#but yeah I am curious to see what the full scene of this is exactly

[roserunodays]

@greenbetula This is in response to your post, but I wanted to say my own thoughts here instead of a reblog!

The Mahiru Undercover shot is really interesting tbh because it seems more unclear compared to the other shots shown. Just what is happening here? Is it a shadow of them holding hands while they’re walking like in ILY? Well, I think it could be, but the angle seems to suggest that Mahiru’s bf’s hand is flat on the ground, which would mean his body is laying there as well. If that were the case, Mahiru would either be reaching down to take his hand, or she’s laying on top of him and taking his hand like that instead. Either way, I don’t think that really matters because it’s clear she’s holding his hand somehow, but why? What’s the reason for her doing that? Imo, I think it’s because she was grieving.

At least with how I interpret this, this seems to be right after he died (which would parallel the rest of the Undercover shots seemingly taking place after the prisoners’ murders, most notably Kazui’s where it’s clear that’s right after Hinako killed herself), and Mahiru, who survived the aftermath of her bf’s death, is trying to compensate for him being dead, either being in complete denial in that moment, or she’s coping because she just…doesn’t know what to do. And who wouldn’t know what to do in that kind of situation? What can she do, now that the person she loved is gone? Try and "bring him back" somehow? I don't think these two things are mutually exclusive btw, it really could've been both. I just think she, especially in her grief like state, would do this sort of thing (aka hold hands with a corpse) for two main reasons:

One: Mahiru is a person who wants to be together forever with her partner. Especially in that moment after he literally just died, she would try to be together with him (which is why she holds his hand). She wants that closeness with him, to continue being with him and loving him despite being dead, because that is what love is to her, after all:

She also believes in the afterlife and yet she still wishes to bring the one she loved back to life. In that grief stricken moment, did she try to do such a thing? Did she have some kind of thought that he would come back somehow if she was together with him? Or was it something much darker, where she wanted to join him in death, because living without him and in a world where she had nothing was much more painful than dying?

This is further supported by the name of this drink in TIHTBILWY, which is called “Corpse Reviver” interestingly enough. To be honest, the worst I can see Mahiru do is somehow keep her bf’s corpse around (which would mirror Shidou heavily), although I highly doubt this because I don’t think it’s realistic, and I feel like it should’ve been hinted at more by now if that was the case. Again, I can’t completely rule that out, but it’s a scenario I could see happening in the short term (in the moment where he just died) compared to Shidou’s long term actions with his patients to try and bring back his family.

I think in that moment right after he died, Mahiru just wanted to be together with him somehow, so she's coping with that loss by being close to him, even if he's...already gone. Hell, she's still having trouble even now with fully accepting her boyfriend's death:

There is nothing that can bring him back, so what else can she do, other than hold his lifeless hand out of a quiet moment of respite?

Two: Shidou Kirisaki parallels

The character she is paired with for prisoner pairs, the one who has many similarities with her in regards to grief and not being to accept death that’s right in front of them — it really highlights just how similar they are in that sense. They are both people who have been overtaken by grief before:

Shidou tries to bring back his loved ones, who are nothing but “corpses” at this point, back at the expense of others so they could be together again. Mahiru, even if it was just in that moment, also wanted to try and “bring the person she loved back”, even if she knew deep down it wouldn’t work. But at least they could be together again, right?

That is why I think Mahiru’s reaction to her boyfriend’s death would also be along the lines of Shidou’s reaction to the death of his family: in a state of complete grief and partial denial that drives them to try and “get them back” somehow. And along with that, a horrible realization that they both have to accept that death because nothing they can do will ever bring their loved ones back from it.

[welcometohellfilm]

Hi! I recently saw W2H2 part 1 and I must say it’s pretty amazing! Even better then the first one (which I loved btw), I know you anticipated that it wouldn’t have been full done, but I still wished the animation and the coloring were completed, like the first short. Nevertheless It has its charm anyway so good job, still amazing as always ! I just wanted to ask a few questions about Mephistopheles:

1) Is Mephistopheles actually capable of being evil and doing evil things as well ? Is he the type of guy that is usually pretty chill but can get REALLY angry if you piss him off? At the end of the first act, he said to Sock that he would fired him if he didn’t complete the job… did he mean literally “to fire him” (like burn or hurt him), or just meant “fired from the job” without causing him any harm? I am very curious about this character, I find him pretty charming and interesting! (I also love his character design)

2) How long will it be before the second and third parts of W2H2 release more or less (Months, years…)? And how long each part will be? Don’t wanna put preassure on you ofc , I’m just curious but I will be patient if that’s the case!

Thank you for this amazing little cartoon! I really love the plot and the characters and I look foward to see more! I hope you’ll reply soon and thank u again <33 (also sorry for my bad english but I am Italian eheh)

haha... yeah I'm getting that comment from a lot of people. But idk, when I look at the first short it looks pretty incomplete to me! Like to me, I think having better animation and less color is a decent trade-off, but I guess for a lot of people the color really did a lot of heavy-lifting. Anyway, I know it's a little disappointing, but my options were "call it good enough and post it", or "drive myself crazy working on it until I die", I know that sounds dramatic, and maybe I could've forced myself to finish at least throwing color on it, but I don't know, I didn't want to start resenting the thing I'm supposed to be passionate about. I kinda put myself between a rock and a hard place, didn't I? Sorry for the rant! I'm glad you enjoyed it anyway, haha. UHHH on to questions! 1. Mephistopheles is complicated. Or at least, I think he is, and I'm trying to figure out what that balance is. (I have an entire wordpad file full of notes/thoughts on Mephistopheles from one of my friends who's given a surprising amount of thought to the morality of the character that I'm gonna have to reference moving forward, haha). But as for my original thoughts on the character--- I don't consider him evil, but I think he's capable of doing things we would call 'evil', just like any human is. And like humans, he can be motivated by flawed, negative thoughts and feelings; spite, revenge, jealousy, whatever. But unlike humans he exists outside of space and time, and he's not a human himself, so his perception of morality is just different. The "you're fired" comment is meant to be a little confusing... like, you come to expect these stupid hell jokes from him, but then he clarifies "that wasn't a pun". And he's the devil, so maybe he's not joking. He COULD condemn Sock to hell. So that's the stakes of the story! If Meph is serious, Sock could be in a lot of trouble. We're not sure exactly how lenient he's going to be, or how trust-worthy he is. He's the devil! Toying with people is kind of his whole thing! haha. 2. It's not gonna' be another 10 years, that's for sure!!! Most of Part 2 is already rough animated (at least as much as Part 1 has been). There's still... one or two scenes that need more animation, and pretty much every shot of Shadow!Jonathan still needs to be done. It also needs more backgrounds, but there's FEWER backgrounds in Part 2 (Hell is just a re-usable Shadow-Realmy-y void), and a lot of the stuff from Jonathan's house can be re-used with different lighting. I'll have a better idea of the timeline once I sit down and crack it open again... and it's about to get kind of busy with the holidays and all, but it should be finished some time next year! Hopefully in the first half of 2025! I'll try to keep everyone posted. Anyway thanks for your questions! Hope this helped!

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Oh btw here's an interesting Dune Part 1 review by historian Bret Deveraux, specifically about how the movie handled imperialism. Hope he makes one for Part 2 at some point: acoup . blog/2021/11/05/miscellanea-reflections-on-the-sands-of-dune/

(I got both your asks and I'm answering them out of order; trust me it'll make sense.)

Oh this was such an excellent review; he picked up on a lot of things about the way the Atreides are presented that are there but easily missed if you go into it thinking they're the good guys. That scene where Stilgar comes to meet Leto is so so telling because you can see Leto believes he is being respectful and diplomatic (while still asserting his right to go anywhere on the planet) but all the Atreides characters are literally standing a step above Stilgar looking down at him (except Gurney, who's gotten closer because he considers Stilgar a threat).

Even Paul, who is symbolically standing a bit apart from his family here, and agrees with Stilgar that foreigners have done nothing but exploit Arrakis, comes off looking well-intentioned but a bit full of shit, inviting Stilgar to stay and be "honored" like he's a guest on his own fucking planet.

I think Devereaux really hits the nail on the head when he talks about how Denis Villeneuve is able to "create this post-colonial reading of Dune, not by preaching to us about the evils of imperialism but simply by turning the camera, as it were, and getting us to view the question from the Fremen point of view." Because yeah turning the camera around, from what is often the default POV--that of the privileged, the powerful, the colonizers--is exactly how I think of this type of shift in perspective. It happens metaphorically in the Villeneuve Dune, with things like using Chani instead of Irulan to frame the whole narrative, and it often also happens literally.

Every time I watch Part One, I always get smacked in the face by this moment:

...where we transition from a series of fairly objective wide shots of the harvesters descending to this shot, which is not objective at all. We are literally being introduced to this world from behind the barrel of a resistance fighter's gun; it is pretty hard to think of a stronger POV choice than that. This is less than two minutes into the movie by the way.

And Part Two goes so much further in terms of showing us the world from a Fremen point of view, as Paul's own perspective on the world shifts. I really hope this guy does a review of Part Two because I am super curious to see what he has to say.

[thisismeracing]

How you get the girl | DR3 (patreon preview)

full piece already available on Tumblr!

▸Pairing: Daniel Ricciardo x black!plus size!reader ▸Warnings: mentions of food and alcohol; Mclaren Danny and tooth-rotting fluff. ▸ my masterlist | my taglist | patreon guide ▸ support my writing by reblogging, leaving a comment (don’t forget to follow me if you like the piece), or buying me a coffee

“I hope you like the beach, and pizza. I wanted to go for something private and chill, Amina and Adam agreed, but still, I hope I got this right.”

She smiles, looks at the blanket on the sand, the pizza box, and the wine, then nods, “I love it. It’s exactly what I would go for had I been the one to choose the setting.”

“Really?” There’s a slight hint of disbelief mixed with amusement in his tone, and it makes Yn chuckle.

“Maaaaybe this would tie with a coffee shop date,” she confesses.

“We can do coffee shop for our second date,” Daniel is quick to shoot his shot and Yn arches her brow, she wants to smile again.

“What makes you think we’re having a second date?”

“I’m just manifesting, throwing it to the universe,” he jokes and she can’t help but laugh while they walk side by side to the blanket. “See? I made you laugh, my chances are getting higher, aren’t they?”

**********

“Hey, so- I have this race next week, would you wanna go with me? I can fly you out on Saturday, or you can go with me and see how everything works from behind the scenes,” he suggests, fingers crossed in the dark praying for her to accept, praying for her not to think he’s being too fast. Maybe he was indeed, but this was all new to him too. He was fast on the track, he was never this fast outside it, never this fast to fall, to want someone, to seek someone, to show off someone. He wanted her by his side.

“Wouldn’t it be like making things official?” Yn asks genuinely curious and Daniel can tell by the way she bites her lips and one of her eyebrows goes up the slightest.

“Yeah, am I going too fast?”

“I mean, you’re a racing driver, I would say it’s your job to go fast, isn’t it?” She jokes and he laughs throwing his head on the headrest.

“Yes, but outside the track, I only wanna go fast like this for you.”

