#but i definitely will be posting about it a year later reminiscing about it later.

[biro-slay]

Am I obsessed with Minecraft YouTubers AGAIN??

[snoopyhq]

˚ ♡ ⋆｡˚ ❀ so when the night falls, my lonely heart calls

type: arcane characters x reader

featuring: viktor, mel, jayce, vi, caitlyn, ekko, jinx

summary: how they spend valentine's day with you 💘 straight up fluff really.

a/n: a bit late because i was hanging out with my friends out of town and didn't get home to post this at a reasonable time. hope you guys enjoy!

divider used by @/saradika-graphics !!!

˚ ♡ ⋆｡˚ ❀ VIKTOR

a date at the botanical gardens! :3

taking walks with you around piltover has always been one of his favorite ways to unwind, so spending the day in a calm, sunny, pretty spot just seems right

you guys are holding hands and exploring the vast expanse of greenery

there's an insect exhibit, and rumor has it they have cricket delicacies on a stick...

he'll teasingly ask you if you're brave enough to take a bite

if you go along with it, he'll do it too

takes the prettiest candid pics of you ever

the curse of a 'bf who takes the most awful photos of you' does not exist with viktor

he's a perfectionist, and you can never look less than, in his opinion

he shows you the photos later, all shy and nervous and you're losing your mind at how he managed to capture everything so beautifully

"it's easy. you're always beautiful to me. capturing a second of it is no trouble. i just wish i could live every frame of you again over and over."

back in your shared apartment, he's organizing the layout for the next chapter in his photo album of you

you've started your own filled with photos of him

you guys go through them at the end of every year to reminisce on memories

the night unwinds with a glass of sweet wine and reading together by the fire, eventually falling asleep all cozied up on the couch <3

˚ ♡ ⋆｡˚ ❀ MEL

spa day

facial, manis, pedis, the whole package

a day of pampering her beloved!

she wants you to look and feel your best

the best type of love can be self-love, after all

after the spa, she takes you to an orchestral concert featuring renown musicians from the city and beyond

she's booked you both your own private balcony where you can watch the performance from the comfort of privacy and plenty of courses catered to your tastes

there's a gift exchange at home to top off the perfect day

you'd been agonizing on what to get her

councilor medarda? the brains, beauty, and vision of success? what could you give her that she can't simply buy when she feels like it?

you ended up making her gift. a jar decorated with fairy lights and resin'd petals on the outside, and filled with handwritten notes from you

the messages range from cheesy pickup lines to affirmations of how much you love her, and reminders for her to take a break

you also put together a small folder of tickets

each ticket reads something like "movie night", "dinner of your choice, on me", "painting date", etc. etc.

whenever she feels down, she can just pick one and you'll drop whatever you're doing and spend the rest of the day dedicated to that, and to her

she loves you and you love her so much

it's sickening. tooth rotting, even. definitely acts of service and quality time here

˚ ♡ ⋆｡˚ ❀ JAYCE

cooking together is a love language. sharing food that you've made together? hooray! how romantic is that?

especially if it's a cultural exchange of food

he's teaching you to make his mamá's birria tacos and rambling about parts of his childhood in the kitchen, helping her out

you're listening with a silly smile on your face

an expression of pure lovesickness

he's moving around the place with such ease, and the smell of comfort is heavenly

then it's your turn to walk him through something from your culture, and talk about your own stories associated with the dish/dessert/drink (whatever it is you wanna make)

me personally, i'll be making some bánh xèo (it's like a vietnamese crepe! very savory, very yummy)

half your plate is your food, and the other is jayce's birria tacos

cleanup can be dealt with later

right now, there's good food and better company to be have

it's a shared learning opportunity and serves to strengthen your bond :-)

˚ ♡ ⋆｡˚ ❀ VI

she's picking you up from your house first thing

ready with a "good morning!", kiss on the cheek, and a bouquet of your favorite flowers

wrapped in paper, of course <3

if you have chocolates for her, she'll melt right then and there in your arms

or maybe even chocolate covered strawberries you put together yourself!

you two are heading right to the arcade

paintball gets competitive. and messy

go clothes shopping for each other after

it's a chance for her to indulge in something she usually doesn't, and you get the chance to spoil your favorite girl in the whole world

she appreciates that you love her style and who she is and doesn't try changing who she is. because of that, she trusts you to help style her

once you're both newly out in some new clothes and kicks, you guys hit the highway

windows down, blasting your favorite songs and singing along at the top of your lungs

i love vi, i wish women were real :(

she's my favorite alongside viktor. AUGH.

˚ ♡ ⋆｡˚ ❀ CAITLYN

what's the point of having money and an influential family if not to rent out places, like a whole bookstore? or a planetarium? a movie theater, even

all of the above, and more

maybe not in that order though

the bookstore is first. you both buy each other a book you think the other will like and promise to keep each other updated on your progress

the movie theater next

speaking of movies, i saw heart eyes with my friends yesterday! it was a great movie, i enjoyed it a LOT more than i initially thought

so glad to have been proven wrong

you guys watch some good ol' romance movies (10 things i hate about you, la la land, the princess bride, etc.)

planetarium! sick as fuck

you're spending the entire day wrapped up in each other and your shared interests

some warm tea and sweet kisses for the winding down as you're watching the sunset

sigh. oh to be in love...

she isn't a kiramman today. not captain, officer, on-duty caitlyn kiramman

she's just your beloved cait, caitlyn

the headstrong, passionate, and protective woman who has your entire heart

˚ ♡ ⋆｡˚ ❀ EKKO

in an opposite direction of caitlyn's, but no less loving

money can buy certain happiness but it's not always necessary

art date where you guys stay home and paint each other with the variety of art supplies he's gathered over the years

ekko's an artist through and through

his mural of vi in the alternate universe? oh i'm in love.

the paintings are getting hung up wherever there's space on your guys' wall because the space is FILLED with posters, artwork, memorabilia, magazine and news pages, etc.

it's a very creative living space

there’s also plenty of plants that litter the windowsills and ledges where sunlight can reach

you guys spent each day of february decorating each plant with something for valentine’s day

the cranes on your ceiling has been joined by spiral hearts

interior decoration could be so romantic. i’d want to do that with someone i love someday

a little walk through the city at night too, but on the rooftops

less people to bother you guys and the aerial view makes it more thrilling

don't fall

he'll catch you regardless

˚ ♡ ⋆｡˚ ❀ JINX

you guys spend the day in her air balloon base

she's made you a gift basket!

it's filled with sketches and doodles of you

all colorful and wild and completely her style

she's stitched together a teddy bear plush too, having gone to ask vi and (reluctantly) caitlyn for help with it

you can see all the uneven bits and parts where the stuffing is too much or too little

but it's perfect

she even added a heart with her signature perfume sprayed on it too

like build-a-bear or something

funny, you also got her a gift basket

various gadgets and knick-knacks, and a new tool kit

some sweets you picked up a bakery

soft, fluffy macarons. tiramisu. a matcha strawberry cake that you share

it's a rare treat for a special occasion

cait also gave you some skincare when you went to visit her, so you and jinx had an impromptu skincare session, gossiping and talking about her latest project and relaxing together under the open night sky

[themultifanshipper]

Here's a lil blurb based on this post

Warnings: ferrari!reader, disgusting levels of fluff, then a bit of oral because I couldn't help myself, very cringe, Fred is a 3rd wheel lmao

You and Charles were coming up on your three year anniversary.

You'd known him for a while, having met him when he moved to ferrari, the team for which you worked, and he was currently in the process of winning his 3rd world championship following Max's retirement.

It was bliss.

One day you'd been having a drink with Fred and Charles during the summer break, Fred had been passing through Monaco and he'd decided stopped by.

He reminisced about how much Charles had changed since the Sauber rookie he'd worked with all those years ago.

“You know, back in those days Charles was known to randomly stick his head into office doorways and say "it is I, Leclerc" and walk away laughing like a maniac...”

Fred and Charles laughed together at the memory but your jaw was on the floor.

Charles mistook the look on your face as bewilderment so he started clarifying.

“It is a reference from a show, a character named Leclerc who always-”

“I know what it's from!” You cut him off, “I'm shocked at the fact that you've even heard of ‘Allo ‘Allo at all… I've never met anyone who knows about it! Much less a French pers- sorry a Monegasque person!” you looked at him guiltily before continuing “ I was basically raised on that show… wait, we've know each other for 10 years now and been fucking married for 3 of them, how the hell have we never talked about this??”

He giggled into his champagne while Fred looked on, amused by your ranting.

“I don't know, mon amour. But if you are this worked up about it we should probably watch it together at some point”

Your eyes softened as you looked at him, melting at his rosy cheeks and bright smile.

“I'd love to, baby. That's the best idea you've ever had”

You leaned in to kiss him tenderly but he leaned back in avoidance.

“Even better than when I got the idea of marrying you?” he teased, lips staying only centimeters from yours.

You huffed, breaths smelling of champagne mingling between you.

“Okay, second best idea” you giggled and he let you finally kiss him.

Your arms went to his face as you nipped at his lip playfully, completely ignoring Fred who was sitting a meter away and trying his best to pretend you and Charles weren't there.

He sipped on his own champagne and looked over the deck at the sunset just coming over the horizon.

“Yeah” he thought to himself “These two idiots are made for each other”

**

It was a few days later and you'd completely forgotten about it, courtesy of the amount of bottles of champagne the three of you had gotten through.

You were in bed, reading your last chapter before going to sleep when Charles popped his head in the door.

“ It is I, Leclerc ” he purred smoothly.

You gasped and dropped the book as you grinned at him.

“You sure are! But you're definitely my favourite Leclerc” you slid your book onto the bedside table and patted the spot next to you.

He stalked over to you.

“Oh yeah, I'm your favourite?” he purred from the foot of the bed, leaning over it and starting to pull the covers away from your body, uncovering your bare legs.

“Well you are also my favourite Leclerc, mon coeur” he said seductively as he crawled up the bed.

“Oh shit” you gasped “I am a Leclerc”

You giggled as his hands slid up your calves to rest on your thighs, just below the hem of your oversize shirt.

“You had forgotten? This is not good… I guess I need to remind you then.” His dark eyes stayed on yours as he lay his head on one of your knees.

“Spread you legs for me and let me show you how much of a Leclerc you are…”

You blushed and a hand went to his cheek, thumb stroking it as his hands went to slide up your thighs and move your shirt upwards.

He did so and gasped, revealing your bare skin as he realised you weren't wearing anything other than the shirt.

“No underwear? Naughty girl…”

His lips trailed up the inside your thigh until he got to the sensitive skin just above where your folds were quickly dampening with need.

He slid his tongue down, over your clit, through your lips and groaned.

“God, you drive me just as crazy as the day I married you…”

And with that he dove in, using his expert tongue to bring you to the edge over and over again until you were shaking, using his intricate knowledge of your body to his advantage.

A few weeks later, when the season resumed, he was in his driver’s room getting ready for the race, putting his fireproofs on and absent mindedly humming the theme tune to ‘Allo ‘Allo.

You walked past and heard it, recognising it instantly, and it gave you an idea.

You popped your head through the door.

“It is I, Leclerc!” you said and he laughed, glancing at your frame coming through the door.

“You ready to get another win?” you hooked your arms up around his neck and he picked you up, sitting down on the sofa and settling you on his lap.

“Much better now that Madame Leclerc is here” he whispered into your ear and kissed you on the cheek “Although, I am a bit restless. I always have some energy to spare for my wife”

You both knew where this was going.

You slid onto the carpeted floor between his spread legs as Charles threw his head back with a gasp.

You'd seemingly managed to pavlov your husband into getting turned on by the use of your shared last name.

My god this couldn't end well…

[hetalian-veteran]

Kinda random, but it's so wild to me whenever I still see people hating on the Hetalia fandom literal years after the fandom's heyday.

And I just...? Bro, I know the fandom could get nuts back in the day, believe me, I was there. I was in the trenches. It was fun, but there was definitely some crazy here and there.

But as for the Hetalia fandom today?

This is one of the most chill and accepting fandoms I've ever been a part of. I feel like we're all just sitting around, chilling, talking, and reminiscing about this series and characters that have lived rent-free in our heads for years.

