#close enough for a 60 year old show

[mai-komagata]

so i rewatched arena last night

takeaways:

they say they don't recognize the ship -- that is fine, they can get different ships in like 8 years, the federation probably doesn't have a catalog of all their vessels.

they don't seem particularly confused as to what the gorn are -- you can read it as "they have never heard of it before" but they don't actually say that. Uhura seems pretty horrified to hear about the gorn. Which tracks.

Colony being destroyed and colonists being in melty face mode tracks with gorn doing what they do to colonies.

This being a weird territorial dispute is not a bad angle -- federation thinks they are to blame, but maybe those are there ritual breeding grounds and we are impinging.

Kirk feels revulsion at the gorn, which tracks our experience of them so far.

Juveniles being super fast and agile and old gorn being lumbering but super strong tracks with a lot of lizard species.

I liked the "these are incomprehensible evil creatures" angle in arena, and I think that meshes with xenomorph experience, in a way simply lizard suit + alien language wouldn't for modern audiences.

Kirk (and Spock) showing compassion for the gorn angle is def interesting. And def more hearfelt if you have all this gorn history, which would make compassion difficult. You'd hope Kirk would generally have compassion for a random alien species. But it makes a more compelling narrative if they have thus far been presented as incomprehensible monsters until Arena, because then the compassion is more radical, and the encounter with the Metrons made them realize otherwise.

[inbabylontheywept]

the fine and subtle art of arguing with old men

it was a good week for testing which meant it was a slow week for me. most of my job is fixing the machine when it goes down. if it doesn't go down, i don't have much to do. 

fortunately neither did marc. in a site full of ornery old bastards, he's the oldest and the orneriest, so it goes without saying that i enjoy spending time with him. he reminds me of my grandpa. hell, he reminds me of a lot of people. i've befriended enough grumpy old men that i've got a sort of momentum to it now - you know how it is, when you meet someone that reminds you of someone else you really like. you get to start that friendship off half built, because you already have an idea of how to like that guy, and some of that old warmth can be brought to the new friendship. a little ember to start the stove up with.

(i think that's one of the really undersold beauties of getting older. you stop viewing people as strangers and more like remixes of friends.)

anyway, i was sitting next to marc and we were talking about the future. i've got my eye on having kids sometime soon (year or two? hopefully?), and he's very happy for me. i've tried asking him for advice, but all he says is that he didn't do a great job with his own kids and they still turned out okay, so i should stress less and trust myself more. i hope he's right. he believes it, at least, and it's a hell of a thing to have the faith of an old man. his faith is hard won.

as for his plans, he's retiring at some point in the next six months, and is hoping to sell his home and buy something in florida. he's republican, so he views the state as paradise, and i'm not inclined to even try talking him out of it. it's his dream, you know? i know for a fact my paradise would be a lot of people's hell. life's funny like that.

still, we kept going on, and it was a good time, and then he reminisced about the last time he got close to quitting - back around 2020. our job required getting vaxxed, and he refused, and there was a big kerfuffle about it before the job actually backed down. i know there's not a lot of sympathy for the unvaxxed out here, but the man's 62. you get the shot when you're under 30 to protect the people around you, but when you're over 60, you're just getting it to protect yourself and it's hard to be mad at someone for kicking their own ass. 

still gave me pause though. i knew he wasn't going to take it well, but half the job of collecting curmudgeons is keeping them around, so i said 

hey. i'm sorry they bent your arm over it, but.

but. 

you should really get that shot. 

and he looked over at me, and i looked at him, and he actually spat. not on me, just the concrete, but it was enough to show that he was mad. then he walked away, as abrupt as anything.

i felt bad about it. i wasn't sure what i'd expected, when he was willing to lose his job over it before, but i'd been so invested in his dream of retirement - the idea of him sipping margaritias on a beach next to his wife, the wife he calls every day during lunch, the wife he says is the one thing in life he ever got right on the first try. the wife that almost divorced him back when he was in the airforce because he just wasn't home enough. 

(but he can be home now.) 

and then he mentioned the vax thing, and it was like seeing a pin hit a balloon. he works out every day and takes all sorts of crazy vitamins and is generally committed to getting the most out of his pension and his life. i didn't want this dumb weak point to be his achilles heel. 

---

i wasn't actually sure how long marc would be mad at me. i've seen him stay mad at some people for weeks. i wasn't sure if being friends would make that time go up or down. 

it went down. i'm glad it went down. 

he stopped being mad about two days later. we were doing front end maintenance one morning, and it was just that simple mechanical rhythm - hex key, replace the anode sheets, punch some off-gassing holes, oil it up, put it back in - that put things at ease. it always does. people working there are too busy to remember grudges, and it has this sort of mandatory practical communication that helps smooth things over. it was going great, and then out of the blue he said babs, you gotta be careful giving advice. those shots come with complications. what would you do if i got that shot, had a stroke, and died? 

and i don't know what answer he was expecting, but i just told him the truth, which is that i would be devastated. i'd feel like i killed him. i thought that was a pretty normal response, but he looked taken aback. he asked why i said it then, and i said i'd have felt the same if he died of covid. that's just life. sometimes, there's no way forward that doesn't risk some kind of regret. 

we finished the tube after that, in a silence that felt heavier than peace but lighter than anger. it felt like the ball was back in marc's court. like it would be rude to take that turn from him. 

we parted ways with a nod and didn't speak until the next day. 

---

i was doing spreadsheet work when he found me again. standard paper engineering - thinking of things we might need and ordering them in batches, months ahead of time. it always feels a little like plugging holes in a dam with my fingers. 

but he popped up, and we didn't even exchange pleasantries. he just said i'm gonna die one day, and you can't blame yourself for that. 

which is a hell of a thing to just tell someone right off the bat. 

so i said what 

and he said babs, i am in my 60s. something is gonna get me eventually, and whether it's covid or heart disease, or a stroke, there will be something you could have said or done before. and that's okay. it's not your job to make me live forever. 

and you know, he actually made a lot of sense. so i said 

okay. 

i'll keep your business yours. i just

you were talking about your retirement before this. and i want that for you very much. you've worked hard for 45 years, and you deserve a break. we're getting to sick season, and it would be the saddest fucking thing in the world if you got this close to winning the race then tripped in the last ten feet. 

and we sat there a few moments longer. i wasn't sure what to say, and i wasn't sure what he'd say, but eventually he just shrugged and said

yeah 

then he left. i figured that would be the end of it. 

---

i did front end maintenance yesterday, after being gone a week. it's one of my favorite things to do. i like working with my hands. i really like working with my hands. i'm glad i went to college, but in a different life, i think i could've made a better electrician than an electrical engineer. 

and at one step, when we were both hoisting the plate back onto the machine, his sleeve rode up, and i saw two bandaids on his arm. 

we finished the install, and i was ready to go back when marc actually stopped me. 

i got the shot, he said, almost embarrassed. like he'd been caught. and i knew he was gonna say something dumb about it, so i just cut him off by giving him a hug. 

i was relieved. hugging old men is kind of like picking up cats. if they like you a lot, they'll tolerate it, but that's about it. we sat there maybe three beats before his hands went up, and then he gave me one overly-hard thump on the back. in my experience, this is how old men tell you that they're done, so i let him go.

carla talked me into it, he said, almost defensive. his wife. his one good decision.

tell her i said thanks, i said back.

trump got the shot too, he said, less defensive, but oddly pleading. like he was consoling himself.

like he was nervous.

then it's gotta be safe, i said, and he looked up at me, strangely searching, strangely vulnerable. i don't know exactly what he was looking for, but i guess he found it because after a few moments his shoulders relaxed.

yeah, he said, one hand on the back of his head.

it's gotta be.

[alittlebitofloveliness]

Things I think the fandom needs to remember sometimes

-Ponyboy is not a loner or unpopular. He admits to having a lot of friends at school, and a few of them even visit him when he gets out of the hospital, though he notes it makes him uncomfortable that his middle class friends get to see where he lives. Which brings me to my next point;

-The gang does not spend all their time together, or even most of it. Yes they’re all friends, very CLOSE friends- yes, even Steve and Ponyboy- but they have lives outside of the gang. Pony has school friends, Darry has work or old school friends he skis with, Soda and Steve are inseparable to a degree that their outside lives overlap and their identities within the gang are also interwoven, but they all very much have lives outside the gang. Two bit has his mom and little sister and a revolving door of girls. Dallas only shows up when he feels like it and  he lives at bucks and jockeys in the races. Johnny couch surfs at the curtis’ and Two’s place, but he also regularly camps out in the lot and presumably crashes at Dally’s place sometimes too. Yeah, he’s Ponyboy’s best friend, but they’re not inseparable the way Steve and Soda are. It’s a different dynamic. The whole group has lives outside of the gang and I think it’s important to remember this. 

-The term ‘greaser’ is a derogatory term and originated in the 1800s as a slur against Mexican immigrants. It coloquial meaning changed when readopted by the greaser subculture in the 1950s and 60s (according to wikipedia), to primarily refer to lower working class individuals of mexican or italian ancestry, and becoming more ethnically ambiguous, but it still wasn’t widely used outside the subculture itself. Ponyboy is white, but he probably has some Italian ancestry which is characteristic of the greaser subculture, and he identifies with the word- but it’s still a more loaded term than the fandom sometimes pretends, and it still has racial undertones, regardless of how it’s portrayed in the novel and how it moved away from it's historically primarily racialised usage when adopted by the greaser subculture. Ponyboy makes a point of saying in the book that it’s okay for himself and the gang and others of their social group to use it, but when people outside the group call him it it ‘doesn’t make him feel so hot’. I think this helps illustrate that yeah, it’s an offensive term. ‘Greaser’ carries weight and I think it’s important for the fandom to recognise that.

-Darry is trying, but he isn’t a good guardian, and if he was then his character would not be redeemable after The Slap. The reason Darry Curtis as a character is so sympathetic is because he is twenty years old and trying his best, and his best is never good enough. If Darry was a well equipped guardian who was able to parent Pony AND Soda AND the gang (to an extent) the way his parents did, then him slapping Ponyboy would be unforgivable. It would be the action of a brute instead of the action of an overwhelmed older brother forgetting his new role as guardian. The reason Darry is forgivable and so beloved is because he is not perfect, or even good, at his role but he keeps trying and choosing to be present for his brothers over and over. (Remember, he had to fight very hard for custody, probably harder than Ponyboy realizes.)

-The portrayal of every female character is biased by Ponyboy’s narration- and Ponyboy has a lot of internalized misogyny and classism. It makes sense that he holds these ideas, considering the time period and the male dominated environment he grew up in where (presumably) the only woman he ever had any sort of close relationship with was his mother, but it doesn’t make it any less true. However, the women themselves are few and far between but incredibly important characters. I’ve spoken about it before but I think Sandy’s character and her unplanned teenage pregnancy sheds a small amount of light on how poverty affects women as opposed to men, something the book largely lacks due to the only main(ish) female character being upper class;  whereas Sylvia serves as a foil to Dally, and is essentially written to be the offscreen ‘female version’ of him, basically a representation of the ‘worst’ sort of greaser girl while Dally is the ‘worst’ kind of greaser. The only reason these women receive so much hate is because of misogyny- don’t pretend it’s just about the cheating, because it’s not- and if you want to hear further takes on them you can read my thoughts on the misogyny in the fandom here, and my thoughts on Sandy here.  Even Cherry, whom Ponyboy views positively, is viewed that way because of Ponyboy's biased ideas of what makes a girl 'good' and worthy of respect.

-Ponyboy has a fairly negative view of alcohol and alcoholism, but has a very addictive personality. Ponyboy has tried alcohol but didn’t like the way it made him feel. However, his view of Two-bit, while positive, seems to find him less brave than the rest of the gang as he drinks before the rumble, and Ponyboy ‘would hate to see the day he had to get his nerve from a can’. Soda’s reluctance to drink or smoke also adds to Ponyboy’s worship of him, despite the fact that Ponyboy is addicted to nicotine and caffeine respectively and it has the potential to be his undoing more than anything else in the east side.

