#finally watching some vids I missed last week

[tyresdeg]

josef realizing he forgot his camera for media day

[xxfangirl365xx]

alright kids, gather around. I have some things I'd like to say regarding last night in a very organized list format

OVERALL SHOW THOUGHTS

Overall It was beautiful. I cried watching the stream. But sadly went to bed before it was over because I was feeling very unwell from staying up so late ): I missed blood,I'm not ok and Helena on stream but that's ok <3

MCR5,NEW TOUR?

-Did not expect them to release anything about that last night since it was night one of two. More likely they would do it tonight so I'm holding out hope for tonight since it's the more likely option

SOCIALS/ONLINE PRESENCE/POSTS

-Frank has NOT posted anything regarding MCR only dunes, which is very unlike him. As we know Frank loved MCR to death. He's the no 1 fan of his own band so I find it odd and very intentional that he has not posted anything about MCR at wwwyf only dunes

-along the same lines Mikey has not posted anything. Few weeks ago we got practice from him which was good, but all we have from him r 2 pics of him and his wife which r adorable, but not relating to MCR. also seems a little intentional to not have said anything about them playing at all

-MCR'S socials r DRY like bone dry. With swarm tour they posted things about "tonight were playing in (blank) at (blank time)" or something like that but they didn't post anything about WWWYF apart from when tickets went on sale for both days which is a little odd in my opinion

for all of them the silence seems ominous. Like they r trying to build suspense

OUTFIT'S, STAGE,GEE'S HAIR

-All black outfits head to toe, they looked good but it was very lacking black parade tbh (not a bad thing they looked so cute tho)

-STAGE-

-Only projections of spiders,tree (during cancer),swords,bridge (?),worms (?)

-SPIDERS PROJECTED

-swarm logo=fly

-spiders= eat flies

-"Witch" was leaked earlier this year. Paper kingdom was the album meant to come right after black parade. Their aesthetic kinda similar. Whites,blacks ect.

-some of the visuals like the swords was giving very paper kingdom 100% and if I rly did see a bridge projection in the background that's also very much the vibe. but most this stuff was done in short flashes across the backdrop

-Gee's hair-

-New haircut (stunning btw)

-new era? Gee had changed his hair for new era's. bullets/revenge it stayed pretty much the same apart from random dye jobs here and there but during black parade he got it real short and bleached it. Danger days ht dyed it red. hair is a big thing when it comes to Gee.

-New hair since shrine show (2019) pretty much. He's had long hair since MCR has come back together. U could argue it was to look nice but think about all the other stuff he's done that was also a big deal like umbrella acad final season and stuff. Why didn't he get a haircut then? Why now? and why was he hiding it?

-The last vid we got was earlier in the week the birthday one and he had the long hair still. It was recent like he did this JUST for the shows.

-i'm 100% taking this is a way of moving into a new era for MCR

MERCH

-some people were kinda bummed there was no new cool merch from the festival apart from the DEAD! zip up which is pretty cool ngl

-kinda looked like they were trying to get rid of older stuff before making something new perhaps?

-spending more time and resources on NEW shirts for a NEW album makes more sense than spending all the time and resources on designing new shirts for black parade when they can do that pretty much any time

HOPES FOR TONIGHT'S SHOW

I will not be staying up this time sorry guys. I slept 4 hours last night and feel very unwell from it. So i'll be sleeping tonight sadly but here is my hopes and predictions for tonight.

-MCR will play just like last night with the visuals and stuff but will maybe play one new song or announce it some how with the backdrop and "Paper Kingdom" will be announced to be released on OCT. 31

-Their socials will go live with all the info immediately

-Shortly after the album comes out there will be tour dates announced for spring/summer of 2025 INCLUDING warped tour

-END-

thanks for listening to my rambles if I think of more i'll add it to the list but I wanted a cohesive place to put all my findings and thoughts to share

[serendipnpipity]

My name’s Phil Lester thankfully not Mo It’s finally time to make my diss track yo You thought I was too innocent to roast myself? Well watch out bitch This might be bad for your health

A Youtube dinosaur His channel older than your mum He’s so insanely clumsy Always falling on his bum Some people think he’s weird Cause he doesn’t like cheeses He’s so frickin' pale You’d think the sun gave him diseases

His name’s AmazingPhil (What?) Why’s he so great? (Dunno) For ten years he had hair From 2008 All that time Hiding behind a fringe And on top of all that He’s secretly a ginge

You quiffed it up What is this a rebrand? If you didn’t dye it black You’d be totally bland And innocent whatever Wait till you're in private Your mouth’s so dirty You sound like a pirate

Hey you say you’re an angel You know that’s a lie You just don’t want to get Demonetised Your vids are so sweet You can’t even say crap I bet you’d even censor A swear in this rap

You look like a badly photoshopped Benedict Cumberbatch And I realize nothing rhymes with Cumberbatch So I guess this verse doesn’t rhyme

(Okay, this is terrible, I'm out, bye)

I’d better get going And end the bants I murdered this beat Like I murder houseplants If you can’t keep a cactus Why’d you want a dog? I’d give it three weeks Until the funeral vlog

Don’t get me started on that guy called Dan The only reason I’m here is people ship phan More followers than me I’m living in his shadow Next thing you’ll know He’ll be playing the piano

EMMMMMMMM YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

okok lemme see if i can do dan's without looking now:

a month without uploading, he comes back with a tag that no one even tagged him in, he's not a challenge to drag so prepare for an attack (and by that I mean cringe) cuz this mfer's boutta get DRAGGED BY HIS FRINGE

first things first, you're freakishly tall it's weird, you look like a noodle you've got hair that was cool in 2007 and wet you just look like a poodle just throw in an annoying posh voice and... yup, that's dan! you're what would happen if winnie the pooh f*cked slenderman!

you procrastinate making videos 'cause being judged is scary you're so close to being irrelevant the hate's imaginary! the only reason you get views is you're another white guy that people ship with his friend 'cuz they think it's ~kawaii~!!

reasons why dan's a fail---YAY!

you never tweet, you overeat, all you do is cry and sleep, your jokes are shitposts and memes with no originality, your family's sad you dropped your law degree at university, and anything embarrasing about yourself you just delete. you were a vegan for what, three weeks before you missed the meat? wow, i'm so impressed by your clear moral integrity. try so hard to be peaceful and diplomatic but can't make toast without tumblr saying you're problematic

*deep inhale* I could go on, there's more if I check. there's more things on this list... than chins on your neck!

your celebrity crush was JLaw, but now it's Evan P, what the fuck even is your sexuality? it's hard to put you in a box when you keep it so blurry, i think it's just to hide that you're secretly a FURRY.

woah now, that went deep. repress it? yup! before I start crying, let's wrap this shit up.

i'm gonna go and masturbate, then cry into a slice of pizza, shoutout to the other youtubers, especially Ryan Higa a cringe compilation mixed with cultural appropriation met with no depreciation, it's the youtube nation.

click SUBSCRIBE if you wanna watch 4 videos a year (ha) to see my last one (from ten years ago) just click over here something something, you can call me a liar 'cause you just witnessed the roast of danisnotonfire

[explosion noises]

[king-of-colors]

happy birthday jeremy jordan!!

because it's his birthday, i drew jay gatsby climbing back over the fence after only tea. because i thought it was funny and it turned out better than i expected. colored version and uncolored.

also this. rip the quality (i traced the set pieces on the side and his silhouette guys, no i'm not that good at drawing)

now i'm going to yap about jeremy for far too many paragraphs, feel free to scroll past lmao

some of this may be inaccurate or out of order (or incoherent) because, honestly, i don't remember all the details of my jeremy journey (instinctively went to type 'jordan'-)

okay, so, although i've only known who he is for about seven months, i guarantee that watching hazbin hotel is one of the best decisions i could've ever made. because then i learned about jeremy, fell in love with his voice, then watched newsies. and so my love for musical theater was born and now i'm a complete and utter theater nerd (as many people who know me can tell you lmao).

because i have far too much free time, i will now construct a vague timeline of when i watched/discovered things jeremy's in. like i said, far too much free time.

i watched hazbin on april 1st and 2nd, binged it pretty fast lmao. completely didn't know beforehand that it was a musical, so that was a nice surprise. and, yeah, this lucifer guy, love him to death (haha). then this video popped up on my youtube home page, and i really like hazbin, so sure why not.

fast forward a bit, i looked at jeremy's imdb or wiki page and wait- huh? he's in tangled the series?? (which is actually a really funny coincidence, because a few years back, early on during the pandemic, i watched the first episode of tts. which is indeed the one with varian. so i'd actually heard him before). so i figured, why not watch that, i know jeremy jordan has a great voice.

sometime around here, i start watching yt vids of jeremy's performances. she used to be mine, it's all coming back to me now, all those. also gave the english concept album of death note a listen, since i'd seen it on jeremy's wiki page.

it's the end of april now, and i'm going somewhere with no wifi for a little over a week, so i download tts. (funny story, i accidentally didn't download the last two episodes, so i started s2, and was just confused. like huh?? i didn't see that happen.. my dumbass didn't realize that i was missing episodes until i was like a bit into s2. tragic)

few days in, i remember that i actually have newsies downloaded somewhere, and hey isn't jeremy jordan in that? (recognized it from aforementioned yt vid on hazbin actors) so i watch it and fuck yeah that was pretty good, loved the set especially.

(here's when i added santa fe to my playlist. before i watched newsies, actually.)

fast forward through may (honestly, may was a blur lmao). i finished tts, was briefly obsessed with wicked, discovered a few more projects jeremy was in (lsoh, b&c), found out he could've been in the greatest showman, watched la la land, finally gave chappell roan a listen. stuff like that.

june (and also july)! and, what's this? the great gatsby? (the first three releases) loved past is catching up to me, didn't realize roaring on was noah ricketts, etc. then the bonnie & clyde proshot (i managed to find a slime on yt, unfortunately it got deleted. i do have it downloaded if anyone wants it)

august. watched the last five years (i didn't know it was told backwards from her perspective and forward from his because i didn't read the summary. do you know how confused i was 💀)

september! one of the best months of my life ngl. saw the great gatsby on the 13th (and hamilton on the 25th). saw the whole cast except for noah ricketts (dan rosales was brilliant though). it was amazing bro, no other notes really. when i first saw him on stage, i nearly died, and then he started singing and i actually did /pos. everyone was so good, i can't even

and, yeah, here we are.

i don't know why i decided to make this post help 😭

if you read all this, thank you? i guess?

have a nice day and, idk, stop scrolling tumblr, take a break

[bengiyo]

Laws of Attraction Ep 8 (Finale) Stray Thoughts

Last week, we met the best character in the entire show: Nawin. He is gay, unhinged, violent, and so sexy he doesn't wear shirts or underwear in pink suits. He is Chan's ex, and sheltered Chan and Tin. Meanwhile, Thantai is stupid and is posting boyfriend vids on IG while on the run. We also learned that his mom died giving birth to him. Nawin's house in an architectural nightmare. Tin broke the bed after being left there handcuffed by Chan so he can try to blackmail Thatthep. Let's finish this.

Rose is getting ready for whatever they have planned while Maya streams nearby. This has me thinking about criminals who get caught because of their wives' YouTube channels.

Nawin was mooning over Chan until Tin reminded him that he was dumped and now they're in a boxing ring. Amazing.

Nawin, you were the best character. Thank you for your brief time with us.

Okay, the Tin-Thee team up was fun.

They are live streaming this meeting on Maya's channel. Incredible. Perfect show.

