#focusing on original work to either make a living or make a name for myself

[mrghostrat]

the brain rot is so strong (/pos) that i am currently tempted to take the unfinished WIP novel i was writing before S2 and turn it into a good omens fic

🫥

(i’ve been thinking about this for months actually ha ha)

[mrsriddles-blog]

Her Girl | P.P

Pairing: Slytherin Fem Reader X Pansy Parkinson

WC: 2k+

Warnings/Notes: Mild language, kissing, angst, drugs…

Summary: Unsure of how either of you feel and not wanting to risk losing one another as a person in each other’s lives, you continue to dance around the truth of your guys’ relationship.

A/N: I am so sorry! It has been ages since I’ve actually posted a piece of writing! This is a draft and I’ve seen all the requests, I’m working through them slowly, but surely! College and work have been a real pain in the ass, so I’m so sorry guys! I’ll probably be switching up the plan I had originally just to try and get some more work out and posted. I’ll also probably do away with the song fics until I have more time on my hands! I’ll try to finish the ones already planned and of course if a request comes up, but it’s super time consuming!

"Hey, who's that?" Lorenzo asks, pointing at you.

You sat alone at a table in the courtyard, your green robes sticking out to your own house. They've never noticed you before and clearly you were new if you were sitting at the Golden Trio's table.

"I don't know, but I feel like we should rescue her before the Golden Trio gets to her." Draco says, looking in the direction of the glaring Gryffindors.

"Too late." Mattheo mumbles, taking another drag from his cigarette.

"Excuse me. Who are you sitting at our table?" Harry asks.

"Oh, I'm sorry. Is your name on this table? No, it's not. So it doesn't make it your table. Now get the fuck out of my face." You snap.

The boy who lived was taken aback by your hostility, along with your icy tone. He puts his hands up, deciding not to fight with you. He had no idea who you were anyway, only that you were an enemy by your house colors.

You watch as he backs away, a familiar look of fear in his eyes. You wait until the three fools turn around before focusing back on the letter to your father. You had found you hated Hogwarts as you've faced nothing, but bullying and not to mention you were still friendless after a month. 

You weren't one to give up, but this time...you weren't wanting to fight.

There wasn't anything here for you. No one even in your house has noticed you. You're barely noticed by the professors. It's like you don't exist because you're not apart of their clicks. You pull a cigarette out, lighting it in hopes it'll ease your nerves.

You pack up your belongings, tired of the chatter as you begin walking to the Astronomy Tower in hopes for some peace.

"Sorry, didn't know anyone was up here." You mumble, seeing a girl with long brown hair and green eyes.

She wore no robes, but she wore a green tie—one that hung loosely around her neck. You start to make your way to turn to exit as she speaks.

"No! Wait! Come sit." She says, her cheeks flushing red at sounding so panicked.

Panicked because she realized she'd been quite a tad bit too long and was just staring, so you had begun to walk away. You were hesitant, but you take a seat next to her.

"I'm Pansy Parkinson." She says.

"Y/N Y/L/N." You murmur.

"I've seen you around. I'm sorry I haven't introduced myself sooner. I assumed it would be overwhelming as I'm sure people were eager to meet you. It's not often we get someone in the middle of the year, let alone our fifth year." She explains.

"You're alright. It's been quite the opposite actually. You're the first person to actually speak to me...and notice me. Although, I'm considering lettering my father to get transferred elsewhere." You admit, putting out your cigarette to light another.

"What? Why?" She asks.

"I've faced quite a bit of bullying since I've got here. Not that I've cared. Typically I'll handle it, but I'm not quite sure who keeps pulling their stunts. And I haven't made any friends. It's been hard." You admit quietly.

"Don't send that letter just yet. You are now my friend. Let me introduce you to my other friends later at dinner. It'll be nice to have another girl apart of the group, oh, and I'll figure out who's messing with you, Y/n/n. I'll handle it." She says, giving you a smile.

"That's okay, Pansy. I'll figure it out sooner if later. It's my problem to sort out anyway." You say, managing a soft smile.

"You can handle it, but I'll also be handling it. Trust me, if I don't handle it, the boys will which means all of them will cast hellfire on the unfortunate bloke. The moment they meet you, you'll be apart of our little family." She says.

"Hey, Pansy? I was wondering if—." You say, before stopping.

She was in a dark green lace bra, wearing a mini skirt as she sifted through her closet. She smiles at you, one that sent your stomach in a bunch of flutters. Your cheeks flush red when you realize you were staring.

"What's up, love?" She asks lowly.

You swallow thickly, your thighs not so discreetly clenching together as a heat ignited in your core.

"I...um, nevermind. Sorry, I can't remember what I was going to ask. Sorry, um for barging in." You say, looking anywhere, but her.

"Hey, what happened to your lip?" She asks, stepping forward until she was in front of you.

She lifts a hand, cupping your face as she runs her thumb across your busted lip.

"Nothing." You mumble.

"This isn't nothing." She scolds.

"It's not that big of a deal, Pans." You mumble, pulling back.

She purses her lips, nodding and you sigh, knowing you've pissed her off. You turn, leaving her dorm as you walk back to your dorm.

There was a party tonight and that was what you had gone to talk to Pansy about. You sigh, running a hand through your hair. You wanted to be bold though, so you began the tedious search through your closet.

"Hey, I wanted to talk with you." Theodore says, slipping in your dorm.

You've settled on an outfit and now you just had to get dress. You start to shimmy your way out of your jeans.

"What's up?" You ask.

"So—oh, hey Pans." He says.

Her eyes were on you as you were half-naked in front of Theodore Nott—one of the two most notorious boys in Slytherin who screwed with girls.

"Oh...when did this happen?" Pansy asks quietly.

"It's not that, Pansy. I've seen her naked like a lot now. Friends only, pinky swear." He says, leaning back on your bed.

You rolled your eyes, seeing she wasn't convinced. You pull on the skirt and look at her.

"I'm gay, Pansy." You say.

"Oh!" She says, her cheeks flushing red.

"You really think this girl would let me sleep with her and let me see her naked on a daily basis? No! She'd kick my ass." He snorts.

"I-I've got to finish getting ready. Sorry! I can't remember what I was going to ask...actually, I do. I'm sorry, I got cold and I iced you out because you weren't comfortable telling me what happened." She says.

"Pans, it was a stupid argument I got into. I shouldn't have listened because I know the truth anyway. It's seriously no biggie. Go finish getting ready. You and I will slay this party, more so you." You say, smiling softly at her.

She smiles, her cheeks flushing red, but she leaves. You look back at your skirt and fix it before pulling your shirt over your head.

"So, that answered my question. One of them at least. But, do you like her?" Theodore asks, unfazed as you take your bra off and pull on the lace bralette that was a dark green.

"Of course I do! She's a great friend...she's been accepting of me since day one and she's been nice despite me having my days sometimes. She's always understanding and I love that. No one has been that way for me. Ever. I've never really experienced the love and care of friends until her...and of course you guys, but she and I are always going to be a little closer obviously." You ramble, pulling on the black blazer.

"I meant in a more than friend way." He says, lighting a cigarette.

You sigh, sitting at your vanity as you straighten your hair, going for a bold look. You settle on a vibrant red lipstick along with dark eyeshadows.

"Yeah, but that won't ever happen, Theo. She doesn't like me that way. Not to mention...I've tried to subtly hint to her only for her to brush past it. I've gotten my hint, so I'm going to be thankful I even have her in my life as a friend." You explain.

"God, you are blind." He mumbles.

"And what are you talking about?" You ask.

"I'm talking about the way she talks about you to us when you aren't around. It's like, she's in some dream. She gets this dreamy smile and look to her eye when she thinks or talks about you. She lights up when you're around. She cares about you, worried when you're having an off day or if you get in a fight. She's just scared to lose you. You are more than her girl than you realize. And what about that fight you got into with that Ravenclaw who was calling her a fag and stuff? That's just being friendly?" He asks.

"You're telling me you wouldn't have fought her for that?" You deadpan, turning to him.

"One, I would have if she was a he as I don't hit girls. Two, is that all you got from what I said?" He asks.

"Theo, I can't lose her. I don't think you realize what that will do to me if I lose her. It's not that I don't want to believe what you're saying. I just don't want to get my hopes up. What if you're looking for the same thing I am?" You ask.

"I guess we'll find out tonight. I heard a certain Gryffindor was going to show her moves on Pans tonight. Just know it's on you for letting her slip away." He says, leaving your dorm.

You frown, looking at your vanity for a moment before finishing up your makeup. You pull on your heels with the snake coiled around the heel as music began to play. You debated on even going to this party.

You went nonetheless, striding towards the bar where you mixed up a drink that was borderline death itself. Your eyes found Pansy chatting it up with Hermione Granger of all people. You frown, not noticing a Hufflepuff sixth year striding towards you.

"I'm Anna!" She calls, sending a flirty smile your way.

"Y/n!" You call, smiling back slightly.

Pansy had tuned Hermione out, her eyes on you before she stormed over to the boys. She smacked Theodore in the head who curses.

"What the hell!? I thought you said she liked me!" She snaps.

"She does! What the hell was that for?" He says, rubbing his head.

"She's talking to that sixth year Hufflepuff! That's what it was for!" She snaps.

"I said she likes you. I even told her that Hermione was going to make a move on you if she didn't. I never said she'd make the move though. You are really important to her, she doesn't want to lose you. She rather have you as a friend than lose you because she doesn't believe you like her." He explains.

"So, she's going to just dance with her? Are you actually listening to whether she likes me or not or are you just a fucking bloke?" She snaps.

"That busted lip is because she got into a fight with a Ravenclaw who was calling you some nasty names. I believe I heard her say something across the lines of don't talk shit about my girl. You can stand here and sulk about her dancing with Anna, or you can go get your girl. Your choice." He says.

Pansy looks at him with malice before relaxing and sighing as a tired look washes over her face. She looks up at you to see you dancing with Anna still.

"I'll handle, Anna. It won't go anywhere obviously, but just so you can whisk her away." Astoria says, taking her pin out of her hair and shaking her curls free.

Astoria was a new friend of the group because of her arranged marriage with Draco, but only the group knew of the arrangement.

Pansy strides towards the dancing crowd and grabs your hand. You look at her as Astoria whisks Anna away. Pansy pulls you off to a secluded corner and sighs.

"I'm a bloody idiot for not realizing how you felt. But, that makes you one too as you haven't realized how I felt." She sighs.

"What?" You ask oblivious.

"I like you, Y/n/n. I have for awhile." She chuckles.

"I...I like you too, Pans. I just...didn't think you would ever feel that way for me." You admit quietly.

"Fucking hell, shut up and let me kiss you." She laughs.

Your cheeks flush red, but nonetheless, you let her pull you in by your hips, your lips meeting her soft ones that tasted like her cherry lipgloss. You smile into the kiss as your guys' guy friends started to whoop and holler for you both. You flipped them the middle finger as Pansy's hands move to your ass.

"She's got her girl." Theodore chuckles.

"The hell they'll be together." Mattheo laughs.

[squeamishnerd]

I'm Kinda New to Simblr

Lately, I've seen a lot of people who are new to Simblr presenting themselves. I'm not new to Tumblr, I joined in 2019, I think, but I was only lurking and not on the Sims part of Tumblr at all. I didn't start to post my Sims stories until September 2023. At the time it was only to archive the stories that I posted on Twitter.

Now I've been here for a while, and I know that there's a Sims community here, but I don't feel like I'm a part of it, and I want to become a part of it but I don't know how.

Wall of text (not kidding 😅 I can't keep things short) below the "keep reading" cut.

TL;WR: I'm Kats, I play The Sims and I post two Sims stories, which can be found in this master post. I also build and renovate.

Presentation starts further down, you can skip this part if you only want to read the presentation

So, the thing is that I don't have time to read more Sims stories than the ones I already read (several on Twitter, two here), and most simmers here seem to post stories, so therefore I don't interact with people that much, and with the way the comment section works here (for example that comments aren't nested and there isn't even a function to click 'like' on comments) it makes it more difficult to interact with people, at least for me. That's why I don't know how to become a part of the Sims community here.

The thing I feel like my feed lacks the most is pictures of Sims pets. Doesn't matter if it's CAS or live mode, I just want to see more pixel pets 😊 Recommendations are welcome. Don't feel like you have to follow me back if you recommend yourself and I start to follow you.

So, anyway, I thought I could present myself and my Sims stories, in case anyone's interested 🙂

Presentation starts here, if you want to skip the stuff above

Hi, I'm Kats! I started to play The Sims in 2000, and while I mostly play The Sims 4 nowadays I still play The Sims 1 from time to time. I haven't shared any of my The Sims 1 gameplay here (Maybe I should do that?), but I've done so on other social media. I also used to play The Sims 2.

I'm in my 30s and I live in Northern Europe. I have a partner and a cat. I'm a biotechnician and a certified sex educator, but I currently don't work in either of those fields. In my free time I like to play The Sims (obviously 😆), watch TV series, hang out with friends, play board games, take walks in the forest, go on hikes, and travel.

I post two Sims stories on social media. Neither of them are legacies, they're just stories, you get to follow the characters at a very slow pace throughout their lives (I'll probably end the stories when the characters are in their 40s, they're currently in their 20s). The two stories take place in parallel universes, but if you're interested in reading you don't need to read both stories to follow along, even though there are sometimes references to the other universe.

The master post for the stories can be found here. It's also pinned to my profile. My other social media can be found in my Linktree.

The story that I started to post first is called The Brights

This story currently focuses on university students, it has some sci-fi themes with sentient bots, such as servos (called "simoid bots" or just "bots" in the story), utilibots, and robots. The main character is Beren Bright, who grew up in a small, isolated village. He was homeschooled until he was 16, and then went to a regular high school. When he turned 20 he cut all ties with his biological family and all of his friends, changed his surname (to Bright), moved away, and started to study physics at university.

The other story is called The Original Ahriman

I myself think it's a bit of a silly name for a story, but it was the best I could come up with, and it makes sense from the 4th chapter. This story is about a chaotic, evil, mischievous, and very powerful spellcaster, who is trying hard to abide by the rules of society, in a society that doesn't even have very strict laws and rules to begin with. They mysteriously spawned in The Magic Realm as a toddler and was raised by the three Sages.