-The entire story is built on grief. Johnny and Dally are doomed from the start, and Ponyboy mentions his parents' deaths from the first few pages. But loss of a loved one is not the sole type of grief the novel covers. Darry mourns the life he could have had, Soda mourns his imagined future with Sandy, and by the end of the novel Ponyboy is mourning his childhood and loss of innocence. I could go on, but I think the effect of grief is sometimes missing from analysis or canon compliant fanworks, when it is quite literally the driving force behind the story.

[doctorbeth]

A pair of elderly patients: Part 1 Poochie

Poochie the dog is owned by a family among you dear people. He is over 60 years old, about 7 or 8" tall, and very well loved. He's had repairs before to his shoulders, and he'd been wearing a red dress for years to try to protect his skin from further wear.

His person (his original person) wanted to keep him as close to original as possible, but also wanted to stabilize and reinforce him. Here are his original diagnosis photos, sent by another family member:

I'm showing larger versions in the hopes that you can see not only his holes, but the runs where his fabric is see through.

Poochie came to the hospital last month for wound repair and supplemental stuffing... just a touch to protect him on the inside. He wasn't getting a spa, he needed to stay as original as possible. And we were keeping old repairs where possible too. Rather, the treatment for Poochie was to stitch wounds, adding fabric under his runs to take the pressure of stitches, and patches where he had holes. Just enough to stabilize him. He wasn't going on adventures with toddlers anymore, but he wanted to feel safe watching over his family. Here's Poochie all better:

He's sort of like a kintsugi vase with its visible seams, or an older person, whose wrinkles and gray hairs tell their story. Poochie earned every scar and new seam, but he's huggable and lovable specifically for those patches and seams, which are reminders of all the adventures he's had. And now, he can be hugged again and share his memories (and make new ones) with his family in Washington.

[enigmatist17]

I've never written Deadlock before, but RatchLock(?) in the Mecha Pilot Jazz Au by @keferon has me by the throat bc Ratchet is my #1 babygirl of All Time ❤️❤️❤️

My other fics I've done in said AU 1 2

---

Ratchet was old.

Sure, he still had a good 50 to 60 years left in him, but hoy boy he was old. He knows most of that "aging" happened when he worked with the mecha program, and while it had been the highlight of his life, the dark road they had started to turn down wasn't for him.

Pilots dying in dozens from all sorts of ways, the worst being the degradation of their minds from the very machine used to defend humanity

Bright-eyed rookies turning hollow and their spark burned out, most leaving with eyes unseeing inside the same black bag.

Demands for more, demands to integrate human and machine, demands to take away their humanity to win

Demands that still haunt his dreams, especially when old superiors ambush him with a gaggle of his new students and interns in his tow.

His town, dammit!

Most of them watch Ratchet spend the rest of the day cursing up a storm that could make any sailor blush while slamming things down, everyone escaping when he eventually made a vague motion to the door. He goes for his bottle of whiskey once he makes sure the last student drives off with some friends, taking a seat in the middle of the shop floor as he pours himself a generous glass, setting the bottle by the side of his chair.

"Does Ratty have all his toys away~?"

"For now." Ratchet rolled his eyes as he took a sip, able to hear the bay door behind his chair rattle before opening with a slight screech. To a normal person, the sight of what appeared to be an unpiloted mecha slipping into some random repair shop would have caused a bit of a ruckus, but Ratchet is unbothered as he takes another sip of his drink. "Make sure you close the door this time."

"I leave it open one time." The mecha scoffs, glowing red eyes cycling in exasperation as the bay door is closed with a slight tug, the loud crash of metal on concrete making the human in the room pinch the bridge of his nose. "Oops."

"If I had a wrench within reaching distance..." The mecha grins as it crosses the shop floor, unapologetic as they sit on the floor across from the bioengineer. "Any luck today?"

"I was able to take out two scouts, should give me enough energon for a few cycles." Ratchet watches as two glowing cubes are pulled out from a seemingly endless storage space inside one arm, shown off before they're placed back inside. "I've survived off less."

"I'm still working on a synthetic version, but no luck." A flicker of regret crosses Ratchet's face, and the mecha reaches over to poke the top of his head. "Hard to create an alien food source, apparently."

"You're still trying, I'll take that." The mecha croons, glowing eyes watching Ratchet take another sip with a sort of purring noise.

No, not a mecha, an honest-to-god alien known as a Cybertronian.

"You seem upset." While the strange organics lacked an EMF field, Deadlock didn't need one to see the annoyance in those pretty optics of his human.

"Just some of the usual bullshit." Deadlock raised an optic ridge and stared, his ornery human staring right back with a scowl. "Got somethin' on my face?"

"You don't get this grumpy over the "usual" bullshit." Deadlock leaned forward with a slight tilt of his helm, the low rumble of his engine getting the other to relax just enough to consider it a victory. "Ratty~"

"Stop calling me that, my name is Ratchet." The Cybertronian only grins, reaching forward to poke the man in his chest.

"I don't like you being upset." Metal that should not be that expressive molds into a pout that would rival his little niece, and had he not seen Deadlock rip out a part of one of the alien threats (Quintesson he's been told) with those sharp teeth, he might find it cute.

.....

Fuck

"Some of those government fucks showed up in front of my people, wanted me to just leave and go back to all of....that." The whiskey is drained, and Ratchet leans over to grab the bottle. "It's one thing to harass me over the phone, but the street? In front of my kids? They can fuck right off with that." The glass is filled again, and the two sit in silence as he slowly drinks, looking at the floor with his brows furrowed. "I can't go back to that, no matter how much that would help out my....project."

"Aw, I'm a project now?" Deadlock cooed, a clawed digit gently caressing the side of Ratchet's face with as much care as he could muster. "I got an upgrade~"

"You're a disaster." Ratchet rolled his eyes, but otherwise didn't move as he listened to the (begrudgingly) familiar cadence of Deadlock's systems. While he could be as silent as the grave, Ratchet was pretty sure he was some sort of spy or assassin of some kind despite any questions getting the brush off, the alien mech had adopted the practice of allowing his natural ambient noise to become noticeable.

Just for his human, one of many things he'd adopted for his savior-turned-object of affection.

"Would you like for me to kill them?" Deadlock purrs when Ratchet raises an eyebrow, taking in the warmth against his digit. "I could make it look like an accident~"

"Like hell you will, that'll just get more eyes on me."

"Are you sure? Didn't sound like you were all that upset by the idea Ratty."

"Yes I am...though if they approach me in public again, maybe you could cause an accident or something, as a treat."

"Oh you do spoil me~!"

[coco-loco-nut]

Actress

Pairing: Logan x Reader

Summary: A former F2 driver gets the chance to star on the big screen.

A/n: I am so sorry this took so long. August was the busiest month of my internship and 60 hour work weeks are tough, plus an hour commute 🥲

masterlist requests open

———————

Filming in the Formula One paddock was something else. Sure, you have been here before, but this was something different. You were fulfilling your childhood dream of being a Formula One driver, kinda.

“We will start filming in 15,” your producer says at the end of their tangent. The race suit hangs at your hips as you stand, watching other drivers go by.

“Why does she look familiar?” Lando asks Oscar, both ready to collapse in their drivers rooms after a long qualifying session.

“She drove in Formula Two with Trident a few years ago,” Oscar quietly observes you, mentally debating whether it would be weird to approach you.

“She seems to be doing well for herself,” Lando hums, feeling ready to take a nap. Oscar steps away, deciding it’s more awkward to say nothing than to at least say hello.

“Hi, y/n, right? I’m Oscar, we used to race against each in F2,” Oscar extends his hand, unsure if you remember him. A bit silly, seeing as how you hung out a good amount.

“Of course, I remember. Too many adventures to forget. I considered copying your tweet to announce my contract wasn’t getting extended,” you smile, showing you aren’t upset.

“I’m sorry, you were a good driver,” Oscar offers, but you shake your head. You won a couple races in F2, but that was a lot of luck.

“I hit my ceiling, and there wasn’t going to be a seat waiting for me since I wasn’t in an F1 driver academy. I still drive occasionally in Indycar to keep my license,” you push down the little bit of longing, watching drivers walk through the paddock.

“How did you get into acting?” Oscar asks, genuinely curious at how you got involved in the movie.

“It was a bit of a wild experience. I applied to stunt drive for the film, but they liked my look and I guess I act well enough. So I ended up with one of the leads, a racing prodigy. Some tips on being one would be greatly appreciated,” Oscar’s cheeks flame when you call him a prodigy. He’s too humble for that.

“I wouldn’t say that. You know racing better than most, if not all, the people working on the movie, so I know you will be okay,” Oscar reassures you.

“Y/n, come to the garage. We film in ten,” an assistant comes to get you. You hesitate, not quite wanting to end your conversation.

“I’ll walk with you?” Oscar suggests, knowing you must feel a little out of place despite looking like you are meant to be here.

“Thanks. I can’t tell you the last time I was in a Formula One garage,” you say, letting out a sigh of relief. You would normally insist that he goes to his post-race meetings, but the accompaniment is needed.

“Anything for an old friend and rival,” Oscar jokes causing you both to chuckle, easing what’s left of the awkward tension.

“Is Logan still your bestie? I know you both were close,” you ask, your helmet feeling heavy in your hand.

“We are still close. I’m sure he’d love to see you again. He used to have a crush on you,” Oscar reveals as you get close to the garage the production team set up, you think it might actually be functional too.

“Aww, maybe we should get dinner sometime. Are you still with Lily?” you ask, feeling pre-race jitters even though you are only doing a few laps. There needs good film for both you and Pitt, so you are taking the track at different Grand Prix races this year.

“Yeah, it’s going well. Text me when you have a free weekend, I’ll get McLaren to invite you as a guest,” Oscar smiles, observing you. “You’ve been doing this all your life, it’s just you, the car, and the track,” he reminds you, sensing the nerves.

“Thanks, Oscar. It was nice to see a familiar face,” you say before heading into the garage. You thought it would be a standard F2 car, but you were wrong, they modified it to look like an F1 car.

You inspect your car, mentally noting what they changed and how it might affect your drive. After a quick conversation with Mercedes engineers, you get into the car, testing your radio and doing some final checks. Once the FIA clears you, you exit into pit lane, careful not to speed.

You keep your breathing steady, focusing on the feel of the car. You’ve raced at Silverstone before, this is no different. You did your track walk, you’ve sim raced, you warmed up and have kept up with your race training. After a lap to warm up your tires, you drive like you are racing. Each turn feels natural, your muscle memory kicking in and the car responding nicely. Oscar was right, you’ve been driving all your life, it’s just you and the car. You don’t waste the opportunity, pushing the car to its limits, driving on the edge. You prove why you belonged in F2. Indycar is great, but it isn’t the same.

“Two more laps then bring it in,” you hear over the radio, and you can’t help but wish you could drive more. There will be other filming opportunities, but you won’t lie and say that you didn’t miss racing regularly.

When you bring the car in, you feel like you are on cloud nine.

“It drives great, I hope those laps were good enough,” you smile, pulling off your helmet and balaclava.

“Spectacular drive, I knew having you in the car was a good choice,” Lewis says, appearing beside you. He’s working as a consultant on the movie, but you haven’t actually met him yet.

“Sir Hamilton, wow, I, um, thank you so much. It means a lot coming from you,” you stumble over your words, almost dropping your helmet.

“You raced in F2, without the support of an academy, and won a couple races. You are a good driver,” Lewis further compliments you. If you were to die right now, you would have no objections.

“I am literally at a loss for words, you have no idea how much that means coming from you. You inspired me to keep racing,” you are torn between crying and melting into the ground out of happiness.

“I look forward to watching your other drives, you have talent. It’s disappointing that you didn’t get another contract,” Lewis says a little offhandedly before heading back to Mercedes.

“We are going to get shots of you in the garage,” you are informed, before being requested to go back to hair and makeup.

“This is what it looks like to be a driver. We all aren’t Carlos, we don’t look flawless right after a race,” you joke as you push back again the request, pulling your balaclava back on.

You spend the next hour filming, and a part of you misses when you would be meeting with your team instead after driving laps. As you wrap up and change into something that isn’t your racing suit, aka sweat pants and an old team hoodie, you cannot wait to get back to the hotel.

“Y/n!” you quickly recognize the American accent. Logan jogs to catch up with you.