I made a post a little while ago talking about how the Hetalia fans of today are just a bunch of adults sitting around a fire and drinking. I initially made it as a joke, pretending that we're a bunch of tried war veterans.

But you know what? If I had the money, I'd bring every single Hetalian on this website to my small town and we'd have a giant freakin' bonfire. We'd get together wearing our cosplays and/or merch and come armed with our favorite drinks and snacks.

We'd open the event by toasting with our boots high in the air. We can all hang out around the fire during the day, blasting the character songs from the biggest loudspeaker we can find and dance around like Italy. We can sit around and chat about our favorite characters, ships, episodes, etc.

I'd talk to the drive-in movie theater here in town to see if I can get them to do a screening of the Hetalia: Paint it White! movie later that night.

And then we'd all set up tents in one of the many surrounding fields in the area and have the world's biggest and most absurd slumber party imaginable.

And at the end of it all? We'd do a giant group picture together. All of us.

(Not to mention that we'd have to upload all of our pictures to a shared folder because holy crap I feel like the pics from a get-together like this would be wild).

[thisapplepielife]

Written for @steddieholidaydrabbles.

12/25/87

Prompt Day 8: Gift | Word Count: 613 | Rating: T | CW: Language | Tags: Post S4, Eddie Munson Lives, Older Steddie, Established Relationship, Reminiscing

It might have looked like it was wrapped by hands that were all thumbs, but at least it was covered, Eddie thinks, looking down at the photo in his hand. That was a long, long time ago. And he likes to think he's gotten at least a little bit better at wrapping gifts since this picture was taken.

He might be fooling himself, though. Steve wraps almost all the gifts they give these days, and there's definitely a reason for that.

He glances at the timestamp in the corner: 12/25/87.

Decades fly by faster than you'd ever expect them to, that's for damn sure. 

Eddie flips to the next one in the stack of photos, and it's just wrapping paper all over the floor from the same Christmas. They were just kids back then. Living in their first apartment, fresh out of Hawkins, probably working four or five jobs between them. They did that a lot in those early years. Passing ships in the night, barely seeing one another.

That usually meant their ends would always meet, though, even if barely at times, and they were together. Even if not exactly in the same room most of the time.

Eddie remembers how happy he was that he could afford to buy gifts for Steve that year, picked out with only a little help from Robin.

"Do you remember this Christmas?" Eddie asks, flashing the photo in Steve's direction. 

Steve pulls his reading glasses up from the chain around his neck. He smiles, "That's the year the heater went out."

Eddie had forgotten about that. Steve banging on the radiators, like he was CC Bloom. A few years later, when they finally watched Beaches at Robin's bequest, which still, fuck her for that, because it made him cry, but as soon as the clanging on the radiators scene happened, Steve looked right at him. A familiar scene thrust right to the forefront of their minds: Steve, wrench in hand, banging with gusto.

He didn't accomplish anything other than annoying the neighbors, but that's okay. It's a good memory, of years gone by. The heat might have never come on, but bundling up was a much more productive endeavor, anyway. 

That Christmas, with no heat to speak of, but presents under the tree, they'd been happy. The two of them, in layers upon layers of clothes, curled up together on that old broke down couch.

They were happy then, and they're happy now. 

They've seen relationships crumble, break, bend, and they've somehow kept on an even keel together. Growing at the same pace, in the same direction. It's luck. A miracle.

Eddie knows that this thing between them could have ended in a million different ways if things had only gone a little differently, here or there. He doesn't think they are destined, or fated. He doesn't think they are soulmates.

But those relationship-ending events never happened, because they worked together to make sure they never would. They wanted to stay together, so here they are.

And Eddie will always be grateful that it all worked out. He nearly died, bitten and bleeding, but he didn't. He was given the gift of more time.

Steve had that wreck ten years later, and the timeline could have diverged again right there. But it didn't. And they were ahead of the curve. They already knew how to recover in each other's presence, how to mend all the broken pieces into something so good that Eddie can hardly stand it at times.

It's been a gift.

The gift of a life together, a full happy existence, with Steve.

And it's the best gift he's ever gotten.

If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @steddieholidaydrabbles and follow along with the fun! 🎁

Notes: The Beaches soundtrack still slaps. I said what I said. I definitely wore out that cassette as a kid. It's right up there with the Dirty Dancing soundtrack for me.

[isak-dot-gov]

I'm gon' make you feel it

A/n: Uh hey. This is the first time I'm posting on here so I hope you like it. Kinda nervous btw. Also not proofread.

Word count: 2226

Summary: Months after you and Rhea break up, your best friends decide to take you out for a night in the city after not seeing you for a while. while there, you run into Rhea and the rest of the Judgement Day.

Warnings: Suggestive(nothing actually done tho)

My masterlist :)

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

“Y/n, come on. We haven’t gone out in so long,” I heard Jasmine say.

“She’s right, y/n/n, you’ve been MIA for so long now. Please come out with us,” Eve says.

Jasmine and Eve have been my best friends since the three of us were in the first grade. We were placed at the same table in the classroom’s seating chart on the first day and we’ve been friends ever since. They have been with me through all my highs, lows, and everything in between. From celebrating birthdays and acing tests to comforting each other through heartbreaks and family troubles, our bond has only grown stronger. We've shared countless sleepovers, road trips, and late-night talks that have made us inseparable.

Tonight they were trying to get me to join them on one of our ‘late night adventures’. Basically what would happen is that we would get ready to go out and hit the city with zero plans or expectations on what we would be doing or what the outcome of the night would be. Sometimes it would be going from one club to the other and sleeping over at one of our houses. Other times it would end with us getting matching tattoos. The most recent one of these nights was about six months ago, a month after I broke up with Rhea. We got tipsy, went to a trampoline park and I ended up getting a brand new set of nipple piercings. To say these nights were some of the most fun I’ve ever had would definitely be an understatement.

“Girls, I don’t think I’m up to it tonight. I’ve been so busy with work lately,” I said with a tired sigh. Ever since Rhea and I broke up, I’ve thrown myself into my work as a way of avoiding the feelings I not only had for our situation but for her as well. Rhea and I broke up seven months ago after a huge argument. She felt that I shouldn’t be having so many female friends and that I could potentially be cheating on her with one of them, which was completely untrue. The reason I had so many female friends was because I was in an all-girls school for my whole primary and highschool, because of this women have always taken up the majority of my social life. Unfortunately for me, Rhea had always been the jealous type and no amount of reassurance that I gave her ever seemed to calm the green monster that tended to take over whenever I hung out with people she didn’t like. Getting to the point where I was willing to let her go was hard, but I was able to do it after Jasmine and Eve showed me exactly how unhealthy we were together.

I was a wreck for a few weeks after the breakup. Rhea would constantly call, so much so that I had to turn my phone off and only have it on during the hours that she spent working because I knew she tended to stay far away from her phone during those hours. I never wanted to leave the house and I barely got any sleep in. Thankfully, my best friends got sick of it quite quickly and made me start coming out of my shell again.

“Girl, that’s exactly why we should be going out tonight,” Eve says.

“Let loose a little. Give us 30 minutes of your time. We promise if you really feel uncomfortable after that time we’ll go to my place and watch a movie or something,” Jasmine says.

“Promise?” 

“Promise,” my best friends say in unison. 

“Ok ok, I’ll do it,” I say with a smile.

“Yes!”

“Fuck yeah!”

___________________

Two hours later and I’m sitting on a bar stool with my friends on either side of me and my third drink of the night in my hand. We reminisce on our primary and highschool years when four people enter the bar and completely shift the atmosphere in the room. I notice the bartender slightly shift her posture and briefly check herself in the reflective wall that stood behind her, facing those sitting in the bar. After she does so I hear a familiar voice next to me say and my high spirit for the night is immediately crushed.

“Uh can I get two whiskeys on the rocks, a gin and tonic, and a martini?” Damian, Rhea’s friend and fellow Judgement Day member, says next to me. I freeze and shut my eyes tightly, while doing so, I hear Jasmine and Eve fall silent and keep their eyes on me. Once I open my eyes, I notice their eyes on me as they carry sympathy for my current state.

“Oh hey, y/n. I haven’t seen you since…” he trails off and I can hear the cautious tone in his voice as he stops himself from saying anything that would make me uncomfortable. I always preferred Damian over the rest of Rhea’s friends, he always felt the need to make sure I was ok and in moments like these, I really appreciated him for it.

“Hey, Dami. How have you been? What brings you out here?” I saw with a strained smile. I have no idea why I feel this way or why I’m acting this way towards him. He never did anything to me, in fact, all he’s ever done was look out for me.

“I’ve been doing alright. Judgement Day’s going to Wrestlemania, so we decided to go out for drinks as a way of celebrating,” he says with a soft smile. Soon after, the bartender brings the drinks he ordered for him and his friends with a flirty smile and a wink. Uh, ok I guess.

“Anyways, I’ll hopefully see you around. I’ll tell the rest you say hi,” he says.

“Oh you don’t need to…” I start but he walks away before I get to the end of my sentence.

“Well that went better than I thought it would,” Jasmine says obliviously. Eve and I shoot her side-eyes as she gives the two of us a genuine smile, the Essence blush she’s wearing showing on her cheeks a little more due to the lighting in the bar.

“Do you want to leave, y/n. We don’t mind if you do,” Eve says compassionately.

“No no. We were having fun. I don’t want to leave yet,” I say and genuinely mean. I haven’t felt this free in so long and I would be damned if I let Rhea’s presence in this bar ruin that freedom for me.

My friends both give me light nods and we continue with our conversation. As the night continues, one of our favourite songs from our highschool years, ‘No Hands’ by Waka Flocka Flame, starts playing. The three of us immediately get hyped and start making our way to the dance floor to dance. The start of that song marks a streak of throwback songs from the DJ and we continue dancing for a while. As we do so I feel multiple pairs of eyes on me, when I look up I notice Rhea and the rest of her friends watching me. I make eye contact with each of them one by one before my eyes focus on the girl whose whole being makes my heart dizzy. She has an attentive look with a hint of longing in her eyes as she undresses me with them. With the new found confidence in my system brought by the many drinks I've had tonight, I find it in me to wink and decide to give her a show.

‘Feel It’ by Jacquees starts blaring through the speakers and my friends and I huddle up onto each other by our fronts and backs. I’m in front with Jasmine right behind me, her left hand on my left hip and her right hand on Eve’s right hip and Eve’s hands on both of Jasmine’s hips. We start swaying together to the beat of the song and sing along. At the position I’m standing at, I have a clear view of Rhea’s booth on the upper level of the bar. She’s sitting forward with her elbows on her knees and a drink in her hand as she watches me intensely. The chorus of the song starts and I start swaying my hips in circles as Jasmine and Eve take it as a sign to follow my lead. The three of us move in sync as the song continues. I get a little too into the song as a few minutes later I feel Jasmine’s hand remove itself from my hips and two, much larger, hands replace hers on either side of my hands.

“You two wouldn’t mind if I borrowed your friend for the night, would you?” 

My girls take a moment to look at me for reassurance in the response they’re going to give and I nod lightly as a sign of telling them I’ll be ok with her.

“Oh sure, Rhea. Take her home in the morning and don’t do any weird shit,” Jasmine says as she turns her attention to Eve.

“Call us if she starts acting up,” Eve says, sending a glare with her blue eyes to Rhea. I nod and feel Rhea pull me by my waist to the exit of the bar. We walk to her car slowly and in silence as the heels I chose to wear tonight start proving to be harder to walk in. Rhea quickly got impatient with my instability and swiftly lifted me up bridal style before making the rest of the walk to her car. She opens the door to her passenger seat and softly places me in the seat before closing the door and climbing in at the driver’s side.

“You’ve never done that before,” I say as she pulls out of her parking spot and makes her way to her house.

She looks at me briefly with confusion and says, “What do you mean, y/n?”

“You’ve never opened the car door for me. That’s a first.”

“Huh. I guess it is,” she says.

As I look around in her car I notice a bright pink hair tie on her wrist. Without thinking I point at it and say, “Where’d you get that? I like it. Might just get one.”

“Sweetness, this is yours. You left it at mine after you know what happened,” she says.

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh,” a moment of silence passes before she says, “How have you been, sweetness. We haven’t spoken in a while.”