“That was so cheesy.”

“But did you like it?” He grins, and Yn rolls her eyes playfully before her body bends over the dash to capture his lips in a kiss.

“I loved it.”

────── ⋆🪩 VOICEMAIL: Hi, honeybees! I hope you guys liked this piece! <3 I wanted to add a huge shout-out to C (my coffee emoji anon on Tumblr) for proofreading this (Ily, C!)

read this piece on the early access tier HERE.

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[toothpastecanyon]

Return, to the Scene of the Crime - Chapter 2

Playing human again, Alcor makes it longer than he usually does. He's in college now, juggling classes, family, a curious vampire, and a strange, increasingly sinister web of mysteries weaving themselves around him. Without his omniscience to guide the way, he'll have to work hard to get to the bottom of this before it spirals out of control.

See most updated version on Archive of Our Own.

______________________________________________________________

Knock, knock, knock. Dipper stepped back from the door, hefting his backpack full of all the ghosthunting equipment he could bring. He saw Lucy Ann giving him a skeptical look.

“What?” He watched her snort and shake her head. “What? I just want to be prepared.”

“I can see that.”

“Yeah, yeah…” The door cracked open, and he perked up. “Hi! Is this Marsh?”

“Yeah?” The door stayed only cracked. “Who are you guys?”

“Oh! I-I’m Dipper, and this is my friend, Lucy Ann! You, uh, you said you wanted us to come tonight, right?”

“Ohh, you’re Dipper.” The door opened a little wider; Marsh looked him up and down. “Huh. Thought you were kids at first. Alright.”

Lucy Ann barely stifled a chuckle as Dipper went bright red. The door closed again; the latches drew back, and Marsh finally opened it all the way.

“Come on in.”

Dipper stepped through to a small, messy apartment. There was a pungent smell of weed; he got a breath and immediately started coughing. “Tha-thanks, I-” he tried to clear his throat. “Sorry, ju-just, it’s… the air’s a little dry, haha. Humidity!”

Lucy Ann rolled her eyes at him, and turned to Marsh. “So, where’s the ghost?”

“I dunno. Isn’t that supposed to be your job?”

“I mean, where’s the ghost been sighted? Usually they like to stick to certain rooms, or…?”

“Oh, I think it’s in the bathroom, then.” A pause. “Also out here. And I think I heard the fridge opening on its own once, too.”

“A non-specified haunting…” Dipper took a notebook out of his bag and frowned as he flipped through it. “Uh, how long has it been happening for?”

She gave a shrug. “I dunno, like three days ago? That’s when my roommate left to go visit her family, and I just started noticing… weird stuff happening. Like there was still someone else moving stuff around, you know?”

“Yeah.” Lucy Ann frowned. “But you’re not sure if it started three days ago, or if you only started noticing it three days ago?”

“Yeah, exactly. Like, it’s not creepy if the TV turns on when someone else is living with you, but you’re all alone in your room and you suddenly hear the sports channel…” Marsh gave a grimace; she glanced around, and leaned in closer. “But you know what really got me?”

Dipper blinked. “What?”

“I was working late last night, and I got home at like, two AM. There’s no way anyone was home, okay? But right before I unlock the front door, I’m leaning up close to it, and I hear this noise - it’s the toilet flushing.”

“Oh. The toilet?” Dipper couldn’t hide the disappointment from his voice; Marsh glared at him.

“Yeah, the toilet. I even ran over to the bathroom, and I could see the tank was refilling.” She crossed her arms. “Look, I get it’s not the world’s creepiest ghost story or whatever, but you see if you sleep well after something like that. I thought for a second someone broke in.”

“Did… someone break in?”

“If they did, they didn’t take nothing. And they didn’t mess with the locks, or break a window. My buddy said it could be a ghost, so I called my landlord, but he won’t even fix the fucking dishwasher. Of course he didn’t send out an exorcist.” She rolled her eyes. “So that’s why you guys are here. Darren said you’d do this for free.”

“A ringing endorsement,” Lucy Ann said, snickering at Dipper. He didn’t pay much mind; he finished writing in his notebook, and snapped it closed.

“Alright then! Well, this isn't a typical haunting, but it could be some sort of minor poltergeist – I think we can handle it for you! You mind if we take a look in your bathroom?”

“Yeah, whatever.” Marsh waved them off, and sat down on her couch. “Just let me know when it’s gone.”

And with that, she turned on the TV. Dipper edged past her and made his way to the bathroom. It was the first door in the narrow hallway, and his backpack scraped against the wall as he made his way in.

It was not a two person bathroom; he frowned when Lucy Ann tried to squeeze past him.

“Hey! Can you-” He watched her lift up the toilet’s tank cover and stand on tiptoes to look inside. “What are you doing?”

“Just checking the seal’s not leaking. She might have a plumbing problem, not a haunting one.”

“Oh. That’s… that makes sense.” He glanced down at his necklace. “I’m not picking up any magic in here.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not seeing anything wrong with the toilet.” Slipping her glove back on, Lucy Ann put down the lid and hopped up on it like a seat. “Whatcha got in the backpack?”

“Well, uh, I think I packed for something a bit more… exciting.” He took out a silver mirror, grimaced, and put it back as he kept digging. “I wasn’t expecting we’d need a lot to find the ghost, but, ah… oh, here it is!”

With a grin he drew out a cheap plastic Ouija board, looked for somewhere to put it down, then rested it on his lap. Lucy Ann leaned in closer.

“You know, I heard a vampire buddy of mine can move the markers on these things. I guess it makes sense – we’re technically undead.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dipper nodded along distractedly as he put his hand on the marker. For a long moment, nothing seemed to happen; he pursed his lips, sank back a little… and then suddenly perked up. “Oh! Oh, wow, I-I feel something! It’s… it’s going for the I! Okay, I, and – oh, I gotta write this down! I-A… I am! I am a… D. O… Uh, R? K? I am a dork?”

Behind him, Lucy Ann burst into cackling laughter; he jumped a bit, and then his eyebrows set into a hard line.

“Ugh, really? Was that you?”

“Oh my stars, I can’t believe that actually works!” Still chuckling, she wiped a tear from her eye. “Oh, that’s so good. That’s my new party trick for sure.”

Rolling his eyes, he looked down at his necklace again. “Yeah, yeah, very funny. Well, aside from you, I didn’t feel anything. I’m not sure there’s a ghost here at all.” He glanced around the bathroom, and grimaced. “Also sitting here is gross.”

“You ready to pack it in, then?”

He hesitated a moment longer… but then he closed the Ouija board. “Yeah.”

“Alright.” She slid off the toilet, and walked out as Dipper started packing up. He could hear her talking with Marsh in the living room: “Yeahhh, so you probably heard, we’re not picking up anything magical around here. We don't think it's a ghost.”

Rising to his feet, he held up his necklace one more time, but… nothing. With a sigh, he zipped up his backpack and hoisted it onto his shoulders. He made to shut the door, but then- well, then he wasn’t quite sure.

It was just the faintest squeak behind him, such a quiet noise he didn’t know why it made him flinch and look back. He was looking into one of the bedrooms, a half-ajar door open and showing him a window to the parking lot, walls filled with band posters and clothes strewn on the… the wooden floor.

The floorboards looked a little old, a little uneven. A thought struck him; he took a half step forward, grasped the door handle, and-

“What are you doing?”

“Huh?” Dipper looked over, and saw Marsh staring at him.

“That’s my roommate’s space.”

“Oh, sorry, I-”

“Stupid door never stays shut.” Stalking over, she closed it hard, and frowned at him. “So you guys are off already, huh?”

“Uh-” One last glance at the door, and then he nodded. “Yeah, sorry. I-I can keep looking if you want, but you know, my necklace isn’t finding any magic, and if it’s not picking up-”

“No, no, I get it. I didn’t really think it was ghosts – it’s probably just my old-ass apartment.” She rolled her eyes, but managed a smile. “But thanks for coming out.”

“Uh, yeah, no problem! Thanks for letting us look around – and, uh, if you know anyone with a ghost problem, feel free to send them our way!”

Marsh opened the front door, and as they stepped out Lucy Ann gave him a nudge. “Our way, huh? You’re quick to sign me up for things.”

“O-oh, sorry! I didn’t mean-”

She chuckled. “Ah, don’t worry about it. I guess I’ve got time in my busy schedule.” They started down the steps. “So what now? I thought that was gonna take longer.”

“Me too.” He made a face. “Did we… did we leave too early? I mean, you said there was nothing wrong with the toilet-”

“Nothing obviously wrong – I didn’t go sticking my hands in there.”

“Yeah, but what about the TV? She said it turned on when she was alone… maybe the sound was just low? But those two things at once, unexplained…”

“You wanna go back?”

Lucy Ann had stopped. It took a second for Dipper to notice; he glanced back to see her standing a few steps up, her eyebrows raised.

“Cause we can just go back, you know.”

“Go back?” Dipper tried for a chuckle. “That’d be, uh, pretty awkward-”

“So? She asked us to find a ghost; if you still think there’s one in there, we’d better go find it, right?”

“Well…” Dipper hesitated for a moment, but he put a hand on his necklace, and then shook his head. “No, no. This thing starts glowing if I walk near a magi-orb, there’s no way it’s not picking up a ghost. It’s probably just an old apartment.” When Lucy Ann kept staring at him, he added. “I mean, right? That makes sense.”

She kept up her gaze a moment longer… and then she shrugged, and skipped down to join him. “Okay,” she said. “But if we’re not going back, I’m not listening to you second-guess yourself for the next week, alright?”

“Hah, yeah, fair enough.” He dug out his car keys and hit the button; the locks clicked, and they made their way to the doors. Dipper opened his, and grimaced at the waft of oven air it blew in his face. “Ugh. Really should have parked in the shade.”

“It’s not that hot.”

“Yeah, ‘cause you’re a vampire. Makes me jealous sometimes – ow! Seat buckle’s a million degrees!” Gingerly lowering himself onto the hot seat, he missed the odd smirk Lucy Ann suddenly had to hide behind her hand. He turned on the AC, blasted it in his face, and turned to her. “Uh, so what do you wanna do now? I could go for some ice cream.”

“What? Oh, yeah, ice cream sounds good!” She fished out her phone. “Where’s that place that serves those bloodcreams – it’s by the hospital, right?”

“Uh, I think so. What’s the address?”

“I’m getting it, give me a second…”

As she searched on her phone, Dipper sat back a bit, bouncing his leg, looking around… and then up at the apartment they’d just left. One darkened window glowered down at him, and the more he stared back… it was strange, he felt like he was getting a pit in his stomach. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck, and with a frown he rubbed them. What was going on? Why did it feel…

Why did it feel like someone was staring back?

“-and 40th Street. You got that?”

“Huh?”

He looked over at Lucy Ann, who rolled her eyes and showed the phone to him.

“The address. It’s at the corner of Memorial and 40th.”

“Oh… oh, yeah, the ice cream!”

“Yeah? We were just talking about this.” She gave him a strange look. “You alright?”

“Oh, yeah, I’m alright! I’m-” One last glance up at the window… then he shook himself. “It’s nothing. Let’s get some ice cream!”