“Hey, Logan. Sorry about qualifying, tough luck,” you smile sympathetically as he shrugs.

“Can’t do much when the car is slow. Congrats on the role, I’m glad you were able to find footing after not getting resigned,” he says, clearly aware of his uncertain future.

“There is still tomorrow,” you offer, hoping to reassure him a little.

“It was nice to see you drive again, you did some great laps. Was that an F1 car?” Logan asks, changing the topic.

“Modified F2 car. It was great, the car felt amazing,” you smile as Logan walks beside you. A small part of you hopes that a team will watch your drive and sign you.

“Well maybe one day you will get to drive one for real. After the race tomorrow we should go out for drinks,” Logan says, quickly adding on “you, me, and Oscar,” to the end.

“Sounds great, I missed you guys,” your car is parked in the opposite direction of Logan’s. You start walking away and Logan watches as you approach your car. As he is about to turn away, you turn back towards him. “Maybe we could grab drinks without Oscar sometime?” you yell, hoping you aren’t shooting the wrong shot and Oscar was right.

“I’d like that,” Logan calls back, his cheeks flushed. With a smile you turn back to your car, looking forward to the date.

You arrive to the Paddock early the next day, wanting to catch the F2 race. Trident invited you go visit, and you can’t deny you wanted to take the opportunity to network. It is also nice to catch up with your former team.

“Great drive, yesterday. You posted some pretty good times,” Maurizio compliments. You haven’t spoken much to your former team principal since you left F2.

“Thank you, it was nice to be behind the wheel again,” you take it gracefully, knowing there’s a fine line between demonstrating skill and boasting.

“Perhaps we can discuss a contract sometime,” he leaves you with those parting words and you can’t help but feel a buzz of excitement. You make sure to take your exit as soon as the race ends, not wanting to make anything awkward.

Earlier you received a text from someone at Mercedes telling you how to pick your paddock and hospitality pass. Lewis apparently asked them to invite you to watch from the Mercedes hospitality after your drive yesterday. So now you are on the hunt to find the hospitality.

“Fancy seeing you here,” you notice someone start walking beside you.

“Hey, Logan,” you don’t know why, but you can feel the heat of a blush creeping over your fac. “Don’t you have a race to prepare for?” You question, an attempt to distract him.

“I have time before the driver’s parade and I saw you out here,” Logan throws his arm around your shoulder.

“Lucky me, then. I was just on my way to Mercedes, want to show me where I’m going?” you smoothly ask, feeling your stomach flip in anticipation.

“That I can do,” he smiles down at you, happy to show you around. You make small talk as he points things out on your walk, and you don’t know any better so he takes you the long way.

“Hey, you are the girl in that F1 movie, the prodigy,” you instantly recognize Daniel Ricciardo. Logan is a little confused, not having many run-in’s with the VCARB driver, but he rolls with it.

“Yeah,” you nod, blushing from embarrassment. These guys are the best in the world and you are just imitating them.

“We drove in F2 together,” Logan interjects, causing Daniel to look at the two of you in surprise.

“Ah, sick! That’s so cool. Good to know there is a real driver in it. I gotta go but it was nice meeting you!” With that, the Honey Badger left, wearing his iconic smile.

“He is an interesting guy,” you can’t help but smile in amusement as you reflect on the interaction.

“You got that right. Have you met Alex and Lily? I’ll have to invite you to a race soon, give you a reason to hang around,” Logan says, turning up his flirting. He never got over his crush for you.

“I haven’t, and I hate to break the news, but Oscar called dibs on inviting me to the next race. Maybe you two can share custody,” you joke as you pass McLaren, only making it funnier.

The drop off at Mercedes was a bit rushed. Turns out, Logan lied about having plenty of time before the Driver’s Parade, but in his defense, he didn’t really look at a clock before stopping you. That was also how you met George Russell.

Unfortunately for Oscar and Logan, you had to cancel on post-race drinks. You got called back to the studio for an early shoot, meaning you left after the race and caught the next plane back to America.

The bright side is that there wasn’t a race the next week, so Logan took advantage and caught a flight to surprise you. He may be a guy, but he was able to pick up on the flirting the both of you were doing. Logan arrived at your hotel soon after you were done filming for the day, and knocked on the door. The only reason he knew your hotel room number is because he said he was going to doordash you food after the long few days.

“Thanks for bringing it to my room, here’s an extra-“ you stop mid sentence when you realize it isn’t a dasher at your hotel room door.

“I hope McDonald’s is okay? I’ve been craving fries,” he smiles, amused by your stunned reaction.

“I don’t know whether I want to cry or hug you,” you open the door wider so he can enter the room.

“This isn’t how I pictured our first date,” you comment after a few minutes of eating food that you probably shouldn’t be and watching comfort movies. Logan almost chokes on his fry.

“I’ll make it up to you then, take you out on a proper date,” he vows.

“I like this, though. Our lives are so crazy anyway,” you smile to yourself as he wraps an arm around you, letting you get closer to him. The both of you enjoy small talk throughout the movie, your head ending up on his shoulder, fighting off the sleep that threatens to creep in.

Logan hears your soft snores as the movie ends and quietly watches you. He ponders just falling asleep too, claiming you both dozed off during the movie, but it feels too soon. So, he carefully wakes you up so it seems like you didn’t doze off.

“I didn’t realize it was so late,” you comment, unsure if you fell asleep or not.

“I didn’t either. I should go, early flight and all that,” Logan grimaces, not ready to leave.

“Do you have a hotel room? You can stay here if needed,” you offer.

“No, no, it’s okay. I got a room for the night. I wouldn’t want to impose,”

“Well, I had a great time. I look forward to our next,” you smile, face close to Logan’s. He strongly debates kissing you, but he doesn’t want to screw this up, so he slowly pulls away.

“I do too. Sleep well,” with a boyish smile, he quietly exits. You lay back in the bed with a content sigh.

You and Logan dated quietly, not wanting to make a big deal out of things. The fans loved it when you hung out with him, Oscar, and some other drivers from your F2 days. They especially loved it when Trident announced you would be rejoining the team next season, right after filming finishes.

The best part about driving F2 was that you could skip a lot of the press tour stuff, but you did try. Somehow, you got Logan to agree to attend the London premiere with you. It was a big deal, all of the grid is expected to attend.

He is the first out of the car once you reach the red carpet, quickly making his way to your door so he can assist you out.

“Are you ready?” he asks with a slightly nervous smile. It’s your first public outing as a couple, despite your soft launching.

“With you? Always,” you confidently take the red carpet, answering questions and posing for cameras. At some point, Oscar and Lily join you both, happy to take group pictures.

“There is our star,” Oscar says when they arrive.

“Thank you for being here! I’m excited for everyone to see it,” you smile, a little on edge around so many Formula One legends. You swear you even saw Guenther Steiner walk past you.

“I didn’t know you two were dating,” George says once you make it inside where everyone is mingling.

“I convinced her somehow,” Logan smiles at you, clearly enamored.

“Well, you two look great together. Let’s get coffee sometime,” George says before walking away. Logan just signed with Mercedes, and you were so proud. He tried to play it down, but you made sure to celebrate it.

“How are you feeling?” Logan asks, his thumb caressing the back of your hand.

“A little nervous, it’s a great movie, but I’m nervous. There’s been some recent negativity because I’m a driver and starred in the movie. Something to do with pushing the female driver agenda,” you shift your weight back and forth. Logan pulls you close to him, providing a support as you take the moment to relax before starting your rounds again.

“Ah, there she is! Y/n, let me introduce you to some friends of mine,” Brad Pitt says as you walk past him with Logan. You stay for a minute before Logan provides an exit plan.

“I think we should head to our seats, don’t want to miss the movie,” he says, smoothly allowing you to leave and go into the theater. You are seated beside Lewis, who has mentored and coached you this season.

Before you know it, the movie is starting. The scene pans down from the sunset to your car flying on the track. As you turn the corner, an engineer is shown analyzing your data with a headset on. Silently, other motion to screens, nodding along with a comment. All you can hear is the roar of the engine on track as the engineer activates his radio.

“Box box,”

[sapphoherselz]

howdy!! two literal people have asked for some andreil rec so here they are!! my most favest fics EVER in the first 60 ao3 pages (I'll keep updating tho as I read!)

Not yours to bleed:

The Pros were never in the cards. Not for an ex-medicated alleged psychotic with a dysfunctional family and an Exy career he’d rather not have. But even if it wasn't his first choice, no matter what happens, it can’t possibly be worse than that one fucked up sophomore year when he stood toe to toe with the Yakuza-and won.

At least, that’s what Andrew thinks until a familiar face shows up.

Another Raven!Neil AU. Or, the one where the boys don’t meet until the Pros.

 

**Updates every other Wednesday, whatever hell may come.**

The Sun Still Rises:

Somewhere on the road, Mary Hatford gets pregnant with her second child. When she passes, she leaves behind not only Neil, but his toddler brother. Survival is difficult without also raising a kid. Worn out and desperate, Neil still somehow ends up at Palmetto, only this time, he brings his four-year-old brother with him.

TALE OF A MARTYR IN XII PARTS:

Neil closes his eyes and counts the things that he knows:

One: Death has a name.

Two: He has met Death before. Several times, in fact.

Three: Someone is trying to kill him. Permanently. But it's only kind of working.

Or, the one in which Andrew is the Grim Reaper, Neil is very, very good at dying, over and over and over again. They teach each other a few things over the centuries.

Hearthlines:

The Fae king and queens have gone away, closing the knowes behind them and abandoning their offspring to the mortal world. As the Fae have spread far and wide, their bloodlines thinning if not vanishing forever as they flee from mortal persecution... two Fae have found a way to reopen the knowes - Kayleigh Day and Tetsuji Moriyama. The Fae regroup once more, the balance of power shifted amongst them, and 'changelings' appear now and then in the mortal population.

Andrew Doe is one of those changelings, a young child suffering in the foster system, shunned by his peers for some reason and hearing voices in his head.

Alex - the latest name gifted to him by a charm - is on the run along with his mother from his father, using their talents as shadow walkers to slide between worlds and stay one step ahead of the powerful Fae. Except even that is not enough anymore. Except that's not Alex's only talent.

*******

An urban fantasy where I throw Fae, necromancy and magic at TFC characters, pretty much!

Scared to Live (But I'm Scared to Die):

Neil Josten goes to the Nest for Andrew, but he stays for a lot more.

~

"I'm sorry Coach," he muttered.

"For what kid?" Wymack shifted. "You've got to give me something to work with here."

Wymack watched the thin traces of sorrow as paper exchanged hands and he was looking down at a contract with the Edgar Allan Raven's.

"I signed them Coach, I'm sorry."

~

The one where Neil doesn't come back from Winter Break.

Amor Vincit Omnia:

“I said it already,” the man said, “Your cluster.”

“But what does that mean?” Neil asked.

“It means that you are no longer just you,” the man said tersely, “Congratulations.”

It didn’t feel like anything worth celebrating.

A Sense8 AU where the foxes all share one subconscious and kick a lot of ass

The Real Thing:

Andrew was more than willing to turn down the Ravens' offer to be their newest goalie, unwilling to play five more years of Exy - let alone for someone with a too-sharp smile and a manic gleam in their eyes.

That was, until he realized that a member of their Perfect Court was his soulmate. (That was, until Riko Moriyama realized that Nathaniel Wesninski, the Ravens' #3 in waiting, was Andrew's soulmate.)

Andrew always knew that Fate loved tormenting him, he didn't need a reminder yet again via a too-attractive soulmate who appeared to loathe him. Yet things aren't always what they seem, especially in the Nest.

mad girl says she's wolf-proof:

Keeping her grip light on Nina’s throat, Andrea drops her gaze to her plump lips. She smiles—coldly, slowly. Fangs on fangs. Salt tombstones. It is not a nice smile, none of Andrea’s smiles are, but Nina’s eyes are stuck in it regardless. “And I will answer, all the better to eat you with.”