Fuck. There’s that Australian accent that I’ve never had the self-control to resist.

“Uh, um, I’ve been good. I mean, as good as a person can be after a break up. You know, I don’t think you should be calling me that,” I say.

“Calling you what, sweetness?” she asks.

“Sweetness. It does things to me.”

She chuckles lightly before she says, “It does things to you? Whatever could you be talking about, my love?”

I tilt my head back into the headrest of the car as I exhale deeply. “Don’t play dumb with me, Rhea. We both know you’re way smarter than that. Don’t act like you have no idea all the things you do to my body by simply being this close to me. This isn’t a good idea and  we know it isn’t.”

“But I’ve missed you,” was her only response.

“I know, Rhea. And I’ve missed you too. You know that,” I say.

As she parks in her driveway she turns to me and asks, “Then why did you leave me?”

I turn towards her and respond, “We weren’t good for each other. You know that. I know that. We were only pulling each other down by being together.”

She gives me a tight lipped smile before saying, “What do I need to do? I can be better, I promise I can. I know I wasn’t a good girlfriend in the past. I was a dick. We both know that, and even when you tried to make me feel secure in our relationship I still pushed you away and blamed you for all my insecurities. I just need the chance to prove that to you. I don’t think I can hand any more time away from you, baby. Take me back. Please?”

This is a side of Rhea I’ve never seen before, and I chose to proceed cautiously because of that. She has always had the ability to use her words to get what she wants from people. However, something in the way she was looking at me made me feel like she was being sincere and my heart couldn’t help but fall for her all over again.

“Fuck I missed you,” I say as I capture her lips with mine. The kiss started out softly but turned hard and passionate really quickly. Rhea held onto me extremely tightly as if she was afraid I’d vanish at any moment. Her hands travelled to my waist and squeezed tightly, earning a breathy whimper from my lips.

“Rhea,” I said in a moan as her lips found their way on my neck.

“Mhm, baby? Tell me what you need,” she said.

“Please take me your house and fuck me.”

“That I can definitely do for you, sweetness.”

[fantaatix]

a stolitz post? in the year of our lord??

warning this is genuinely a long ass post

okay so sometime last month i was watching 3bskyen’s JLMW reaction (really tells you how long i’ve actually been cooking this post), and he was talking about color theory or something but what caught my attention was that he was paused on THIS frame:

he said something about the red/blue contrast throughout the music video; red being symbolic of blitz (the moon) and blue being symbolic of stolas (the ocean (?)) and it got me thinking, i wonder what the gold might symbolize? because this definitely isn’t the first time we’ve seen the color gold in reference to stolitz. first think back to truth seekers, there’s gold in quite a few places

golden rails, golden feathers, golden shackles; this is why i say gold and not yellow. at first i thought it might be symbolic of the power imbalance, but that’d be too easy.

quite the selection of objects, isn’t it? rails imply safety but can also be restricting, the feathers seem harmless but then turn into shackles…possibly reminiscent of the nature the book deal and the role it actually played in blitz’s mind about his relationship with stolas.

but there’s one more thing i left out; the golden dust

...okay...don't laugh...

first time i saw this scene in truth seekers i was immediately reminded of shrek ever after

AND I’M NOT COMPARING BLITZ TO RUMPELSTILTSKIN, i’m not trying to imply they stole from shrek ever after, THAT'D be a stretch. if anything blitz is better compared to shrek himself, but i'm not gonna write about that because i Don't Want To

but if i’m remembering correctly, that movie revolved around the theme of taking good things for granted, like your partner and your friends, which aligns pretty well with how blitz’s bad trip ends:

“i believe your subconscious is trying to tell you that you simply cannot fathom proper intimacy, but also craves it as well. it’s rather unfortunate, sir, considering it’s often how you treat those who stand by you, such as myself. are you worried i may have enough of it one day, as well?”

"you cannot fathom proper intimacy."

blitz doesn’t know how to be close to other people–i don’t think he understands the relationship he has with any of the people in his life.

we still don’t truly know blitz’s full belief on love and we can only deduce it from his actions; he says monogamy is boring but then goes on to stalk his monogamous employees, on their anniversary no less, bringing along his own singular date...

he focuses on the sex in his relationships because that’s what he’s good at; he finds sex less complicated than romance... and then struggles to get his asmodean crystal to open a portal because he can’t get it off.

he has this recurring pattern where the title of “best friend” eventually turns into something else, often unrequited...

“...my first ever friend!”

he didn't expect stolas' intimate attraction to him. stolas made the connection and it succeeded in making blitz feel guilty about stealing the book; that was why he stayed the night. blitz isn't used to not being rejected, even though he has a record of relationships that stopped once the Evil Four Letter Word came up. when he goes into a relationship, blitz has learned to not expect it to evolve past sex. love has negative connotations to him.

the worst part is we don’t know for certain WHY any of this is, or if it can even be chalked down to a singular thing

yeah, his mom died in a fire blitz caused, his best friend/crush lost his limbs in a fire blitz caused, he’s been treated as property since a young age; you can makes all kinds of correlations between these events and how they might have affected him later in life but as it stands now, we have no concrete answers other than the conclusion that blitz hates himself and has commitment issues.

but back onto that “taking things for granted” tidbit–subconsciously, he knows relationships can be good, but he feels he has to give up a lot of freedom in order to maintain one of his own.

also note how blitz is desperately crawling up the staircase, feathers kind of just hitting him haphazardly as he does so, as opposed to trip!moxxie who takes a few steps up after picking up a feather of his own volition. he knows moxxie’s relationship is more stable than any relationship he’s ever had, and yet:

“stop fucking talking, all of you!”

cue the gold dust.

now, i'm not saying the book deal was a good thing. in fact, it kind of reinforced the power imbalance between blitz and stolas. i'm saying that from blitz's perspective, it was a safeguard. any feelings he might have had for stolas before could be dismissed, and he does exactly that one episode prior;

"it's a transactional fucking, you see..."

what i think he does take for granted is the advice “moxxie” gives to him, his attempts to reach out in a meaningful manner, kind of like stolas’ attempts to reach out. he ignores them both; he’s too deep into his own denial.

also, STAIRCASES IN THIS FUCKING SHOW.

why do these fruity little men think so low of themselves and so highly of others??

i guess that's a bit of a rhetorical question, we all know the answer, but. wait. hold on a sec

ohhhh.

OOOHHHH, that's what this post was gonna be about!

i fucking GOT all of you, you thought i could go a post without talking about him you're WRONG and should feel SILLY.

so this was the OTHER thing i realised when watching 3bskyen's JLMW reaction: it follows the same theme as moxxie's bad trip!

JLMW vs. moxxie's bad trip

in helluva boss, we're used to seeing staircases being symbolic of a difference in power or importance, or a staircase to heaven, or a highly anticipated event going wrong *cough cough ozzie's cough full moon cough cough*

however, i think in the context of moxxie’s bad trip and JLMW, it can also be attributed to emotional distance. like stolas, moxxie's also looking for an emotional intimacy/understanding between him and blitz (he spends his whole trip actively trying to get on the same level as him for crying out loud).

this could also fit into blitz's bad trip; he's trying to get on the same level as stolas, but feels like even if he ever did, he'd still be inherently worthless. a "play thing".

he doesn’t know why anyone would want him for anything else, but he’s clearly not all about the hierarchy.

they need to get on the same level as each other emotionally; they need to break the power dynamic, and thats why the book deal had to go.

the difference in the symbolism is that while blitz has a straight and narrow path to trip!stolas, moxxie’s path to trip!blitz is this winding, unguarded staircase. he almost falls off.

now, compared to both of those, stolas’ path is a fucking stroll. albeit an emotionally damaging stroll, but it takes less physical strength.

conclusion; stairs are symbolic of a difference in power, but gold is symbolic of something else.

and there is a power dynamic between moxxie and blitz. it's not like stolas and blitz's dynamic, it's an artificial imbalance; blitz is the boss, moxxie is the employee. and moxxie has his own inferiority complex, which i think plays a role in it too.

the imbalance between stolas and blitz is kind of, unfortunately, inherited. but it's not impossible to manage. of course, stolas doesn't care about where blitz is on the hierarchy, he doesn't care about the hierarchy period. but it's still there. blitz cares because it affects him.

"you will be technically under his jurisdiction, but..."

this was problem one. stolas unintentionally demonstrating his power over blitz. "surprise, i technically made you someone else's property! please love me!" i'm exaggerating but this is definitely not the kind of thing you spring on your partner; they needed to talk about this beforehand, but according to stolas:

"no need for an arrangement, it can just be him and me!"

sigh. the many different ways this night could've gone

this is enough to trigger blitz's fight or flight. he wants to be with stolas, but he doesn't want the freedom to choose to be with him, which is problem two:

because blitz's belief of love is so inherently fucked up,

what are the chances that the very thing stolas gave to blitz to reaffirm his free will was just interpreted as another shackle?

blitz doesn't do commitment; stolas doesn't say "i love you", he doesn't need to. if you love something, you let it go, and if it comes back then it's yours--which happens in the very next episode.

blitz is the first person to mention love.

but if they want to love each other, they have to be equals, which was why the book deal had to go. they can't hold each other to these super high standards because that'd just set themselves up for disappointment. they have to be on the same level.

tldr: they're two sides of the same coin. literally!

color theory for dummies, a brief intermission

fun fact: i actually didn’t learn color theory in an art class, but in a textiles class. we love american education. but anyways, i’m gonna ask you to draw your attention specifically to the complementary colors.

we start the chorus of JLMW in a purpley sort of place, which then shifts into gold, and then into the red/blue contrast.

except red and blue aren’t complete opposites, they’re both primary colors.

if they wanted complete opposites, they could’ve used red and green, or blue and orange, which are admittedly uglier combinations but the point is that stolitz aren’t complete opposites.

however, purple and yellow, or gold, ARE complete opposites; they’re complementary colors. if purple is implied to be symbolic of stolitz together, then could gold imply stolitz apart?

well…no. i think that’s the wrong angle. if they wanted that contrast, they could have left the gold out entirely, because red and blue separate is stolitz apart.

so how are we supposed to deduce what the gold is actually symbolic of? because no, i don’t actually think it’s an extended shrek 4 reference. that kind of exclusively pertains to blitz’s trip.

listening to the lyrics in the gold part;

This unspoken contract

A deed we forged for mutual gain

If that's all this was when you're not here

What is this rooted pain?

I don't care that you're of lower station

Or primed to sate my dark temptations

Why can't you understand? Let me explain

And I'm terrified as I cry

To make these feelings true

What's left for me and my broken heart

If I cannot have you?

a direct mention of the book deal…and another mention of the power imbalance…so i realize am starting to sound insane, but please hear me out.

i think the main theme of helluva boss IS learning to love in spite of damages and traumas and insecurities–not ignoring either of those, but learning to work around them or possibly heal those parts of yourself so you can love someone else effectively. learning from mistakes.

so what if the gold is symbolic of the simple desire of a mutual understanding? or a meaningful connection with someone else?

tying it all back together somehow

both moxxie and stolas want to connect with blitz (in different ways), but for stolas, that means severing possibly the only thing connecting them thus far (the book). for moxxie, that means climbing the staircase and possibly being pushed even further away.

moxxie also has this high opinion of blitz despite all his obvious (and not so obvious) flaws. i think it's partially because of his own inferiority complex, but to him, blitz is the phantom--his scar becomes the mask he hides behind. he knows blitz puts on this loud, crude personality to hide his cracks and keep others away, and has a scarily accurate portrayal of him in his mind.

moxxie wants to be on the same level as blitz, and he knows it's possible to get there, because he's a damaged character himself and he gets it. he's just yet to take the actual first step.

stolas, even in his own imagination, doesn't think it's possible to be emotionally intimate until the deal is broken. he could reach for blitz, but blitz wouldn't reach back. he's not looking. not to mention the literal celestial view he has of blitz in his head.

while stolas can see blitz's damage, he can't fully comprehend it yet, partially because blitz won't give him the chance and partially because stolas isn't damaged in the same way he is. they both had deadbeat dads, but they adapted in different ways.

that's just the way trauma works, you adapt to deal with it, and then have to unadapt those unhealthy coping mechanisms once you're finally safe. it just takes a while for people to realize they're actually safe, and these fruitcakes are no exception.

conclusion? uhh, i don't know, i guess i don't really have one. just. enough with the discourse about these bitches i guess??? just give them each some time, change takes more than two seasons.

i guess i could compare the way the songs are set up but this was supposed to be out like two days ago and it's already 11:45 so. maybe some other time, maybe in a post about moxxie's Interesting taste in musicals

was unfortunately unable to finish the mox vs. fizz masterpost this month but we'll see sometime in the coming months, maybe sometime after the next helluva short comes out. been a bit too busy with school and other social things to have time writing these long asf posts about my skrimblos

okay goodnight o/

[orphiclovers]

Yoo Joonghyuk's timeline (approx.)