[mariacallous]

When Katie Santry picks up the call, the police have just finished their investigation. It’s 10 pm on Thursday, and, she says, cops are staying outside her Columbus, Ohio, home all night. She’s candid and friendly for someone going through what she is. Local news and curious neighbors have been outside much of the day. Online, hundreds of thousands of people have become voyeurs in her saga. Police are standing guard around the clock.

This is what happens when you ask TikTok if your house is haunted.

A few days ago, Santry and her boyfriend were putting in a fence in their yard and noticed a strange object while digging: something that appeared to be a rolled-up rug buried in the ground. A few days later, the 34-year-old opened her laptop to find the screen cracked and items on her desk misplaced. Her boyfriend and their kids said they didn’t have anything to do with it. She posted a TikTok talking about the rug and wondering aloud if her home was haunted: “I’m literally shaking.”

Santry went viral. The video currently has more than 3.1 million views.

Online sleuths—“motherfuckers,” Santry calls them—began pestering her for updates, telling her to dig up the rug, call the police. Eventually she did call, but the cops opted not to investigate further after seeing the rug.

On Thursday morning, however, Santry posted that she and some friends were going to dig up the rug later that day. Before she could, homicide investigators from the Columbus Police Department called and said they were coming. They brought cadaver dogs.

As the police searched, Santry went Live on TikTok. Investigators brought two dogs. The first one sat, indicating it smelled human remains. The second one did the same. Santry “started crying on the Live” and stopped the feed. (WIRED tried calling the public information office for the Columbus Police Department to seek comment, and the voicemail box was full. A spokesperson told The Columbus Dispatch on Friday that what was buried in Santry’s yard “could be anything” and that police were still investigating.)

“If I don’t get on a murder podcast after this, I’m going to be pissed,” Santry said in a post later Thursday night. “I’m not trying to, like, make a joke out of it … I’m absolutely freaked out, and this is how I handle things: dark humor.”

WIRED spoke to Santry late on Thursday night about that feed, being hounded online, and what it’s like when a true-crime admirer finds themselves at the center of their own episode.

Angela Watercutter: Hi, how are you?

Katie Santry: I am …

Sorry, I realized that was the wrong question as soon as I started saying it.

Yeah. I naturally almost went, “I'm good! How are you?” But it's been a day.

I guess I'll just go right into it. What is happening at your house right now? I think you said on TikTok that the police were staying overnight.

So there's two or three police officers outside the house right now. They're staying overnight, and then they are planning on having crime scene investigators here tomorrow morning.

How is that affecting your life? Obviously it's upside down, I would imagine.

I'm technically trying to protect our address as much as possible. Actually, there was a Live going on TikTok with thousands of people in it and a few people hosting it, and one of them apparently lives in my neighborhood, and I actually popped on and asked them to stop talking about where we live because they were describing my house and they were saying that we left and that the police made us leave. I came on and I basically said, “Hey, we're still here, and I would really like it if you'd stop explaining exactly what our house looks like and where we live.”

They actually ended the Live, which I appreciated. But I know there's a few others going on right now too.

A few other Lives in your neighborhood?

Not in my neighborhood. There's just a lot of Lives going on currently on TikTok of people talking about it and trying to figure out where I live, who I am.

Right. Everyone’s an investigator now. When you replied to my email earlier, you said you were locking down your Facebook. I imagine that was also part of this, right?

I was trying to make my Facebook private. I was trying to edit my name on Facebook just to help protect myself. Where I work and all that stuff was public on my Facebook. So yeah, I was just trying to edit that down to help myself.

It’s so wild to me when somebody goes viral, people will find out so many things so quickly.

My sister went into a Live and said that people are trying to figure out where I work. My sister's freaking out. So luckily we have two large dogs. We have an alarm system, and we have three police officers outside. So I feel safe.

But it's definitely bringing anxiety, everything that happened tonight, because I honestly expected the [police cadaver] dogs to find nothing and to put a bow on this and wrap it up and say, “OK, this has been fun, but it's done now.”

Have the police said anything more? I imagine they're done for this evening now.

The detectives that were here today are going to come back, and the police that are here tonight are just maintaining the crime scene and keeping our house safe.

Did you imagine any of this happening when you posted that first TikTok about your computer being broken?

Not in a million years. Basically when I came downstairs and I saw my laptop was shattered, and everyone is saying that they didn't do it, it was like, “It was the ghost from the dead body in the rug.” It was a joke. Then I posted that and everyone's like, “No, but really what's in the rug?” I had no intent of digging it out.

After it blew up, I did call the police. They came out, they looked at it, they called somebody and whoever they called was not interested in it at all. So they left and they said we could dig it out ourselves, and if we found anything, we could call them back.

Do you wonder, because you had said this morning on TikTok that you were going to dig it up yourselves, that that’s what perhaps got the police to come back?

I'm sure that's why they ended up here, because the virality of what was happening, if we had found something and the world already knew that they were here and gone and they didn't care, I think the Columbus Police Department would've been under an immense amount of fire.

How have they been communicating with you about this?

They were so nice. They were telling me how the dogs are trained. That these dogs can go to a cemetery and mark on a body that was buried a hundred years ago, and that's just wild to me. TMI, not to gross you out, but humans smell very different as they decompose than animals. So that's how they're able to decipher the difference between a dead dog and a dead person.

But they did say that there's a potential that someone had a bloody nose or cut themselves, and there's just blood [on the rug]. So there's not necessarily … I'm banking on the fact that hopefully there's not actually a body, and it maybe is just they caught wind of something else.

How does it feel at the center of all of this? I think you called folks on TikTok “impatient little bitches” for constantly asking you for updates.

They're impatient motherfuckers, that's for sure.

Tell me about that. In some ways, maybe this will help you find some resolution, but people can also be intense about these things.

If it wasn't for TikTok, I never would've called the police. I felt so silly calling them that very first time and saying, “Hey, there's a rug in the ground. I don't know if you care, but come on by if you do.” I felt so dumb making that call.

But honestly, and I told the police right after the dog hit, I looked at the detectives and I was like, if it wasn't for TikTok, this would've never happened. Obviously we don't know what's going to unfold in the coming days, but if something does, I don't know, get solved, it wouldn't have happened without TikTok. So I appreciate their impatient motherfucker bitchy attitudes.

Yes, I bet.

But there were times where it was overwhelming because I was out of town and a lot of people were getting really frustrated that I wasn't digging and I wasn't moving it faster, but I was not home. So that was kind of overwhelming to have thousands of people basically yelling at you over the internet. I was responding to some of them, and I was like, “I'm not there. I am literally working. TikTok isn't my job.” I didn't anticipate it to do what it has done.

This all started like four or five days ago. How many followers have you gathered in that amount of time?

I went from, let's see, I haven't honestly been on TikTok in hours. I went from 6,000 to 576,000, so I've gained 570,000 followers.

[Editor's note: As of this writing, she now has 1.6 million followers.]

Geez.

This is insane. That's the first time I've looked and seen it. This morning, I was at 200 something, so just today I've gone from 200,000 something to half a million people. That's the first time I've looked.

I'm sorry I made you look, to be honest.

No, it's so insane.

I'm interested in the sleuth aspect. I know because you've said in a couple of your TikToks that you are a true-crime aficionado.

Absolutely.

I'm sure you understand the sort of impulse of why people do this, but it seems like a reversal to now be potentially the center.

I feel like I’m in an episode of Crime Junkie. I usually just listen to it as I drive to work, and now I feel like I'm in an episode, so I'm like, where's Ashley Flowers? Where is she at? We need to talk. Yeah.

I was alone for the first time, just now, for a minute without my phone blowing up. I just took a deep breath and I'm like, I've watched this happen to other people in movies, and the fact that it's happening to me is blowing my mind.

Maybe this sounds like an obvious question, but does it feel different? There are a lot of conversations about the impact of people’s fascination with true crime. Has there been a moment where it got more real, in a way?

So when I was on the Live, I was singing Jeopardy! songs, because between the detectives getting here and the dogs getting here was 45 minutes. So I kept saying, “This is the commercial break,” and I full-on thought not a chance in hell was this going to happen. This was a fun ending to a crazy story, and what a cool way to end this whole thing. The dogs see nothing. They leave, case closed. That's what I was expecting.

Then the dogs smelled something.

Yeah, that first dog sat, and I audibly in the video, you hear me go and I start shaking, and that's when it became real to me. The second that white dog sat, I was like, “This just got so different.”

I bet.

You see things like this on social media and you're like, “Oh, that's so insane. One in a million.” To be that one in a million, I can't even put it into words how out-of-body … I keep feeling like I am just going to wake up, and this was all just a crazy dream.

A couple days ago you were making T-shirts.

Well, back when we, I think we had just hit 10,000 followers, we made T-shirts that said, “Just keep digging.” Again, it was a joke. Then other T-shirts that said, “I'm just here for the update.” Pretty much what every comment on my videos would say.

So yeah, my sister works in graphic design, so she made the designs and yeah, This was a funny, haha, let's ride the wave and then move it into something different once this is all done.

Was there a moment in this where it went from “Is this a haunting?” to “This might actually be something”?

The second the dog sat. Until then, I was like, this is so crazy, and I'm glad that the police are crossing their T's and dotting their I's, but this is going to be nothing, and this is just going to be funny. OK, well, we're done now. This has been fun. Thanks for watching. When that dog sat, I can't even express the shock that head to toe went through my body of no fucking way.

Also, you have a family and kids.

Yeah, and that's really when I started to panic when the dogs sat and the kids were in the house. Honestly, the panic set when the cameras got here, because my boyfriend's daughter was—she cried, she was getting upset, she was getting kind of freaked out, and that's when I was like, oh, Mylanta, this is a real thing now that's going to start happening to our family. Before this, it was just my TikTok, me making these videos and the kids weren't involved.

So the news cameras got there when the police arrived?

The news cameras got there when the dogs got there, I think, and it's probably because of my Live, so I very much brought it on myself, not even unintentionally, I guess, because I knew it was going to get some attention, but I didn't anticipate what happened.

Well, news stations often listen to police scanners, so that’s not all on you.

Yeah, it could have happened before or without my TikTok, but I definitely started panicking at that moment.

So often with TikToks, they’re one-off. There’s a resolution in the video. Watching this unfold on TikTok in real time has gotten a lot of people involved.

Without TikTok, I never would've called the police. So as much as these, like I said, impatient little bitches were driving me crazy, I told the police while we were standing here, that if it wasn't for these people pushing me to do this, we would've just put in our fence post and called it a day.

Updated 10-04-2024, 5:45pm ET: Shortly after this interview published, Katie Santry made a new post on TikTok claiming that there were no human remains discovered during the dig on her property.

[bootstrapparadoxed]

Happy STS! What part of your story has been your favourite to write, or what part are you looking forward to most? (feel free to share a snippet 👀) - @trixierosewrites

I'm gonna answer for FrankensteinWIP because I think I answered a similar question about Up the Entropic Hill at some point (but I am to lazy to find that ask,,, maybe I'll do it later).