Thatthep pulled out that smartphone flashlight so fast.

Chan, are you really worried about Nawin hitting Tin right now?

Now I know I did not spend seven weeks with this show to watch a gay bleed out in his lover's arms.

Oh good. Armed lesbians are here.

Chan is the only smart person in an action drama ever. He was wearing a bulletproof vest, even though he still took a shot to the arm.

Thantai escaping the plane because he was so annoying is exactly on brand. You were so right @ginnymoonbeam.

Love that Chan did all this to guarantee Thatthep's downfall.

Of course Chan is an annoying patient.

Galaxia is back and she's still teasing Tin!

With the genre constraints around sex, I like that the show continues to tease that the couples of this show are having a great time with each other.

Okay, I'm a bougie TV person. If you are seeing me, please don't ever leave a sticky note on any of my TVs.

I'm glad that this show is going for marriage equality as well. A lot of folks who will never watch other BL are probably going to watch this. It's a big deal.

Chan is so gay. I love him.

Yes, I have also watched lesbians tackle gays when they announced their wedding date.

I love Nawin. "If you hurt him I'll hurt you! Wait! Yes! Hurt him so he and I can get back together!" Best character ever.

This show is great. Thatthep threatens Chan one more time and the next scene is him being murdered in prison, the news report downplaying it, and then a smash cut to the wedding photos.

Man, I still don't feel for Thantai much.

I'm missing my grandmothers again.

Of course Chan's chest is out at this wedding.

Nawin is so upset about their wedding that he had to put a shirt on.

Oh lord we got another biter.

I do love Silvy's voice.

Okay, I cried at seeing Tonkhao's dolls getting their own seat. I'm so glad this show never forgot about her or used her death as a joke.

Jam and Film, and all of their friends, had so much fun making this.

Maya and Rose got married, too!!!

Chan wasn't disbarred, and is back to being dramatic for cameras!

Look at Tin having reasonable expectations of Chan.

Final Verdict: 9, Highly Recommended. This was so much fun. I thoroughly enjoyed One31 making another lakorn. With Jam and Film as romantic leads. Every week I got to cackle at the unhinged gay antics of this show and got to enjoy some great performances along the way. Go into this with the right genre expectations and you'll have a blast.

[fiercynn]

bad buddy fandom getting-to-know-you meme!

since there are both recent newcomers to bbs fandom and people like me who are new to bbs tumblr, i thought i'd create a getting-to-know-you meme for people to introduce themselves if they want! all questions are optional

note: i consider "fanworks" to pretty much everything people create related to a fandom, including but not limited to meta/analysis/discussion, gifs, fanvids/edits/fancams, filk, fanart, fanfic, fan food, fan crafts, etc. please include this note with the meme unless you have a different definition!

name and whatever you want to share about yourself

hi i'm deepa! i'm indian-american, in my 30s, queer, and agender – please use my name (either deepa or fiercynn is fine) instead of pronouns when referring to me!

when did you watch bad buddy/join the fandom?

i watched the whole show in the course of about 36 hours just about two weeks after the finale had aired, in february 2022! i joined bbs fandom on twitter soon after and have been there ever since, but i’ve only really been interacting on tumblr in the last few months

favorite ship(s)

patpran and inkpa…i'm a traditionalist ig lol

favorite character(s)

it’s so hard to choose but i think it has to be pran! i love his pining and his cockiness and his anxiety and his kindness and his grumpy faces. really channeling pat right now aren’t i

favorite episode(s)

episode 5 for obvious reasons; my second-favorite is a tie between episode 3 and episode 8 i think

favorite scene(s)

rooftop kiss, episode 3 bus stop scene, episode 8 backstage apology scene, and episode 9 picnic bench hand-holding scene

one thing you would change about the show if you could

LET INKPA KISS GDI

what are your some of your favorite fanworks made by other people?

ughhhhhh SO HARD TO CHOOSE and i think i'll do a longer rec list sometime but here are some of the earliest fanworks i engaged with that really set the stage for how i think about bbs

dynamic (fic, patpran) by riddles2 on ao3: one of the first fics i read in the fandom, it’s pat’s pov through episode 5 and it’s absolutely seminal imo

international love song (fanart/animation, patpran) by @architectxengineer: science is one of those incredibly multitalented people who writes, makes fanart, and animates?? among other things??? and this animation is sooooooo gorgeous and makes my heart absolutely melt

same page (vid, patpran) by dkyth73 on youtube: such a good fanvid of the show that p’aof himself tweeted about it!!!!

(if you create fanworks) what are your favorite fanworks that you’ve made?

traffic was slow for the crash years (fic, patpran): gotta plug my baby, right? this is my patpran fake dating au which is 80k words and was so fun to create!

we both know you’re my only dream (fic, patpran): on the other end of the length spectrum, this 1k fic is one of my favorite things i've written ever

just being friendly (vid, patpran) co-vidded with @scribescribe: yes i know this is an msp song but we made the vid before msp aired!! i think it’s very cute hehe

a song that makes you think of bbs (the ones in the show don’t count lol)

since “just being friendly” is already obvious from me and scribe making a vid to it lol, i'm going to say “keeping tabs” by niki, which is extremely pran-coded. like. look at the lyrics. doesn't it seem like it was written to be about pran’s feelings at boarding school, where he misses pat desperately and hopes pat’s thinking of him but is also trying to convince himself that pat’s forgotten him and that everything pran wanted from him was just a delusion on his part. PRAN 😭 😭 😭

idk anything else you want us to know?

i have opinions about pran’s sweaters

okay i'm literally going to tag all of my tumblr mutuals that i think are still in the fandom (if i missed anyone sorry!!), but also if you want to do the meme consider yourself tagged! please don’t let this flop lol 🤞🏽

@citystoryscapes @nicolasechs @architectxengineer @mahuhumaling @manogirl @galauvant @miscellar @monamay @dancing-out-in-space @melto @incandescentflower @loveongsa @dimplesandfierceeyes @geonbaeeee @faillen @cinnamonseadragon @inkpaa @yourunwiththewolves @prany @pranpats @teesemomma @iathefurrr @inventedfangirling @sharingfandoms @lamonnaie @maychild @thegayneurodivergentagenda @mistergreaves @dudeyuri @nyttvera @thecriers @threezoz @wontbotherrn @not0nmain

[la-galaxie-langblr]

6 Week Challenge Week 3 Day 6 23/11/24

Today I:

Had a lie in

Made extra delicious porridge - I did a mini grocery shop yesterday and got more bananas and some raspberries :D

Tidied my room - the piles of clothes are now back where they should be and I can actually use my desk again!!

Went to an Irish song session!!! The teacher gave instructions in both Irish and English, and we sung one Irish language song (Bog Braon, see video) and one English song about Ireland (The Boys from County Armagh), I had so much fun!!

Made dinner, finally got around to cooking Rice With Ingredient this week (tin of chopped tomatoes, red and yellow pepper, peas and some chicken nuggets on the side for protein)

Cleaned a little

Chatted with my housemate about our days

Watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure!! First time viewing, it was indeed excellent 😌 and had a couple mugs of hot chocolate too

Daily joys:

I LOVE SINGING IN A GROUP SO MUCH

Last year I went to my university choir every week, but this semester it wasn't practical with my schedule and I wasn't a fan of the music anyway, maybe next semester I'll go back but the point is that I haven't learned/rehearsed music with a group for a couple of months and I really missed it (hymns at church still have the fun singing with others experience but since everyone knows the music already it's not quite the same and there's very few moments of connection with others)

I was one of the youngest there and had some nice conversations with the other participants during the break - had a lovely convo with a retired woman from Derry and a woman from Dublin walked me to my bus stop afterwards cus it was quite dark

I never felt particularly proud of coming from NI before uni but now that I only know 2 others from NI (only 1 of which I'm friends with/talk to regularly) it was nice making connections with a group of other Irish people/people with Irish heritage

We had extra time at the end of the session cus we'd learned both songs so quickly, so we decided to sing Bog Braon through a couple times and experiment with harmony, I made up a descant that fit quite well and when the teacher asked after that sing through who was singing the harmony everyone pointed to me and she made me demonstrate and teach it to a couple others 🙈 so that's the harmony you can hear in the video!!

Goals progress:

Huge day for getting out of my comfort zone :)

And the event got me out of the house on a weekend too, so double win!!

Did some reading - slowly continuing with Ace by Angela Chen!!

Lyrics and rough translation of the video under the cut, @cris080799 @kirbymybeloved I think yous would be interested in this, tragically the vid is too big to send over discord but it's here if yous want to listen!!

Context: this is a lullaby, seanduine means old person but it's a joke about how both old men and babies are bald

Bog braon, bog braon, bog braon don tseanduine / bog braon 's blais féin, is é a thabhairt don tseanduine

Curfá:

Cuir à chodladh, cuir a chodladh, cuir a chodladh an seanduine / cuir a chodladh is ní a chosa, bog braon don tseanduine

Ubh circe, ubh circe, ubh circe don tseanduine / ubh circe is blúire ime is é a thabhairt don tseanduine

Curfá

Feoil úr, feoil úr, feoil úr don tseanduine /feoil úr is braon súip is é a thabhairt don tseanduine

Curfá

English translation (ish):

Warm drops, warm drops, warm drops for the old one / warm drops, taste it yourself, is given to the old one

[warm drops probably refers to milk]

Chorus:

Go to sleep, go to sleep, go to sleep old one / go to sleep and don't wash your feet, small drops for the one one

A hen's egg, a hen's egg, a hen's egg for the old one / a hen's egg and a little butter, is given to the old one

Chorus

Fresh meat, fresh meat, fresh meat for the old one / fresh meat and a drop of soup is given to the old one

Chorus

[infiniteorbits]

last updated

1.

“amelie” - last updated 3/30/23 at 10:31

likes

- when songs blend into each other

- untangling necklaces

- restoration videos

- doorbells that play songs

dislikes

- when previously melted popcorn butter hardens

- when people laugh or talk at the end of songs

- restoration vids that r actually transformation

- when musical movies have less/no songs in the second half 

2.

“now twitter” - last updated 3/30/23 at 17:03

3/28

- dunkin is very hit or miss. luckily for both of us i will take whatever is given to me in any situation ever. - 07:59

- i’m a good kid just mentally disturbed - 9:49

- why is it always hot as balls in [building] i am DYING! - 9:57

3.

“lyrics” - last updated 3/28/23 at 21:06

are you there? - sbd

- “is there anyone in the audience currently living in vain?”

nights - frank ocean

- “wanna see nirvana but don’t wanna die”

4.

“band names” - last updated 4/2/23 at 17:04

i called it

señor manatee

morph suit with the genitals cut out

western haircut

vape gosh

car moth

snail gunk shoes

banana fever

radiobread

nonconsensual gymnastics routine

goodbye endemic fish

uneven sunburn

bread zeppelin

phoebe breadgers

self-imposed bald spot

turtle crossing

5.

“wowowowow” - last updated 3/19/23 at 21:21 (excerpt 1/3)

i really only wake up to go back to sleep again

i dont wanna leave my house because then i have to put on clothes and look at my body. i hate watching tiktok because i see other people’s bodies and hate mine. i hate existing

do you ever yearn to be loved by someone that doesn’t exist so badly that your body aches. do you ever ever want to pull out ur hair bc ur so ashamed of your own thoughts that you cant exist

6.

“dreams” - last updated 2/2/23 at 06:27

night of 12/22/22

[person 1] and [person 2] shit themselves. it seemed to be a reoccurring event bc [freshman year teacher], [person 3], and [person 4] were disappointed

7.

