#but someone left a review about how their friend got there and got worse and someone else complained abt the doc changing their meds

[snow-and-saltea]

shyly tucks hair behind my ear

if anyone would like to throw me a kofi for me to buy meds + therapy (a dreaded doctor's appt) i would appreciate it!! i would appreciate anything rlly!!

i will write you a love letter <3333 or try to compose a poem in your honour <3333

see ya love u stay safe ok

throwing this out there just in case anyone would like to help me out hiii

i am in a very difficult position and i can't really afford meds for the next few months for my antidepressants to last me through till end of july

edit june 5: I CAN NOW AFFORD THEM FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF MONTHS + THERAPY..... THANK YOU FRIENDS !!!!!!!!!

[hb-writes]

A Familiar Tune

Summary: It’s 1924 in the Little Lady Blinderverse. When Isiah and his girlfriend have a very public break up at the Garrison, Clara tries to make him feel better.

Characters: Isiah Jesus and Clara Shelby

Content Warnings: Break ups suck. Some swearing, some drinking, some smoking, mentions of sex. The typical peaky content.

Tell me what y'all think! Reviews and comments are always appreciated. 😌❤️

Peaky Blinders (Little Lady Blinder) Masterlist

Peaky Blinders (Non-Shelby!Sister) Masterlist

—

"Come on, Clara. It's our birthday."

“He’s fine.” 

“Isiah can handle himself.” 

Clara knew it was true. Michael and Finn were right, even if they were both drunk and being right assholes about the whole thing. Finn had even laughed, a bit of his drink spit across the table when Isiah stormed out. 

Clara had tried to smack her brother upside the head in retribution then, but Finn had stopped her, the tightly wrapped fingers around her wrist easily able to quell the attack. Part of her had wanted to go for another swing with her free hand, but then she remembered Isiah. 

She remembered the look on his face when he’d left the pub and something ached in her chest, a pain worse than Finn’s hand squeezing her arm. Worse than whatever guilt she felt at leaving the little birthday celebration Finn had cobbled together for the two of them.

“Just leave it, Clara,” Michael said as he sipped from the glass of mild, calm as ever as he remained reclined in his chair.

Clara ignored the guidance as she wrenched her arm free from Finn’s grasp, pulling her coat and then Isiah’s up into her arms as she passed his empty chair. 

His chair in the snug had been empty most of the night as he sat with Lisette and her friends on the other side of the pub. Lisette didn’t like being tucked away in a private room. She liked to see what was going on, liked to watch the dancing even if she didn’t ever want to dance herself, not like her sister who had Finn’s two left feet out on the dance floor most evenings. 

Clara had sometimes wondered if the two of them ought to have switched dates when that bit of knowledge became known, but Clara had kept her mouth shut. The truth was she actually liked Lisette. Well, Clara liked Lisette better than her younger sister, Ada, anyway. She didn't have any interest in setting up Ada and Isiah.

She didn't really want Finn continuing his dalliance with the girl either, but Clara had a feeling things between Ada and Finn weren’t a love for the ages anyhow. How could they be with the girl sharing a name with their older sister? Clara wasn't sure how the name alone didn't weird him out...kissing someone with the same name as their Ada? And surely, the girl wasn't marriage material. There was only room enough in the world for one Ada Shelby.

But Clara kept those thoughts all to herself. Things would work themselves out before it got that far, Clara was certain.

Not that it mattered anyway, because Clara could tell from the beginning that Isiah liked Lisette better, too, something Clara understood, even if she wished she didn’t. Lisette was smart and beautiful and different from the girls who usually flocked to the boys. She was a bit older, for one. A bit more mature. And if it wasn’t for the fact that Clara made a conscious decision of keeping a bit of distance between herself and whoever any of the boys were dating, especially in the beginning stages, she might have thought of her as the type of person she could be friends with. 

Even if it was clear that Lisette was the type of girl who was used to getting precisely what she wanted all the time. Some people might say Clara was the same—her family frequently alluded to the fact that she was spoiled in that way, but Clara knew how to negotiate. She knew how to read people, how to accommodate others. 

From what she’d seen, Lisette didn’t want to do that even if she knew how. 

Clara eyed the booth on the other side of the pub holding the group—Lisette, Ada, and a gaggle of their friends whose names Clara didn’t know—as she pushed through the crowds near the bar. It was clear they were all consoling Lisette in the wake of her breakup even as the rest of the pub had already moved on with their merrymaking, singing along and dancing to the familiar tune being sung from the makeshift stage at the back of the pub. 

Clara had a vision of herself crossing the pub and shooing the lot of them away, calling in her status as a Shelby to bar them from the pub for all eternity, but a bit of cool air blasted through the front door, raising bumps on her arms and her mind remembered where her body was taking her on instinct, trailing in Isiah’s wake though she was already a few minutes behind him by now. 

Clara shivered as she pushed out into the night, a curse slipping through her lips as the door swung shut behind her. She fumbled with the coats in her hand, realizing she should have slipped her own on before coming outside and she worked to slip her arm into it while keeping Isiah’s from touching the muddy ground. 

It wasn’t a particularly long walk to Isiah’s house, but it would feel longer in the cold. Clara had successfully sheathed one arm when she heard her name, the sound of it so quiet and small it nearly hurt to hear, almost as if it wasn’t certain in its conviction. Wasn’t certain in wanting to be known. 

Clara spun on her heel, steeling her face even as she remained tangled up in coats, one arm still bared to the elements. For a moment as she met Isiah’s eye, she wondered which one of them was trying harder to remain neutral, and she studied him as he took a silent drag from his cigarette, his breathing calm and deep, his countenance so unbothered, almost as if he and Lisette hadn’t just broken things off in front of everyone in the Garrison.  

“That for me?” Isiah asked, gesturing toward the overcoat she held carelessly bundled in her arm. 

He didn’t look cold, but Isiah was good at looking like things he wasn’t when he wanted to be—happy, unbothered, not cold. Even if Clara could see through it. 

She stepped forward to hand it over and Isiah easily slipped his arms inside, his cigarette parked between his lips for the duration.

“It’s fucking freezing out here,” Clara said as she shoved her arm into the jacket and fumbled with the buttons, securing them all the way to the top. 

Isiah shrugged and cleared the ash from the end of his cigarette. The truth was he was fucking freezing. His suit jacket still sat at Lisette’s table and he had realized his stupidity the moment he stepped outside. He had been too stubborn to go back inside, too stubborn even to roll down his shirt sleeves, and he tried to repress the shiver that skittered across his skin now. 

It was then that Clara realized something looked off, that the familiar black overcoat wasn’t sitting on Isiah’s frame quite right, and she disappeared without a word, returning a moment later with the forgotten suit jacket dangling from her fingers. 

Clara hadn’t said a word to the group of girls, simplying leaning around them and retrieving Isiah’s jacket with a tug before walking back out through the door. 

Isiah mumbled his thanks as Clara held the jacket out to him, the pair of them quiet as he stripped out of the overcoat and passed it back to her waiting arms so he could get situated, the burning cigarette parked between his lips once again.

“Where do you want to go?” Clara asked once Isiah pulled the dwindling cigarette away from his mouth. 

Isiah shook his head, clearing the ash. “It’s alright. You go back in.” 

They were meant to be celebrating Finn and Clara’s impending birthdays, just a few days out. It had been Finn’s idea to celebrate both the weekend before and after, and he’d convinced Clara, but she hadn’t really cared. She was much more looking forward to celebrating with her family. Much more looking forward to Ada and Karl coming in for a short visit. 

But this had been what Finn wanted, so she obliged. 

“I’m not going back in without you,” she said. “And I’m not standing out here all night either,” she continued, her words picking up speed and force and a certain sharpness that was so familiar to Isiah it was nearly a comfort, a fair bit better than him listening to the annoying voice inside his head. “And don’t tell me you want to be alone either because I know—”

“I don’t,” Isiah answered, and Clara’s face softened, the corners of her mouth falling a bit.

“I’m sorry, Is,” she said after swallowing down the lump forming in her throat. 

Isiah nodded. He knew she meant it, though he wasn’t sure what she was sorry about. The break up or the way it had happened or all of it or something else entirely. Clara could be odd like that, thinking about things that weren’t even on Isiah’s radar in a particular situation, but the intricacies of it didn’t matter, just that he knew it was sincere, could feel her concern more than he’d felt anything else lately, and it warmed him. 

Isiah didn’t even know what he felt about the break up. Some part of him was numb, barely feeling it, even though they’d made a bit of a scene doing it in public like that. Isiah could have made it an even bigger scene. He could’ve put on an even bigger show, but he had let it be. He knew it wasn’t worth it. What he wanted didn’t matter, not when Finn was still seeing the sister.

“So what do you want to do?” Clara asked, a question Isiah would swear he hadn’t heard in ages. Not a single Blinder cared what he wanted and though his father solicited his opinion often enough, Isiah hadn’t been home for a meal with the man in what felt like ages now, not since he’d been dating Lisette, at least. 

Lisette certainly hadn’t asked his opinions, used as she was to getting what she wanted. Isiah didn’t think it was malicious, just that it hadn’t occurred to her to consider someone else. Isiah had liked her well enough, and the sex had been good enough, that he’d convinced himself to go along with her whims. Some part of him was entranced by her and the ways he was so different from her that he’d been warmed to see her happy, even if it meant losing part of himself in her wants and her needs. 

Clara was patient, remaining quiet as she waited on Isiah’s answer, already reading his desire as he stubbed out his cigarette and pushed off the wall. 

“Let’s walk a bit.” 

Clara waited for him to take the first step, waited for him to determine their course even if some part of her knew where he wanted to go. They were quiet, the pair of them with hands stuffed in their pockets as they walked to the end of Garrison Lane, turning off onto Watery Lane and stopping before number 6. Clara fished her key out of her pocket and handed it off to Isiah as they approached the darkened door. 

Some part of Clara wondered if the key should have been Isiah’s anyway. He certainly spent more time in her childhood home than she did, but he wasn’t family—not blood, at least—and only her and her siblings and her aunt had keys to the family home. 

Isiah passed the key back to her as he pushed open the door, holding it open and allowing Clara to pass over the threshold first. Isiah latched the door behind them before wordlessly moving to the fireplace where he started on getting it lit in the near dark. 

Clara left him alone, navigating the first floor in the dark and returning a few minutes later with two glasses and a bottle of whiskey from John’s office in the shop. Isiah didn’t look away from the fire as she entered, his arms rested on his knees as he watched the flames. 

Clara set aside the bottle and glasses, retrieving Isiah’s suit jacket and overcoat from where he’d discarded them on the floor and settling them on a hook by the stairs. Clara grabbed the whiskey and glasses as she moved back across the room. She plopped down on the floor beside him and immediately poured out two hefty servings in each of the glasses. Isiah hooked a finger in one glass, quickly pulling it over and knocking back the contents and setting it back down before Clara could even stopper the bottle. 

Clara quickly moved to pour him another shot, but Isiah’s hand caught her wrist, his fingers gentle as he stopped her and guided the bottle from her hand, all the while his eyes remained on the fire, the warmth of it almost too hot on both of their faces. 

Clara took a slow sip of her whiskey, trying not to hiss at the fiery sting in her throat. She’d been sipping mild all night and she wasn’t sure what was causing the sudden heat in her cheeks—the liquor or the flame or the words swirling in her head and her heart. 

“I want to say something, but I don’t want you to get mad.” 

Isiah snorted. “That’s a promising start.” 

Clara sighed on the end of a deep breath, forcing herself to take another sip. She tried to keep the commentary on Isiah’s relationships to herself at this point. They’d had enough tiffs about it, that Clara had learned her opinion wasn’t wanted most times. Her reservations weren’t wanted. And unless Isiah solicited her, she didn’t share. And even then, what she shared was always tempered, restrained just a little. 

Isiah knew as much, but they’d both decided to let it be. It was better than arguing. 

“Well, what is it?” Isiah finally asked. He pulled his gaze away from the fire to look at her, watching for a moment as she focused on swirling the remaining whiskey in her glass. Isiah set his hand over the glass, and Clara set the glass aside before shifting her body so she sat facing him, the fire blazing against her back. 

“I just wonder…” she started, reaching out to take his hand, training her eyes on their intertwined fingers. “...I wonder if maybe it’s for the best, Is?” she said. “I know it may not feel that way now, but—”

Isiah was quiet even after Clara stopped herself, wondering if it was her place to say these things, wondering if it wasn’t better to keep these thoughts to herself after all. 

“Go ahead,” he said, squeezing her hand. “It’s not as if you’d be able to keep whatever it is to yourself anyhow, eh?” 

“I could,” Clara answered, her back straightening and her tone sharpening a bit in a defiance she was nearly powerless to control. “...if you wanted me to. If you didn’t want my…opinion.” 

As hard as it would be for her…especially when it came to Isiah, she could do it if that was what he wanted. If her silence would soothe him more than her words, she’d honor it—for now at least. 

It wouldn’t be too hard and it wasn’t as if her opinion, her guidance, was needed when it came to a subject matter with which Clara was so personally unfamiliar. She was no expert in love or relationships. Her brothers had always been quick to remind her of that fact whenever she’d tried to offer them some sort of guidance in regards to their love lives. 

Isiah stayed quiet, urging her to continue only with his eyes and the fact that he hadn’t pulled his hand away. Clara let both of their hands settle on her lap and Isiah felt the gentle twist of his pinky ring as she twisted it, barely aware of the nervous habit. 

Isiah had been tempted to test out Clara’s assertion, to make her squirm while trying to keep the words on the tip of her tongue, but not only did Isiah not believe in her ability to keep her mouth shut longer than a few minutes, but he found himself almost yearning to hear her thoughts, desperate to know if his best friend would end the sentence the same way he would. 

“I just…” she started, still subtly fidgeting with Isiah’s ring until she realized what she was doing and she let his hand go, allowing him to pull it back to his own lap. “You just haven’t seemed much like yourself. You haven’t seemed very…” Clara sorted through the words, trying to decide what precisely she meant and what she could say that might sting the least. 

She wanted to say that he hadn’t seemed particularly happy, even if that declaration felt heavy in her mouth. She wanted to say that she hadn’t seen his cheeky grin in a while. That she hadn’t heard him laugh or seen him excited. She wanted to say that they hadn’t had a dance in ages. And that she didn’t have a clue what he was reading lately, or if he was reading anything at all. It wasn’t that Isiah had seemed wholly unhappy, exactly. Just that he was a bit muted, like a subdued version of himself. A shadow of the person she knew. Neutral and opinionless and far too timid.

