because everything from the preoccupation with aesthetics (Character customization! Dog Furfrou grooming! Petting and pampering your Pokémon! Meticulously kept jardins à la française! Serious philosophical discussions on the fleeting nature of beauty! Team Flare...ok, never mind, they’re kind of dumb) to the discerning restaurant culture to the general ambivalence toward glorious and gloriously wasteful institutions like monarchy and their lavish châteaux feels so familiar to me. And how could I forget the Fairy type, a type tailor-made to vex the sort of posturing bro gamer sorts who somehow maintain their bro-ness while openly playing Pokémon. Could any region but Kalos have delivered that so beautifully? Well, now that I think about it, are the Japanese aware that the French are characterized as feminine in the English-speaking world? Regardless, I could go on, but this post is long enough as it is.

As I said before, Kalos isn’t entirely without flaw. Team Flare might be a hair less ridiculous than Team Galactic, but that isn’t saying much. The troupe of rivals, such as they are, aren’t much better, and others like Sycamore and most of the gym leaders are woefully underutilized. The Kalos Pokédex is overstuffed, and while I enjoy its subdivision into three regions that not-so-coincidentally recreate the Tricolore it is nevertheless a pain for those who like to fill up the Dex as they go along in a game. The developers were still clearly learning how to deal with the camera in a 3D space as is evident in certain areas like Lumiose, and certain features like the roller skates are awkward to use. Not the Exp Share, though - call me a lazy casual, but that thing makes team-building so much easier and actually incentivizes doing so rather than just relying on one overleveled Pokémon with good coverage to solo everything. Oh, and we never got a Pokémon Z, or more importantly an extension of the map that would include southern France. Poké-Gascogne, please, Game Freak.

Really, it’s hard for me to criticize X and Y because I quickly come back to everything I love about the place. I’m actually replaying X right now, inspired as I was by this project and lacking anything else to play before USUM comes out next month. Speaking of which...

I may not have any personal attachment to Hawaii, but I have to give GF serious props for taking the best gameplay and worldbuilding elements of Kalos and replicating them on an even greater scale. Alola is a vibrant and extensively-realized setting for a game, and I’m not even taking into account that we’ll be getting an AU version of it or something like that in the upcoming games. Sun and Moon fascinate on their own with their deep characterizations that touch on such surprisingly dark topics as child abuse (in a variety of forms) and the failure of community and, er, social programs, or whatever you’d call the Island Trial and the whole sending-ten-year-olds-out-to-enslave-wild-animals thing this universe has going on. 

There aren’t really any duds in the cast, either: Kukui is drool-worthy, Guzma and the rest of Team Skull are thoroughly silly and also thoroughly sad, most of the kahunas and trial captains are entertaining in their own ways (special props go to Nanu, Kiawe and his hiker boyfriend, and Acerola the fallen aristocrat who’s entirely too perky about it), Lusamine is a demented mother figure so of course I find her compelling, and Hau...taught me what a malasada is? It’s basically a Portuguese beignet, from the sound of things. Lillie is the real star however, and I don’t understand why some fans criticize the games for making the story more about her than about the player character. One of the biggest drawbacks of silent protagonists, and especially silent protagonists that never emote, is that it’s difficult for them to be a part of character-driven storylines, and in a first for the series unless you count N in BW Sun and Moon are exactly that kind of story. Lillie gets a voice and a distinct place in the world and in the lives of the other major players in the narrative, and she has a development arc that follows along with but stands independent from the standard one followed by this protagonist and all others in this series. Meanwhile, the player character...is from Kanto, and is Kukui’s cousin, and Kukui is probably fucking their mother. That’s pretty much it.

I’m a little less enamored with the Ultra Beast plotline as it’s a little too sci-fi for me, and Aether’s presence and purpose in Alola feels unexplored, but there’s still a chance that USUM may woo me on either score. I’m fairly indifferent on the Mega Evolution vs. Z-Moves argument, and I can take or leave Alolan forms - except Ninetales *pets* - but SM made one substantial gameplay improvement I absolutely adore and will hate to see be removed from future games: ride Pokémon. No more HM slaves, yay! Compound that with surfing between islands and some new areas and they’ve sold me on the next games. If the story is as radically different as trailers seem to be promising I can only hope that it’ll be just as engaging as the first time around.

So, if I had to provide a tl;dr by dint of a simplified ranking, it’d probably go as such:

Kalos > Alola > Hoenn = Unova > Johto > Kanto = Sinnoh

I’d expect Sinnoh to get bumped up a few notches in remake form, but otherwise that’s about right.

[movienotesbyzawmer]

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

December 9: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

(previous notes: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace)

Source: Blu-ray release, the box set with all six Lucas-era movies (2D)

I feel like in recent years I've seen a lot of rhetoric claiming that this is the worst of all the Star Wars movies. But I've always felt like the prequels improve as they go, at least a little. Like, Hayden Christiensen might not be especially good, but he's an improvement on Jake Lloyd. Is there less of the childish stuff in this movie? Let's press play and find out.

