#i actually love romeo and juliet. it’s pretty good for what it’s worth

[xaeorian]

how i stare at an image of shakespeare after reading his stupid fucking book again to write the best essay on earth (lie) while being sunburnt, having a massive headache, nauseous and near blind vision:

[night-market-if]

Spoiler Ask

So I'm going to address it all here under the cut because I've gotten a few asks in that are pretty similar and I'm sure I'm going to get more. So I thought instead of answering the same thing over and over, I'd just do a response below. Warning, spoilers for the end of book 1.

Full disclosure. I am sick. We are going through a lot of family things at the moment. My patience is probably thin.

For everyone that says MC is already too forgiving of Milo. Milo has not even come into the story yet. You've only observed memories of him. If you feel like you need an inner dialogue to tell you how angry you are over this "betrayal" or "death", I don't know what to say here. Because MC is literally just observing things at the moment. Any options that have been put forth to comment on Milo and what has happened, have been more to lay ground work and to also give a scope of the type of emotions that will be offered in the game. But literally, Milo has not even shown up yet into the story in a real capacity. So please stop sending me asks about how you are upset that MC has "forgiven" him because there has literally been no real interaction between Milo and the MC.

As for this betrayal and death thing. I am going to state this now for those who aren't going to like where my story is going so you don't need to read if you don't want to. As the Night Market, you knew you were going to die. You gladly came down and wanted to experience death. You looked at what Milo (a non magic user) was doing, and said "hey, this would be a cool experience" and then you came down here. So, yes, you are going to feel the full range of emotions that come with it. But you are also going to need to take some personal accountability for your actions. That is what is going to be explored in this book. An entity that didn't realize what emotion actually meant, came down thinking it wasn't going to be a big deal to die, and it turned out it was a big deal. A big fucking deal, in fact and that by doing so, they actually hurt people they loved. So, don't forgive Milo. I'm not forcing anyone to. But, I will not be writing an MC that puts all the blame on him. Because guess what? The Night Market would have died if he didn't do what he did. So, everyone also saying that he killed the MC? No, he literally saved the MC and billions of people. And I don't care what way you spin it? One person is never worth a billion souls. And with the MC being someone that literally cut themselves open over and over again to save most of the people living within the world, I would think they would probably not be too keen on Milo sacrificing them so they could die together in some bullshit Romeo and Juliet act.

Now, I am all for exploring how an MC comes to terms with the feeling of betrayal along with the feeling of needing to take responsibility. I am all for exploring an MC that goes "holy shit this emotion thing is way bigger than I thought and I'm angry and confused". I'm there for it. I'm excited to write it. But, I will not be writing a willfully ignorant MC that doesn't take into account that they did this to themselves as well. And yes, if you choose to not acknowledge it in game, others are going to acknowledge it for you. If you want to not read because you can't become a villain, rock back and forth in a corner and weep, or violently get mad at someone who saved the world? That's cool. I'm not offended by someone not reading it. Anyone coming into my ask box and saying "I just am not going to read now because you aren't doing xyz" I wish you a good night and hope you find something else for you because there are thousands of stories out there.

I am not interested. Nor will I ever be interested. In writing a story where I add to the plague of ignorance that is this world. Aren't we kind of all struggling enough with that in our own lives? MC is a being of compassion. They will always be a being of compassion. That is going to shift and change based on circumstances and there are going to be moments where that compassion can fall into question. When it comes to Milo, it is going to be a messy bit of confusing emotions because there is so much more than just the black and white strokes of "OMG he killed me" that seemed to be the rhetoric on here. Now, you don't want his character around? Alright. Other than when you have to see him for Gatekeeper purposes, you probably won't.

To all of you guys complaining or sending me ask after ask stating how you don't like what I am doing. I am going to tell you this and it will not ever change. If you don't like reading this, then don't read. I am not here to write a story for you specifically. You don't like the direction of a work and can't ever broaden your scope of fiction to give it a shot? Then please don't. But to have this kind of messages coming through when literally we are a chapter in? Seriously. The instant gratification is bullshit. I'm going to suspect this is coming from the younger half of my audience who is way too accustomed to a confirmation bias internet algorithm and who has had a very small scope of real life. This is of course not all of the younger crowd but it's starting to seem like a pretty good amount.

I love having conversations with everyone. My discord is always open but most of you anons hide because you are far too scared to come at me with your user name or engage in a conversation feed where more than just me can answer. I mean, you guys send me asks, citing others user names, to call them out through me. It's laughable at this point.

I love having discourse with all of you but I'm not going to keep answering the same thing over and over again and justifying my work when it doesn't need to be justified. This is a small little bit of fiction in a vast sea.

If I sound pissed, it's because I am at this point. And I'm sure I'll get more asks in that are stating they are jumping ship or that they are disappointed in me or what not. I'll delete them and move on with my evening.

To all of you who are here for the ride and just want to experience what I'm writing? Thank you. Fiction is just meant to be a form of entertainment. I am not writing anything profound. To anyone that is looking for something more, move on. I'll see everyone who wants to get mad or saying I'm too harsh, in my inbox, I am sure. Thank god you can block anons.

[jamisonwritestf2trash]

Mercs favourite books? Doesn't have to be written in the time the game is set ofc

The TF2 Mercs Favorite Books!

teehee and all that, I love this prompt. Thank you for sending it, Anon! We're also going to have to assume half of them can even read. I kinda stuck to the classics just for funsies. Also, I added their favorite quotes from the books!

But, anyway, here we go!

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Spoilers, maybe? Probably not.

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Demo- The Anarchist Cookbook (William Powell)

Now, let's be honest. This man went through the table of contents like a checklist. I personally think Demo and Soldier took a particular liking to the entry, "Converting a shotgun into a grenade launcher." They're just so silly like that. Anyways, once he started making mustard gas, the other mercs decided that it would be a good idea for the book to go missing. Little did they know he had eight separate copies of this book. He was very proud when he finished the book. Everyone was concerned at the new horde of weapons and drugs Demo had, until he offered to share, then they were thrilled.

“If a man is to be a man, a free spirit unto himself, he must arm himself not only with weapons but with ideals and concepts he is willing to die for.”

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Engie- Charlotte's Web (E. B. White)

Hear me out! Even though this man has eleven PhDs, he doesn't like to read long drawn out novels. He doesn't like most of the "classics" or even most new books. Don't get me wrong, he loves to read. He just doesn't get why books can't be simple. He read Charlotte's Web when he was a kid, and it just kind of stuck with him. It was one of the only books he read that didn't really feel like a chore to read. He finds himself rereading it frequently. You'll catch him reading it to Pyro too, I personally think him and Pyro read books together a lot.

“I don’t understand it, and I don’t like what I don’t understand.”

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Heavy- The Odyssey (Homer)

Would you believe me if I told you this man is a huge fan of Greek mythology? He has no clue why, he was never interested in it when he was younger, or even up until he read the read The Odyssey. He picked it up from a library, it had a really pretty gold cover, so he read the description and figured why not? When I tell you this man was so obsessed with this book while he was reading it for the first time. He just like, wouldn't stop reading it? Like the other mercs were slightly worried that he was reading all the time. Because, sure, he probably reads more than the others, but this was excessive even for him. He loves the escape it provides, he likes the adventurer, he likes the fantasy. He just really loves this book.

“For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother”

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Medic-The Tell Tale Heart (Edgar Allan Poe)

Are we really super surprised that Medic is a fan of The Tell Tale Heart? He's also just a fan of Poe in general, but alas, I will put that away and focus on the book itself. Medic loves reading the main characters' descent into madness. He also loves the idea of someone who seemingly has a lack of guilt be riddled with it, though a different medium than actually feeling guilty. (i hope that made sense) He's just a huge fan of artists using their mediums to inflict psychological torture on their creations. Also lets be honest if Medic ever went fully insane he'd be like the main character from the book.

“Now this is the point. You fancy me a mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded...”

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Scout- Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare)

HEAR ME OUT AGAIN! This man doesn't read, he has ADHD and dyslexia, how can you expect him to? But! When he was in high school it was required reading and this man struggled with like the first page, but it was really important for his grade so he tried literally everything to read it, and once he actually found out a way to be able to read the book, he was hooked, as weird as that seems. He thinks old English is hilarious, and actually liked the romance, he cried when Romeo and Juliet died. He can't tell you why he loves it so much though, it just stuck in his brain and never left. He even went out and bought his own copy of the book, it remains hidden as to not alert the other mercs to his love of it, reads it once a month.

"I defy you, stars."

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Sniper- The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton)

So, I know this is Snipers headcanon, but..... I gotta talk about Scout really quick. So Scout has read The Outsiders, and he loved it! (Not as much as Romeo and Juliet, but enough to also have bought the book.) So one day, he's talking to Sniper about books, and is utterly shocked at the idea that not everyone has read The Outsiders, so he literally reads this book with such conviction to Sniper, (Sniper claimed he would read it on his own but Scout know he absolutely would not.) So Sniper begrudgingly listens to the book, and actually finds himself drawn into the story.

“He sure put things into words good.”