In both stories I include a lot of pre-made sims, and original characters are introduced little by little, so it should be relatively easy to get to know my OCs.

The things I've seen others say, and also are things I strive for, when it comes to what my stories include over all, are characters with diverse personalities, lots of foreshadowing, jokes sprinkled everywhere, both wholesomeness and drama, funny intentional tropes, and, especially, detailed worldbuilding. I LOVE worldbuilding!

I've noticed that readers on twitter think that I plan everything for my stories, but I both plan things or go with the flow, I let my sims decide more than it seems, and I often let them change my plans because they have a tendency to do very fitting things that I didn't even think of myself. Either way, I always make sure that whatever I include works with the worldbuilding.

I didn't use mods for the first 28 chapters of The Brights and the first 14 chapters of The Original Ahriman. I do use mods today, but only the pose player and bug fixes. Even though I use mods I'll always have the back of those who don't, no matter the reason, because it's really silly how some people (especially on Twitter) act towards simmers who don't use mods. Let people play their game however they want. I'm also WCIF friendly.

I've also created two machinimas, they're part of the stories, so they contain spoilers for chapter 14 and 29, respectively, of The Brights. But if you're interested and don't mind spoilers, or just don't plan to read my stories at all, you can find them here and here 😊 Watch them with sound turned on.

Btw, this thing with being a certified sex educator kinda led to including quite a bit of woohoo education in my stories. At the beginning I was planning to not do this, but it just kinda happened 🤷🏼

I also build and renovate, but I only post builds on Twitter and Bluesky, but here's one of them, a winter themed cottage in the woods, you can find it on the gallery.

And here's a renovation of Elixirs and Brews, which can also be found on the gallery.

I think that's all I wanted to say. Ended up being a lot though 😅

Questions are welcome 😊

[acourtofladydeath]

WIP Game

Thank you for the tags @yanny-77 and @witch-and-her-witcher!!

Rules: Make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! And then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

I have SO MANY WIPs in varying stages ranging from "ferally writing every chance i get, including in my sleep and during class" to "drowning and forgotten at the bottom of the pool while I work on everything else." Some are mostly drafted, others are outlines, and some are just ideas I've dropped into docs but all are near and dear to my little fanfic heart.

Welcome to the Family (Elain X all the Vanserras)

Sariel Sic Fic (Azris)

*ASOLB Ch3: Dare to Dream (Azris)

*RttHC Ch2: Winners & Losers (Azris X Nessian)

*TTBW Ch5: You Were Only Waiting (Nessriel)

Ch7: Reunited (Patrochilles)

UTM contact -> mating (Azris)

What Eris got Az for solstice (Azris)

Casris Hounds

Who Have We Become? (IC has to face some shit)

The Process of Progress (Azriel focused)

Carhysta Smut

A Court of Hurting and Healing (Bat Boys focused)

And So, We Danced (Nesta & Eris brotp w/ Nessian & Azris)

How Dare You (AU Azris)

Lovers Live and Die, Fortissimo (AU - Azris, Nessian, Elucien, Helion X LOA)

Lauda/Hunt F1 AU (Azriel/Cassian)

UTM Lucien/Eris fic

Patrochilles Azris

Eris shows up drunk & injured, see screenshots (Azris)

Feysand vs. Nessriel

FFF smut part 2 (Eltamcien)

ASOLB mating frenzy (Azris)

Jurian and Rhys heart-to-heart

Bat Boy reunion after UTM

*RttHC, TTBW, and ASOLB each have a doc per chapter, so they have multiple WIP docs, but I only listed the chapters I'm currently writing/working on.

Several are whump, several are feel good fun, some are more serious commentaries, and a few are straight smut. There are also MORE THAN THIS. But those ideas were either not as fleshed out or ones I wanted to keep to myself.

ANYWAY THIS IS HOW MY BRAIN WORKS. Welcome to my personal hell. ? Heaven? Unclear...

For legal reasons and my own gods damned sanity I make literally zero guarantees that you get all of these by the way. but THEY EXIST. There's also the two original fiction ideas that I have and have documents for but I'm keeping those close to the chest.

There's literally no way to tag as many people as I have fics so I'm just picking a few. I apologize if you've already been tagged and NO PRESSURE! @thelov3lybookworm, @readychilledwine, @born-to-riot, @danikamariewrites, @thelovelymadone, @theatrequeen, @nocasdatsgay

[brightlight-dazzlingeyes]

between the lines | interlude

rúben dias x original female character [+18]

synopsis: isabella is a sports journalist covering the premier league. she has sworn to never get involved with a football player. that is, until she meets a handsome portuguese defender. warnings: incorrect journalism references; timeline of events are not faithful to real life; i have never been to england; mutual pining; romantic comedy;  minors dni.

previous chapter | masterlist | next chapter

Interlude

“I think she wants you to sing to her!” Carlos exasperatedly requests me a lullaby. I’m sitting down on the floor in front of my floor length mirror, trying to do something nice with my hair. I'm getting ready for my first day back at work after a short lived summer break. My brother is on facetime, showing me my niece. “I swear, she was saying ‘tía’ a lot. I think she’s asking for the song.”

It’s August and I just got back to England. Getting drunk on Pinot Noir on as many Spanish islands as my money could afford was a goal I gracefully achieved over the break. Okay, maybe ‘gracefully’ is not the best word to describe my alcohol driven antics. But here I am, all pieces glued together, ready for another season.

This time last year I was a rookie in this League and by the end of the season I was having dinner dates with a Prem superstar.

None of that this time, tough. I've grown a year older since my birthday last week, and that means I’m only focusing on my career. For real this time. No more relapses, no more calls in the middle of the night.

So I sing Lucía a song and then I go to work.

“New year, new me, huh?” I point out as Melissa hugs me, she has a new hair color and is rocking a new makeup style.

“Isabella, it’s August.” Mel doesn't share my enthusiasm. “Also, I hate covering pre-season. I always end up making stupid decisions like going blonde or something.”

“What? You didn’t have fun in the US?” I’m still hugging her when I ask.

“Oh, shut up. Your insta stories didn’t help me either, you know?” Mel puts both hands on my shoulders and looks deep into my eyes. “But you had fun, right? You’re feeling good?”

“Yeah, of course. Feeling good. I feel great.” I nod, mostly to myself. “I feel amazing…” 

She agrees and continues to walk.

“I swear I wish I had forgotten most of these dudes' names.” She bites her lips looking menacingly into the horizon. I giggle, ashamed.

“I share the feeling.”

At lunch Mel ordered Japanese food and I just stared at the package for a full minute before deciding to eat.

“You know you can talk to me, right?” It’s the fourth or sixth time she said that to me, ever since she noticed something was off a couple months ago.

It was a Japanese restaurant but I almost didn’t notice at first, being too focused on something else. He wore a button up shirt and I felt like dying.

I remember saying something like:

“I don’t really like Portuguese food. Too many eggs. You guys put eggs in everything. Egg on the entrance, egg on the fish, for desert? Egg flavored cake. Francesinha is a sandwich with egg on top of it. That’s not where the egg is supposed to go, Rúben.”

And he laughed, he laughed at every joke I said. At the end of the night my jaw was hurting from how I smiled at him and I wondered if he felt the same.

It’s a double-edge sword, this whole falling in love thing. Even being the one saying goodbye, I still hurt like I was dumped by my first boyfriend at 16 all over again.

At first it was easy, everything can be a distraction if you try hard enough. But with time the thing I was trying so hard to hide became bigger and louder in my mind. The sound of the laughter, the clicking of the cutlery.

The realization that I chose this, standing outside of Wembley with a microphone in hand; over whatever that was.

This is fine, I’m great.

“How are you feeling about this season?” I question a random City fan outside the stadium.

“Good, yeah.” The lad shrugs.

“You guys already won everything, do you think the players-” I start, but he stops me.

“Nah, we didn’t win everything. There’s always more to win. We only got 3 out of 4 last season.” When he says that, I realize that around 20 meters away from me, in the distance, is the Manchester City bus. I walk faster.

The sound of wanting gets drowned out by a crowded pub and suddenly it's easier to breathe again and everything really is fine.

“Rice, rice, baby!” It’s Victor’s voice that gets a genuine laugh out of me. “I fucking love Wembley!”

We’re all meeting at the pub after the Community Shield game and the atmosphere is exactly like the first day back to school, but with a lot more beer involved.

“Please don’t tell me you have money on Arsenal winning the league.” Seb is sitting next to me, pointing his green bottle to Victor.

“I do. Yes, go ahead, laugh all you want.” Victor raises his voice, looking offended. “I’m not even being optimistic, mate, it’s just the plain truth.”

The entire table laughs and we almost can't hear when he continues. “They’re stronger this year, guys, hear me out.”

“You’re right to be confident, but personally I’m not putting money on Mikel.” Mel says.

I bite my tongue when they ask my opinion.

“I’m being a hundred percent professional this year, no betting, no guessing, just straight analyzing.” The table booed me and I raised my hands in the air, in surrender. “Hey, I didn’t even want to be here. I wish I was in Australia right now.”

“Don't remind me!” Mel sighs and lightly slaps me. “We’re literally the only women not covering the World Cup right now.”

“No whining! Come on, let’s toast.” Seb raises his bottle once again, but this time we all follow. “To a busy and long season!”

And we all repeat: “To a busy and long season!”

[kaybaeisgay]

alright here we go…. these are my One Piece: Live Action thoughts and critiques now that i’ve finished binge watching the show!

overall rating is a 6.5/10 on a Netflix original scale with some episodes being below that and some being above. (EDIT: before you throw tomatoes pls know that i highly enjoyed it!!!!! just had some thoughts on how it could have been improved in my own humble opinion!!)

(spoilers under cut)

initial praises:

the FUCKING CAST. they are all so good!!!! i admittedly had low expectations for some characters prior to watching (i.e. shanks, mihawk, garp) due to how iconic and mysterious they are, but i feel like they all did a phenomenal job bringing these characters to life

THE STRAW HAT CHEMISTRY. from the second i saw the cast interviews, i knew they were gonna be perfect, but the core cast truly was brilliant together

BUGGY 🗣️🗣️🗣️ listen. i’ve always been a buggy denier…… i understood the Power of His Ponytail for others, but never really got it for myself. that being said…….. JEFF WARD POPPED OFF. imo buggy had potential to be either just okay or the worst part of the show. and jeff, my guy, you knocked it out of the fucking park

visuals!!!!! the practical set was beautiful, and the coloring was so perfect for how fantastical the one piece world is. it was really immersive and i was super impressed!

makeup and costumes were fabulous. i know people clowned arlong’s design from the trailers, but i always really liked it bc of its practical effects and watching his full performance in the show was icing on the cake. the fishmen all looked incredible! absolutely spot on from the costume and makeup departments

drunk usopp???? need it like i need air

suave but unpervy sanji???? please, oda, bring him back i BEG

luffy’s curly hair 😭

zoro and nami’s interactions?? chef’s kiss. loved how they made each other work for their trust and friendship

all the little cameos to diff characters in wanted posters

the cgi they did use looked so fucking flawless. like the sea king and buggy’s devil fruit? it was truly a spectacle

the bad and the ugly:

the writing. i have to say, while i thought some parts were fine, i thought other aspects of the writing (namely the parts NOT written by oda) were lacking and stereotypical. it seemed like there was a real need in the writers room to spell everything out for the audience about the one piece world, when i really don’t think that is necessary. part of the charm is how whimsical the world is and how unhurried the east blue beginning arc felt. and they inserted a lot of weird bullshit i felt didn’t fit the original story

on that same note: the straw hat bonding was weak imo. i am a nami-stan to the day i die, but i really felt like they used her character to override the developments between luffy and the other straw hats. i think having nami present in axe-hand morgan’s base with luffy/zoro immediately discredited the initial bond that the two boys were supposed to have. i get why they did it, and i never thought i’d see the day where i wouldn’t want to see more nami, but i feel like her presence during that moment, her convo with kaya, and her staying for baratie really stole important bonding moments from luffy and each of the boys.

similar to that: luffy’s characterization. (note: i adore iñaki! this has nothing to do with him, just how the writers wrote luffy.) i don’t think the writers knew how to approach writing luffy or even zoro for that matter—which, to be fair, they are difficult characters to write. but i think they got very focused on trying to explain or make sense of luffy for the viewers when i truly think the appeal to pre-time skip op is how both the audience and the straw hat crew are constantly learning more and more about who luffy is through his actions. and in tandem, they didn’t know how to flesh out luffy and zoro’s relationship. where animanga luffy and zoro are bonded because they innately seem to just get one another, i think the LA writers didn’t trust that either their script or the actors portraying them could get that across as well without having them literally spell it out for us. and in turn, i think it really watered down their connection when that bond should be one of the absolute strongest.

okay i’m beginning to realize that all my critiques have to do with writing

like, they didn’t show us how much each village comes to love the straw hats???? which is a HUGE part of why we and everyone in the world adores them??????????

little (and big) things about the characters that got lost in the LA: zoro’s sense of humor, usopp’s love of bugs (seriously, he wouldn’t be spooked by a damn spiderweb, cmon), nami being a weather prodigy, usopp being a sniping prodigy, bellemere and nojiko having hope bc infant nami was laughing, luffy only doing stuff bc he wants to, luffy and zoro not caring about the details of nami’s history, sanji bonding w luffy bc he was strong and kind and joining because luffy asked him to, helmeppo’s falling out w his father (like if you’re gonna put so much of him in there at least set up his backstory correctly???), arlong seeing zoro’s wound from mihawk, arlong park walk???!, and so many other things honestly…..

in general, the whimsy of the world was lacking. so much of what sets one piece (especially at the beginning) apart from other shows is how much fun it is. i get that netflix wanted to netflixify this world, but that’s not why we fell in love w the show. we want to see them goofing off, we want to see all the silly, ridiculous jokes. we want the hilarity of it all and how each character (no matter how cool) is still subject to being a fool at times. usopp’s character really brought a lot of life to the show after he was introduced, which i am infinitely grateful for, but i think the writers forgot the core of the show: the fun of it all.