The scenarios start when he is 28 years old. We know this from the first time Kim Dokja activates Character Summary, so at least that's for certain.

And we actually get his POV of the first time he went through the first scenario. Here's what World Of Zero has to say for himself.

There's a couple of things here. When he talks about 'discord between teamates and director's high-handedness' he's talking about events of Yoo Mia side story, which he said happened 'years ago'.

Since then, he has stopped going out of the house, so, become a shut-in, and is 'staying under the radar'. Presumably, he's not working as a pro-gamer anymore.

One other thing he mentions is that his sister was left to him when he was 'on the fast track to success'. More on that later.

Here he quickly summarizes his whole pre-scenarios life, skipping some details. All of this is expanded on in yoo mia side story, but it's nice to have corroboration from the main story.

Onto Yoo Mia Side story. Let's say it happened 3 years before the start of the scenarios for simplicity's sake, since that's an amount of time that could be described as 'years ago' while also not so long ago that the media would have forgotten him completely. So Yoo Joonghyuk would be 25 years old in Yoo Mia side story.

He had been on Team Ash for 3 years total at this point, since he was 22 years old. A year into his gaming career with Ash, at 23, he got a big break and became famous.

This must be around when he got Yoo Mia left at his door.

If she wasn't a newborn, she was still very young. I think if she was 1 year old at the time, she would be 3 years old in Yoo Mia side story and 6 years old at the start of scenarios, which makes sense to me. She already knows how to talk in Yoo Mia side story, but her sentences are quite simple and she baby-talks a lot, which would match the development of a 3 year old. Kang Woohyun seems to think her language skills are lacking for her age, but that's probably because she (is implied to have) some kind of speech impediment.

(This would mean post timeskip, she's the youngest transcendent in history at 9 or 10 years old. Also, she calls Gilyoung and Yoosung 'oppa' and 'eonni', meaning they are older than her. If they at 11 years old and she is 6, that tracks.)

One thing that makes no sense is that Yoo Joonghyuk says she's 'about 68 cm tall'. That's the height of a 10 month old baby, which she definitely isn't, as she walks and talks and eats solid foods. I'll assume Yoo Joonghyuk is just bad at judging heights and leave it at that.

Back to Yoo Joonghyuk.

Here he is reminiscing on meeting Park Jinsang 3 years ago at 22 years old.

Before that, he was at his first 'workplace' - Director Kim's camp. This is his earliest memory, as Zero tells us, the 'illegal work site' he conveniently spawned in.

He worked there for an unknown amount of time until Park Jinsang took him away. Probably somewhere between a couple of months and 4 years, since the impact it left on him leads me to believe it wasn't less than a month and it couldn't have been much before he was 18, since Zero says this and he's probably right.

Yoo Mia side story Yoo Joonghyuk says it a little differently, that he 'doesn't remember when he started living alone.'

I interpret this as his first memory is still spawning at Director Kim's camp, but he just assumes there must have been something before that, as he's younger and less shrewd than Zero and hasn't accepted the supernatural nature of his amnesia.

Okay, there's one more thing and then this damn post can be over.

Yoo Joonghyuk at one point calls his past with Park Jinsang his 'teenage years' when he would have been over 20 at that point. If this isn't a translation error, I think Yoo Joonghyuk is being hyperbolic here in that it feels like 'teen years' to him as it's his earliest memories and he was a lot more naive back then. It's the only way I can figure it all making sense in a cohesive way...

Aaaaand that's it! Yoo Joonghyuk's life from around 18 to 28 years in reverse chronological order :P

[clare-with-no-i]

theogony part 1 behind the scenes

**SPOILERS ahead for theogony and mild spoilers for Outlander!**

this is just going to be a long infodump of all of the things I pondered while writing theog (specifically part 1, part 2 will come later) but never talked about! I'll try to go chapter by chapter, and maybe I'll end up adding more later on, but for now I just think it'd be fun to chitchat and reminisce on some of my favorite tidbits. this story is really my baby idk :")

Prologue - Alalá

one thing that I wanted to establish in the prologue, other than the obvious James-Sirius dynamic, is the presence of otherworldly or spiritual premonitions in this universe. it was always important to me that the first person who actually made any sort of prophetic declaration was James.

so much of the story relies on Lily's status as an oracle, but this little tidbit here helped build the world for me so much; we can't be sure if James's various dreams and premonitions are wishful thinking, or really the Gods speaking to him, or something else entirely. of course, this story deals with time travel, so there's an inherent supernatural element. but Lily and James's conflicting – and sometimes competing – conceptions of God felt like such a necessary tension for me to explore. it was such an incredible shorthand for the tension between modern and ancient sensibilities. and we never get a definitive answer to those looming questions, which I knew I wanted to do from the outset. did the Gods bring Lily back to the past? did James? did she do it herself? does God/the Gods even exist?

also: there are probably moments where I failed to do this, but I tried to capitalize Gods in all of the James chapters but not in Lily's, unless she was referring to the Abrahamic Capital G God. that is, until the last chapter, which I'll elaborate upon later :)

also: i wrote the prologue first, then the epilogue, and then i posted the prologue pretty immediately after. I had the entire story roughly outlined but I absolutely jumped the gun when it came to posting the prologue LMAO I didn't even really announce the story, I just joked about writing it and then posted the prologue, which you can see from the beginning note. i remember Suze was about to go to sleep and she started messaging me like wtf Clare what do you MEAN?

and the rest was history (pun completely intended)!

Chapter One: Ouroboros

the narrative brushes past the other statues in this section pretty quickly, but I always imagined that the first bust is Philoctetes, James's father. I think the consensus on this one tends to oscillate between Philoctetes and Aristides, which is another great interpretation.

The reason I wrote it this way and imagined it to be Philoctetes is because I thought it would have been nice to let Lily 'meet' James's father (in a sense), even before she 'meets' him. when I read this chapter back after I first finished the story, I had a very soft moment where I close-read my own fic (lol) and thought that maybe it was Philoctetes who sent Lily back to the past. maybe he sensed something about her and knew she'd be right for James and for antiquity.

sooo many people forgot about this! which i was hoping for!!!!! I was hoping everyone would forget about James's statue holding something until the Big Reveal. fun fact is I wrote the reveal right after this. I liked the idea that, no, he was never going to actually be holding anything. he'd be reaching for Lily. the choice to accept his hand was always going to be hers.

a fun fact about this chapter is that I had to pull from a bit more Outlander lore than I originally thought. and no I don't mean the 'Jesus H Roosevelt Christ' part lol. It was always hilarious to me how Outlander set up Claire to be the objectively perfect person to go back in time. she was a combat nurse who happened to develop an interest in medicinal botany and Scottish-English history. she also happened to spend her formative years with her adventurous archaeologist uncle after her only living relatives died. like girl. lol.

so I had to really toss up which traits I thought it would be appropriate for Lily to have as she traveled back in time. the biggest one, obviously, is her field of study, which was necessary given the language barrier and the completely foreign nature of social norms in Classical Athens. I toyed around with the idea of making her mum a nurse so as to give her some base medical knowledge, but that felt a) unnecessary given the circumstances of the story, and b) far-fetched that she would have gleaned enough transferable skills to apply in 479 BCE.

it was also fun to give her more reason to go back to the future; she has a sister who, while they aren't in contact, is a significant emotional attachment; she has academic goals; she has a best friend (however toxic we know him to be). it added a layer of conflict that I enjoyed playing up, even if I definitely could have explored her modern life more fully.

Chapter Two: Kinesis

soooo much exposition and worldbuilding in this chapter. oml. it was so much fun to play around with the reasons why James would be in Tatoi in the first place; I can't remember quite how I landed on the Persian auxiliary soldier thing, it might have been from my initial (admittedly extensive) research on the months leading up to Plataea; it may have just been the fact that I KID YOU NOT this story used to take up all of my fucking brainspace. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I'd be doing work for my research fellowship and just daydream about theogony. the initial idea came to me AS A JOKE!!!!! when i was idly pondering before going to sleep (as one does), and then it just wouldn't leave me alone. i kept imagining what it might look like. I thought about how the time travel might work. I thought about James's Greek equivalent. I ranted to my sister and her dog (he did not care) about what the statue might look like and mean (sorry bestie love u).

one narrative decision that has given me a bit of strife was the Dimitrios-James name change. I've had a number of people ask me if I'd ever try to pubilsh theog – and this is one of the (many) reasons why that would be pretty categorically impossible. using James's English name in his internal narration, instead of the name I give him as a Greek man, is something that only translates to fic. it makes pretty much no sense at all if you consider these original characters lol.

honestly putting the word 'practicum' in here caused me SO much pain. in James's chapters I tried really hard to use words which had Greek roots and not Latin roots, even if they're in modern English today. in most of his chapters, I'd try and find synonyms for big/complex words so I could use ones that came from Greek. it just helped me stick to his narrative voice a bit more.

I forgot how much STUFF went on in this chapter. oh my god SO much happens?? we get the lack of the Parthenon as the time marker (felt very clever doing that), Lily processing the fact that she's time traveled (lazy writing on my part to not have this happen in a Lily POV chapter but I'll take that on the chin), the Plataea reveal. OML. tired just thinking about it. lily sweetie i am so sorry

guys, the amount of time I spent wondering if I should Greek-ify Sirius's name is insane. For so long I thought about making him Seirios, which is the original Greek version of Sirius. But I felt like I had already messed with their names too much, and so I left it. but honestly I'm still torn. looking back, maybe it would have been the right move to make him Seirios and have Lily give him the name Sirius, but I guess we'll never know!

one of my favorite Sirius moments, and something that, essentially, sets up the rest of the story. but I wanted there to be a little ambiguity throughout the story about how much of this Sirius actually believes.

we know that James has just confessed to Sirius and Pétros that he was hoping they'd desert the Athenian army. we know that he thinks he's going to die, and he's adopted this sort of fatalist view of his future. and then here you have Sirius, who could never abide such a thing, pretty much leaning into the idea that Lily can tell the future – which would allow him to challenge James's prediction. I always wanted to leave it up to interpretation, and I know it comes up in later chapters (at the komos especially), Sirius's skepticism about Lily's origins. but it's such a fun question to ask: does he really believe that she's the Oracle that James prayed for, or does he just need that to be true so he can try and influence the future himself?

Chapter Three: Peribolos

omg. lol. the chapter three opening academic argument scene. this is a favorite of mine, and something I had so much fun writing. it's actually based on an argument/"spirited discussion" I had with my dad a few years ago about moral absolutism versus moral relativism which forced me to interrogate and expand my knowledge on the subject. I thought it was such a fun way to get into Lily's politics and her character without doing crazy exposition in the ancient world.

it also touches upon one of the touchstone themes of the story: that to study something is, in a way, to detach yourself from it. academia is routintely completely disconnected from its subject matter, and it creates this weird disdain for lived experience versus book knowledge. Lily has spent upwards of ten years studying (in some capacity) the ancient world, but she is so utterly out of her depth when she experiences it herself. as such, she espouses these very revolutionary politics when examining historical conflicts, but she has a blindness to what the real-world realities may have been for the people living in those conditions at the time.

alsooooo, The Return of Martin Guerre is one of my favorite books I read in college, and the easter egg here is that it's about a person of dubious origin entering a community and the politics of how the community might accept or reject them. ha ha!