So far my favorite part to write was a long conversation that Kristian and Leith have at one point in the story because it is basically the moment Kristian falls in love. He doesn't know that in the scene, and he probably wouldn't be able to point to that conversation as that moment in retrospect either, but that is how I see it. And the scene has some fantastic dialogue in it, in my opinion at least. I'll include a small bit at the end.

And the part I'm looking forward to writing the most is the actual horror! There's going to be some very disturbing and unsettling scenes in this book and I want to get to them so bad. The story takes a while to get there because I am spending thousands of words to set up the relationship properly but I hope it will be worth it in the end.

Snippet under the cut:

By the time we were both too sore to keep walking up and down the shore, the streets were rapidly emptying of visitors. I glanced at the lock screen of my phone; it was fairly close to midnight.

“Don’t you need to go home?” I asked, once we picked a bench to rest on. “Get some sleep?”

“This is my normal routine,” he responded. “I don’t sleep much.”

“You’re a night owl, too?”

He did not confirm nor deny that, gaze drifting away into the distance. I decided not to push it further.

My leg bounced on the ground while my eyes passively scanned my surroundings: the air after-rain fresh, the sky cloudy and starless. Occasionally some drunken British tourists would pass by our bench, their booming voices carried an impressive distance. Apart from us, the only living soul around was a lone figure of a fisherman, stood knee deep in water a hundred or so meters away. Having concluded most of our discussion threads, we landed in a silent interlude. The conversation, though exhilarating, wasn’t exactly easy. Leith and I agreed on very little, and constantly changed our minds when presented with compelling arguments. Increasingly, I felt like my head was full of warm scrambled eggs.

“So yes.” Leith said, after a solid few minutes of utter silence.

“Yeah,” I agreed. We both shared a moment of laughter. “That was… yeah.” Suddenly, I blushed. I felt like we had just hooked up in the supply closet at the institute and were hurriedly dressing each other, afraid of being busted by a cleaner or a curious undergrad.

“You don’t have much people to talk to,” he told me – a statement, not a question. “And you are so, so bored. Even in this program, even surrounded by scientists. You’re so bored, it must be excruciating.”

“I think I am lonely more than I am bored,” I suddenly confessed. Up until a few minutes ago, I did not know this about myself. Feelings were a rare occurrence, and it usually took me days if not weeks to identify them. “All my classmates graduated and moved, and I don’t get along with younger PhD students. I don’t… connect to people particularly well.”

“What about your family?” Leith leaned back in the bench, looking away from my face.

“I haven’t spoken to anyone in years,” I responded calmly. “They did not take well to me being queer.”

“Ah.”

“Not that I got along with them much before coming out. My dad is a recovering alcoholic who did not get his shit together until most of his family stopped associating with him. He’s yet to gain back their trust. My mother did not want to have me, I think; I spent my childhood listening to her lament on how terribly my basic needs interfered with her work. And my grandparents, who basically raised me, thought it would be kind to bully me for my weirdness before my classmates did. Being disowned felt almost like being released from the obligation to like them. Still, that was my entire financial safety net I lost.”

“Did you know that living alone has comparable health effects to smoking?” he asked, in a very matter-of-fact voice. “They say the same about breathing the air in Krakow, so I must be at death’s door by now. Even now that I quit the actual smoking.”

I blinked, unsure of how to react. The remark felt like a dagger to the back.

“Unfortunately I can’t quit either Krakow or being alone,” I muttered.

“Oh,” his voice changed in a split second, “I didn’t mean to say you made yourself lonely on purpose. Really. The opposite. Actually,” he gave a nervous chuckle, “it was a, well, an attempt of a…” he made brief eye contact with me, and I could have sworn he seemed almost panicked. “Never mind,” he waved his hand, dismissing the topic. “Let’s just pretend I did not say that.”

[hughungrybear]

Me while watching Last Twilight Ep. 7:

I am sooooo ready for the real flirting and courtship between P'Mhok and Nong Day to commence 😁

1. So yeah, I have read so many meta writing concerning August and what motivated him to do what he did (shoutout to Mark Pakin for unknowingly being the root cause of all my angst against August 😅). Those who tried to understand August are a lot better persons than I am. My petty ass would still like August's head on a platter 😅😅😅😅

2. Okay, the starting scene feels like Bad Buddy Episode 6 all over again - the awkward tension after a rooftop kiss 😭😭😭 P'Aof, why do you do this?

3. That's it, if we are not getting GeePorjai in this series, I am more than willing to marry Porjai myself 😂😂😂

4. No, Gee. Day does not have to patch things up with that d*ckhead August. <after 2 minutes> I am still amazed of how selfless Mhok can be that he is still willing to let Day meet August despite of everything because it will make Day happy. I guess as Porjai said, when Mhok loves, he loves deeply and passionately - and it shows 🥺🥺🥺

5. Hmmm, I guess they are trying to somehow redeem August? Ngl, the speech was good. But I'm still putting that "pity kiss" on my list of unforgiveable things along with Non's stalker behaviour (Dark Blue Kiss) and Wai's curtain drop (Bad Buddy).

6. Gee knows Day so well 😂😂😂 Also, wtf did you mean Mhok is not your type, Day??? What exactly is your type anyway? After August, one might have thought you would re-calibrate your standards. <after 5 seconds> Oh, no. 😰 That's just selfish, Day. It will be torturous for Mhok to stay and care for you, knowing how he feels about you. It's like leading him on. You should have followed Gee's suggestion, if this is the case 😔

7. Mhok is taking what he can get, I see. I just hope this does not end in heartbreak - mine. I am so tired of crying with every episode 😂😂😂

8. Porjai is just trying as Mhok's wingwoman 😂😂😂 Good thing she does not have to try that hard since it seems like Day is slowly accepting his feelings for Mhok.

9. Day sniffing Mhok's blanket - how Pat-coded you are 😂😂😂 Yes, I still have a Bad Buddy brain rot. 😅😅😅 Also, dang, Mhok's neighbours. Let other people sleep 😆

10. (Sigh) I guess what we'll get is a NightPorjai agenda (goodbye, my GeePorja ship)? Night really seems to care about Day despite the latter's animosity against him.

11. Oh, Day. 😔 You should never have put boundaries on something that you wanted to cross yourself. <after five seconds> OKAY!!! Finally boyfriends!!!! For a second, I thought I'll be hating Day in the next episodes.

12. Mhok is just gonna get cheesier, isn't he? He is going to be insufferable, won't he? Ngl, I'm a bit scared for Day 😂😂😂😂

OH, NO. DAY IS GOING FULL BLIND 😱😱😱

I guess the next episodes will focus on what happened between Night and Day. Ongoing theory in socmed is that Night is the reason for Day's condition. I'm not convinced because P'Aof has that reputation of subverting the 'obvious' in what motivates his characters' actions - i.e., Mes' uncle's financial woes led him to watch Mes die from a heart attack in He's Coming to Me, Tian's illegal race bet causing Torfun's death in ATOTS, and Ming betraying his bff, Dissaya, by stealing her scholarship grant as the root cause of the family rivalry in BBS.

I really am curious to see what P'Aof has cooked up this time. Plus, it's a beach episode next week 😊

[tonydaddingham]

i can't wait until more time has passed and our emotions have settled and we are able to properly analize this season because i am THE MOST CURIOUS what your idea of a satisfying ending is to this story, taking into account that Neil has answered that he has plotted season 3 in a way for it to be satisfying, and i mean that from both the second coming storyline and, most important for my emotional health, the husbands' romantic storyline

*cracks knuckles* let's do this @swansdreaming✨

tbh, and y'all might come for me on this, the satisfying ending to me won't be a full on Everything Is Okay Now and We're Loving Happily Ever After. aside from the fact that im not sure that's GO-style in the first place, i think that there would need to be a LOT of ground to make up in six episodes to reach that point.

neil has said that they get a cottage in the south downs iirc (can't remember exactly how he worded it), and that i could see happening. i could see literally the end scene being that they have a slightly awkward but genuine, all-cards-have-already-been-laid-bare but i-do-love-you-please-never-doubt-that dinner at the Ritz (bc of course), and aziraphale - harking back to the Nothing Lasts Forever moment - decides to sell the shop, to begin again together rather than separately, on equal footing, and put the money into the cottage. gives crowley the listing, with something along the lines of, "we could start building forever here."

and i think leaving it somewhat there, and open to the interpretation of the audience, would be the most genuine thing that could happen. that's thousands of years of hurt compounded into a season, and it'll take some time to get over... so it'll need to be left slightly open ended, maybe with crowley just saying, "yeah... that could work.", and maybe another fond look over the champagne or something.

i toyed with the idea that if they somehow come face to face with Her, that they might be given the choice to become human... and they both actively choose to a) decide together, for their side, and b) ultimately refuse, because they both want that forever to literally be for eternity. they're earth's guardians, after all.

heaven and hell will still exist but be in equal balance, possibly not even really having changed much at all... just that post-war, they are under new management with the promise that things will Change... but it won't ultimately matter to either of the boys because they have something more important to them than whatever heaven/hell get up to... not everything can have a happy ending.

so that's the emotional side done - tbh i have no idea re: the second coming, because other than the pretty obvious (to me anyway) indication that it's greasy johnson, we don't have a lot to go on... metatron will have died or st idk, plans to thwart the Ineffable Plan in turn thwarted, and everything calmly exists in balance once again.

so no idea on the second coming, but maybe the bits on our boys will tide you over?✨💓💓

[swashbucklery]

I didn't want to ask something you've already answered before, so I searched your blog but only found one brief mention about why you didn't watch it. Cool :) But i'm just curious, have you seen some of the avatrice gifs from Warrior Nun? Do they seem like a ship that might appeal to you if you had been able to finish the show? I had resisted them for awhile but finally decided to check out some of their scenes and yea, i definitely understand it now

Anon, trust me when I say I have been made fully aware of a) the existence of Warrior Nun, b) the existence of Avatrice, and c) the fact that it is full of Complicated Pseudoreligious Gay Yearning and d) that there are gifs.

I have lots of mutuals that are having a really nice time liking Warrior Nun, and I wish them all the best? It is just super not my thing, for no real reason that I can pinpoint, it's just - blah to me.

(Actually this is not true, I have a hair trigger for fake gore and there is a shot early in the pilot where like a magic thing just fucking shreds through someone's torso in visceral CGI blood spraying everywhere detail and to be honest no lesbians are worth that to me.)

I'm not sure if I'd like them outside of the context of the show, because for me those are the same thing. I don't ever get into ships just through cut scenes, I have to dive into the world those characters are in to connect.

I am still deep in the Willow hole (wocka, wocka) and will be for quite a while, because the writer's strike isn't getting any overer and it ticks literally every one of my narrative boxes as though a five year old mashed all the buttons on the elevator to my heart.