“try god: 1060 AM” - last updated 3/10/23 at 19:36

(is an atheist station)

9/16/19 : 2

11/5/19 : 1

12/5/19: 1

1/14/20 : 1

5/24/21: 1

7/28/21: 1

8/12/21: 1

9/3/21: 1

12/29/21: 1 (roche bros [town] parking lot)

9/23/22: 1

3/9/23: 1 (the bitch had like 2 stickers tho!!!)

8.

“hm” - last updated 1/22/23 at 22:57

“i’m not like you, other people’s problems don’t make me feel better” - [redacted]

9.

“wowowowow” - last updated 3/19/23 at 21:21 (excerpt 2/3)

how the fuck do candles burn out the wax doesn’t evaporate right

welcome to the achery, what can i get u? vomit, comin right up!

the world is made of orbits

the moon around the earth

the earth around the sun

our solar system around the middle

even little galaxies orbit around ours

i suppose that even we, as people,

orbit too

i like to think

that i orbit around you

10.

“i miss all the angel numbers and i keep getting mad bc i dont have to a reason to keep thinking of u”  - last updated 3/4/23 at 13:09

people kinda just age out of me.

11.

untitled - last updated 3/28/22 at 10:46

i dont know what to write. i dont wanna seem like im not workin gbut i just…. cant do this right now. i had to walk to school today and i wanted to die. i mean realistically thats not truly a bad thing. the walk is like ten minutes and its in Rennes and im lucky to be here and to be able to walk and go to school and breathe clean air and whatnot. but im so tired. so tired. it took my nearly an hour to pick out my clothes today. i decided on a shirt and jeans that dont look good together at all and that are half dry bc the dryer just does not work in this house for some damn reason and its fucking annoying. i did my makeup because i was looking atrocious- my hair was wet because i finally got myself to shower after god knows how long (less than a week i presume - i think i last showered the weekend before this week?) and the lack of shape to my hair and the weird way my face looks after i wake up or shower or do anything made me need to sit down and inevitably still be upset when its over. i dreamt that i saw [redacted #2]. it was another one of those dreams where theres a big storm or tsunami or combination of the two and we all had to huddle in a school building that looks kind of like this one but not really. i was so excited to see her and i almost cried in my dream. but i barely saw her for the rest of the dream, she was off with [redacted #3] and her other friends and not me. i was left behind. they left without me. i’m not mad at her for this because she hasnt done this to me yet but i know she will so i guess im preemptively sad and mad and upset even though i have no reason to be and thats not fair to her. i am at myself and the person in front of me and how she treats me like im stupid and i dont want to be stupid and i know im not stupid but there is nothing i can do. i know that seems dramatic. “nothing i can do.” there is. there probably is. i really hope there is but at the same time i hope there isnt because then its true. i am stupid. i do get my work done or at least the work i know that i need to get done and my grades are fine i have like a 3.67 unweighted which isnt great but not like awful. i know i could do better. i know i could work harder. i have worked harder before but its gone now and shes gone now and im gone now. im gone now. im gone now. 

12.

“favs” - last updated 3/18/22 at 15:19

bc i always seem to forget

music

dirty computer - janelle monae

sawdust - the killers

sgt peppers lonely heart club band - the beatles

rubber soul - the beatles

stranger in the alps - phoebe bridgers

apricot princess - rex orange county

punisher - phoebe bridgers 

ow - pom pom squad

turkey dinner - pinky pinky

death of a cheerleader- pom pom squad

13.

“list of issues (current)” - last updated 8/17/22 at 07:46

- [ ] chronic/crippling fear of death (usually intrusive)

- [ ] shortness of breath/high resting heart rate

- [ ] trouble sleeping (falling asleep, keepingg eyelids closed, fear of dreams [lack of control], fear of unconsciousness)

- [ ] usually naseous or having abdominal issues

- [ ] head hurts all the time

- [ ] lack of control with my thoughts

- [ ] depression :( - am i taking too much of my meds?

14.

untitled - last updated 9/7/21 at 06:51

ah oui!! désolé, j’avais fatigué donc j’ai oublié envoyer un text. on est en bus et on va arriver à 15:16

merci pour ce skype!!! j’ai aimé faire de connaissance de votre famille :) j’étais enthousiaste d’aller avant mais maintenant je suis plus enthousiaste (j’ai pensé que c’est ne pas possible!). mes parents se sentent impatients à l’idée que je vais habiter avec vous. je ne peux pas attendre pour vous rencontrer en personne!!!

15.

“grocery list” - last updated 6/7/21 at 10:37

- [x] watermelon

- [ ] orange juice

- [ ] plants

- [ ] ice

- [ ] muffins

- [ ] 

16.

“bus writing assignment” - last updated 10/19/21 at 18:05

-doja cat plays

-everyone is on their phone, with wired headphones

-old bus or new? blue model with the facing hanging handicapped seats

-new bus, c3

-woman quiet her phone

-baby blows bubbles than screams, a child laughs

-people look up as siren passes

-12 year olds laugh and play hand games in the back

-girl with dyed hair (color i want)

-its so hot, holding my bag

-i can hear music of man standing near me

- vaguely familiar man walks in

- office man

- u express bag reminds me of my own

-- woman stands to get off, holding an umbrella, clear with ocean designs (why does she have umbrella? its sunny? i have an umbrella but its new. shes holding it like its fragile bht not new)

- almost miss my stop once i realize i dont know where i am

- lost in writing

- nvm got off one too early

- ill walk ig

17.

“wowowowow” - last updated 3/19/23 at 21:21 (excerpt 3/3)

i agree with the catholics sometimes

like when they mention gay people

and get that look in their eyes

i tilt my head down in shame

but i also put my head down to pray

/

i don’t know if being gay is a sin

but it sure as hell is a punishment

i wonder if future me is looking at me now

crying on the bus, mask soaked with tears

i know she is, because can feel her holding me

i feel her hug and her tears on my shoulders

i hope she’s happy in the way i want to be

18.

untitled - last updated 9/19/19 at 07:58

kantism: you must follow your moral code always with no exceptions, which is defined as something that is good in all situations (intent matters, impact does a bit). 

utilitarianism: do what makes the most people happy (intent doesn’t matter, impact does). morality is defined by amount of happiness.

contractialism: if you agree to a contract, explicit or not, you must follow it. while the contract may not benefit you at all times, it is better than living in a world of “natural law”, a world with no contracts and no security.

virtue theory: if we try to be good people, good actions will follow (good intent = good impact). everyone should be good people because it is in our nature, it is our function. you are good if you fulfill your function and bad if you do not

natural law theory: god gave us the ability to be good

[mariverses]

for context this is the last friday in film and we had to hand in our exam materials. the deadline was 13:00, otherwise we were free to do as we liked. everything goes fine and well in the first three hours and then? ohohohoooo and then.

the catalyst for all of this was that our teacher was booked. at the perfect time to get booked and really when i say booked i mean BOOKED. the guy was Gone. it was about some trip i don't care about the details because i don't want to go to italy but what matters is that he was Gone. Talking.

we're alone in the film room and kinda really stuck because nobody knows what we were supposed to do. we didn't have a copy card ( you need a copy card from a teacher to print documents at the school printer ) and we couldn't hand the vid in because Our Teacher Was Gone so we were kinda lost for a while. some of us spent the time wisely editing and having a crisis.

don't know where this guy got a copy card but he got one. we all march down to the printer room to print that shit — all cool and everything, until it's my turn. i port my ssd, open pdf, check measurements.. all cool. but you know what? the document is printed in A3. me and this guy stay there for like 15 minutes trying to figure out why this fucking printer is printing my A4 format into A3. we print A3 two times and THE STOP BUTTON DOESN'T FUCKING WORK. so we wasted 13 papers Each. the trashcan is fucking full of failed attempts and if any teacher actually saw us we would probably get our ass beat into the ground. i fold the papers and sneak past anyway. somehow i worked some magic on the school pc and it finally printed the wanted A4

we go up again. where's the teacher? physics room. but he's not getting out of there. we're still alone and we actually can't bind our papers because there's a legal paper missing so we kinda just fucking waste time. we wait until he comes back and then it's already like 12:30? and reminder that the deadline is 13:00. all we had done was print a couple of papers.

anyway. guy goes to print the legal papers. we all come down — another guy has to print his documentation still. he lets him print his document first. guess what happens? the printer prints the papers in A3 instead of A4! and he has 10 papers and it happened 3 times so that's 30 papers wasted and the stop printing button still doesn't work. can't tell anyone or take them home because we'll get our ass beat if anyone even knows. i'm the one who has to sneak again. but some magic happens and it's A4 on the fourth time.

almost 13:00. the school wants the documentation in ringbinders and the ringbinding machine doesn't work. we have no idea what to do anymore and we go up and just. hand in the projects because at that point the teacher was back from his Fighting. we just hand them in like whatever because we really don't have time to watch them anymore. guy calls us down, the ringbinder is magically fixed! how, you ask? it was against the wall and the switch didn't push back fully that shit WAS NEVER BROKEN.

until we came down that is. guy puts his papers into the hole thingy. takes it out. there's a hole missing. 💀 it broke when he pushed it too hard. so we have to put in the papers once front once back to get that one hole so we can put the binder around the thibg. for that ringbinder they wanted to have a foil at the front at least and we had them reserved since last week but guess what. THEY WEREN'T THERE ANYMORE. SOMEONE TOOK THEM. so we have these rancid ass thin folders with uneven holes and like 0 protection

13:50, too late for the deadline. our teacher said he accepts it because it wasn't our fault but we were 1 hour wayyy past the deadline. technically he should've just failed us all. i just. do my folder and just leave it there and. leave. i ran down the stairs and didn't look back once. welcome to germany. to you we may be an advanced country but this country is ruled by not-working printers, broken ringbinding machines and deadlines

who wanna hear my fucked up film story from today

[maybedefinitely404]

Day 30: Dukexiety

Day 30 - When you look in the mirror, you can’t see your own reflection, just your soulmate. (Never heard of this prompt before, so I guessed)

Content warnings: maybe some anxiety? Just some wholesome for ya.

Word count: 1.5k

This ficlet is dedicated to @marshymoop. 

Virgil was told he had brown hair; the color of a walnut. Sometimes if he grew it out long enough, he could just catch a glimpse of the color when it fell into his eyes. Apparently those were brown too. 

A friend of his mom’s was an artist and had drawn him when he’d turned thirteen, but it hadn’t looked right. The face staring back at him from the canvas didn’t feel like his at all. He didn’t recognize the curve to the nose or the bags under the eyes; it just looked like a stranger. The more he looked, the more uneasy he felt, and he’d tucked it into the back corner of his closet, never to look at it again.

His reflection, where he’d seen the face of his soulmate since he was a baby, was far more familiar to him.

Black hair streaked with white.

Sharp green eyes.

A smattering of freckles over olive skin.

Sometimes it was odd, smearing makeup under eyes that weren’t technically his, and trying to fix hair that was shorter than what showed in the reflection, but it was a problem everyone had until they met their soulmate. He just hoped that the dark clothes looked as good on the real him as it did on his reflection. 

 ---

Virgil was struggling to focus on the textbook paragraph in front of him when his phone chimed. It was a welcome distraction from the existential quandaries that came with Philosophy 103. Just a quick break, he promised. 

 Remus: heyyyyyyy

 Aaaand there was that plan out the window. He couldn’t care less though, studying be damned, because now his heart was pounding and a nearly painful smile was stretching his cheeks. It had been a week since Remus had messaged him, and the pent up joy was all coming out at once. 