Opening crawl is first mention of Count Dooku; seems like the previous stuff was resolved and a new story is beginning. Maybe that's why it's common for people to recommend skipping Episode I, like it's not actually necessary.

We also at this point in the natural chronology don't know anything about clones. Just the title here.

Another decoy-Amidala, but this one gets blowed up right away. And that's Rose Byrne, right?

0:07:30 - Obi-wan does a "oh… oh yes…. Mm mm mm mm mm mm" thing which is stupid and I don't like it.

Wait, no Rose Byrne is a silent handmaiden lady I guess. Unless they're clonesies. Are they clonesies?

Hey, a glimpse of Coruscant's colorful nightlife scene! Or at least some commercial advertisements. Feels like we don't see much of the lives of regular folk of Coruscant much.

Super pretty imagery of this city at night with its traffic and lights and I know I say that every time but it's great.

0:14:30 - Obi-wan shooting himself through a hole in the window in pursuit of that flying robot villain is exciting! And then he just hangs onto it, and then the sniper snipes him off it and he just falls and falls! This is a good action scene.

Then later, Anakin just jumps and falls and falls on purpose like and it's fun to watch.

0:20:00 - Does the sniper have a weird disguise that goes away when she turns her head? Is that what I saw?

"This weapon is your life" says Ewan McGregor doing his best impression of Alec Guinness. I think it was supposed to be funny. And I think it succeeds. Helps to remember that EG's natural accent is Scottish. And you know what? Maybe a little bit ago when I didn't like EG's hammy delivery, I should respect that he's embracing the need for him to embody a young version of Alec Guiness's character, figuring out what that would look like while honoring the director's vision.

They're in a nightclub, and I think there's some genuinely imaginative vision around what people are doing in there.

Ooh! The sniper got sniped by someone else, and the shot of that second sniper zipping away on a jetpack is I like it.

Senator Amidala gives Jar Jar the important job of substitute senator while she goes and hides. Yeah right. Not very credible.

Now Anakin is venting to Amidala in a way that shows how cocky he is. He does the flirtation stuff so that we'll think he's sexy like Han Solo, but also visibly flawed with impatience. Meh. Okay.

Whoa, Rose Byrne just did some acting! She spontaneously shed a tear in a way that looked authentic! Acting… in a Star Wars prequel!

0:31:50 - A greasy spoon diner! I don't remember this. Obi Wan is doing some intel gathering and George Lucas decided to go all in on having this be a 50's-style neon urban railcar slop counter!

The romance. Anakin and Amidala. GL is also going all in on the overtness of that plot. Maybe it's fine? Anakin seems like a horny and awkward teen with a huge crush on someone out of his league but he's going for it anyway. Maybe we'll be convinced that she'd succumb to his charms?

0:39:00 - We're back on Naboo… this scene is oddly non-CGI-looking. Did they film this in a real place with that actual architecture?

The tension they're setting up between Anakin and Amidala is moving in a direction of NOT growing fonder of each other. She looks irritated, and rightly so. This is a move that experienced romance plot makers make, but will GL pull it off?

Meanwhile Obi-Wan is doing spycraft, going to the clone planet place and pretending he's the one who ordered the whatever. "That's why I'm here!" Kinda funny.

0:44:45 - Okay, another A&A scene. He has that line about sand getting everywhere. She looks really damn fly. They kiss a bit and then she changes her mind. See, this is a weak link in the romance plot. We don't buy it. She's not such a sucker that she'd want to kiss him now. She didn't go, "oh he was so charming when he talked about where sand goes that now I'm not only less annoyed by his churlishness but I'm actually turned on". Or did she.

There's something about Obi-Wan's intel gathering, realizing that this huge army of clones is being put together, that's very James Bond-y. I mean that in a good way.

Naboo countryside is hella pretty.

Oh ick. A very very stupid romance scene just happened. See, Anakin fell off a blob creature and it looked like he was hurt! This worried Amidala! She ran to him but it turned out he was okay! They laughed and laughed at this merry misunderstanding and rolled around together! Oh merry! And…. SCENE.

Now Obi-Wan and Jango Fett are having a fight on a platform place and it's pretty exciting and still kind of like a Bond movie. Even more so because of "gadgets" like the devices on JF's outfit. And a dippy little "this is not good" comment from Obi-Wan that would fit in okay coming out of 007.

A&A go to Tatooine and talk to the salvage dealer who used to own Anakin. I like where that CGI character visibly starts to recognize the grown-up Anakin.

Obi-Wan followed JF & Son to a pretty red planet with an asteroid field and it's fucking beautiful and they do this wicked sound effect with bombs and it looks and sounds mother fucking amazing. Seriously god damn. The SOUND.

1:11:40 - They're at what will be the moisture farm of Luke, et al. "I'm Owen Lars and this is my GIRLFRIEND Beru." See, because this is BEFORE they're married. She's JUST his GIRLFRIEND.

1:14:20 - Okay, they just did a weird thing where A&A have an exchange, then hug. But the camera just shows their SHADOWS. And Anakin's shadow looks like he maybe kind of has some semblance of a VADER HELMET. I'm not even that convinced that that's what they were going for. If it actually conveyed that, it'd be cooler. As is, it's a little awkward. But I wouldn't discourage a director from going for this kind of thing.