 

(Andrea Dobson vs girlhood and lycanthropy.)

lessons in caretaking:

Neil was acting shifty, and Andrew knew why; that motherfucker was leaving. Despite the promise between them, Neil was prepping to run. Andrew wasn't upset about that, not at all. After all, if notorious Neil "No-Swing" Josten needed to leave after Andrew admitted his desires regarding his proximity to Neil's shorts, who was Andrew to stop him. But that doesn't explain why Neil was stealing socks, or why he wanted Andrew's clothes.

Whatever. That was probably unrelated.

Sauntering Vaguely Downwards:

They’ve known each other since the Beginning. Not the Beginning Beginning—they didn’t meet until after the War in Heaven, where they kept to their own sides, or until after the subsequent Fall. It wasn’t even until after the Exodus from Eden, but only by a couple minutes. They’ve witnessed the rise and fall of empires, sampled all the cuisines the world has to offer, and weathered several very silly fashion trends.

Andrew doesn’t think they’re friends, exactly, but it is natural to become accustomed to the presence of the only other being who has been around more or less consistently for six millennia. It wasn’t anything more meaningful than that.

A Good Omens AU where Andrew is a grumpy angel, Neil is a sharp-tongued serpent, and it takes them literally six thousand years to figure out they belong together.

[pinkcelestialstar]

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

✧*̥˚ the runaway bride *̥˚✧

--- • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆----

Context: Bada Lee and you have been girlfriends for almost 7 years. And today she was getting married but not to you, to an old man who was almost 60 something, who her parents chose since he was wealthy and they could benefit from the money too.

Warnings: smut with a plot. Exhibitionism.

You were standing in the crowd wearing a sundress as you watched the love of your life being married to someone else, your eyes stinging in tears. Bada was holding the bouquet too tight as her knuckles turned white. She was shaking in controlling the tears.

The priest asks her to say the vow, "I-" you scream, "Stop this! Stop this! Stop this!!" You say as you run to her, crying, and throw yourself in her arms.

She catches you easily, lifting you up and spinning around in a tight hug. The dress flares out around you both as she cries too. She sets you down and kisses you deeply, not caring about the shocked gasps from the guests or the angry glares from her parents.

Breaks the kiss slowly, but keeps holding you close. Her voice becomes firm when she addresses her parents "I've been trying to tell you both - I don't want this life. I want her. I want our life together." She gestures between you and her

Her father stands up, his face red with anger "You ungrateful little-!" But Bada cuts him off, her voice cold and commanding "No. I'm done being ungrateful. I'm done being a pawn in your schemes. I love her."

He gets angry, "guards! Get this stupid girl out of here!" He points at you. You pull out a pocket knife from your dress pocket and show it to them as your hand shakes slightly. "Don't you dare".

Her father chuckles, "Dumb girl, you think a pocket knife can stop them?" You then pull Bada by the arm and place the knife on her throat, "I guess, now it would. If she isn't mine, she'll be nobody's."

Everyone freezes. Guards try to get close to you. "Stay where you are, or she'll be gone" you threatened, all panic. You whisper discreetly in Bada's ear, "Babe, play along, act scared."

She whispers back "Love you." Then louder, with a slight tremble in her voice that's half-pretend "She means it... she's crazy enough to do it."

The room goes completely silent, the tension palpable. The guards begin to sweat, clearly uncomfortable with this standoff. Bada's father's face turns a deeper shade of red, his lips pressed into a thin line.

Bada's father stays rooted to the spot, his eyes locked onto the knife at his daughter's neck. He swallows hard, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. He sees the cold determination in your eyes and realizes you're not bluffing.

You pretend to drag Bada towards the exit by her arm while the knife is still in your other hand. "Guards!" Her dad screams, you quickly throw her in the passenger seat as you get in the driver seat of your car which is ready and drive away fast.

You drive it fast as you hear the guards and her parents' car following you behind. You take many turns trying to lose them. Finally, when they lose you, you pull the car to a secluded place.

You throw yourself to her and cry in fear and adrenaline rush from all the stunts you both pulled. She catches you easily, pulling you closer despite your shaking. She kisses you passionately, her fingers tangling in your hair. When the kiss breaks, she gently strokes your face "You were brilliant," she whispers, her voice full of admiration.

You sniffle, looking at her with tear-filled eyes. She then says, "We can't stay here for long; what now?" You say, "Let's go somewhere else and start over everything...?" She smiles at your idea. A new life with you, away from her toxic parents is the best she could ever ask for. She nods.

"Fine, starting over it is. Why don't we just book a place to stay for today and plan everything out?" She asks, to which you nod.

After checking into a sleek, modern hotel under a fake identity, Bada leads you to the room. Once inside, she locks the door and turns to you, a small smile on her face. "We're safe... for now," she says, setting your bag down on the nearby table.

You fall on the bed, calming yourself from the high of the events that took place. "Finally, we can breathe," she says softly, starting to unzip the back of her elegant gown. She moves gracefully across the room, her heels clicking against the marble floor "Though I must say, seeing you boss my father around was quite... exciting."

You chuckle, your eyes fall on her body now that she has taken off her gown, leaving her in lingerie. "Hmm....now that we're here...why don't we relax for a while...?" You say suggestively, while your eyes roam of her figure.

"Relax? After all that?" She moves closer to the bed, her eyes sparkling with mischief "Well, you did save me from an unwanted marriage..." She reaches to the straps of your dress, "So I guess we can..." She slowly begins to slide the straps down.

You bite your lip, getting excited already, "So wanna do it?" She smirks, slowly nodding as she continues to push your dress down. The dress falls further, revealing more of your skin. "I thought you'd never ask," she murmurs, leaning down to capture your lips in a heated kiss. Her hands roam over your body, exploring every curve, pushing you back on the bed.

She follows you down, her kisses growing more urgent as she settles between your legs. She pulls the dress up and over your head, tossing it aside before reaching for your underwear. "These have to go," she says, hooking her fingers into the sides and pulling them down your legs.

You nod, eyes hooded as she takes your panties off. "The bag...strapon....there.." you say breathlessly as you point to your bag. Her eyes widen in realization, a mischievous grin spreading across her face. She chuckles darkly, reaching into your bag. She pulls out the strap-on, holding it up by the harness. "My favorite toy,"

"ngh...I thought it would be useful in ....emergencies..." you say breathlessly.

She laughs, attaching the strap-on to herself. She climbs back onto the bed, between your legs. "Well, I'd say this is an emergency," she teases, grabbing the lube from your bag. "Hold still," she commands, squirting a generous amount onto the toy.

Her voice drops to a husky whisper "Tell me how you want it..." She positions herself, running the tip of the toy between your thighs "Hard? Slow? Maybe both?" she teases, knowing exactly how to drive you crazy with anticipation "Or should I just..."

"However you like," you say, your voice ragged. Her expression darkens with lust. "Silly answer," she scolds, slapping your thigh playfully. She spits on the toy for good measure, rubbing the lube and her saliva over it.

Meanwhile, her parents who were looking for their innocent daughter who was "kidnapped" by you, were afraid of what you might have done to her. They somehow find your location and come there, with the old groom. They barge into the room only to hear and see....

"....mommy!!" Your desperate cry and you were on your fours getting pounded by their daughter, who was just in her lingerie while you were naked. Without missing a beat, she grabs your hips and continues to thrust slowly inside you, "Tsk tsk tsk... Father, Mother... weren't you taught to knock?" She speaks with a sultry voice, intentionally drawing out each word.

The old groom gasps and his jaw drops at the sight. The old groom accused her parents: "You both planned to marry HER to me?! She isn't a Virgin probably and doesn't even act like a proper woman!!"

The room was just filled with your cries and moans and skin-slapping sounds.

She slaps one of your ass cheeks, leaving a red handprint, wrapping her hand around your throat as she rides you on your fours, "That's correct, I'm not a virgin... I've had her many times now, like this...and we've done every possible thing you can think of when it came to sex." She increases her pace, driving into you harder and faster. "And I fucking love it!"

The old groom's eyes widen in disbelief and outrage. He turns to Bada's parents, pointing an accusatory finger. "You lied to me! You told me she was a virgin, pure and untouched! But she's not, she's a filthy whore who fucks women and enjoys it!"

Bada's mother gasps, her hand flying to her mouth. Her father's face turns red with anger and embarrassment. The old groom continues ranting "And she isn't even acting like a proper woman!"

She slams into you especially hard, making you moan loudly "That's right! I love being a whore for this one. And I'd choose her over any old man any day!" She slams into you again and again, enjoying the show they're putting on. You shake violently as she keeps hitting that one spot; you're crying loud, and all you can do is moan.

With another smack on your ass, you cum hard. Bada's mother finally finds her voice, standing up and pointing at you. "You... you filthy, disgusting creature! You've disgraced our family!" The old man keeps blabbering since he didn't get what he wanted.

Bada chuckles, "If I had married you, I think your asshole would be in danger since I'm not the type to be a bottom. Right baby?" She tells the groom as she slapped your ass, to which you whimpered. The old man stands humiliated.

She continues fucking you steadily through your orgasm, deliberately ignoring the scandalized reactions from her parents and the old groom. "We don't give a fuck about the pathetic societal rules anymore" Reaches around to pinch your nipples.

The old groom storms out, disgusted. Bada's parents look at each other, horror-struck. Her father finally speaks, his voice shaking with anger and disappointment. "You two... you're disgracing our family name!"

"Great, another reason to hate us," Bada says sarcastically, continuing to play with your hair as she lies behind on top of you, still connected by the toy. Her mother speaks up, her voice trembling. "Bada, act like a lady!"

Stays positioned inside you, not pulling out "And what exactly would a 'lady' do in this situation? Politely thank the groom for his wedding proposal while spreading her legs for him? No thanks... I'd rather be a 'whore' with the person I truly love."

Her parents stand there, frozen in outrage and disbelief. Her mother finally finds her voice, spitting out the words. "You ungrateful, shameful, disgusting...!" She points an accusatory finger at you. "You're a perverted influence on our daughter!"

Her father steps forward, his face contorted with anger. "You think you can just throw us out and live happily ever after with our daughter? We'll make sure you two are outcasts! No one will accept you as a couple!" He told you before turning to Bada "And you..."

"You'll be disowned. You'll have no family, no inheritance, nothing." He spits out the words, attempting to hurt Bada with the threat of losing her family's wealth and status.

You both don't seem affected by their words. He storms out, slamming the door behind him. His wife follows, casting one last glare at the two of you before leaving. The room falls silent, finally empty of Bada's parents.

You both laugh together. She pulls the strap out of you and lays next to you, pulling you onto her chest and holding you close. "Seems like you're free now" you chuckle as you told bada. Grinning mischievously, she cuddles next to you on the bed. "Seems like it. We're officially outcasts now. No family, no friends who'll support our marriage, nothing." She giggles "We're on our own."

"wanna move to a new place and get married?" You ask, eyes gleaming.

Her eyes light up with excitement. "Let's do it. Let's pack our bags and move to a new city, where nobody knows us. We can get married there, start a new life, just the two of us." She squeezes you tight in her arms.