OH. and here is my biggest gripe of them all……. THE FUCKING MARINES. like holy shit, i didn’t realize i was watching a fucking military propo??? i understand they wanted to make koby more relevant for the story but fuck, did we really need fifteen minutes every episode dedicated to the marines???? i loved koby and garp’s actors, but all the focus on them (WHEN THEY ARENT EVEN IN THE EAST BLUE MUCH AT ALL) really soured me on their characters tbh. they robbed us of so much time that could have been spent on any of the above issues listed just for the sake of adding fish-eye-lens close-ups of them shootin’ the shit with each other. it’s like they didn’t want new viewers becoming unsympathetic to the fucking military even tho oda specifically wrote marines as antagonists lmao. truly, i think all the issues i had w the show could have been fixed if they simply didn’t make so much of it about garp and koby.

along w that thought: someone—anyone—please tell me why they needed a garp and luffy confrontation in this first fucking season. please, help me understand. because imo, that was the most atrocious thing they could have done. they literally cut out KEY PARTS to the arlong park arc just to make room for it. the arlong park bit was so badly fumbled imo. making nojiko and the villagers actually hate nami instead of pretending to??? TOMATO TOMATO TOMATO. saying nami asked to join arlong instead of him forcing her to?? FUCKING AWFUL. having luffy chase nojiko down for the story instead of his “i don’t need to know it, i just need her to rely on us”???!!!! fine, go ahead and erase a crucial part of his character. and don’t even get me started on how garp’s moment completely replaced nami’s iconic “goodbye” to coco village and genzo telling luffy not to make her cry. seriously, i could go on for hours about those episodes alone.

additionally, they made the whole “luffy didn’t tell us about his grandpa being a marine” thing like an issue in the crew when that is not at all how it should have gone. the entire point of garps original intro as luffy’s grandpa in animanga is that we AND the straw hats have spent enough time with luffy to understand that he doesn’t say more than what needs to be said. while we were all surprised, no one (not even his crew) are upset about him withholding that. so to introduce garp so early in the plot and then make it a whole moment of dissent for the crew is fucked up and pointless.

i really think they only added so much of the marines because they were worried there weren’t enough “stakes” to push luffy and the crew forward in the narrative, but that is utter bullshit because the ENTIRE point of the east blue arc is that it’s BEFORE luffy ever has a bounty—before he ever is being truly chased—so EVERYTHING he does is simply for the pure sake that he WANTS TO. and that is precisely why each crew member loves him. that’s why WE love him.

last but not least: where tf was hatchan??? ☹️

overall, my problem with the LA so far is that i feel as if the writer’s don’t have a full grasp on the straw hats, and while they were writing the story, things that should’ve been central to their personas got left behind. it felt like since they didn’t feel like they understood luffy as a character, they tried to overcompensate by making him into something he isn’t.

the outline for everything was there and i think it was still a very fun watch, but im left longing for the magic and catharsis of the original story. in the end, it was entertaining but really just made me want to rewatch the anime to get the full effect of oda’s wonderful storytelling

[reedsofintimacy]

How smart are you? You’ve given some hints before but how many degrees do you have? What are you studying? What do you want to do in live professionally and passionately? What’s your purpose career wise?

Also hypothetically would you be open to being your wives employee if she had a really successful company?

I actually don't have any degrees! I'm a nerd and smart but also certainly have my flaws.

For context, I was an honors student all growing up. Always tested in the 99th percentile for state aptitude assessments. I got a 33 on my ACT, did well on a bunch of AP tests and went to a non-ivy-league but prestiguous state school in the top 25% of the incoming class and as a university scholar, in an accelerated chemistry PhD program, and lived in an honors community on campus.

I learned to speak some Chinese, became an instructor for a traditional Korean percussion group, led a bible study, tutored students in organic chemistry, and did excellent in my humanities courses writing on topics like a linguistic study of gender conception in viking-era icelandic society and designing an interventional plan to address youth homelessness in the community.

College was the best 2 years of my life, I adored everything about it but I also completely overloaded myself. Turns out you need more than raw brains for success. I was conflicted between prioritizing my studies vs my faith, and had unadressed adhd and anxiety i wasnt ever aware of and didnt know how to cope with. When my 19 credit hours were drowning me, I couldnt own up to the shame of overwhelm and failure, couldnt look my teachers in the eye and ultimately stopped showing up to class and dropped out.

I'm now back in school with a better understanding of myself, an absense of competing priorities and a lot of experience. Im pursuing working in Radiology doing either CT or MRI. A lot of my friends growing up are finishing their PhD theses and I love discussing them with them, but I myself don't have even an associate's to my name.

Career wise, I originally wanted to be a professor of either Chemistry or Materials Science. I debated majoring in Linguistics or teaching English as a second language but i don't speak anything fluent enough to really do that yet. I've since considered pursuing a career in comedy, as a science communicator and journalist or PIO, as a university student advisor, and taught myself to code to maybe pursue programming.

I love learning. Currently I'm putting the most effort into Chinese classical literature. I've done personal units on nutrition, skincare, fitness, urban planning, economics, and some software like adobe illustrator and game dev with Unity and Godot.

For my professional future, I think I'm for now planning on being a travelling technician in healthcare. It'd give me an opportunity to see lots of different places which is a goal of mine and shouldn't have too many commitments keeping me held in place. Maybe I'll finally get over my fear of casual hookups and become a traveling nurse by day and city-to-city clit servicer by night sampling all sorts of delicious lady bits. Idk. For now I'm just focused on what I'm doing in the moment.

In terms of passions I want time and independence to pursue learning as an autodidact. I'd love to maintain access to university libraries and attend lots of public lectures and symposiums if i could live near enough a big university. I want to read about the things that interest me and someday get over my social anxiety and travel to make friends all over the world with fellow nerds.

In terms of working for my wife of course that would be really sexy I'd love to be my partners doting but slutty assistant 💕 depending on the industry i guess. I think something like insurance or real estate is kind of predatory tbh and wouldnt want to be associated with it. But if I didn't have an issue with it I'd adore being my partners employee. Or even just a supportive house husband or trusted personal assistant ❤️❤️ a role i've always thought I have the potential to be quite good at

[animehouse-moe]

Ranking of Kings Season 2 Episode 8: Kage's Yearning | A Great Mother

This is a filler anime. This is a filler anime. I have to remind myself of that. That this season is just back stories and side stories that flesh out the world. But it's out here literally changing entire art and animation styles for the sake of an episode. Absolutely incredible. And I want to talk about it.

Now I don't want to be mean or anything, but the first half/A part of the episode is sort of "as expected" in comparison to the second half. It's story isn't bad, nor is its direction or storyboarding or animation poor either. In fact, it ties in wonderfully with the latter half, as both stories examine the importance of parents and dreams, though in different forms.

The first part is all about Kage wanting to grow up to being a law abiding and pure hearted knight. However, due to his clan's history he's unable to experience that joy and excitement with other kids his age, instead he's left to hide in corners as they play knight and chase him down (a bit of a grim callback to his mother's death).

However, that bitterness doesn't stop Kage from dreaming, and I really love this scene where you can see the stars reflected in his eyes. Feels like a bit of symbolism for how full of life and potential kids can be.

Anyways, push comes to shove and Kage ends up standing up for someone else at in important time, like a knight should, and he gets rewarded by a knight stepping in to save him. It brings the story full circle and allows Kage to express his desire to become a knight to his mother. It's a really endearing moment, and carries strong emotions as his mother's overwhelmed with how strongly Kage wants to be a good person in spite of his clan's nature and past.

Which in turn leads to this last piece from the first part, which was just so amazing. His mother is staying up late at night working away on creating a toy horse for him to play with, and it's just so full of warmth and heart alongside her wish for Kage growing up.

Anyways, onto the B Part!

Man, this was incredible. Right off the bat the art style change is noticeable as they go for that style that pins pieces together to create movement through rotation. A very typical style for telling fairy tales, and I absolutely adore it.

Now, this second part follows a sort of similar story to Kage's A Part. Though, rather focusing on the child, it focuses on the parent. Namely in how Bosse and Shiina want to change and grow as people as they've found a new reason to get stronger in their son Bojji. I think it's really great to see them relinquish their pursuit of violent strength for something more constructive, and it's a really easy allegory for the importance of using strength for others rather than yourself.

Anyways, in terms of specific stuff I liked from this part, I loved this two shot piece of Bosse and Bojji. Originally, Bosse feels guilt and remorse for the curse placed on his son, and for his own violent ways, so he shies away from making contact with Bojji. But down the road Bosse does the right things, attempts to rectify his character, and in doing so finds the courage to be able to show his son how much he loves him.

Also, I really like how they use scale through both halves of this episode. With each you get a lot of low and high angle shots that establish the scale of each character in comparison to their environments, and it flows quite well from one episode to the other.

And last but not least, I love this scene from Shiina and Bosse about Bojji. The amount of love that parents exhibit in this episode is just so heartwarming. The utter faith and confidence they have in their children achieving their dreams and living how they want is so inspiring.

So there you have it. Incredible cute and incredibly important episode about the love that parents share for their children, and how experiencing that love can shape both parent and child alike. WIT continues to kill it with each and every episode, putting on a clinic for what the standard "filler" episode should be.

[leo-sharks-struggles]

I've invaded your inbox to ask if you'd like to infodump about your WIPs to me! Seriously, go ahead and write an essay if you'd like to 👀 Your WIPs just sound very cool and I'd like to know more!

Hi! Thank you! Sorry for taking forever to answer!

I actually have a few different wips that I'm going to add eventually. But these are the first two I'm worried about.

Anomalous is actually an older wip that I have. It actually started very different and focused on just strange shenanigans in the town with the vampire twins as the main characters. Although, Vlad hasn't changed much except to have more depth beyond horny vampire dating a faery. The village didn't even have a name until I tore the story apart to start anew. I am a huge sucker for stories that center in a town or village that spooky scary things live in. Unfortunately those stories rarely involve anything adult or the kinds of detail stuff I like. So now I just try to write them myself. Anyways, Anomalous is my hope to have my romance and found family and supernatural drama all in one.

Now, Vlad's family isn't necessarily bad, they're not even very terrible in most regards. Vlad just has his own way of thinking and his family doesn't agree with him. They don't resent him either, there isn't any hard feelings. They both just have their own way of living. They literally just visit because the oldest of their children is finally getting married after centuries of dating. Going into the idea once I decided to focus on Vlad and Aerin I didn't want any serious over the top conflict. Drama yes, death murder slaughter no. This is suppose to be a fun while also have Vlad on the seat of his pants scared he'll be single by the time his old fashioned family leaves, if they ever do. I want to play with old fashioned vampires and supernatural town and also some getting married in there too. I also plan to try make like little bios for the characters and the town down the line when I have more time.

Originally in his back story, Vlad was suppose to have been some punk, former pirate guy obsessed with getting his vitamin D. And Aerin was his newest fling. Now I like the idea of Vlad being a punk former pirate that met the love of his life accidently and they decided to finally take the next step for the tax benefits and also that 'gross shit' called love and commitment, you know, a few centuries in. He also founded the town just so his boyfriend could have neighbors that weren't gonna chase him out of town with pitchforks and torches for being a faery.

But if there is specific things yinz are looking for about Anomalous, you know, just send me another ask. :)

The Dragon's Suitors is a much newer wip. I've been struck with the bachelor(ette) sort of tropes for a hot minute and I also love dragons. A lot of the details of this one are still in the works because it is so new. A lot of the wips outside of Anomalous are rather new for me.

Weylan, our mc here, is a cool headed pro at her job. Her father was in charge before her and made sure to teach her everything she would need to know. Now it's her turn to take the lead and keep the village safe. And as any dragon with a treasure, the only thing they could also need is a spouse. So the king himself has sent his best matchmaker as a favor to her father. She's got 5 different people looking for her hand in marriage. Basically it's a love multiple triangles except not really because she has no interest in that shenanigans.

So yeah, with it being rather new I am still going to work on the details so I can get the ideas I'm actually interested in writing. But if anyone has questions in particular go ahead and send me an ask. It'll probably help me work those details out faster!

Thank you for the ask my dear! I appreciate it greatly!

[bittercoldbrew]

3,7, and 8!

Thank you darling T^T <3

3. What are some tropes or details that you think are very characteristic of your fics?

Hahaha what a way to start, I'm feeling hesitant to answer honestly bc I think these things are embarrassingly telling about who I am as a person, but alas it can't be helped. Whether I intend to or not, I always seem to find myself writing protagonists with something to hide, some part of themself that they feel is dangerous or hideous enough that it must be kept secret from the world--and they always end up feeling completely uprooted by, and then madly in love with, any character who is able to see past the facade and find them lovable and worthwhile anyway.

Also I write about naps a lot. I think napping together is just like the pinnacle of human connection.

7. Any worldbuilding you’re particularly proud of?

God, I dunno, kind of....all of it? That sounds arrogant but idk, I don't really think of myself as a fanfic writer, I more write original fiction and then occasionally dabble in fanfic--which is incredibly frustrating because I've found it nearly impossible to get the kind of collaborative sharing/feedback back-and-forth for original stuff that you see with fanfic (and honestly it's rare to get that with fanfic these days anyway....)...... But all that's to say that when I do write fanfic I tend to build out the world a bit more than other writers do--sometimes parallel to the source material, sometimes tangentially instead--because I'm accustomed to building everything from scratch, and that's something that I think (hope? pray??) makes my work stand out to readers.

That said, right at this moment I think I'm feeling most fond toward the setting(s) of my Prospect (2018) fic, To Build Something New. The movie is entirely focused on a single location within a wider scifi universe, but my story takes place after the characters have left that location, and at the time of writing there was really very little info to go off of. There's quite a bit more floating around now, especially in the discord the creators of the film set up, but I'm really pleased with what I managed to come up with on my own. I think it feels really lived-in, which is always what I'm hoping for.

8. What song would make a great fic (to either write or read)?

This is so hard!!! Omg okay hang on... I do occasionally make up playlists for certain stories or characters, but those are almost exclusively based on vibes more than actual relevance so I'm not sure. Obviously just about anything by Hozier works, but everybody knows that so let's see if I can't pull out a couple of surprises, and hopefully get more people listening to these artists too....

I love love love Rachel Chinouriri, especially for my Coral Island fic Tideline. I actually almost named that story Riptide after her song by the same name lol, but ultimately I didn't think that quite fit with the cozy feel of the game or the fic. Whenever I listen to her song Mama's Boy I always think of Rafael and my oc, Mika: "I'll tell you all the things I fell in love with first, / the stains on your shirt, / your eyes, your nose, your mouth / but I'm waiting for that smile to come back around..."