Anakin found the Tusken Raider camp where they'd brought his mom and he found her just in time for her to die. Like she was just hanging on long enough for him to witness her death. Melodramatic. Then he goes and slaughters everyone… this turns out to be important because it's the catalyst for him turning dark, but it's sort of a weak explanation for something so important.

So HC just did a rage monologue about how he killed everyone, and okay it's not good, but I really don't think it's HC that isn't good. I think he did his very best with really dumb writing.

1:34:30 - Ooh, we're back in that neat senate hall. Jar Jar was suckered into proposing that Palpatine be given special powers, and it's super easy and it just works, and the Jedi are like "oh, hm, bummer". I'm just not impressed with the story.

A&A have arrived on Geonosis and it's quickly quite actiony and rather like a video game where they have to fight robots and hop on platforms at just the right time. I dig it.

It's a little odd now… so I already forgot how A&A got captured in the video game factory place, but they're quickly hustled to an execution arena to be munched to death by monsters before a delighted audience. With Obi-Wan. Just a little odd, but now it's pretty fun action.

Oh yeah, Mace Windu cut Jango Fett's right head off! Forgot that. Another case of an interesting villain ending disappointingly. Except that it's important because his "son" witnesses it and looks vengeance-y.

1:56:40 - Yoda heroically shows up to save the good guys with a force of soldiers that look kind of like Stormtroopers. Those are clones, right? I guess so, but the movie didn't quite ensure we know that. I mean, if they're going to treat the audience like children with their jokes, maybe they could extend that same expectation to plot explanations.

Okay, so now they're in a much bigger battle. I like the flying thing that delivers a walking tank thing! Lots of exciting things to look at. It's not that clear which side is which, not by looking at the battle, but maybe that doesn’t matter too much.

They shoot down a globe-shaped ship as it's taking off and it's pretty. So is lots of this battle stuff.

How does Anakin have a lightsaber now? His was broken earlier. I'm probably not the first to ask that. I probably overlooked the explanation. Seems like they trimmed stuff out of this part of the movie to improve the pacing.

2:07:50 - This is the part that worked well enough that it's probably the main factor in holding this movie's reputation above that of Episode I: the light saber duel with Yoda! Those of us who had played the Dark Forces PC games were already familiar with how it would look to see a Yoda-type wailing on someone with a light saber, but it was a pleasant surprise for many, and it definitely worked.

Then Dooku escapes on a ship that does a really sweet-looking panel-unfurling thing. Love it. And then he goes to Coruscant. Very visibly. Which is for me to love some more.

The movie ends right after that, with Yoda observing that it's dumb to think of this as a victory because now the Clone War has started. Then we get suitably disturbing imagery of the Clone Army being imposing with, significantly, the Imperial March in the background. It's okay. Then a shot of A&A getting hitched. With, a little less significantly, the new tragic-love theme in the background which John Williams was probably pretty pleased with. And over. Okay.

Yeah, better than Episode I. Less childish. Although it's harder to point to a climax, it somehow seems less anti-climactic than Ep1. No less impressive visually, but with new locales compared with the first one. And it's true that you can get all the information you need by starting here instead of with the first one.

(next: Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith)

[severalbakuras]

and now let’s finish season 4!

long post warning!

episode four:

i’m telling you i just don’t trust those nier-qiraji looking spire temple things. if they’re trying to spin this as the heartland of all good things it’s not working it just looks eerie. doesn’t help that there’s not a lot of aliens running around doing normal living stuff so it looks dead too.

god there sure is a lot of interesting action happening off-screen thanks for the info firo. sure is a lot of planets keith’s helping to liberate that y’all apparently aren’t because of ~parades~

i’m getting the feeling this episode won’t have anything actually mattering happening so there’s a non-zero chance i’ll end up skipping.

ok yeah jumping around there’s a dude bitching about them not being there on time and ice skating and then “~lover boy lance~!” and there’s no action scenes or cuts to the real zarkon or anything so i don’t think i’m going to miss much skipping this one lol

might watch it for real some other time i do like coran and his coranigans but his comic moments are best in small doses rather than like the entire episode imo.

episode five:

didn’t they already have a map before?

ok so i was under the apparent mistaken impression that the galra had conquered a shitload of the universe, not a couple of galaxies. noice i can use this for the warcraft au to explain how the galra never ran into sargeras, the legion or the draenei. (that will likely never be more than scattered hcs lol).

matt’s in the furry squad i see. i’m gonna say... fox, or perhaps squirrel.

lotor’s leggy looking ships made me laugh idk why.

snippy lotor.

oooh dissension in the ranks acxa.

SHAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!

i can’t believe allura’s got a :I face on talking to Best Girl.

is that it for shay aww...

lotor i feel like you not explaining shit to your generals, while understandable given what happened with narti, is probably going to bite you in the ass like do you not trust them enough to know what’s going on or what.

related did you explain narti bc if you did it didn’t sound like you explained it to ezor very well before.

uh maybe stay away from the death planet of death?????

who’s this secret team?

lotor if you know enough about honerva’s experiments re quintessence that that’s what happened then you know what quintessence does to people who fuck with it.

if he crosses this barrier he’s gonna hit the hell-dimension where the voltron materia came from but he’s also going to hit the shit that killed daibazaal AND his parents. lotor. lotor are you sure about this.

iF ZETHRID GETS EATEN BY THE HELL-DIMENSION I SWEAR TO GOD LOTOR.

i can’t tell if that thing drifting off-screen is his ship or a bit of debris, it’s the only other thing moving in the shot but its colours are off.

but like it’s annoying enough with firo around i don’t need to worry about notor and zethraint coming back to acxa and ezor tyvm.

hey it’s those two! uh, three.

SHAAAAAAAAY

FUCK YEAH HUNK GOGOGOGOGOGOGOGOGO

ok maybe hunk would survive LFR after all.

is that our first lady galra in charge of one of these things? i love her.

holy shit that wasn’t the voice i expected to come out of the dog-person. i swear to god they sounded just like dub honey in ouran.

there goes furry squad i guess.

that knifework keith!!!

that was a very visceral death squish noise, ick.

dropping the charred remains of the enemy ship on the enemy is a+ psychological warfare.

oh god those poor three galra. a normal day and then voltron lands on theHE FUCKING HOPS AWAY... I LOVE HIM...

oh fuck you show you skip the transformation, make them defuse and then immediately make them transform again AND IT’S THE FULL SEQUENCE.

this music’s surprisingly melancholic, i guess lotor’s more sad then mad his plan failed again.

see lotor i told you this would bite you in the ass.

wow the fps dropped like crazy for her walking animation was that meant to be viewed from further away than it was?

FOR NARTI OOOOOOOOH YOU FUCKED UP LOTOR this is why you explain things like ‘why i sliced our friend in half and left her cat behind’.

i like the shot of his eyes it’s like ‘god dammit really?!’

oh nice they captured galra lady alive.

zethrid actually seems kinda sad about this and so does loTOWHAT THE FUCK LOTOR!!!!!!!!

YOU PUT ZETHRID SOMEWHERE SAFE RIGHT NOW I SWEAR!!!

oh thank god.

are they gonna join the rebellion??? or just try and harvest the super quintessence on their own?

did the druids always slide around like they’ve all got heelies under those robes?

uh oh haggar had a cunning plan. this whole ‘never explaining shit to your allies’ gene is from both sides of the family i see.

episode six:

‘a new defender’ so we’re probably getting a new semi-permanent character on the squad for the next season noice.

MACROSS LASERS

another lady galra!!! she reminds me of toriel for some reason i think it’s the ear growths. feels like there’s a lot more variation on the appearances of the galra and the aliens in general this season i approve.

i wonder what keith’s mother looks/looked like.

oh so no wonder haggar is confident, zarkon’s off doing something entirely unrelated.

lotor how are you even moving your arms right now i know a guy who dislocated his shoulder. that shit hurts and keeps on hurting.

damn that’s depressing he’s just entirely alone in space. he doesn’t even have the comfort that firo did of having people to search for and people who’d care enough to try and find him for good reasons. he’s just hounded like an animal.

what is that... mass on cyberkon’s back? like there’s got to be something underneath that plating it can’t just be his neck orb. it’s giving me vibes like the thing in Inside  i don’t like it.

ok as much as i laugh at his leggie space ship lotor does manage to make it look damn graceful.

holy shit the texture on the sun. you know you’ve got a good lava/very hot thing texture if it makes you wanna stick your hand in just like with real lava.

i wonder if haggar’s magic is corrupted altean magic or something she’s learned as a zombie. i wonder if lotor could pull off altean magic, or something close to it? magical boy lotor.

does naxzela have a world soul???

for a second there that sphere looked like one of the resurrection seeds from drakengard ending B. that would be the most fucked up AU.

is the planet actually a giant robot????

oh fuck so is it turning itself into a neutron star?

it’s a bomb oh ok.

ten solar systems from one planet jesus.

VICTORY OR DEATH SPACE ORCS CONFIRMED (again)

go keith!!

lotor are you going where i think you’re going...............

............... i don’t want to be hopeful i’m almost always wrong...............

aww lance!!! it seems like he’s real good at team stuff so long as he’s inside the lions. weird.

i really like the spacy dust background here.

aaaaa coran ;A;

keith what’s with that look.

keith what did you just say.

KEITH WHAT ARE YOU DOING.

NONONONONONONONONONOONONONONONONONONONONOONOONNOONONOON

LOTOR DID YOU JUST

LOTOR DID YOU JUST

ok so overall not the strongest season but it had its good moments even if i was salty for a while.

i’m more hype for season 5 than i was for this half of the season i will say.

(also keitor has been shuffled from ‘entirely crack’ to ‘they will probably meet face to face at some point’.)