^^based on something I said in an argument with a Poli Sci major in college and I have to say one of my better moments. was an absolute haymaker. this was very 'author gives main character a zinger' of me and I will not be ashamed of it

this! ladies and gentlemen! this was basically a declaration of love!!!! to be loved is to be remembered!!!

in a very romantic way, the study of history can be such an act of love to those who lived before us. i just adore the idea that, even before Lily developed real romantic feelings for James, she had this itching sort of feeling; AKA, when someone has made such an impression on you, and you know (or in her case, you think) that you'll be leaving them at some point, and you just want to be interesting enough, be impressive enough, that they remember you, that they think of you randomly as time goes on. that is such a giddy hallmark feeling of having a crush, in my book. I liken it to making eye contact with someone or having a brief conversation on a night out, maybe at 3am on your way back from a bar when things are sleepy and dizzy, and you just have this sense that you're being seen in that moment as anyone you want to be. i love this moment so much I feel like I could give it its own meta LMAO

Chapter Four: Hamartia

this chapter really put the pedal to to the metal lol. at the time of writing the story, I generally didn't (and still don't) love fake dating that much as a trope; I don't typically love plotlines predicated on (even harmless) deceptions, it's just a sensitivity of mine that I don't expect anyone to relate to or share. but when I was considering how to structure theog, it just made so much sense for James and Lily's arcs to have them get 'married.' there was no way that Lily was going to be able to navigate Classical Athens as an unsupervised woman alone, and even with the Oracle title offering her some protection, there was nothing really tying her to James. much like Outlander, it really did feel like the last possible resort, which softened me to the idea of using the trope.

fun fact, i got a snarky comment a few months ago complaining that i was trying to pass the story off as historically accurate (lol to the fifteen disclaimers I embedded throughout which addressed that) and one thing they took issue with was that lily wouldn't have been able to own property and the only thing that would have kept her from being a slave would have been marriage.

which! yknow! none of which contradict the story! but anyway I digress.

I was initially nervous about how early on the fake marriage happens; we don't really know the characters that well yet, we're not sure who James is as a potential partner to Lily, or how Lily's feelings for him are starting to bump up against her very rightful and justified desire to get the hell out of dodge. but – we only really see James in canon as a husband and as the father to the main character, so it felt pretty true to the source material to throw him into being a husband pretty early.

I loved writing this scene with Aristides. I've always been partial to his appearances throughout the story, and this one is just so special to me. I think of him as a driving force in humanizing the ancient world in theog, sometimes even more so than the main cast of characters. to elaborate a bit on that: with the Marauders and Lily and the other transplanted HP characters, I think there's this inherent sense that they are already fleshed out people (to some degree) even before they hit the page of the story, because they appear in canon and across Marauder fic verses. no matter how much I make James into Dimitrios and Peter into Pétros and Fleamont into Philoctetes, people know them and love them outside of theogony verse. but not Aristides. he doesn't have a one-to-one HP character. there is some version of him that really existed in 479 BCE (my complex and largely negative feelings on RPF are setting off alarms at this but we proceed) and that's it.

it would have been easy to just give him this very gruff and surly character, to make him a military general who didn't care about anything other than the war. I think that's how we conceptualize historical people sometimes, often without meaning to. but he was a person, and he had likes and dislikes, he probably had a family and maybe he'd fallen in love, and it was such an honor to give him such dimension. not to say that I'm putting that personality upon the actual historical person; but just to really take my time with a character outside of the Marauder canon. in this scene he has this human moment where he reminds James that, yes, love is a worthy pursuit, even to those in positions of incredible power. even when the discussion isn't about romantic love but about James's love for his closest friends. it's this permission that James didn't even know he was seeking but ultimately that changes the course of his and Lily's lives. Aristides is who James might become, in many ways. in the actual Plataea chapter this becomes more and more prevalent. (more on this later!)

overall, I am forever hoping that people come out of reading this story with an appreciation for the humanity of those that came before us. I did a poor job with other characters in this story, and I own that, but I'm proud of how I wrote Aristides.

oh my godddddd I fucking love this part. i am so fucking proud of it. LMAO. achieving wordplay in an ancient language that i have never studied should be on my fucking CV I swear. like this was just perfect I'm sorry I am BUZZING that I pulled this off.

also, a cute way to introduce a phrase to the narrative which will become very important: se filo!

I remember that I wrote this passage, which many people commented on and which I loved writing, in a coffee shop on a sunny day when my cousin was visiting me to introduce me to his girlfriend. there wasn't any wifi in the coffee shop so I was blessedly devoid of distractions and could only focus on the doc, and i was LOCKED IN let me tell you.

when my cousin and his girlfriend arrived I told them I was sending an important email and edited the last sentence of that paragraph about four different times while they sat in silence and waited for me to finish LMAOOO

Chapter Five: Ascesis

a profoundly insane moment in my personal history was reading excerpts from Eudemian Ethics, Nichomachean Ethics, and Memorabilia just to passively mention them in a flashback in a fic. relied heavily on Foucault for this, I will be so honest. why did i do that tho. like girl take a breath...

but in all seriousness this was just a joy to write. i miss being a history student and having these discussions – law school is great, but history classes will forever hold my heart ngl! also, this passage is in some ways an homage to my grandfather, who is one of my favorite people ever. he taught himself Classical Greek and Latin when he was in his 20s, before he went to medical school (and get his pilot's license for fun, he's seriously the most interesting guy alive). he gifted me his leatherbound Great Books printings of Aristotle's works and of the Iliad and the Odyssey shortly after I started theogony, and I cherish them so much. he spurred my interest in ancient greece when i was young. so this is for him :)

one of the hardest things for me to articulate (and maybe something I could have done better) was the war and the balance between James's inherent goodness and his growing feelings for Lily. i wanted her to have plausible reason to think that he doesn't at all feel romantically towards her, even as she's growing to admire him more and more. I hoped, as I wrote the story, that these little interactions where the reader clues into his feelings (this protective 'peninsula' moment being one of them) still walked that line. as in, i wanted lily to reasonably believe that he's just that good of a guy that he would take issue with anyone being taken advantage of, not just her. she's so destabilized in this moment as well, I think that worked to my advantage. or I hoped it did LOL.

from what I remember of writing this chapter, it just came really quickly and naturally. much more than the later ones. this early period of writing was just an outpouring of the ABSOLUTE BRAINROT I was going through after conjuring up the idea for the story. it just flew. the ending scene where they have their little almost-moment was probably about an hour's worth of writing. it's like I couldn't type fast enough to keep up with my thoughts. not sure i've experienced that since!

also, the now, here, alive line reappears in the last chapter, which is one of my favorite callbacks:

:) :) :)

Chapter Six: Kleos

one thing I used to worry about CONSTANTLY is that I was losing the classic (and necessary!) Marauder goofiness to the more somber setting. so it was a jaunt and a boon to write scenes like the opening one here, where it honestly could be copy-pasted into the Gryffindor Common Room and it'd look a lot like my canon stories.

he's just a dude being hungover and embarrassed about the previous night with his bros!

the first time we get a hint of Pétros disappearing to dubious locations!

this chapter was one of the most research-heavy. it was a new setting, filled with new characters, and predicated entirely upon planning the Greek front at Plataea. so if I couldn't nail that down (at least to some degree), I was going to have trouble. of course I took liberties, but I spent a lot longer combing through sources for this chapter than some other ones, I'll tell you that for free. it took ages to find any treatises on ancient athenian sword combat, sigh.

yeah I mean i remember thinking that the subtitle for this chapter could have been 'I am going to create an environment that is so toxically masculine' because that's pretty much the whole vibe. James is not immune to that, either, and that was intentional. he feeds off of the violence and the anger of the men surrounding him, and he exhibits some behaviors in this chapter (rushing off to kill Anaxagoras after he grabs Lily's arm, for instance) which are not ideal! but I do think that there's meaningful conversation to be had about Lily's cultural assimilation into an ancient, misogynistic society, and how there was absolutely no way I was going to get out of this story without giving James some sort of period-typical attitude. now again, I took the liberties I deem necessary, because I have no desire to make my main romantic lead into an asshole. that's not my James Potter. not that that's news [gets taken out by a sniper]

i got CLOWNEDDD for referring to this dude as Dion son of Dion but idk what to tell you!! that's how the old documents referred to him!!! i didn't make that shit up I swear to god!!!!

also - that's the actual text of the Oath of Plataea, except (as Lily points out) it should read Athena Areia. is it likey that she'd remember this off the dome? no. is it possible that she just recognized the missing descriptor from context clues? yes. did i care enough to explain this either way? no, no i did not.

the Big Ticket Item of this chapter, though, is the oh.

and it wasn't just an oh, it was an oh followed by this innocuous conclusion that isn't even about Lily. i made myself laugh so hard with that. he's just like 'oh god my friend is going to wave this over my head FOREVER' and you know what? he's right!

as for the previous paragraph in that passage, I pulled a bit of a bait and switch, but not as badly as you might think! it was a risk to even bring up the idea that James could leave Athens, because I know it spurred some people into thinking that he'd go to the future with Lily (sorry babies that was not on the table). but what I intended for this passage (however successful it may or may not have been) was to just…allow him a moment of real, visceral empathy for the sensation of displacement that Lily's experiencing, and as well, introduce the idea that he might leave the life he's cultivated in Athens. his entire upbringing has been himself, the consummate Athenian man, surrounding himself with people from outside of Athens and drawing from their experiences, but never venturing outside of his little realm. in so many ways, the story questions what Lily's relationship with 'home' is (especially later on), but it always felt necessary to me to reckon with how 'home' may change for James as well.

finally:

yeah honestly i just remember the exact moment i thought of this passage. i had been reading the secret history (shoutout Donna Tartt i idolize and fear you) and i was lying down in my local park in the summer. I just thought about the Greek myths I knew, and the kind of cosmic horror that it is to really admit you're falling in love with someone, that they have this power over you that you didn't anticipate. and that closing line of the scene really struck me out of nowhere – I wrote it down in my notebook and just stared at it for a good few minutes. it's still one of my favs of the story :)

ok! if you made it this far, you are just amazing. this has to be a few thousand words at least. TYSM!!!!

see you all later for the part 2 BTS ❤️

[herefortheships]

Similarities between the sequel and the Beetlejuice cartoon (Beetlejuice TAS, season 1)

I finished watching the first season of Beetlejuice: The animated show, and I noticed a lot of little details that seem to blend the toonverse with the sequel, and I thought I'd share them with you all.

Let me preface this by saying, I know that the toonverse is its own thing and is not supposed to be considered canon (at least not to the movieverse), but, as a fan, and totally ignoring that 😆, I just thought it'd be interesting and fun to compare the sequel and the toonverse. You can take this one seriously or not seriously at all. It might have been coincidences, but I don't think so. I personally think the writers either watched a few episodes, or had people watch a few episodes for them, and they derived some details from the animated show to include in the sequel.

We have to keep in mind that the animated show ran for years, and while of course many fans originated from the '88 movie, there are probably many more who became fans of the Beetlejuice universe by growing up with the cartoon, and only later discovered the movie. So, keeping this in mind, it would be natural if Tim Burton wanted to give a little nod or include some little details from the cartoon in the sequel, starting with Betelgeuse himself being considerably more like a PG-13 version of his cartoon iteration than his original movie self (now that I've been watching the cartoon, I can definitely see that his personality is a blend of the two).

I'm sure Tim recognizes that a huge section of the fandom comes from the animated show, plus Burton himself had his hand on the animated show as well, so it wouldn't be a crazy thing to consider he might have wanted to blend in elements of the toonverse with the movieverse.

So. Without further ado, here are some little details I noticed! I wish I would have watched the first season with this post in mind. If you want me to point out more similarities between toonverse and movieverse, while I'm watching the entire animated show for the first time now, let me know. I will pay more attention this time (just started season two tonight).

Here are some similarities between the cartoon's first season and BJBJ, in no particular order because I didn't take notes and this is at the top of my head:

Let's start with the most obvious one, and this starts from the very first episode: Dancing in the air. It definitely must be part of Tim Burton's vision for Lydia and Betelgeuse that they love to dance together (well, in the movieverse they aren't there yet lol, but they do have a lovely dance in midair in the movie, which is reminiscent of them dancing in the show all the time). It's even the first thing Beej does when he joins Lydia in the first episode. They danced in the air in several episodes this first season alone, and I'm sure I will see more dancing as the seasons go by.