Also I've been listening to a lot of Mannequin Pussy lately, everyone should listen to more Mannequin Pussy. I don't have anything to write from them yet but I think Who You Are especially has potential, "I have a chain I wear around my neck / I did not choose my life, and I won't choose my death / oh here we are now, stuck between the two / don't you waste it"

These are all such great questions, thank you so much for asking!!!

[purplechaosguardian]

Imaginary Friends

Cesar has a best friend. Said best friend is an eldritch abomination with origins beyond our comprehension

CW for eye injury, mouth injury. An alternate dies because it’s a bitch

It was an afternoon just like any other. Yet another day was spent trying and failing to make friends, and Cesar sat dejected on the couch, Momma running her fingers through his hair and comforting him the best she could. “Don’t worry mi hijo. I’m sure you won’t have to wait much longer. Anyone would be lucky to have you as a friend.” If that was true, why did no one want to be friends with him? Cesar shifted in his seat, but decided to force that thought back down. Momma smiled. “We can still make this a good day. How about I put Sesame Street on for you, and we have empanadas for dinner?” Cesar raised his head. “Potato ones?” Momma cooed, kissing him on the forehead. “Of course mi chiquito lindo.” She turned on the TV before heading to the kitchen, the sound of various dishes being pulled out of cupboards and the commercials announcing that an episode was about to start filled the silence.

The theme song began playing, showing the colorful puppets going on various adventures with kids around his age. He frowned at kids in little groups, some holding hands. Suddenly, the sound cut out. The color was next, and the picture slowly faded away into TV static. He was just about to call out for Momma when music began to play. There was a title card too.

The Might of the Subconscious.

“Can you hear me? Hello? Can you hear me?” A face soon appeared on the screen, two small white circles for eyes and an even bigger one for the mouth. Cesar crossed his arms and huffed. “Hhhheeeyy this isn’t Sesame Street!” The face continued, Cesar’s comment going ignored. “Oh, hello! Now, you may be thinking ‘who is this voice speaking to me through my television set?’ Well, let me introduce myself. My name is Stanley.” Despite it not being the show Momma promised, Cesar smiled. He liked Stanley, he was nice! “My name's Cesar!” The corners of the face’s mouth curled slightly upwards. “That’s a very nice name, and it is very nice to meet you. Consider me a friend, because I might consider you one too.” Cesar squealed with delight. He never had a friend before!

“I like having friends. How many friends do you have?” Cesar drooped, his loneliness hitting him full force. “I don’t have any.” “That is nothing to be ashamed of. Once upon a time, I didn’t have any friends either. But then I learned something wonderful: I can make friends appear out of thin air.” Cesar ran up to the tv, small hands pressing against the cool glass. He could make a friend? Just like that? “What was that? You want to know how? Well, I can tell you, but you have to promise me that I am one of your friends first.” Cesar nodded hard and fast, sending strands of hair bouncing this way and that.

“Great. First we must consider what makes up a good friend. What do they sound like? What do they look like? What colored eyes do they have? Do you have a friend in mind?” “Yeah!” A friend that always existed in Cesar’s head, always providing warmth and comfort during the bad days. Quiet and gentle, and he liked reading and playing games and drawing. And his favorite food was pizza! And he likes cats and his favorite color is blue and-. “My, you have thought a lot about this friend, haven’t you? Wonderful job. I think it’s time for you to finally meet that friend. Now just close your eyes and think really hard about your new friend.” Cesar shut his eyes tight, and focused harder than he ever had in his life. A few moments had passed, and then a thud came from somewhere nearby. “Can you keep a secret? I think it worked. Your new friend is somewhere in your house. Now it’s up to you to go and find them.” Cesar let out an excited yell and bolted from the living room, too caught up in his joy to notice that the tv had switched itself off.

He ran from hiding spot to hiding spot, trying to find his new friend. They weren’t under the kitchen table or in the basement or behind the shower curtain. He even held his ear to Momma’s bedroom door. Nope, nothing in there. He then ran to his room, swinging the door open. And there his new friend was, a boy his age sitting cross legged on his bed. Pale skin, fluffy brown hair, a face covered in dark dots. A blue t-shirt and gray shorts and white socks. The friend smiled shyly and waved. “Hi Cesar.” Cesar couldn’t contain himself any longer and ran to his friend, jumping onto the bed and hugging the other tight. He couldn’t stop giggling and eventually the friend joined in. He pulled away only slightly so he could take a proper look. “What’s your name?!” The friend sheepishly smiled. “I don’t have one. Do you have any ideas?” Cesar hummed, trying to think of a good name, mind eventually wandering back to a book his class was currently reading, and one of the main character’s friends. He was smart and funny and Cesar’s favorite. “How bout…Mark?” “Mark…Mark…” The friend slowly sounded out the name, as if he was testing how it sounded. A grin quickly spread across his face “I love it! Thanks Cesar!” Cesar laughed and grabbed the newly named Mark by the hand and ran out of his bedroom, enjoying the feeling of not being so alone anymore.

——

It’s a warm summer day a few years later, the air is sweet and fresh, butterflies and bumblebees gather in Cesar’s mom’s garden, and with school out of the picture for the next couple of months, it was the perfect scenario for kids their age to run free and play to their heart's content for days on end. Which was what they were doing right now.

It was a battle to end all battles, Mark’s sound barrier breaking race car versus Cesar’s dinosaur that can shoot lasers out of its eyes and flames out of its mouth. The car dodged the lasers and swerved around flames so hot, they melted the buildings surrounding them. The car jumped off a skyscraper, using a pile of rocks and chunks of concrete as an impromptu ramp. The car was just allowed to land on the dinosaur’s head and-Mark snapped back into reality, staring into the woods a few yards away with an unreadable expression. Cesar blinked, trying to figure out what caught his friend’s attention. “Marcador? Are you ok?” Mark paused, smiling down at Cesar and handing him the car. “Yeah, don't worry about it. Wait here, I’ll be right back.”

The woods were cooler compared to where he had been moments before, the shade from the trees blocking out the sun. There were beams of sunshine that still poked through the foliage, but only became darker and colder the deeper the young boy went. It was completely quiet too, no birds chirping or little squirrels running through the treetops, not even the wind rustling the leaves. Complete and utter silence. That was, until Mark picked up the sound of crunching dead leaves and breaking twigs, and only getting closer. Mark turned around, only to be met with…Cesar. Mark sighed, exasperated but fond. “Sar, I told you to wait for me. It’s dark in here, you could have hurt yourself.” Cesar tilted his head, the smile never leaving his face. “Why would I ever listen to something like you?”

Mark took a step back, eyes scanning Cesar’s face. “…what are you talking about?” Cesar giggled, hollow and empty and cold. “You’re one of them, aren’t you? You always were, and you always will be one of them. No matter how many games of make believe you play.” Cesar’s smile grew too wide for his face. “How long before you finally kill me, Mark? Before you kill my mom? I know you think about it. It’s in your nature, that’s why you exist. That’s why he allows you to exist.” Mark felt his stomach turn. He picked up a stick, and jammed it into Cesar’s eye. There was the horrible sound of screaming, Cesar’s screaming, that slowly transitioned into TV static. The form followed suit, Cesar melting away to reveal a black, lanky figure. Dark red liquid dripped out of the wound, as it wrapped a hand around the stick, desperately trying to pull it out. Mark wasn’t quite satisfied with his work, so another stick found its way into the other eye. The thing screamed once again, stumbling around and trying to hold onto trees for support, liquid pouring in rivers down its face. If it hadn’t tried to imitate his best friend so poorly just seconds ago, Mark would have felt bad for it. It grabbed him, and Mark could feel its claws sinking into his skin. “You cannot run from what you are. Everyone will know. Your little pet will know, and you will be abandoned. Pray that he will be merciful enough to allow something like you to join us once agai-.” It was cut off by Mark shoving a hand into its mouth, then the other. He wasn’t going to kill it, absolutely not. Too much blood and the noise was probably going to scare the real Cesar. But Mark couldn’t let it walk away and tell the others. Not without sending a message, at least.

He began pulling down, ignoring the shrieking and keeping one hand in place to prevent it from biting down. There was only the sound of wet tearing, before the jaw came free, landing on the floor with a wet smack. It stared down at the jaw in shock before back at Mark, now only pitiful wheezes and hisses coming out. It ran deeper into the woods, leaving a trail of red liquid in its wake, the rivers turning into waterfalls. Wind rustled through the leaves, birds sang, and squirrels were arguing over nuts and berries. Mark stood there, listening to make sure it was truly gone, then back outside, letting out a sigh of relief when he could still hear Cesar’s heartbeat, strong and relaxed. He quickly walked out of the woods, not wanting to worry anyone or draw attention to himself, but also wanting to leave as soon as possible in case it decided to come back.

Cesar was still there, playing with the discarded toys and in his own world, completely oblivious to what had just happened or the danger he could have been in. And despite everything, just the sight of his best friend was enough to make Mark smile. Cesar turned around and let out a horrified gasp, and it was only then he realized he was covered in the alternate’s blood. “No, Sar, I’m ok.” Cesar grabbed his hand dragging Mark behind him, the toys completely forgotten. “Don’t worry Mark, we have band aids at my house!”

Cesar would later realize the toys had been left behind in his panic, only to find them on his porch the next morning.

——

The rain has been pouring outside nonstop and Cesar is running around excitedly. Momma is letting them take over the living room tonight, which means watching movies until the sun rises. Or until they both fall asleep. Whichever comes first. He’s grabbing all sorts of soft things-pillows and stuffed animals and blankets-while Mark has been tasked with gathering snacks from the kitchen. He ran out of his room, giggling and arms overflowing with the results of his search, the pile so big he could barely see over it, and there was a trail of things that had fallen off left behind in his wake.

He entered the living room, only to find it not only devoid of snacks, but Mark was standing in front of the TV, staring at the static with the angriest glare Cesar had ever seen on him, clenching his teeth and fists so tightly that Cesar was genuinely surprised neither was bleeding. “…and I don’t care. Hurt him, try to go after him again, and you’ll have to deal with me.” “…Mark?” “Cesar.” The other boy turned to look at him, wide eyed like he had been found with his hand in the cookie jar, and the static suddenly went away, changing to a local news channel. “Mark, are-are you ok?”

Mark snarled at the tv, before grabbing one of Cesar’s hands in both of his. “Cesar, promise me you’ll never go near one of those again. Please.” Cesar blinked, having to take it all in, a million questions forming in his head. Mark’s face was one of pure desperation and fear, a stark contrast to the calm, neutral expression he almost always wore. Mark was never scared of anything, unflappable even. Cesar doesn’t know why he was talking to the TV, let alone what would be enough to frighten someone like Mark, but he’s determined to give his best friend peace of mind. He nodded, placing his free hand over Mark’s. “I promise.”

Kids started going missing a week later.

——

Cesar never really noticed how strange Mark was. Sure, he could be a bit morbid at times and wasn’t quite as social or eager to fit in as the other kids their age, but that didn't mean he was a monster or something. If he was being honest, it was just one of the many things he admired greatly about him. Even if Cesar had forgotten how they had met, he knew his best friend had seen the best and worst parts of him, and accepted Cesar all the same. He was a good person. Which is why the comments of their peers were making his blood boil.

“Seriously Cesar, why do you bother hanging out with that freak?” A girl drawled, blond curls bouncing up and down with her movements, almost as if nodding in agreement. “He doesn't act like the rest of us, he's just creepy. He’s only going to drag you down with him, y’know. That’s all dead weight does, anyway.” “She’s right, people like Mark aren't going anywhere.” Another kid, a boy with black hair added. “Everyone knows you feel bad for him, and it’s great you want to make him feel like he can have friends, but you have to draw the line somewhere.” Cesar squeezed the pen so hard in his hand so hard that it was beginning to crack. “I don’t feel bad f-.” The black hair boy apparently decided to ignore this very obvious sign of Cesar about to lose his shit. “Come on, he's so fucking weird. You do realize he’s probably going to wind up killing som-.”

That would prove to be the final straw, as Cesar couldn’t hold himself back from punching the kid in the nose, seeing red and crimson covering his hand. Everyone gathered around in a circle, cheering and screaming as if they were watching the cage fight of a lifetime. Someone must have intervened and tore Cesar off the bastard, because the next thing he knew he was waiting to be let into the principal's office, knuckles wrapped in bandages and pressing an ice pack to a nasty bruise on his cheek. It was basically routine at this point, with the principal giving Cesar that same old robotic speech about solving his problems with words instead of violence that he heard a thousand times before, and Cesar would retort that if the principal really wanted him to stop fighting people, she should do something about the student body always ganging up on Mark because how’s what they’re doing any better? And she would sigh, clearly exhausted, and while Cesar would be given detention for the next week and yet another empty promise that something will be done about Mark and the other kids. He would never be kicked out though. Everyone knows a kid being punished for protecting his friend would only give the school a bad image.

“Sar?” Mark is cuddling with him on Cesar’s bed several hours later. “Your pulse started racing. You ok?” Cesar turned so that the two were now face to face, Mark looking soft and concerned, and Cesar could feel the frustration and anger melt away. He smiled and grabbed Mark’s hand, incredibly warm meeting icy cold. “Yeah, don’t worry about it Marcador.”

Fuck those kids. What did they know?

——

Cesar stretched, feeling his arms pop. It had finally been their senior prom, a night he had been looking forward to for years. He couldn’t say the same about Mark, who Cesar had more or less dragged to this event against his will, and had been complaining about his tie strangling him since they arrived, seeming more than happy to finally take it off, tossing that traitorous piece of blue fabric over his shoulder. “Ugh, thank fucking god! I felt like a Christmas ham.” Cesar rolled his eyes, draping an arm over Mark’s shoulders. “So you’ve said. Several times.” “Shut the hell up Torres.” Mark giggled, leaning into Cesar, a huge smile spreading across his face.

The sun had gone down hours ago, but the sky was still filled with all sorts of colors, and stars twinkled above them. It wasn’t too hot or too cold, crickets sang and street lamps were turning on, bathing the sidewalk in bright light. By all accounts, it was a perfect evening. Cesar had suggested cutting through part of the woods instead of walking the long way home, and Mark agreed, if only to get out of the rest of the suit faster.