(so naturally now it’s my Everything especially with my ot4 gone and zethura still being crack as all hell. maybe with this new season the content will be less old-school deathshipping and more millennial deathshipping)

[tiaraofsapphires]

my satellite (shine on me tonight)- Chapter 5

Chapter 5: Fault

Read on Ao3 here!

Sara woke up to an undeniable feeling of nausea.

The next thing she felt was Jaal as he spooned her from behind, a warm and strong wall of muscle.

She definitely preferred the latter over the former.

She shifted against him, taking a deep breath, trying to center herself, ignore the feeling.

This was probably nothing.

Sara lurched out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom moments later.

Nope, not nothing.

Her knees hit the ground in front of the toilet before the first wave came, the sound of retching and coughing filling the little space.

It was in her nose, too. And it burned.

Fuck, she prided herself in not getting sick (the three times she died/almost died didn’t count as being sick).

So, this was an unfamiliar sensation of just…ick.

It didn’t help she ate more than usual before she went to sleep. A recent resupply meant a stocked galley which also meant a meal more substantial than nutrient paste.

It was great at the time, jerky and Heleus-native rice and dried fruit.

Now, not so great.

She glanced down at her stomach. Still no bump yet, but she could imagine the lump that was her child just shrugging its little shoulders.

I didn’t do that. Wasn’t my fault. The pyjak did it!

“You’re grounded,” she breathed. “You aren’t even born yet and you’re so grounded.”

She rested her head on the chilled rim of the toilet and saw a familiar figure in the doorway from the corner of her eye.

“Are you okay, Sara?” Jaal asked.

Rhetorical question. She moaned between spitting into the toilet.

“No.”

“Do you want me to sit with you?”

She knew how angara were like about illness, so she hesitated in shouting ‘yes!’

Company would’ve been nice. But if she made Jaal uncomfortable, no good.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” Sara said, leaving him every opportunity to retreat back to bed.

Instead, Jaal stepped into the room and sat down cross-legged just behind her right side, angling himself so the mess in the toilet was just out of view.

For both their benefit, she flushed the mess away.

“I will stay with you, my dearest one,” Jaal said.

His hand was at her back, rubbing over her spine.

Sara tried to focus on the hand, ignore the feeling roiling in her stomach.

It worked for maybe half a minute before she was leaning over the toilet again with an ugly noise.

“Okay, I know you’re uncomfortable,” Sara muttered when the sensation subsided for a moment.

“I am. But I will suspend my feelings for your sake.” He threaded his fingers through her hair, pulling wayward strands out of her face.

“I love you so much, my dearest,” he said.

His hand returned to her back, rubbing gently now.

She smiled, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

Now it was just dry-heaving, which was just as unpleasant as wet-heaving. But every time she made a noise, lurched over the toilet, she could hear Jaal’s sharp inhale, feel his hand tense where he touched her. She didn’t have to look at him to know he was rigid and wincing.

“I love you with all my heart, Jaal. I really do. And that how I know how much you don’t like this. I can feel it.”

There was a pause, like Jaal was going to protest.

“Are human pregnancies always like this?” he asked instead.

Sara nodded, though it probably was a stretch of the truth. This wasn’t a human pregnancy, not really.

“Yep. Now, let me up. I think I’m done.”

He kissed the crown of her head before helping her up. He was probably holding his breath and closing his eyes before they made the turn from the toilet.

“Do you want me to stay with you?” Jaal asked.

Sara shook her head.

“No, its fine. I’ll just brush my teeth and go back to bed.”

His hand came up to skim over the ridge of her cheek.

“I shall work on the Nomad. Until I see you, my love.”

She leaned into his hand a touch, unwilling to kiss him with her gross mouth. Then he left.

Sara brushed her teeth to get rid of the taste of bile and acid and lumbered back to bed.

“Fuck,” she muttered. “SAM, please tell me this is normal.”

The nauseous feeling wouldn’t go away. And this was way too early in the pregnancy for morning sickness anyway, right?

“Typically, morning sickness starts a few weeks later it has for you.”

Okay, so she was right. She read pretty much everything one could read on human pregnancy. She couldn’t manage to find anything on angara pregnancies, and probably couldn’t ask anyone without raising questions.

“I can try to minimalize the severity of your nausea,” SAM informed.

He didn’t need to ask twice.

SAM worked his magic until the gross feeling in her stomach slowly faded to something that could be easily ignored. But a feeling of utter exhaustion stole over her in exchange.

Figures. Awesome. Just what she, the human Pathfinder, needed. Vomiting, then exhaustion.

This pregnancy was going to take forever.

She was almost at the one-month mark, the end of the two-week period Jaal and Sara gave themselves before announcing to loved ones (and by extension the rest of the cluster). In fact, they were planning to gather the crew the next day to deliver the news, after informing their families over vid-call.

Neither he nor she really knew what to say that was in any way eloquent.

“Yeah, a couple weeks later. But, this isn’t an ordinary pregnancy,” Sara mumbled.

“Yes. You may experience symptoms earlier and perhaps more severely than in a human pregnancy. And there is also the fact that the fetus is half-angara, which may cause new and unexpected symptoms.”

“Such as?”