“Happy?” Isiah finally suggested, as if he knew—or hoped—that it was the word on the tip of Clara’s tongue. 

“Well, yeah,” Clara sighed. She knew that relationships required compromise. She knew that people had to be a bit malleable in the process of two people coming together, but something had seemed different this time, almost as if Isiah had let a bit of himself go in order to accommodate everything Lisette was. 

Isiah snorted softly and reached out for Clara’s glass, downing the small bit of whiskey left in her glass. “I wasn’t sure anyone noticed.”

“Of course I noticed.” Clara studied Isiah’s face, frowning at the pain etched there in his features. “I just…I didn’t want to stick my nose in. It wasn’t my place.”

Clara had been told time and time again by those in her life to not worry about this or that…to focus on her own responsibilities…to stay out of business not pertaining to her. It seemed to only bring trouble when she did otherwise.

“Since when do you endeavor to keep your nose out of my business?” he asked. “Seems to me you decided my business was as good as yours way back in 1915.”

Isiah’s lips pulled into something resembling a smile, but Clara could tell he was forcing it. 

“I thought that’s what you wanted.” 

Isiah shook his head. “Since when does it matter what I want?” 

“It’s always mattered,” Clara answered. “And you shouldn’t have to change yourself or compromise or bend over backwards to get what you want, Is. It should be equal. A partnership” He didn’t say anything, didn’t fight or interrupt, so Clara continued. “Someday, someone is going to come along and she’ll be everything you want and you—just as you are—will be what she wants, and sometimes it will be work and it won’t always be easy, but it’ll be work you want to do. It’ll be work you couldn’t imagine not doing, and when it happens, you’ll understand why it never worked out with anyone else because it’ll just make sense. And it’ll feel different. Natural. Right.” 

Isiah was still quiet, listening to Clara as if she was telling him a story, as if she was telling them both a story that they both hoped wasn’t just a fairy tale.

“And when it happens, you’ll be glad Lisette cut you lose now,” she added. “Even if it feels like shit just now.” 

 Clara took a deep breath, preparing herself for Isiah’s response—that she was naive and silly. That she didn’t know anything of any value when it came to love or life. That she read far too many romance novels. Clara knew all of that wouldn’t be out of line. It was a little true that she didn’t have much firsthand experience and that she had read a lot of books, but Isiah didn’t say any of that. He didn’t say anything, simply turning his gaze back to the fire.  

Clara watched Isiah’s adam’s apple bob, a distinct mist shimmering in his eye which Isiah willed himself to control. He could’ve cried in front of Clara. Isiah knew that, but he didn’t want to, even if the words had resonated enough that something ached deep in his chest. 

Clara could feel it, almost as if the pain echoed in her own heart. As his silence stretched on, Clara found herself testing out the words to apologize in her head. She was preparing herself to say them outloud when Isiah let out a breath and rose from the floor.

Isiah stepped across the room, readying the gramophone. Slow songs weren’t what they usually listened to, but the tune was familiar, with a melody she knew by heart. 

Isiah held a hand down to Clara. “You want to dance?”

“Do you want to?” she countered, looking up at him. 

“I want to dance with you,” he said, grabbing Clara’s hand and pulling her to her feet. “Haven’t had a decent dance partner in months.” 

Clara quickly fell into step, letting Isiah lead as they twirled around the room, sidestepping the bottle and glasses they’d left on the floor. Isiah let his instincts take over as his mind worked through Clara’s words once again, part of him hoping beyond hope that they were true. 

That someday someone would come along.

That it would be work, but the work would be worth doing.

That it would be different—natural and right. 

They would be partners. Equals. 

And it would be instinctive. 

As easy as dancing along to a familiar tune.

—

Peaky Blinders (Little Lady Blinder) Masterlist

Peaky Blinders (Non-Shelby!Sister) Masterlist

[honeyjars-sims]

2.20 Making It Right

Farrah: Are you sure this is safe? What if you’re being ambushed?

Chantal: It’s fine. I think.

Farrah: [screaming] AHH! What was that???

Chantal: A squirrel. I think I would’ve felt safer if I came by myself.

Lilian: Hi Chantal, thanks so much for responding to my message. This is my friend Kayla.

Kayla: It’s nice to meet you, Chantal.

Chantal: Kayla Flemming? You two know each other? Wow, Ambrose was right, you really did have someone on the inside!

Lilian: Kayla and I have known each other since we were kids. Who’s this?

Chantal: This is my best friend, Farrah.

Farrah: Shh! Don’t use my real name! Uh, I’ll just wait over there and make sure no one’s coming.

Lilian: I’m sure you’re wondering what’s going on here, so I'll just cut to the chase. A few months ago, my sister Julianne used one of the SNOOT lubes and suffered some pretty bad chemical burns. She had some nerve damage and scarring that left her in a lot of pain.

Chantal: Oh my God, that’s awful! 

Lilian: Yeah, it really is. She wanted to contact a lawyer, but she couldn’t afford to. But she knew whatever was in that lube was too caustic to be safe. She wanted to warn others, so she left a review. Ambrose contacted her and asked her to take the review down. She even offered her hush money. But my sister refused.

Chantal: Good for her! I can’t believe Ambrose did that. Well, I guess I can.

Lilian: It gets worse. Ambrose flew off the handle when she refused to remove the review. Unfortunately, my sister used her full name. A few days later, someone made an anonymous call to her job with some false accusations. She was fired and had to stop her medical treatments. We know it was someone associated with SNOOT, but we have no way to prove it. That’s when I contacted Kayla.

Kayla: I knew Ambrose was all about saving a few bucks wherever possible, so it didn’t surprise me that she was putting out harmful products. When I heard about what happened to Julianne, I had to do something to help. I offered to help her pay for a lawyer so she could get some justice. Unfortunately, we still had one other problem.

Lilian: We knew it was the lube that caused the burns, but we didn’t have any actual proof. Kayla suggested I do some recognizance by getting a job at SNOOT. She helped me craft the perfect resume, and I’ve been working on gathering evidence ever since.

Chantal: So why do you need me?

Lilian: It was the perfect plan on paper, but I’m not a detective. I was never able to get close enough to anyone important to gather the intel I needed. Then I saw you in Nico’s office late one night.

Chantal: [embarrassed] Oh. 

Lilian: Yeah. I figured I could use your...connections to my advantage. I know that sounds awful, but it was also an opportunity for me to warn you about everything that’s going on before it caused you any problems. Knowing what happened to Kayla, I had to let you know.

Chantal: Wait, what happened to you?

Kayla: I was in the same situation then as you are now. A few years back, Nico was my boss. He started flirting with me, and I was taken in by how special he made me feel. He introduced me to Ambrose and said she could help me build my career.

Kayla: [continued] But then he started putting me down and shutting me out. When I got pregnant, he sent me money for an abortion and stopped talking to me. Then Ambrose suddenly cut me out of the company we were starting. 

Chantal: I’m so sorry that happened to you. Trust me, I know now how stupid I was being by getting involved with him. 

Kayla: You’re not stupid, Chantal. You’re kind. People like Nico and Ambrose will take advantage of that kindness, but that’s their shortcoming, not yours. I know this all might sound like a personal grudge, but I also know you noticed all the red flags just like I did. We chose to ignore them, but it’s not too late now to make this right.

Lilian: I know it’s a lot to ask, but if you have any information that could help us, my sister and I would really appreciate it.

Kayla: I can give you the lawyer’s contact information if that makes you feel more comfortable. I know lawyers get a bad rep, but he’s a family man and he really fights for his clients.

Chantal: I did find some things out recently that could help your case. Nico has documents in his office that show they've been getting their ingredients from unreliable sources. And he asked me to create some receipts that show they bought them somewhere reputable. He said the originals got damaged, but I know now that was a lie. I’ll give the lawyer a call.

Lilian: Wow, that would help a lot! Do you think you'd be able to get a hold of them to make copies?

Chantal: Yeah, they're locked in his desk but I can pretend I need something from the supply closet and ask to borrow his keys. He's in a bunch of meetings during the day, so I can sneak in there during one of those if you can keep watch for me.

Lilian: Sure! Thanks so much! I know this isn’t easy for you either and you didn’t have to get involved. But I’m so grateful that you did.

Chantal: I just hope it works out…for all of us.

Previous | Beginning of story | Beginning of chapter | Next

[mirandapriestlyswife]

Mirandy Fanfic- Apocalypse Au: Prologue

Hi! Before you read I would just like to say as a disclaimed this is my first fanfic and it has not been peer reviewed or anything of that sort so I apologize for any spelling or grammatical mistakes. This AU is heavily inspired by “Last Man on Earth” and I intend to write multiple chapters for it. Constructive criticism is welcome! Please enjoy :)

New York City, the city that never sleeps. Theres always some type of noise; sirens, traffic, yelling… Theres always some type of noise. Something to serve as a reminder that, “Hey! You aren’t the only person in the whole world!”. At least thats what it used to sound like..

Tonight, all that could be audible was the rustling of trash in the frigid November air. Andrea Sachs, Andy, former reporter for The Mirror marched her way down block after block. She couldn’t pin point exactly when the pandemic began. Early March of last year perhaps? Or maybe mid February? She couldn’t remember.. Hell, she was still trying to process the fact that everyone, everything she once knew was dead and gone.

New York City had been put under lockdown almost immediately after the United States government had declared a national pandemic. Andy hadn’t seen her parents since..

Sure, they’d talk over the phone, but there was little to talk about when the entire world was practically put on pause. She heard from her sister, Jill, every once in a while, but she had her own problems.

Andy had borderline lost complete touch with her entire family by August of that year, until she was notified that she had lost not one, but both parents to the infection. Both dead at home, not even in a hospital. Soon followed her nephew, then her sister, then her sister’s husband. In only a matter of 6 months she had lost the people most important to her.

After her and Nate, her ex boyfriend, had split, her childhood best friend had graciously allowed her to crash on her couch until she found her own place. Living with Lily was… Well.. Not the easiest.. Somehow this girl, even in the midst of a global pandemic, still managed to bring home a guy every weekend. At the time Andy had debated killing Lily on more than one occasion.. Oh how she envies those times. Two months later, Lily passed. The hospitals were already crammed to the brim with patients so, just like her parents, her best friend had died at home.. But this time, it was even worse, since she was the one to discover that body.

Andy had always been sensitive, possibly too much so. But she can’t recall a time she had cried harder than when looking at the lifeless corpse of the girl she’d known for more than half her life. Oh Lily..

She got laid off the next week. You would think the world of journalism would be booming during such trying times? But no. People simply stopped reading the paper. “Too depressing” is what she remembers her mother saying when Andy had asked if they had seen the latest death poll. She couldn’t blame people for not reading the news. God knows she would’ve too if it wasn’t the only thing keeping her from going insane. With every book in her apartment being read more than twice, along with having long ran out of DVDs, the only thing she could find comfort in now was the constant cycle of magazines and newspapers placed at her apartment door every morning. Eventually that stopped coming too.

Eventually.. Everything stopped. Electricity, running water, food. It just all.. Came to a halt. People seemed to have disappeared. It was like the entire human race just one day packed their bags and left Andy there. Alone. She was all alone. She cried over the fact a lot. No, not cried.. More like wailed. Wailed as loud as one could, hoping that someone, something would hear her, and come over and bring her into a warm comforting hug..

Of course the chances of that were 0 but.. She still had some hope. Tonight, Andy lazily roamed around the streets of New York, glancing into long abandoned shops and restaurants.. Often times she found herself sleeping in luxurious hotels and suites for free. I mean, why not? If theres no one there to charge you or say, “Ma’am this is an art museum, you cant stay here.” Why not sleep in The Met??

She walked with purpose down those cracking sidewalks, even though in reality she knew she had nothing left to live for. Had she contemplated suicide? On multiple occasions. The only reason she was even still alive at all was because she knew her parents would’ve wanted her to keep going, “keep fighting” her father would say. Andy sighed, what purpose was fighting if there was nothing to fight for? She walked aimlessly for hours, only stopping every so often to raid a bodega for a bag of expired chips. She rarely thinks of her time at Runway, or at least she tries not to, since it just opens up a can of unresolved feelings that she cares not to open. She wonders what those clackers would think of her now. It makes her chuckle. Thoughts of models with mouths gaping in shock at the sight of Andy Sachs, in her college hoodie and jeans she hadn’t washed since July making her way down Manhattan with a bag of expired Doritos and no makeup, flood her mind, causing the rarest of chuckles to fall from her lips.

The only reason that Runway even popped into her head was due to the sight of the massive, ever-ominous, Elias-Clarke building across the street. Oh how she despised that building. She’d walked past it a million times. One million more times than she had liked to. Every time she saw the damned thing it brought up feelings… Feelings she’d love to forget. Feelings towards fashion, towards Runway, towards her.

The dragon lady, the ice cold bitch of fashion, Miranda Priestly. The woman that had stolen Andreas heart and stomped on with her Prada heels.

Andy cringes at the shameful acts of her past self. Falling head over heels for a woman is one thing.. But falling for a woman 25 years her senior, and thats super rich and powerful?? Oh how could one be so stupid?!

Now here she stands, before her former prison of employment. She’d never actually bothered to intrude the building. She figured she’d find the usual. Abandoned computers, dust bunnies, medical masks, maybe the occasional cockroach. Shockingly, even after seemingly every other living organism had died out.. Or at least reduced in size, cockroaches rained ever strong. Six legged assholes.

Something inside her tells her, “Just go for it. Get some closure.” So, thats exactly what she does. She crosses the empty street, sliding over a taxi that had inconveniently been abandoned in the middle of the road, and walked right up to the front door.

“Its probably locked..” She muttered to nobody. Andy had developed this habit of talking to herself over the months of isolation. It was comforting, to hear a voice. She jiggled the rotating door and to her utter shock. The thing budged. And in one swift motion, she was in the lobby of the Elias-Clarke building once again. Things have hardly changed… Well.. besides the lack of anorexic models talking about how they “Almost called in fat today.” She rolled her eyes at the memory of hearing a 100 pound model saying those exact words to her.