.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆.　 . • ☆ . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . ☆

My exams are close, I'm doomed....bye

[daryfromthefuture]

i have another wild au concept i need to share: bttf shifted like 40 years forward and marty and doc meet online (maybe during the covid pandemic even?)

doc has some sort of username that's just "science_guy_121" or something and he like. replies to martys instagram story at some point where marty maybe just had to tag random ass accounts for a challenge. marty didn't expect anyone to reply but doc was like "Thank you for tagging me! 😃" and marty knows just from this message that doc is OLD lmao

marty goes "yeah no prob" and doesn't think he'll talk to the guy ever again, but doc just keeps messaging him. they find out they share an interest in music and ramble about bands a lot.

the man does know about internet anonymity and doesn't say his name, but he does say how old he is at some point and marty probably should be concerned about talking to 60 year olds online at like 13/14 years old, but he really isn't since the guy is so friendly. he does ask at some point, and doc is just super confused as to why anyone would even have bad intentions and assures marty he just likes talking to people, and that topic is never brought up again

a year later or so, marty convinces doc to get discord, and that happens at like two in the morning, so doc asks what's keeping the kid awake and marty goes on to tell doc about his family situation. doc is really empathetic and grows to be martys support system, and even as an online friend, he helps marty so much, talking to him at 3 am to calm him after hearing his parents fight all night. doc also helps him with schoolwork via internet, essentially helping marty pass several classes.

in early 2025, doc leaks that he's building something really cool and that he'd love to show marty his new invention, to which marty goes "damn, i wanna come see. may i ask which city u live close to" and doc replies with "Oh, I believe San Francisco seems adjacent enough." marty cannot believe this and texts "NO WAY, SAME HERE".

doc: That's quite the coincidence! Well, I might as well say I live in a small town called Hill Valley.

marty: WHAT

doc: Yeah, I'd assume you've never heard of it. 😂

marty: NO NO

marty: I ACTUALLY

marty: I LITERALLY AM FROM THE SAME TOWN?!?!

and that's how marty finds out he's been talking to the "crazy doc brown" the ENTIRE TIME lol

the two can, without any trouble, meet in person, and the first thing marty does when getting to the garage is apologize profusely for still laughing about the rumors about doc while texting him online about how kind he was at the same time. doc forgives him, and that's how they basically start spending time together in person. marty's screen time goes down significantly, but he's actually so goddamn happy about having a friend like that and will defend doc with his life.

yeah that's kinda it. also a bit of a homage to all the awesome people i have met on the internet. love you guys <3

[leporellian]

actually i'm going to talk about the met's weird thing with the rust belt more because it was definitely one of those things where a few years ago when the new met lucia was in development i was like, oh cool i wonder what they'll do with that, but now that we're here... man does it leave a bad taste in the mouth.

here's a question for you: Why Do So Many Operas Take Place In Seville?

seville is the setting for some hundreds of operas, including many of the famous ones: the barber of seville, carmen, la forza del destino, the marriage of figaro, fidelio, don giovanni (which actually might not take place in seville but given don juan stories up to them did it sticks)... the list keeps going. and there was a legitimate reason for this- for hundreds of years, seville was seen as a seedy and sexualized location where anything could happen. that exoticism carries over into the plot of many of the Seville Operas, which often feature seductions, crimes, and passion stories that fit neatly into the tales of the seedy city.

opera is about, in a lot of ways, EXOTICIZING OTHER PLACES. the spectacle of a setting was often a major part of the excitement of seeing a new opera, especially in the 19th century. but some of these places 'work' better than others, for a variety of reasons that boil down to the politics of representation and who is being who onstage.

seville works as an Exotic Opera Location Du Jour for multiple reasons. for one thing, if you notice, a lot of the seville operas take place 60-100+ years before the composition of the opera. for example, the marriage of figaro and don giovanni were composed in 1786 and 1787 respectively, and both depict 1600s seville. if you were writing a Seville Opera right now, for comparison, it would probably take place between 1890 and 1960- there's enough of a time gap that exploring the world as a more fantastical setting is easier to swallow. for another, seville is in western europe, and many of the composers depicting it were also from western europe. there is an evened playing field. (THERE IS A NOTABLE EXCEPTION about this that I WILL GET TO SOON.) finally, now that these operas are over a century old, we're even more removed from their concept of 'seville' and the 'seville' in operas has been turned into something of a convenient fantasy location in which to put an opera. it's something out of a medieval times dinner and tournament and not necessarily meant to be Actual Real Seville at all, which works fine because Seville Operas work without needing much context about the location. don jose is a soldier, you don't need to know what seville soldiers' duties were. figaro is a barber, you don't need to know what barbers in seville were like. and so on.

but there are other opera locations that don't serve this purpose as well- often nonwhite regions appropriated by white composers. the incredibly warped conceptions of egypt that show up in aida and the magic flute, the looking-glass japan of madama butterfly, the brief moment in which la fanciulla del west wherein the opera remembers the existence of native american peoples... suddenly the make-believe of exoticism goes away and is replaced by a sour feeling because in many cases these cultures could not have a say on their own depictions in the operatic world, while the western europeans featured in the operas that exoticize locations like seville or paris could.

carmen is an interesting case study in Opera Exoticism because it features a location that is fine enough to exoticize (early 1800s seville) and a titular character that is not. carmen was- and, in many productions, is still- written as romani. she embodies many negative stereotypes about the culture- she is seductive, morally ambiguous, a smuggler, a femme fatale. yet we as an audience are made to sympathize with her. she is honest about who she is, accepting of the hard truths that are given to her; she is close to her friends and her crueler moments come across as more of an ill-planned joke than a real sense of antipathy. carmen is both a product of how romani people were written by white men in her time, and progressive in that we root for her against the (white) don jose. (and it should be noted that she knows that if he kills her he will be executed for it- carmen is about a mutual kill.) a good carmen production will evaluate all of these features and include them into the work somehow; be it through metatextual commentary, or careful representation, or understanding of what the audience is seeing.

anyway, now that we've covered all that, let's go look at The Met Opera's Current Fascination With Lower Class American Communities and see what we find there.

the rust belt and the sun belt have captured the imagination of the met opera recently, as seen in their current productions of lucia di lammermoor and carmen. these settings are depicted as grimy, miserable, and joyless; women are thrown around by men, men are depicted as one-dimensional monsters that are not to be understood or seen into. the cruelty is the point- these productions do not treat lower-class americans as people to relate to or understand. the sole exceptions are lucia- who is made out to be something of an outsider, so the audience can relate to her- and carmen, who is misinterpreted into being a sad woman who just wants love (god forbid a woman have some other motivation). the racial issues that dominate the cultural conversation in america are unspoken of in these productions, even when there is an opportunity to; this becomes especially uncomfortable in carmen, where the above history of carmen as a nonwhite woman and the opera's setting on the US-Mexico border (with the soldiers cast as border agents!) goes unmentioned in the name of 'heightening the class and gender inequality'- both of which were already in the original work along with the race inequality! these productions are both directed by non-american white people. simon stone is from australia, carrie cracknell is from britain. why would they want to depict this setting? because they see it as a dark, cynical den of seediness and repressed sexuality- a world where we don't have to worry about empathy, or broader implications, because the people in these settings do not go to the met- a world where we can look on with revulsion and unease.... this crosses the line from exoticism into fetishization, in which lower class people become pawns for the met to use as set dressing.

this is especially uncomfortable because of opera's long history being seen as a 'rich people hobby'. opera is characterized as snobbish, useless, reprehensible; an art form that exists only to please the rich and the white and the male-dominated. all of which is not true! i believe to the bottom of my heart that everybody deserves a night at the opera, and that there is an opera for everyone, and everybody should feel welcome in the opera house (or other opera space du jour). and there are so many people working to change the industry from the inside, particularly the work of artists of color to broaden the opera canon and depictions of that canon as we know them. but as long as the met continues to use poor people as set dressing instead of bothering to communicate with them in a meaningful way, as long as the met sees these settings as places where brutes live instead of human beings, that stereotype of the rich man's hobby is going to continue. and the met is going to suffer for it- as i suspect that, as time goes on, the voyeuristic lens of these operas into the lives of abused lower-class women will be seen as more and more revolting.

TLDR

[presidentstalkeyes]

Pines Family Headcanons (Take 2)

I know I already did something like this, but that was a while ago and my headcanons have evolved since then, and my fixation brain is in Pines mode again so here we go! (Mostly focused on the Mystery Twins but with some attention to the older generations scattered about)

Past:

The first member of the Pines family to arrive in America in the 1800s was Gabriel Penzak, a Sephardic Jew from somewhere in the Balkans. His last name was changed to Pines at Ellis Island, and his family later assimilated into the majority-Ashkenazi Jewish community in New Jersey. He was the father of Elmer Pines and grandfather of Filbrick.

Filbrick was the youngest of four brothers (the others were Philip, Fillmore and Fulton). He was the 'weakest' of the four, compensating with his intellect and business sense. He was also born with highly sensitive eyesight - flashes of light would blind him for hours - requiring dark glasses later in life.

His eyesight also meant he was passed over for the draft in WWII. Since all three of his brothers died in the war, this possibly saved his life. As a young man, he operated and maintained film projectors at a traveling carnival, under a boss who taught him many tricks (and bore a resentment towards 'freak show' acts, viewing them as talentless). It was here he met - and accidentally impregnated - his future wife Caryn.

Caryn Romanoff's parents were Pavel, a grizzled sailor, and Tanya, a fortune-teller - both Ukrainian Jews who fled to America to escape persecution from Stalin's Soviet Union. She also had two siblings - older brother Dimitri, a troublemaker and later hatchet-man for the Mafia (never a made man due to his non-Italian ancestry, but close enough for his family to disown him) and little sister Shprintze, who was married three times and had five children in total, all of them named after Roman emperors (except for her only daughter Cleopatra).

Filbrick and Caryn's first son was Shermie, born in 1947. Their second sons, Stanford and Stanley, came 8 years later in 1954. Shermie was a star athlete in high school and always kinda distant from his little brothers, in addition to being Filbrick's obvious favourite. Also a notorious flirt and brought many girls back to the pawn shop (and distracting Stanford from his homework with the resulting noises), and tattled on Stanley for bringing a possum into the store, forcing him to let Shanklin go. Was later drafted into the Vietnam War in the 60s, missing out on Stan's eviction from the house. When he returned from the war, the first thing he did after finding out he was a brother short was to track down Ford and deck him in the face.

While in Hawaii on R&R, Shermie started a relationship with a local waitress called Wikiola Kale. After getting pregnant with his daughter, Wikiola got a plane ticket all the way to NJ to ask Shermie's parents to look after the child, being too poor to raise a child herself. Filbrick almost slammed the door in her face until Caryn intervened. The baby - Louise - was the one in Caryn's arms the night Stan was kicked out.

Louise Pines first grew up in Glass Shard, then moved to L.A. after her dad married a rich businesswoman called Fiona Safesmith (the relationship with Wikiola having not worked out). Fiona was a less-than-ideal stepmom, trying to force her daughter to go into acting and disparaging her interest in DD&D and mystery novels. She also cheated on her husband after an old war injury acted up and he lost the use of his legs, and later went to prison for tax fraud.

Louise would later get a degree in criminology and met a computer geek, amateur ufologist and 'radical cool dude' called Emile Sauvageon (who ran away from a strict, isolated religious family). They started a relationship and had twins in 1999: Mason and Mabel.

Present:

Dipper and Mabel's full names are Mason Emile Pines and Mabel Louise Pines, respectively.

Lou and Em only moved to Piedmont on Shermie's recommendation (and with his money). They would regularly clash with their neighbours for their 'weird' habits (and refusing to maintain their lawn). They considered themselves the arch-enemies of the local HWA.

Em worked at a fancy silicon valley tech start-up, while Lou was a private investigator (the boring realistic kind that mostly deals with insurance fraud and the occasional adulterer).

When he was little, Emile used to wow his son with stories about he was secretly an awesome space pirate with a cosmic ancestry, evidenced by Dipper's birthmark. And Dipper believed him. Really believed him. When his dad finally told him the truth, he did not take it well. Dipper also butted heads with his mom a lot over the existence of the supernatural - she would encourage him to examine things rather than blindly accept them, but he'd often think she was just doubting him for no reason. In short, he had some trust issues with his parents.

Dipper did have some friends in elementary school, but most of them moved away, and in middle school he alienated his fellow nerds after he was kicked out of the tabletop gaming club for being too rules lawyer-y. The resulting slump also lead to him falling behind on band practice.

Mabel is asexual and aromantic, but didn't realize it until much later. Finding she was drifting apart from her friends, she wrongfully attributed it to not having a crush (in truth they simply started to see her as immature and embarassing to be around - you know how kids can get :V). Not wanting to be 'left behind', she dedicated the summer in Gravity Falls to getting a romance as 'proof' that she was a totally grown-up big gal now (while her only reference material were 80s animated comedies and age-inappropriate romance novels).

Mabel very nearly didn't get to go to Gravity Falls at all - she was in danger of being forced to go to summer school due to poor grades (unlike her brother - and like her Grunkle Stan - she experienced great difficulty with any subject involving figures and rote memorization, especially math, the sciences, and computer studies). Only a week of late-night cram sessions spared her from this fate.

Contributing to the above, she also suffered from a form of anterograde amnesia - she would easily forget things that happened just the day before - sometimes even less - until presented with a reminder, usually in the form of an object or person, often her brother. She originally started scrapbooking to help her remember things. This wasn't diagnosed until a year after that summer.