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Spy- Dracula (Bram Stoker)

Spy would be a vampire if he could be, wouldn't ever admit that though. Okay I'm half kidding. I think Spy really likes this book for the drama of it all, the fact that it never stays the same for long, the way it borders on actual horror, but is too dramatic to actually be scary, he just ugh, he loves it so much. I think he first found the book by it just being in his home when he was a kid. His mom just left it sitting somewhere and he just went and picked it up because he was bored and just started reading. I think he was originally scared by the book, probably cried the first time he read it. Then years later, he just remembered the book that traumatized him as a kid and he was like, it can't be that bad, I'll read it again to prove younger me was a coward. So he reads it and just falls in love with the book.

"I am longing to be with you and by the sea, where we can talk together freely and build our castles in the air."

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Soldier- Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen)

Uh, so, do I need to put a hear me out for the third time? So I already headcanon that he likes Jane Austen, I'm so torn between him actually understanding and grasping hidden meanings and deep plot point and him just smiling and nodding along to the silly drama unfolding. Maybe both? His mom actually read it to him when he was younger, because it was her favorite book. The memories of his mom talking about and reading the book also contributes to the reason he likes the book so much. He has his mom's worn copy of the book and loves it. He'll reread it at least twice a month, always thinking about the first time he was introduced to it. Loves everything about the book.

"There is a stubbornness about me that never can bear to be frightened at the will of others. My courage always rises at every attempt to intimidate me."

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Pyro- Alice in Wonderland (Lewis Carroll)

Dont get them started with all the things they love about this book. If they could talk, they'd rant for hours. Who am I kidding they still rant for hours even though no one can understand them. They love the whimsy and insanity of Wonderland. They love the Cheshire cat and the Mad Hatter. They read this book every day. It's not even just their favorite anymore. It's the only book to ever exist 😭 On days when Pyro isn't able to read the book, they beg Engie to read it to them. Engie doesn't mind. He loves to see Pyro get all happy when he agrees.

“Imagination is the only weapon in the war with reality.”

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So that took forever to churn out for some reason, maybe because I had to actually remember reading some of these books and actually read others 😭 Sorry it's not super long or detailed! I tried not to spoil the contents of the books.

Regardless, it was fun to do, and I think I'm finally back in the swing of things! I feel more motivated, uh tons of asks came in after this sooooo expect lots of uploads after this, I think I have at least six asks right now?

[fanaticsnail]

meant to send this yesterday but the sleepy got me so....

Off to an amazing start with my dad coming up behind me during opening credits/music and asking if I'm watching Tom & Jerry.

Thats such a pretty frame!

I wasnt expecting singing!! But hell yeah!! Sing your funky songs, bug man! - Ooooooh, is that a watercolor background? So pretty!

THE 🏹 BLACK ⚫️ FOX 🦊 - "Good friend Griswold from the north" Snail, is there something you'd like to sbare with the class?

Also, the costuming! I havent seen this many men in tights since Romeo and Juliet!

Sword Fight⁉️

Quick aside; his daughter looks so unbothered. Also, what is she embroidering? Is that a map? - "You marry griswold" -girl, I CACKLED

The King X Griswold- 20 k slowburn, friends to lovers - The singing should not surprise me as much as it does. I was practically raised on bollywood, so its not like im not used to it, maybe its because this is Hollywood not Bollywood, so I'm not used to it here? - Wearing his clothes is one thing, but did Hawkins make 6 additional Fox outfits for his friends? I'm starting to see the Buggy comparison you were making

I've always been under the belief that every weird little man needs a weird little child. So far, I'm not disappointed

Pretty sets, pretty people, what's not to love? - UGHHHH this is so soft, I love itttttt

question: did he do his own singing for this? singing for yourself isn't common in Bollywood so idk. - ONE BED? ONE BED!!??!??!!

Damn, no song in the swiss Alps, but worth it to see this little nerd short-circuit around a pretty girl. Ripe for the fic writing, this scene.

Me and who? ME AND FUCKING WHO?

Couples who commit crimes together stay together. Nothing like some good old treason to set the mood. - waitwaitwaitwaitwait she's actually a witch????

If Jean and Hawkins aren't endgame I'll cry - This movie is like if the Princess Bride and Once Upon A Mattress had a child and made Monty Python and the Holy Grail the godparent - JEAN 🩷✨💋 (she didn't do anything, I just think she's pretty) - Snail! Snail, why haven't you written this fic yet??? - I-I don't think that's how lightning works......could be wrong tho, who's to say, I've never been struck by lightning.

They're both the same flavor of stupid, bless - HIS FUCGKNG HEAD!! - That white shirt 🫦 That orange dress 🫦🫦 - THE 🏹 BLACK ⚫️ FOX 🦊

What the hell is going on???????????? - UGH, what an icon - okokokokok so the king is on the throne now but he's still....yk a baby. Give me a 10k fic about Jean being a girl boss and running the kingdom while Hawkins sits there like the goof he is and just admires her. 10k words of him being the biggest simp in existence.

-♡♡

Me at you right now:

"With your permission, my lady. I'd like to go round again."

I love Danny Kaye and Basil Rathbone. The fact that Angela Lansbury is there too as a gorgeous young, sassy princess is just my favourite thing.

"If it pleases me, you will marry Griswold." "If it pleases you so much, you marry Griswold." -> yes, queen. Get it. She is going to be the model for the type of sass Sir Crocodile's Sapsorrow is going to need to endure.

Your commentary is everything. The shipping of Griswold and the King is just hilarious. I need it 🤌.

Hawkins x Jean is beautiful. The whole plot is simply the best: failing forward incarnate. The masquerade trifecta. The disguises. The songs. The wenches. The silly dancing. Danny Kaye can absolutely sing, and his voice is gorgeous. His speciality was reciting tongue twisters.

My favourite line in the whole movie is: "Sometimes tenderness and kindness can also make a man. A very rare man." Coming from a strong woman who had to claw tooth and nail to become the pinacle of her rank. In the 50s.

Again, I love this movie to much that I got a tattoo of it.

I hope you liked it. It's an odd one, I'll give you that. It's one of my childhood favorites.

[6ftkyle]

hi hi!! was just wondering the appeal of k2 gen question haha please lmk i would love to read more about this i’m so curious lol!!

oh boy, well, good news for you, I love to justify why i love k2 so much!

for me personally, i guess it's not super related to anything in canon. they have a few small moments here and there, but i dont think i could point you in the direction of any "K2 episodes" or anything. its just like, the potential of a relationship between them that really makes me nuts (positive).

at their core, kenny and kyle are both people who fundamentally want to take care of people around them. i see it most in how they interact with their younger siblings (the karen/mysterion dynamic, kyles everything in 'miss teacher bangs a boy''), so i call it the big brother instinct.

for kyle, hes a busybody who goes out of his way to take care of most of the people around him. he's not always nice about it (the way he treats stan in 'raisins', for example), but he does act out of what he thinks is the best interests of people around him. he wants to guide people to what he thinks is best. on the flipside, i dont think he accepts help well. his mom's pretty smothering in the ways she thinks she's protecting him and it makes kyle reject care from others because he'd rather handle things on his own.

kenny, he's a little more selective. he's not that protective of his friends, but i like to think he's protective of those most important to him and that would extend to a crush / partner. when it comes to the reverse, kenny has never particularly had caregivers he could depend on. his parents don't take care for him, his own big brother is a negligible presence in his life, the other adults of south park don't seem to notice or care how the mccormick children are cared for. he's simply HAD to be the caregiver out of necessity. he's never been afforded a moment to let someone else take care of him because it's never been an option.

and that creates a central conflict for K2. two people who want to give care, but aren't good at accepting care for varying reasons. they have to learn how to let their guard down and let the other take care of them every now and then. makes for a lot of good tender moments that i very much enjoy when shipping characters.

there's also smaller things, that i dont think are really worth a big grand explanation or anything. i think there's some really good romeo & juliet vibes if you choose to believe that gerald and stuart still hate each other (esp if you, like me, think that kyle's relationship with gerald is a bit strained and he enjoys that gerald hates that his bf is a mccormick).

there's a bit of 'opposites attract' in there for me too. i like to think kenny grows up to be a bit of an impulsive free spirit (his actions dont have consequences, if he dies, he'll be back in the morning, he doesn't have to be careful or deliberate in his actions), whereas kyle overthinks everything he does and he's super pragmatic. as a couple, he grounds kenny from his silly-goofy antics but kenny also forces him to loosen up. kyle will indulge him and be a little silly goofy with him, while kyle reigns him in from the worst of his impulsive behaviors.

also kysterion with kyle being the medic and the guy in the chair to mysterion's supering antics? well i eat that shit up. that's just a superhero shipping dynamic that i love in almost any instance.

and lastly, its also just a lil bit of nostalgia for me! im ancient, ive been in and out of south park fandom since like 2005 and k2 was one of the first ships i really got invested in. reading k2 fics on deviantArt is actually how i made my first ever fandom friend. i lost touch with them a while ago and most of their stuff has been deleted or put in their dA storage, so i can't revisit it, but it's still a dear memory for me.

the short version is because there's not a whole lot of canon stuff to go off of, i get to inject a lot of headcanons and projection and cater it specifically to what i like.