The things that are doing it for me for Willow are:

the total lack of a modern setting, so I don't have to figure out how to reconcile the new media trend of pretending all things are set in a COVID Never Happened AU despite the fact that it is the crushing shadow looming behind all of our realities, the cognitive dissonance gives me hives

(do i want dumb tv shows to tackle COVID absolutely not but it's weird that we're just like yeah in this show it's 2023 and the past 3 years were exactly like 2019 was don't uhhh worry about it)

like it's just so fucking weird IT'S SO FUCKING WEIRD and i know some of this is production cycles but we were watching the last movie in the To All The Boys series and she graduates in 2020 and I could not get it out of my head the choice!!! Like that year and date will not be indelibly linked to A Time and yet I also see how you can't change that story to include COVID and also I know how media timelines work but it is so fucked up WHY

::What A Time To Be Alive by Fall Out Boy plays softly in the background::

anyway

uh

SWORDS

the ability to have both a Canon WLW Ship as well as Several Other Fun Non-Canon WLW Ships

not one but three main characters that i have imprinted upon like the most impressionable of baby geese

complex narratives about growth and hope and fighting adversity and the way that all of those struggles are secretly love

balls to the wall dumb fantasy tropes used without a whiff of self-referential irony

the actors touch objects in the world

room to have 80 million intricate textile headcanons and play with frilly bits of worldbuilding like a 19th century dandy constructing ships in bottles

a fandom that hits the sweet spot of large enough to have steady content and community, yet small enough that i can fully curate ship drama out of my habitat

[sarasade]

Your latest viravos fanart actually made me realize that viravos aside, Aaravos probably views Virens body in a slightly messed up way. Although that Aaravos doesn't reallycare about bodily autonomy has been made clear with Callum, Viren throughout their relationship willingly gives Aaravos control over it. I am still curious how 'I see you, my vessel' is hopefully going to have consequences. But also Aaravos going from Virens ear to his eye to his throat and full-on body possession + repairing

edit: this ask was 2 parter

"or as you wrote it 'putting Virens body' back together with Claudias help, might give an Elv the idea that VIrens body and by extension Viren himself belong to him, especially since Viren (after a bit of manipulation) gives in so easily. I am actually betting on their being a scene either with Viren confronting Aaravos or Claudia confronting/talking to a Aaravospossessed!Viren where Aaravos is amused by being told that Viren(s body) doesn't belong to him."

-------

Yeah. Aaravos seems to view humans, or at least Claudia, Viren and Callum, as means to an end. It's kind of interesting since Viren is similarly utilitarian. Many parallers in this series. What is 'I see you, my vessel' a reference to? One of the OST songs? Aaravos's theme?

I'm very much interested in seeing what Aaravos will need Viren for exactly. Why not just use Claudia? maybe bringing Viren back to life was just as much about teaching and shaping Claudia to Aaravos's liking.

[momo-wants-siesta]

THE BASTARD OF CAMELOT [REVIEW]

-PART 1-

I been told to start with this one. "The bastard of Camelot" by "Llamagirl" in itch.io, using twine.

So another Arthurian IF, nothing new, nothing original, but with the diference that we get to play as Mordred, it seems.

I must admit that I am curious to see how this story unfolds.

If done well, it can always be an interesting perspective, living the story through the eyes of the supposed villain or outcast.

Without further ado, let's get down to business (Spoilers included)

PROLOGUE

Well flowery prose is going to be a thing, but I don't see as something necesarily bad.

We start with the scene of a Morgana, girlbossing the whole court of Camelot, because she can. Let's assume that the baby she's carrying is Morded, who will be the MC, but the scene serves quite well as a prologue. It's fun to see Arthur's reactions, possibly questioning his life, and the fact that a hottie made him go full Alabama, without realizing it.

Let me tell you that I must break a lance in favor of King Arthur here. Okay, the guy was hot as balls, but that doesn't justify that Morgana knew very well what she was doing. I hope the game doesn't try to justify this. So the one who screwed up was Uther, not Arthur. But well, I'm seeing that she'll be a great mother by now.

So basically, the kid will not be reconigzed, yadda yadda. It's me or we gonna have a Evil Merlin this time? Well, I look forward to it, once again. It may be interesting.

I don't know what are the author intentions, but Arthur looks like a good chap to me. I mean it seems the game is gonna take an actual quite realistic approach to the whole political thing, which I'm already grateful for already. Too many if go into weird cartoonish systems, or the typical "peasants are dumb" by default. So I can understand the whole "let's hide the kid identity"

Morgana is not exactly winning many points with me, she is almost hysterical. Like, lady pls calm down, and think of your child.

But we need the drama. Give to us.

I mean, okay I can understand she is angry, Uther was a complete asshole, but hell how is this Arthur's fault? The man wasn't even there. Like seriously my woman.

Tbh I never been a fan of the Sins of the father, unless the child are like 100% okay with what the parent did, and doesn't seem to be the case. And now we even get prophecy time. MC is totally gonna fuck over Camelot they say.

Chapter 1 & 2

Okay so get start at 6 years old. Tender age with mommy dearest explaining stuff to us.

Well I gotta say that what this IF is doing right, is basically writing a child properly. And in the IF world that's not a easy feat. The smol Mordred is annoying, so this means the author is doing a great job.

I knew Morgana would give me my vibes. Woman is hellbend on this useless revenge of his, to the point of ignoring her own child wishes. I should have expected that. Let's have a child to use them as a tool, what can go wrong.

Well it good to see that Junia's doesn't seem to agree with Morgana's bullshit. Well I'm Junia right now, I don't dislike Morgana at all, but woman what the heck are you doing.

Oh heck yeah, I'm not letting see your father, but I'm gonna abandon you at 6 for a fucking month, because my delusions are more important. Talk about motherly priorities here.

Good to know she is fucking the knight.

I feel bad for Mordred tbh. Lesons at 6. Man that's rough. Let the smol child go outside and play. They have rights.

Oh but of course "mind controlling" is seen as something positive by Morgana. This woman is far gone, I tell you.

You know you may be fucking up, when even your friend questions your bullshit.

Too much skin options for my taste, but hey, hurray for customization.

Once again, it's good to know Morgana has been shit talking Arthur to their own child. WOMAN PLEASE STOP. Ofc Junia is here to save the day. Like I'm sure the man ain't perfect, but hell. That's an ass move.

You can't never have a fantasy history, without the local "church" being assholes.

I like the Merlin child. She is cool. Looks quite mature.

So now we are finally going to the continent, and of course all mother dearest can think about is, CONQUERING THE PLACE.

It's good to know that we got another father, that we don't know about EITHER.

Well a bit of bullying and a bit of roughing. Just another afternoon. It's time for some fireworks I guess.

I love Morgana enabling the violence.

OKAY NANA IS THE MOST BASED CHARACTER, SHE GETS IT.

So there was another child. This woman is literally trying to take children to Avalon ignoring the parents. Someone call Arthurian social services. We got a grave case here.

So, you isolated your child, and now you want them to be friends with the other child. Oh yes, nothing wrong here.

We gotta meet our dragon, wowie time.

FINAL TOUGHTS

Okay I gotta admit this have been a good read. I didn't notice I was finishing chapter 2 already.

The prose is flowery but it's easy to read too, and I'm must admit that I like how the character are getting fleshed out (The main ones at least) it's good to see everybody has a different valid perspective. The customization options were entertaining, but they don't seem to affect the narrative, or at least not yet.

It's good that I didn't get a lore dump, the author seem to be taking the "show don't tell" at heart, which is something positive, specially on a fantasy setting.

So In general, I look forward to see how it gonna go from there. I hope there's a timeskip, no matter hoe well written, being a kid can get boring.

I can't wait to be able to interact with the Camelot knights and Arthur himself, and see which options are avaible.

And with this, I finish the first part of the review.

[cottonraincoat]

wip wednesday

aromantic obi-wan & quinlan edition. yeah I'm still writing that

I think by the time I'm happy with this I will have posted every scene in these snippets

---

“Do you ever wonder?” Obi-Wan asked, one Love Day Dex’s Trip or another, “What all this,” he gestured around them, “is about?” 

Quinlan blinked.

“What do you mean?”

“You know,” Obi-Wan shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “The ‘love’ thing.” 

Quinlan immediately grimaced, which made Obi-Wan hide a smile. 

“Do you have to ask?” he said, as if offended and betrayed that Obi-Wan should say such a thing. 

“Why, what’s wrong with it?” 

“Hm, a path to the dark side, it is.” Quinlan harrumphed, making a funny face.

“Not even try, you did.” Obi-Wan snarked right back, “come on, answer the question.” 

Quinlan’s mouth twists around a new mouthful of burger. “It just creeps me out.” he swallows, “I mean, if you’ve touched the wrong wedding ring or a locket, you’d agree with me. It kriffs you up. You know what I mean, don’t you? It makes them so… sad, and makes them willing to cut off an arm and a leg just for a feeling. I mean, sure, they’re happy sometimes, but it’s like you become obsessed— possessed, even. You turn into someone you can barely recognize.” The young man shook his head. “That’s no thanks from me.” 

Obi-Wan stuck his tongue into the side of his cheek. So, the story books and old folks on their porch liked to say, the galaxy was full of young men declaring that they too didn’t want this until it found them. But it was rare enough that Quinlan took the topic seriously, and Obi-Wan had no doubt he knew exactly what he wanted. 

Obi-Wan wasn’t satisfied, however. A part of him, the part that knew by then how much sadness his heart was made of, went quiet. Something didn’t add up. As much as he knew what Quinlan was talking about, it wasn’t… exactly what he asked. 

After all, people were meant to come into each other’s lives and shuffle the parts about, weren’t they? 

“Now, see,” Obi-Wan leaned forward, propping his elbows on the table and crossing his hands, “if I hadn’t dragged you to the Lothal natural history museum, you wouldn’t have ever seen yourself doing that,” he grinned triumphantly when Quin rolled his eyes, “much less realize how much you’d love it. Hasn’t that turned you into someone you don’t recognize?” 

Quinlan snorted. “Lothcat aren’t people.” 

“Well but I am!” Bold now, and pushing his luck with the funny word, “don’t you love me, Quin?” 

Quin’s expression in reaction was appropriately bemused, before it turned thoughtful. He seemed to push it around his head, while leveling a curious look at Obi-Wan, understanding, perhaps, more than he let on. 

Because, well, for all that Obi-Wan found the holodramas frivolous and vain, thought himself steadfast and unwavering in his march towards the goal, the dream of becoming a Jedi Knight— he hadn’t realized just how much he was inclined to give his heart away. Melida/Daan was the first time. And even that was only a variation on the theme of his reaching towards Qui-Gon, a Master that, in spite of everything, showed so little love, and being needed. 

This was why Obi-Wan wanted another loose canon to check himself against, knowing what he by himself was susceptible to. It’s been many years and many Love Days of eyerolls, but Obi-Wan could not shake this damning knowledge of himself. That he loved, and loved deeply. In a way he couldn’t explain, a way the rest of the world and their flashy Love Day adverts thought inconsequential, or unseemly to talk about.

“Does it have to be called love?” Quinlan said then, a bit softer. “Maybe it’s just me,” he conceded. “I’m always spending time with the evidence of how it twisted and hurt them. It’s not the happy endings that needed investigating. But still…”

“But still,” Obi-Wan crossed his arms, feeling irrevocably exposed, “Love isn’t always about lovers.” 