Dipper was in the Boy Scouts in 2011. He hated the experience, camping out in the woods with no games or books, not relating to the other boys and resenting being ordered around by his hardass ex-army Scoutmaster. But he did get a merit badge in astro-navigation, so that's something.

Mabel had a brief stint in the Girl Scouts as well. She quit after an attempt to sell cookies somehow ended with her troop being chased out of a neighbourhood by a knife-wielding maniac in a bathrobe. To this day she's only told Dipper the full story.

One time, Dipper watched Small Soldiers and subsequently destroyed all his action figures checking them for military control chips. He was also banned from Chuck E. Cheese after his 7th birthday when he checked the animatronics for anything suspicious and made Pasquale's head fall off in front of everyone (on the same trip, Mabel tried to get the animatronic band freed from their exploitative contract so they could pursue their true musical potential).

One of Mabel's favourite movies is Rocky IV. For a long time she genuinely believed that's how the Cold War ended and was very disappointed to learn that wasn't the case.

Mabel had a bug-catching phase when she was 10, spurred on by all the creepy-crawlies that would nest in their unmaintained lawn. She'd catch bugs in jars and invite them to have tea and review movies with her. This came to an end after one of the jars smashed and released fireflies all over the house. She was finding descendants of Francisco the Firefly living in the basement as late as 2014.

Lou and Em were not getting divorced - they merely had a fight about paying off their mortgage after Em lost his job, and Dipper simply overreacted and assumed the worst. They sent the kids away that summer while they got their affairs in order. In the end, they had to sell the house and move into a cheaper apartment in Oakland.

Future:

When they first returned from Gravity Falls, the twins' grades took a nosedive as they had difficulty re-adjusting to mundane life, experiencing frequent traumatic episodes and refusing to follow instructions. Their parents had to be called in multiple times after both twins got into a fight in the hallway because another kid made up some dumb rumour that they'd joined a cult or had been abused by their 'creepy uncle', or were just faking their episodes for attention. They were only spared mandatory counseling thanks to emergency 'how to pretend to be normal' coaching from the Grunks.

Dipper has to start wearing glasses a few months after leaving Gravity Falls. Mabel of course made fun of this, thinking that only the male Pineses turn short-sighted (and forgetting about her mom). She had to start wearing glasses at 16, to which Dipper only replied by smugly grinning at her.

In high school, Mabel started a knitting club, which ended up being the most popular club in school - mostly because she insisted that it was a safe space for anyone, and anyone who tried anything funny would have their lives made hell. In her clubroom, nerds, preps, goths and jocks sat side-by-side in peace.

Mabel also took up sports, especially wrestling, becoming captain of the girls' wrestling team by Junior year. She took up a high-protein diet to build her strength - this combined with a childhood spent binging candy finally catching up to her lead to her putting on a lot of weight. By adulthood she's developed what she calls a 'sumo bod' - chubby, but strong (and great for hugs).

Meanwhile, Dipper took up track and gymnastics while regularly going to the gym - to the shock of everyone, as getting pre-Gravity Falls Dipper to exercise was like pulling teeth. If he was gonna have to brave another apocalypse, he didn't want to be saddled with noodle arms. By his 20s, the combination of his 'baby face' with his square jaw and muscular body has attracted a good amount of attention from girls (and boys) - attention he is alternately mildly perturbed by or totally oblivious to.

Dipper also devoted extra effort to his art skills, hoping to achieve the same level as Ford. Sometimes he'd climb up onto rooftops to get a good view of the landscape to draw, and then add a completely gratuitous monster because why not?

Despite his best efforts, Dipper was never able to overcome Mabel's height advantage. In fact, in their teen years she gained a few extra inches on him.

Dipper still regularly wears hats even as an adult - though he's no longer self-conscious about his birthmark, he's been wearing hats for so long it feels weird not to. It's like his 'thing' - Mabel has her sweaters, he has his hats.

Past his school years, Dipper mostly goes by Mason, especially with strangers - 'Dipper' is reserved for friends and family.

Dipper got a doctorate in forensic science at college, and also interned at a coroner's office. He also did some work as a runner on a film set, but the experience at the Used To Be About History Channel soured him on show business. Instead, after getting his doctorate he decided to take up Ford's offer to apprentice under him from years before, hoping to become a paranormal investigator in his own right (incidentally, Candy Chiu took the same offer, and now they work together).

Mabel went to college too, but didn't particularly want to, only going because she felt pressured. She ended up dropping out after the first year and still feels aimless, not knowing what to do with her life. She currently still lives with her parents and has a decently fulfilling job at an independent haberdashery (sweaters will always be there for her), but she's not sure that's what she wants to do.

Both twins are adored by Soos and Melody's 6-year-old kids (also twins) - they're considered honourary Uncle DipDip and Aunt MayMay.

When he turned 16, Soos gave Dipper his old truck - as much as he liked it, he can't exactly stick his kids in the cargo bay. Mabel meanwhile drives the Mabel-Mobile, an old Soviet military van painted pink with a huge shooting star mural, plus a liberal amount of graffitti and bumper stickers. Where she got it remains a mystery - not even she seems to remember.

Mabel has a serious weakness for booze. She experimented a lot with various substances during her brief time at college, but cocktails really stuck. When she's drunk, she tends to shift between giddy and sentimental, grumpy and ranty, and depressed and regretful. You know she's had too much when she starts singing about 'Lady Apocalypse'.

Dipper never got as into that stuff himself, but he was introduced to weed by Wendy, relying on it to calm his anxieties during exam season. He's currently trying to wean himself off it by means of alternate herbal cigarettes.

Waddles had to be sent back to Gravity Falls after a few years, since he rapidly grew too big to keep at Piedmont. He currently lives in a lean-to next to the Shack that Soos built. He still regularly sees Gompers, to Mabel's delight.

Wendy also got both twins into tattoos, convincing Mabel to get a huge shooting star on her upper right arm. For her 18th birthday she also got a special pair of tats on the forearms - a pair of arrows with the right marked 'Fasten In Case Of Hug!'. Dipper was reluctant at first, but caved when Mabel designed him a 'pine tree heart' emblem, which he wears on his right shoulder.

Both twins are in a special 'Never Mind All That' group chat, along with almost everyone else in the Zodiac, plus Candy and Grenda (but not Gideon). Mabel had the idea for a 'hotline' of sorts that they could message whenever the old post-apocalypse trauma started acting up - knowing from experience how important is to have people to remind you they're there.

Every year on the anniversary of the end of Weirdmageddon, both twins visit Bill's petrified body, and scribble tally marks on his face - one for each year, alternating between Dipper's blue marker and Mabel's pink one (this is something I've already mentioned elsewhere but I felt like it deserved to be at the end. :P)

[sokacoke]

Compiling some questions and information regarding indigo park from unique geese's live streams.

Some clips might not be long enough for the full answer due to YouTube only being 60 seconds so just keep that in mind.

A bit of the older ones could contain stuff that aren't up to date that I forgot to remove because I was making this in my notes for like 3-5 weeks so lets uh. ignore those!! (ill delete them later maybe)

IF I SCREAM THE STREAM ENDS

'I think comparing Issac to fucking Willam afton is such a sad comparison'

Credits to @lunozapp for the clip

INDIGO Q&A 

“Will there be any boss fights?”

‘That’s a hard thing to say. I’m gonna say no.’

“How old are Rambley and his friends?”

'They’re all over 18. Probably around there early 20s at oldest.  They’re younger but I don’t really have set ages for them.'

“Would Indigo park be rated M?”

'I would argue indigo park chapter 1 could get away as teen but I’d like to rate it up as a M by chapter 2.'

“Is chapter 2 going to take place under the park?”

'No. There might be parts under but chapter 2 won’t.'

“Rambley has been left alone since the park closed. Has he practically sat alone for that long?”

'In all technicality, he was sitting there alone and abandoned for many years. He’s not fully aware of what’s going on, but he is you know?” 

“Do you have any plans for future chapters?”

'The entire greater story has been set in stone for months and we don’t have any plans to change it.'

'There’s stuff in chapter 1 that people won’t realize are important to the plot until chapter 5.'

“Is mollie macaw an antagonist?”

'Depends what you’re saying when you say mollie macaw. Antagonist is a strong word.'

LAUNCH STREAM

“Is the raccoon evil?”

'No. You guys just buckle up. you’ll see.'

REACTING TO YOUTUBERS 

“Did you expect for Rambley to be popular with the furries?”

‘I made a joke that it would be popular within it but nothing in the game was designed to be furry. It was just like “hey we need parody’s of Mickey Mouse and Disney characters” ending up creating characters I really liked.'

“Do you know that there’s already NFSW art of Rambley?”

'It’s the internet sorry. If you make NFSW stuff I just ask you don’t send it to me or inject it to the rest of the community. Keep it separate, these are like my children.'

“How many versions of the railroad did u go through?”

'It took quite a while. We would get to a point where we kind of liked it and then be like “oh I don’t really like this it doesn’t flow really well.” I think the great thing going into chapter 2 we have a better understanding of what we want the game to look. Chapter 2s going to be mainly a lot of the rides. It was kind a deal where I wanted you to feel claustrophobic but it was hard to deal with those open environments. I’m not gonna announce anything crazy but chapter 2 will start in the queue and lobby for oceanic oddesy'

“How many chapters will there be?”

'The game plan is five.'

“Is this the last time we will see Mollie? Her death screen mentions she can copy voices but that wasn’t shown. Will be shown again to do that mechanic?”

'The voices were less of a mechanic and more of showing going on when she’s talking throughout the game. All the dialogue is something she’s heard during game,behind the scenes of the park or something that a guest has said.'

“Is Rambley the bad guy?”

'What part of the game made you think Rambleys the bad guy? No.'

“I trust Rambley with my life. If he betrays us I’ve already forgiven him.”

'Yeah, you don’t need to worry about that.'

“Whys the main character so jacked?”

'It’s just the character model I had I was using. We might change it.'

Critter cuff

'I was big against the idea of having one mechanic. They saw poppy playtime and instantly thought “every mascot horror needs a mechanic.” The critter cuffs important but I also want different fun mechanics that can be worked into it.'

“Do you plan to add more characters?”

'There will be more characters added into chapter 2. There may some returning characters. Obviously Rambley will be the focus of every chapter he’s ur buddy through ur journey. We do have a new set of characters.'

“Will there be another credits song in chapter 2?”

'We don’t want to start planning stuff until we know for sure how much money is there budget wise.'

“Where’s the cat?”

'There originally was just a regular ass cat that was in the and was in the game for quite a while. The model we had didn’t look like it fit the world and the animation looked stiff. Maybe we bring it back.'

“What were the stealth things in the files for?”

'Originally there was a section where Lloyd would follow you and you’d hide. I definitely want to do some stealth stuff where you have to hide under stuff I think that’d be a lot of fun.'

“Will Mollie return?”

'Do you think Mollie will return?'

“Is Rambley sentient?”

'He’s fully aware of everything around him but he’s programmed to behave a certain way. The best comparison would be GLaDOS or Wheatley from portal. Programmed to act a certain way, but also aware and able to see stuff around them and react.'

“How long will chapter 2 be?”

'We’re aiming chapter 2 to be just a little bit longer then chapter 1. We want each chapter to be a bit longer than before. I’d say for chapter 2, two and a half

'The only character that won’t have much influence is clearly Mollie.'

“What about Lloyd?”

'Lloyd’s cool and Lloyd will be important. That is all I can say.'

“Will there be other AI companions?”

'No. It’s just Rambley the main mascot.'

“Is there a possibility of a major overhaul of chapter 1?”

'There’s room to improve it a bit. In the future, I can see us doing a full on remaster of chapter 1.'

“Never make Rambley a creep I will not forgive you for it”

'You got it.'

“What’s the estimated gap between the chapters?”

'Year to Year and a half, maybe two. Chapter 2 is definitely 2025.'

“Don’t be fooled?”

'There was a lot more potential do something with that. If we had more budget then it would be really cool where you’re running through the pipes and you have to listen for Rambleys voice through the pipes and sometimes it would be mollies voice. It would be Rambley guiding you and then you hear Mollie trying to sound like Rambley.'