[grunge-mermaid]

grunge rewatches The OC pt 1

I haven't watched this show since it aired. when I was in high school. I'm assuming it hasn't aged well, but who knows

1x01 The Pilot

"modern medicine is advancing to the point where the average human life span will be 100. But I read this article which said Social Security will run out by the year 2025, which means people are gonna have to stay in their jobs until they're 80"

20 years later, Ryan seems like an optimist

this is the show that taught me that there is a world where people have pool houses

ooh smoking so edgy

baby!Dr Link

he grew up good

naming a boat after a girl you've never talked to? that's not a red flag at all

early 2000s teen girl fashion was a travesty

"open collar, it's a good look" Ryan is correct

no one is carding the 15-year-old at the bar? he's only 2/3 the legal drinking age in California come on

is he 15? 16? idk. how many seasons are they in high school for?

I will operate on the assumption that they're 15 until proven otherwise since Luke is the only one who drives (that we know of so far)

gay slur count: 1

ok Summer's dress in the fashion show is kinda cute but that hair & makeup are a travesty

All American Rejects oh man

the music in this show is pretty amazing ngl

"I should really learn to knock in case there's a threesome going on in the bathroom"

gotta have the requisite gaggle of girls on cell phones to show they're rich

how did 14-year-old me not realize I was queer when faced with Summer Roberts in a bikini and low-rise skirt? I'm so sorry, 14yo grunge, you really missed out on fully appreciating

(psst, present day grunge: Rachel Bilson was 22 in season 1. you're good)

ableist slur count: 1

what teenagers actually speak like this have the writers ever spoken to actual teenagers before?

ok a 15yo who cooks breakfast bc his parents are shitty and abusive & he needs to cook or else he doesn't eat & neither will his parents? absolutely believable. also absolutely believable he would do it out of habit + as a thank you for taking him in for the weekend

a 15yo who cooks bacon and pancakes and sets the fucking table for breakfast? who is this child

ok maybe it hasn't aged as badly as I thought. the hair and clothes have, but otherwise it's holding up ok

1x02 The Model Home

ohhh I remember this episode

I think

there's a fire, right?

Luke and Ryan fight and they start a fire in the model home?

wait Marissa drives maybe they are 16?

Ryan and Marissa are prime Siblings Or Dating content

flip

phones

gay slur count: 2

$100,000 seems pretty low-stakes for Jimmy to be so worried about given the presumed scale of the investments he was managing

like, that's a lot of money for sure but if he's

the show that introduced me to Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah

girl you met him literally 2 days ago why are you so intense about this?

you're not romeo and juliet calm down

oh there's the fire

Luke "I'm an asshole bully not a murderer" Ward

Julie was pregnant in 1986 so Marissa at least is almost-17?

but if season 3 is their senior year, then in season 1 they're all going into grade 10, so shouldn't they be 15? I'm overthinking this, I'm aware

1x03 The Gamble

Julie Cooper reminds me of Bertha Russell but without any of the charm or warmth or manners or fashion sense

I should take that back. Bertha doesn't deserve to be compared to Julie Cooper, she's too beguiling and clever. Julie is just shallow and manipulative.

"no two black tie events in the same month" I would love to live a life where this is my biggest concern

of course these women watch Dr Phil

god they'd be on the front lines of Moms For Liberty wouldn't they

"we welcome everyone here. I'm from the Bronx and you're from Riverside" what a fascinating definition of diversity (Newport, not Sandy. Sandy knows what's up)

"he called me white trash"

honey, you may be rich but you are pretty trashy

being trash has nothing to do with net worth and everything to do with attitude

"Ryan's gonna stay with us now" 😭

ok that's it for tonight but I was wrong. besides some atrocious fashion and period-typical homophobia, it's holding up pretty well

[triviareads]

ARC Review of Fair Rosaline by Natasha Solomons

Summary:

This is a twist on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet from Rosaline's point of view. Rosaline Capulet is on the precipice of being sent away to a nunnery for good, so she decides to take life by the reins while she can. In doing so, she meets Romeo and has a brief affair with him. But when Romeo's true colors are revealed and he turns his wandering eye on her cousin Juliet, Rosaline has no choice but to stop him.

Review:

So all the sex that takes place in this book is when Rosaline is under the age of 18— I thought this was worth putting out there right off the bat. This is also not a historical romance; it's closer to historical fiction, and really well-written historical fiction at that. The descriptions are lush and lyrical, and you really get a fuller sense of the Verona Shakespeare might have imagined (he was very taken with Italy as a setting, but never visited, according to Natasha's author's note).

I loved the characterization of Rosaline. Rosaline's mother has just died, and she's faced with being sent to a nunnery rather than being married off. For a relatively outspoken and forthright teenager (she's fifteen? or sixteen?), it's a difficult situation to accept, so her decision to take these twelve days before she's sent away and throw caution to the wind totally makes sense. I also really liked her relationship with Juliet as well as Tybalt. Natasha humanized both of them, and even if Rosaline/Tybalt as a concept was a little jarring to read, I was on their side.

What was a little more difficult to read was Romeo's characterization: He is written as a sexual predator. Like sure, he's smooth and charming in a way I never quite got into in Shakespeare's original work, but it did come across here (at first at least), but you read the way he behaves with Rosaline and it's textbook predatory behavior: the love bombing, the manipulations, plying her with alcohol before sex, "forbidding" her from seeing family, promising he'll marry her, etc.. I was shocked when Rosaline described him up close as having a few grey hairs, and I was like, how old is this man??

Romeo's sins don't end there either. His trifling with girls is actually a part of a wider, more horrific conspiracy. And Friar Laurence is involved 😬. By the end of the story, a lot of the events are carried out similarly to the original text, with Rosaline watching it all go down, but she's no longer a passive observer.

Overall:

I read Romeo and Juliet in 9th grade and didn't think much of it, but reading Fair Rosaline actually made me revise my stance on a lot of the actions characters in the book took. Now, I'm more inclined to give them some grace because they were teenagers. That too, teenagers facing some very grown-up decisions. Remember, Juliet was going to be betrothed to Count Paris, a much older man, in the original text. No wonder she took the leap with Romeo! Similarly in this book, Rosaline had just lost her mother, and was likely going to be sent to a nunnery for the rest of her life by her father. It actually makes sense she'd meet and sleep with a guy she just met because again, teenagers.

All that being said, it was.... definitely a Choice for Natasha to write Romeo a) as old as he was (we don't know how old he is in the original but he's definitely on the older end of the spectrum here) and b) turn a character that seems fuckboy-ish at worst in the original play into an absolute monster, one who knows exactly what he's doing. It's an interesting interpretation, because it turns a cautionary tale into one with an outright villain and his victims. I'm reserving my judgement on exactly what this sort of interpretation means in the broader context of Romeo and Juliet adaptations as a whole, but by itself, I can't deny it was a pretty great book.

Thank you to Sourcebooks Landmark and NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my review.

[biglisbonnews]

Jack Totally Could Have Lived at the End of 'Titanic' A quarter of a century after the film smashed box office records and cemented its place in cinema history, director James Cameron is finally putting an end to one of Hollywood's oldest debates: Could Jack have survived on that floating board with Rose at the end of Titanic?It's a question thats vexed moviegoers for years. In the film, Jack needlessly sacrificed himself for his lover in vain but few have actually put the plethora of armchair theories to the test in the real world until now. Celebrating the movie's 25th anniversary, Cameron is revisiting the climactic scene and applying the scientific method to figure out whether or not Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet's characters could have lived happily ever after.In the upcoming Titanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameron anniversary special, the director and two stunt doubles set out to test four different scenarios to see if there was any chance Jack could have survived. The first scenario involving Jack and Rose laying flat atop the door would have likely resulted into both of them succumbing to hypothermia with the added weight submerging their lower halves in freezing water. The second experiment sees the two faring slightly better with both fitting comfortably on the floating door, but Jack still ends up with dying after being exposed to the cold. “He could’ve made it pretty long, like hours” Cameron points out in a clip from the special. \u201c.@GMA FIRST LOOK: @natgeo special \u201cTitanic: 25 Years Later with James Cameron\u201d will settle the debate once and for all: could Jack have survived?\n\n@JimCameron\n@natgeotv\u201d — Good Morning America (@Good Morning America) 1675346597 If you factor in the fact that Jack and Rose would theoretically have had to swim a considerable distance away from the Titanic in order to fight against the massive ship's pull as it went under, exhaustion becomes a considerable concern when trying to determine their survivability. That being said, Cameron admits that there is a chance Rose could have stabilized Jack with her life jacket for long enough until a lifeboat eventually rescued them.“Jack might’ve lived, but there’s a lot of variables,” Cameron conceded. “I think his thought process was, ‘I’m not gonna do one thing that jeopardizes her.’”And while, this may come as vindication for many who angrily shouted that there was totally enough space on that door, its worth pointing out that Jack was always destined to die plot-wise. “Your hero had to die,” Billy Zane told People in a 2018 interview, explaining that the story wouldn't have been as impactful if he lived. “I don’t know what else would have done it. It had to happen.”Cameron echoed Zane's sentiment recently in an interview with the Toronto Sun. "It’s like Romeo and Juliet, right? … It’s a movie about love and sacrifice and mortality. So the love is measured by the sacrifice. Now maybe I didn’t do it in a way that everybody agrees with but Jack had to die. It’s that simple.”Photo courtesy of Getty/CBS https://www.papermag.com/james-cameron-titanic-ending-2659365289.html

[reliquiaen]

You get me. There were so many little nods to characters from the eastern tribes going to the west and being like... assimilated almost. With Fashav, and that girl who's name I forget who was part of Talanah's questline. Like clearly there is more to the Tanakth than just killing and murder and it would've been so interesting to explore more of how those separate cultures interact, how relations are between people over the long term when they're living in such close proximity. Fashav's death, also, was such a waste, I would've loved to see more of that bridge building with him as a mediator. There was so much potential for a follow-up side-quest later where he and Aloy exchange notes or something.