“Maybe you’re right,” Quinlan took another bite of the burger, pulling out a bit of leafy green and twirling it between his fingers. “You can call it anything else. I trust you, with my life, and I admire you. I enjoy hanging out with you, because you say stuff like this. I look up to you, even though you have to stand on a chair for it, and I am proud of you for how far you’ve come since the day I met you.” He grinned, “See? And it makes you squirm just as much as if I’d said I love you.” 

“Now you’re just being stubborn.” 

“And so are you.” Quinlan pointed at him with the floppy leaf.

Obi-Wan grimaced, and Quinlan laughed.

[yeowangies]

Close Encounter

Chapter l | Chapter ll: Human Emotions | Chapter lll | Chapter lV | Chapter V

❧

PAIRING: Raditz/Reader RATING: T CONTENTS: Little Angst (blink and you miss it), Canon Divergence AU, Romance WORDCOUNT: 4855

Summary:

“So you’re telling that guy- the alien I had sex with, kidnapped his nephew? And tried to kill his own brother?”

“Yes!” Bulma yelled, exasperated because you asked that question several times already.

“And you want ME to help you bring him back to health?!”

Notes:

me: I'm just gonna write a sequel chapter, nothing too complicated me, over 15k words later: goddamnit

So yeah, there's three more chapter after this. I already wrote 90% of the whole story, so I'll update every two or three days.

I read Raditz' scenes in the manga like ten times, trying to somehow analyze his character, even if he is in the story for two minutes. I TRIED to not be a little ooc with him but then again, we never see him outside a battle context so... I tried my best.

I didn't go into detail about Raditz's fight with Goku and Piccolo, but what I imagined happened is inspired by JsCandyHell's Rademption comic, the first chapter. It's public if you're curious, you can look it up on his twitter account.

Raditz woke up on a bed in a room so bright it seemed surreal. 

The next thing he saw was your face, staring right at him.

“Am I dead…?”

You arched an eyebrow, smiling faintly. 

“You’re not dead. Not for lack of trying.” You replied.

He remembered you. That girl who was there when he got to Earth. That girl he fucked almost as soon as he stepped out of his pod. If he wasn’t dead (he knew he wasn’t meant for heaven or anything, but your face was a pleasant sight that left him bewildered), why were you there? 

The vague smile on your face quickly disappeared, and you walked away from him. He scanned the room quickly; it seemed like some kind of medical bay, similar to the ones at homebase, full of machines and screens that seemed connected to him. The next thing he noticed, or rather, felt, was a pain in his torso. He grunted through gritted teeth, and realized he was bandaged all over his upper body. He recoiled instinctively, only making the pain worse.

“Don’t move too much,” You told him with a surprisingly cold voice. “You’re gonna open your wounds.”

Raditz narrowed his eyes at you, still feeling like he was impaled in the stomach quite literally. Your voice sounded different than the last time he heard it. Albeit it was under very different circumstances, but he didn’t understand why you talked to him that way. He didn’t even understand what you were doing there, or where there even was. 

“I’ll have food brought in, I assume you’re hungry.” You said while pressing some numbers on some kind of panel and holding a tube to your ear. 

He looked at you warily. It’s not like he could do much in the state he was in. If you wanted to kill him or something like that, he supposed he wouldn’t be able to fight back, even if you were a mere human.

While you talked to someone through that tube, ordering things to be brought there, Raditz tried to recall what exactly happened. He obviously remembered you, it was impossible not to. He also remembered taking his brother’s son, his nephew, and subsequently fighting Kakarot and that green guy. Everything after that was blurry. 

He groaned, in pain, and because he remembered that that brat, Kakarot’ son, had destroyed his pod. He was stranded on that miserable planet for all he knew, a planet that had such ancient technology, he knew for sure earthlings had not discovered how to travel in space. 

“Woman,” Raditz called you, and you turned to look at him. “What the fuck is going on?”

“You don’t remember?” You asked him with furrowed brows.

“Where is this place?” He saw your face hardened when he ignored your question, but he went on. “And what are you doing here?”

“I happen to be close with one of your brother’s friends. Remember? The brother you tried to kill?”

There was bitterness in your voice. He understood you were offended by his actions but he didn’t really get why, and he didn’t want to bother thinking about it. 

“For some reason, he wanted you to live despite what you did. So we are helping you heal. Everyone else was too afraid of you, and I already knew you, so I was basically left in charge to look after you.” 

He raised an eyebrow. You had some guts for sure. Though he supposed it was the fact that he was too injured to even try to hurt you. He could still taunt you though.

“Do your friends know what we did then?” Raditz smirked. 

You scowled, the tips of your ears getting red. 

“I would have never done that with you if I had known you were-!” You didn’t finish your sentence, and you turned your back to him. 

“‘Were’ what? If I remember correctly, you enjoyed what we did quite a lot, if your screams were enough proof.” He sneered at you, amused by your reaction. “No point in action so righteous now.”

“Having sex and trying to kill your family is not nearly the same thing.” 

He chuckled, and you turned your face to the side to look at him.

“Do you not see anything wrong in what you did?”

“No,” He replied immediately, the smirk never leaving his lips. “I asked my brother to join us. He said he would rather stay here than help us. He is a disgrace to our race.”

Raditz wouldn’t admit it, but he didn’t want to kill his own brother. Not for any sentimental reason, but simply because he was one of the four Saiyans left. It would not have done any good to reduce the race even more. They still needed him nonetheless, but if he wasn’t going to cooperate then he had no other choice. 

Your eyes were bewildered when he answered. 

“I would have never had sex with you if I knew you were a monster.”

He glared at you. Your words stung. Apparently attraction had a moral stipulation on that planet. 

“You still did it, however.”

It was your turn to glare at him. 

Neither of you spoke until the food arrived. 

*

“So you’re telling that guy- the alien I had sex with, kidnapped his nephew? And tried to kill his own brother?”

“Yes!” Bulma yelled, exasperated because you asked that question several times already.

“And you want ME to help you bring him back to health?!”

“Uh… yes.”

“Why?!”

“I think the answer is obvious.”

You groaned, rubbing your temples. 

“We fucked, we are not married!”

“I know that, but…” Bulma sighed. You knew she understood perfectly well why you were in disbelief of the whole conversation. “The guy is ruthless. And you actually formed some kind of bond with him.”

“I would barely call that a ‘bond’. And I don’t know how much that would matter to him if he attacked his own brother…”

“Well, Goku did ask us to let him live. Before he died.”

You pursed your lips. That Goku guy must have been something else if he forgave his own brother like that, especially after what he did to his son. Bulma told you he could come back to life once they gathered the ‘Dragon Balls’, some magical wish-granting orbs. You believed her because she had told you stories about it before. 

“I think maybe this guy… would soften with you.” Bulma went on. 

“You’re putting too much faith in me.” You sighed and paused, considering it for a moment. “Fine.”

Bulma pumped her fist in the air at your positive answer. 

“I’m staying at Capsule Corp. until he heals.”

“Yeah, about that. He can’t stay here.”

“What?!”

“I mean, he is staying here! But once he is strong enough to move… I don’t want him around.”

“What the fuck are you telling me? That he is gonna have to stay with me in my house?”

“Yes! I’m so glad you understand!” Bulma smiled cheerfully. 

“Bulma, what the fuck?! You just told me this man is violent and you want me to keep him around, at my place?!”

“I’m sorry! It wouldn’t be any different if he stayed here. I mean, Goku died and Piccolo almost killed him, but without Goku, he wouldn’t be able to do much! So we are all doomed if you can’t somehow mellow this guy out.”

“So that’s your brilliant plan? You want me to influence him somehow?”

“Well yeah.”

How the fuck were you gonna do that? Bulma was insane for suggesting such a thing. It’s not like you were some kind of preacher. What would you even say to Raditz that could possibly change his mind about attacking Earth and all that stuff?

For what you knew, the two other aliens, the Saiyans, were already on their way to Earth, and they will arrive in less than a year. There was no way to put that off. What everyone was worried about is Raditz taking revenge on the damage he took while he was trying to recruit his brother, which would be fairly easy, according to what Bulma told you. That Piccolo guy (the same Piccolo Daimao that threatened to conquer the world some years ago, you remembered that event well from the news and again, from what Bulma had told you since she had been a witness of it all)  was strong but he wouldn’t stand a chance against him. 

And the only reason Raditz was alive was because Goku asked them not to kill him. Because he was strong and he wanted to fight him again.

Bulma’s other friends were strange. 

Compassion wasn’t a bad way to go about things, however. You just doubted if it would affect someone who had done what Raditz did. 

It made shivers run up your spine. Yes, you had sex with the man. It was insanely good. Out-of-this-world good. But after learning everything that had happened, you weren’t so sure about how you felt. You didn’t know if you regretted it or not, despite what you had told Raditz when he woke up. You were angry he didn’t seem to show a pinch of remorse. And if you thought about the fact that there was blood on his hands, your stomach would sink. 

You barely talked to him after that day, too angry and confused to twist your arm and show him any kind of emotion. But the ‘plan’ (if one could even call it a plan) Bulma had wasn’t going to end well if you didn’t get along with him. Since he didn’t seem to show any guilt for his actions, you would have to move around it and take a different approach. Somehow. 

“How are you feeling?” You asked Raditz one morning, as soon as you walked into the medical room he was staying in.

He had recovered pretty fast for someone who had a literal hole in his body, and you figured it was the alien genes that helped him heal. 

Raditz narrowed his eyes on you. You hadn’t really asked him anything in the last couple of weeks, he must have been disoriented, you figured. 

“What do you want?” He asked after a moment of silence.

“What?”

“You haven’t spoken to me unless you had to. Why are you asking me how I feel?”

You blinked, confused.

“I genuinely want to know how you are feeling. Your injuries were pretty bad.”

“Is that a human thing? Asking me how I feel?”

You rubbed your temples, feeling put off by his skepticism. 

“I don’t know. Nevermind.” 

You wanted to turn around and walk out, the awkward silence that followed made you feel stupid since it was your idea to start a conversation. You didn’t leave though, taking a seat across the room where you always sat, near the only window in the room. It was so tiny you could barely see Bulma’s garden from there, but it kept you distracted every time you sat there, especially those last few days, when you got tired of reading through some magazines you brought with you to make the time go faster.

“What made you change your mind?” Raditz asked you, and you turned to look at him.

“What?”

“You seemed pretty angry when I said I didn’t regret what I did.” The tone in his voice was even, and he had a blank expression on his face. “So why are you talking to me now?”

“I’m tired of being angry,” You said genuinely. “We should… try to get along.”

“Why?” He squinted at you.

“Well, you are gonna be here for a while, and I’m looking after you so…”

“I don’t understand.” He practically growled. You probably should have been afraid of him (and maybe deep down you were a little), but something told you he wasn’t going to hurt you. “Why are you even helping me?”

“Your brother told us to let you live. I wasn’t there, but from what I was told, he said something about fighting you again.”

“Is that it? Because Kakarot told you to let me go?”

You were confused for a second until you realized ‘Kakarot’ was Goku. 

“Yeah…” You carefully considered your next words so as not to make him angry. Or angrier. “He was compassionate even after what you did.”

“You humans are disgusting.” Raditz snorted.

Staring at his face, you could tell he wasn’t as infuriated as he seemed. He definitely was surprised though.