The woods were incredibly dark, and Cesar would have been unnerved if he hadn’t crossed it thousands of times over the years. It was unnaturally quiet though, the sounds and light from the town outside had quickly faded out. It was still kind of peaceful, and Cesar found himself letting his guard down. Meanwhile, Mark seemed to be on edge, eyes darting this way and that. Cesar was just about to ask him what was wrong when something came lumbering out of the undergrowth. A little fox, bright orange with a white tipped tail. Cesar let out a happy squeal at the fluffy creature, while Mark sharply inhaled, shoving himself in front of Cesar. He was just about to ask what was wrong, but when he took a second, longer look, his expression morphed into one of horror.

The fox didn’t have a lower jaw and its eyes were gouged out.

It crept towards them closely, clearly preparing to pounce. Not that it actually got the chance, since Mark slammed a thick tree branch on its head. The fox stumbled around, seemingly in some sort of daze, and Mark took the opportunity to drag Cesar and sprinted away through the undergrowth. Cesar’s skin and clothes were being torn up by thorns and roots and rocks, but everything was happening too fast for him to even notice. They were almost out of the woods, he could see streetlights leaking through, almost like heavenly light. It was only then Cesar could hear something rapidly approaching them from behind, and Mark letting go of his hand, to grasp his shoulders.

“Cesar. I’ll take care of this. Do not stop running until you get to your house.” Cesar blinked. “What? Mark-.” The other boy shoved him towards the exit. “Now!” Despite not wanting Cesar not wanting to leave his best friend behind, self preservation took over, nearly tripping over rocks in his haste. That was until he heard Mark yelling. Yelling that turned into static. Cesar turned around to find that it wasn’t the fox attacking them anymore but a lanky black figure, looming over Mark and pinning him to the floor with one hand, the other slicing through his skin, dark liquid seeping into his clothes and into the dirt.

It loomed over Mark, an almost excited look in its eyes, until a rock hit the back of the alternate’s head. Another hit its chest. Cesar managed to hit it in the face for the second time before it leaped off of Mark towards him, and it was only then when Cesar realized he was all out of rocks. He was staring up into its blank wide eyes, frozen and unable to try to do something else. One hand grabbed the alternate by the side of its head, then the other. The alternate screeched and squirmed, scratching at the hands and even more liquid flowed, but Mark barely acknowledged his new wounds. If anything, his smile grew wider, too wide to be considered human, almost splitting his face in half. “I think I was way too nice last time, don’t you?” The alternate didn’t get a chance to answer, as Mark snapped its neck and the body fell limp, and was thrown on the floor.

Mark breathed heavily, staring over the body of his kill, before more rocks flew through the air and pelted him, and he could feel dark bruises begin to form on his face. “Huh?” Cesar let out a guttural yell, pinning Mark to the floor. “Cesar!” He didn’t respond, simply pulling back his fist and socking Mark in the jaw, again and again. “Cesar what the fuck!” Cesar’s fist shook, so he seemed to settle for grabbing Mark by his shirt. “What did you do to him?! Where is he?!” “What are you-?” “I saw the smile!” Cesar leaned over, and Mark could see the all too familiar rage in his eyes. He just thought he would never be on the receiving end of it. “Cesar it’s me!” Cesar’s expression wavered, but Mark could still feel his hands wrap around his neck. Yeah, time to try something else. “Hey do you remember when we played when we were kids? Your favorite toy-it was the dinosaur. I always had the race car, a blue one.” Cesar’s eyes went wide and he immediately let go of Mark like he burned him.

Mark picked himself up, only to see Cesar’s hands were shaking. “Sar-.” “You’re one of them?” One of them. He always was one of them. How fucking stupid did he have to be to think he could be anything else? Mark hung his head, too ashamed to look his best friend in the eyes. “…yeah.” “I don’t-I don’t understand. I’ve known you my whole life, I don’t-.” Mark leaned forward. “Do you remember how we met?” Cesar racked his brain, seemingly becoming distressed when he couldn’t recall. “That’s what I thought. Cesar, you created me. Well, you and-.” Mark paused, drawing two small circles for eyes and a mouth underneath it in the dirt. It looked vaguely familiar to Cesar. “-him. He had the material, and you molded me into what you wanted.”

Cesar looked more tired than anything else, and Mark was kicking himself for not telling him the truth earlier. “Let’s just-let me walk you home. You need to be patched up, and it’s gonna be a bad idea to hang around here.” Cesar stared at him for a moment, then wordlessly nodded and started heading in the direction of his home. Mark subconsciously reached for Cesar’s hand, and the other boy yanked it away.

The walk back was tense, even as they were bathed in the streetlights once again, and the atmosphere remained as Cesar patched himself up with the first aid kit, while Mark stood awkwardly nearby, unsure of what to say or what to do with himself. “Just uh..tell me what you need me to do, and I’ll do it.” Cesar sighed and dragged a hand down his face, the most exhausted he’d ever been. “I think I need you to be quiet.” Mark nodded, wringing his tattered clothes in his hands. “…ok.” Cesar ran his fingers through his hair and stood up. “I’m going to bed and actually try to process all of this. Feel free to take the couch or something, I don’t know.” Mark turned away, an even smaller ok coming out. Cesar fought down the urge to comfort him. Instead he went to his room, put a pillow over his face, and yelled into it as loud as he could.

——

Cesar kicked off the blankets with a frustrated huff. He had been tossing and turning all night, but sleep always seemed to evade him. He let out a sigh, flopping over to stare at the alarm clock for what seemed like the hundredth time. 3 am. God fucking dammit. He got out of bed, cringing when his feet met the cold floor and wrapping the warm blanket around himself to spare the rest of his body the same fate. Might as well get a glass of water. Had to be better than just lying here and waiting for sleep that would never come.

He slowly crept out of his room and towards the kitchen, mind slowly becoming more functional and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes as he got closer and closer to this destination. That was, until he noticed a blurry figure on his porch. He normally would have panicked, especially after the events from just a few hours earlier, but he could still see the tattered clothes from just a few hours before. Was Mark outside? It was freezing out there! He’s not human, the voice in his head added, he’s probably fine. It’s not your problem. But before Cesar could process the thought, he had already unlocked the front door and stepped outside.

“Mark?” Mark flinched, turning around to make eye contact with him. Cesar could see dried tear tracks on his face, but chose not to call attention to them. “…hey Cesar.” Maybe he was still exhausted and not thinking straight, but he sat next to the alternate. “You know you don't have to stay out here all night, right? I don’t want you…to freeze to death or anything.” Mark didn’t take his eyes off the road in front of them. “I just want to make sure it’s gone for good. Or it didn’t call for backups or something. Did not do all of that for it to come back for round 3.”

The silence was uncomfortable, and Cesar shifted in his spot, wincing when he spotted the dark blotches on the side of Mark’s face. “…sorry.” Mark looked confused but only for a moment, chuckling quietly when he realized. “Nah, don’t worry about it. It’ll be gone in a couple of hours. Honestly it means a lot you would beat the shit out of an Alternate for me.” “Why wouldn’t I?” Cesar scooted closer, and he could see Mark smile a little. “Are…are all Alternates like you?” “What do you mean?” “Like…” Cesar gestured aimlessly. “Soft and squishy and emotional.” Mark scoffed. “I’m not soft.” “Mark, you once cried because you saw a dog that was “too dang small”. Seriously though.” Mark shrugged. “Kinda? Like, it’s kinda rare, but it’s also more common than you think. We’re just made to mimic humans on the outside, but I have heard of Alternates being able to actually experience emotions if they have strong connections with humans.”

Cesar finally took his eyes off the front yard and looked at Mark. The other boy was curled up in a ball, shivered and had a tiny smile. Cesar’s eyes gazed down to his blanket, before tossing one part of it over Mark’s shoulders. He blinked, confused. “…Cesar-?” Cesar scooted closer, already feeling the cold air sting his skin. “C’mooooon you’re letting the warm ooouuuuutttt.” Mark laughed, wrapping his end of the blanket around him. Cesar sighed, resting his head on Mark’s shoulder. Despite all the revelations, Cesar found himself still trusting Mark. It might be a bad idea, but all that time they spend together, every vulnerable moment Mark was present for. Maybe he was an Alternate, but he was also his best friend, his little brother. Surely if he wanted to hurt him, he would have done something by now?

Suddenly, a thought occurred. “Mark..” “Yeah?” The other boy replied drowsily. “You only come to my house and you’ve never mentioned your’s, and you've been on your own so…have you been sleeping outside this whole time?!” Mark snapped up, rubbing the back of his neck and sheepishly chuckling. “Uhhhh…maybe?”

Cesar stood up and grabbed Mark by the hand, dragging him inside the house and into his room, and pushed Mark on to the bed before flopping on to it himself. Mark laughed, turning onto his side so he was looking at Cesar. “What’s that for?” “You’re staying here tonight. And we’re gonna talk to Momma tomorrow when she gets home. You’re gonna move in with us.” He could hear Mark let out a surprised squeak. “You don't gotta man. I’m fine right now. I don’t want to bother you or your mom. A-.” “Marcador, Momma adores you and you know it. We have a guest room that no one uses. It’ll be fine.” Mark smiled, sinking into the blankets, sleep overtaking him quickly. “Thanks Cesar.”

Cesar relaxed, feeling exhaustion spread over him like a warm blanket, pulling Mark close. Mark’s hair was just as fluffy as the day they met, and he could see the freckles that were scattered across his face. He still had his dress shirt on, the blue fabric torn, and Cesar made a mental note to lend Mark some of his clothes in the morning. He yawned, slowly and blissfully slipping into unconsciousness.

Yeah. It was all gonna be fine.

[kevinsreviewcatalogue]

Review: M3GAN (2023)

M3GAN (2023)

Rated PG-13 for violent content and terror, some strong language and a suggestive reference

Score: 4 out of 5

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2023/01/review-m3gan-2023.html>

M3GAN should've sucked. It's a PG-13 horror movie released on the first weekend of January, historically a day when studios dump absolute garbage (especially PG-13 horror movies) that they think stands no chance, and while its main characters are mostly adults, its marketing explicitly catered to teenagers by focusing on certain sequences that became internet memes from the moment they appeared in the first trailer. The trailers promised something that was either a camp classic in the making, or insufferably bad. What's more, Akela Cooper's screenwriting has not impressed me in the past, with Hell Fest and Malignant being elevated more by their quality directors and casts than by stories that were either threadbare or ridiculous. Going in, this movie had multiple strikes against it, and while the early reviews had me hopeful, I was not expecting much.

Walking out of the theater, however, I found myself almost certain that this movie will be one of my favorites of 2023, especially one of my favorite horror movies. It's not just a killer robot doll movie, it's also big-idea science fiction that explores a lot of the concepts it raises about as deeply as you can get in a 102-minute B-movie, particularly the question of whether or not AI can actually improve our lives without causing serious tradeoffs and tangible risks to our safety (a rather hot topic right now if you've been following the tech press)... while also being a kick-ass, stylish, scary, mean-spirited, and often quite hilarious horror movie with an immediately iconic villain, great special effects bringing her to life, and a solid cast around her. It's a movie where, even at a screening late Thursday night with a theater that was only half-full because everybody had work or school the next day, I could feel the energy of the crowd around me getting really into it. This is not only the movie that the Child's Play remake felt like it wanted to be, it is one that leans exactly in some of the directions I recommended in my review of that film.

The film takes place a couple of years from now, with our protagonist Gemma being a roboticist working for a toy company that has recently made a highly successful line of interactive plush pets (think Furby, but far more high-tech). Gemma is under a ton of pressure from her boss David to make the toy cheaper so that it can fend off competition from a rival toy company coming out with a similar product that costs half the price, an order that distracts from her work on her passion project, the Model 3 Generative Android, or M3GAN. The next evolution of the concept, M3GAN is a four-foot robot doll with an AI brain capable of learning and bonding with its users, a long-shot idea that David is skeptical of. And then, to make matters worse, Gemma has a niece named Cady dumped straight in her lap after the girl's parents die in a car crash, throwing even more weight on her shoulders. Sensing a way to kill two birds with one stone, Gemma takes a M3GAN prototype home and uses it to help her care for Cady, and at first, it seems to succeed beyond anybody's wildest dreams, such that even David is impressed and orders it put into production after witnessing a demonstration of M3GAN playing with Cady and helping her discuss her feelings about her parents' death.

This is where the movie had me, and it never let go from there. From the moment we're introduced to Gemma, we see somebody who is not remotely prepared to be a parent, somebody whose home is filled with collectible toys that she won't let Cady touch as well as a small robotics lab filled with dangerous objects. Gemma is an archetypal example of a thirtysomething millennial techie who, despite her brilliance, work ethic, and professional success, doesn't know how to "adult" and is still living like a college student in a dorm room. For most of the first act, we only briefly see M3GAN in the lab at Gemma's workplace, the focus of the film instead being on Gemma as she tries and fails to raise Cady, eventually settling on the shortcut that so many bad parents take with their kids: letting screens raise her. Later, when she introduces Cady to M3GAN and the two seem to get along swimmingly, Gemma, her co-workers, and her boss all see it as a victory and a promising new frontier for technology, ignoring the warnings of Cady's psychologist that letting the little girl bond with a machine like this is probably not healthy for her. And indeed, M3GAN's expected descent into villainy is paired with increasingly antisocial behavior from Cady, directed at her classmates and her aunt alike. This movie has a very clear message: technology (especially computer technology that is designed to addict its users) is a bad substitute for proper parents and teachers, relying on it will probably mess up our kids' minds, and we should probably be limiting their screen time growing up, as Cady's own parents did before they died.

Meanwhile, M3GAN slowly but surely turning evil feels logical as it plays out. Fundamentally, she's fallen victim to the "paperclip problem", a hypothetical where an AI system programmed with one central task can turn violent even without any actual malice, especially once it's become clear that the intelligence she's been given to perform that task has also given her the ability to find loopholes in the safeguards designed to stop her from killing people. Make an AI that can learn from human behavior and adjust its programming accordingly? Congratulations, you've built an AI capable of learning what death and murder are, why humans kill each other, and all the self-serving justifications they make for violating their own taboos against such, and incorporate those justifications into its own programming so that she can ignore Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. What's more, as she studies human behavior, she also studies their personalities, which causes her to grow beyond her robotic emotionlessness and turn increasingly sassy and smart-assed. The T-101 she ain't; M3GAN's human intelligence causes her to turn increasingly human in her villainy, starting the film barely flinching as a neighbor's dog tries to maul her and ending it by delivering menacing threats and chilling speeches to her victims. Mark my words, I can see college-level courses on AI research screening this film as part of the curriculum. Cooper may have been setting out to write a crowd-pleasing horror movie, but she incorporated a lot of real-world scientific concepts into the story that reflect debates we're currently having about them, all presented in a fairly easy-to-digest manner that nonetheless doesn't dumb them down.