I did not watch almost anything in trailers and promos because I knew I was going to play it regardless and I wanted to go in as clean as possible (I think I deserve a medal, tbh, because the ONLY spoilers I got were from the dlc with Seyka). But yeah, I was expecting more to be made of Regalla (and Asera to a lesser extent) but it just wasn't there. And I can understand the devs not wanting to do another civil war main plot, but also, in comparison to what we got, I would've preferred that haha.

These games sure do be having a Romeo and Juliet timeline between first meeting and love. Like with Varl and Zo, then also Talanah and Amadis (timeline questionable here, I guess, does Talanah say they met ages ago or recently, I don't remember), and Aloy with Seyka right at the end. I understand wanting to show time passing or whatever they were trying to do, but yeah, I prefer when there's a little more time dedicated to building up a relationship. It would've been nice for Varl and Zo to be idk, flustered on first meeting and then every time we pop back to base we get some ambient dialogue showing their relationship progressing. Equally so with Seyka. I quite like her (might be developing a bit of a bias for the Quen characters, actually, oops), but I would've liked the time and space to spend with her before relationship. Which isn't to say I think there was NO build up, they were flirting basically right from the start, but the dlc was what? A week long, tops? My preference for slow-burns shining through there, I guess. Again, maybe it's a me thing, but I do like her for Aloy, I think there are some interesting parallels between their characters, they play off each other in a nice way, I just wanted more time to develop that relationship than the five mission long dlc. (I have more thoughts about their relationship, for what it's worth, but if it's a touchy subject like you say, I might just... keep them to myself lol.) And I am definitely with you on the pregnancy story arcs, another fear I have is some kind of shoe-horned thing where the child is Important For Reasons™ due to their parentage. It would've been cool to have a child raised with both Utaru and Nora traditions, but this kid will only have Utaru now. So...?

Yeah, the Zeniths did feel like a series of increasingly desperate rug pulls a lot of the time. Like yeah, they're the bad guys, but no they're not, but yes they are, but they're invincible, except if you're Sylens, so now they're all dead, except this one, but now he is too.

Maybe it's an indictment against myself, but I found the conflict between Drakka and Yarra pretty straightforward. He wanted the force a conflict so he could have power and he was leveraging whatever he could to do so, also his leadership qualities are questionable when his followers are doing whatever and he has no idea (if we believe him about the water pump). Whereas Yarra kept the water supply a secret so as not to start a panic but she was looking into an alternative. Was the secret a good idea? Maybe not, but her motives were totally understandable. I get that they didn't want this problem to be clear cut and Yarra isn't without her own flaws, but show me a Tanakth who isn't going to get a little violent to defend her power. Maybe that's the whole point, haha, that we're all going to have disagreements about this.

I read your comment about Talanah and Amadis and laughed. Absolute truths, right there, I was so annoyed about her questline that I'm choosing to believe it didn't happen. It amounted to nothing in terms of character development for her anyway, so no loss. Except maybe I lost a little bit of time by playing it.

Well I finished Horizon Forbidden West (dlc included) today. The quality of life improvements were very good, I have absolutely abused the bottomless storage space. Not sure how I feel about the story though. I have... issues with it.

[sips-tea-cutely]

You’ll love me at once, the way you did once upon a dream.

“I would rather die than let you go— Juliet to your Romeo. How I heard you say ‘I would never fall in love again until I found her. I said, I would never fall unless it's you I fall into’.”

osamu dazai, najimi osana, rantaro amami, xiao, kokichi oma

summary: love is a difficult term to define. they’ve never been good at expressing their love for others until they found you.

esp for: ME I DESERVE IT, @wagyuu-li, @actualvrolett, @mentally-ell, @sleepygamerotaku, @queen-of-wires, @th0tpimusprime, @chuuyas--boo & @lovelii-ann

#Osamu Dazai

homies, this is osamu dazai, did we expect him NOT to love touching his partner 😧😧

not in that way aha. he loves to walk around yokohama and keep an arm around your waist, let you rest your head on his shoulder while his head lays on yours

would lowkey be into having your head on his chest??? hear his heart beat beat for you s/o~ (=^▽^)σ

ALSO would love to sleep with his head on your chest. 1. (MAN)BOOBS 2. wants to make sure you wont abandon him in the middle of the night </33

SO INTO patting ur head. maybe like you’re scrolling on tiktok, head beside his lap and he’ll pat you once in a while <3

must be holding you in one way or another. he’ll be holding your hand, resting on your shoulder or dragging your leg as kunikida pulls him away, MUST BE HOLDING YOU

super loves to hold you and sometimes likes to be held back

still tho he’s more into being coddled with words hehe~

LOVES when you brush his hair at night say how much you love him, it makes him feel so lovesick

would actually propose/hj if you said you loved him in morse code (ranpo understands and is so sick of it)

might actually sob if you say something like “odasaku is so proud of you for helping others” he loves u so much bro i dont think its a joke anymore…

sometimes he has days where he doesn’t even know who he is or what he looks like, please reassure his humanity, hes so unsure of his existence

lowkey loves when you stay in bed with him on his depression days and just admire him, he thinks its a little narcissistic of himself tho but being adorned by you like a treasure is great so lol who cares its you (๑˃̵ᴗ˂̵)

sometimes dazai thinks that life isnt worth living but then again, he has you waiting in bed for him right now so, how bad can it really be? <3

#Xiao

as we all know, xiao is one of— if not is the most loyal character in genshin. so what would we expect less for him to love acts of service?

just like with aether/lumine, just call out his name and he’ll be there for you!

reluctantly, he’d willing to walk around liyue harbor with you for dates and such (even if he doesnt really like being around others)

he isn’t really the MOST affectionate of the bunch since he often worries of his karmic debt hurting your friends, the traveler or morax forbid, you.

so instead, he asks you everyday, around 7:00 if you have anything you’ve been meaning to do. and after checking the gates around the harbor and wangshū, he’d get them done for you to lighten your load <333 (there was a time where you needed to deliver a parcel to granny at qince village and she called him a wonderful boyfriend to u, it was so cute HASJSJ)

during the osial situation, despite knowing how strong you are, he still told you to get out of the town or to at least stay near wangsheng so that zhongli could watch you, plz listen to him, he’s sorta worried </33

even after meeting you, and doing these for you, he’d still be secretly concerned that you feel forced to love him so please do express your love to him

which brings us to~… words of affirmation <33

he’s been so lonely for centuries on end and you’re his first relationship so he’d be like putty in your hands the moment you compliment him on ANYTHING

when i say anything, i mean it. even just saying that his eyes are pretty would make him hide under his yaksha mask <333

he always hyperventilates a little when you compliment him, hes only been so used to loneliness and besides that, zhongli has only occasionally thanked xiao but even then, it didn’t matter because you are the one he truly loves

WOULD ALSO LOWKEY BE INTO RECEIVING GIFTS

xiao honestly can’t remember the last time he was given a gift so even just receiving a lil glaze lily from an expedition w/ qiqi would make his heart pound!

fuck, hes so head over heels for you be careful w this power babe

#Rantaro Amami

ACTS OF SERVICE‼️‼️‼️‼️

he loves to help you with just about anything!! did angie ask for help to do something bizzare? rantaro’s on his way to stop a blood sacrifice!! kokichi being annoying? cmon lets go to the rooftop and when we get there push him off <3!!

hes honestly so used to being asked for help or doing something, he’d be a little uncomfortable just relaxing??

lowkey has to have something in his hand (GET HIM A FIDGET TOY) like he could be walking around and woops hes in your dorm with a slice of glazed cake

tbh would like to hangout in your research lab and play with the trinkets you left around

also kind of into physical touch?? he likes to hold ur hand

he loves to hold it close to his cheeks while resting in his dorm 😭😭💖💖

ALSO INTO WORDS OF AFFIRMATION

please reassure him that hes a good s/o and brother hes SO insecure i cant make any jokes abt it

loves to just hear you say “im happy im with you, rantaro. you’re so kind” PROPOSES??? HOLDS??? 😧😧😧💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖💖

honestly into PDA but would wanna keep it in private to make them more special

sometimes when he sees like say kiibo’s hand very very unintentionally (he really didn’t mean it omg) brush your chest, he’d laugh it off sureee but then starts thinking you’d probably be happier with kiibo?? its his older brother mindset ugh

speaking of big brother, he also is quite responsible for his age so he’d LOVE quality time with you— exploring the school, maybe cleaning up the library, makes him realize how fun it always is to be with you

honestly just loves you too much for his own good ugh this lovesick bastard 💖💖🎉🎉

#Najimi Osana

LOVES giving gifts

often gives you little snacks they got from the vending machine in between classes (made sure its’ your favorite too! <33)

if you’re someone who doesn’t have lots of money to spare on yourself, they’d definitely try their best to get you to things you want!!

well uh— they wouldn’t exactly get it themselves BUT would use their social connections to get it for you

still never expects you to give them anything besides your love! ofc tho, if it makes you uncomfortable, they’d immediately stop or at least restrain themself from giving you every pretty leaf they found in the park </333

almost anything they find is given to you!