 You’re back! He replied amidst flapping hands. How was camping? His fingers hesitated over the keyboard. 

 I missed your messages. I missed you. I was lonely.  

 He said nothing.

 Remus: i caught a squirrel. i couldn’t keep it though

 Virgil: Did you name it at least?

 That’s adorable. You’re adorable and a goof and amazing.

 Remus: Yep. Squirrely Temple

 A picture message showed up moments later, showing a surprisingly relaxed squirrel sitting in a styrofoam cup, a single peanut clasped in it’s little hands. The taker of the photo wasn’t visible, though that was to be expected. 

The next one featured what Virgil assumed was the same squirrel, this time wearing a crudely constructed paper top hat. It held another peanut, and once again seemed shockingly unconcerned. 

The photo was quickly replaced with a call screen and Virgil accepted it eagerly, still laughing.

 “Did you see the squirrel?” Remus asked excitedly, to which Virgil could only laugh harder.

 “Why is it in a hat?” He wheezed.

 “I made it out of sap and a brochure I found. I think Squirrely Temple looked rather dapper.” The grin was evident in Remus’ voice.

 “And you didn’t keep it?” Virgil inelegantly kicked his schoolwork off the bed to lay across it, grabbing his fidget cube from the side table.

 “Nah, something about preserving wildlife and not having enough room at home,” he yawned, “Me an’ Roman gave him plenty of peanuts before we left though. A whole pile on a wood stump.”

 “You sound tired,” Virgil teased. There was a small twinge in his chest at the idea of Remus going to bed already. He’d been off the grid for a week. Virgil was loath to admit, but he’d missed his friend more than expected. 

 “I think my body just sees an actual bed and the ‘tired’ protocol is,” Another yawn, “activated.”

 Virgil yawned in tandem. “You should probably sleep, then.” He tried to keep the disappointment from his voice. 

 “Take your own advice, and I’ll consider. When’s the last time you got six hours of sleep?”

 “Consecutively?” 

 Remus snorted. There was a whoosh of air as he dropped onto his bed, and a brief lull in the conversation before he spoke up. “I think I’d rather talk to you than sleep, actually.”

 Damn, how was he supposed to respond to that? He pressed a cool hand to his reddening cheeks, glad the other couldn’t see him. “Wow, is that genuine emotion coming from Remus?” Virgil retorted instead. We can talk for hours if you want. I missed talking to you. 

 “My bad, I think I still have some fresh air in my system.”

 God, he’d missed him. A single week had felt like a whole year without their constant interaction and updates throughout their days. They’d only known each other for months (had it only been months?) but in that time, talking to each other had become so ingrained in their lives, it seemed wrong to not wake up with his phone blown up from messages. It was so effortless, wasting hours away but feeling like no time had passed at all. It meant the world to Virgil.

 And despite their jokes and snarky conversations, he had a feeling it meant a lot to Remus too.

 It was as if he blinked, and the sun had set in the sky. The room had gradually turned dark as ink but Virgil couldn’t be bothered to flip on the lights, not when he was so captivated by Remus’ voice as he recounted his family camping trip. He didn’t notice nor care; this was more important.

Only when Remus’ yawns grew closer and closer together did it occur to him that the other was several hours ahead, blasted timezones. It would be early morning there.

 “I think you should try to sleep,” Virgil grinned as Remus tried and failed to keep talking through another yawn.

 “Maybe,” He sighed.

 “Talk tomorrow?” For the first night in a bit, Virgil felt that same, familiar warm bubble in his chest.

 “I actually had a question for you, first.”

 Pop.

 Remus sounded uncharacteristically nervous, putting Virgil on edge instantly. Everything he’d ever done wrong flooded through his mind. Oh god, how did he find out about the third grade Christmas concert?

 “Do you want to vid chat?” He blurted.

 Virgil’s breath caught in his throat.

  “Like, tomorrow. Or not. It’s okay if not.”

 Remus never stuttered. Something about it was unbelievably adorable. 

 “Just for fun, because we haven’t before, but if you don’t want to there’s no pressure-”

 “Yes.”

 All blubbering screeched to a halt on the other end, and Virgil couldn’t decide if his predominant emotion was anxiety or excitement. Besottedness, maybe? Either way, it made his face heat up to the tips of his ears and his feet wiggle.

 “Yes?”

 “Yeah, let’s do it.”

 “Okay!” Remus let out a relieved laugh that bordered on a giggle, “When?”

 “I end classes at one tomorrow.” 

 The man murmured his way through timezone math for a moment. “Yeah! Yeah, okay! I can do that! Yes!”

 Virgil bit his lip, but a laugh made its way through anyways. “I can’t wait.”

 -----------

 Whatever confidence Virgil had developed the day before, it had completely evaporated by the next morning. His mind wandered during classes, too busy coming up with worst case scenarios. What if the connection sucked? What if they spoke over each other and it was awkward? What if they had nothing to talk about and it got awkward? What if they weren’t compatible face to face? It added a whole new layer to their relationship they hadn’t explored before.

 What if they weren’t friends by the end of it? 

 He was equal parts relieved and petrified when his final class ended and there was nothing between him and the call. The whole walk back to his dorm was spent watching the numbers on the clock tick by, each minute sending a rush of adrenaline through him until he was sure he’d collapse from nerves right there on the path way. 

A text from Remus came through three minutes before their agreed time.

 Remus: Ready?

 NO, he wanted to scream. There were too many variables, they were leaving the comfort zone and that’s where Virgil thrived!

 Virgil: 5 mins

 He set up his computer and paced around his room for the remainder of his time. His eyes caught a blur of motion in the mirror and he turned to his reflection, his flapping hands slowing as he studied the face before him as he’d done hundreds of times before. Not his face, but the only one he knew as his.

A part of him was suddenly weighed by guilt as he looked into those bright eyes, because the guiltier part of him knew what he had was a crush. A helpless one, at that. And a hopeless one. What was the point pining after someone when the universe had already handpicked someone else for him? 

Stupid universe and it’s stupid soulmates. 

The chime of an incoming call startled him out of his reverie and he swore under his breath. He tried to soothe down his hair, rub the stress from his eyes, but it was hopeless when he couldn’t see if it actually looked okay.

He sat in his desk chair and took a few measured breaths before clicking accept. The video stuttered and glitched before it finally settled, and Virgil’s breath caught in his throat. 

 Black hair streaked with white.

 Sharp green eyes.

 A smattering of freckles over olive skin. 

 The silence stretched between them for achingly long before Remus beamed into the camera, and it was the most beautiful thing Virgil had ever seen.

 “Well, hello there, soulmate.”

Taglist:

@max-is-tired

@joylessnightsky

@marshymoop

[absolutebl]

This Week in BL

April 2021 Part 3

Being a highly subjective assessment of one tiny corner of the interwebs. 

Ongoing Series - Thai

Second Chance Ep 3 - this is proper YA, they are dealing with actual high school issues, picking uni, first crushes, online dating, etc... We even got a senior prom trope which almost never happens in Thai stuff (just the freshman uni competition variant). Standard plot pacing means PaperFah’s kiss was too early, might indicate we’re moving to uni in the second half of the series? Tropes included: let me feed you, hand hold, black & white striped shirt, floppy drunk & first kiss. 

Y-Destiny Ep 3 - the first MaxNat ep. Such fun to see them playing different characters. This one is enemies to lovers, tutor/student, but it’s using the “poor little rich kid loose cannon” archetype. Nat is doing his best, but it’s leaving me cold. Lots of tropes tho: boyfriend’s closet, floppy drunk, pillow clutch, the loom & water bottle. 

Lovely Writer Ep 8 - solid installment, good use of many tropes. I really like the leads and I’m glad there isn’t much side dish action, SibGene gave us: punish, touch your face, boyfriend claiming, kissing, sleep cuddling, symmetry, rooftop, cheek kiss, hand hold, and pillow clutch. 

Call It What You Want Ep 3-4 - couldn’t find the subs, don’t really care, will watch if it crosses my radar, otherwise I’m just not into it.  

Brothers Ep 11 - the “everyone wants Chol” show continues (but WHY?), he and Tri are cute together, and now I kinda just want Prab to end up with the twins. I’m confused by the teachers, but Boston showed up (from UWMA), and my boys KhunKaow got together (YES!), so I’m ultimately delighted with the episode. 

Fish Upon The Sky Ep 2 - the makeover happened, and we go from cute with glasses and braces to cute without them. (I’m reminded of those 90′s Pygmalion teen movies where the girl has glasses + ponytail and then *GASP* does not and *GASP* she’s HOT. This was the BL version.) Meanwhile, writers better be careful with Pi, he’s getting too tsundere to like. Did you see they gave AJ a 2gether music intro & pick up line? Well, it’s actually his brother JJ who plays Ohm in 2g. I cackled. GMMTV - you so cheeky. 

Ongoing Series - Not Thai 

HIStory 4: Close To You (Taiwan) Ep 5 - half way point. My poor confused babies. It was a really sweet episode... if what happened before hadn’t happened in the way that it had. Also, these boys have a GREAT friendship but are probably the worst advice givers ever. 

Most Peaceful Place (Vietnam) Ep 3 fin - so cute! Our boys confessed and got together. There was an adorable mutual kiss (I love me a mutual, like Ingredients). Afterwards, they actually seemed to communicate with each other about both sex and their relationship. OMG. How original for BL! This was the last episode, so the series is short, but I still enjoyed it very much. RECOMMENDED. 

My Lascivious Boss (Vietnam) Ep 1-2 - oh boy this one is rough, we started out with homophobia child abuse and moved on to family drama + drunken dub-con one night stand. But production values and subs are better than normal for Vietnam (You Are My Boy levels) + our queer babies are out & proud + it’s higher heat + I’m weak. So I’m watching. 

Word of Honor (China) Ep 25-27 - honestly not much happened, lots of back story. Things are looking dire for the ghosts unless they can turn the Scorpion (I LOVE HIM, he’s my precious deadly baby). Don’t know how they managed to make loosing a battle with an immortal sword god ex-friend cute... but they did. Did some calculations and at 36 eps, mathematically speaking, ep 30 will be the equivalent of a standard BL ep 11. Should I be scared for next week? 

Nobleman Ryu’s Wedding (Korea) Ep 1-2 - it’s so effing adorbs, soft bois do old fashioned tropes like arranged marriage + evil stepsisters meets the more modern fake relationship + secret identity in a surprisingly comfortable mix. It launched with baby is a floppy drunk, forced proximity, performative I saw you feed him, and some fun gay panic. It’s a lot lighter and faster paced than I was expecting, but this is Korea so I don’t know why I’m surprised. 

Stand Alones 

K-pop band OnlyOneOf dropped a new MV that is basically BL bait, using many of the tropes we know and love. I promise I’m not trying to lure anyone into K-pop I just thought it was interesting how consciously they’re yaoi dipping. 

Spin-off We Best Love Fighting Mr. 2nd, Shou Zhen | the Only Love Letter Once Written (SERIOUSLY WITH THE TITLES TAIWAN?) anyway there’s a something or other 25 minutes featuring Pei Shou Yi and his boy that aired Friday. It’s about 10 minutes of reboot footage with 15 min of new content, mostly set in the past. It entirely rests on Chih Tian Shih’s acting, fortunately for us he’s great. However, it doesn’t substantially change or add to these characters’ arcs from the finale of WBL season 2. I don’t know if there will be more or if this was just an extra footage fan service. 