But she did still remember to keep it entertaining. Like I said, M3GAN evolves into a wiseass as the film progresses, getting creative not only in her kills but also in how she plans on getting away with them. She incorporates the dances she learned from Cady into her combat repertoire, most memorably in the hallway scene highlighted in the trailer but also towards the end when, after taking some damage, she starts glitching out and making increasingly stiff movements that nonetheless feel like they belong in an interpretive dance performance. Casting the young professional dancer Amie Donald under heavy makeup instead of relying on CGI was a golden move here. M3GAN's voice actress Jenna Davis, meanwhile, did the rest of the heavy lifting to bring M3GAN to life, slowly injecting her voice with notes of GLaDOS from the Portal games as the film goes on and M3GAN grows more self-aware. The kills are few and happen mostly off-screen, but even though this film had been cut down from an R rating (and, according to Cooper, there is a seriously bloody alternate cut we'll probably see on home video), it didn't feel particularly sanitized, not when M3GAN puts her victims through hell first before she lands the final death blow. I expect to see a lot of girls and women this Halloween, plus a few men (taking cues from this film's producer Jason Blum last year), dressed up in lolita dresses and giant bowties and swinging their arms and hips, so immediately iconic was this little doll.

It's a damn funny movie, too. When I said M3GAN felt inspired partly by GLaDOS, I didn't just mean the tone of her voice, I also meant her passive-aggressive trolling of her victims. Davis plays her cooler than the foul-mouthed jackass Chucky, but by the end, it's clear that M3GAN's personality has grown enough that she's having something you might call "fun" as she kills people. M3GAN's antics alone aren't the only source of humor here, either. A deep well of satire runs straight through the heart of the film, right from the opening scene where we're shown an ad for the little robot pets that Gemma is working on. I wouldn't call this film an outright horror-comedy like some others have, but it is anything but stone-faced and somber as its characters discuss the risks of AI development; better to show the product of that development dancing on her victims' graves, after all. That's not to say that the film is frivolous, though. When it turns its attention to Cady, it pulls no punches in depicting how she's coping with the loss of her parents and how the presence of M3GAN in her life has become an increasingly problematic coping mechanism. Instead of whiplash between the serious scenes with M3GAN and Cady and the dark humor of the rest of the film, these two elements combined simply made the proceedings feel that much more twisted and grotesque.

If there's one thing I can fault the film for, it's in how it frames Gemma. This is no shade on Allison Williams, who did a fine job playing the character, and I get what the film's main satirical thrust was going for in its depiction of parents who use tablets and TVs to raise their kids for them. Also, Gemma's engineering brilliance ultimately does help save the day at the end. That said, the tone felt like it was negatively judging Gemma for choosing her career over having a family, especially with certain lines of dialogue that M3GAN says to her later in the film, giving off some very weirdly conservative vibes about how the film views working women in general and women in STEM in particular -- specifically, the kind of "crunchy con" who's a bit obsessed with medieval Europe and paleo diets and has books by Guillaume Faye on their bookshelf. (That's a rabbit hole you don't wanna go down. Trust me.) This is a problem I think could've easily been fixed simply by giving Gemma a boyfriend or husband who's shown to be just as incompetent at parenting as she is and just as eager to use M3GAN as a surrogate parent for Cady (and someone else for M3GAN to kill, too!), keeping the focus squarely on bad parenting in general instead of causing it to have some gendered undertones. As it is, while I'm pretty sure it was unintentional, it still left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth.

The Bottom Line

This wasn't a perfect movie, but it's something of a rare breed: a genuinely smart sci-fi story that's also an awesome, entertaining fun time to watch. If you wanna be scared without getting too grossed out, and then have something to think about on the way home, then M3GAN is your killer new best friend.

[phawareglobal]

John Kingrey, MD and Nicole Fitzgerald - phaware® interview 493

John Kingrey, MD, director of the INTEGRIS Pulmonary Hypertension (PH) center of Oklahoma and PH patient, Nicole Fitzgerald, discuss the importance of the physician-patient relationship as it relates to participation in clinical trials including the Phase 2 TORREY Study (now the Phase 3 PROSERA Study). #GossamerBioPartner #sponsored

John Kingrey, MD: My name is John Kingrey. I’m the director of the Pulmonary Hypertension Center at INTEGRIS Health. I’m a pulmonologist in pulmonary hypertension in Oklahoma City. I’ve been involved in pulmonary hypertension starting in the early part of my medical training, and I chose to pursue pulmonary hypertension as a subspecialty within pulmonary medicine and have been doing that ever since.

Nicole Fitzgerald: My name is Nicole Fitzgerald. I am 44 years old and I am a pulmonary hypertension patient. I’m originally from Los Angeles, but I currently live in Oklahoma City, where I have lived for the past six years.

John Kingrey, MD: Today, we’re going to discuss the importance of the physician-patient relationship as it relates to participation in clinical trials. Clinical trials are an essential part of most fields of medicine, but particularly pulmonary hypertension at this time, because there is so much development of new pathways and new agents that can potentially change the landscape of the disease. 

At our pulmonary hypertension center, we have typically multiple clinical trials going on at one time. The nature of each clinical trial is a little bit different, and the population that we are investigating is also different, but it’s all centered around patients with pulmonary hypertension. However, it’s really important to understand that clinical trials have a very focused population for which they’re interested in, because they’re trying to investigate whether or not a certain product or a certain device could be effective in this specific disease state that they think that it will work in.

Each patient that comes in, in some way, either formally or informally is considered for clinical trials. We know as a center, what our current clinical trial profile looks like and the specific population that could be potential candidates. When I’m in a clinic visit with a patient, I am thinking about what we have potentially to offer them and whether or not they would be a candidate. For a lot of our patients, I know that because of either how long they’ve had the disease or the specific nature of their disease and its severity, they may not be a clinical trial candidate, so it’s not really brought up in many patient encounters. 

However, when I have a patient that I think may fit one of our clinical trials and I think, more importantly, that it would be a good opportunity that would be of benefit to the patient, then that’s when I will bring that up, usually as part of a typical clinic encounter. Sometimes, depending on the clinical trial, we will have a special visit to discuss a clinical trial opportunity with myself or my partner, to see if the patient would be interested and if they would be a good fit.

Nicole Fitzgerald: Because I was diagnosed so quickly before my husband and I had to make a big cross-country move, pulmonary hypertension was something obviously I had never heard of. It just was not even on my radar as something I should even know that this is something that could happen. I just had no idea that it even existed. I would say because we moved so soon after and I was consumed with trying to just find my footing in terms of the move, and then finding the right doctors in Oklahoma, because I had none when I came out here, there was a lot that I was learning to navigate. Obviously, it was a lot of change at once. For a long time, just trying to get myself with the right doctors, having all the right testing done, kind of getting a control on my medicines and what things I should take. Just getting myself stable took a very long time. 

The first year or so I would say was the most challenging, just because of all the newness and all the adjustments that were being made in my life in general, so it took a lot. I got worse before I got better. So, like I said, just getting stable I would say was my biggest priority for a very long time. It took a while before I started to hear from other patients that there were clinical trials available. Once those opportunities became available to me, that was something that I was very interested in, because I wanted to kind of be as aggressive as possible with treating my PH. 

Initially, that was not even on my radar. It was just more about getting myself to a point in my health where I was stable and can do normal things, which was a real big challenge for me, especially early on. So, it was primarily online through Facebook support groups for patients with PH. You kind of hear rumblings, just word of mouth of other patients were taking a particular trial, or participating here or there. Questions had been brought up with their physicians wherever they were from. 

You kind of branch out a little bit to know that there are trials taking place. It wasn’t something where I right away sought that out for myself. For me as a patient, I was just excited that research was being done. I think that’s something that all of us as patients just want to know, that there’s hope out there. I think we get kind of so bogged down in the drugs that we have available to us. There’s only so many and you are put on one thing, and you either respond to it well or you don’t, and then they take you off, and maybe you get put on something else depending on how you’re feeling. 

So, after a while you just kind of get kind of in that routine, but you want to know that there is hope coming, that there are better drugs coming, that there’s something else out there. So, I think as patients, we’re just all really excited and curious to know that there’s research being done, there’s trials being done. So, that was something exciting that I had heard about online, but it wasn’t anything necessarily specific where I right away brought that up to Dr. Kingrey. That was something that he brought up with me and I’m so happy he did. It worked out well for me in the end.

John Kingrey, MD: I think that one thing that’s really important for patients to understand, is that clinical trial work is really, really hard work. The ability to recruit patients for clinical trial takes a lot of effort in identifying the right patient population and identifying patients who are not excluded for a number of many reasons that patients can excluded from trials, and again that they have the right disease state. 

The next step is finding someone who is willing and open to the concept of a clinical trial. I think that there are a lot of people out there that look at clinical trials as a big risk. A phrase that I hear a lot and I know that other providers hear a lot is, patients say, “Well, am I going to be a Guinea pig?” That is kind of an antiquated way of looking at things, because the clinical trial space is so heavily regulated and protected, even in the hands of a provider who may not be paying it that close of attention to detail. It’s really, really hard to enroll a patient in a clinical trial and have them be subject to a real significant risk, that at least has not been properly spelled out. 

Many people don’t understand, for example, that when it gets to a phase of clinical trial where human beings are involved, that the medications or the devices, or whatever it might be have been trialed in both animal studies and also in healthy patients that don’t have the disease, just to demonstrate safety. That’s a barrier for some people. I think though, that probably the biggest barrier is the relationship that they have with their physician, because it doesn’t matter if I told a patient that I’ve got a clinical trial in Tylenol that’s been on the market for decades. If they don’t trust me and they don’t have a relationship with me, it’s unlikely that that person’s going to want to be part of a clinical trial.

There’s two reasons generally that people end up doing a clinical trial. One is that they look at the potential benefit for their own health, which of course is a huge reason that it exists. The other is because that patient really wants to benefit others who may come after them, who will be suffering from a similar disease and now potentially have a new therapy, because of the way that was laid forward by clinical trial participants. 

The most important thing that I would say to patients and also to physicians, is if you want to be involved in a clinical trial, and from my standpoint, if you want your patients to be involved, you better know your patients. You better know more than just what’s in black and white. You better have a relationship with them. And if you don’t, it’s going to be really, really hard to bring up a clinical trial that’s going to potentially come across as very scary and very experimental, when in reality there’s a lot of protection built into clinical trials, particularly in the United States, that is squarely focused on protecting the patient.

Another element in considering clinical trial participation is making sure that the clinical trial is going to fit within the signature that the patient needs. Another way of saying that is, consideration of participation in clinical trials is really important to tailor the needs of the patient and ensure that the clinical trial fits within the boundaries of what would be an individualized treatment plan. In pulmonary hypertension, for example, we do have some guidelines regarding treatment and how patients should generally be approached. However, it is not cookie cutter. There are several different pathways that patients can go down and arrive at a good outcome, but the considerations of how to get there are variable. They would include patient’s preferences on how they take medicines, patient’s tolerance of certain side effects that certain classes of medications have, the amount of pills that someone needs to take and so forth.

So in clinical trial, the point here is, every patient has a very individualized treatment plan, and when we think about what the next thing is that the patient needs, we have to ask ourselves, does any of the clinical trials that I’m offering, assuming that the patient fits the general profile, is that going to be beneficial to them? 

So, severity of disease is interesting, because some clinical trials exclude patients who are doing too well, others exclude patients who are too sick. You have to be able to take that into account, as to whether or not the medication or the certain application of a medication is handled. We have to be incredibly prescriptive in identifying the right type of patient for the right clinical trial. 

Another element of this is helping the patient understand where the potential treatment comes into play. Many times, I will have a patient, for example, that comes to me and is doing worse. If I have a clinical trial that that patient would fit, but that particular clinical trial has a study design that is very common, where neither myself nor the patient know if they’re going to get the medication, meaning that it’s placebo-blinded, so it’s a double-blinded placebo trial, and I know that that patient needs more therapy, I don’t feel like it would be ethical. If I have something else to use that I know would help them that would be already on the market, then I’m not going to have that patient be in a clinical trial, where they could be going six or 12 months without getting anything. Or even if they did get the medicine, something that’s clearly under investigation, when I could be reaching into the cupboard and grabbing a medicine that is already available that I know would be immediately beneficial. 

There are a lot of considerations. That’s just one example. Other things would include patients access to coming to a clinical trial. In Oklahoma City, we have many patients who live hours away from us, and though clinical trials are incredibly good about making sure that the patient doesn’t have out-of-pocket costs for things like travel, it still can be a matter of time not available or reasonable for the patient to do it, because of travel time or perhaps they work and they wouldn’t be able to get off work. So there’s lots of things that have to be under consideration before somebody really is able to fit in a clinical trial.

Nicole Fitzgerald: For me, I think a lot of consideration, obviously, was given to my health at the time. During that period, I was a little bit more stable, but not as good as I had been or as I could be. So, it was one of those things where I just kind of fit into a category where it was like, okay, well, I’m not super sick. I’m not as sick as I was initially when I was diagnosed and at various times had been, but I’m also not feeling great. I’m not feeling at my very best. I’m sure I could be doing better. So, it was one of those things where it was like, okay, well, I’m just kind of at a standstill, but not at a place where I am necessarily as good as I want to be. For me, it was obviously interesting to have something that could help me more than I was being helped already.

Then, there’s also, as Dr. Kingrey mentioned earlier, you’re in a position where you want to help yourself, but then there’s also that feeling of, okay, well I can do something potentially that can help a lot of other patients. So for me, that’s obviously always a factor. There’s a lot of things that get taken into consideration when you want to participate in a trial. Obviously, you have to meet the criteria of whatever trial you’re participating in.