Andy stops at the stairwell. Should she go up to the Runway floor? Why not? Whats the harm? Worst thing that could happen is she cries, and it isn’t like she wasn’t going to do that anyways. She made her way up the stairs. Climbing floor after floor until eventually she found her way to her former place of employment. More like imprisonment, but still. She abandons her empty Dorito bag on her old second assistants desk. She wonders what skinny 5’11 blonde supermodel Miranda had replaced her with. Had her name been Stacy? Or Sylvia? Or-

Andys shocked out of her thoughts when she hears a noise. Walking.. Yeah thats- that’s definitely walking. She stops frozen in place. The building is almost entirely dark besides the sunlight coming from the windows where Mirandas office used to be, so she couldn’t exactly see well. Her whole body starts shaking. What should she do?! She hadn’t seen an actual living person since.. Since.. Since she couldn’t even remember. The walking got louder, the click clack of what sounded like… High heels..? No it couldn’t-

Andys internal monologue is suddenly silenced when she hears a gasp from behind her. Shes too stunned to move, to speak, to do much of anything besides meekly turn her head around. And who is she greeted with?? No one other than the dragon lady herself of course…

“Andrea?” An impossibly regal Miranda Priestly asks.

And thats about it for the prologue! Thank you so much for reading :)

[bleuangel88]

But bad things happen when they go about them alone, and my heart ached for Spoon when he got carted away. It was also frustrating that the girls mostly took for granted that he'd find his way out of a mess that they knew led to Mickey facedown in the sand by the water and in a hospital bed.

Not that Candy wasn't a great assist, but they also knew there wasn't much the poor girl could do. Otherwise, she would've freed herself or saved Ashely a long time ago on her own.

Interestingly enough, it was chilling when Agent spoke to Spoon about his tattoo and loss during Harlan Coben's Shelter Season 1 Episode 5.

Not only did Agent imply that Spoon is no stranger to loss, that it's a familiar bedfellow for him, and that there is some profound sadness behind Spoon's smile and deflection via humor, but Agent suggested that Spoon would experience great loss again.

They also offered to have a special someone placed in the tattoo whenever Spoon was ready. And up until this point, it's felt like Mickey is Spoon's entire world and that somehow, in some way, that person would be Mickey.

But then we had Spoon's connection with Candy, and it was pure devastation as things went from bad to worse for them.

Spoon recalled a time he spent with his grandparents, and seeing Candy in her former life, when she was a young, happy kid with her mother before life dealt her shitty hands, her mother died, and she got human trafficked.

And it just hit you in the gut that Spoon Spindell, as pure of heart as he is, could represent a time that Candy loved most in her life, of innocence, happiness, and hope.

Spoon got to represent all of those things to Candy in her final moments, and he gave her that gift; he was that gift.

But in turn, like a sin-eater, it came at a significant cost to him, as he had to watch her die in front of his eyes, and with her went a bit of his innocence and purity.

The light left his eyes every bit as much as the life left hers.

She got shot trying to save him, and you know he will internalize that a bit. He looked so shaken and thoroughly traumatized from that point forward, even though he must've had the ability to communicate with Mickey so they could rescue the girls in time.

For as long as Spoon has that temporary tattoo, Candy's name will slot into that spot. And this work will keep taking all these bits and pieces from Spoon in a way that makes you sad.

It also makes you reflect on things like Bat Lady's tombstone as an ode to the loss of her childhood because of the Holocaust.

While what she has these teens doing is far from comparable, it makes you a bit angry that she's subsequently stripping these kids of their childhood and innocence by encouraging them to be part of this world.

It was also noted that Spoon was on Bat Lady's wall, and it's evident that Mickey's presence and friendship have saved Spoon from something, seemingly a lonelier life. But goodness, I'd love it if this series delved more into who Spoon Spindell is beyond the supportive instant best friend who found a sense of purpose when Mickey arrived.

And I sure as heck wish we could understand the depth of how Candy's death affected him without the narrative shifting because there wasn't enough room to cover that ground within this hour.

He's a fascinating enough character who we haven't gotten to spend a lot of up close and personal time with outside of his role as a supporter, so now is the time to dive into that.

[imabeautifulbutterfly]

Once Upon a Time on the Razor Crest

Summary: Din realizes his error

A/N: Hello lovelies,

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend. I got up at 4 this morning so I could go for an hour walk before I started the day and now I'm super exhausted. If some of this doesn't exactly make sense I do apologize. I'll review it again tomorrow when I get a chance.

I know the GIF isn't Din Djarin, but ... eh, who cares. LOL.

Love oo

Due to the past history of the OC there will be discussions alluding to past domestic abuse, please note that as it could be a trigger for some.

Warnings: Unwanted touching, manipulative personality, obsessive personality, apologizing, realizing anger directed at the wrong person, crying, grief, mentions of deceased person. I think that's about it, if I miss any warnings please let me know.

AO3 Link |   Words: 1,008 |   Previous -> Next

Main Master List   |  Once Upon a Time on the Razor Crest

THE CRESTWORLD

CHAPTER FOUR

Din was ready to storm off, after listening to Ann defend herself. He hated that she had been so observant, and realized something did happen to him at the parent-teacher meeting. Honestly, he hadn’t realized how much it had bothered him, until she called him out on it. 

As much as he wanted to run off, and grab Grogu, something kept him frozen at the entrance to the kitchen. His hand rested against the doorframe, his back towards the kitchen. He knew he should apologize. She was right of course, it wasn’t her fault he’d been sensitive the last few mornings. 

It all had to do with that teacher, Estival. He’d known her for years. She’d been friends with Camilla ever since she moved into town to fulfil the teaching role.  

He admitted he noticed she’d always been extra friendly to him, but nothing more than just friends. Ever since Camilla passed away, she had reached out to him directly a couple of times, offering to help him, provide a meal or two for him and Grogu, but he never reciprocated or accepted her help. He never really felt comfortable with her, and now he knew why.

It never occurred to him, she would’ve tried to use Grogu as a means of getting closer to him. It became very clear, she was using Grogu, by the way she was treating him at the conference. It was eerie, as he watched her act like Grogu’s mother and be overly attentive. She even called him ‘son’ at one point.

He tried at first to justify her actions, but the more he watched how she was acting towards his son, the angrier he became. 

To realize he had allowed such a loathsome woman to be near his family, to allow her to teach his son, and who absolutely had no qualms about resting her hand on his inner thigh as she asked him to sit closer to her, so she could show some of Grogu’s work. He was shocked and disgusted by her attitude. Especially, when she tried to play the ‘I thought this is what you wanted’ card. He did the only thing he could that night, and told her that if she ever retaliated against Grogu because of his rejection, he would make sure everyone knew what kind of woman she was. He quickly left with Grogu in his arms, giving her one final warning before he headed home that night.

That night, for the fourth time since he lost Camilla he cried his eyes out as he fell asleep. He never knew there had been someone so abhorrent in Camilla’s life. He wondered what would’ve happened if she had lived … the thought alone made him feel unsettled. 

As he stood at the kitchen entrance, his eyes caught the picture of Camilla sitting on the front porch as her hand rested on her tiny bump, her pregnant belly just starting to show. She sat there while she read to Grogu. 

What made that night even worse, was the fact it would’ve been his and Camilla’s eleventh anniversary. 

He let out a deep sigh, his head tilted as he realized Ann had nothing to do with Estival. It wasn’t Ann’s fault she was here and Camilla wasn’t, or that he didn’t see the warning signs when it came to Estival. 

He slowly turned to look at her, she had her back to him as she was busy putting away the dishes that had been washed. She had been completely oblivious to his presence as she focused on her task.

“Sorry.”

I stopped moving as I heard his whispered voice, surprised to realize he was still there. I placed the dish in my hand on the counter, as I turned to look at him. He simply stood there looking at me, with barely any sort of reaction.

“Did you say something?”

He let out a sigh as he nodded his head slightly, he rubbed the back of his neck as he cleared his throat. “Yeah. I’m sorry … I mean … ahem! I apologize for saying what I said, and for being short with you. Not just today but … since that night.”

I nodded in appreciation, I took my time thinking about what I wanted to say in return. He looked as though he was racked with guilt, there was no point making a mountain out of an ant hill. Regardless of what was said, it was clearly evident he was dealing with something and it wasn’t my place to figure out what that was for him. 

“Thanks Din. I appreciate it.” 

I waited for him to say more or to continue the conversation but he just stood there, I turned my attention back to the dishes that needed to be dried and put away. I could still feel his eyes on me, it was as though he was waiting for me to say something. 

However, the sound of tiny feet rushing to my side broke the weird tension that had been settled in the kitchen. I stopped moving, when I felt a tiny hand pressed against my thigh. I smirked as I looked down to see that smiling face of the cutest boy around, “Bye, Annie”

I couldn’t help match his smile, surprised by his actions, that had been the first time he had touched me voluntarily. I kneeled down, so I could look Grogu in the eye, “Bye, sweetie. Have a good day at school” I ruffled the hair on top of his head, before he ran off to his father’s side. Din nodded his goodbye as he held Grogu’s hand as they headed towards the bus stop. 

I let out a sigh, something wasn’t sitting right with me about the way we had left things. 

I felt as though I needed to at least let Din know we were okay. It was about fifteen minutes later, when I heard Din’s footsteps come back into the house, I met him in the hallway, before he decided to head upstairs. 

AO3 Link |   Words: 1,008 |   Previous -> Next

Main Master List   |  Once Upon a Time on the Razor Crest

@littlemisspascal@sprout-fics@liadamerondjarin @badbatch-simp24 @spicymcnuggies @lady-ren @firstofficerwiggles @darkangel4121 @discofern @kavecika @monako-jinn-stories @ladykatakuri @avathebestx @theroguesully @furyhellfire66 @carodealmeida @ciramaris @twinkofthedink @dindjarin-mandalorian @tortor-mcgee @sarcasmismyonlydefense24 @chiyo13

[utterlyinevitable]

↪ series masterlist  

29. Birthday Babes

Pairing: Colin Bridgerton x Penelope Featherington   Format: textfic   Chapter Rating: T+

Summary: Colin's been weird since V-Day, but then he takes Pen to a romantic cabin for her birthday

Penelope: Happy birthday, superstar 🌟♥️ any big plans?

Hungry One🦛: Thanks, P. Nothing too exciting. Having dinner with a few travelers I met up with

Penelope: What's on the menu?

Hungry One🦛: Cajun I think

Penelope: Hey, you ok?

Hungry One🦛: Yea

Penelope: You can talk to me you know. You've been weird since you left.

Birthday blues?

Hungry One🦛: Just unplugging for a bit. Don't worry. I'll see you 3rd April, yeah?

Penelope: Yeah if that works for you. Don't go rearranging on my account.

Hungry One🦛: My tour will be done by then. There won't be a sleeper train in the US I haven't tried when I'm through

Penelope: Can’t wait to read your review. I'll see you then.

Promise me one thing?

Hungry One🦛: I WILL be taking you for a birthday meal. Allow a man his small pleasures.

Penelope: No not that but thank you.

Be kind to yourself. Whatever this is that's got you in a funk will sort itself out. You're very funny and wonderful and charming and so bloody brilliant it's unreal. No matter what grief they give you, your family loves you dearly and just want to help.

You're also much too good looking to be sad 😉

Hungry One🦛: Thanks pen

Penelope: I hope you know you're my best friend. I care about you so so much, Colin.

Hungry One🦛: You're my best friend too <3

Penelope: If you're taking me out for my birthday, let me take you out for yours. Lets have a big bash (theoretically speaking, i'm poor yk)

Hungry One🦛: Deal

-

She’s mucked things up.

Penelope doesn’t know how but she knows something has undoubtedly changed between them. They've barely talked since he left whilst she was still asleep some three-odd weeks ago.

It can’t be the fact she’s sharing her place with him when he needs -- he's stayed around hers a countless amount of times these last two years and there has never ever been weirdness.

And it’s not that they share a bed -- they’ve never not shared a bed since they reconnected. She has some of her best sleep with him wrapped around her, legs intertwined and his heartbeat her lullaby.

Maybe it’s…

She does the quick math: they haven’t fucked in months. Since she moved in and christened nearly every room of her flat to be exact.

That can’t be it, could it?

Colin could just as well initiate; he’s certainly woken up with enough hard ons to get her hot and bothered. God, are they too comfortable with each other? Has the spark dimmed on their sex friendship? Are they well and truly only flatmates at this point? Or worse…

Has he met someone else?

Colin wouldn’t be cagey for no reason. He’s been backpacking across North America and bound to make a connection with some beautiful worldly woman with long legs and blemish-free tanned skin. A model, probably. Penelope always figured he'd fall in love with a model. One that will always feature perfectly in his posts; a muse for his media. Is Colin worried about pieing her off? Is that why he's been so odd?

It doesn’t matter. None of this matters. All that matters is that they stay friends.

Nearly a decade later and Penelope Featherington is still content savoring whatever scraps Colin Bridgerton deems to give her.

***

Colin: Pack a bag.

Pen: Why

Colin: Birthday surprise!

Pen: Colin...

Colin: And maybe an assignment I need to do in Wales and could not rearrange for next week....

Pen: How long we staying?

Colin: 2 nights.

Pack for hiking and swimming! 😊

-

They’re in for a ride. A 3-hour drive over to a private nature reserve in Wales known for beautiful scenery and six luxury cottages scattered across a few hundred acres of woodland. It's just an ordinary early-spring day - there is a chill in the air but the sun is still shining in strong warm hues. 

One hour in and the conversation has lulled comfortably. The Birmingham cityscape has turned to rolling hills along the motorway as they looped on Radio 4. Colin's lost a bet - or so he laments. Makes a grumble and a show of Pen changing the playlist he had programmed in when he picked up the rental car.  

Not even two seconds into her choice of tunes and Colin’s groaning. His distaste (more so at losing than the songs playing) reverberates the same second Pen’s mouth drops open to sing along. Her fingers turning the volume dial up and rolling down the window to scream-sing even louder. 

He watches her out the corner of his eye; one trained on the empty road ahead, the other gazing at Penelope. Her face fresh and glowing from a goodnights sleep, cheeks rosy with daylight highlighting her freckles since she foregone makeup (come to think of it she hasn't worn a full face around him in ages...? not that Colin is complaining. he prefers her natural beauty, much like he still prefers her with unruly red hair). Her fingers tapping on the windowsill. Happiness radiates from her half as intense as the waning sun over the horizon. 