COLOR RUSH GOT ITS MOVIE!!! Okay this is almost the tipping point for me to get Viki Standard. It’s listed at 1:56 minutes long but the original series had only c.120 running time - that is a lot of new content. Although i was disappointed by To My Star’s movie I loved Wish You’s, so I am hoping Color Rush got Wish You level treatment. That said, I feel Color Rush the series is damn near perfect already, hard to improve on perfection. 

Breaking News

Close Friend the series got an updated trailer featuring MaxNat (no subs) so if you like them in Y-Destiny or in Why R U get ready for them to play different characters again, this time for a sports romance segment. Like Y-Destiny, Close Friend looks to be another series of vignettes (Original trailer) coming April 22. 

2gether the movie (Thai trailer) was intended release April 22 but is now postponed due to a surge in C19 cases in Thailand.

Tell the World I Love You, a Thai BL movie that was supposed to release last week, is similarly delayed.  

My Ride has been postponed indefinitely with no airing date. 

The Miracle of Teddy Bear got a teaser vid, no eng subs. 

Gossip

Thai BL actors Nanon (Bad Buddy), Yoon (YYY), and Mark Siwat (LBC, Bite Me) have tested positive for C19. Press releases stated they’re fine, tho filming has paused fore their various projects, obvs. (No word on whether Nanon’s current project was Bad Buddy or not, although it seems likely given his recent Arm Share episode.) 

Next Week Looks Like This:

Some shows may be listed later than actual air date for International accessibility reasons.

Upcoming 2021 BL master post here.

Links to watch are provided when possible, ask in a comment if I missed something.

[felassan]

DA4 Lead Producer Scylla Costa’s BIG Festival talk, “Challenges of Dragon Age production during the pandemic”, can currently be rewatched on YouTube here starting roughly at timestamp 8:57:02 after a lil presenter blurb/intro. It’s 1 hour long. When it was streamed live, there was an English translation ‘voiceover’. There isn’t in this vid, however I want to post the link for Portuguese speakers, and also it’s neat for everyone to be able to see all the slides he presented with for themselves in context.

I don’t know if an English-language version will get put up so I’m sharing the notes I took during the talk below, in case anyone’s interested and because I might as well since I wrote them. The rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

Edit: Found a place to re-watch the English version of the talk

(Quick note: I didn’t note down everything, mostly things that caught my interest, so this isn’t exhaustive, and when I was watching I was real tired, so pls bear that in mind and don’t take these notes as bullet-proof 100% accurate gospel or direct quotes. If you watched it and think I’ve written down something wrong/misunderstood, let me know and I’ll fix. Also if you’re a Portuguese speaker and I’ve gotten something incorrect or missed something important etc, again just let me know.) **

** Edit: I’ve now gone through my notes while watching the talk again. I’ve filled in some of the gaps (although they still don’t cover everything said) and so forth, and now I’m no longer worried about there being possible errors in this post.

-----

For some context, this slide contained the breakdown of the talk’s structure. Bear in mind there are other slides present in the talk than the ones I’ve posted here, I didn’t include caps of all of them, just ones which were of note to me.

In the talk, chief Producer Scylla goes over challenges of DA4 production during the pandemic. He discusses the adaptations - necessary skills and learning from remote work - and he ponders on the future of teamwork.

After the launch of ME3 he became a producer, all his MMO and other experience helped a lot. He was on DAI for 3 years and MEA for 9 months, then Anthem. Today, on DA4, Scylla and another Lead Producer were the heads of the whole project, and there is his boss is the Executive Producer Christian Dailey. 

^ the usual AAA game development cycle (brief introduction)

AAA games are games that are launched for several platforms simultaneously. 

In BioWare’s case, the pre-production phase of the game development cycle can have from 5 - 30 people, and up to almost 60 people when they’re just about to go through the gate to production. 

In the pre-production phase, they go through the game’s concepts and prototypes and start developing systems. They seek the game’s concept and focus, and its key features. They do lots of market research. In the case of BioWare, all their games are strong in narrative, so they have lots of tools related to game narratives and supporting the development of a narrative (cinematic design, dialogue system etc) that get focused on in this phase. Other parts of the team such as writers and cinematic design need these systems to do their own roles. 

In BioWare’s case, the pre-production phase through to launch can take 4 - 6 years, but it does depend on the size of the team during development.

With regards to Dragon Age 4, they were coming close to the time when they would shift from pre-production to the production stage when the pandemic hit.

During the production phase is when the development of content and features takes place, with the systems mostly already existing from the pre-production phase. A few new systems may be developed in this phase. In the production phase is when things start escalating, and the team really starts growing, to like 2- or 3-fold the prior pre-production phase size. 

(DA4 is currently in the production phase.)

In the alpha phase, features have to be fully implemented and systems all have to be running / working. All the game features should already be in the game by now. They test from pre-production onwards, but this phase is when they run heavy technical tests with lots of players trying to play at the same time. In the beta phase, the idea is that you should now have full content and that now you’re balancing it and running more and lots of different tests with players before launch. There are final tweaks and then the final launch, when in the weeks prior to launch, all the different business units and areas e.g. marketing team, technology team, publishing team, get together once a day and all of the game’s issues are reported and brought to the table to be prioritized. Then they decide the next steps re: these issues (this is known as ‘the war room’).

After the launch there are usually patches like day zero patches and other patches, this being standard industry practise. The last stage is the new content stage where there are DLCs and a game with more content.

On March 12th 2020, the team gathered to review the DA4 story in the new office. Everyone was very excited. (They had spent over 10 years in their last building and had noticed that with the team growing they needed more space. In August 2019 they found the new studio in the city center.)

Anyway that evening, they got an email from the CEO which contained instructions and said that due to the pandemic, they should from now all start working remotely. They had known that this happening was a possibility so they had been planning on how to have all the devs working from home, but initially less than 50% of the devs were able to work from home successfully/efficiently due to various issues e.g. you need a VPN to be able to log in remotely to do your job normally, varying home office setups. The day after this, the office was basically deserted, except for Scylla, the IT infrastructure people and one or two odd devs.

Scylla was part of the team that was working on allowing the devs to work from home. They first started looking at the short-term changes they needed to make to allow this.

“First, take care of our developers”. 

When the pandemic first hit, their and Scylla’s [as Lead Producer] first priority was to look after the devs. Many of them are parents (schools and day-cares were shut, children were studying from home), others have relatives living with them, others have other personal circumstances which of course need to be taken into account when it comes to assessing what needs to be taken into consideration for this new scenario. So, they looked at each dev on a case-by-case basis in order to evaluate, speaking to each one and asking them what they could do to support them.

One of the first changes/adaptations they could implement was flexible working hours and flexibility around deadlines. Generally speaking the devs got a lot of support, EA was really good and really supported the devs especially in the first months of the pandemic (and they are still supporting them). Initially not all devs had suitable office spaces at home, some were working from the living room from laptops or at the kitchen table. The whole covid situation basically just happened over night and nobody was really ready to deal with that change. So their first step was to enable their devs to work remotely. As a producer, Scylla’s main task is to communicate with the team such as via a number of daily meetings. He doesn’t depend so much on powerful hardware.

“Enable developers to work remotely”.

This slide shows some of a BioWare audio team. Different teams have varying and specific needs in order to do their jobs and therefore in order to do them remotely. For example, the audio team need good-quality speakers and amplifiers, while the lighting and art teams need other specific equipment such as tablets and large screens. So there was a lot of work they had to do to go through each dev to understand their individual needs and what needed to be done for them. ‘Could they download the builds? Did they have the right performance [tech-wise]? Could they submit their changelists, their codes to the server?’

Some devs needed a more powerful internet connection as it would take 6-8 hours to download a build (some devs live rurally). Some needed a lot of cable, as they were working far away from their routers (sometimes up to 50m). As time went by things got better and better. 

The chair devs work from is also important; a kitchen able chair etc is not suitable to sit in for long-term desk work, possibly leading to health issues like back ache and blood circulation problems in the legs.

Every 3 months they had money given to help devs buy new mice, keyboards, monitors - anything they needed really in order for their office setting at home to be improved. For a while, because lots of people [generally, in society] were needing and buying them, it was quite hard to buy things like webcams and microphones.

On mid- and long-term changes:

In terms of DA, we have to look at this from 2 perspectives, the change in the personal and the professional environments. 

As a consequence of working from home, people tend to be less active during the day (even in an office, you go between meeting rooms, up and down stairs etc). Physical activity supports life quality and therefore work quality. Scylla noticed that he began to feel listless and such, and found that he needed to change his routine that he had initially developed when he started working from home, for example; having a normal start time (as in, have a semblance of structure in your day as if you were still working in the office site), get dressed at the normal time, not having meetings over lunch etc. This wasn’t just him, lots of other devs encountered this and had this experience too. Devs which adapted faster had better productivity and became more productive faster.

Scylla bought a stand-up desk which he can raise up and down, and at meetings he would be delivering a talk while standing or even while walking on a treadmill. Other devs also got stand-up desks. He tracked his body’s data on a Fitbit. These sorts of things helped improve physical and mental wellbeing. Other devs did similar things, like starting going out for jogs or began practising yoga. Essentially, everyone needed to make changes to their daily routine in comparison to what they had been doing prior to the pandemic. 

The pandemic has been a thing for over a year now. In their location, every couple of weeks a new restriction is put into place or a rule is changed, and every two weeks there’s a new thing that you can and can’t do. Scylla also started moving around his property. He worked on his desk, fixed it up and painted - taking up a new hobby. Other devs picked up new hobbies too. These are good ways to be active and also to be somewhere else, i.e. to break up the working day and not be spending it all in one home office-type location. Scylla found that when he made these sorts of changes to his routine to improve his lifestyle, the data output by his Fitbit as indicators of his health/wellbeing etc improved, e.g. number of steps taken in a day, heartbeats per minute while at rest. As stated many of the other devs went through a similar process.

On the professional side of things:

They had to improve remote delivery of builds. Accessing things from home as a dev requires a VPN. They need to download a build every day and then upload it to the server after making their changes to the game. They had to work with infrastructure and research other tech, such as streaming tech to allow remote console access, in order to better facilitate this process. For remote access, they also had to work on adapting communications channels.

“Adapting channels of communication.”

In this slide, the team are working on the storyboards. Before you can implement motion capture & performance capture, you have to ‘run the storyboards’ like this. These are small illustrating drawings which reflect the drafts and are meant to quickly reflect the intention of the scenes that are to be built. Before the pandemic, the team would go to meeting rooms like this, sit down, talk and interact in person. After the pandemic, the question became ‘How do you do this over Zoom?’ You can, but it’s not quite the same; it’s harder to see peoples’ expressions, some people are embarrassed speaking over Zoom etc. Therefore they had to adapt their communications systems, and unlearn the ways in which they developed before in order to relearn and learn new ways of communicating.

Slack was a tool that they adopted on this front. Communications channels can be confusing on Slack, so there was a need to develop structure. For example, how quickly should someone reply (as a recommended convention for the purposes of work)? They had to define the process/procedures for the channels so it was clear for the team as a whole how it would all flow (this is important especially if you have a team with say 30 people or as a whole hundreds of people). Before the pandemic, they had stand-up meetings where they’d go around in a circle every morning and talk about their activities - what they’re going to be working on, any roadblocks they had encountered etc. The question arose ‘How do you replace these?’ They ended up doing Slack messages at a certain time of day and updating their statuses with some details on what they’re working on and color-coding (green - fine, yellow - need help, red - busy/blocked out).