the cat keychain they won at the arcade with komi and tadano? it’s on your bag now! the shiny rock that they found on the field? sitting on your desk! the homework they forgot to finish? being held down by the pretty rock ehehe

don’t worry, tadano lightheadedly scolds najimi. they agreed but only if you stay with them!

speaking of which, they also love spending time with you!! <333

always invites you over to do homework together or just to talk

najimi is,,, extroverted (to say the least) so, it’d be great to just watch TV with you and cuddle on their bed <33

no matter how long you’ve known each other, they’ll always feel butterflies when you remembered something they’ve said, even if it’s something small like wanting to go to a ramen shop!! 🫣🫣

LOVES when you setup dates to places like a festival or even just volunteering to pay for najimi’s snack

no matter how busy, will ALWAYS look for you the moment class ends that even the teacher is asking them to come back (to which they reluctantly drag their feet back to their desk </333)

lowkey might think you’re annoyed when they cling to you, please reassure them </3333

#Kokichi Ouma

LOVES QUALITY TIME

he’d always ask force you to join him in his lil antics which gets you both in trouble with kirumi, aha… TURN OUT YOU WERE HIS SCAPEGOAT AAH RUNNNN

WOULD ALSO PRANK YOU DONT THINK YOURE SAFE!! dw tho, theyre not that bad~… if you like having ketchup thrown at you nishishi <3

mightve made you join DICE??? woopsies now you’re promoted to second in command without even knowing (yes he’d pull the “do you want them dead? just one phone call and theyre dead” more than once)

tbh he probably spent all that time with you because of cough cough his plan 😨😨. he knew that he wouldnt be able to see you again so he wanted to spend as much time with you as possible :(

trys to ignore it since— hes with you right now! no good to be thinking such gloomy thoughts!! </33

tbh the only thing making him go through with this plan was that you, shuichi, himiko, maki, kiibo and tsumugi were gonna be free from the killing game screams 🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️🧎‍♀️

absolutely idc im going with the hid in closets cause of mommy issues story, HE WANTS YOU TO TOUCH HIM???? (not in a sex way tho plz this is fluff)

like ok its kind of confusing, he wants your affection but hes also scared of it and being vulnerable and stuff 💔💔

LIVES for your touch, his fav is when you stroke his cheek & pat his head but dont tell him i said that 🏃🏃🏃🏃

sneaks into your dorm to cuddle you he probably got in trouble with the student council at one point

MUST sit next to him or else tears will be shed. (kaito is offering a seat please shut him up/lh)

he wants to stay by your side 24/7 and uses the killing game as an excuse 😭😭 he’d start thinking like “man what if i get too annoying and they get bored… NAH lol what was i thinking thats so stupid!!!” (he does the denying his own thoughts thing)

please tell him you’ll never get sick of himself, i feel like he’d space out if you didn’t (in a /nm im just lonely way)

[absolutebl]

I'm in quarantine rn and my credit card isn't here yet so I can't get gaga/viki. What are your favorite bls on YouTube that came out like this year or near the end of last year. Or in general a favorites by platform would be interesting too if you don't have one already 👀

Gotcha covered. Not sure on your particular taste so I popped the mini reviews in too. 

Best 2022 BLs Available to watch for Free (with ads)

Gonna do just 2022 because I have that post in progress, and I can just pull from it. And also SO MANY happening this year. Gonna suggest completed series ONLY, so as of mid May 2022.  

Semantic Error - (Korea Feb Viki*) 10/10

Main Tropes: opposites attract, enemies to lovers, bully romance, sunshine/tsundere, teasing & pranks

This is my favorite BL of 2022. Korea hits it entirely out of both Parks (pun on the actors’ last names intended) by doing a university set BL with everything we might expect done exactly right, their signature quality executed perfectly, and added bonus good story, great pacing, yaoi style filming, and fantastic chemistry. You cannot ask for more from a BL, let alone a KBL. Full review here.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED 

* (I believe it is now free with adds to many countries, some of my other favorites might also be free on Viki but I don’t check which ones are free, because i have a sub. In general, I suggest Korean BL on Viki and watching whatever you can.)

Bad Buddy - (Thailand, Nov-Jan on YouTube) 9/10

Main Tropes: secret lovers, Romeo & Romeo, sunshine/tsundere, enemies-to-friends-to-lovers, GL side plot

GMMTV’s flagship BL started 2022 on a BANG (okay no actual banging but you know what I mean), starring heavy hitters Ohm & Nanon in a pitch perfect university Romeo & Juliet masterpiece that will give you domesticity meets pain whiplash throughout and jet lag at the end. Great production values, killer acting, and some conscious effort to correct for half a decade of Thai BL’s anti-queer mistakes. GMMTV, we forgive you. More. Live blog of this one is here. Full review here.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Not Me - (Thailand Jan-March YouTube) 9/10  

Main Tropes: enemies to lovers, secret identity, identical twins, goodboy/bad boy

GMMTV gave us a dark disestablishment narrative (in a time of civil unrest) with established queer award-winning director Anucha and starring OffGun. THIS IS AN AMAZING THING to get to experience in the BL world - nerve racking but remarkable. But was it ACTUALLY BL? Not Me had a lot of BL elements, but in the end that’s not what the show was about, or even what it was genuinely trying to be. Still an amazing piece of Thai cinema certainly worth your time. Don’t worry, it all ends happily. Full review here. OffGun Eulogy here.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

Cutie Pie (Thailand Feb-May on YouTube) 8/10

Main Tropes: arranged marriage, age gap, secret identity, cohabitation, rich kid problems, he’s in engineering

Very high production and a lot of visual references to live action yaoi gave this show a whiff of Japan but ultimately it stayed firmly in Thailand’s BL camp veering from absurd to appealing to annoying and then back to absurd again. If you can roll with the arranged marriage conceit and very lifestyle D/s relationships, the chemistry is spot on even if the plot is naff and sappy and driven by miscommunication. Watch this one for the pretty, give it a pass on depth. Full review here.

RECOMMENDED

Mr Cinderella (Vietnam Jan YouTube) - 8/10

Main Tropes: forced proximity, cohabitation, childhood sweethearts, opposites attract, good boy/bad boy, domesticity

Higher than normal production values plus experienced BL actors plus two charismatic smoldering leads with good kissing and comfortable body language make this Vietnam’s objectively best BL to date. Plus we got a fabulously (and quintessentially Vietnamese) domestic ending. Full review here.

RECOMMENDED

Love Stage (Thailand, Feb-March YouTube) 8/10

Main Tropes: childhood crush, sunshine/tsundere, unrequited love, secret identity

This BL surprised me with its charm. The acting was good, the leads were appealing, support cast on point, and the production values high. It followed the original manga story arc relatively closely: boy falls in love with girl as a child, grows up to discover girl is actually a very pretty boy. Although there are some quintessentially Thai changes that mellowed, softened, and extended the romance arc. One of the things I’ve always appreciated about this story is that the climax is about coming out as a celebrity couple as well as gay. I like the examination of the nature of celebrity versus privacy, and the contrasting kinds of closets. And I love that they depicted two couples with two different versions of this choice. A solid and enjoyable show. Full review here.

RECOMMENDED

Enchanté (Thailand, Jan-March YouTube) 7/10

Main Tropes: childhood sweethearts, sunshine/tsundere, secret admirer with a touch of Cyrano de Bergerac and dose of Boys Over Flowers.

Theo returns from France and starts a written flirtation inside a library book (!) at his new uni with the mysterious Enchante. When he and his best friend Akk hunt for Enchante’s real identity, 4 senior boys step forward - all intersted in dating Theo, all with ulterior motives. Can’t fault the chemistry or the classic old school Thai uni BL and Akk (Force) was particularly sympathetic. But the twist over Enchantie’s identity felt disingenuous, manipulative, and unnecessary and the whole narrative was flawed as a result, Theo became unlikeable and irredeemable. GMMTV seems to specialize in squandering great chemistry on shoddy scripts. Honestly it probubly should get an 8/10 by my rating system but I was so disappointed I’m gave it a 7/10 and did not bother to write a full review. Live blog ep-by-ep recap here.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS

Secret Crush on You (Thailand Feb-May YouTube) 7/10

Main Tropes: stalking, obsession, hottest guy on campus, multiple couples, queer affirming

Previously known as Stalker the series, and you can TELL. Co-produced by and featuring (but NOT staring) Saint and directed by Cheewin (sigh) with all fresh faces it was pure pulp and... I hated the plot. In fact I was ALL OVER THE PLACE with this show. SCOY drove me nuts and made me bush but had flashes of unparalleled genius. It had a ton of things I really did not like (e.g. the humor was crass and awkward, and the whole stalker thing was extremely CRINGE). It also had things that really worked: (e.g. representation of multiple different kinds of queerness, about which it very Taiwanese - in that there was no doubt that the characters really did want to bone). It was the opposite of sanitized gay. Honestly, if you can make it through the first half, and survive the never ending cringe-factor that IS this show, the second half is entirely unique - content we’ve never seen before in BL. Full review here. 

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS, but not the usual ones.