Colin silently wishes he could watch her for hours, just existing in this space together like two normal people.

Another hour or two or twenty minutes ticks down and then…   

Colin’s eyes light up with the first chord. He hasn't heard this song since they were rowdy teenagers causing havoc all those summers at Aubrey Hall. God he's thrown back in time.

Pen feels it too; all the flashes and memories taking up space in the small sedan.

She doesn’t dare break the moment. Her gaze trained on the outside world passing by. Her fingers tap along as she mouths her favorite lines. 

He breaks the silence just after the second verse, voice low and reverent; "I haven't heard this in ages."

"Me either."

"Do you remember when...?"

"Yeah," she sighs fondly. "Yeah, I do."

Both Colin and Penelope relish the companionable silence surrounding them as the song plays through and into a '00s pop piece neither pay much attention to. 

-

“We made it,” she breathes as she fiddles to find the right key to the cabin that's been left in the lockbox for them. Colin holding his denim jack over the two of them as huddle under the awning in the freak hailstorm. 

He grumbles an agreement, still angered that the weather app could not predict this turn of events - so much for modern technology. It's Wales; he should be used to the unpredictable UK weather by now but the shift from a cloudless spring day to this and a drastic drop in temperature was so not on his bingo card today. Guess the hike's out of the question...

They enter the dark cabin, testing the switches, the lamps and even the fridge light as one last hopeful saving grace. Nothing’s working. With twin groans from opposite sides of the one bedroom cabin, they realize there’s no electricity. Stuck in the middle of some foresty hill estate in a storm with no electricity and no neighbors for miles, fucking perfect.

Colin paces around the living room as he calls his useless contact, then the inept property manager. He uses an authoritative voice that rivals Anthony's to borderline berate the person on the other end into fixing this nightmare of a compt'd stay before he has no choice but to publicise the poor facilities. Penelope hears his exasperation, his agitation radiating off the wooden pillars as she stokes the fire to life. Busies herself through the awkwardness by moving about grabbing blankets and pillows from various closets on fuzzy sock-clad tiptoes as he continues his bellows.

So many minutes pass for Colin in frustration. Enough that once he's hung up the phone after the fourth call out, he flops on the couch, hunched with his head in his hands. He barely hears when Penelope returns from the kitchen but he feels the old paisley-patterned couch dip as she curls up beside him. 

“The earliest they will send someone is 5AM," he groans through gritted teeth. "And the imbecile couldn’t even tell me where the breakers are. So much for a relaxing weekend.” 

“Glass half full,” she says as she offers him a mug. 

“What’s this?” He takes the ceramic in one large hand, pads of his fingers tingling with heat. 

“We have warm water, that’s something.” 

He grumbles once more. 

“It’s enough,” she justifies. 

Penelope looks at her watch. Then to where the couch is positioned too many feet from the fireplace. She unzips her bulky winter coat, discarding it on the armchair before effortlessly turning her attention to her pile of mismatched bedding. With a delighted sense of determination she wraps two thick throws around herself, cuddling all bundled up on the floor in front of the fireplace. 

Colin watches her every graceful movement shadowed in an amber glow. Intrigue setting in and eclipsing the distain souring their sacred time together, quickly morphing into admiration for the little pile of green and red tartan before him. 

In no time he’s grabbing his own blanket and settles next to her - around her. Penelope’s back leaning against his warm chest, Colin’s hands cradling her blue-tinted fingertips. His palms curling around her cold acrylic nails positioned in her lap.

“You’re freezing. Let’s go to a hotel.” 

“I’ll be fine,” she assures him, relishing in his embrace as she snuggles in closer. “I’ve got snacks, the fire and you.” 

He doesn’t need to see her face to know she’s donning a small simper. The way her head nuzzles against him and her hands tugging him tighter around her tells him all he needs to know.

Minutes upon minutes pass with them staring into the flames and Colin's hands mindfully mapping the edges of her body (and if he leans in and buries his nose in her hair, taking in the comforting scent, so be it).

An idea pops into his head - a silly little idea that makes him feel childish.

Colin extracts himself, much to Penelope's displeasure. He wanders in the ever-darkening space of the cabin to the sole bedroom. He finds the bed stripped of the duvet and pillows from Pen's nesting and grabs the rest of all he can find - pillows and throw pillows and a spare set of thermal sheets.   

Penelope watches him keenly when he returns, a raised brow as he chucks the couch cushions onto the floor. Stares intently as he pushes the coffee table far from the sitting area leaving a space for his grand plan - a plan that gets better the moment Pen rises and surmises - 

“The mattress would fit.” 

Colin's grin could light up the whole cabin.

Penelope helps him move the furniture and carry the double mattress in. They strip off the rest of their day-soaked clothes leaving them in their underwear and cuddle in the bed they make, talking and enjoying one another’s company like planned.

"So.." she begins "What's on the plan for the rest of the day?"

"We were supposed to go on a hike and have dinner at the pub in the woods."

"Is that the only way to get there?"

"There should be ATV's for us to use in the shed."

She looks at him incredulously.

"Or not," he chuckles. He can't blame her for not wanting to go out in this weather.

"Think they deliver?"

"Doubt it."

She hmph's. And a beat later asks the most important question:

"Can you survive on our rations or will you waste away?"

"I'll be fine for one night," he gallantly, confidently reassures. Colin isn't so melodramatic that the mere idea of skipping a meal or two would throw him and his endless stomach into a fit of despair. However... "What did we pack again?"

"Crisps, biscuits, sweets and cheese. A balanced diet if ever there was one."

"What kind of biscuits?"

"Does it really matter? You'll eat them regardless."

He makes a little noise somewhere between a huff and an agreement. His mind wandering to the food in their possession, how much there is and if it will be able to sustain them until morning when they can wander back to the welcome centre.

"Stop thinking about food."

"You put it in my head!"

"I can show you where to put your head."

He blanches. He didn't - This isn't what - my god woman. Pen is on her knees facing him, he feels hot and undressed by her heady gaze. She licks her bottom lip, fingers coyly tracing patterns across her bare stomach.

Colin's mouth is on hers before she can even implore further methods of seduction.

[detectivenyx]

2023 In Review

for me, 2023 just kind of... came and went. very quickly. i kind of wish it didn't.

there's been some horrific mental-health stuff, not aided by what's going on, both in my little corner of the world and across the world in general. i'll start with the negatives, so we can end on a positive note - that seems like a good outlook for the year.

there's obviously the horrendous situation with the writers and actors strike, where garbage studios think paying people for their hard-made art is very much an optional thing rather than fucking mandatory. yet in this year, warner bros, the company who's the most mask-off with their transphobia (still releasing HP stuff and hiring a TERF and sandy hook truther to voice one of the most well-known female characters in mortal kombat), releases a 2 hour toy commercial and gets heralded a Feminist Masterpiece for the same messages that Mean Girls and Legally Blonde had shovelled out two decades earlier. there's also just the countless fucking genocides. i'm hoping and praying that the victims of those genocides are not wiped out, even if i've acknowledged i cannot help directly.

but in addition, i think this year just sealed the deal for me about the cosplay community. i'm still routinely dragged to cosplay events - it's either that or be socially isolated for two whole months as it's all that gets talked about - and the local 'in-crowd' community is as garbage as ever. someone a close friend wanted to hitch a ride back towards the city with just. randomly started spouting anti-trans sports propaganda to us? she started complaining about trans women 'having a biological advantage' by being taller or whatever. the absolute second that this person was away from a transmasc friend and with two people she didn't fully know, she just assumed we were both cis and went full mask-off with transphobia, and that indicates to me that things have gotten worse since i left. i want to return to cosplay badly, but the fucking community just keeps letting shit like that slide, going to a con run by a neonazi and excusing it with 'it lets me see my friends!' like they've never learned how to plan an outing more than two weeks in advance before. ultimately it makes cosplaying barely worth it; it's an expensive hobby that now only for my own validation. there's no leftist cosplayers in queensland - only people cosplaying as leftists.

it also doesn't help that, off-topic, i am pretty sure i know my dad's care for me is hollow now; something happened in september to prove it to me. there's also the fact that this year introduced me to now having chronic back pain thanks to his neglect, and i don't think i'll ever get any sort of apology from him. and while probably the least-bad thing in the list, one of the more charismatic members of a channel i'd just got introduced to had sexually harassed a semi-guest of the channel.

that said: in newer spaces, and in general, i think things are looking up. the aforementioned channel kicked the sexual harasser, and re-structured so that it was unlikely to ever happen again. i joined up with a new group of people to play Blood on the Clock Tower in-person every month and online a few times a week - and quite frankly i would trust those people with my life. i think just having something to do that isn't a popularity contest has been healing. i'm not super close to the people there yet (or maybe im misjudging it? i don't know how healthy relationships irl work if i'm honest). sewing has been fun, as has finding out an interest in vintage patterns - i'm hoping in 2024 to actually make some of them. finding resources for free patterns (via mood.com - a really good resource, i've found) and having fun with the creation has also been fun, though my fabric stash is getting pretty full now thanks to my many trips to a second-hand fabric store. the last con of the year also wasn't all bad; really only cementing my decision to remove myself at the very end of the con day. i wouldn't have considered coming back at all if the con hadn't been a fun time; even getting to meet someone who was a fan of my youtube channel. a recent bout of hostility for a two-year-old video because someone decided to grift off it had given me doubts about my channel; bad or not, those videos are still fully mine, more than, say, somerton- sorry, i mean someone can say. but i think just being able to see someone, physically, who liked my videos, made it a lot better. (and i purchased a pronoun pin from them and the pin is super duper cute and they gave me a really cute sticker oh my god--)

so, rather than setting resolutions, i tend to set themes for years after seeing this video by SCP Grey that offers it as an alternative. this year was the Year of Education - a year where i did my best to focus on my learning and educational pursuits. at the start of the year i set myself three semi-goals that could change; to do my Master's in Arts, to keep learning Japanese, and to learn corsetmaking techniques.

i wound up re-joining my university in the middle of the year to do my Honours in Creative Industries, focusing on adapting social deduction games and their game theories into the design of a narrative. i'm a little behind on the narrative itself, but the articles i've read and the definitely-research-and-not-a-thinly-veiled-excuse-to-play-games have both been fascinating for me, both in how much theory is kind of just ableist bonkers nonsense and what thin bits of truth are actually present (in all people, deception requires more cognitive thought; there's usually either scriptedness or a very slight delay when someone's trying to deceive - which proved useful when i finally watched roblox_oof.mp3 and noticed both in mister tallarico's behaviour).

my education with japanese fell by the wayside - i got burned out trying to keep up my streak with moving house yet again, and just kind of did the bare minimum to keep up the streak and stay in the diamond league. i think some of my basics have gotten a bit stronger, but that's all.

with that said, i learned a lot more about making clothes over the course of the year! admittedly, i still struggle with making a skirt fit correctly (it is either severely too big for me even with elastic in the back, or just small enough to be uncomfortable in day-to-day wear) but i think i've created a bodice block that fits close enough. i've also kind of fallen in love with a second hand place sort-of near my house that sells a lot of vintage and second-hand fabrics for cheap, which is really useful as a seamstress living on unemployment who'd like to make All Of The Things. i did also make a corset this year, but aside from the busk, it used some really shoddy materials - i accidentally made the lining layer out of broadcloth rather than twill or herringbone and the outer layer was a polyester brocade and a polyester waist tape, meaning the entire thing was just. the itchiest fucking thing in the universe. (and i was wearing an underlayer, it didn't do much to help). i have materials to remake it, i've just been unsure how to go about it.

so that's been my year (alongside obscene amounts of baldur's gate 3). onto 2024 and the goals there!

[angieloveshua]

“188男团 novels.” | Angie reviews novels that she read in Spanish because she was too lazy to translate her reactions to English, pt. 1.

🫧 —Alpha Predator. | 5/5 ☆.

No carrd, unfortunately.

Alpha Predator is the latest 188男团 novel of the series, and by so far, my absolute favourite. The story follows Shen Dai, an B rate omega, who agrees to marry off on behalf of his half-brother to pay off his father's debts. Little did he know that his meant-to-be husband was Qu Moyu, the heir of the Xingzhou Group, his boss, and the man who saved him from an embarrassing situation years ago. Shen Dai knows that the best option for him is to see this marriage as a financial exchange, but he can't help falling in love with the handsome yet ruthless Qu Moyu.

This novel is an ABO classic, but who doesn't love classics? I do. I love Alpha Predator, and I read the whole book in four days. I must mention that Suida knows how to draft addictive novels. I devour this one, and I miss the feeling I got while reading it.

Before reading the novel, I saw someone ranking Qu Moyu as the scummiest gong of all the series, even worse than Shao Qun, and I was scared. What could have this man do to be worse than Shao Qun? When I finished the novel, I couldn't disagree more.

Although I am well aware that what Qu Moyu did was atrocious, to say the least, I understand why he did all of that. He was raised to always value rationality and benefits above everything, even his own feelings. And guess what? I'm weak. I never hated him. I adore how he addressed all what he did, he reflects about it (and I put this in italics because I feel like most of the love interests don't regret their mistakes and just try not to do that badly again), and he works hard to be a better husband, father, and man. In conclusion: I'm biased. Qu Moyu best 188男团 gong. 💜

Before going to the next novel, let me at these two bullet points:

The ABO. It was extremely interesting to see how alphas and omegas were divided into classes according to their pheromone level and how it played a key role in the protagonists' lives. The scenes where pheromones came into place were /screams.

The romance. QuShen is the best 188 couple, beat it.

🫧 —Winner Takes All. | 4/5 ☆.

carrd.

Winner Takes All is the first 188男团 novel I read, and I would also recommend it to be your first one if you want to get into the 188男团 world. The pace is easy to follow, and Zhao Jinxin is one of the least scummy gongs of the series.

The book's MC is Li Shuo, who is dearly loved within the fandom and had played the second love interest in other novels (Sissy, for example), and we see how he falls in love with 🥁 his enemy's cousin, Zhao Jinxin. Really, one of the greatest sins Zhao Jinxin has committed is to be Shao Qun's cousin (and this isn't even his fault, you see).

Li Shuo and Zhao Jinxin have good chemistry. They have a lot of interests in common and their families are friends. One could say it's a match made in heaven and that nothing could go wrong... right?

Well, well, well, let me tell you that I was so heartbroken that I had to listen to Bad Bunny songs to not cry. But don't worry! It's a HE.