Another issue that they faced was unforeseen - the number of meetings that devs were having really shot through the roof. When there wasn’t a good structure of communications channels, any conversation would become a meeting. Everybody began scheduling meetings left and right, and at the end of the day they would have little time left in which to actually work on their to-do lists. Hence, they had to work with the team to really analyze and be very pragmatic. ‘Which meetings needed to happen? Which didn’t? Is a specific meeting really necessary? Which meetings should be recurring? What can be done over Slack?’ This guideline had to be given to the team to help, and it improved things a lot. The number of meetings decreased a lot and they got more effective. For example, by making sure to set an agenda for meetings beforehand, and by having meeting notes (then a dev who didn’t really need to be at a meeting could skip attending and just quickly review the notes output after instead). They also decreased the standard length of meeting times from the default Outlook blocks of 1 hour and 30 mins to 55 mins and 25 mins respectively. This 5 minute change gave devs time for things like bio breaks (also 4 hours in a row at a computer in a home office with one meeting after another just isn’t good for a person).

“Adapting p-cap and mocap”.

On content:

From a content point of view, the most difficult thing in terms of the pandemic was adapting p-cap and mocap (performance capture and motion capture). They hire actors and it’s a large studio. The pandemic meant big limits to what they could and couldn’t do. The actors had to be masked and 5 meters apart in distance (although it doesn’t look like it in some of these shots due to angles). Also there could be no other person around in the studio - only the actors. The directors instead would ‘patch’ in remotely on big screens (you can see this in the second photo in the top right). 

Before the pandemic, they felt that they wouldn’t be able to do p-cap or mocap properly remotely, as the directors would usually stand right next to actors giving guidance on their performance. The techs would also usually be near. But they adapted! The keyword is adapting, changing process. It’s harder and it’s different, but it is possible, and people start rethinking what is possible. What was said to be impossible before now is possible.

P-cap differs to mocap in that it also captures voice and facial expressions.

On the future of work after covid:

There will probably be more working from home and more flexibility for workers e.g. being able to work say 3 out of 5 days from home. It does depend on what a dev’s specific job is however. For example, the audio engineers require lots of specialist equipment and said equipment is of higher quality and quantity in the office. So, depending on role, devs might be working more often or less often from home.

Another development is that lots of devs are moving house. In lockdown etc people started reassessing what’s most important in life. Some are moving further away from the studio to get a cheaper rent or for example couples who both needed an office space to work from home from but their current place only had one area. Others are moving closer to nature for a better quality of life, and still others have other different reasons for doing so. Over 10 devs that he knows in fact have recently moved, including Scylla himself.

The pandemic changed certain skills being used by people on a daily basis. Scylla used as an example of this one of his soft skills, being able to tell from looking/interacting in-person with someone if they are stressed out. Obviously it’s less easy to tell if someone is stressed out when you’re remote, so you adapt different ways of checking in with people in the new situation. To continue carrying out his role as Lead Producer, he began checking in with his team pro-actively on the new comms channels and asking how they were doing.

Also, now that companies are more open to working remotely, there is going to be increased competition for hiring devs. They saw both sides of this coin at BioWare. They were able to hire devs from many places that they couldn’t hire from before e.g. Montreal, Vancouver, the US, as there’s less need for devs to relocate to Edmonton or Austin. This opens up opportunities to hire really intelligent and skilled people that they would not have had access to before.

Question and answer segment:

The pre-production phase has been concluded. They’re in the production phase.

They are not giving out a lot of details yet but Scylla is really excited as a big fan of the whole series. He thinks that with DA4, they will have the opportunity/possibility to launch the best story out of all DA games. He feels that the characters they’re making are amazing. He’s dying to say more but can’t. 

When you work from home you need to keep your team as productive as possible. During the pandemic, when people started working from home, they noticed that some people became more productive and some people became less productive. They were analyzing it on a case-by-case basis so as not to make assumptions. They were interested in seeing what they could do to help. At the beginning of the pandemic, they were looking at the devs as people and seeing what they needed.

Production of DA4 still needed to continue during the pandemic because they want to be able to launch the game.

This slide shows a writer. Writing is an example of a role which is more able to work from home easily.

Their productivity did go down in the first month of the pandemic. After adaptations, some people then became more productive than they were before (this was role and personal situation-dependent, examples of this being artists and coders who were able to art and code at home without being interrupted, thereby being able to produce more). Covid has affected productivity in general, but this is part of our new reality. They have adapted and adjusted some deadlines. They have enough data (Scylla LOVES data) now to understand how long it will take them/how long they’ll need to launch the game. They have always had historical data for this purpose, but they’re doing more of this sort of thing now to ensure that they are doing things at the right time.

Remote hiring opens up the door to more talent joining, so if someone has talent geography will hold them back less. Some companies though may choose not to hire people from other countries due to labor issues, cumbersome legal aspects, time zones. But even in such cases there are activities for example that can be carried out while the rest of the team is asleep such as testing or working on the build, or there are cases where those companies still will want to hire a specifically/highly talented person even in spite of the potential legal aspects and so on.

On mental health: People were affected. There is the mental, physical and social impacts of the pandemic situation on people. EA supported them during the pandemic in terms of their mental wellbeing, there are specific companies (services offered, speaking to a therapist) that they can contact if they need something or help. EA had always been good at supporting them with this sort of thing but this has improved further during the pandemic. Another change was that they could/can take a couple of days off if they needed/need to because of the pandemic e.g. to take care of children, who were obviously not at school at the time. As a producer he had to be very mindful of all of this. How much they were monitoring peoples’ wellbeing really went up during the pandemic.

A question that was asked - in terms of DA4′s storybeats, is there anything in there that they decided to change due to the pandemic as it wouldn’t be sensitive or appropriate to include anymore, for example a plague plotline or something? Scylla’s answer is that DA and ME are games in which they try to have narratives that are relatable, which include things which people will identify with, so that players understand what characters are going through etc. Nothing in DA4′s plotline/storybeats has been changed (in the frame of this question, relating to the pandemic), as it didn’t have anything in it that could be specifically or a directly connected to a pandemic-type situation or anything. Of course the DA story has Blights and the Taint, but these are different & fantastical things and existed long before the pandemic situation. So this wasn’t the case with DA4 and there was no need to change anything, but this has happened to other games where they decided to change a storyline due to a strong correlation with something in the real world.

There were then concluding/closing remarks. The message he wants to send is that a crisis will always spark opportunities. Look at a crisis and try to see how you can grow.

-----

[☕ found this post interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

[stitchzin]

The King and Queen

the gif is from @fenharel but i was in @obvidalous page, go check guys.

Kaetus was there. In the prison. Once upon a time, not so long ago, she was there talking to Ven. She had just just got on Kadara, was a young pathfinder with a sword and an A.I. on her head. Now Lumina Tsuki Ryder was kicked out of the role for Scott the take over.

She would be put to second in command, but there was Cora, so she would be a cartographer. All her deeds now belonged to Scott, all the work she never liked but did her best.

Now facing Kaetus, she remembered another thing she lost.

Reyes.

Their break up was for the good of Kadara, so she did it. Scott's military mind would not question her decisions. She had to, 'cause, he doesn' t understand how a place like this works.

Some how she knew that the Charlatan was watching the vid, to make sure the Turian would not try anything against the former pathfinder. And Kian said the vids was the only way he could see her.

Lumina dosen't have this luxury, she misses him, but can't make the first move. Scott and Tann wold fuck everything up.

So... she decided to do something to make him move.

"You were there Ryder. You could have saved her, why you didn't. Why?" There was pain on his voice, and on his eyes, there was so many grumpy or diplomatic replies, but she choose to be honest.

"If it was you in my place... Would have saved him over Sloan?" The Turian slowly set down and stared at the wall, she bowed to hum in a sign of respect for his grief, even if she hated Sloan.

Neither of them could Judge each others reaction or actions now.

Pain was Pain.

The little camera on the high corner twitched the rec light. Lumina walked calmly on the port, towards Tartarus, her friends on the lower part organizing her stuff to take to their house.

The SAM implant was down, her friends smuggled so much at the mutiny that they didn't need to steal things from the outpost. The things she has payed to take to Andromeda, was now on a weird shaped, house at the edge of the port, and it were waiting to be opened.

Her games, books, and clothes.

Lumina could be Lumina again.

Reyes saw her when she got on the vehicle, her eyes meet. There was a promise there.

"Go on ahead" She got down the vehicle, walked towards Reyes, the Nomad stooped a few steps back, Scott and Cora on the outside ready to talk to her one last time to stay on the tempest. But it was ignored, her arms were around Reyes, the smuggler was surprised but please.

She was not good with affection, so it was pleasing to see some change on her.

He knew what had happend, of course, how could he not?

"Sorry Pathfinder, I am off duty now." He spit the words with charm and anger to Scott, and walked away with his arm on her shoulder, neither of them locked back.

They didn't care for their eyes on then, Jaal and Liam's face on the couple, was as priceless as Cora and Scott. Drack and Vetra seemed to enjoy the situation, the Turian female whispered. "Go on, Queen."

Both smiled. But no word were said, she just stayed on the small room, siting on his lap, head in his shoulder while he worked.

"Hijos de Puta." Reyes finally broke the silence.

"Yup, two weeks before they hit heir head on a wall." She laughed and kissed his neck... then smelled him, she missed his smell.

The gloved hands held her chin with no delicacy, like she enjoyed.

"One week." Then he kissed, passionate and slow, most of the tempest crew saw everything.

There was a statement on that kiss.

He was the King.

She was his Queen.

And God helps who disrespect the Queen.

[shadoedseptmbr]

meet cute pt 4

Only a week or two *cough* late.  lol the final part of Meet Cute, in honor of MELE!

All Aboard the Normandy SR1

Pt. 1 Anderson

Pt. 2. Joker

Pt. 3. Chakwas

Part Four: Kaidan Alenko

Kaidan isn’t aboard his new ship long enough to find his locker before the doctor has him under her scanner.  

He’s used to it.  Most of the medical branch falls into three categories for him, either they think he’s some sort of monster they want to dissect in their labs or they think he needs coddling.  He prefers the ones like this one.  

“I just want a baseline, Lieutenant.  To run comparisons in case of injuries or later concerns.”  

She never even mentions the implant, other than a slight tsk over the scarring just visible under his hairline.  He’s pretty sure it’s just professional disdain for his surgeon’s workmanlike handiwork, though.

Their omnis ping at the same time and Chakwas shakes her head.  “Our presence is requested, Lieutenant.  I suppose we’ll have time to stow all this away once we’re off.”

“Have you served with Captain Anderson before, ma’am?” He holds the door for her to enter the lift, first.

Chakwas has a warm smile, it probably serves her well in her bedside manner. “Yes, several times and with Engineer Adams and Nav Officer Pressly.  Anderson has a certain style of command and he’s found himself a crew that suits it.  He’s earned the right, I would think.”

He has to ask, “And what about the XO?”

“Shepard?  No, never served with her, though she has popped up in our wake a few times.  Have you?”

“No. She was stationed on the Tokyo but she transferred off right before I came aboard.”  He had, in fact, peeled her nametape off the locker he’d been assigned.  And maybe he’d listened to the stories the crew had told about her.  Hard not to listen to stories.  

The one they told the most was how she’d just vanished -no goodbyes- at a fueling station on the edge of the Terminus system after a month of almost being part of the crew.  Pretty standard for N7’s, the captain had assured them.  Orders from HQ and a freighter headed the right direction.

Kaidan holds the door for Dr. Chakwas and follows her out of the lift when they arrive at the CIC, Joker still running his checklists as they exit.  Guess he gets to miss the handshaking.