“Yeah, well, you are still stuck here with me.” 

He looked at you up and down. As confused as you were about your feelings towards him, you still had to fight your own body so as not to blush under his gaze. 

“I guess I could do worse.” He said.

“Gee, thanks.”

“And I would hate it if our thing got ruined because of a tiny mistake.” He smirked at you.

“A tiny mistake? Our thing?!” You really couldn’t help flushing by then.

“I did say I was going to come to you. Seems like I didn’t even have to do that since you are here on your own accord.”

“I- It’s not- No!” You balked. 

He laughed mockingly and you glared at him. 

*

“You’re gonna be staying at my place from now on, so be careful! I don’t want you breaking anything.” You told Raditz once you arrived at your house. 

It wasn’t big, but it was enough for you. With Raditz staying there now, you were worried it was a little cramped. 

“Yeah, you already told me that.” He rolled his eyes, looking around curiously.

The living room and kitchen were spacious, and so was the bathroom. Your bedroom and the extra room weren’t as wide, but you managed to have a queen size bed for yourself. The extra room had a single bed, and you were considering sleeping there and offering him your own bed since he was so big. 

Raditz still had to change the bandages on his torso, but he could move around by then. You still had to learn how to properly bind him up on your own. Any human would get an infection easily if you didn’t know how to do it right, but witnessing how fast Raditz had healed, you doubt he would even be affected by the things humans were weak to. 

“I’ll start dinner. You can hang around here or you can even go outside if you want, just don’t go too far.” You paused, eyes widening. “Wait, no, don’t go outside.”

“What, think I’ll run away?” He chuckled, and you gulped, facepalming yourself in your head. “There’s nothing you can do to stop me, is there?”

“Well you haven’t tried my cooking yet! I wouldn’t leave without a proper meal.” 

It was a stupid way to convince him if he truly wanted to leave, but there was really nothing you could do, or anyone else for that matter, except persuade him with words. 

But the way he was looking at you reminded you of how he stared at you the moment you met. 

“You’re right, I could eat something.” 

He sat down by the kitchen table the entire time you were cooking. You could feel his eyes on you the whole time; it made you feel incredibly self-conscious, especially since you had your back to him most of the time. It was silly you felt that way after everything that had happened between you two, but you still weren’t sure about how you felt about him. Or more like you weren’t sure you accepted how you felt.

At least physically, you were still attracted to him. You saw him shirtless a bunch of times ever since you met him, and you still let your eyes roam over his body. His muscles were impressive to say the least. And he was just so big. You were too weak for his looks, which was literally why you were in that situation in the first place. If only you had a little self-control. 

His stares never went beyond that the first few days. Raditz never tried anything, and only roamed around the house or in the yard, where you watched him work out, doing things that he shouldn’t be doing in his condition. Yet when you went to change his bandages, he was healing just fine. You were amazed, he would probably be completely healed in four or five months at most. And considering how he was close to dying, you simply couldn’t believe it.

It was then, when you were almost done binding him up, that his eyes lingered on you long enough for you to be bothered by them. You could feel him staring intensely at you at random moments during the day, but when you were so close to him, it affected you, even your hands started shaking.

“Stop staring at me!” You told him a week after you had both moved back to your place. 

You were getting tired of his lingering gaze, especially when you were holding scissors in your hands, ready to get rid of his old bandages. He was sitting on the couch next to you, your knees touching one of his thighs, as he remained as still as possible while you tried to do the simple work of helping him recover. Which was hard to do when he would not stop staring at you. 

“You keep looking at me ever since we got here, why?”

“Are you still upset?” Raditz asked you with an emotionless voice.

“Huh?”

“With me, are you still upset?”

You were taken aback as you stared right back at him. You couldn’t read him at all. But you knew he was referring to your first conversation when you practically told him you regretted ever meeting him. 

“‘Upset’ is not the right word.” You finally said after some time.

“What is it then?”

You fidgeted and remained silent. You were confused and reluctant to accept that you still found him attractive. Especially after spending so much time with him. 

Raditz was actually nice to have around, which was confusing. Though most of your conversations were superficial, he teased you and you could give back as much as you got (most of the time, if he didn’t say anything that would make you blush). But you never asked him about anything regarding his life prior to what happened once he got here. And he never questioned you about your own either. 

When you felt one of his hands on your thigh, you flinched. When he slid his fingers upwards, you grabbed his wrist instantly to stop him. 

You knew he could keep going if he wanted to. While you weren’t afraid of him anymore, you were still aware of the fact that Raditz could overpower you if he so wished. So you were surprised when he didn’t yank off your hand, but he pulled away from you altogether instead. 

“Sorry…” You murmured after a while, resuming your work on his bandages once more.

Raditz ran one of his hands through his hair, visibly a little nervous. 

“You don’t have to apologize.”

The silence that followed afterwards was awkward, and he avoided your eyes for the rest of the day.

*

Raditz didn’t understand you. He didn’t understand humans. 

He knew you were upset (you said that wasn’t the right word, but you didn’t offer any other variant) about what he had done, but he still didn’t understand why. His actions did not affect you directly. 

The more time he spent in your house, he began to see that family was important to Earthlings, or at least to you it was. You had a picture of your mother and father in the living room, he didn’t ask you about them but he knew because they simply looked so much like you. He overheard you on the phone one day too, talking to your mother and even telling her you loved her.

There was this big device called TV that you would watch sometimes that also gave him an insight of how humans lived and worked. Apparently other people’s actions affected them when they were close to one another. 

Raditz remembered his parents very well. His mother and father were not exactly normal compared to other Saiyan. For once, they seemed to hold a lot of affection for each other. They also cared for him and Kakarot. Other Saiyan parents didn’t exactly mistreat their children, but once in the incubators, they would simply leave them to go on a mission, not seeing them for years even. 

After planet Vegeta was destroyed, he only had Nappa and Vegeta. Nappa told him that most Saiyans didn’t stay together after mating, and sex was a common thing among allies, not necessarily intended for reproduction. Vegeta, being royalty and proud as heck about it, was more reserved, so he almost never commented on that matter. 

He grew up like that, and since there weren’t any females to hang around with for a long time, he just fucked for fun. Which, he learnt, was also what most males did in the Frieza army. Women were scarce there, so fucking random females in far away planets was actually a common occurrence. He never formed any kind of bond with anyone. And if he thought about it, neither Nappa nor Vegeta were exactly close to him. 

He heard them say they wouldn’t wish him back to life when he was dying after the fight with Kakarot and that other guy. And he was infuriated, but he didn’t know exactly what to do about it. There was actually nothing he could do about it in his condition to begin with either.

Humans were the opposite of how he was raised. But not the opposite of how his parents used to be. He remembered his father hugging his mother when he arrived home from a mission, even kissing her like he missed her. For what the TV had shown him, humans did that too. And while casual sex was also a thing on Earth, most of those movies, or whatever they were called, made it seem more important than what it appeared to be.

You had told him not to take anything he saw on TV ‘too seriously’. So he was confused. But he wanted to understand. Mostly so he could understand you. 

Even though it had been a while since you two had sex, Raditz still wanted you. He wanted to taste you again, to have you again. It was making it difficult to see you every single day; he had to watch you in the morning, when you tried to look somehow put together but he could see that your hair was out of place and your eyes were a little puffy, and he had to see you after you took a shower, walking to your room in just a towel, and it was killing him because he could simply smell you all the time, and everywhere on that house. But he could not touch you because your demeanor showed that you didn’t feel the same way. And he wanted to know and understand why. 

“That woman said she only wanted casual sex, but now she is crying. Why?”

It was a rare occasion that Raditz sat down with you when you chose to watch a movie. You didn’t exactly invite him to join, but he did anyway. 

A man and a woman met and agreed to just fuck. And now she was going back to her hometown and she was upset about not seeing that man again. But they had an arrangement that it was only sex. He didn’t get it, what changed?

“She is in love with him, she doesn’t want to leave.”

“In love?” 

“Yeah,” You eyed him curiously. “You know, like feelings? She cares about him and she grew to like him.”

“Wasn’t it just a fuck?”

You laughed, which startled him.

“That sometimes works, but sometimes it doesn’t. People who sleep together regularly usually grow to like each other. Even if they end up just liking each other as friends.”

“Weird…” Raditz squinted his eyes, thinking.

“What do you mean?” You giggled, obviously amused at the fact that he didn’t get human emotions. 

He debated internally whether or not to tell you what his first impression of that planet had been. He didn’t see anything wrong with sharing, so he spoke.

“When you offered yourself to me when we met, I assumed this planet was all about easy sex.”

“W- What?” 

Raditz noticed your surprise, but he went on.

“I’m not used to women being so loose. So I figured humans must fuck on a daily basis with just anyone. Didn’t consider anything like what you just said.”

He noticed your face getting slightly red, though not out of embarrassment. 

“Are you calling me a slut?” 

“What are you talking about?” 

“You used the words ‘easy’ and ‘loose’ in two sentences. Are you saying I have sex with just anyone I meet?”

He wasn’t sure exactly what had offended you, but he knew you were angry for whatever reason. He frowned, considering his words carefully.

“...No? Not exactly?”

“Then what do you mean?!”

“What I said! Humans seem highly hedonistic and simple, I suppose that’s why you never evolve past the power level of a fly.” He noticed your glare, but he snorted, amused. “It’s not everyday that I arrive on a planet and a female throws herself at me. I’m pretty sure Nappa and even Vegeta were surprised.”

“Who?”

“The Saiyans that are coming here.”

“Wait, ‘were surprised’? How would they even know about what we did?”

“The scouter.” He said, signaling to the side of his face where his scouter used to be when he arrived. “I’m sure you remember I was talking to someone through it.”

“Yeah, but what does that-”

“They were on the other side of the line, they probably heard everything.”

Your eyes opened wide, and you stared at him for a minute before talking again.

“W-what? You mean to tell me they listened to us… having sex?”

“Obviously.” He replied, unaware of the things going through your head, though he did notice your cheeks slowly flushing. “I don’t know about Vegeta, he seems like more of a prude, but I’m sure Nappa heard everything.”

Your entire face turned red up to the tip of your ears in an instant, and Raditz looked at you with one eyebrow raised. You were embarrassed now, but about what?

“I- They heard… everything?”

“Yes?”

“And you’re not bothered by that?!”

“Why would I be?” He shrugged, aloof. “I spent most of my life with them, we all have seen everything by now.”

You didn’t reply for a while, but the color on your face didn’t go away. Raditz looked at you for a minute, studying your expression, but when you didn’t talk anymore, he assumed the conversation was over. Until you spoke again. 

“You… you let them hear me say all those things I said and you didn’t tell me!”

He looked at you as you stood up and grabbed him by his shirt. 

“Get the hell out!”

“Woman, what the fuck are you doing?!”

Your grip on his shirt could probably rip the fabric, but it was nothing compared to his strength. Raditz still let you drag him towards the entrance, out of morbid curiosity. 

Opening the front door, you dragged him almost all the way out the threshold, finally pushing him in the chest.

“Get out! Now!” He opened his mouth to yell right back at you, but you didn’t give him time. “I said GET OUT!”