🫧 —Additional Inheritance. | 3/5 ☆.

No carrd, unfortunately.

Additional Inheritance («Maldita herencia», Damned Inheritance in Spanish) is Luo Yi's and Wen Xiaohui's story. Everything starts when Wen Xiaohui receives her adoptive jiejie's suicide notice —but not only that, her jiejie left him a considerable amount of inheritance along with her only child, a fifteen-year-old boy named Luo Yi, who has a high IQ and is considered matured for his age.

For this novel, I remembered I posted a tweet with a theory of what could ruined Luo Yi's and Wen Xiaohui's happiness. My moots called me ‘witch,’ and for one moment in my life, I hated being right.

To say I was shocked was the least. I texted, let's say, six of my friends and told them what was going because I couldn't believe my eyes. How could he...?!

And so, yes, I can't say that I hate Luo Yi, but I also can't say that I love him. I don't want to post a spoiler here, but, hey, I was reading a little in my graduation party and I didn't know what to do with my feelings.

As for the plot, I enjoyed how Wen Xiaohui escalated in the fashion world (I like to call it that way) and I felt proud of myself for understanding the finance part (my financial market course is so useful, hehehe).

So, these were the 188男团 I've read so far and a little of what I think. I plan to read Yet You're In Love With an Idiot and Professional Body Double, so the next post of 188男团 will be of them. I hope you enjoy the reviews and give a try to any of these novels if they attracted your attention (READ ALPHA PREDATOR). Angie's off.

[is-she-suffering]

13/05/2000 - KERRANG! CONFIDENTIAL

KERRANG! CONFIDENTIAL

This week, get up close and personal with Queen Adreena’s frontwoman Katie Jane Garside.

What is your nickname and why? “No! I’m not prepared to divulge any of them, they’re too incriminating. I can’t do it. Nicknames refer to things about me that I’d rather forget.”

At school, were you a dunce or a teachers pet? “I was very removed. I daydreamed too much. I had a really mixed education; my parents taught me for four years and I went to a really hardcore comprehensive in Poole in Dorset. I did have an art teacher who was amazing. She made it alright to be me.”

What was your first shag like? “Coral gardens, and crystal blue waters. Glue sniffing and babysitting. I’ll say nothing more. I was high in the most gritty way.”

Who is your best friend? “All of my little friends are down in the basement and in the attic. It’s too trite to explain. I have to be abstract.”

What’s the best pet you’ve ever had? “I had a cat we found when we were living on a boat in the Canary Islands. We named him Los Cristianos, after the place he was found in Tenerife. He fell overboard and drowned in the Pacific.”

Have you ever been arrested? “I’ve been strip-searched but not arrested. Flying back from a holiday in Tenerife. I’d gone back as an adult and I couldn’t bear it. I took an early flight home and that alerted suspicions back in England. I was examined. You know the people who do that kind of thing love it. You can see it in their eyes.”

How would you describe yourself on a blind date? “I’d avoid the form and hand over my record. Actually, no, that might attract people even more psychotic than I am. Perhaps it would throw up someone who was at least prepared to stay the course.”

What’s the most extravagant thing you’ve ever bought? “A lifetime of information and misinformation”

Who’s gagging for a shagging? “The primordial mother in the basement. She can never be filled. She’s very frightening. Very emasculating.

Who’s gagging for a smacking? "Nobody. I’m too busy saving my own life.”

What’s the worst job you’ve had? “I learned a lot when I was cleaning lavatories. I got a terrible eye infection and I got paid six pounds a week.

When did you last call home? "I do it as a daily ritual unto myself. My dear family are always on tap.”

What was your most embarrassing moment? “I dance naked with animals, but that’s not embarrassing. The worse moment was when I was at boarding school. It was a terrible regime, like being in the army. I forgot my hymn book and that was the biggest crime against God. As I snaked in, a teacher - one of the only men in the school - shouted at me from behind and I collapsed on the floor and pissed myself. I was so scared. He was very sadistic.”

Who would you least like to see naked? “My alternative job would be to work in a fetish house, and that teacher would come in for a good beating. I’d hand it out with expertise. Theres that whole repulsion/attraction thing going on there. I’d get a kick out of it.

What’s the best rumour you’ve ever heard about yourself? "After I left Daisy Chainsaw (Katie’s previous outfit) Robert Plant asked Crispin what had happened to me because he’d heard I was into golden showers - pissing on people. I don’t know how that got to Robert Plant.”

What’s in your wallet right now? “I have a bag. Theres a copy of Kerrang! to check our review. I have a small bottle of Johnson’s baby powder - it’s my staple diet. There’s a writing book with loads of new songs in. I don’t remember writing this. I was drunk and every word is genius.”

What’s your favourite joke? “I hear them all laughing at me upstairs but I never know what their joke is.”

If you were marooned on a desert island without food, which member of Queen Adreena would you eat first? “My, that implies so much. Billy would be the obvious choice to keep alive, he’s kind of an Adonis. If I needed someone to talk to for a long time I’d keep Crispin alive. We’d have to eat Orson. He’s the best prime cut. He’s exotic and rich.”

Which Queen Adreena song would you donate to a compilation album entitled ‘Crap Songs of Our Time’? “We’re finding our way with our new album, but I’m not going to dismember it. I couldn’t have given more to that album. I could say that every single one of them is crap, but the bit of me that looks after myself isn’t going to let me say it.”

What’s your drug of choice? “Eroticism and sex.”

What does God look like? “A friend of mine’s little boy said to her, 'Mummy, God must be space because theres no beginning and no end’. She’s cultivating a potent child there.”

When you die, how do you want to go? “I want absolution, to dissolve. I want to become sky and ocean. That’s how I want to go. I know it can really be that simple.”

[caxycreations]

The Year in Review

So, figured I'd list the pros and cons of the year, things I went through both good and bad, and cap off with some hopes for the next.

January

Was stuck living with my Ex, miserable, sharing a room with his dogs

Was getting closer to a couple people, feelings building

Got to see one of them and had my first ever time actually, genuinely being treated to pure, unfiltered, sincere kindness at the hands of someone who cared with all they had

Was mostly working on vrchat avatars since I couldn't stream

February

Got out of my Ex's house, moved in with my Dad.

Was able to stream again, so started doing that.

Tried, and failed, to get back into driving.

Tried, and failed, to get into exercise.

Tried, and failed, to eat healthier.

Tried, and failed, to drink less soda.

Was dating the two friends I'd been getting closer to in January, happiest I'd ever been relationship-wise.

March

Still living with Dad, realized he wasn't making any effort to improve his living situation and it was actively limiting my ability to improve mine.

Arranged a visit to see one of my partners in May.

Tried, and failed, to get a job, multiple times.

Started writing again.

Started drawing again.

April

Situation with Dad got worse, thought about moving in with Mom but didn't.

Arranged a visit to see my partners in July.

May

Took a trip to see one of my partners for my birthday. Best birthday in a long time, and still a golden moment in my memories.

Got back home, realized how useless my efforts to make living with Dad viable were. Arranged to move in with Mom.

June

Moved in with Mom, had some major adjustment pains but overall worth it at the time.

Started feeling more secure in the relationship with my partners, moving past some old traumas

July

Visited my partners, got to celebrate 4th of July with them

Got to try fem clothes for the first time, and even got some furry merch (ears, paw gloves, belt-clip tail) to dress up in, thanks to a trip to a furry con.

Finally felt fully and truly secure. Had an idea for a future, clear steps on how to achieve it, and two wonderful people that not only made it feel possible, but motivated me to reach for it.

August

Nothing much happened.

September

Partners explained that one of them no longer saw a romantic future with me, and the other felt I needed to work on myself more before we could pursue anything. Broke up. Shattered everything I'd worked to improve about myself.

Spent most of the month numb, despite making a few new friends.

Dove into my writing, trying to disappear from this world as much as possible.

October

Had a halloween movie marathon month. Watched 1 or 2 scary movies every single night of October with my ex-partners, still on good terms just lots of heartbreak in my soul.

Got even closer to some of my new friends, such as Allubillis, @that-one-enby-onyx, and @moremysteriesthantragedies who were both more significant to the stability of my mental health at the time than I had any right to ask for, and probably don't know just how much they helped me by just being there for me. Well...didn't know. Mysteries and Onyx will now.

Halloween sucked, was just me sitting in my room while mom took my brother trick-or-treating, didn't even get a chance to dress up.

Started talking to my friend, Fox, about living together so we could help each other.

November

Got closer to my friends, spent more time with them, improved my streaming schedules.

Started a proper schedule, conditioning myself to keep a good sense of time.

Started exercising consistently, what limited ways I could.

Continued talks with Fox to see about moving me in with her so we could both work on improving our situations, together.

December

Finalized plan to move in with Fox, planning to move in February so I could be with my family for christmas, and spend my mom's birthday with her before I left.

Plan was interrupted by mom suggesting a Tiny Home on the property here or at Dad's, with her husband offering me a job working alongside him.

Considered it for a week, then she spent the entire second week belittling me, verbally abusing me, and showing just how little she cares.

Made the plan to move in with Fox official, expediting the date to the earliest possible time, late January, forgoing the decision to wait until Mom's birthday at the end of January, but still staying for Christmas.

Visited my grandma for Christmas, got to see her for the first time in months. Beforehand, adjusted moving plan to account for a detour to visit her on the way out of here.

Got to see my ex-fiance for the first time in years, still on amicable terms. Got my first hug from anyone since the trips to visit my partners, and coasted on the feeling of it the whole rest of the night.

Hopes for the New Year

Hoping to readjust to driving, get a job, eat and drink healthier, exercise more, and be, in the words of my ex-partner...

Unashamedly me.

[andvys]

Tattoo Kiss part 23 (I still need to do a proper review on part 22!) But, part 23 today!

- AHHHHH! She's anxious bc of what Eddie will think about her, but because of Steve?

- "He hurt you and that is something he would never do again. You know it" AHHHH! that is why he kept his feelings to himself this time right? Does Y/N knows already and I forgot about it?

- "The last thing you want to do is hurt Eddie" Aww they're in love

- This still gives me Steddie x Reader vibes! OMG!

- I think that he still hates how he treated reader in the past, and he wants to make it better for her NOW, he knows that he ended up things for nothing, and he feels bad about it

- OBVIOUSLY Y/N IS CUTE!

- The thing to me is, Y/N and Steve have a good (kind of) relationship now, so I think they'll be the same as before if they go back together, or Y/N will have LOTS of trust issues

- ANDY! OMG! Y/N just wanting to eat potatoes or fries is so me, reader is very me coded!

- The dolly thing!!!! It hurts!

- Y/N feels pain, but I think she'll feel worse if they get back together

- Eddie, Chrissy, Steve, Steve's parents and now Robin know that Y/N struggles with food, but don't talk with her about it, why? I feel like maybe, her friends should try and make her open up about how she's feeling in reality (then I read that Robin helped her, but I think that the others can help Y/N too, like they're a group that Y/N can trust, they love her, they'll be there for her)

- AHHHH! HE KNOWS Y/N IS LYING!!!! OMG!!!

- "You're acting weird. You're not yourself" AHHHH, SHE KNOWS!!!

- "You're not eating" GIRL!!!! OMG!!! She goes to the point!

- Aahhhh! EDDIE X READER MOMENT! I LOVE IT SO MUCH!!!

- Robin isn't being nice :(

- "Are you saying it's my fault that he left me?" I wanna cry!

-"Feelings for THEM" THIS IS SO STEDDIE X READER CODED!!! but I need to let go the enemies to lovers Steddie x reader headcanon or whatever that was :(

- "He never wanted me, h-he never even loved me" AHHHH THAT HURTS!

- I knew that Y/N was gonna struggle with the things that happened, like it's hard to trust Steve after all that happened

- Awwww! I don't want Y/N to hate herself, I think that she feels like that because of the combination of Stupid Ray, loving someone you love, but hurt you (Steve) and loving someone that you think you could hurt or ruin the things that you already have with that person (Eddie)

-🩷

There’s definitely a bit of Steddie x reader going on here but only because she has feelings for both 👀

Steve definitely wants to do better now. He wants to make it up to her and just be a better person for her and for himself🥲

No one really wants to confront her about her struggles with eating (well, except for Robin now) cause it can be very triggering and people usually shut down when they get cornered and confronted about something they are struggling with. Eddie usually just looks after her and takes care of her without confronting her about it and Steve, he isn’t close enough with her yet to talk about something that she’s insecure about

She’s definitely struggling a lot with herself and her feelings right now but she’s got her girls 🥲 (and eddie)

i’m happy you liked this chapter 🩷

[popculturebuffet]

More Than Meets The Eye Retrospective Interlude: Last Stand of the Wreckers (Comissioned by Brotoman.EXE

Hello all you happy autobotsand get ready to wreck and rule as it's time for a short detour in our voyage on the lost light. As I mentioned last time Brotoman .EXE paid me generouslly, so as a result your getting a nice extra bonus, something that's a bit of a spirtual prequel and explains what the deal is with Fort Max and Overlord.

It's a fitting part of this retrospective though, as it's likely thanks to this book we GOT MTMTE in the first place as it's intial creative team worked on this book. Nick Roche, the artist for the first arc or two of MTMTE and it's cover artist for most of it's run, was tapped to write the book. As far as I can find from the transformers wiki edtiorial came up iwth the idea and just threw it at Nick. Oh and to make things worse, as he realized during an interview, the page quote for the TF WIki:

KP: "…and obviously, we've got Wreckers." NR: "Wot?" KP: "Wreckers… no? Um, a bunch of guys…" NR: "Great balls, I'm supposed to be [expletive deleted] writing and drawing that!

One, Great Balls may be one of the greatest oh fuck exclimations i've ever heard, and two, I can't blame him and given how messy those comics were it's not a suprise the project really had no more planning or through than "Hey you make a comic based on these guys fans like. " Thankfully his friend James Roberts gladly jumped at the chance, cementing both's careers and gracing us with MTMTE. While Roberts cut his teeth a bit more with Chaos Theory, which we'll get to, this work, while co-written has a LOT of his hallmarks: it deals with the effects and grey areas of war, focuses on smaller time autobots, and has small flecks of his later worldbuilding. it also somehow has lots of setup for more than meets the eye depsite only one of it's main cast joining the last light. As I read it I forgot that Aquetius is VITALLY importnat for the MTMTE season one finale.