The rest of the Normandy’s command is waiting at the base of the gangway. Kaidan’s been to one or two of these launches, but this time there’s no band or families waving them off.  

A few official looking people- humans and turians, mostly- are scattered to the edge of the dock.  Pressly, who he’d met earlier, holding the scanner and checking the credentials of the steady stream of boarding crew.  Captain Anderson, familiar from vids, towers over most of the humans and a couple of the turians.  

There’s someone at Anderson’s elbow, in crisp BDU’s.  He can only see her straight back and the curve of her shaved head. The XO, if he has to hazard a guess. Hero of the Blitz, N7, all of the legends in one uniform.

Though...hunh.  

He thought Shepard was taller.  

Maybe this is a yeoman? 

The woman turns her head slightly and the scar curving under her right eye -familiar from the vids and even a recruiting poster or two- stands out.

He remembers Nera telling him once that she’d shared a cup of coffee with Shepard, not long after Elysium.  On a night watch when Nera was still getting used to it on a ship full of Marines headed back to Arcturus.  “She laughs pretty easy for a hero,” Nera had told him.  “I guess I expected her to be...colder.”

Kaidan snaps out of his musing into a salute as Anderson’s head turns in his direction. “Lieutenant Alenko!”

“Sir!”

“Glad to have you with us, Kaidan.  I know Captain Helcik was pushing it to get you turned around to us.” Anderson reaches out a large, broad hand.  

Kaidan grasps it, gets firm shake and only the slightest hesitation at the buzz of his field.  “I’m glad to have made it, Captain.” 

“This is Commander Aedan Shepard, our XO.”  

“Commander.” 

“Lieutenant.”  He has to blink at the direct onslaught of a frank, appraising stare from a pair of neatly lined steel grey eyes.  A faint smile, not particularly friendly.  But she offers her hand.

And doesn’t flinch at the slight pop of static between them, when he takes it.  Her palm is cool and rough against his, for just a moment.  

He drags his attention back to the captain as Anderson continues, “You come from a good ship.  I commanded the Tokyo before Helcik.  She recommends you with...some pretty high praise.”

“I appreciate hearing that, sir.  I hope to do as well here.”  

“Well, your record and your commendations spoke well of you.  And your abilities are…”

He’s trying not to be distracted by Shepard’s continued, cool eyed assessment but he isn’t sure that distracting him isn’t the point, just to see if she can.  

Anderson seems to have a pretty friendly style of command.  

Maybe Shepard is the steel in all that velvet.

She catches him glancing at her while Anderson is still talking and lifts one, slanting red eyebrow in a question.  Or a challenge.  He cuts his eyes back to the captain, but he’d swear there was a trace of a satisfied smirk at the corner of her mouth. 

And then her eyes shift and targetlock on something...someone else and he realizes that he only thought she’d been looking at him coldly.  She shifts...her shoulders, her chin?  He isn’t sure.  But Kaidan has to physically stop himself from throwing up a barrier in reaction.

He follows her gaze and the sight makes him square up, instinctively.  

“Captain Anderson? We have a...guest.” Her low voice is respectful but laced with warning and it says something about how the captain thinks of her, how fast he reacts. Anderson immediately turns toward the armed turian approaching them in red and black armor, the pale markings stark on his dark skin as the crowd parts, whispering.

Under his breath, Anderson murmurs, “Stand down, Shepard. He’s expected.” Louder, he calls out, “Nihlus!  Glad you could make it.”

Shepard grunts an acknowledgment and her expression shifts from guarded to interested.  Still, when Anderson advances she’s in lock step at his left flank.  Kaidan -almost on reflex- moves to the opposite elbow and matches her step.  

Despite the captain’s order to relax, there’s an energy about her.  An intensity.  

Kaidan isn’t sure why- but it’s catching.

The turian scans them with bright green eyes and then nods.  “Captain Anderson.”  There’s a warm vibrato to his voice.  His attention goes immediately to Shepard, dismissing Kaidan entirely.

Well.  That’s new.  Usually, aliens lock on a biotic human as an oddity.

Shepard, for her part, is returning the regard, hands behind her back in a deceptively at ease posture.  She isn’t armed.  At least, he can’t see anything.  Not the way this Nihlus practically bristles with weaponry.  

Anderson introduces Shepard and then Kaidan to “Council SPECTRE, Nihlus Kryik.  He’ll be coming with us on the shakedown.” 

That’s all he says.  Kaidan turns to Shepard as the captain introduces the SPECTRE to a minister who’s come to see them off.  

He catches just the hint of blank shock before her face clears but she meets his look.  And lifts her eyebrows in a clear question.

Kaidan shakes his head. Yeah, he has no idea why a Council SPECTRE would be cruising with them. She scowls and tips her head and they fall back into place at Anderson’s back.

Nihlus dismisses the minister with fairly diplomatic speed and turns back to Shepard.  “I would like a tour of the ship, if you don’t mind, Commander.”   

“Of course, SPECTRE Kryik.”

“Just Nihlus.  The SPECTRES don’t stand on all of the formality of the Hierarchy or the Systems Alliance.”

“As you like.”  Kaidan has to be imagining the way Anderson glares at Shepard from beside Nihlus.  But she follows it up after a short hesitation with a crisp, “Please, just call me Shepard.”

“Family names are last for humans, as I recall.  So many similarities in our cultures.”

“On some levels.”

The turians mandibles shift before he adds, “But I understand you don’t know your family.”  Okay, seriously, what the hell is up with this guy?  

The smile she flashes is bright and cheerful and doesn’t get anywhere near her eyes.  “No, I do not.  I would love to start that tour, anytime you’re ready.  If you don’t need us, sir.”  There’s an emphasis on that last word that Kaidan thinks is important.  And Anderson clears his throat like she’d said something rude. 

“Hm. Yes.  Go on.  We’ll want you on the bridge for launch, Shepard.”   

“Yes, sir.”  There it is again.  Anderson just shakes his head as she courteously waves Nihlus in front of her.

“Lieutenant, you can be my second for the rest of the festivities.” 

“Of course, sir.”  Anderson sighs and goes back to chatting with the dignitaries and Kaidan takes the chance to glance back at Shepard who is gazing out briefly over their heads from the top of the gangway as Nihlus navigates the door.  Her eyes out on the stars beyond the dock’s shimmer of shielding. For just a second, the smile is real and eager.  She leans up on her toes, towards the open sky.  And then she shuts it all down and, blank faced,  follows the SPECTRE back into the ship, her fingers trailing along in a caress of the gleaming hull, the last thing Kaidan sees.   

[wxnholy]

dream a little dream of me [lee hoseok]

warnings: none, slight angst, fluff

pairing: wonho x f!reader

request: none

plot: you stay up late to finish some work and hoseok manages to lure you back to bed (includes some kisses and touches here n there, nothing major)

a/n: i was just imagining wonho from that vid on his channel about his full day of work and he looks like the most magnificent cuddler,,i just couldn't help myself y'all sorry !!

hoseok loved you like you would never even know. the man was obsessed with your smile, the way you walked in his arm and talked to other people, the way your lips parted prettily when he kissed you, and how adorable you looked all cuddled up next to him when it was time for bed.

together, you were known for being quite the sleepers. hoseok was lighter than you were, often getting woken up by even the slightest shift in the bed, hence why you tried your absolute hardest not to move. but he mostly handled that himself, slinging his hand around your thigh to drape it over his waist and burying his head in your chest because you smelled absolutely heaven sent.

but he valued his rest more than anything, often taking naps if time permitted it even if he wasn't tired and most importantly, teaching you how to take them with him.

you were a workaholic. you were never tame unless your work was finished correctly and on time, and always found yourself in distress if it wasn't complete. hoseok never understood that about you, despising it ever since you two first started dating because whenever he begged to see you, you were busy at the computer. and if you weren't there, you were rummaging through paperwork or checking your email.

enough to make him nervous for you.

but he accepted that that was the way it had to be because at the end of the day, his drive and yours worked perfectly together. and you knew what was too much and when to sit back and relax. it helped when he'd come behind you and softly rub your back and kiss your shoulders, asking if you'd like him to cook dinner, or force you to take breaks so that you could sit on the couch and watch tv with him. it was the littlest things that reassured you.

but sometimes, there was serious work that needed to get done.

hoseok was in charge of dinner tonight, not only because it was his turn but because you were busy at the computer on a case that wasn't anywhere near completed. your law firm tried it's absolute best to give you work that acted in your favor sometimes, granting you breaks to spare. yet there were also the torturous weeks of sitting up during the ridiculous hours of the morning because someone needed your help.

and they knew they could count on you because you never rested until your clients were absolutely satisfied. you were special that way. hoseok loved that about you. you were a no nonsense kind of woman.

but he could admit to being just a little worried about how long you were sitting in the same chair since the afternoon. it was nearly eight o' clock and the thought of eating alone for the sixth time that week kind of broke him, but he knew he'd get his time with you because you'd have to come to bed at some point or another.

the man took his time in preparing the dinner that you liked best; a pasta dish with vodka sauce and a red glass of wine.

you continued to work through the hypnotizing scent of garlic and cheeses, noticing the way that your stomach growled but too busy to get up and go check on your boyfriend. your knee shook and by now, your back was starting to ache like nobody's business, but the way you were concentrated at the screen seemed to have dimmed any ounces of pain.

"baby," hoseok was quick to appear at the doorway with concern written all over his face, receiving only the quietest hum from you as your eyes remained fixed on the bright monitor at your desk. the man moved further into the office and caught how your eyebrows furrowed in concentration, typing like a mad woman before leaning against the edge of the desk to watch you.

you were still so beautiful to him.

even in the plain cotton of your shorts and a shirt, you had him hooked, and he thought it was a shame your firm had to be so hard on you. he missed you in more ways than one. by this time, the workload was consuming you, and yet he wanted you all to himself—lips clashed and all.

at the realization that you wouldn't stop your job for him, he grabbed your chin, forcing your eyes to his and seeming quite annoyed. "give me one good reason why i shouldn't put your boss six feet under the ground," you quickly smiled at him and pushed his hand away gently. "it isn't his fault, my love," you sounded exhausted, "this is my job," he let out a huff, clearly fed up with that excuse at this point even if he couldn't understand it.

yet he had it so much easier in comparison to you. he would go to work, come home, and have the rest of the day to himself. probably checking his email once or twice if he really, really felt like it. but the two of you were different. your jobs were different. and you would be lying if you claimed that you weren't at all jealous of the fact that he could come home and do whatever he wanted. but that was nothing to hold against him.

"yeah," hoseok muttered lowly, the dark look on his face telling you that he wasn't believing you or pleased with your state in the slightest. so you decided to prove it, finally standing from your office chair and grabbing him by the neck to pull him into a lengthy kiss that froze him. but he sunk into you as quickly as he regained his sense.

you had nearly forgotten how good his lips tasted after all this time, actually feeling relief from all the exhaustion and tension pent up in your little body. his arms wrapped around you in seconds, his warm, ready tongue meeting with yours as he locked your lips together for a second time.

you couldn't help smiling at him, sensing how needy he was feeling by the way he pulled your hips against him and sighed like he'd finally got what he wanted. but of course, he wanted more, growing disappointed the moment you pulled away, still holding him like a baby and watching him frown from the sudden lack of lip to lip contact. that twitch in his pants was slowly starting to bother him and what you granted was nothing less than a tease.

"this isn't fair," he muttered, dropping his head into the crook of your neck as you kissed his head gently.