Rainbow Prince (The Philippines Jan-Feb-March YouTube) - 6/10

Main Tropes: disney princess, opposites attract, sunshine/tsundere

This long form MUSICAL BL is fucking LEGEND. Also it’s profoundly not good. The acting is absolutely terrible but that’s not the point, the point is that it’s a cheesy af fairy story. Possibly the gayest BL to ever BL and certainly the most camp and very Disney. Watch it of that’s your thing, otherwise hard pass. (Full review here.)

RECOMMENDED ONLY IF YOU ALSO LIKE DISNEY SHIT

I hope these help and let me know if you tray and like any of them!

[roger-that-cap]

what a lovely dream it is

english major!wanda x english major!fem!reader

summary: who would have thought that wanda, the self proclaimed queen of reading science fiction, would be just as obsessed with shakespeare as you? 

warnings: one use of the word “su*cide”. shakespeare. nerds quoting lines. bad writing. (i challenged myself into writing this in an hour and a half). cringey writing (there is a difference)

word count: 4k!

You and Wanda connected at first because you two spoke the same language from different regions. It felt like she spoke British English, and you spoke American English. You were on the same wavelength but not exactly the same individual wave, but it was as close as you had ever gotten with someone who you deemed worth your time. 

While everyone else was partying or drinking until they threw up or flaunting around bags with white powder in them, you sat with your back to the wall after studying, reading a classic, knowing that the change of her leaning against the same wall and doing the exact same thing you were was high. 

You met her in the library, on your third day at your university. You were trying to find your group of authors, your little nook where you would feel the safest in the entire school. You had stumbled right into the fantasy section, looked around for a second, and then tripped over a brown boot that was just at the start of the science fiction shelf. 

“I’m so sorry,” a woman’s voice murmured, and you just shook your head and said that it was okay, much more interested in the way that your hands suffered from the fall on the carpet than the girl. Until you looked up. 

It was everything about her that stunned you. The brown hair, the flush of her cheeks, the apologetic look in her pale blue eyes that caressed her features to sit in one beautiful and genuine expression. The moment your eyes landed on her, you swore that your heart stopped and started in the same second, and then took a run for it with all of the parts of your brain that you needed to make a coherent thought. 

 You promised yourself in that moment that you would never forget the way the woman in front of you looked. And despite seeing hundreds of more faces throughout your self-tour, you never truly did forget it. If you didn’t know any better, if you were perhaps any younger and less exposed to the cruelty of the world and fate and its way of not giving you what you wanted, you would have been certain that the universe had finally given you the contemporary meet cute that you yearned for. 

But then, you saw which aisle she was in. You looked at the books and recognized the authors just to be sure, and then you turned to look at her. “You’re into science fiction?” 

 Her apologetic look fell completely into a look of pure surprise, and then excitement, almost as if she thought that she found someone else who liked the genre she did. “Well, it’s the best genre that was ever written.” 

  “Wow, how wrong,” you found yourself saying, and somehow, you knew that the look of offense on her face was all for fun. “It’s definitely gothic literature.” The look she gave you was one that you would never forget. 

  A week later, you ran into her in the cafeteria, holding a copy of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, your beat up one from home that you would put your life on the line for. The cover was torn up a bit and the pages were dog eared, from a time where you hadn’t discovered the way that bookmarks changed lives. It was the copy your cousin got you, and it was your favorite gift to date. 

  She was holding The Martian Chronicles. You nearly gagged. 

At first, you thought she hadn’t seen you, or hadn’t recognized you, which was even worse. You sighed under your breath and said, “at least it’s not Nineteen Eighty Four,” and watched in complete horror as she turned around. 

She locked eyes with you immediately, and her own eyes widened when she saw you, and then she grinned when she undoubtedly recognized you and your disdain for science fiction. “No, it’s even better than Nineteen Eighty Four.” 

“Anything is better than that,” you said, swallowing down your nerves at speaking to the girl again, kicking yourself for being so nervous despite not even knowing her name. 

She gave you that same “offended” look she gave you during your first interaction, and you cracked a small smile. “Um, don’t you voluntarily go into the gothic section?” 

The smile dropped. “The most valid section in the library? Sure do.” 

She smiled too, a genuine grin as she took a step forward and extended her hand. For a second, you just looked at it, the calmness that came with the discussion of literature suddenly washed away so far back into your mind that you panicked for a moment, not reaching for her hand until you saw it shake in just the slightest, like she was regretting even doing it. 

You nearly bumped your elbow on the table trying to stand up and shake her hand. Your hands connected and you grinned so wide it felt like your face had split open. You told her your name and she repeated it to make sure she had heard you loud and clear, and then, she smiled even brighter. 

“Nice to meet you, Dracula. I’m Wanda.” And that was where it started. 

As your library meetups started to become more intentional than not, you learned that not only was Wanda a student that stayed in the dorms, but the student who was next door to you. You learned that she pretty much kept to herself for the most part besides a few other people at the university, and that she kept a small circle. You learned that her favorite book was Brave New World. You learned that she would rather shy away from classic romance novels, even though you didn’t mind them, and that she hated gothic literature. You loved it. Your favorite book was The Picture of Dorian Gray, for god's sake. So, you hated each other’s favorite genres. 

  But you both loved symbolism. And you were both English majors. And for some very odd, very coincidental reason, you both met in what was nowhere near the middle- Shakespearean plays. 

  Now, that was something that you were always made fun of for as a child. No one wanted to hang out with the girl who quoted Shakespeare, especially if it wasn’t even from Romeo and Juliet. Reading normal books just made you look “smart”, but you knew that genuinely enjoying plays would make you look pretentious. So you had always kept it to yourself when you left your hometown. Until Wanda came along. 

Wanda came along, and suddenly, you found yourself quoting tragedies and getting the correct response back. Sometimes, she would even start it first. You would do nerdy things like halfway reenact scenes because even you guys weren’t that nerdy… you supposed. 

One morning, you and Wanda were in a study group (that was hardly productive because it was just Wanda’s little circle that was actually astoundingly close), and she looked over your shoulder to see your computer, where you were hardly typing an essay about the importance of the establishment of places for higher education. She put her chin against your shoulder, sat there for a minute, and then turned her head to whisper in your ear, “nothing will come of nothing.” It was embarrassing, the way your eyes lit up at hearing her voice, and even more so when Natasha, Wanda’s extremely perceptive friend, picked up on what you were feeling. The red head shot you the widest grin ever known to man. 

“C’mere, Frankenstein,” Wanda said one night, already looking over at you while you tried to finish your work for the day.

You held back the smile on your face as you sat on your bed, one leg over it while you typed. “I’m right here.” 

“No, here,” she emphasized, and then she was patting the spot on the small couch in your room, the same look in her eyes that always came with when she asked for any kind of physical contact. 

  That was by far the worst thing about Wanda, and it hardly had anything to do with her. She was touch starved, and touch was your love language. Her asking you to hold her on the couch used to mean nothing to you, because at one point, you just thought she was pretty. But now, holding her hand on top of the table while you both were submerged in your respective worlds felt like a promise ring. Letting her rest her head on your shoulder and in your neck felt like giving your vulnerability over to her, and feeling her hand rub against your back felt like she was taking it and guarding it. But you knew she didn’t feel the same way, not at all. 

She was straight. 

But it did you no good when she quoted back some of your favorite lines. It didn’t help when she said all of the romantic lines towards you at the drop of a hat, almost like she didn’t even realize what she was saying. She didn’t understand the way your heart died and was revived every time she said something like that, something that was so dear and vulnerable to you. And she certainly never would, because you would never tell her. 

Now that you thought about it, allowing yourself to fall for her was the dumbest and most destructive thing you could have ever done. The first bookworm who didn’t make fun of you for your knowledge and love of old plays was the one that took hold of your heart, and now you were paying for being such an idiot. Now you would have to sit through three more years of school with her being your friend, just your friend, while you pined over her. It was going to be hell.  

And was it. You had to sit through her saying the most romantic of Shakespearean quotes every day and act like she wasn’t making your heart shake. You had to listen to her speaking the language that you two shared and pretend that you just wanted to be her friend. You were so attached to her and everything that you two had established together, and you couldn’t ruin it by giving her googly eyes. She was way too important for that. Because now, she was way more than a person who you could talk to about old plays. She was the person that you could talk to about anything, without a doubt. Anything but the intense crush that you were harboring for her, and the way that she made your heart sing and your soul ascend whenever you smelled her perfume or saw her smile. Anything but that. 

§§

 “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” You looked up from your book only to see Wanda looking over at you, lying down on the blanket and just watching you. You swore later on when you were alone that you imagined it, but for a moment you could have sworn that you saw a flash of adoration in her eyes. “Thou art more lovely and more temperate.” 

You were choking on the inside. Your face was blank, but your mind was going haywire, and you couldn't think of anhytnign besides holding back the urge to say something that you had no chance of taking back. “You’re in a sonnet mood today, aren’t you?” 

“And what mood are you in today, Jekyll?” 

“I’m in the mood to finish this book,” you teased, and she rolled her eyes. 

“What if I’m in the mood to sit and watch a movie?” 

“Then you should do it,” you said, going the way your heart clenched at the thought of her cutting your friendly outing short. “I’ll follow you in an hour or two.”

She gave you a look. “You know I don’t go anywhere without you.”  

“You can go watch a movie, Wands.” You sighed out, closing your book and wedging your pointer finger between the pages so that you wouldn't get lost. 

 “I’ll wait,” she said, and you shook your head at her. 

“I don’t want to hold you back from getting in time with your favorite sci fi movies.”