They open a door to the sandworm world by pulling a lever, which totally reminded me of Betelgeuse pulling a lever in BJBJ to send Jeremy to hell. lol

Talking about that door, it also appears on the floor, which made me think about the moment Astrid draws the door to the Titan moon on the floor of the church in BJBJ. Not sure if this one is worth mentioning, because the shape of the door I think is round in the cartoon while in the movie it's a square door, but the fact that it's on the floor and the sandworm erupts through it is definitely a similarity I want to point out.

Talking about Astrid!! There are parallels between Astrid and Lydia: there was one episode (the Spooky Tree episode) in which Lydia is concerned about the environment and even does a form of activism to protect the tree. Astrid is also concerned about the environment.

This one might not be important, but I think it's worth mentioning since we're in the topic of Astrid and cartoon Lydia parallels: in one episode Lydia has a bag of piranhas she had bought for her dad's aquarium. (I just looked for the episode and this was on episode five "Laugh of the Party"). It's funny because... Astrid's dad was being eaten by piranhas when he drowned. This gives me a vibe that cartoon Lydia may have been part of the inspo for Astrid. Funny coincidence that both Lydia and Astrid's dads had a piranha moment?

Beetlejuice has a photo of Lydia. And it's almost exactly like the one he has in BJBJ. It also has cobwebs stuck behind it, just like his photo of her in the sequel. This was in one of my favorite episodes so far, "Out of my mind". Worth mentioning here as well that Beetlejuice literally has a giant photo of Lydia in his head, showing that she's pretty much the most important thing he thinks about. One could say in BJBJ she's also constantly in his head as well, considering the man waited over 30 years just for her.

Another detail, and I totally sent a screenshot of this one to my sisters: there's a man sitting in the afterlife waiting room with his body half-eaten by a shark. The shark is still attached to him, but the fact that there is a man half-eaten by a shark immediately made me go "huh!" when I saw it in the cartoon because that is how Charles Deetz died in the sequel. Another funny coincidence? Nah, I think not!

Edit: I forgot to add this one! In one episode, Beetlejuice and the gang become performers (armpit music lol). There's a scene Beetlejuice says he has a romantic number to dedicate and he takes his heart in his hand. Maybe not that significant, since he's not aiming this at Lydia (he isn't dedicating it to anyone in particular but the audience), BUT he did take out his heart to dedicate a romantic number, just like he did in BJBJ, so I'm including this.

Edit to add Another Lydia and Astrid parallel: In the cartoon, this blonde girl, Claire, picks on Lydia for being odd, basically. Lydia stands out because of her strange and unusual personality. We can see in BJBJ Astrid also gets picked on due to her family's connection to ghosts and her mom's show. Astrid also stands out as strange and unusual at her school.

Additional stuff:

Inflatable Beetlejuice. Pretty sure this happened several times in season 1, though not quite like in the movie. It was even part of a song Lydia and Beej sing in the first episode. lol

Beetlejuice turns himself into a pretty wild Babyjuice in the first epiosde. Didn't include this one on the list above because it's Beej who turns himself into a baby, vs him manifesting an "inner child" baby and a nightmare baby in BJBJ.

This is it for this post! Feel free to add more if I missed something from season one! Will probably make a post like this about season two as well if I notice more similarities between the toonverse and the sequel.

[actualbird]

/ spoilers and thoughts for luke's 4th bday card, SSR Journey Beyond + some deranged theorizing

i really liked this card story!! it was a refreshing novelty from most of the other luke SSRs released this year which tended to err on the side of "sickeningly sweet and romantic but not really telling much of a story" because this card story was different, it actually had a PLOT. WITH STAKES. WITH A BIG BAD VILLAIN FROM 2 YEARS AGO (SSR Dark Swirl) WANTING TO TAKE REVENGE ON AGENT RAVEN. i was very hooked, i found the entire conflict between Bright and Luke (and Rosa) interesting and entertaining, this story actually had me invested in what would happen next (which i havent felt for a while, with recent luke cards). i found that the flashbacks to the past were very valuable too, and my heart all but broke upon learning how Luke and Rosa missed each other all those years ago because they were BOTH yearning idiots who went to visit the other in their respective cities. IDIOTS. THEY DESERVE EACH OTHER.

all that said though, the thing from this card that ended up sticking in my mind the most though was the memory Professor Carlson shared where Luke told him he was giving up his studies and his position in Professor's Carlson's research group to join the NSB

because

what

i talked about this with Chika @khickuwa last night and we both agree that Luke's sudden desire to join the NSB looked like it came out of nowhere. of course, we know the backstory that he crossed paths with the NSB due to that transnational case that he got caught up in, but like thats one thing to be Aware of them. it's a completely other thing for Luke to sound so genuinely excited to join the NSB, to say that it's his dream, to sacrifice his prestigious position at the research group, to give up his studies in a field of study he'd excelled in for years. thats....a lot to sacrifice. why would he do this?

this card makes me desperately want more lore about the specificities of that transnational case Luke got caught up in, it makes me want to see the exact scene where the NSB interacted with Luke because like

holy shit, what did the NSB say or offer to Luke to make Luke literally shift gears on his entire life so definitively? did they appeal to Luke's deep seated sense of heroism, is that all it took? possibly, but if im to put on my Theory Goggles for a moment, this all gives me the feeling that like...the NSB wanted Luke specifically.

when the NSB found Luke, he was nothing but a particularly bright college student, but thats nothing out of the ordinary, there are tons of bright college students out there. so why did they extend recruitment to Luke specifically? perhaps because the circumstances of the death of Luke's parents has more to it than meets the eye, perhaps they were connected to something the NSB was investigating. i dont have any theories for what exactly they got caught up in, but i do know that if like....if the NSB had information on the death of Luke's parents...

that sure as hell would be one damn good hook and bait for Luke to bite onto

the NSB: there's more to your parents' death. if you join us, maybe you might be able to learn more about what happened and uncover the mystery---

Luke, before they even finish speaking: here's my application

while this is all just a theory, it's somewhat supported by an AU card, SSR Dreamlike Drama. in that story, Luke's parents were killed and he spent his life tracking down the perpetrators so he could enact revenge. as much as Luke in the present likes to say that hes Over It, he still misses and loves his parents (as is evidenced greatly in SSR Burning Reminiscence) and them being a trigger for him to change the trajectory of his life is still within the realm of possibility

this whole post is all over the place but my general conclusion is that like......Luke's life is so much more complicated than it originally appears. whether it's his later ties to the NXX substance due to his condition, or the possibility that his parents were connected to it when he was still a small child, it's like....i enjoy thinking about AUs where Luke lives a normal life, but man, it seems like he's almost destined to end up in this web no matter what he does.

[someone-stole-all-my-fruit]

It was Always Him

Hello! This is my gift for @doomedhowell for the @phandomgiftexchange!

I really hope you like it <3 ! I haven't written fic in a long time, but I thought this was the perfect opportunity to get back into it, and after this I definitely plan on writing more. Probably longer-form stuff. I'm going to be honest posting this makes me so nervous, but I really did have so much fun participating in this!

-

Dan and Phil had just moved into their forever home. Their dream home. Everything was different now, but really, it was all the same. As they attended a neighborhood party and snuck away, they reminisced about their lives together, and if there was one thing Phil knew: It was always Dan.

Fluff with a bit of comedy. Just meant to be cute :)

Word Count: 2,406

-

As Phil grabbed the hamper and began preparing the laundry, a tiny smile crept onto his face. His eyes, less youthful than they had once been, crinkled as he grinned, a faint sigh leaving his lips. Suddenly, everything was different. Everything was different and yet everything was the same as it always was. To many, the word “always” would be an exaggeration, but not to Phil. Always began 12 years ago. Their always. Dan and Phil have lived together for pretty much the entire time they had known one another. There was a short period of time between when they met and when they got their first apartment that they lived apart, but in the grand scheme of things, what is a year and a half compared to a lifetime? Thank God for laundry, Phil thought. If Dan hadn’t come over nearly every day to do laundry when he was in Uni they may never have decided it would be easiest to move in together. To this day doing laundry makes Phil happy. That damn laundry.

Everything was different now. This wasn’t an apartment anymore, this was their house, their “phouse”, as the internet called it. The fact that the internet created a special name for their home blew Phil’s mind. Despite how strange and chaotic the internet can be, Phil owed so much to it. After all, without the internet, they never would have met. Phil whistled the tune under his breath. That damn song would be the death of him. Why do so many people care about what Dan and I do, anyway? Phil though. He isn’t famous; he isn’t an actor or a pop star. Neither is Dan, but at least Dan has talent.

Like a river on a stormy day, as it often happened, memories of Dan and Phil’s early years flooded Phil’s mind. Their first conversation over text all those years ago and how Dan tried to play it cool even though Phil knew all along Dan was a huge fan of his. The first time they met in person and how posh and confident Dan seemed. It intimidated Phil, even though he was older. Their first kiss and what it meant to Phil knowing Dan was not yet fully comfortable with his sexuality but still trusted Phil enough to be vulnerable with him. The first time they told each other they loved one another; something they have said thousands of times since the first. Things are different now.

Better. 

“Phil, we’re going to be late,” a voice shouted from the next room over. His voice. “Can’t you start the wash later?” 

“I know, I know,” Phil said. “I just wanted to start it so when we got back it would be ready to dry. Plus, I like doing the laundry. It makes me happy.”

“Laundry makes you happy?” Dan stepped through the door and shot Phil one of his signature sarcastic looks. “Look, Phil, that’s a little strange even for you.”

“Strange as it may be, it makes me think of you. Of us. Of our youth,” Phil got out his puppy dog eyes that seemed to make Dan melt every time. It worked.

“God, I know we’re old but saying “our youth” makes it sound like we’re ancient,” said Dan, cringing at the thought. “You, however, as old as we may be, are still just as adorable as you were the day that I met you. And you’ll continue to be adorable until the day you inevitably die. Which better be after me by the way,” Dan winked, chucking slightly. “Now, slow poke, finish up with the wash so we can get going. We better not be late. Otherwise they might not invite us back.”

Dan was right of course. Phil quickly threw the was in and scurried to the door. He grabbed Dan’s hand and held it tightly as they began to make their way over to the neighbors.

“Shit, the desert!” Shouted Dan. He let go of Phil’s hand and ran back inside. In a moment he was back at Phil’s side, cookie tray in hand. “Got them!”

Phil grabbed Dan’s hand once more and planted a cheeky kiss on his lips. “You are adorable.”

Failing at holding back a smile, Dan stuck his tongue out at Phil and said “I don’t want to be adorable. I want to be dark and mysterious.”

“You’re mysteriously adorable?” Phil raised an eyebrow as he said this.

Dan cackled. “You, Philip Michael Lester, are just a mystery.”

Mansion wasn’t a big enough word for the type of house they were standing in. Phil thought that he and Dan were proud of their new home but it was nothing in comparison to this absolute art piece of a house. It had pillars for God’s sake. Pillars! Vibrant green foliage decorated the foyer. The main party was in the living room, which had couches that looked like they belonged in a house from the regency era adorned with tasteful pillows that looked expensive and impossible to wash. A fireplace was lit; the true centerpiece of the room. A small table with snacks and drinks was set up next to the bar, which, by the way, was fully staffed. Phil felt out of place and wondered if Dan felt the same. Nevertheless, he took their cookies and set them on the table with the rest of the finger foods.

“What the fuck?” Dan had a horrified look on his face. “Phil what the fuck kind of neighbors do we have? We don’t belong in a place like this! For fucks sake I’m wearing a t-shirt!”

Luckily for Dan, most of the other guests were wearing T-shirts as well. Despite the fancy home, their neighbors were nice. Just nice. Exactly the type of people you would expect to live in a house with pillars. Phil could tell they had grown up rich. They weren’t like Dan and Phil who made their money themselves. It didn’t make much of a difference in Phil’s mind, it was just obvious to him. The whole neighborhood was invited to this party, so at least Dan and Phil were able to fade into the background and keep mostly to themselves. Making pleasantries was one thing, but making friends was another, harder thing. Real friends, that is.