What seperates it is tone. MTMTE is an adventure story that while not remotely shying away from darkness, has plenty of comedy, heart, and a hopeful tone, about a bunch of people who are lost and find each other. LSOTW… is a grim war tale where characters die at a pretty even clip (though the finale does take the most), some of our heroes morals are questionable, and while our heroes do some good… if the result was worth it is left an open question. It's a fairly bleak work, but it's also easy to see why i'ts a fan faviorite and if you havne't experinced this yourself or maybe you just haven't read in a while, join me bellow as I chronicle the last stand of the wreckers… ironically the first of the trilogy. Had to get that out of my system.

We open with a flashback to three years ago at Garrus-9 Penitentiary. Garrus-9 was created earlier in the IDW Continuity, basically an autobot supermax prison. It's not a shock then that Fort Max is thee warden, as he's a city sized boy.

Said flashback takes place during All Hail Megatron, where thanks to Megatron getting the autobot master codes every autobot outpost fell at once. G-9 hasn't fallen yet as only Fort Max has the codes.. but it's still HEAVILY under siege as Megatron naturally still wants it and unlike Fort Max, he can actually send reinforcements.

Unfortunately for Skyquake, the bot running the op…. he gets a visitor.

So to my shock in doing research, i.e. going to the exaustive tfwiki, Overlord.. ISN'T someone Roberts and Roche created, but a villian from the Super-God Masterforce anime… and his origin there is while wholly irrelvant to our purposes, is gloriously ludcrious. Okay so some… orb looking growth named Devil-Z wanted to create super transformers known as godmasters, combining lifeless shells called transectors with humans who can turn into metal, with Overlord as the head of his own fleet of deceptions.

I now want to review whatever the fuck this is at some point as … seriously what. What was the sentence I just spat out. He begins roberts habit of using transformers born from the various post g1 anime for his works, though Overlord showed up in megatron origin before this. I honestly love it as it's a way for these formers to get a bigger audience, while also using a massive amount of prime and megatron level threats that are just lying around. Just because he can't use say beast wars or a lot of the much later stuff (I suspect as we only start getting that towards the end of this continuity), dosen't mean he dosen't have a wide bench to pull from.

Overlord is charismatic, powerful, giant even by transformers standards and terrifys the crap out of every con present, the exception being their commanding officer.. who makes the mistake of not getting Overlord is the captain now and thus gets a hole in him. Overlord succesfully takes G-(.. and more deistressingly lAYS OUT FORT MAX.

His plans however are not megatrons and he intends to make G-9 his own twisted kingdom: No one leaves, but as long as they listen to him he'll protect and entertain them, starting with a rousing game of "do what you want to fort max as long as it dosen't kill him. " And this.. is the last we see of him this series. He'll surivive.. but we now see why his first response to two cons .. was a ptsd fueled nightmarish beatdown and honestly the tourture is worse than I remember: he spent TWO YEARS being tortured as a plaything for every non autobot prisoner on the planet and that's just the gen pop, it's hard to tell what Overlord did but it can' tbe plesant. The scene also sets the tone iwth a spray of purple robo-blood: this work is going to be gory, and not in a "their robots we can blow them up" way but in a "Charles Lee Ray would giggle wildly at what we're about to put you through" way. …. and having made that joke I can't help but imagine a buddy sitcom starring overlord and chucky. Maybe Me3gan could be the wacky neighbor.

We cut next to a fueling station 8 months ago where we meet 4 new recurits to the wreckers. The Wreckers are basically the suicide squad meets x-force; they have the latter's "black ops wing that takes on dangerous missions and offsets the more squeaky clean main team) and the formers very high morality rate and use of characters who aren't as high profile… so it creates actual tension of them dying and not coming back.

This trope is known as c-list fodder. It's a very tricky trope to use as there's a very fine line between "Using the fact a character isn't protected by editiroial to create dramatic tension with their death and to use the death as a story device" and "To pick characters off a list to murder because you needed some shock value". Or for you fellow transformers fans the diffrence between optimus prime's death, a big shocking gutpunch that while done for silly reasons, really changed the game and was done well.. and the various other transformers in the same film who were just murdered hand over fist because their toys were discontinued.

Roberts thankfully uses it well: he does what I love comic creators to do, take lesser known characters and really highlight them and give them personalitiy. It's thanks to him I even know overlord existed. He and Roche make these guys at least sympathetic.. but also are aware it makes them expendable. It's why MTMTE works as well: it dosen't squander it's characters.. but the fact only a handful are big names, means most of the cast dosen't have plot armor. Sure Hot Rod, Ultra Magnus and Ratchet are probably fine, but Tailgate, Swerve… their all far more vunerable. It means the actions of our crew have consequences and if someone does die.. they stay dead. Well… kinda. But we'll get to that.

So on a refuling station we get to meet Pyro, a big optimus wannabe wearing a nice faceplate, Ironfist, a wreckers superfan and weapons expert, rotorstorm, a cool as hell looking plane guy whose a tad trigger happy, and Guzzle… he sure is there.

And once again i'm plesantly suprised to find most of these guys .. arne't new inventions. Ironfist was a late g1/early g2 (i.e. they repackaged his toy ina g2label) lightformer… basically two transformers, one on each side, who transformed into a weapon for their altmode (along with a jeep for osme reason, dn't ask). Why this is called light former

Guzzle was part of one of the various uk only stories, which given Roberts is from the UK and grew up with those is probably not remotely a concidence, Rotorstorm was part of the turbomasters line and a europe exclusive (agan likely not a concidence), and pyro likewise was uk exclusive. In shor their all obscure, presumibly very hard to come by characters who only existed to pad toylines for the most part, with Guzzle being the only one in an actual story till this point. The fact I thought all of them were orignal creatiions speaks to both how deep a bench roberts and roche had to work with, and how deep they'll pull from it.

They board a ship which belongs to Ultra Magnus. Yes our faviorite tight ass is here though only in a supporting roll. But since he's busy probably dusting every inch of his giant ship, their greeted by verity.

Now i know you have a lot of questions such as "who is this', "Why is she here" and "Why is she in short shorts and a sports bra". In order this is Verity Carlo, one of the early human companions from this continuity, having been one of the ones to find out about the transformres. She actually had a fairly close friendship with Ratchet who disobeyed orders multiple times to help them all. She and her friends went through some shit , one of them becoming a headmaster and it was not plesant, before she ran off and became a friend of ultra magnuses. As for the latter.. I ssupect someone in editorial wanted some fanservice, and roberts and roche kept it to resonable levels, i.e. her wearing this since she has a robot exo suit and thus can't very well wear a full outfit under it.

Their banter is interrupted by Springer, the leader of the wreckers who I forgot was in transformers the movie, and thus is part of the second generation of g1 autobots. He's also a triple changer which is neat and heavily assocaited with the wreckers. Twin Twist and Top Spin are brothers and jumpstarters, robots with the gimmick of being able to change in a fraction of an instant. The duo were actually OG wreckers, debuting in their first apperance along with Impactor, the original leader who Springer took over for there too. We also have perceptor who I liked in what i've read of the g1 comics but here is just kinda walpapery, and that applies to lost light too as he only makes a big move.. later. Shall we say, and Kup.

Yeah I love Kup, having met him in transformers the movie as a grouchy old vet helping some new fresh faced autobots. So the fact he's here and still has the cigar, fucking amazing. I love him.

There are a few bits here from the original pitch I wish were kept: Springer being reluctant to welcome more bots to their death and having to brace himself, said bots being recurited in part because after the Megatron Incident, their strapped for recurits. Not really missed is springer and co going to earth for white castle and underwear for verity. I mean I do wnat to see a bunch of autobots go to a white castle but I get that that bit migh tof been a bit too much for this gritty war epic.

Anyways the mission is to take Garrus-9 back.. but with no knoweldge that OVERLORD is the one behind it. Wuh-oh.

We get a brief flashback to two years ago again: ther'es a hunting party going on, which amounts to just overlord letting cons loose after an unlucky autobot. Overlord comes along but only watches because as he puts it "the result would be the same every time." Overlord, evne before we get to his actual motive, is already a compelling foe, charasmatic, sweeping.. and utterly terrifying, gladly killing both the target and the con he nearly killed while one Decepticon, Snare, looks over the scene pensively.

Back on the ship, Ironfist has a bit of an episode but wakes up fine. We also find out he's fistiron, the wreckers unoffical bigorapher and #1 fan, something the vetran wreckers thik is cute at best, but break it to him his heroes are just.. guys.

Meanwhile Kup tries to get through to Springer whose both bothered by sending more fresh faced bots out to di… and while he denies it to Kup , they both know someone here.

Another flashback, this time overlord oversees a pit fight where Kickoff, another autobot kills a decipticon to surivive and gets to choose.. his reward. We'll get back to that later. Like Roberts, Roche is VERY good at setting things up.

Issue one ends with our heroes nearing G-9 when they find a deceipticon ship that looks badly beat up. They try hailing it.. only for it to explode and we end issue one with Impactor coming out of it asking to come aboard.

Issue 2 opens with another flashback

Yeah this one reveals at least part of his motivation as Overlord dominates a battlefield only to have to leave for an office meeting with megatron. He's finalized his invasion protcols, something from Furman's run. He's made Overlord a phase Sixer, basically once a planet is near collapse he comes in and finishes it. Overloard isn't entuhsed but this being megatron.. he gives him two options…

Back on Magnus' ship, the younger wreckers are left in a room bantering a bit while the vgetran guard and magnus oversee impactor. As it turns out he was sent to G-9 and why we don't know why just yet, it's clear Impactor hasn't forgiven him while Springer is still fully behind doing so, even if he deeply regrets what im'pactors been through. Also if yoru curious what Magnus was up to he was kinda just floating in space doing justice things and being awesome.

Impactor.. was also the founder and dosen't take kindly to springer bossing him around. He does find out about overlord and the basic situation. We also find out why Magnus isn't coming and why they'v eneeded his ship: his ship can barely carry him and verity at warp, and he's both needed on earth.. and needs plausable deniablity. Given what a stickler he is, he coudlnt' relaly stomach what their going to have to do for a job like this.. and this is before he had a stick jammed up his ass so far you can see it when he talks, so you can imagine what MTMTE Magnus would feel about this… if he could feel at this point in the series.

Anyway Kup talks up overlord a bit more: he was Megatron's last resort: if someone couldn't get the job done he sent him in, as powerful as any of his strongest. Unlike the rest though he didn't have a gun pointed at Megatron's back or shout "MEGATRON IS DEAD OVERLORD IS THE NEW LEADER" every time Megatron got a cold. He just wanted to commit genocide and was good at it and Kup implies the reaassigment (which he isn't aware of), was because Megatron is apparently so bad at picking and choosing his inner circle that the ONLY ONE not wanting to put a bullet between his eyes is soundwave. He's also the only one tha tgets him a birthday card without being threatned. Had a 50 dollar Decipticon Outback Steakhouse giftcard in it too. Really nice guy that soundwave.

The plan though is largely the same and has two goals: save the autobots prisoners and find aquetius. They'll be taknig two droppods piloted by rotorstorm and hopefully surivive. I also love how springer closes the breifing "What could possibly go right?". It sells these guys as loveable brusiers.. though sadly this story own't be as sunny as tha tmakes it sound.

We get a nice page of character stuff: the rookies minus rotorstorm get cerebro senstive bullets, they target the brain module basically, Impactor sits silently, the twins talced about how their thoughts overlap, magnus worries about ironfists brekaout and verity prepares to stow away not wanting ot go back to earth. And because she apparently has just as much of a death wish as all of themn.

The wereckers split into two parts: Rotorstorm, Perciptor, Topsin and Ironfist, and Springer, CKup, Impactor, Twin Twist and Guzzle.

Verity is also on team Rotorstorm as our heroes crash into the barrier and while our heros have a decent short action sequence with Percy doing the one cool thing he does and having someone hol dhim while he shooots.. our heroes both crash and Verity ends up right at Overlords feet "Now? Now things go from bad to much worse"

WE open issue 3 with ANOTHER flashback. Yeah I rib these.. but they are a valuable part of things as they really help flesh overlord out. He lets Shockwave go, whose fine with letting him run wild as it helps his own plans. Shockwave besides being one of the most famous and awesome looking g1 transformers and as you can probably guess a faviorite of mine will be vitally important to the overal story of season 1 of both More Than Meets the Eye and it's sister series Robots in Disguise, so i'm happy to see him cameo here. Shockwave can see what this really is:

And Overlord has every intention of finishing megs when he finally does notice him. Back on G9, we have a nice bit as the wreckers handbook fistiron describes is torn to shreds as Team Springer fights. Back with Team Rotorstorm.. he makes a combiner joke in the face of their imminent death.. and of all people to find it funny… (finger poke of doom)

Yeah that finger poke of doom signals our first death of MANY. And to help sell just how much of our cast does not make it out of this i've made this handy graphic, to update each time one of our heroes doesn't make it, to hammer home just what a shit show this mission is. I'm also throwing Snare in ther eas whlie he dosen't FULLY join the team, he helps out enough that the possiblity of him dying counts.. and we needed an even 12 for this graphic to work so he'll do. So a long time ago during one of the various event comics, Wizard Magazine's website did a graphic where it x-ed out characters as they died in an event. While I do feel that's a bit.. bleh given how event comics tend to treat bodycounts, the visual did stick.. and sicne this one treats it's own bodycount seriously, i'm doing something similar every time one of the wreckers bites. Ther'es a point to this I assure you but for now

Back with Team Springer he decides to split up gang so we have Team Kup with just.. him and GUzzle and Team Springer is now just him, impactor and one of the twins who drills his way in whiel the other feels the injury. Yeah these two have that twin pyschic connection you often seen in media but less bullshit because their robots so it's plausbale their souls are literally linked.

Back at the pit with team.. i guess Ironfist now, I mean perceptor takes lead but scrap if i'm giving him top billing, though he does put up a decent fight with overlord, the team gets smacked around pretty easily and while Team Springer has more luck… they quickly get overwhelmed by a security device leaving all three incapacitated. This gets overlords attenion so he sicks his hoard on them: Bring him a wrecker head, you get to leave. We also get a nice joke as they pause a second "What are you waiting for a starting gun? Get them!"