There’s things that involve just your own personal lifestyle, the way that you might administer the medication, how often the trial visits are, Like he mentioned, Oklahoma City, there’s people that live pretty far out. I am fortunate that I live only 20 minutes away from the center where all my trial visits are, so it’s convenient for me, as opposed to other people might have a lot more difficulty just getting back and forth. There are lots of things that factor in, but for me it seemed like it would be a good fit and the time constraints weren’t anything extraordinary. So, it just worked out where I felt like, okay, this is something that could really benefit me, but also potentially help others down the road.

John Kingrey, MD: Once a patient is identified as a potential candidate for a clinical trial, that’s just the beginning. Usually the next step is, I will have a conversation with the patient about the opportunity to participate in a clinical trial. With that, will be a general overview of the type of patient that the clinical trial is looking for, which obviously the patient you’re talking to should fit that. Then, I will give an overview of what the general purpose of the trial is and how it’s constructed, in very high level terms, not getting into the nitty-gritty at that point, but just to explain generally what we’re doing. 

The next thing that I do is if the patient has interest, then, I will talk to my clinical trial coordinator and they will give the patient a phone call. Or, if the coordinator is available, I’ll have them come down to the clinic right there in real time, if both the coordinator and the patient has the time. Either way, there’s a conversation that takes place between the clinical trial coordinator and the patient that involves additional detail to kind of put a little bit more meat on the bones, so to speak. At that point, the patient says, “Yes, I’m really interested in this.”

Then, typically the clinical trial coordinator will go through exclusion and inclusion criteria to make sure that the patient is the right fit. Sometimes that happens independently. Sometimes the clinical trial coordinator will have questions, and they will come to me and we’ll make sure that yes, the patient is the right fit. Once we’ve cleared that step and there isn’t anything obvious, then, starts the process of an official screening. Screening is when the patient comes in and provides consent to participate in the clinical trial. Then, a series of tests and questions happen to make sure that there isn’t anything else right before the patient would go into the clinical trial that would potentially exclude them.

The cool thing is, is that patients with pulmonary hypertension are not going to be unfamiliar with most of what is required. Every trial is different, but most trials are going to have some combination of requiring a six-minute walk, lung function tests, imaging, sometimes a CT scan, sometimes perhaps an MRI, chest x-ray. Some clinical trials will require a repeat heart catheterization within a certain period of time of enrolling in the clinical trial. Not all of them. Some of them just want to demonstrate that at some point, yes, the patient was properly diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension of whatever variety the study is looking at. Always blood work and then a questionnaire. Now, that is not necessarily a comprehensive list. There could be a few other things, but it’s pretty rare that there’s something that the patient has never heard of before that needs to be done as part of a clinical trial evaluation for pulmonary hypertension, because most of what we’re looking at are things that we’re already doing in the evaluation of a patient.

Once you go through all of that, it’s kind of like a final system of checks and balances. Okay, we did the screening testing, everything seems to be checked out, and yep, you are a go. Everything is good. There’s nothing that has excluded you. You’re exactly the right patient. Once you clear that hurdle, then the patient becomes enrolled officially in the clinical trial. Of course, at that point, it depends on how the trial is designed. There could be a medication involved or perhaps a different application of a known medication, perhaps a device or something that the patient will need to have with them, or inserted or whatever. There’s lots of different possibilities, but that process of screening really starts well before an official screening. Then, you go through the testing to make sure that everything still checks out. 

Then, you go through the clinical trial. Clinical trials are of various duration. Usually in pulmonary hypertension, it’s a pretty common interval is usually at least six months. There have been certainly clinical trials that have lasted shorter than that. There are some that go beyond that. Obviously, the patient is going to know that before they would ever even sign consent, what the duration of the trial is. So, you go through the clinical trial. 

At the end of the investigation period, many clinical trials then have an opportunity to go into what’s called an open label extension. If it’s a drug trial and the drug is not approved on the market yet, then the only way to get access to the medication is within the confines of a clinical trial. So the cool thing is, and it’s really kind of a fringe benefit of participating in the clinical trial, is the patient many times, and the patient would know this before entering the trial if this were an option, it’s not held out as a mystery until you get done with the trial period. So let’s say the trial is six months. At the end of the six months, you and the physician are unaware if you’ve got the drug, if it was a drug trial, for example. At the end of the six months, many clinical trials are structured so that you can enter into an open label extension, which means the patient is guaranteed to get the drug, not a placebo, but the actual drug, for a period of time that could go on for even years.

Again, that’s something that is spelled out in advance, because even at the end of a clinical trial, it’s not like, oh, you enroll all the people and then a few days later you go to the Food and Drug Administration and they say, “Okay, good job. We’ll let it go,” and you can put the drug on the market. It’s much more complicated than that, and time is measured in years on these sorts of things before the drug may potentially be available to the public. 

Nicole, in the clinical trial that she participated in, she’s still getting a medication that is not available to anybody in the public. A doctor can’t go and just prescribe this medication, and she could very well be on it for several years before the medication is ultimately approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Or, if the trial showed that there was not benefit to it, then she would go off it at that point too.

Nicole Fitzgerald: I knew going in if for some reason I was not responding well to the drug or if it just didn’t fit in time-wise for any reason at all that I wanted to leave, that I was able to do so. That was something that was made very clear from the beginning. I really just want to stress, I know that there’s a lot of apprehension from some patients, that maybe they feel like they are going to be a Guinea pig in participating, or maybe they don’t have a lot of trust within their doctor-patient relationship, or they might’ve heard anecdotal stories about someone that had a bad experience in a trial. I have felt nothing but respect from the people that ran the clinical trial that I am participating in. Every single person has been very respectful of me, of my time, of my participation. They have really gone out of their way to make sure that appointments run as smoothly as possible, as efficiently as possible, so that my time and their time isn’t wasted. And just that all around, I have a good experience.

I have been really, really fortunate in that respect, and I think that that is more common than the other experience, which is obviously anecdotal that people have heard, that is not a good experience and they feel like they’re doing this and not really getting anywhere, or not hearing anything and maybe feeling somehow exploited. That is not at all what I have experienced. 

When I was first looking for clinical trials, I had to do some legwork of my own. I had heard about certain trials that were out there and I went online. I went to www.clinicaltrials.gov. I looked around to see what would be available for me, if there was anything in my area that I could participate in.

It turns out that the trial I had initially been looking into and was hopeful I could participate in, that wasn’t available to me, but I ended up in another trial instead. I was a participant in the TORREY study, and that worked out really well for me. I also just want to say one of the great benefits obviously, aside from having early access to a drug that may get approved down the road is, all the testing that is required is all covered by the trial. So, all of the blood work that I have done and the extra tests that are involved, including right heart cath, all of that that I have had done is all paid for by the trial. So, I kind of feel lucky that I’ve had all of this extra testing that hasn’t been charged to my insurance. I’m appreciative of that, so that’s an added benefit as well.

John Kingrey, MD: Clinical trial work is really, really exciting. It’s exciting for the patient, because it’s an opportunity to have exposure to frontier medicine, meaning the latest and greatest of what’s out there. It’s giving a patient access to care and access to therapies that they wouldn’t have in any other way. That’s probably the single greatest element of doing clinical trial. As a physician, it’s really exciting, because we get to be part of that and to learn, along with the patients, about the new therapies that are being investigated. Along this path, I can tell you that some of the unanticipated things that happen is, from a physician perspective, is you get to know your patient a lot better. You’re seeing them more frequently, you get to talk to them more frequently. You are asking of course about things that are relevant to not only the clinical trial, but the other symptoms or problems they may be having. So, you get a lot more face time with your patients and the patients get more face time with you, which I think is mutually beneficial.

The other thing is, is that I think patients realize when they participate in clinical trials, I can only talk about pulmonary hypertension, because I haven’t been knee-deep in clinical trials in any other disease state. But the pulmonary hypertension community is so tight and so committed to helping patients, that the patients really get to catch the spirit of not only what’s going on in their own body, but what’s going on in the entire pulmonary hypertension community globally, what’s happening to try to move the disease forward.

That’s really exciting. I think that’s really exciting for patients to be able to be a part of that, because you’re literally creating history. You are laying the groundwork for generations to come. Even if the drug doesn’t work or whatever’s being investigated doesn’t work, that’s really helpful information. Patients are like, “Well, what if this doesn’t turn out?” Well, you know what? That’s also beneficial, because generally in medicine, you have to have a lot more failures before you nail the successes, and that’s certainly the case in pulmonary hypertension, something that we see. Of course, we hope that that’s not the case. The only way to find out is through the clinical trial space.

I also think that patients understand that the sponsors of the trials are so committed to helping these patients get access to care. The other thing is, is that I think my patients feel it from the sponsor and from the people who are administering the clinical trials, that these people actually really care, and they’re really invested in trying to make things better. I think what that does is that takes you beyond from just being a patient and you really catch the spirit of what pulmonary hypertension is really all about. I’d like to thank you all for listening. My name is Dr. John Kingrey.

Nicole Fitzgerald: And I’m Nicole Fitzgerald, and I’m aware that I’m rare.

Learn more about pulmonary hypertension trials at www.phaware.global/clinicaltrials. Follow us on instagram, facebook and x.com @phaware. Engage for a cure: www.phaware.global/donate #phaware Share your story: info@phaware.com Like, Subscribe and Follow us: www.phawarepodcast.com.

Listen and View more on the official phaware™ podcast site

[azure-galaxies-gallery]

OC-based Honkai Star Rail roleplay blog!

Hello and welcome, I'm the mod behind the madness, you can call me Azure, I use pretty much any pronouns that aren't she/her, but if you want more in depth information, I've got it linked on my main account over at @anxiousazure, which is what I follow from.

Rules! Honestly just be niceys I guess I haven't done a formal RP blog before. I'm deeply anxious about this. I don't know how to write NSFW so I probably won't feature that here, plus I myself am asexual and that tends to leak into my OCs somewhat. That said, mod is 18+, so be aware of that. I do tend to write a lot about darker topics, usually violence and death and grief and trauma, but it's usually more so focused on recovery. These things happen in the background, it's not the focus of my writing. Some of my OCs are still in development and they are all subject to change. Sometimes the muses speak and say "Actually I've rewritten my entire lore." and it's annoying that sometimes they are better than what I originally had written. Shipping is fine with me, though I may be more selective about it with certain OCs. I'm super down to interact with other OCs and canon characters!! Tell me about your lore and stuff I'm super hyped!! ... please interact with me i have anxiety and don't know how to reach out and start things. i am timid and anxious and imagine me as a very pathetic wet cat if that helps. i am almost certainly more scared of you than you are of me type stuff.

Muses below the cut because uh,,, long post make me nervous,,, (more information to come, eventually everyone will have linked posts for more in-depth lore, i'm working on it - i have a lot of OCs and some are more fleshed out than others)

Muse: Yuelong!

Yuelong is a Vidyadhara aboard the Xianzhou Luofu, though a handful of reincarnations ago he was the High Elder of the Xianzhou Cangcheng. Once the designated healer for the High Cloud Quintet, his name was quick to fade into obscurity - and though most of the other Quintet members may have forgotten the healer, Yuelong has held tight to those precious memories. Though it certainly is odd to see a Vidyadhara who's beginning to grey and age - how long can such a creature hold off the natural cycle of reincarnation, and what consequences might that bring? Tag: plum blossoms falling (yuelong tag)

Muse: Longfei!

Longfei was once the High Elder of the Xianzhou Cangcheng, though he's now a Knight of Beauty. It's quite tragic to be one of only a handful of people in the universe that recalls the smell of Cangcheng Plum Blossoms... How does he remember that? Oh, don't worry about such things. Just consider it a quirk of this wandering Knight, hm? Tag: black roses falling (longfei tag)

Muse: Jian!

Jian is one of the youngest fully-fledged blacksmiths among the Luofu's Artisanship Commission, but you certainly can't discount his talents because of his age. Equally known for highly-skilled work and craftsmanship as he is for his blunt and somewhat rude nature, the so-called White-Haired Hammer of the Artisanship Commission is definitely something. Most people don't work well with him, though supposedly he's a little softer around people his age. Some say he's childhood friends with the Cloud Knight Lieutenant - perhaps it makes sense, given that both of them are clearly prodigies with big dreams. Tag: little forgemaster (jian tag)

Muse: Bairu!

Bairu is the soft-spoken albino secretary of General Feixiao, a Shadow Guard member, and the best person to ask about any type of paperwork concerns. A runaway from a large Yaoqing family, he seems pretty pleased to live life as a simple secretary and notetaker, though of course - when dealing with assassins, it's for the best to know how to defend yourself. Supposedly, he once trained under the Yaoqing's Crow-Feather Weirdo... Though who knows if that's true or not. Either way, Bairu is still rather important - Feixiao's not fond of paperwork, so really, Bairu's sort of running the show from behind the curtains. Tag: yaoqing notetaker (bairu tag)

Muse: Zhen!

Zhen is an ever-present feature on the Astral Express, though truth be told he only arrived aboard the Express before March 7th was found. Something akin to a Xianzhou Native, the wandering hunter has a deep-set hatred of anything related to Tazzyronth's Swarm, and may be the sole survivor of his original planet. All that said and done, however - he's a stalwart guardian for the Astral Express, and an excellent chef. Just... don't let him wander alone, he's liable to try something that will poison him. Tag: wandering hunter (zhen tag)

Muse: Holly!

Holly is a half-Borisin, though perhaps more, perhaps less. With no real papers to speak of or a confirmed parentage, it is just one of many things Holly doesn't know about himself. A Galaxy Ranger who's also known to affiliate with the Stellaron Hunters on occasion, he's certainly a strange one - not to mention his fondness for Jarilo-VI. Tag: half-breed borisin (holly tag)

Muse: Wolfhook!

A Halovian bartender raised in the Oak family, though he certainly doesn't seem to have many ties with them anymore. After an incident resulting in the loss of one arm and the crippling of one of his wings, Wolfhook seems to have retired to a quiet life of bartending on Penacony outside of the dreamscape - having learned his tricks of the trade from a handful of Bloodhound family members. Nowadays, you might find him more in contact with Galaxy Rangers, running a morally grey bar and a backroom healing service to those who may not be so black or white. Tag: bartender's special (wolfhook tag)

Muse: Red!