"it's nothing we're not used to," the sigh he released just made you hold him tighter, "just give me a few more hours, hoseok. i'll come to bed with you, i promise. but let me work just a little bit more. trust me when i say that i'm almost done."

"but you're exhausted, y/n, i can tell," he countered before you kissed him again, smiling even though he was right. you did want to shut your eyes and fall into him. you did want to take his hand and follow him back into the kitchen to spend the rest of the night at his side and just be done. but you were strong. strong enough to say no even if your body was screaming otherwise.

"i'll be fine," you whispered beside his ear, your voice delicate and almost broken. but he trusted you enough to let you go—that you wouldn't work yourself to death because you had never, ever lied to him.

the grip around your body loosened as he straightened up and gave you a short nod, aiming not to waste any more of your time. he glanced at your full lips once more before brushing past your side to finish dinner, only to feel your cold hand taking his wrist on his way out. the touch made him spin around to look at you. but in truth, you just wanted to admire him. you blushed, realizing you deserved none of him.

"i love you," your hand tightened around his wrist as you spoke, basking in how relieved he looked as he took in the words; his favorite out of your mouth, even more than his own name.

"i love you more, y/n," you blushed again, pecking his lips sweetly before reluctantly slipping your hand from his wrist to return to your desk. the man's eyes remained on you for a while though, probably imagining how wonderful it would be if he could just take hold of something and make time stop just to kiss you again.

but he retreated, returning with a big plate of food and some wine to give you the energy to go on. you smiled beautifully at him as he tipped your head back to kiss you again, settling into the couch in the living room to catch up on all the shows you two couldn't watch together because you didn't have the time. he held a drink in his right hand, lightly circling the rim with his mind set on you and your lips, slowly feeling his body giving out as the night fell later and later.

the phone laying at his side read eleven o' clock at night, making it a full two hours since you two had last spoken to each other. he could see that you were still in the zone from when he came in to take your plate away earlier, asking about how much longer you'd be. but once again, you only promised that you'd be done soon.

so hoseok waited on you some more, fighting sleep to the best of his ability as midnight crept. he got another drink, and another, and another, until he realized that it was only making his exhaustion worse. to the point that staying awake felt practically impossible. so, he checked on you one more time, your eyes still glued to the screen though he didn't call for you this round. you weren't even paying attention to the time. he didn't need to guess to know that that was the truth.

but he didn't say anything.

he turned off all the lights in the house, made sure the doors were locked, washed the dishes, shut off the tv, and did everything either of you would've done on any normal night. though made sure to leave the light in your office on and the door open just a crack. he didn't tell you goodnight because that defeated the purpose. he couldn't fall asleep properly if you weren't beside him.

he attempted reading for a short while after showering and slipping some fresh sweats on but ended up drifting off within the first few chapters, comfortable as always in the bedsheets yet cold—which hoseok attributed to your absence, the lack of presence inevitably waking him up just a few hours later. the lamp at the bedside was still shining, and the clock below it read a bright 2:34 in the morning.

he grew pissed.

he tore the blanket off and stood from the bed, feeling even more cold air engulfing his body as he made his way over to your office for what felt like the millionth time that night. except now, he wasn't taking no for an answer. not anymore. this obviously wasn't healthy for you and if he could, he'd throw you over his shoulder and force you to come back to bed with him.

except the consequences would be movement. tons and tons of it because you'd be restless, thinking of all the outcomes of what a heap of incomplete work could do to you. and those were by far, the worst nights of his life. if you were coming to bed, you'd have to get there yourself. and hoseok hoped that the fuming expression on his face was enough to scare you into submission. normally, it's what did the trick.

hoseok quietly pushed the door back and saw you in the same exact position as before, slowly reaching over to flick off the light switch and almost sending you into a heart attack. your throat grew dry knowing the man was standing in the doorway probably furious with you because you had completely disregarded his wishes. "bedtime," he stated firmly as you sat in the dark, the monitor glowing against your skin and making you chew at your lip.

you glanced at the time in the corner and noticed the horrid hour, sulking in your chair and just for a second, thought of opening your mouth to speak. "i'm not asking this time," his statement had you quiet again. yet for some reason, you wouldn't listen. "i'm so close to being done," you whispered, practically pleading even if your eyes were burning and drained, probably even red.

"i don't care."

"hoseok–"

"i'm not repeating myself, y/n,"

you whimpered at how sore your joints were from sitting in your firm office chair all day, slowly dropping what you were doing and reluctantly pushing yourself away from the desk.

your boyfriend walked closer to you, whispering an apology against your ear and brushing a few strands of your hair away from your face to reveal the dark circles. "forgive me but i just can't handle seeing you like this," he carefully stated, kissing your head. "now go to our room. i'll be there in a second," you obeyed him this time without a second thought.

he straightened your work space and shut off your computer, saving whatever work you were trying to complete before finally feeling the pleasure of shutting the office door behind him, trailing back into the bedroom and doing the same. of course, you were a bit unsettled. not because of anything he did but because you hated when you couldn't finish something, understandably.

you tiredly glanced up at him from the bed, his cool skin soothing you instantly as he touched your face with the back of his fingers and kissed you. "tell me what you want," he continued to caress your cheek, hovering over your body and seeing how you beckoned towards the bathroom. and hoseok knew immediately what you meant.

he pecked your head again, gently laying you back against the sheets to go and get the bath ready for the both of you despite having already been clean. he dipped his hand in to make sure the water was warm enough for you and tested it over and over, using all your favorite soaps in order to make the bubbles. he delicately hoisted you into his strong arms and undressed you slowly, submerging you into the bath first before stripping and joining you in the water.

you fell into him in seconds, your nose pressed against the skin of his neck as he took his time in cleaning you off properly, dozing off quickly due to the warmth. he made sure to be especially gentle with the rag while kissing the crown of your head and listening to the way you breathed slow against his chest. like you were a child.

he kept mumbling apologies into your ear whenever he needed to move you, making his heart ache every time because whenever he rinsed you, you had no choice but to stay awake. to prevent you from getting cold, he wrapped you in a blanket and dried you promptly. he also allowed you to rest on the toilet and massaged the sorest parts of your body as he rubbed your favorite lavender lotion into your skin, kissing you even still.

after pulling one of his shirts over your head and helping you slip on some clean panties, you heard him whisper a 'you're all done' and carry you bridal style to the bed. the moment he finally set you down, it felt like your body sunk into a layer of clouds, growing a smile that hoseok could see as he got under the covers beside you. "thank you, hoseok," was all you could manage as you snuggled into his arms. though he began to hush you gently, wanting nothing more than for you to just sleep because you needed it.

"i love you so much," the last peck he landed to your temple almost had you in tears, bunching his shirt in your hands as you finally shut your eyes. more in love than you could say.

"i love you more, y/n," the lights went off and the rest after that was kind of a blur.

"dream about me," he muttered, smiling against your hair and feeling your heartbeat sync with his.

"always."

[chanelhamitlon]

i mean 10|| Philip Hamilton x Reader

word count: 900+

warnings: mentions of sex, nudes idk, lack of proofreading, cursing

A/N: I just saw this in tiktok and It lead me to make a fic about it 🙈 this is pretty short lol

You sat on the couch as Philip left to see his friends. You just got home from a trip to Greece and you let him see his friends for a while. Of course, watching How I Met Your Mother for the 5th time got boring. You started thinking of ways to annoy your best friend so you start spamming her with random tiktok vids, no matter the vid or the context, you just spammed her like theres no tomorrow. Which lead you to calling her.

'Y/n what the fuck?? dont you have a boyfriend to bother?"

'Philip's out for the day, hes with his friends'

'Probably got tired of your bullshit HAHAHA'

'Maam-'

'You bored?'

'Obviously'

Suddenly the doorbell rang. You remembered that you ordered new lingerie last week while coming home from Greece. You propped your phone on the table getting the door. The door opened to reveal a slightly toned delivery guy with the Amazon uniforms bright blue and black colors on his shirt. It was a rather big box of lingerie since it was on sale and why not treat yourself. You did the usual when getting a package delivered and said goodbye to the delivery's guy. You go back to your best friend staring at her phone possibly scrolling through tiktok. You snapped her out of the video she's watching to tell her:

'I bought a shit ton of lingerie from amazon holy shit'.

With your best friends attention onto you now, you opened the box, making sure to not cut through anything inside. You look at the first piece on top, opening the plastic, it was a black two piece with detachable knee high mesh stockings. 'Y/n that looks so good!! Philip's gonna freak!'. You now had a wave of confidence flow through you. This is definitely gonna make sex interesting. You rumage through all of what you bought, showing your best friend each delicate piece if fabric.

The call ended after a couple of hours of just chatting and you trying one one piece for her trusted judgement. You were just cleaning up the little mess you made with all the fabric on the sofa. You each place them back in the box with the intention of hanging them later. You watched a little bit more How I Met Your Mother till you got a message.

Pip👁👅👁: Heyy babygirll, im gonna be here longer than i thought, they invited me to drink out :(( imy so much

Y/n😽💅: Babyyy miss u too!! just get home safely and i'll be ok :)) love uu 😻

Pip👁👅👁: Love you too baby :))

You prop down your phone to get back to the episode your on. It gets boring to do this over and over again, so you decide to pull out your phone and scroll through tiktok. You come across this one video that gave you an idea. You just bought new lingerie and maybe you could snap a couple of pics in them while trying them on.

For once you felt confident to maybe send Philip a little something while he's away. You try on a couple of pieces deciding which few you're going to send pictures in. You look at yourself in the mirror, you were wearing a blue lace piece covering just the right parts. You remember looking at this particular outfit on the website, feeling the worst that might happen is that your fat is going to just overflow out or whatnot. It was actually a really good fit. You snap some pics of yourself in this and maybe some more in the pink and red fit you tried on earlier. You only needed 10 pics anyways.

In the middle of your mini photoshoot, your phone chimed. It was your landlord saying the due of the rent and whatnot. You replied with a simple ok and that its Philip's turn to pay, it should be within the month. You quickly returned to your mini photoshoot, signaling yourself that time flew and its already 6:00 pm. Philip should be home around 11:30 maybe.

Once you had at least 30 photos, selecting the few 10 and deleting the others was pretty easy. 3 photos in the blue one, 4 photos in the pink one, and 3 other in the red one. You got dressed properly and went to the laundry room to wash the lot of lingerie you had on your hands. You had time to make a little dinner so you decide to make some chicken wings, of course following a recipe on your phone. You had to make sure Philip was maybe a bit tipsy before you do what you were going to.

About 3 hours passed and you were already on your way to bed when you decide to text him.

Y/n😽💅: Philippp!!

Pip👁👅👁: Y/nnnsn

Y/n😽💅: Choose a number between 1-10

Pip👁👅👁: whYyYyayYyY

Y/n😽💅: 🙈

Pip👁👅👁: 4??

Y/n😽💅: *sent 4 photos*

You finally sent it, waiting for Philips response was kinda scary considering its your first time sending him risqué images. You wouldn't knoe how to react.

Pip👁👅👁: I MEAN 10!!!

BABE I SAID 10 SEND SOME

MORE

Y/n😽💅: come home to see more 🙈

You see Philip read what you said, he didn't reply which made you question whether he would rush home to you or hang out with his friends for a little while longer. Nevertheless, you were waiting.

You were reading a book when the key shift at the front door which lead you to peep outside. Philip had his curls all over the place. He'd been rushing for sure. When he saw you leaning on the doorway to your bedroom, he looked like a child just got their christmas gift early.