“I have been going through scenarios. There is a high probability the fetus has inherited an angara’s bioelectrics, which may interact with your body.”

What?

“So, I might get electrocuted by my own child?”

SAM paused for a moment. “It is a possibility.”

“Great.”

“I predict muscle spasms and more severe, yet short-lived moodswings as a result from fetal bioelectricity, if this is the case.”

Sara sighed.

Okay. Fine. A grab-bag of pregnancy symptoms for the next eight months.

Not an ideal situation, but as long as they weren’t completely debilitating or fatal, she couldn’t be bothered to complain. She signed up for this, she was seeing this through.

A trip to Lexi to see about some anti-nausea drugs might be required if SAM couldn’t keep a sustained influence on her body.

Sara slept for an undetermined amount of time before her omnitool chimed and stirred her awake.

“Gil needs to see you, Pathfinder,” Suvi announced.

Sara let out a loud, long groan. Of all the times the Tempest mechanic could’ve needed her, it had to be now.

There was a beat of silence before Suvi spoke up again.

“Uh, Sara?”

Fuck. The channel was open. Suvi, and likely Kallo, heard everything.

“Sorry, Suvi. Tell Gil I’ll be down in a minute.”

This time, Sara made sure no one could hear her before she groaned loudly again.

Well, that was embarrassing and unprofessional. She would have to apologize to Suvi for that later.

After putting on clothes that didn’t smell like sweat and vomit, she trudged to Gil’s ‘office’.

Immediately, the redhead caught on that something didn’t look too good. She could see it in his face. Damn him for being perceptive.

“Whoa, you don’t look good,” he said.

Sara realized her face probably looked still blotched and eyes bloodshot from recent events. Shit. Time to deflect.

“I’m sick.”

Gil’s eyebrows shot up towards his hairline.

“Sick? Our illustrious Pathfinder is sick?”

She almost wanted to shake Gil but held back.

This was partially his fault that he was sick in the first place.

It was at his (and Jill’s) behest that she got off the blockers.

‘An example for the rest of the Initiative,’ they had said.

It had been more a symbolic gesture than anything when Sara did it, since she had assumed that her relationship with Jaal mooted the need for birth control anyway.

And that assumption was so, so wrong.

It only served to take down one less hurdle on her way to getting her pregnant.

Angara hormones, Remnant bullshit, lack of birth control.

Gil would probably be excited to hear the news, hell, Jill would be ecstatic. But Sara was stressed enough as it is worrying that Lexi was going to let slip the secret.

“Yep,” Sara nodded, carefully deflecting, “You know, human things. Because this Pathfinder is still human.”

“You’d think SAM would be able to fix that for you.”

“That would likely compromise the Pathfinder’s immune system,” SAM chimed in helpfully.

Gil shrugged.

“Fair enough. But I didn’t call you in here to debate on how you handle your health.”

“You didn’t?”

“Nope. Ah, actually, I was wondering if you wanted to play poker.”

Sara blinked. “Again? Right now?”

Gil shrugged and pulled out a worn-looking deck of cards.

“If you’re not busy, of course.”

Really, it wasn’t that difficult a request. He could’ve had her help calibrate some device or another, something that was above her skillset or had her do some heavy lifting.

Letting herself get trounced by Gil in a poker game wasn’t the worst thing he could’ve asked of her.

“Are you going to enlist my help?” SAM echoed in her head.

“No, thanks.”

Because she already used SAM to win once, she wasn’t going to use him again. That was just playing dirty.

“What are the stakes? More credits on the line?”

“Our pride?”

Sara shrugged. “Fair enough.”

They sat down across from each other, a large crate between them.

Gil shuffled the deck and dealt the cards with practiced precision.

And it was clear to Sara very quickly that he was distracted. There were cracks in his poker face that even she could see without SAM’s prompting.

After many minutes, Gil sat back and set his hand on the table.

“Huh, look at that,” Gil muttered. “You won.”

“I wasn’t using SAM, this time. Just so you know.”

Gil chewed the inside of his cheek.

“Huh. Not quite sure I believe you.”

Sara rolled her eyes.

“Well, believe it.”

They sat in a tense silence for a few moments.

“Alright, now that you’ve gotten this out of your system, care to tell me what you really want to tell me?” Sara asked, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Sara cocked a brow.

“Seriously, I know what you’re like when you’re in the ‘poker zone’ or whatever. So, unless you wanted to give me a pity win for whatever reason, something’s up.”

Gil looked like he was going to deny everything before his posture drooped.

“It’s about Jill.”

Sara froze, waited for Gil to continue.

“You know how I was gonna father Jill’s kid?” Gil paused, cleared his throat. “Well, Jill tried. Recently. The first embryos, two of them, actually, didn’t take. Just received word.”

He gestured vaguely at one of the monitors, where Sara assumed he had read the message from.

It took a moment for the information to sink in, what it meant.

“Oh. Gil, I’m so sorry,” Sara whispered.

She wasn’t ready for the wave of guilt that swept over her, making her throat tight and her eyes burn. She knew Jill wanted to have children and was trying to have children. Sara was able to get pregnant without even trying, and the pregnancy was continuing as normal.