At first, he and Dan were worried about what their neighbors would think about the two of them. Should they be truthful? Should they tell them they are a couple? Or should they not say anything at all? In the end, they decided to keep things hush-hush, at least for now. The truth would obviously come out eventually, but Phil valued his privacy and he knew Dan did as well.

One of their neighbors seemed alright. Dan, Phil, and the neighbor stood by the snack table and chatted for a while. He was a big drinker and insisted that they try his specialty cocktail. Dan and Phil obliged, interested in the concoction and glad to have connected with somebody. The cocktail was strong. Phil couldn’t tell you what was in it for the life of him. It tasted decent enough. After chatting with him for a few minutes, the neighbor disappeared. Phil couldn’t tell you his name if he tried. Was it Gary? Terry? Something along those lines. Hopefully Dan remembered.

After 3 hours of small talk and chatting with Gerald, social battery drainage did not even begin to cover what Phil was experiencing. It was late. He had had a couple more drinks after the ones Toby had already given him and he was starting to feel them. Drinking wasn’t something Phil did often, so whenever he did they hit him hard and fast. It wasn’t a feelling he minded, but he needed a bit of air. He walked out of the living room and into the foyer. To his right was the kitchen, and he could see a door leading outside through there. He eagerly walked that way and pushed open the door.

His jaw dropped. Who are these people? He lived in the wrong neighborhood.succulent flowers cascaded over arches in the neighbor’s garden. Pinks, purples, yellows, and every color in-between flooded Phil’s eyesight. The yard in front of him was absolutely beautiful. Like stars, fairy lights draped between pillars and tangled around lamp posts tastefully scattered about. The far side of the garden had some guy playing the violin next to a small outdoor bar. Also fully staffed. Phil wasn’t sure what song the violinist was playing, but it was nice, muffled and fading into the background due to the dense foliage around him. Phil’s lungs filled with air. Deep breaths felt nice. Perhaps all the greenery around him enhanced the oxygen in the air? Phil wondered.

The lights, flowers, and pillars were nice but the centerpiece of the garden really stole the show. There was a small hedge maze. Rich people things, Phil thought. In the center of the maze peeking over the tops of the bushes was what appeared to be a water fountain. Phil was drawn to it. Being the curious man that he is, Into the maze he went. Tiny lanterns lit the way. They were spread out evenly along the top edge of the maze. Within a minute of walking, Phil made it to the center. After completing it, Phil decided it was less of a maze and more of an intricate path.

The sound of the water trickling into the fountain was calming. It was loud enough to completely drown out the already muffled violinist. Phil sniffed a few times, intrigued. There must have been essential oils infused in the water. Lavender? Rose? Phil wasn’t sure, but it was nice. He smiled, letting himself surrender to the calmness. Until, that is, he was rudely broken out of his peaceful trance.

“Aghhh!” Phil screamed, hand flying to his chest. Instinctively he ducked down, nearly falling on his face. The hand that had covered his eyes was now under his chest, holding him up and preventing him from hitting the floor. Phil began to laugh, realizing what was happening. “Daniel!”

Dan’s cackle of a laugh danced through the air like Phil’s favorite song. “Got you, Phil.”

“Got me? I think I’m the one who’s got you!” Before Dan knew what was happening Phil spun around quickly and slammed Dan into the grass, straddling him. Both hands held Dan’s wrists above his head and pinned him to the ground. A sheepish look crossed Dan’s face and Phil couldn’t help but mirror his grin. “Yeah, I’ve definitely got you. In fact, I reckon I’ve had you for about 12 years now. All to myself.”

With the gentlest of motions, Phil bent down and brushed his lips against Dan’s, still holding him hostage on the floor. “I love you.”

“I love you too, Phil,” Dan said, prying Phil off of him. Now sat next to each other on the floor, Dan placed his head on Phil’s shoulder. The sounds of the fountain drowned out every sound except for the sound of each other’s breathing. They sat there, enjoying the silence. The peace that only they were able to bring one another. “...Phil?” Dan cocked his head slightly, looking up at Phil. To the surprise and slight horror of Phil, there were tears in Dan’s eyes. How many of Julian’s cocktails did he have?

“Did you ever think we would get this far? When we first met, did you ever really think that this was going to go anywhere?”

Phil smiled, wiping away the few tiny tears that had begun to roll down Dan’s cheeks. “None of that crying, you sap,” Phil said, kissing the top of Dan’s head. “And to answer your question, oh God, I hoped it would. I hoped we would. You have no idea how cute you were back then, do you?” Phil asked. “You’re still cute, of course. Wouldn’t want to cause any confusion there.”

“Oh trust me, I definitely know I’m cute,” said Dan, smiling. His tears had already mostly dried up. He was definitely slightly intoxicated. “But do say more.”

“All that pining,” said Phil. “You were such a FLIRT back then. You still are, but back then you were on another level. Obviously I had to reach out to the cutest emo boy commenting on my videos. I never thought anything would come of it until I met you for the first time. We hit it off right away. I didn’t know if it was going to be a friendship, a romance, a fling, or something else. But from that first day I met you, I knew you were something special to me, Dan. It was always you.”

Phil took two fingers and gently tilted Dan’s face upwards. He kissed him, firmly enough to surprise Dan a bit. Dan leaned into it matching Phil’s energy. They stayed that way, enjoying each other, for a few minutes. These moments of tender love were what made everything worth it at the end of the day, at least for Phil. All of the harassment from certain bad people on the internet, all of the hiding, all of the bad things they have had to go through over the years was all worth it just to be able to kiss Dan and call him his own. The love that Phil felt for Dan could not be matched. Dan was his best friend, his lover, and his soulmate. And Phil would sneak away from any party if it meant getting moments like this with him. 

Phil broke their kiss and pulled Dan into a deep hug, burying his face into Dan’s hair. “I love you so fucking much Daniel Howell. You’re never allowed to leave me.”

Phil felt Dan smile into his shoulder. “Philip Michael Lester, you might be the only person in the world capable of convincing me that fate is real.”

You might not believe in fate but I know the truth. It was always you.”

“And it always will be me,” said Dan, closing his eyes, content in Phil’s arms.

“Companions through life?” asked Phil, breaking the hug to face Dan and look into his eyes. This was serious business. He extended out his pinky, never breaking eye contact.

“Actual soulmates,” said Dan, grabbing Phil’s pinky with his and shaking. The sacred vow of the pinky promise.

Phil smiled.

It was always him.

[thehuntfortrencherlostmedia]

The Origins, Ramsay Fiction & The Confusing Mishmash of Everything Before Fix Me - A Marianas Trench Retrospective

Okay, so my post got likes, but I only got one actual response from anyone, agreeing with me on the fact they like things in chronological order. So, I guess it's time to talk about the bands early days, eh?

The truth of the matter is, the band as many know them started in late 2003 and early 2004. Anything before that gets placed in this weird murky middle section with a name change, members leaving, and also a complete and utter mess of when Ramsay Fiction came to an end and where Marianas Trench begins. We have located a demo disk from 2001 with the Marianas name on it, but we also don't have any dates as to when certain things were recorded or uploaded onto MP3.com.

Here's what we do know: Josh Ramsay, a teenager dealing with both an addiction to heroin and an eating disorder, loved music from a young age. His father owned a recording studio, and his mother was a vocal coach. Music was literally in his blood, but even though the two had connections into the industry and everything, he set out to make it into the business on his own. And he knew one thing for certain: He DID NOT want to be a solo act, he wanted to be in a band.

The issue for Josh was getting that band together. At first, it was him and his sister Sara (backup vocals), her then boyfriend and later husband Trevor Spilchen (on bass, even though he was a guitar player), Josh's friend Steve Marshall (on guitar and backup vocals, despite being a BASSIST), and a rotating list of drummers, eventually finding Ian Casselman in a series of classifieds in a newspaper late into the bands life. This lineup didn't last long, as once Sara became pregnant with her and Trevor's first kid, they stepped aside... leading to 2 new members joining: Josh's friend Matt Webb (originally a keyboardist), and Steve's pal Morgan Hempstead (the man who bestowed them the Marianas Trench name). It's tough to say who plays what on a lot of the Ramsay Fiction tracks that make up Cooler Than Me, as I think they come from two different recording sessions, if not more. Same goes for a lot of the self-titled EP work too, as we know at least two tracks from that era, an early recording of Fix Me, and a early recording of Skin & Bones, were both first made public to people in 2004... months after Steve and Morgan left, and Mike Ayley joined the group after getting to know everyone as Ian's roommate.

In fact, for the longest time, a lot of the Ramsay Fiction stuff was lost media, songs that nobody outside of a rare few had ever heard. As of April 1st this year, this is no longer the case, and all the songs have been found and preserved (yes, even PMS... despite it being taken off Youtube, has been saved.)

To talk about these songs is hard. There's definitely a lot of emotion and pain in these tracks, and the overall sound is very 90's, going for more of heavy grunge and alternate rock sound, very reminiscent of Matthew Goode. But you can also hear those other elements creep in from other acts Josh has referenced time and time throughout in small snippets. The biggest thing holding a lot of these songs back is a mix of production (which is still insanely impressive for the time period and the fact it was done by a teen no less), and lyrical ckunkiness, making them semi hard to decipher.

What do I mean by this? Take track 1, the one everyone knows: Primetime. The song's verses speak about how something is this, but the person is the opposite... bu we don't get a clear picture of who the person is.. only that supposedly a hit of heroin will make everything feel better. It's odd that this is the song that's somehow lasted the test of time out of all these tracks. But hey, it did lead to a great callback on End of An Era.

Track 2, Shiny Like Dirt (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG-OoIsFbow), is truly a song where Josh took a ton of ideas he had for songs, and threw it against the wall to see if it would stick. And... it does stick, but also doesn't? The chorus is super catchy, basically admitting he's a confusing person, and that nothing he does makes sense... and yet, despite it all, he still has fears of the unknown. The "coming up for air" bridge is probably my favourite part, but it's definitely an earworm I return to occasionally. I've also linked it in case you've yet to hear it.

Track 3: Shallow. The song we've known about for the longest time, the one the fandom cherished like a baby... and honestly, it's probably my least favourite? I've tried to decipher the lyrics on this one for ages, but I can't come up with anything concrete. I do think the song has a good tone, and the guitar solo is totally awesome. In fact, there's a lot of great guitar and bass work throughout a lot of these songs. But there's something missing for me on this one.

Track 4: Playing Dead. This seems to be the earliest recorded song of this bunch, going off Josh's voice here. And honestly, I think it's the closest tonally to a current day Marianas Trench song. There's a bit of a swing sound going on in the drums, the harmonies.... and it's an interesting number overall. Also, it's our clearest sampling of Steve's voice, and just how close it is to Matt's vocals xD... it seems to be a simple love song about a girl and how he's open to roleplaying almost anything with her, using "playing dead" as his main metaphor. It's the black sheep of the CD, but a good one.

Track 5: Hideous. Here we go... the first track Josh ever wrote about his bulimia and depression... and how it was eating him from the inside... and how he was asking for help, even though he wasn't fully ready to accept it at the time. The beginning parts are very slow, and methodical.... only for the song to pick up energy in it's second half and become truly one of the standouts on this album.

Track 6: PMS. Okay... so... this one is tough to talk about. We knew for years it was supposedly very comedic in nature and that it was also politically incorrect, but that was it. For those of you who still have not heard it, there's a copy of it in this Discord server in the links and archive section: https://discord.gg/d5M3xVN9

As for the song itself, I personally really love it. It's a song about Josh being petty to a girl and truthfully telling her off. It's definitely of its time period, but in the best way possible. And once again, the guitar work here is SO GOOD. If you can stomach a song that truly is a time capsule and understand that Josh would never write anything as juvenile today, give it a listen.

Track 7: Don't Touch Me. The song that holds a special place in my heart... as I was the one to LOCATE IT after 18 years in the massive pile of MP3.com links that were given to the Internet Archive in 2021. And it's a ballad all about Josh dealing with both the arguments and turmoil he would feel when coming down from getting high. Truthfully, this might be the most emotional song of this batch, and one that definitely sticks its landing.

So, my overall thoughts here are to give these songs a listen, and understand them for what they are: the start of a musical prodigy finding his footing and his sense of style while getting clean and hoping somebody, anybody, would give him a chance. While the tone might not have influenced Josh’s style fully going forward, there are elements from these songs that were taken and repurposed into later Trench tracks.