A mysterious... Halovian? No one knows quite where they came from, nor why other Halovians seems so nervous about them, but they do seem to be in Rappa's company quite often. They speak when spoken to, and don't express much emotion; but in spite of all of this, they keep up with the ninja quite well - though of course, a background in parkour might help with that. They seem to be allied with the Galaxy Rangers, at least - they certainly have scathing remarks to make about Dr. Primitive and his followers, at least. Tag: red feathers fly (red tag)

[anthonysstupiddailyblog]

Anthony's Stupid Daily Blog (732): Tue 19th Mar 2024

Checked out tonight's episode of Hollyoaks (I AM going to start writing about more exciting things than Hollyoaks soon. I promise you I am. Just not today because I was knackered and couldn't be bothered to do fuck all). Right from the start I got a big laugh because during the recap they edited out the visual of Ste actually falling from the roof and just used the sound while focusing on a shot of James looking shocked. The very idea that they saw the original go out and thought that it would be too frightening to go out at 6:30pm was hilarious. Anywho it turns out that Ste didn't die from his fall off a giant building he just broke his lower leg which is bullshit. So Silas nearly died just from Theresa pushing him over but Ste is still alive after falling from the top of a multi storey building? I'm so happy that Warren is leaving soon but knowing my luck they're probably going to have Ste suffer a brain injury which makes him believe that he is Warren and he acts like him from now on. Tonight's episode also saw the introduction of Marie AKA Joel's mother who stole a dress from Mercedes' clothing line and then wore it to The Dog while Mercedes was there leading to a CATFIGHT!. I love that Marie has labelled Merces a tramp and an awful person going purely off her first impression of her but she has no idea she is actually 100% correct. She's inadvertently a great judge of character. Later on she reconnected with Warren and the two made sweet love in the club. I put out the following hypothetical during the scene where they come face to face: Marie: Hello Warren. Long time no see. Do you ever think of me? Warren: When I'm strangling my victims to make myself angrier Tonight was of great significance for me because I gained my 400th follower on Twitter (which is all I've ever wanted). I genuinely never thought when I rejoined Twitter four years ago in order to specifically Tweet stupid bollocks during the show that I would ever gain ONE follower never mind four hundred (though I suppose the fact that I have "Hollyoaks" in my Twitter name has probably helped me a little as it pops up when people are searching for the official Hollyoaks Twitter page). I really love this little community that I've built up for myself that I get to entertain and interact with for half an hour every day. I think it's good for me to have something to commit myself to every day. I also think having this Twitter page is part of the reason why I still watch the show because there was a long stretch where I wasn't watching the show, either due to being too busy with work or just due to the show being in a creative pothole. Having this page has meant that I've felt compelled to tune in so that I can continue to entertain the loyal fellow ans who get a kick out of me making jokes about Mercedes vagina. Remarkably there are two people who have told me that they "live" for my Twitter account as it cheers them up and during my sabbatical last year one of them even @ed me to say that she missed my Tweets which was really flattering. I'm really grateful to all those beautiful bastards who have followed me over the years and I'll endeavor to continue Tweeting for their amusement even when the show is dull as shitwater.

[kombuchaclock]

Wrote a story about how Eldricia and Zedd met (when Zedd was still living); had to split it into two parts, this first part has some suggestive elements but the second is WAY more explicit so it is going to be exclusive to my NSFW page(s).

There are some D&D-isms to this since that's what these characters originated as but this is NOT the default D&D setting, don't get it twisted.

This was the part Eldricia hated; copying down spells. It wasn’t enough to know them and how to cast them, they had to be written as well. They could understand why it was required; beyond being proof of understanding, it was also a good habit for someone as easily distracted as they were. But being easily distracted also meant that it was really fucking tedious. Half the time, they weren’t thinking about what was on the papers in front of them, even if they were looking at them. Focus was a fleeting thing. They kicked their little legs with unspent energy.

They heard a yawn coming from the desk opposite theirs in the small dorm room and, without thinking, turned to look at its source. Any excuse to turn away from work. A willowy young half-elf man stood up from his desk. “I’m done. How ‘bout you?” He turned to Eldricia.

“Almost,” they answered, with a sheepish smile that seemed to be more and more common these days.

He looked down his nose at the gnome. “… You’ve been at it for about as long as I have, how are you not done?”

Eldricia shot the man an uncharacteristically cross glare. “I said ‘almost,’ and besides, you’re…” Already their expression began to falter. “… You’re one of the best students in the school, Conley! We’ve already established I can’t really keep up with you.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t even have bougie parents to pay for it,” Conley sniped as he went behind the privacy screen, eliciting another glare from Eldricia, which he paid no attention to. Conley continued as he changed into his nightshirt. "Eldricia, I know you don’t want to hear this, but I know that big-ass head of yours isn’t for show. You could be just as good of a student as me if you knuckled down.”

“Mhmm,” Eldricia showed disinterest. They had heard this before. They were also not particularly focused on Conley’s words anyway, thinking instead about how he was disrobing behind the privacy screen. Conley was not exactly Eldricia’s type, but they wouldn’t kick him out of bed either. Maybe they were just desperate. They crossed their legs instinctively. “You doin’ anything tonight?”

“Yeah, sleeping,” Conley emerged in his nightshirt.

“Alone?” Eldricia teased.

Now it was Conley’s turn to glare, although his anger was tinged with something else: fear. “Apparently I haven’t been mean enough to you in the past few minutes, so let me make one thing clear. I’ve seen a glimpse of what you have to offer, and I am not interested.” With a huff, Conley laid on the bottom bunk of the dorm, turning towards the wall. Snapping his fingers by his ear, the faint sound of a babbling brook began to play, just barely reaching the corners of the small room.

“Suit yourself,” Eldricia chimed in response, back to their usual chipper disposition. They turned back to their schoolwork, stared at it for a moment, then turned away again. They hopped out of their chair, landing on the ground with a thud. They took another look at Conley to see if the sound had disturbed him; he either hadn’t noticed or was pretending not to notice. With that, Eldricia put on their jacket and stepped away, off the campus and into the night.

______________________________________________________________

“Magic? I’ve been on the bad end of a few spells myself, don’t really wanna-“ The gruff orc whose name Eldricia had already forgotten started explaining,

“No, no, sorry, close-up magic is just a name. I’m not gonna cast anything on you, it’s just, like… parlor tricks, you know?” Eldricia attempted to get him to buy in.

He grunted. “Alright, but just… tricks, right? Nothing more.”

Eldricia grinned and pulled out a deck of playing cards, fanning them out in front of him. “Pick a card!”

Rather than point to a card, he snatched one and looked at it briefly before showing it to Eldricia. “Ten of swords.” “… Right, I see it. Could you put it back in the deck? That’s part of the trick,” Eldricia barely tried not to seem condescending. Slowly, while squinting at Eldricia, he returned the card. Eldricia then started shuffling the deck with big, dramatic motions; at least as big as their little arms could muster. All the while, their mage hand, conveniently invisible, carefully pulled open a bag of coins at his side. “Is this your card?” Eldricia finally displayed the ace of hearts. “… No,” the so-far unamused bar patron replied.

“Oh?” Eldricia looked at the card and feigned surprise. “Oh! My mistake. Hey, what’s that under your drink?” He looked down at the beer stein. Sure enough, between it and the wooden bar was a playing card. He lifted the stein up and looked at the card. A slight smile crept onto his face. “Ten of swords! Not a bad trick.” He passed the card back to Eldricia. “Good enough for a drink?” Eldricia asked as their mage hand re-cinched the bag of coins at the man’s side. Only a few coins had been plucked from it; enough to blame on whoever had paid him, if he even noticed. Eldricia didn’t really need the money anyway. They just liked stealing.

He scoffed. “Fuck no. Not like you could handle much more than that glass of grape juice you’re nursing, anyway.”

“’Cause I’m short?” Eldricia propped their head up as their elbow rested on the bar.

“I’ll put it to you this way: my mama made stacks of pancakes taller than you,” he sneered before taking a swig of his drink.

Eldricia shrugged. “Eh, you’re probably right,” they acquiesced. They sipped their glass of red wine. It was one of the more expensive drinks at this dive, and it was still swill by Eldricia’s standards. They had the fleeting thought that their parents really had spoiled them. Well, their father did. Their mother didn’t want Eldricia to drink, period. If she could see this place her skin would crawl.

There was a sound of microphone feedback, followed by a shrill voice. “Attention, Undersump patrons!” Both Eldricia and the man sitting next to them turned towards the stage. As they did, Eldricia reminded themselves of where the bar’s name came from; kind of cool, honestly, naming your establishment after the abyssal realm of Juiblex. Another thing their mother would hate. There were four figures on the stage. The one in front, a kobold with very poor eyesight judging from the thickness of their glasses, spoke again. “Tonight, returning to the stage, we are happy to present St. Antoine’s own Black Pudding!” The kobold exited the stage as a smattering of cheers, not nothing but not impressive either, greeted the band.

The orc tapped Eldricia’s shoulder. “You’ve never been here before, right? You’re in for a treat.”

“You sure? The reception seemed a bit lukewarm,” Eldricia responded.

“Maybe, but they can get the crowd worked up easy. ‘Specially him,” he pointed to one of the band members, a human man, now approaching the microphone.

“Hello, all you lowlifes!” The man at the microphone started. “Good to see this place isn’t shuttered!” A few laughs bounced back from the crowd. “Before we begin… you fuckin’ heard about Argathos?” The crowd, suddenly much more spirited, began booing the name of the infamous St. Antoine prison. “A whole new wing, built to address St. Antoine’s ‘rapidly growing crime problem’…” He continued, the crowd growing more fervent. “… will be opened by none other than the Chief of Police Renee Ewald!” Eldricia recoiled at hearing their mother’s name, sinking into their jacket in the hopes that no one would notice the family resemblance.

“You know what we say to that!” Another one of the band, a tiefling with a shaved head and mismatched horns, spoke up. “Fuck! Off!” The human and tiefling shouted in unison before the band launched into a song.

The music was unlike any Eldricia had heard. First impression: loud. Almost too loud. The sound coming from the speakers was very blown out. The band also wasn’t singing as much as they were yelling. Except for the drummer, but he appeared to be a kenku, so Eldricia didn’t really expect him to say anything. He played vigorously, though. They all did. That was what Eldricia found themselves enjoying about the performance: the energy. Eldricia knew, to an extent, about different genres of music, but growing up what they had mostly heard had been orchestras in stuffy concert houses where they weren’t allowed to move. They would long for when their mother was away and their father would play something fresher, more upbeat, more danceable. This might be even better than that, they thought. It was rough, very rough, but it was… real! Real and exciting!

It helped that, as Eldricia saw them, the members of the band were attractive. Particularly the human. He was tall, and built, but not too… defined. His long, dark hair looked silky. He might’ve been suffering under the lights, but the hint of sweat glistening on his skin looked fantastic. Eldricia’s head was uncharacteristically still as they stared at the stage, but their legs squirmed atop their barstool.

After the first song, Eldricia dimly heard the man next to her speak again. “Huh?” “I asked if you liked it,” he clarified. Eldricia nodded. He laughed. “Yeah, I bet you did. You looked… what’s the word…” “Transfixed?” Eldricia suggested.

“Yeah, that works. Was it him?” He pointed to the man on stage. Eldricia nodded. “Yeah, he’s a dreamboat alright. If I were you, though, I wouldn’t hold out hope of scoring with him. No offense.” “He’s taken?” For a few seconds, Eldricia seemed almost deflated.

The other patron hummed. “Not really, he just prefers partners who are… bigger.” “Taller than me?” “Well, usually, yeah, but I’m talking about the groin, y’know? Again, no offense, but I ain’t never seen a gnome who’s packing. I don’t even know if you’ve got one, to be honest. Not gnomes in general, I mean, but you specifically.”

He didn’t notice, but Eldricia actually perked back up when he clarified that Black Pudding’s frontman was a size queen. Perked up, but said nothing. A bit of color went to their normally ghostly pale cheeks, and they resisted breaking out into one of the biggest, goofiest grins of their life. “That’s a bummer,” they finally said, after what was probably too long of a pause.

When Black Pudding finished playing, the windows had started to change from black to blue as the sun crept over the horizon. The nearsighted kobold who had introduced them was now making rounds, urging patrons to leave The Undersump before it closed. In the midst of the drunken exodus, Eldricia’s eyes remained on Black Pudding’s frontman. Their heart started to race when he started walking in their direction. Unfortunately for Eldricia, however, he was not here for them. He returned their wave, but then quickly started talking to the man next to them. The other patron was excited, but did his best playing it cool. He couldn’t help mention he was a fan of the band, though.

“That’s great! It’s nice to meet a fan,” the frontman said as he shook the patron’s hand. “I try not to let it get to my head too much, but, y’know, it’s nice when someone likes your stuff. I just hope the message gets across.”

“Oh, for sure!” The patron responded. The two of them started a brief discussion; it was something about St. Antoine. Eldricia tuned out their words. They weren’t normally one for politics. They did, however, look intently at the frontman as he talked. He was even better looking up close, they thought.

After conversing for a moment, the frontman stopped the patron. “Sorry to interrupt, it’s just that I came over here to ask you somethin’.” “Oh?” The frontman suddenly whispered something into the patron’s ear. Eldricia couldn’t hear it, but judging from the patron’s face, he liked what he heard. The frontman then patted him on the back before heading to the restroom. There was a pause before the patron laughed. He turned to Eldricia. “Well, one of us is about to get lucky, at least!”

“Really?” Eldricia responded. There was sincere surprise in their voice. It took them another few seconds to realize that of course someone who’s specifically looking for big dicks is going to approach the big, masculine orc before they would a vertically-challenged androgyne.

“Yep!” He downed the rest of his drink, belched loudly, then stood up and threw some coins onto the bar. “Catch you later!” He told Eldricia before heading to the restroom himself. Eldricia had to admit, he did have some amount of big dick energy. The patron was both taller and beefier than pretty much anyone Eldricia had seen tonight.

Eldricia watched the restroom door for a few seconds after it closed again. Then they turned to their drink. They knitted their brow, though they weren’t exactly mad. More anxious. Anxious about doing something that might end in rejection. “Fuck it,” they said, finally. They, too, downed their drink and threw their coins on the bar. They hopped off the stool then walked, trying as best they could to look casual, to the restroom.