So while percy is able to get them some room, tha tleaves team iron fist up shits creek looking for aqutis and fist himself in a pancked ball in the corner. Topspin.. is a dick to him for seeing this as some big adventure, despite the fact he's clearly naive and has caused a lot of death as we'll find out. Percy get sthem to can it and they head down. He does explained the branch spark problem and the fact that he was a cartographer: he was fine as a non ncombatant.. but feeling his twins pain meant it was kinda hard to do that, so he joined the team to keep an eye on his brother.

The issue ends as our team finds aquetias and one of the deciptcons prepares to start toruturing team springer, starting with Twin Twist, the kind of sentence that reminds me why I do this job as I can type that like ti's a completely normal sentence.

Issue 4 and we're at the Kimia weapons facility which i'm sure is close to the Alluria weapons facility. Anyways Prowl shows up

And turns out to be why Ironfist is on the team as he vetoed one of Springer's selections and agreed to give Ironfist his dream job.. if he agreed to do something. And given this is prowl and in the small time we've seen him so far he's railed against peacetime, flipped tables and gotten butthurt at his ex boyfriend for you know.. NOT wanting to do brain reading psy ops anymore. And somehow "convincing someone with a head injury, who badly wants a job to do his dirty work" .. is n't even close to the worst shit he's both done and will do at this point.

Team Kup is at the cells in present day, trying to free Grimlock

… only for him to be gone already.

Granted we will catch up with my faviorite Autobot later, but it's still sad to not see everyone's faviorite barbarian asshole murder T-Rex. Snare shows up though admitting both he was the one who freed impactor and that he's on their side.

At aqueatis it's.. a thing a super computer. Understandably Verity has a few questions

Both valid questions. I mean I think the first is because the transformers themselves.. are mostly massive and even the small ones are still pretty touring hence a super computer for them is the size of god's faviorite testicle. We'll get to what that means as Topspin has an attack, so while Verity and Ironfist take care of him, Percy explains what it is to pyro: this area is a courtroom and Aquetius is the judge of all judges. It's still not 100% clear but part of why this work works is the reveals are slow.. but well paced. THeir done in a way that feels organic and makes perfect sense in hindsight: Aquetius obviously wasn't a person and it makes perfect since trials would be done at a prison, especially when Autobots will not hestiate to send their own here if they did bad enough.

Back in the torture chamber, Twin Twist has thankfully passed out from the pain. Springer and Impactor decide now as their getting a break from being tortured to death… would be a good time to argue about their split: Springer admits he thought Impactor would get therapy or something, not this, and Impactor bites back after his testimony, he would. He also thought Impactor would get spark extraction, which is what this chamber is usually for; putting a spark aside and likely putting it back in. Problem is you have to admit guilt and while Springer feels bad, he's still pissed.

We FINALLY find out why their at odds and why Springer did what he did from Ironfist, a nice use of both having Verity around, who for the first three chapters feels entirely superflous, ahnd of iron fists fandom: the rest of them would all know on some level what actually happened or at least guess, but Verity woudln't. Vcerity isn't a bad character, she was great in the furman run, but she feels quippy in a way that just dosen't quite mesh with the story. Her lines feel more manufactured in comparison to the rest of the jokes, like our dynamic duo are more writing lines for a sitcom than a war drama with jokes in it.

Ironfist explains that the conflict boils down to Squadron X, basically the wrecker's evil knockoff, with Impactor being undrestandably obessed with bringing down his twisted mirror and finally doing so on pova: the battle was fierec,e even icnluding our old buddy whirl, but Springer made the sacrifice to have Impactor shoot through his midsection. Our heroes won, but Squadron X Escaped forcing IMpactor to tkae them down single handed.

What I like here is that it tells the story.. but even before the big twist on it later.. you can tell something is off. Thi sis more a typical transformers tale, minus the ribcage shot.. but it dosen't seem like what IMpactor did was bad or worth imprisonment. That Ironfist has the tsory to a degree.. but something important is missing, something he dosne't know. It nicely sums up his problem and a key theme of the work: To Ironfist these are rouge heroes doing what they must to get by , but really.. these are just people and people can be heroes, the two aren't exclusive.. but sometimes people fuck up, or have to do questionable things to surivive. It undercuts the whole franchise which despite being a war.. is often just colorful heroes fighting colorful villans. There's nothing wrong with that.. but it undercuts the parts of war that are hard: sacrifice, the hard choices, the grey areas. IT's really something that leaks into Robert's entire work: as i've said before he dosen't demonize the autobots but he also dosen't make it where Decipticons being evil.. means every autobot was a clear cut babyface hero who did the right thing. It's not a "one side had flaws therefore neither ar eblameless", it's hammered in just how brutal and cruel the cons were. He avoids that trap.. but he adds shades of grey that are just hard to put into a children's cartoon at times. The closest we've gotten is animated adding a thick layer of beuarcary and even then it was mostly just one smug jackass who was only effective a few times. |

So we're at Aquetius where this becomes horrifyingly apparent: The key is locked and without max there's only one way to gain access: spark donation. Pyro.. is a dick about it, saying he shoudl die in a blaze of glory. He's not at ALL wrong about part of it, that him, ironfist and presumibly the other rookies being here in case they needed a warm body, was fucked up as Percy is the one operating it and killing one twin kills the other. But him throwing Ironfist under the buss? Saying he hasn't lived? Basically throwing one of his own companions undre the bus so he can live just because he's delusional enough to think 'hes good enough to shine optimus' boots…

We do get Iron Fist's backstory even fi he dosen't say it..a dn it's tragic

It decnoustcts the gadgeter type of transformer like wheeljacks.. inevfeitbly.. they'd of had to make weapons… he's lived his whole life loosing anything, creating dangerous weapons, and wishing he coudl do things diffrent. His whole fantasy with the wreckers.. was to be the hero for once.. but now he's just fodder. They never cared about him or if he lived or not and at least Percy, who as you can tell I do not like and this story does not help at all nor will later events, dosen't seem to care at implicilty bringing companions just to kill one.

Thankfully Topspin is getting please kill me messages from his twin.. well okay tha'ts not necessarily good but it means he can make the sacrifice and is glad to: instead of dying screaming.. they can die having done something good, activating the computer and saving two lives. It's a truly tragic yet awesome moment.

The decepticons at the door are close though so Percy downloads Aequitus into Ironfist.

Team Kup thankfullys hows up to save the torture victims, but sadly Snare is killed by mr. torture man whose name I forgot, and has to be mercy killed by impactor, but gets a nice closing speech about how Overlord giving him the right to choose.. and realizing form that he could choose to do better.

And thus Springer, who originally was going to sidestep overlord if possible… decides fuck it. He's going down. And since he's coming their way that makes it easy. So as that fight prepares to begin another kicks up as Percy can kill all the cons…. but would kill impactor as a former prisoner too. And while Pyro refuses and Percy votes yes becaus efuck him… Ironfist shockingly ALSO votes yes now knowing exactly what happened, bringing us to our final issue.

We get some great narration from fistiron as we we go for this one "It's a story of sacrifice, and betryal of good people dying in stupid pointless ways"

Guzzle gets torn in half.. but shockingly ISN'T dead. Yeah he'll be fine and apparently shows up in the sequel. The fight is brutal, and awesome, and Impactor even takes out one of overlord's eyes. Shockingly his reactoin isn't this

But "Come and get me bitch". I mean he didn't say that but i'm shocked no character in transformers ever has. I knokw Starscream would. We all know he would.

And we get to why verity is here as she convinces Ironfist that this isn't what the wreckers do.. not the real ones… but Fistirons. As he puts it he made them heroes and no matter what impactor's done.. killing him to save their asses isn't waht they do. Or what they shoudl be. It's a call to be more from someone whose seen what a wrecker is firs thand.. but can also see their good people who can do better. So Pyro offers to hold the line and die to save them .

The others are able to run.. but Pyro dies fast.

And now things are safe, Verity admits that.. ti does kinda matter what impactor did. I mean it didnt' in the broader since but she's curious.

So it turns out in one of the best once more with clarity flashbacks i've seen… everything was about the same.. but starting from the gutshot… it was all one big lie. Impactor came up with the idea to shoot through springer, he coudln't turn off pain receptors as the previous version said and Springer begged him not to. That enoguh is to show Impactor isn't a great person and to see why Springer didn't like him.

What sets this off though.. is Prowl. WHen Impactor calls it in, it turns out the Povans have an exemption treaty and they have to let Squadron X go, who were fitted with dampaneers and entirely helpless. Impactor.. dosen't take this and while him being pissed a tthis is understandable and refusing to comply equally so, as it's a bunch of rampnt murders.. his next act.. is every bit as horrible and worthy of punishment as built up to: he goes into the room, locks it.. and slaughters EVERY LAST ONE ONE OF THEM in cold blood> No heroic stand, no nothing.. just murder. They may be bad people… but it dosen't justify slaughter.

We get back to the battle though where Overlord's almost won.. and part of their obejective.. is done. Turns out Team Kup didn't free the prisoners.. because Overlord ordered them all killed the second he had a wiff of the wreckers coming. This mission.. was almost all for nothing. Thankfully team Ironfist arrives, and saves our heroes, with iron fist gifting Springer a gun… sadly springer can't enjoy it as he gets his face torn off seconds later. That's not me being glib that's what happened and i'll spare you the site. Once again he's somehow NOT DEAD.

Ironfist does get an awesome moment though as it turns out th egunw as infecting him with compliance chips, the kind that go off in the brain that our heroes almost acitvated… and having aquetius he has the code.. and simply nods his head to lite overlord up, his brain shortcircuting afterwords. Overlord rises because he has the resilance of a chucky doll btu Verity is able to truly defeat him in spirit as just like the autobots.. his goals amoutned to almost nothing: Megatron is dead and never cared before he died. He'll be back of course, we'll ge tto that, but it means this was once again pointless. Which feels ironically like the pipnt: war is often pointless and the goals.. often don't equal the cost.

This allows ironfist to sucker him but he dose not kill the bastard. This will naturally backfire eventually.. but he did it for the right reasons: He realized Springer was right; even if they deserve dit.. he had no right ot kill them. It wasn't his place.. so he's going to make sure overlord stands trial for all he did.

We end on the ship with Magnuses report: The deciptcons fled, most of the team is dead, and impactor got pardoned but took off with guzzle. As for Iron Fist… he died in transit, verity sobbing over his corpse. Another pointless causlaity of this mission. and our final one thankfully.

But as you can see out of the bots that went in only half walked out, nad none of them okay: Springer is on life support and as we learned in MTMTE, was nearly kileld by Whirl as a mercy, so he hasn't gotten better in present day and might never recover, Ironfist has reformed but he and guzzle have left the autobots for parts unknown, and Kup and Verity are left emotionally scarred. Magnus asks Prowl abotu the aragment and the two talk. As it turns out Prowl wanted aquetius despite being against it and acountablity of any shape and form

Yeah prowl was against the tons of autobot attorcite sbeing laid out and worried it'd be ultimate con propoganda if it got out. Magnus gives the slug to prowl.. but urges him not to destroy it. No one would know.. but all of this would be worth nothing. IT's about acountablity, tha tno one is above the law and what they did was right. it was also held over by chief justice tyrest, whose accords Magnus enforces..a nd who likewise will be very important later. So we end on Verity who decides the moral of this is life persists. That even in the grimmest darkness.. we move on.. and hopefully learn from our mistakes. It's why Aquetius was necessary: it's easy to say something was for the greater good.. btu the hardest thing is to admit your mistakes, what you did and face up to them. It's why I hate prowl so much: He cars more about the neublous "Mission" than about keeping the high ground while pulling it off. about being a good person. It's hard in war.. but as we saw today it wasn't possible.

As should be clear by now Last Stand is a classic and if you love transformers, worth a read. It's a tragic tale of war, loss, and life persiting and while it's not necessary for MTMTE it really ties into it well and is worth a quick read after the first arc or so. and it was well worth this review. The Wreckers would ge tfollowed up on, something I both haven't read and will likely get to at some point but for now we pivot back to the lost light next time.. just int ime for a hostage situation!

Thanks for reading have a great day

[nickgerlich]

It’s A Date

If the pandemic did anything to us this decade, it reinforced our propensity to be judgmental of others. As if we needed something else to divide us, COVID did just that, with people being counted among two camps: one group who believed the media and gladly got their vaccines, and those who did not.



Pretty simple, and pretty sad. Relationships were affected and sometimes ended, be they among friends, family, or colleagues and churchgoers. Try as we might to be open-minded and forgiving, we didn’t do a very good job at it. I’m pretty sure that, since I have only been alive since mid-century (that would be the last century, of course), there were worse times in our history (I’m thinking of the Civil War era).  But as far as I’m concerned, this is as bad as it has been in at least living history.

This division spawned a great divide in social media as well, with a rash of new sites aimed squarely at one or the other of these two camps. Naturally, all of these are echo chambers, where all contrary thought has been filtered out by self-selection. Why risk having an informed discussion turn into a free-for-all?

And now there is a new dating site in Germany that intentionally makes fun of itself just a little bit with all of the tin foil. Schwurbeltreff.de is designed for conspiracy theorists to meet up and possibly forge new relationships.

My first review is that this is a good news/bad news situation. It’s good news that the US is not alone in all of this craziness and division. The bad news is that we may very well have influenced the global spread of such thinking. Your call on this.

Now whether you are a conspiracy theorist or not is on you. This is a judgment-free zone as far my students and I are concerned. It’s just that every time someone launches a new effort like this, it causes an equal and sometimes greater response from those left out of the equation. I can see it now: A German dating site for those who drank all of the media Kool-Aid. Hammer, meet chisel.

Dating sites, as we have discussed earlier, have been around for a long time. Their predecessors were a slew of moody computer dating programs that were only successful—at least in my estimation—of putting two people together. Any people.

Today, there are many dating sites available in the US, from those seeking meaningful relationships to those wanting only a quick hook-up. Straight people. Gay people. Old people. Young people. Farmers. Heck, there’s even Ashley Madison, the site for people looking to have an affair. I’d be careful with that one, though, and for many reasons, one of which is the cautionary tale of how their database was hacked in 2015 and user information released. Oh, the questions you would have to answer.

As for Schwurbeltreff, they are aiming at a pretty well defined audience. I have no doubt that something like this would fare well in the US. It’s just that I have a hard time imagining how or why two people would want to come together over conspiratorial thinking. I can only imagine the conversations, not to mention filtering.  “Soooo…what are your thoughts on 5G? Global warming? Electric vehicles? War on Christmas?”