“Can I go forward when my heart is here?”  

You were hit with such a wave of longing that you had to shut your eyes for a moment, but it looked like it was simply a long blink. “You’re so cheesy.” 

“I want to hear one,” Wanda said, leaning on her elbows as she stared up at you, and your heart pounded. She looked celestial, glowing under the sunlight with growing grass around her and a sweet smile budding on her face. “You never quote any back to me anymore, you know?” 

You knew, for sure. It was on purpose that you didn’t quote back. If you were to continue the conversation in romantic quotes, it was going to feel way too real to you. You could handle Wanda and her touches, but you were not going to be able to handle quoting Romeo and Juliet to her. “I’m sorry,” you mumbled softly, and then you heard her make a sound with her tongue, a displeased clicking noise.

  You looked up at her and lost your breath again, and your mental footing. There she was, looking up at you with her pretty eyes, giving you a look more intense than she had ever given you before. She was… it was almost like she was waiting for something, like she knew something. She was staring up at you and leaning on her hand in a way that was so oddly domestic in your mind, and you could almost see in your mind the way that she would do that if you woke up in the same bed, like she was waiting for you to wake up and trying to memorize your face. It made you warm on the inside, and just like she always managed to do, your brain turned to mush. 

“Conscience doth make cowards of us all,” you blurt, and you saw her brows pull in for a second. You blinked. 

  “Huh?” 

You were panicking on the inside. There were plenty of ways that she could have taken the quote that you had chosen, but you knew exactly what it sounded like. A half assed love confession. “You know, from Hamlet,” 

“Of course I know it’s from Hamlet, Jekyll.” She shook her head at you and sat up, crossing her legs without breaking eye contact. “But why that quote? You know so many, and you chose the one about death.” 

Unfortunately, it’s death by silence in this context, not by swords. “You said you wanted to hear a line,” you said, shrugging as you opened your book, trying to get rid of the embarrassment that you knew would stick to you for hours and hours. 

 “What a line,” she said, and then she rolled over to look up at the sky. Minutes later, you heard her sigh. “What a line.” 

§§

Romeo + Juliet was a classic for your movie night. At first, Wanda showed it to you after you boycotted it for years, despite your male celebrity crush being one of the main characters in it. You had always avoided watching because of the modernism, but one Wanda made you sit down and watch it, you actually found good things about it. For instance, the party scene. 

  “It was done wonderfully,” Wanda would always say from beside you after your extremely predictable comment of the scene being a masterpiece. 

Like always, there were a few moments of silence as you two watched the movie together, shoulder to shoulder on the small couch in your dorm while your roommate was off getting high. You watched the rest of it in near silence, halfway focused on the movie while the other part of your mind was split in two; feeling blessed that Wanda was even there with you, soclose, and feeling cursed that she was so close but so far. It was the perfect moment to hold her close like you wanted to so badly, but the timing wasn’t right. And that killed you. 

“Do you ever think about how they fell in love so fast?” Wanda asked, and you shrugged your shoulders. “I’d say that they were encroaching on soulmate territory.” 

“Soulmates, or foolish teenagers?” 

“I hardly know of any teenagers who would die for each other, even if they thought they were in love,” Wanda pointed out, and you rolled your eyes at her. “Don’t give me that face. I’m right, and you know it.” 

“I’ll always let you believe it, sci fi.” 

“But, really, don’t you ever want something like that?” 

You turned your face from the screen and looked at her incredulously, like she had gone mad while completing the process of growing three heads. “A suicide pact?” 

She groaned and threw her head back. “No. A love like that. Take away the death and violence, and look at what they had.” 

“It bloomed too quickly to have much potential later in life,” you countered. “That was infatuation, and that never lasts long.”

“You think that they both died for infatuation?”

“I think that they were young, and it’s hard to tell the difference between love and infatuation at any age, let alone as a teenager. I think they thought they loved each other to the ends of the earth, but I guess they’ll never know.” 

“You’re so cynical. Just like a person whose favorite is gothic literature.” You laughed, leaning forward towards her without even noticing what you were doing. “Do you believe in love?” 

“Of course I do,” you answered, giving her a look. “I’m just saying, Romeo and Juliet were not in true love. They were confused.” 

Then, the playful air that the conversation was flowing on changed so quickly that you nearly got whiplash and your heart started racing. The way Wanda was looking at you sent a chill down your spine, and in that moment, you were worried. “Are you confused?” 

You took in a breath. “About what?” 

“About anything,” she said slowly, almost like she felt like she was walking on thin ice with skates on. “Books, people, love, food, sexuality,” she ignored the way that you choked, “writing a paper, how to get  a strike in bowling. Or how to realize that Romeo and Juliet were definitely in love.” 

“You’re so intent on proving that they were to me,” you said, a laugh bubbling over and into your words. “Why are you suddenly so passionate about them now?” 

“The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.” 

Your heart jumped out of your chest again, and your hands clenched into weak  fists as you tried to will yourself into not assuming that she was talking about you. And then, white hot panic struck you at the thought of her being in love with someone else. “Speak low if you speak of love.” 

“Why should I?” Wands asked, shifting from her position on the couch to put a hand under her chin and watch you, her kind eyes afire with something that you had yet to see in them yet. “Really, Jekyll. Why?”

You hardly waited a full second before responding as truthfully as you ever would. “I’m afraid.” Before she could get a word in, you shook your head and finally loosened your lips, letting all of your worries and fears slide right through your teeth. “I’m afraid that I’ve fallen in love with someone who can never love me back. I’m scared to admit that I’ve been in love with you for a long time.  I’m afraid that you aren’t into girls.” You saw her make a face, almost like she couldn't believe that you were even suggesting the things that you were. “I don’t quote Shakespeare to you anymore because it feels too real to have you say lines like that back to me. I think that I’ve latched onto you without even meaning to, and now I don’t know if I can ever let you go.” 

Wanda was silent. She was watching you, as quietly as the sun hovered over the earth while she shone her light. Your heart had never beat so fast before as you watched her watch you with a face so blank that you were sure that she hadn’t retained a damn thing that you pulled from the depths of your heart. Then, the daunting thought that she had heard and understood everything but chose not to act swallowed you whole, and your hands started to shake. You gave a humorless laugh and finally looked away from the woman who had raised your spirits and crushed them all within five minutes. “I’m sorry. I’ve ruined everything, haven’t I?” 

“I’m so sorry.” You repeated, shaking your head and closing your eyes for a second as hot tears burned in them. When they opened, a fat tear sappetered onto your hand. I’m such an idiot. You looked to the screen, and then saw Romeo screaming, on the ground, and you could hear the words even though your ears were rushing with blood. I defy you, stars. “You don't have to say anything back, I know you don’t feel the same.” Your eyes pulled away from the screen. “I can leave- wait, um, this is my dorm. I-” 

“Doubt thou the stars are fire,” Wanda started slowly, and your brows furrowed as you heard the words fall from her lips. Fuck. You knew what this ended with, and still, you couldn’t wrap your head around it. “Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, but never doubt I love.”

Your eyes were wide by the end of it, watery and fixed on her. “W-what?” 

“How could you not have known?” Wanda asked softly, and you but your lip to stop from bursting into tears. 

“I thought you were straight!” You accused, and to your surprise, she laughed. 

“No, sweetheart.” Your heart stuttered. “I’m not.” 

Your breathing was still slightly heavy as you tried to get a  grip on everything that was happening. “You… you feel the same way?” 

“Of course I do, Jekyll.” She said, and you found yourself falling for her expressive eyes all over again as she stared up at you.  You reached your hand out experimentally, like she did the second time you ever met, and you waited that torturous moment for her to take your hand in a way that was much different than all the other times you shared a touch. This touch was the moment of truth.

She took your hand, kissed your knuckles, and put your palm on her cheek. 

“The very instant that I saw you, did my heart fly to your service.” 

“This can’t be anything but a dream,” you murmured, feeling her cheek in your hand and the way they were warm and flushed. The softness was bringing you in and out of your head, and every time you went back to reality, you were thrusted into a little sliver of paradise. 

“Well, what a lovely dream it is, then.” Her lips found yours. The movie played on, the clock kept its incessant ticking, and your leg was starting to tingle from sitting on it in the same position for so long. But to you, time absolutely stopped. And as long as a particular science fiction nerd was in front of you, nothing that ticked or clicked or buzzed was ever going to matter. 