Raditz couldn’t believe you had actually pushed him hard enough to make him fall back onto the ground. He wasn’t exactly prepared for any kind of confrontation, so his guard was down. But he was still startled, and he stared at you with eyes wide open as you slammed the door shut in his face.

You had actually successfully thrown him out. With just your hands.

That was the wrong time to have an erection, but he couldn’t control it. 

That look in your eyes, the way you grabbed him and pushed him, like you weren’t even afraid of him (which you probably weren’t anymore after all the time you two spent together). It was arousing.  

However, he was still annoyed that you pushed him out like that. He was still trying to understand some things regarding human emotions, and when he asked, you got angry, and not only did you manage to turn him on, but also irritate him in less than a minute after that. He was confused, horny and annoyed all in one minute, and because of you.

For once, he wished his brother wasn’t dead. Kakarot was married to a human woman, the mother of his child. Maybe he would know what to do. He would have to figure this out on his own. 

Raditz cursed under his breath, standing up and rearranging his pants to best accommodate his hard-on before walking away.

[gerogerigaogaigar]

Yeah Yeah Yeah - Fever To Tell

A perfect trio. Karen O's fuck me or go fuck yourself attitude, Brian Chase's frenetic drumming, and Nick Zimmer's nasty riffs make for the exact album that the burgeoning post punk revival scene of the 00s needed to stay fresh. If only other bands had followed their lead 😑 I digress though. The willingness to delve into the territory of noise rock only to always pull it back into more palatable garage rock/post punk territory is masterful. Like musical edging they keep it tastelessly sexual for almost too long. Up until the last few tracks which allows for an emotional release that helps pull the whole album together thematically.

Neutral Milk Hotel - In The Aeroplane Over The Sea

If it were me, hear me out now. See, if it were me, I would keep my Anne Frank sex dream to myself. I wouldn't write one of the most cryptic and beautiful albums of all time about it. I would not have combined indie folk and alt rock into a psychedelic melange of dreamlike wandering. I would have just kept that to myself. But I've made exactly zero of the greatest albums of all time so what the fuck do I know? This album is so completely sincere so please treat it gently. And ignore it's status as hipster holy grail. Listen to it on its own merits, for me, please?

Green Day - Dookie

Pop punk is maybe not the most well respected genre, and I get why. I don't think a lot of adults want to hear nasally privileged teens singing about jacking off. If Dookie, or any album like it, was a part of your childhood then you probably already know if you'll like this album. And if it wasn't then you probably already know you won't. But if you are at all curious where the 90s pop punk scene started then you have to listen to this, at least for the historical significance.

Robert Johnson - King Of The Delta Blues Singers

Robert Johnson, by god how am I supposed to review Robert Johnson! There were other earlier bluesmen but they didn't have the exact influence on rock music that Robert Johnson did. Not only did his blues stylings influence the original.batch of rock n rollers of the 50s but this very compilation reintroduced him to the artists of the 60s. It's not hard to see why he was so influential. Despite, or most likely due to, the stripped down performances Johnson's guitar work never overshadows his haunting vocals and vice versa. And that guitar work! Johnson may not have been the first blues musician to have supposedly sold his soul in exchange for musical talent (he isn't even the only blues musician with the last name Johnson to have that rumor attached to him) but it's easy to see why it stuck to him. He bounces around the fretboard effortlessly and lays down harmony and counterpoint all in one take while singing to boot!

Isaac Hayes - Hot Buttered Soul

In the wake of Otis Redding's untimely death Stax Records had to do something quick. They pushed for a slew of new albums to be completed quick including a follow up to an unsuccessful debut by up and coming session musician Isaac Hayes. Hayes demanded full creative control over and the Stax execs were in no place to argue. The result is a four sing album with three out of four track passing the ten minute mark. It's also really horny. Hayes has one of those voices where everything he sings just becomes sensual. I mean that was the entire joke of him being in South Park. On this masterpiece of a record though, oh man do the instrumentals know how to match his energy. Sloppy, funky bass and lush orchestral arrangements perfectly match Hayes's soulful, lonesome longing. This is such a perfect fuck album that I think it would be too on the nose to actually put on during sex.

Big Brother & The Holding Company - Cheap Thrills

Janis Joplin's voice is probably the most irreplaceable loss that the music world ever suffered. Wait nah I'll save this bit for when I review Pearl. They better put Pearl in this fucking list.

Janis Joplin was active for four years put out four studio albums had three bands and two distinct phases to her career and then dropped dead at the age of 27. She currently holds the 100% completion speedrun for being a rock star. And Cheap Thrills is definitely the most 'rock star' of all her albums.

The Temptations - Anthology

Hitsville USA: The Motown Singles Collection 1959-1971 is exactly what it says in the tin. A collection of every single released by Motown during their golden era. And looking at the track listing it's easy to see why the studio was nicknamed Hitsville USA. Five hours of runtime and nearly every song on here is an instantly recognizable classic. Even some of the deeper cuts are still just amazing. You would think that sitting through five hours of this might get tiring but I've seriously put this on and by the time it ends I'm like "wtf that wasn't five hours?" If you only have room for one comp in your collection make it this one. And if you want recs for a fucking Temptations record then listen to The Temptations Sing Smokey, Cloud Nine, or All Directions instead of another unnecessary compilation.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Since you were talking about games, I know you're also a Dai Gyakuten Saiban/Great Ace Attorney fan (so am I! I followed you originally because you're into both it and BSD hehe), and I'm curious to know your thoughts on it! 💖 Who are your favorite characters/relationships/cases/parts? (My fave character is Benedict/Graydon. Yes I have a tendency to become obsessed with minor characters no one else cares about, oops) Did you play it with the Chronicles version (I assume so, like most people did) or are you an og who followed along with the fan translation like I did? One of the best/funniest parts of getting into that duology was coming across Souseki and being like "if I had a nickel for every time I've encountered a piece of media that had an anime version of real-life author Natsume Souseki, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice" lmao 😭

Since they're two of my favorite media, sometimes I try to imagine how a BSD/DGS crossover would work, and which characters would get along, though granted the only things they really have in common are detective work/mysteries, an old-fashioned aesthetic, and some similar themes lol... I just really love both of them a lot 🥹💖 Ryuunosuke and Atsushi being the exasperated straight men to the genius comedy duo that is Sholmes and Dazai? lmao (also Iris and Kyouka and their bunnies 🥹)

I need to play Hatoful Boyfriend. I've played lots of visual novels but that one is still on my to-play list (I don't know how seriously I'll be able to take it with bird sprites instead of actual human facial expressions, even though I fully trust that it is as good as its reputation says it is, but I'll just have to see for myself lmao)

Hsjfdnvskdf ok so I don't know what keeps happening to me with TGAA because I love it so much but I can't seem to write proper meta on it so. I just keep reiterating how much I like it lol. I got into it a bit later - I knew it existed almost since it came out in Japan but since I hadn't played original Ace Attorney, I avoided it for a long time. Then I saw a playthrough of the fan translation Case 1 and was hooked. By that point, I knew there was going to be a full English release so I waited for that because I wanted so badly to play it through! It's such a good game.

Oh, Graydon was interesting. That case was really fun, if it weren't for the fact that I figured out the key evidence really early and I kept trying to present it too soon aojsbsidhb. Graydon as a character was great because he's exactly as he appears but then there's just that bit more that fleshes him out and made him the slightest bit more sympathetic while not detracting from his actions. He was cool. (I actually had an idea for an after trial fic with him and the Skulkins but I don't think I'll ever get around to writing it :/)

Oh yeah I flipped out when I saw Natsume - my whole brain stopped (this was before my BSD obsession btw so this was very strange to me lol) and I shrieked out "NATSUME SOSEKI???" and my mom from the other room was just "???". yeah. And then he showed up again in BSD and I just said "...hi Natsume".

My favourites are the Mikotobas! Both Susato and Yuujin! They're such sweet people aghhhhh they deserve the world. But I really love all the main cast tbh. Ryuunosuke is such a dork but there's real personality to him, Sholmes is the perfect adaptation of that character, Gina should get all the puppies and friends she wants, and though I have some mixed feelings on him, I hope van Zieks gets a fucking break at some point (or just keep friendly tormenting him. I think it's good for him actually. unlearn your prejudices and relearn how to smile, you edgy vampire man.). Kazuma's arc was excellent and I wish so badly we could've gotten a true reunion scene with less of the baggage... actually, thinking about Kazuma for too long makes me ill. You essentially watch him break in the middle of court and it sucks. It sucks man.

And Iris was a standout character to me because her archetype could've so easily been bland or annoying but instead she's a realistic kid who happens to be a genius and she's kind and gets sad and angry and has depth and I would give her a big hug.

In terms of case specific characters, I liked Haori/Rei a lot, just because her dynamic with Susato was so silly and she's a cool gifted forensics student! She's awesome! I want to see her again!

However, my favourite was Olive. OLIVE. I adore her and I adore the twist with her. God she's so passive aggressive. Like damn. Have I mentioned that I adore her character? If Olive has only 1 fan then I am that fan. I wished we had gotten to consult with her again, even though that wouldn't have made much sense... just because she was interesting to me and I would've liked to have seen her character more fleshed out.

I'd really love to see a lot of these characters again. I've seen some people talking about Kazuma Asougi Investigations but tbh I'd really like to see Susato Mikotoba Investigations with Haori and Yuujin helping out! It'd be neat to see more Meiji Japan and Susato continue to grow as a character in her own right, since she started that journey in Chronicles. Oh well. I know that's a pipe dream but still.

Omg omg so Iris and Kyouka was such a sweet mental image that I had to doodle it!

I bet Kyouka would really find Iris's inventions fascinating and love to listen to how they work and stuff! I think they'd get along tbh. The idea of Sholmes and Dazai ever interacting terrifies me. Keep them away from each other. Please.

As for Hatoful, I am biased but I'd say it is well worth a playthrough. Given you like both DGS and BSD, I'd say you'll probably like it. My mom (who has also played it) and I were chatting about it recently and thinking that weirdly enough, BSD gives us a lot of the same vibes... like it's nowhere near identical, but that kind of desperate darkness where the characters are not who they appear to be at first and everyone has a different motive for doing what they do, but it's also not taking itself too seriously and it's still kinda silly... yeah. Same feel. It's better to go in with no expectations but I'm thinking of making a post later about why people should play that game... it's still one of my favourites of all time.

About the stock bird images: I know it's weird. I know it's weird that they're birds. But the best part of this game - to me, anyways - is that for as much as it is a gag, the story leans into it so heavily that you will quickly realize the main plot only makes logical sense if the main cast are birds and the player the only human. Like, it literally would not make sense otherwise. Please play it. It's wacky, it's zany, the characters have a good amount of depth, it's mildly traumatizing, it's one of the best things I've played and I feel it's become an inscrutable part of my identity. I am still obsessed with it many years later. That almost never happens to me. It's that good.

Agh this was long. I hope it wasn't overwhelming haha. Actually I'm curious: did you like Olive too? And/or what do you like about Graydon? :D

(Also if you ever decide to start Hatoful, please let me know your thoughts!!!)