“It’s okay,” Gil said. “Jill’s gonna give it a month or two before trying again. I figure she’s not gonna stop until the fertilization is successful. Wait—are you crying?”

Sara’s hand shot to her face and sure enough there was wetness on her cheeks.

“Well, uh, you’re right,” she muttered.

Gil reached over and patted her shoulder. It was clear he was affected by this and he was not okay but Sara didn’t know what to do.

“Don’t worry, it’ll happen eventually. Sure, Jill’s disappointed.”

Forcing her totally-not-pregnancy-related emotions in a corner of her mind, she managed a smile. More for Gil’s benefit than hers.

“Yeah. I’m—I’m sure good news will come soon.”

She immediately wanted to kick herself when something like suspicion crept into Gil’s expression.

Shit.

“Well, I’ll leave you to your thoughts,” Sara muttered, lightly punching Gil’s arm before making a totally-not-rushed-and-slightly-panicked beeline for the exit.

Not suspicious. At all. Good job, Sara. Go you.

On her way back to her room, Sara decided she wasn’t sure if Gil was going to love or hate her when she delivered the news the next day.

[miss-pettigrew]

Alright y’all. It’s been a little over a day since that meta post that earned me so many lovely notes and followers and reblogs and magic and I’m honestly so overwhelmed and yeeeeeee-ing over the positive feedback. 

So I got another one for ya, that I’m low-key embarrassed about because this entirely prurient but let’s not pretend we don’t enjoy KS half as much as we do for that very reason.

So I want to talk about Sangwoo and sex. 

I find Sangwoo’s relationship with sex pretty fascinating and it can’t hurt to dive a little bit into it. As always, this is purely my opinion and speculation and there are things I very well may be incredibly wrong about. Ok, who cares, let’s go.

At this point in the series (up through chapter 17) we’ve seen this dude get his nasty on quite a few times, in quite a few contexts. And the one thing that always stands out to me as it probably does to all of you is his complete lack of... response?

Take 1 - his handy from Bum. He shows absolutely no sign of arousal or pleasure other than the obvious erection. And we also know that he ejaculated because of the following scene - and yet, without that scene, I would have assumed he hadn’t. And we have the blushing scene which as this series has continued on, that panel becomes more and bizarre as we go because there is not a single other instance in which he reacts like that. In which his cardiovascular system met with his nervous system (i dont actualy know science isthis what happens) and blood rushes to his head in response to Bum. Like dang.

We then have the blow job part 1 in which Sangwoo kiiiinda initiates? Again, not moaning, no huffing, nothin’. Just a lot of disparaging comments and an ejaculation. 

Ok, so he clearly is getting something out of it. We also throughout all of this that with each sexual encounter with Bum, he becomes more and more affectionate in daily life. No longer requiring Bum to do chores, no longer keeping him chained in the basement. But all shallow appearances, he’s treating him well - and he’s viewing these sexual encounters intimately. Huh.

Then shit goes bad, and the next encounter in the basement in which Sangwoo gets off on Bum. Full disclosure, I haven’t actually read this chapter more than twice. It gives me the icks and as someone who IS NOT A SENSITIVE PERSON like at all, it gives me the icks. But, as I remember, Sangwoo is EXTREMELY responsive. Obviously, there is nothing consensual (ever) and Bum isn’t even touching him, but he is responding in a very normal way to sexual stimulus. Huh?

Next chapter he goes out and sleeps with another girl (in a place not his apartment therefore clearly not a victim). Then he goes to the gay bar and honeypots the man - which OF COURSE this is interesting. And I’ve read a few good metas on the reasoning behind this. Was it gay panic? I’m less inclined to think so, because in the larger context in the involvement of Bum - it appears to me that it’s more an olive branch? Sangwoo expect Bum to participate in his world and so let’s ease it in by offering him something he can relate to - gay men. That could be wrong, I don’t know - it’s entirely speculation here as there is nothing at all to compare it to. I will point out that the panel in which the man is kissing him the bathroom, Sangwoo does look quite vulnerable.

And holy shit COMPLETE SIDE NOTE BEAR WITH ME I’LL GET TO THE POINT.

Let’s talk about Sangwoo’s size. I see so many posts making fun of his “yaoi” body. Which believe me, I laugh at. But do you notice how incredibly large Sangwoo has gotten with each passing chapter. yes, he’s very muscular, he has to be to pull of the shit he does. But I have no doubt that is much more an effect of unreliable narrator through Bum. As Bum physically, mentally, emotionally deteriorates, Sangwoo becomes stronger, broader, more powerful and much more frightening. It’s meant to serve as a contrast between these two characters. Movies do this all the time. In Crimson Peak, they built the furniture larger to show how Edith becomes smaller and frailer the more she is poisoned throughout the movie. It’s 99% for effect. 

In that scene in the bathroom, Sangwoo (or what we see of him) appears SMALLER. Significantly so. He’s out of his comfort zone and his physicality reflects that. By the time they’re back in the basement he’s back to full size, because they’re in his world now and see how he grows.

Ok, let’s get to the almost point here.