Luckily, and also sadly... Jonathan Simkin & Chad Kroeger gave him that chance. And thus, we got ourselves a self titled EP... and a full title debut. But that'll be next time.

[nat-seal-well]

I am, once again, thinking about N Sewell and one of their favorite books, Great Gatsby (which is also one of my favorite books). This is also partially inspired by the bonus content that was posted a few days ago! It's been on my mind ever since. Because of that, and because it’s more of a ramble than anything else, I’m putting the rest of this post under the break. 

One big part of N’s character that intrigues me is the way they cling to their humanity. Or rather, whatever is left of it. They’ve spent so much of the last three centuries holding on as tight as they can to what they used to be, and it carries over into their love for reading and stories—which is also one of the main themes of Great Gatsby: holding onto the past, even when it kills you. Gatsby has spent years stubbornly holding onto the memories of the relationship he used to have with Daisy that his perception of the truth has been completely skewed. All he cares about is stopping time and turning back the clock. (There’s even a quote about it. “Can’t repeat the past? Why, of course you can!” And the tea scene, which is a personal favorite.)

He’s hung all of his hopes on having her again; we all know she’s the green light he keeps reaching for. (And the color green symbolizes so many things: wealth, prosperity, envy, to name a few that fit.) To Gatsby, Daisy is the living embodiment of all his desires. He isn’t in love with her so much as he is in love with the idea of her; she’s become a sort of status symbol to him. Something to project his desires onto. If he can have her, it means he’s achieved all he’s ever wanted. The wealth, the high-class life, the privilege, all of these things he’s been hungry for and has devoted himself to obtaining. 

Similarly, turning was something that N never wanted. Having their mortality taken from them is a wound that has never healed, even after all these years; partially due to their own avoidance. N enjoys cooking. They eat human food. They lose themself in their books and the stories they adore so much, and all because they can’t handle the truth of their reality. N dives into their beloved stories with so much romanticism because it’s easier than facing what’s real, just as they play at still being human. 

Which is part of what makes their relationship with the Detective in the romance route so interesting to me. Time and time again, we’ve seen the way N latches onto the Detective’s humanity. N makes off-hand (and presumptuous) comments about the Detective becoming a vampire in the future, and yet at the same time admits to themself that they don't want them to turn. N treasures their mortality and it’s easy to interpret part of that as them projecting onto the Detective; they don’t want what happened to them to happen to their partner. It is, in a way, N’s own method of stopping time and fixing the past. That isn’t to say that N doesn’t love the Detective, because they do, but there are definitely some parallels between the relationship they share with the Detective, and the one Gatsby and Daisy have. Green is even N’s color; we see them wearing it all the time. 

N’s inability to face the truth is also reminiscent of our iconic narrator, Nick Carraway. Though he claims to be “one of the few honest men he has ever known,” he has an enormous blind spot when it comes to himself and to Gatsby. Despite how he insists on giving an unbiased opinion on the events that unfold, there’s an undeniable favoritism to his neighbor. Nick also plays a hand in setting up the affair between Gatsby and Daisy, and judges the people he interacts with throughout the book. Setting himself up as “honest” and unbiased—merely an outside spectator, nothing more—in the beginning only makes it easier for him to swallow everything that happens later on, even when they become unacceptable. Especially when this clearly isn’t the case, and he’s involved far more than he’s willing to, or capable of, admitting. 

That kind of denial can be dangerous—not unlike how the idealist and romantic parts of N are equally enchanting as they are a concern. In their own way, N is just as unreliable as Nick. (Remember the, “Not with my own hands, no,” answer they give the Detective, after being asked if they’ve ever taken a life?) N prefers the dreamy notions found between the pages of their books and the denial of the part they ever played aboard The Queen’s Sabre over the cold and unsavory truth, even three hundred years after it happened. Just as they continue to pretend to still be human. 

But you can’t hold onto the past forever, and you can’t keep lying to yourself. Blatant denial can only go so far, especially not when you have an eternity to live. Sooner or later you have to let go—or they will drown you. I’m just very interested in seeing the path N’s route takes in the future books. Their intentional avoidance could very well lead to their undoing (or at least a very fun read). They can learn how to face the truth, face the facts of what they’ve done and what they are… or they can let their stubbornness destroy them, and bring the Detective down with them. 

[lunawings]

While I was in Japan during March 2024, I was able to visit the Pretty Rhythm Rainbow Live 10th Anniversary Exhibit. This is my favorite anime of all time, so it was an incredible honor.

Unfortunately, you could not take pictures in many areas and I always try my best to be respectful and follow the rules. So, I will describe it.

The walls of the first room were covered in several tapestries depicting each individual episode of the anime, so you could reminisce about everything that happened as you slowly walked through the room. In the middle of the room, there were several exhibits perfectly recreating every single paper, notebook, sketch...

Hokkaido itinerary? Wakana and Bell's test scores? Momo's Happy Rain costume sketches? Naru and Bell's manager applications? The score to pride? Any piece of paper you can think of that appeared in PRRL, it was all HERE! Recreated with meticulous accuracy...

The next room was the photo room where you could take pictures in Prism Stone or in front of Rinne's feathers.

Something else they had here which was really neat, was all of these mini photo ops of various scenes from the anime that you could put your plushies or figures into! As I rarely have someone with me to take photos of myself at events like this, and I rarely post them even when I do, NGL I loved it. I wish I had brought something! I did have a PAF Naru on my bag I could have used, but it would have taken time to unpin her so unfortunetly I did not.

The next room contained an exhibit of various merch from throughout the years.

Unfortunately, there wasn't really much merch to look at in the classic section. Just the guitars, some stones, and the Smart Pod Shot. But I definitely think there was more than that back in the day! There has to have been because I own at least one thing that was not in here (a pool bag) haha!

They also had a REAL prism guitar on display, which apparently they are actually going to sell at some point!?

The last part of the exhibit before going to the gift shop, was a hallway with messages from all the voice actresses and the director. This was also a zone where photos were banned, but I remember in the director's he acknowledged Rainbow Live as being the only Pretty Rhythm season to achieve a 10th anniversary celebration and ended his commentary with "Glorious Pretty Rhythm" hahaha. Next was the gift shop...

Which was honestly super disappointing... I was prepared to spend a lot of money here, but in the end, I barely bought anything. Everything, EVERYTHING good was blind and the stuff that wasn't was just so expensive.

Like, they had this set of Hiro cards with his magazine covers and debut poster and I really wanted them but when I actually saw them it was like... 2,000 yen? FOR THREE CARDS!? Those tiny little cards you can see up there below the keychains?

????????????

Am I missing something!?

In the end I bought two Wakana boards and two clear files. And the one blind thing I couldn't resist was the Prism Stone badges... which turned out to be Otoha x2 and one Ann. Gah.

I also might have bought a Wakana plush doll, but she was sold out. Out of all the Rainbow Live girls she was the only one sold out both here and at Tokyo Station Prism Stone.

And here were the bonuses I got. Including, yes, the AiPri card. So for people who saw me posting it over on @pretty-idol-hell, this was where it came from.

I also got a very special letter, which I am saving to translate at a later date...

Outside the event was an up and running Pretty Rhythm machine, or so I thought. Wow, no line! I said to myself as I happily bounced up to it only to find the coin slot taped over and a sign reading it could not be used. Darn. (I know there's no prism stones left in the wild, but come on, there's no free play mode...? Well, I guess even if there was they wouldn't want people loitering around the exhibition.)

Anyway, as you read I did have a few complaints, but it still makes my heart happy that this event existed at all. I loved all the time and effort that went into making all the recreations of things!

[guardian-of-time-if]

Final Days with MC Snippet: Gaderous

So it's been a hot minute since I posted the rest of these snippets, but this one was giving me trouble. Gat is one of the harder characters for me to write, and I struggled with this scenario. His will be the last one in the set (sorry Sentinel) because I cannot think of a scene with Sentinel that would fit the prompt as he also has a long lifespan.

An unusually warm autumn breeze swept through the air, brushing against Gat’s cheek. He sucks in the warm air from his spot against the towering oak tree. The weather was perfect for a nice quiet picnic, something so familiar it took little effort to get right at this point. 

He twists a flower between his fingers. If she was any later, he would keep them. He smiles to himself at the thought before setting it back in the place he arranged for it. His smile drops when he notices the flower seems out of place, and leans forward to adjust it again. He shouldn’t have picked it up even if he was bored. Now, he’s never going to get it back in it’s proper place.

“It’s just a flower Gaderous,” a voice calls out, grabbing his attention. “You’re not performing emergency surgery in the middle of a battlefield.”

Gat smiles, rising to greet his lover. “Unlike the healers you’re used to, beautiful, I give every patient my undivided attention, however insignificant they might seem to the rest of the world.”

“Is that why you pay so much attention to me?”

“You are not one of my patients,” he says, as they sit down. “You have my undivided attention because you are the most beautiful creature I’ve ever seen walk the face of Tarken.”

She laughs. “Have you been reading poetry again, or are you trying to get me to agree to something you know I don’t want to do?”

“Oh, I definitely want something, but I’d bet money, its something you want to.”

She gives him the side eye. “This I’ve got to hear.”

Instead of answering, he reaches over and pulls her into his lap. 

“Gaderous!” She yelps, and he responds by kissing her ear.

“I was hoping for a kiss, but we can eat first since I made the effort.”

“Considering you made the effort because it’s my birthday, I think I get to decide what we do after we eat.”

“It’s your birthday?” He asks, earning himself a brief smack on the chest with no force behind it. 

“You know it is. After this many years you better know.”

“Or maybe I’m just getting old enough to not remember anything.”

She rolls her eyes, and reaches for some of the fruit, but doesn’t move out of his lap. As they eat, Gat tries to keep a perfect balance in the atmosphere between lighthearted banter, reminiscing, and flirting.

“What’s wrong?” She asks after Gat finishes a joke.

“What do you mean?” 

“You’re trying too hard. When you’re trying not to think about things, you occupy your mind with other things like the exact position of flowers.”

“What if I just really want to impress you?”

She rolls her eyes. “We’ve been together for decades at this point. You don’t need to impress me with a date.”

“We could be together for ten thousand years, and I would still spend every day of my life trying to impress you.”

“Gaderous,” she pleads, drawing out his name.

He sighs. “Fine. How long are we going to pretend this is normal?”

“What are we pretending is normal?”

“We celebrate your birthday every year as if it actually matters. You’re not actually getting older.”

“You want to stop celebrating my birthday?” She asks, drawing her eyebrows together.

“No. I-” He gently moves her off his lap. “You’re aging, and I’m not. I didn’t realize how weird it was going to be until we got here.”

“I-”

“Someone actually asked me the other day if you were my daughter.”

Her eyes double in size, and she coughs. “Daughter?!’

He nods. “We have now gotten to the point where I look old enough to be your dad. That’s weird, or at least it feels weird. Even outside of the appearance thing, I’m starting to notice that my mind is slipping. I made a joke about forgetting your birthday earlier, but I have been forgetting things more lately, and I’m not getting around as easily as I used to.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me that?” She asks, cupping his cheek.

“I didn’t want you to worry, but it has made me wonder, if you wouldn’t be happier without me.”

“Don’t say that,” she chides. “We’re in this together.”

“Before you helped me escape the cult, a lot of our members asked me to check on their elderly family members. Those visits were always rough. People becoming fragments of who they once were. I don’t want you to remember me that way.”

“Gat,” she breathes out his name.

“It would be one thing, if it was reciprocal, and we were both aging together, but it’s just me. I can’t do that to you.”

“Shouldn’t I get to decide that?” She asks, brushing her fingers through his hair.

“Obviously what you want matters, but even if you are willing to, I don’t want you to stay and watch me deteriorate.”

“Gaderous, look at me,” she orders. “Do not push me away from you because you’re afraid of getting old.”

“I’m not afraid of getting old. I’m afraid of losing myself. That aging will change who I am enough that I won’t be me anymore.” He leans his head into the crook of her neck. “I didn’t want to do this to you today.”

“Don’t worry about that,” she assures. “I’d rather know what’s troubling you.”

“I’d rather go back to trying my hardest not to think about it, if it's all the same to you.”