“It hurts Lloyd”

'That’s the funny thing. I don’t wanna get TOO deep into it but this was kinda just random text. I’ve seen 5 or 6 different interpretations of what people think it says.'

'Without spoiling anything I do think multiple ending’s for the final chapter would be kinda cool.'

REACTING TO MATPAT

“A lot of sexual tension between these guys”

'Shout out to the furries because I’ve seen every combination of characters being shipped and it wasn’t until today that a single female character was involved that all. Not mollie not Nonbinary with Salem it was literally just the 3 men'

“Does Rambley canonically sing Rambley review?”

'Yes he actually does. It’s in between chapter whenever ur going into chapter 2. The player could turn around and find a way out now but he actively wants to keep going with Rambley.'

TALKING ABOUT INDIGO PARK,FNF AND MORE

“The voice and creator of indigo park”

'I don’t voice anyone expect for Jackson and another character that no ones found yet.'

“Are you ever going to get a console support?”

'So we will eventually but to be honest with you I don’t want to do that until we have like chapter 3 out. At earliest if chapter 2 becomes massive then maybe as a bundle, but I don’t know.'

“Is chapter 2 free?”

'No it won’t be.'

FUNKAST THEN FNAF

'Other then a few minor tweaks we have the first few minutes of Rambleys dialogue at the beginning of chapter 2 written out.'

'I don’t think we’ll ever do a fox character. We were brainstorming some of the characters in chapter 2 and thought “oh maybe a fox would be cool” but we were looking at the role that this character would have to play if they were a fox and thought “at some point we’re just making knock off foxy from fnaf”'

“What the species”

'I cant disclose that sorry chief. There are other animal based cartoon characters in chapter 2 if that satisfies you. Furries rejoice I guess? I feel like it’d be harder to do a human villain.'

“How hard is it to make an idea of a character?”

'All of the characters we make need a purpose. It’s layers of talking through stuff and ideas to get stuff we like. The designs for them aren’t done but the idea for them is there and i am in love with them.'

“So the character design isn’t finished but have you made actual development of the game?”

'No. We’re working on chapter 1 right now. Again we’re looking at a year and a half or two years until chapter 2 cuz I’m not gonna rush it or my team. We’ll have little animations stuff and between yeah we’re not gonna do anything with that.

“Update is bug fixes, trying to get controller support working,revamping some of the environments and I’m bringing on a new modeler for some of the monster designs. Not confirming but i think Finley is going to get a full on redesign for chapter 2.”

“What chapter are you most excited for?”

'To be honest with you, i think chapter 3 is where we’re going to start doing the crazy shit possible and then chapter 4 is planned to be the most bad ass chapter i could ever think of. The story gets moving chapter 4.'

NEW FNAF GAME + INDIGO PARK NEWS

'It turned out that jakeneutron who’s my head animator, was going to Disney at the same time I’m at Orlando. We met up and we took so many pictures for reference. We went to universal studios and it was my first time we ever went to universal so I took so many pictures'

“Refs for what?”

'For indigo park bro. Dude I needed anything theme park and I got so many ideas for the future of indigo and stuff.'

“Salem news or I’m not here”

'Do I wanna put out Salem news..Salem is important 👍'

'I’ve kind of teased it a bit but we are working on some minor chapter 1 before chapter 2 just so there’s a bit of a quality jump so it’s a little bit more in the realm of where we want it to be.'

'We are working on some environmental updates. Working on some new assets to put into chapter 1. Which should make stuff feel cooler in my opinion? '

'To accompany that one thing we didn’t have a lot of is that environmental music in regards to what they would have in a real theme park. Like if ur waiting in a queue in a theme park there’s a lot of music and stuff that they play that is custom to that. Let’s say you were waiting for Rambleys railroads, what would that sound like? So maybe a little bit of new music?'

New potential song in clip link

FINISHING INTO THE PIT & NEW INDIGO PARK PLUSH LAUNCH PARTY

“Character hints?”

'I think you will be soft introduced or at least see the character designs before chapter 2s out. Right now at this point of development there are four new characters planned.'

“Is there gonna have a obby theme?”

‘Probably not really. I’ve talked about a little about a mechanic that we started to workshop and figuring out how it’ll work in the lore and gameplay elements but I probably won’t talk about it again.'

“Will there be a haunted house ride or a dark ride?”

'I want to do a haunted mansion parody hopefully chapter 4 or 5. Not in chapter 2 it wouldn’t fit.'

“Space mountain?”

'I have ideas for a space mountain and I can’t tell you what chapter that one will be in.'

'It’s funny cuz I’m reworking all of the chapter 1 environments and I’ve been thinking about it. There’s a fair enough of stuff that theorists haven’t caught onto yet that I hope will be super obvious in the future. I’m super excited to see what people do with chapter 2.'

HORROR GAME NIGHT & TALKING INDIGO PARK

“Will you be selling art prints maybe with posters?”

'We might do posters. There’s some new poster art coming for chapter 2 and I’m gonna leak, the (chap 1) update.'

“Now will they all have villain roles?”

'I dunno. I’ve already told you guys about some of them actually you guys just haven’t figured it out yet'

Talking about the 4 new characters

'I will say the chapter 1 update will have new secrets for you to find and some of it will help you figure out stuff in chapter 2. We are cooking is all I can say.'

“Whats ur favorite out of the 4 originals we know about since u said 4 new characters”

'Yeah let me just reveal one of the characters. No. You guys won’t- actually? You guys will know about some of the characters WAY before chapter 2 comes out.'

BACK FROM PAX! - WATCHING JACKSEPTICEYE PLAY INDIGO PARK & CATCHING UP ON FNF MODS

'there’s a little bit of the new queue! A little bit of a step up. I mean hot take but. Looks a lot better I think.'

Queue in clip

'We’re still working on it but this is what Mollies landing pad looks like now. This feels more themed.'

New mollies landing pad in clip

“Can you make an update trailer for the indigo park update so people know it exists?”

'Yea we will. We’ll change it.'

Extra notes worth mentioning:

it’s been said that there will be a meme ending for chapter 3 though I’m not able to find the clip at the moment so if anyone somehow has it u should tots send it my way

When he's talking about the 'Other character he voices that no ones found yet' it might be possible he’s yapping about the reverse Llyods Limos line Context:

Video is from forgottenstudios1987 on YT

The cat been brought back!

Another part of the new rambleys railroad queue song.

More of the New Rambleys Railroad Third link is just a very subtle railroads gift shop but it counts i think

Other landing pad clip

FEEL FREE TO ADD ANY OTHER CLIPS I MIGHTVE MISSED!

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for Pretending That My Dad Was Dead? So I (22 NB) work in retail, and we sell alcohol where I work. It's our store policy to physically scan IDs to make sure there's no restrictions and to make sure that they are real and not expired. In my time working (I've been at this for a little over a year now), I found that the worst people about this are men in their 40s-60s, and they get all huffy and throw actual temper tantrums about how they shouldn't have to show ID because it's obvious that they're over 21. Anyway, one of my coworkers had recently lost his father, and he usually cracks jokes because that's what his dad would have wanted, and one day he brought up his dead dad when a customer was giving him crap about the ID thing. One night, during a closing shift, one customer says "I'm old enough to be your dad!", and without any hesitation I replied, "The only difference between you and my dad is that you're still alive." This guy was super embarrassed because there were people in the line he was holding up, so he just gave me his ID, I rang him up, and he left as fast as he could. My Dad and my sister had visited me at work about a half hour before this, so he's very much alive. The customer behind the ID guy asked if I was okay, and told me that she was so sorry for my loss, and I had to explain that my Dad was actually, in fact, alive and was at the store a half hour ago. I told my Dad this when I got home from my shift, and he thought it was the funniest thing ever, and I agree, but I still feel bad for the customer behind ID guy.

What are these acronyms?

[alittlebitofloveliness]

Hi! That talk ab what does and doesn't fit in ur personal canon (idk if that's the right word for it?) made me realize that I don't think I've ever seen you talk about Sandy on here! I lowkey forgot she was a character lmao. Where does she fit for you? (Does she fit? And if she does, could u give us some hcs on what you think her relationship with Soda was like?)

HI! Omg ok, this might be kind of long because I have LOTS of thoughts!

So in my head I have two sort of versions of my personal canon, and one is what I think actually would align with canon, and one is what I wish/gaslight myself into believing would work in canon.

I will say that I don't like Sandy as a character- but then again, as readers we're not supposed to. That said, I think she's an important character, and the fandom trashes and discredits her without really thinking about a) what she adds to the story, b) how realistic and common her plight of an unplanned teenage pregnancy that occured out of wedlock in the 60s was and what the consequences for her would be, c) keeping the last point in mind, how decent of her it was to not lie to Soda about the kid being his and to not accept his proposal when he insisted he didn't care (keep in mind that canonically Soda was so in love he was willing to marry her anyway). In a sense it can be argued that Sandy saved Soda in a way, or at least saved his future. I'm not saying she's a great person, of course she isn't but she cared enough about Soda to tell him the truth and not to trap him in a marriage with a baby that wasn't his when that was an option and her alternatives weren't great (the book says she went to stay with an aunt in Kansas or something- whether you believe thats actually where she ended up or not is up to you, personally I think it's likely she ended up in a religious led birthing house where she gave birth and the baby was taken away from her and adopted out, or alternatively kept her baby and lived as a social pariah while her child was looked down on for being a bastard) . I think too that it's important to keep in mind that Ponyboy's narration- PARTICULARLY about his views and portrayal of Soda- is biased. Ponyboy is fourteen. He and Soda are close, and he knew Soda loved Sandy but he clearly didn't have a good understanding of their relationship (for all we know, Soda and Sandy could have been going through a rough patch) and Soda may have loved her but might not have been a great boyfriend (we know Ponyboy puts him on a pedestal). Again, I'm not trying to excuse cheating, but Sandy is a character who was in a really tough situation and did the best she could considering, and I think people like to hate on her because they like to pretend that teen pregnancy isn't a real and prevalent issue in underprivelidged communities (and because Hinton's writing shows a lot of internalized misogyny but that's a rant for a different post) because it takes some of the 'fun' out of the greaser world- but Sandy is an important character because she forces readers to acknowledge that hard truth, and sit with it, and be uncomfortable, even if they hate her. It's interesting too, because Steve says that Sandy either had to go to kansas and dissapear or get married and her parents wouldn't let her marry a seventeen year old kid. But Sandy herself was a seventeen year old kid. Yes, it's good Soda didn't end up marrying her, but it's bleak that that was even considered as an option for her. Marriage at seventeen- even if she (and her parents) did accept Soda is a huge commitment, and likely would have ended with them resnting each other and living life barely making ends meet. To me, it's likely had Soda and Sandy ended up together, that they would have turned into Two-bit's parents (one ran off, one working to death) or Steve's (cyclically resentful, violent, and remorseful by turns). To me, the whole Sandy situation was a shallow echo of showing cycles of poverty and abuse in a novel that is so preoccupied with conflicts taking place in the moment. So yeah, I don't particularly like Sandy, but I think she is an incredibly important character in the novel, and I wish we'd got at least one scene with her actually present- then again, hearing about the whole issue through Ponyboy who hears it secondhand is an important framing device for how we see and interpret her character, and an interesting narrative choice. (Rant over lol)

In my fun little universe that I wish was canon, Stevepop is a thing, but Soda only realizes his feelings for Steve once his relationship with Sandy ends. In this universe, things go down the same way, but Sandy was never as interested in Soda as she feels she SHOULD have been, so she tried to force herself to like him and it just didn't work, and she ended up cheating as a way to ensure things would end and she'd have a good excuse, because Soda was always willing to talk through fights and if she broke up with him without a reason people would think she was crazy. At the time, Steve and Evie were an item, butweren't actually into each other (I will push my Steve and Evie as each others beards agenda until the day I die, because Steve is gay and Evie is aroace even though she didn't have terminology for that in the 60s, and they cared about each other.) ANYWAY in my canon, Sandy goes to Kansas and Steve and Soda figure their shit out, and Evie is so happy for Steve and offers to keep fake dating him so he and Soda can avoid suspicion, but Steve says no thanks so they stage a super elaborate breakup mid class one day because neither of them studied for the history test and this was as good a strategy as any to get out of it. Once Evie storms out of the class in fake tears, she calls Sandy (because that girl is still her friend and Evie doesn't turn her back on friends) and find out Sandy had a miscarriage, but she's found a job as a hairdresser in Kansas and she doesn't want to return to Tulsa and the rumours she know will follow her around, but she's as happy as she can be given the circumstances. Evie gives her updates on the town gossip, and promises to visit if she gets a chance. Sandy doesn't ask about Soda and Evie doesn't bring him up, and there's a silent consensus that they never will. Meanwhile, Soda hardly thinks about her at all anymore except with an occasional bittersweet smile that Steve knwos from a mile away and also knows how to distract Soda so that he isn't think of hher anymore. In the end, Sandy is just someone Soda used to know, and Soda is a stranger Sandy met once. The end.