Yeah, this could be interesting. But if two lonely hearts can come together in any of the other dating sites, I guess this is as legit as it comes. Pass the tin foil and let’s make hats. It is refreshing, I admit though, that Schwurbeltreff can make fun of itself as it has.

It seems like marketers are looking for as many ways as possible to slice the pie of potential customers. Technically, this is about identifying market segments, and choosing to act upon it, or them, as the case unfolds. The possibilities may appear to be endless, especially when it comes to matchmaking, because it is something humans have been doing since our beginning. Whether you seek procreation and a family or just companionship, we can use digital marketing to bring people together.

I just hate it that the latest from Germany is more fallout from the pandemic. That’s my judgment, and I’m sticking to it.


Dr “I Think I’d Rather Play With Fire“ Gerlich

Audio Blog

[loudlypanickinginvenezolano]

I am a Sucker [For you.]

I just need somebody to make sure he is all right, someone to know, to check subtly without getting anyone alarmed or making things worse. I don’t think just anyone can.”

“That`s a bold statement. Many would have your head for it.”

Shadow arched an eyebrow, giving a smile that wasn’t a smile. “I don’t care, Espio. I could care less if it is politically incorrect or if it hurts somebody`s sensibilities, It doesn’t make it any less true. I think you know it”

“Whoever thought that letting you be one of ours spokespersons would be a good idea really needs their head checked.”

“Maybe so. But I know I’m right, so what is there for me to be afraid of, uh? If a direct approach or a subtle one doesn’t make any progress then what other option there truly is? Because I can’t see other one. Do I have to let him self-destruct right in front of us? I pass. I can’t let that happen. And if I can’t be that person, I need to know there is someone in the known, looking out for him. i… want to…to not distrust you, to, to believe you can be that person I can’t be anymore.”

“Very well. Just. Stop. Im starting to get stomach sick. Ahh, I do admit you have a bit of sense. Just a bit, though, don’t rub it.”

“So you will help?”

“Will you let me drink my tea in peace if I say no? of course I will. ”He took a sip, and grimaced. It was long gone cold. “Sonic is also my friend, you know?”

“I do.” Shadow finally relaxed completely on his chair, tension bleeding out so obviously Espio couldn’t help but sigh.

“You are into something problematic, aren’t you?”

The sad stare he got answered everything.

Espio breathed in deeply and slowly, staring into his cup before draining it entirety, snorting to himself at the text at the bottom of the cup. He left it aside, reaching up to offer a hand to Shadow. “You know that you can count on me when you need it, Shadow. Anytime. I care for my friends.”

The ebony took it, softly pressing his forehead into it. He didn’t say or do anything else, and neither did Espio. They stood in silence, letting it speak for them.

``I don’t think your promise will held out when shit hits the fan`` Shadow thought, swallowing. ``But hell if I don’t wish to lie to myself, and believe you will be there.``

Espio took his hand back, and was about to say something when the unexpected appearance of a cat startled him into almost biting his tongue.

The feline jumped in from the window, sashaying its way inside calmly enough to envy.

“You also should be going to sleep, you know?” The dark hero squinted. “Its late, and, if a single cat is enough to get you in this state, maybe the better would be for you to go rest, Espio.”

“…Are you…Uh. You do remember you picked one of the highest, advantageous point’s available, right?”

“…and your point is?”

“…It shouldn’t be possible for a simple cat to just casually jump here. I would know, I checked that!”

“Well, but. Uh. Maybe you missed something?”

“Are you doubting me?”

“oh no, nothing like that. I just.” He shrugged, again, dragging a hand through his face. He was too tired to be eloquent. “She has come by many times already, look, she even has a spot and water and shit. I am used to seeing her here, so, If you say it is hard and high, then how comes she gets here so casually, as you say, every other night? Maybe…I don’t know. there`s a way. Maybe she just grew here, and knows this place a tad better?”  

“…It’s a cat.”

“Well yes, I noticed but.  Maybe she’s smart. Who knows.”

“Again. It’s a cat.”

“Weren’t you the one who said he wasn’t going to underestimate his enemies?”

“I am so not having this conversation with you.” He glared at the cat as if she had personally scratched his socks to tatters before leaving, and just once he was entirely sure Espio was gone, he pulled out his recently hidden folder.

Where he could swear his notes about the review of the watchtowers of the north once sat, now only one word repeated itself like some broken chant. ``Coming`` was wrote over and over, mockingly, almost, in nothing more than his own handwriting, something that he had no recollection of ever doing.

Where was his work?

He had spent hours and hours on that!

He glared at the paper for a while, until his eyes and head stung, until the entire world was tilting off its axis as black spots appeared on his vision, confusing him, rendering him almost blind.

The paper crinkled between his fingers, being roughly slammed down into the desk.

He stifled, forcefully, a pained grunt, huffed breaths being the only sound in the office for a while.

The cat looked on, curiously.

Closing and rubbing his eyes proved of being of no help, as he could see the floor starting to sink in the farthest corner, right where it meet with the wall, giving under the pressure, under its burden, bending at impossible angles just like him, just like them, and leaving him almost weightless in that chair he knew he was sitting in, but couldn’t feel anymore.

He was floating.

At least, that was what it felt like.

He was floating in a room slowly consumed by the dark spots, once small and insignificant …now similar to the way a black hole worked, sucking in all light and everything that stood on their way, growing and growing in size, getting closer, making their slow way to him to consume him too.

To rip him apart piece by piece, stretching him until his joints and muscles snapped out of place, and his limbs and bones were teared from his torso as they pulled in different directions, fighting for his every bit, finishing him quicker than what he could attempt to heal.

He just knew that was what they wanted, that was their ultimate goal.

They were whispering to him, talking about their greed and insatiable hunger, eternal void.

Fuck.

He couldn’t move. 

Shadow groaned loudly, uncaring, numb to this particular if not familiar motion, hit by a sudden but all the same debilitating nausea that wouldn’t let him feel his legs.

It stung.

Everything.

Another groan, a loud crack and jostle, and then pin and needles were working up and down his arms and back, painfully incrusting themselves, sinking deep into his tissue and reaching his bone marrow, gloating at the first taste of blood, at getting to him first and being oh so useful Locking him in position, melting, sizzling and singeing his skin and fur, snaking to his shoulders, and neck, and finally head, biting him hungrily all the while no matter how much he growled, how much he fought to squirm, shake, or hiss. They had only one objective.

Something was wrong.

Maybe everything?

The tables were crumbling, his books were falling to the ground, the room was dimming and dimming as darkness took over. Hell.

Even the tapestry that hung behind him was starting to swirl over itself, the contents twisting into a spiral he could not make sense of.

Shadow curled over himself, or tried to, fighting to make his body obey him as he pressed his hands into his ears, mouth open in a pained scream he could not hear. It was too much.

The sizzling of the dark spots, the whispering voices behind him, the humming of his own complaining body, and the beats of his heart, the creaking of the room that was starting to crumble too, falling apart with dry hits or splintering wood.

With everything as it was, it can probably be forgiven it took him a while to realize the words twisting within the spiral.

Blood was steadily dripping into his shoulders, but it was okay.

Shadow could take pain.

He didn’t have to worry about sound anymore, so it was worth it.

Was it truly?

He didn’t know.

He just wanted it all to stop.

“Aren’t you tired?”

…He kind of was.

Is it of life?

Do you call this life?

Colored words, repeating themselves over and over like madness creeping in, vomiting out of the tapestry Shadow used to love, taking the darkened room under their control, filing everything that remained like macabre pointillism.

His breath stuttered, but he couldn’t move at all.

the binding held strong, holding him put and there was someone coming in.

``Aren’t you tired? `` was read on the wall.

``Don’t you want to rest? `` was crawling after him.

``Arent you in pain?`` made home in his desk.

On his screen, the videotape of the security reel turned off one by one without him doing something, and the presence behind his chair kept getting closer.

The remaining operative screen showed the Word Document he had been working on, the letters dancing away as they reorganized themselves but he could hardly pay attention.

“Isn’t it late?” Said a chipped, distorted voice, almost as if coming from underwater.

Maybe it was…

For you?

Or for him?

``Why don’t you close your eyes?``

``Why don’t you relax?``

`` I will keep guard for you…``

“Go the fuck to sleep.”

The being jerked his chair aside, roughly pressing against his throat.

Shadow tried to kick, but his legs had been withered long ago.

He chocked, blood tricking down his cheeks and ears, unfocused eyes bulging out.

His neck snapped.

His body slumped, unsupported. 

Shadow almost fell to the ground, blinking and standing startled in the middle of his office, Watchtower of the North`s reports In hand.

That’s… probably one of the reasons he doesn’t sleep.

His ears were ringing, his breath was unsteady.

It hurt.  

It was too much.

There was no one in the room with him.

He was alone. He…

Shadow growled.

“Too much caffeine is bad for your health, they say, uh… Either that, or you are truly a dewdropper at work.” He gave the lilac flowers at his side a narrowed stare.

Lilac flowers:… I am being wrongly accused, sir.

Shadow sighed, rubbing his aching eyes with a hand. He picked up the highlighter he needed before going back to his desk, convinced he probably stood up to search for it.

As he passed, he didn’t forgot to flicker Janik`s forehead, a scowled ``slacker-off`` passing his lips.

He sipped his lukewarm coffee, making sure everything was working the way it is supposed to, silently checking everybody around.

The cat meowed like a greeting, sitting obediently in the middle of his office, staring unblinkingly at him.

His hand, without much thought, added a loopy elegant cursive “Infinite” to the page in front of him.

It was entirely filled with that one name.  

He had a folder with pages of similar destiny.

The cat nuzzled his legs, sticky like always after a particular bad dream, like she knew something had happened and tried to comfort him.  

As he pet her, he almost could have swore he saw her grin by his peripheral vision.

He promised himself. Tomorrow he´ll sleep.

[the-hem]

Jesus and the Cushion. Mark 4: 35-41.

A cushion sits in between the moments of one era and the next. Things cannot remain the same but whether they get better or worse cannot be left up to the weather, but to the learnedness of man. Jesus gets very cross at the Disciples for failing to think their way through a spiritual crisis, forcing Him to put His feet on the floor of the boat and rebuke them.

Notice the world remarks, "He can calm the wind and the sea, but man is his own master." So as we enter into the phenomenal reality one increment of life after the next, we must recall we have the power to act completely at the whims of impulse and lose our heads. Where mankind is concerned, there is no such thing as a cushion, someone is always going to upset the natural order, there is no doubt about it.

What does this have to do with Mashiach and the Olam Ha Ba, the changing world? Behold:

Mark 35-41: Jesus Calms the Storm

35 That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 

36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 

37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

Jesus is a kind of literary figure called a Tara, from Sanskrit and Hebrew, "one who looks across."

Tar= one who describes.

A= what can be learned.

This is also called Ezion Geber, "to review one's inner structures."

"Verb עצם ('asam) speaks of a skeletal structure that (a) lies hidden beneath an obvious surface, and (b) provides the invisible inner strength that keeps the whole in shape. Noun עצם ('osem) means might or skeleton. Noun עצמה ('osma) means strength. Noun עצם ('esem) means bone but may also be used to refer to one's whole body. Adjective עצום ('asum) means mighty or numerous. Noun תעצמה (ta'asuma) is a plural and intensive form meaning might but a whole lot of it.

Our verb may also mean to shut or close, predominantly of eyes, and presumably in order to review one's inner mental structures. Noun עצמות ('asumot) appears to refer to the "bones" of one's reason, the certainties upon which all creativities are grafted.

Like the previous, the verb עצה ('asa) also means to shut and its sole Biblical occurrence also speaks of closing one's eyes in order to hatch plans in one's heart: to review or form one's inner and structural strength. The very common noun עץ ('es) means tree (whose fruits proverbially show its "heart"). Collectively, trees are known as עצה ('esa). The similar noun עצה ('aseh) describes the backbone of an animal.

Obviously, the Bible is not concerned with the history of political power and solely with the evolution of the wisdom tradition and thus information technology (from cave paintings to the alphabet to blockchain). That means that very few references to wood and trees in the Bible — from the trees of Paradise to Noah's ark, Abraham's oaks, the cedars of Tyre and even the cross of Christ — should be expected to actually be about trees.

Probably a by-form of the previous, the verb עוץ ('us) means to counsel or regard with deep inner contemplation."

Hiram of Lebanon, a friend of King David's reportedly told Solomon how to sail to Ezion Geber.

To be taken across by the Master in a boat is to learn how to meditate, to turn the surface of the mind completely blank and dark and discern the Self. Jesus went to sleep on the cushion, the moment between the Animus and its physical casement in the flesh and abandoned His students to the Self. The Self is always alone, it is terrifying to behold.

The Disciples got scared of non-existence and then also of existence itself and Jesus awoke to restore the confidence, they were not misled, they were not dead, they were free to live.

The Values in Gematria are:

v. 35: Let us go over to the other side. The Number is 4997, ד‎טטז‎, d. tetez, "a splash, a spray, a ricochet."

One does not go to the other side and stay. That just sucks. Once one finds the Self one must return to one's point of origin and do a better job of it having learned what can be learned during the meditative state.

You do not exist lest you learn how to live and do it right. It is terrifying how delicate living a good long life is. There is only so much God can do once He tells us the way. We have to take over at some point and make all the crucial decisions God warned us would come our way.

v. 36: There were other boats with Him. We know the appearance of the Christ left many dedicated saints behind. They have always followed him and taught others the way. The Number is 8187, חאחז‎‎, khaz, "do it like that."

v. 37-38: A furious squall came up!

The Number is 1037, ילז‎, "someone yelled lllez." "They were cheerful."

"...the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”

The number is 14212, ידב‎אב‎, yadav, "they began to perceive they knew how..."

v. 39:  He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

Just as it is not a good idea to be hysterical like during a pregnancy, it is not wise to be manic, ie. do not over or underindulge.

The Number is 8667, "They experienced a contract."

= down the middle, not up, not down, but equanimous.

v. 40-41: Why are you afraid?

the Number is 12474, יבד‎ז‎ד‎, yabadzad, "don't lose your step."

If one follows the course and remains fixed on the beatification of the world instead of one's own crazed self, one's footing remains solid even without firm training in the oblivion of meditation. This is the secret of the cushion.