I’ve stated before but I’ll state it again, Sangwoo sleeping with Jieun isn’t in reaction to Bum sitting on that guy’s lap. It’s not ultimately even something he set out to do to hurt Bum (though he can see the advantage of it after the encounter in the bathroom). It’s purely part of his modus operandi when he commits these murders. And this murder, in particular, is for Bum. 

(as a side note, I’m still terrified as how he expects Bum to participate in this part of the process - other than by watching through a slit in the door. please, god, let that be all)

What I do want to point out, and I’m going off fan translations until I buy the english chapter myself (BUY THIS STUFF Y’ALL GOOD LORD), but Sangwoo doesn’t make a god damn peep this whole time. It’s all Jieun. 

Not one chapter ago did Bum make the a huge deal about wanting to hear Sandwoo’s moans echo through the mic. The only time he has ever head Sangwoo moan was when he was being asphyxiated in the basement. Not the greatest context, poor wee babe. 

But the BJ in the bathroom, Sangwoo DOES react. Not significantly, but his breathing becomes labored. He rolls his eyes back when he answers the phone in pleasure. He’s physically showing how Bum is affecting him. When this man has otherwise, never shown any sort of reaction during sex.

And then there’s the kissing. And this to me is still pretty... grey for me because I have nothing to compare it to. We only have a few frames of the sex scene with Jieun but one thing is pretty obvious - he’s not kissing her. She’s talking quite a bit, so it appears he hasn’t even BEEN kissing her. I have no idea at what point he started his seduction and I find the idea of him kissing her both likely and unlikely - what I’m saying is, I have no idea what kissing means to Sangwoo.

Because he kisses Bum a lot. And in kinda gross circumstances. Chapter 2 - mouth full of porridge. Mouth full of vomit. Ick. Kissing is definitely something that leads to sex in his eyes, and therefore it is a sexual act. I wish I had a stronger point to make with this, but I don’t. It’s just, it’s something I’ve noticed and has been drawn and framed to be noticed and I’m wondering why. Maybe you all have ideas, and if you do, I would love to hear them.

So, we have a very sticky situation for Bum coming up. For me, I have a very hard time predicting what the fuck Bum is going to do in any certain circumstance. I can’t read him like I can Sangwoo, who comes much more naturally to me. What I do expect to see, in regards to sex and Sangwoo and especially sex and Sangwoo and Bum, is that the more intimate, the more possessive Sangwoo feels over Bum, the more likely he’s going to SHOW it.

For me, Jieun’s eventual murder will also very likely lead to an next step in the sexual relationship between Sangwoo and Bum. Does this mean penetration? I hope not, but maybe. But I can see Sangwoo absolutely losing his shit, but in the not angry way. But in the full blown out mooooooan, and maybe even the flushing. In which Sangwoo loses his very careful reserve when it comes to sex. Because to reiterate, what Sangwoo HATES more than anything else is feeling out of control. I think that IS why we don’t see Sangwoo react during sex. I think that’s why he doesn’t tend to lose his cool at all during the dinner scene, despite definitely feeling a little out of control then. I think that’s why he does lose his complete shit when he thinks Bum is gone. He never ever wants to feel vulnerable in the face of his own emotions in the wake of another’s actions. 

So him, reacting to sex - I think that’s the way we’re expected to see intimacy/vulnerability from Sangwoo. In my reading of Sangwoo, he doesn’t experience empathy. He can’t. He won’t experience “love.” He can’t. He can experience attachment, and possession and even affection - but those are internal expressions of those feelings. And not empathetic ones. He won’t show affection to Bum because he wants Bum to feel good. He’ll show affection to Bum because he feels affectionate and wants to express that. He’ll set up elaborate murder scenarios for Bum because that’s his way of showing intimacy, when Bum would probably much rather do with a hug or a kiss or a getting the fuck away from Sangwoo. 

Sex is a tool It makes Sangwoo feel good and it’s a way to lure victims into his apartment - to get them vulnerable, to physically break them down (I’m sure it is far easier to trap a woman worn out from sex than someone at their full strength. Obviously he would succeed either way, but it’s just so much easier this way and it makes him feel good.)

In a quick logical leap, I think Sangwoo gets off in the way he’s constantly surprised by Bum -without ever feeling out of control. It’s a bit of a trust thing, because he assumes (wrongly) that Bum, without fail, loves him. It makes him feel good, and feeling good happens when he has sex, so having those reactions overlap just seems like an obvious thing. It’s like “input stimulus here” “output stimulus here” but what the output is expressed in these very reptilian ways that Sangwoo understands. I feel good = sex. I feel safe = sex. I feel powerful = sex. But also, I feel out of control = fear/arousal - boner. But what he refuses to let himself feel is vulnerable so the way he actually physiologically reacts during sex is very controlled. At least until now - with Bum. Power and Control - Marina and the Diamonds.

Again, this is so long, and if you stick around to read it all, I don’t even know what to say but thanks. I hope you get a kick out of it though, and as always, please send me your thoughts. I truly enjoy the mental exercises I get when thinking about this stuff.