[solitarysixty]

Taken prisoner for 60 minutes but with no idea how much time is passing, it’s Inmate C-01’s challenge to correctly press the buzzer in the cell every 10 minutes.

If he’s close enough, he’ll win a cash prize and - perhaps more importantly - his freedom.

If he fails, he won’t just be leaving empty handed… He’ll also face another full hour as prisoner, this time with added manacles to make his sentence even more uncomfortable…

[dairyfreenugget]

NEW OC NEW OC NEW OC

Their name is Ray :3 long ass info about them under read more

They were a commoner immigrant to Hallownest, where they met a noble and eventually got married to him. On his request they left their job, as his family and friends would think he couldn't provide for them both had they stayed employed. They got anything material they could ever want, but the marriage itself wasn't a great one. Their husband was smart and generous, but thought very little of Ray; in his eyes they were naive and stupid, and only there to be his arm candy. A pretty face he enjoyed having around and having sex with but didn't take them seriously.

Ray had very few dreams in life. They were a simple person, though not in a bad way. They've always dreamed of getting married and starting a big family, being a parent is what they've longed for since their young adulthood. They were a bookworm, enjoying all kind of genera but fantasy, adventure, horror and mystery books were always their favourite. They thought about writing their own book one day plenty of times. That's all they've really wanted from life; a loving spouse, a big family, and to enjoy their hobbies on the side.

Their husband, though, wasn't interested in any of it. He belittled their writing and interest in books. He knew Ray wanted a family, but as his older siblings already had children of their own he had no pressure from the family to continue the lineage and neither did he had any interest in being a father, but he had no qualms about leading Ray on and promising them children he was never willing to give them. When that truth came out it was one of the many, many reasons why Ray finally decided to leave him.

After the breakup they took up their old job as a butcher to make ends meet and slowly saved up for a divorce. Eventually they spotted a job offering as a butcher at the White Palace and immediately applied, and to their delight they got the job. The higher pay finally allowed them to get enough money to divorce their ex and afterwards they moved to a better apartment; to make the divorce faster and less of a hassle they let their ex have everything he wanted, they just wanted to get away from him and were more than content in their simple life.

Ray was 38-39 at the time of the divorce, and found getting back into the dating scene very hard. They tried to date new people for a long while but it never worked out and they all but gave up their dream of a family by the time they were in their 40s. Even if they got married right now and had children immediately they would be about 60 by the time their kids were adults, they wouldn't have a lot of time with them left. Ray cussed themself out for letting their bastard of an ex waste nearly two decades of their life.

They'd continue to work at the palace for a few years, they found the job rewarding and made plenty of friends with the staff, though they were especially close with two of their fellow butchers.

(Brief mention of cannibalism in the following paragraph)

One day, the kitchen staff got a special order from the king; he wanted the meat of wyrms that he killed during their attempted takeover of Hallownest to be prepared for food. Many of the staff were weirded out by it and thankfully the king understood and let whoever wanted to to step away from this task. Ray was one of the few butchers that decided to take up his request. The Pale King also showed up on that day to help the kitchen staff, and showed the butchers how to prepare the wyrm meat. It felt a bit disturbing working on something that looked so human, even when they knew it was not. Ray, however, found themself weirdly intrigued and listened to the king intently as he taught them and was even kind enough to answer some of their questions about wyrms.

(No more cannibalism)

They couldn't help sometimes catching glimpses of the king himself, how his arm muscles tensed during work, glittering with sweat and blood. It wasn't often that the king showed off this much of his form, his second pair of arms were usually tucked close to his body and his hard, shiny wyrm scales hidden under layers of clothing, even his tail and legs were usually covered in robes, all to appear as human as possible. Now though, He was scantily clad, with only one sleeveless, short robe.

Ray really couldn't help themself and started whispering to their work friends how attractive he was, the two of them giggling as they did while the third tried to scold them. Only for them to freeze like deer in the headlights when the king spoke, not looking away from his work; "I hope you're all aware that I have much better hearing than humans." They scattered away like rats in that one scene in Ratatouille, and as they did Ray heard the king's warm laugh, though they were too embarrassed to look at him.

Later that day, as they were heading home, Ray would stumble onto the Pale King and decided to approach him to apologise. To their surprise though, he only smiled warmly up at them and gently brushed his tail against their leg. "Do not apologise. I'm flattered, really." And after a moment of pause, seemingly hesitating for a moment, he added; "It's a compliment, especially when coming from somebody as attractive as you." They froze, needing a good minute or two for their brain to buffer after that. Was he...flirting with them?

One thing led to another and they found themself having a sexual relationship with the king, and soon after that with his wife as well. A part of them really couldn't believe that they'd find them of all people attractive. But the two monarchs were sweet and so caring, showing interest in them beyond just their casual sexual encounters. They asked Ray out on dates to get to know them better, they wanted to learn more about them if their meetings were going to be a regular occurance. And, to Ray's surprise, they've found a lot in common with each other. The two listened to them, and did so intently, finding themselves enraptured in Ray's excited ramblings about their ideas for their own book especially. When they ran out of time to hear all of it, they'd ask them to continue the next time they'd see each other.

They frequently lost track of time in their conversations. Books were the main topic that brought them together, and the trio would talk for hours about their favourite novels and authors. But it wasn't the only interests they'd share. Ray loved to gossip with the White Lady, and she made them realise that they loved to be pampered and looking pretty and taking care of themself. The two of them took spa days together very often. She'd invite Ray to her gardens a lot, showing them her plants, and teaching them how to take care of them. Ray even started their own little garden on their balcony, and White Lady was more than happy to help them pick the plants for it. When Pale King talked about his work and inventions, Ray could listen to him for hours. He was so reserved when they first started talking, but now he could go on and on about his interests, and seeing him smile as he showed them something new...it was really no wonder his wife fell for him, Ray thought to themself. But hearing him talk about stories of his past, many of which regarded Hallownest itself, was their favourite thing. But the most surprising thing to them was learning how knowledgeable he was about the animals and how much love he held for them, he was especially excited about showing them his false wyvern Bellatrix and telling them of how he raised him back to health. Ray ended up perusing the royal library's section on fauna and flora for hours after. But of course, the two would also take part in Ray's hobby as well, reading the books they recommended and encouraging them to write their own. And of course, the two would be the first ones to read it. The Pale King even took Ray hunting once, and they'd chat and laugh together as they worked on butchering the kill, before taking it to the royal gardens to cook and eat together with the White Lady.

Their relationship evolved quickly from just casual hook ups to something deeper, though they hadn't put a label on it just yet. It was two years into this relationship that Ray told the two about their dreams of starting a family, and Pale King was more than happy to offer his help in giving them a child. They'd provide for them and the children, and would raise them together too. This pretty much marked them becoming official partners. Ray decided to leave their job as the royal butcher soon after and pursued their dream of being a published writer instead, while the king and queen helped them buy a house closer to the palace in preparation of becoming parents together. After Ray fell pregnant they finally decided to introduce them to Flower and Hornet, who were more than happy to meet them and learn they'll have a baby sibling. Or, well, siblings, as not long after that Ray would learn they were expecting triplets.

Ray bonded well with their partners' children, often spending time with them or all five of them together to get to know them better. Months later, Flower and Hornet would get Ray presents for parents day, and Ray could cry. They did cry. They were more than happy when the duo asked them if they could call them their parent, ren or renny.

Ray really became a part of the family, though that fact was so far kept a secret. They weren't in a hurry to announce it to anyone, knowing the nobility (and the rumours Ray's ex had spread about them within his circle) there certainly would be much discussion and drama about the commoner being welcomed into the royal family. Ray liked their anonymity and they all wanted to ensure a fairly stress-free pregnancy for them. The great five, being the king's and queen's closest friends, were the next to find out. Many of them were already from a commoner background so could relate to Ray's position and made a point to make them feel welcome and included. They especially became close friends with Isma.

But the truth had got to come out sooner or later, and after Ray had stumbled upon their ex and had an argument with him after he had accused them of baby trapping some poor fool, they decided it'd be best to do it now. And if any nobles had a problem with it, they could come to the king directly. So, Ray accompanied their partners to the next ball. They were nervous and felt like everyone was staring at them, especially when they saw their ex and his friends glaring at them, but White Lady, Pale King and their two kids stuck close by them and made them feel more comfortable. That didn't prevent an incident from occurring though, as Ray went to get something to eat they were ambushed by their ex and his group. Pale King would quickly put a stop to the argument, rushing over to defend Ray while White Lady pulled them away and stroked their back as Ray tried their best not to cry. Everyone was staring at them now for sure, so, seeing their state Flower and Hornet approached them and asked if they'd like to take a walk outside with them. It did help to put their mind at ease, and soon Ray was laughing again, the trio making fun of the stuck up nobility together.

When they returned to the ballroom, the Pale King asked Ray out to dance with him.

"Everybody's looking at us..."

"Let them stare. Don't focus on them, just look at me, darling," He tips them gently, "I want everyone here to know how much I love you..." And he leans down to kiss them.

They feel their heart flutter and wrap their arms around his neck, happily kissing back and still locked to his lips as he pulls them back up.

They share a smile together before he pulls them back into the dance, and Ray feels much more relaxed now.

"...Won't they notice my bump like this?"

"It's a good thing. I want them to know they're mine. I'm happy and honoured that you let me be the father, and I can't wait to raise a family with you, my love."

And he takes them into his arms and twirls them around, making them giggle.

After they leave the dancefloor they're immediately scooped up by the White Lady, asking where are her kisses, and kisses them both. Flower and Hornet call them gross and quickly evacuate the premises.

Months later, Ray gives birth in the palace to three healthy and strong baby boys with both Pale King and White Lady by their side. They look so much like them, but with their father's white hair and pale eyes; it's immediately obvious whose children they are. They're overjoyed to meet their boys, and Pale King curls up around the four of them and purrs loudly as he cries. Naturally, Flower and Hornet are the next ones to meet and hold their baby brothers. It's a happy day for everyone.

Ray moved into the palace for a few months before and after the due date so their partners could help them raise their kids. Once the babies are older they will move back to their home, but visit the palace every day to see their family.

When the boys are a few months old Pale King and White Lady decide to propose to Ray and start brainstorming on how to do it. They settle on asking them out on a late night date to a restaurant, they reserve an entire balcony overlooking the city just for the three of them, and at the end of the dinner they ask them the question. Ray is overjoyed and immediately says yes.

They plan the wedding for two years, they're not in a hurry and they want the boys to participate in a wedding. They eventually marry when their sons are 3, it's a very private event with just their family and closest friends, but the date itself is a kingdom-wide celebration. Ray's soul is bonded to to theirs, their life and feelings now forever intertwined together, and they re-cast the kingsoul charm into three segments to show it. Ray takes a moment to get used to being able to feel their partner's feelings and talk with them in their mind, but it's a very nice feeling.

I'll talk about their kids in another post later as this is already unbelievably long, but they have another son when the triplets are around 12 years old. Dewdrop, a little grumpy wyrm who's especially close with his father. And a few years later they have another, this time created through magic so that Pale King can carry this pregnancy. After their kids grow up, Ray decides to move into the palace with their husband and wife and their house is given to the youngest triplet to take care of. He later starts his own family there, and Ray visits their old home often.