*******

i said i wasn’t going to post this, but i did it anyway!! hope you guys enjoyed this fic!! it was a lot of fun to write but it also made me mad nervous LMAO let’s hope this wasn’t absolute dogshit

@teenwonder i know you said you wanted a tag on my stuff so here it is, love!! 💕💕

[willnotacceptalifeundeserved]

3 Ships: I - this is gonna take a while. Luz and Amity from The Owl House because they honestly give me so much serotonin. I know they get flack for people calling them boring or uninteresting, just because they're a healthy normal teenage relationship that doesn't experience world ending problems, but for me this makes them one of the best ships I've ever seen simply because at no point am I being forced to care about it. There is no manufactured dramatic situation or love triangle or romeo and juliet esque situation that's keeping them apart. Although the online discourse around The Owl House frames the show around its representation, I feel this ignores the reason the representation is so great in the first place: because it's not a big deal within the actual show. Luz's storyline would go exactly the same if she was dating a guy, especially as she's bi and would probably still come out to her mum. And no other character registers the couple as a surprise when it happens. By the time these dorks confess their feelings, everyone else can pretty much see it coming from a mile away, but there's no sense of this being the "grand wlw romance" that defines the show or whatever. They just exist in their own peaceful world, they have their fights and differences, but they come together and are always ready to listen to each other's problems. I guess I love that they almost perfectly represent what it is like to compromise in a relationship. I don't mean compromise morals, or anything like that, I mean getting to a point where you accept that the other person will have their flaws and it's ok for them not to be perfect. In season one Luz would like to be friends with Amity, but it is very quickly shown by the writers that for this to work Luz needs to stop idolising Amity as someone out of a fairytale and start connecting with her on a human level. And Luz does, getting out of her own head and seeing that Amity's just a girl that's dealing with her own problems, but has some of her same interests. And so they bond. In season two, it's even more touching, for me anyway. Luz is going through a bit of a depression arc (it kind of reminds me of a kid friendly version of Buffy's arc from seasons 5/6 actually) and Amity just accepts it. Accepts Luz's apology for always bottling up her problems, accepts that Luz is working on this, accepts that they will have challenges ahead in the relationship because of it. But most of all she accepts all of these issues because to her it's all worth it to date Luz. Although their romance is indeed adorably sweet and on first glance they seem unrealistic, when you take a closer look they're actually a really beautiful example of accepting one another, flaws and all, because they're both willing to wait for the other to work on themselves in the long term. Luz accepts that Amity needs some time to break her meaner tendencies. Amity accepts that Luz needs some time to feel comfortable sharing her pain. And you actually see this growth throughout the whole show. There's a very telling moment where after months of blaming herself for a variety of problems and keeping very much closed off, something good happens in Luz's life and she comes to a better understanding of herself. And the next time she sees Amity, she actively "asks" for love for the first time in months, i.e. holds out her hand for Amity to take it so they can share a moment. I love how the literal second she experiences growth as a person, she is shown feeling more secure in her romantic relationship, and the same is true for Amity. The second Amity has a character defining moment of standing up for herself, she is shown going to Luz and instantly being more comfortable and open around her. This was extremely long but I just need to stress how this couple is so much more than just revolutionary wlw rep to me. It's about the long term work that goes into actually being a couple, always showing care and consideration for the other but never sacrificing too much of your own mental health to do so.

Ok I'll keep this second ship shorter: Willow and Tara. I've written so much about them it's insane, so I think it'd be fair to save that for its own post or my youtube channel. Suffice to say they put me through all sorts of emotions the first time watching Btvs and have become ingrained in my brain and heart forever.

And third, probably Shizuku and Seiji from Whisper of the heart. They only appear in this one film, but the impact they had on me lasted forever. The story of two artists stuck with an imagination block that manage to inspire each other no matter if they're near each other or long distance is beautiful to me. I never expected to root this hard or connect this deeply to a couple that in mundane matters is nothing like what I will ever experience, but I just felt like I was Shizuku, crying on the porch because she couldn't finish her story. Exceptional film.

Honorary mention to Vi and Caitlyn from Arcane. I know they're not canon yet, but at this point if they weren't it would just be bad writing, and I can believe that the writers are intending to make them a couple since there's no way to read their scenes in Caitlyn's house as anything other than romantic, and in the show it's only been a couple days they've known each other so I understand why it's not confirmed in canon yet. But they have amazing build up and chemistry, coming from opposite ends of the class spectrum and constantly being forced to confront their own biases, and I can't wait to see where they go in season 2.

First ever ship: Being 6-7-8 years old and watching Adventures in Moominvalley (the 90s version, my dad had it all saved on a usb stick) I of course shipped Moomin and Snufkin because the longing all winter? The harmonica being a symbol at the end? "I might not come back to Moominvalley" vs "I knew you'd come back!"? Snufkin using the storm as a metaphor and Moomin being the only one to understand? And Snufkin knew he would understand? Hello? How could I not ship it? My child heart was absolutely broken and I didn't even fully know why because nothing especially tragic happens within the story, but the whole situation is somehow wrapped in tragedy anway. Knowing now that it's a relationship, although written to be much healthier, which was based off of Tove Jansson's ex who she was deeply in love with but who kept disappearing for travel reasons makes so much sense now. Moomin and Snufkin encapsulate longing, and to top it off they're insanely likeable characters on their own. I rewatch Moominvalley episodes whenever I feel down and feel like I'm 8 years old again. Truly a beautiful world that Jansson created.

Last song: Little Dark Age (MGMT). I love the vibe of the song specifically and who knows, I might even edit with it one day. I like when songs transport me to a different emotional state entirely (happens a lot with music). Last movie: Talk to me, the Australian horror film from 2022 which is now on Netflix. I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IF YOU LOVE REALLY GOOD NEW HORROR. It's quick, concise, gets to the point and actually has some epic scares that I didn't see coming. Absolute glorious hour and a half of film and I'm actually looking forward to possible sequels.

Currently reading: A book I borrowed from my grandmother, Howard's End. The main character Margaret is an icon. Also interesting seeing how the British empire was viewed from inside by people who weren't really educated on it from any angle.

Currently watching: Oh so many shows. I'm making my way through Mad Men for the first time, which is a lovely painful slow burn that actually got me sympathising with a serial cheater (how???). I'm also about halfway through Infinity Train, which has completely grabbed me with its fascinating story and themes, and season 2 moved me to tears so I would also highly recommend Infinity Train if you have the time. I also need to finish season two of Misfits, but further than that I doubt I'll continue since I've heard it drops off in quality later on. And at some point I'll need to get back to His Dark Materials now that show has finished airing, Gravity falls which I only managed to catch one episode of but know I need to watch, especially as a fan of good cartoons, and I'm debating continuing the dragon prince as while there are some interesting ideas and a couple good characters and a great world, the writing of episodes gets a bit clunky for me and I think there's too many characters and not enough time with how the show is moving along to properly explore them all. But we'll see.

Currently consuming: Hot chocolate 🤣 drink of choice plus it puts me in the autumnal mood.

Currently craving: Mushrooms and cream? No idea why but I guess that's my dinner plan for tonight. @girl4music thank you so much for the tag! Yours was fascinating to read as well. :)

tag 9 people to get to know better

Tagged by @coraniaid. Lots of cheating answers here!

3 ships: Faith x Buffy from BTVS (Fuffy!!) I'm pretty focused. (I'll ignore other Eliza Dushku characters, and uh, that leaves, to a much much MUCH lesser extent...) Wil x Vivian (from Saving Face) and Lucy x Amy (from D.E.B.S.) But I don't even know the ship names for those 2 so you can see how much of my brain they are taking up.

First ever ship: I think Mulder x Scully from X-Files was probably my first ever ship. (Although I did not know the term MSR and was not aware of fandom online.) I wasn't super invested, personally they don't really DO IT for me, but I was rooting for them to get together. One of these days I'll do a proper watch / rewatch. (I stopped watching regularly once I went to college.)

Last song: (double cheating album answer) Bad Bunny's new album Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Manana. AND the soundtrack from the Out of Sight movie.

Last movie: Ouijia: Origin of Evil. (Last background movie rewatch: House on Haunted Hill, the 1999 version)

Currently reading: Just started the Bring It On: The Complete Story of the Cheerleading Movie That Changed, Like, Everything (No Seriously) book, by Kase Wickman. (JFC that's a title)

Currently watching: Bob's Burgers for fun (yay! Louise is my favorite), and just finished The Fall of the House of Usher (this was just OK for me, I much prefer Midnight Mass and the two Hauntings). I think Chucky will be next! (gotta get caught up on season two)

Currently consuming: Shrimp spring rolls and a Boston cream donut.

Currently craving: Halloween chocolate candy. And marshmallow peanuts. And candy corn.

Thanks this was fun. I'm having a rough October and this helped.

Tagging: @hersterical @buffyjackets @sspoike @blazinwolve @pugzillarex @tara-maclay-is-still-alive-guys @stellernorth @shiverandqueeef @thenewbuzwuzz

[spanishskulduggery]

Do you know of any fossil words in Spanish, words that used to be common but fell out of use and are now only preserved in idioms? I tried looking on Google but all the results were English-only examples

I'll try and think of some others but here are the ones that come to mind; and I’m not sure all of these will be what you’re looking for.

si fuere menester = "in the event of" el menester used to be fairly common especially in the Medieval period, where it was another word for "need" or "necessity". Today you only see menester in si fuere menester which is an unusual construction as it is, since fuere is the future subjunctive - which is an obsolete tense - and so it literally means "should it be necessary". This expression only now shows up in contracts and legal contexts normally as "in the event of"

donde fueres haz lo que vieres = "when in Rome... (do as the Romans do)" Again, this is future subjunctive; literally "wherever you go, do what you see".. but in a more obtuse future subjunctive way "wherever you should happen to go, do whatever you may happen to see"

la urdimbre y trama = "warp and weft" The idea of this is related to "weaving", and though this phrase is rather antiquated or particular, it occasionally shows up as something like la urdimbre y trama de la sociedad or something where that's "the fabric of society". It's not the way you say that so much now [el tejido or la tela are more common], but urdir "to warp" was related to working a loom. You still do use tramar but it's not often that you see it related to weaving anymore... tramar is "to plot" or "to hatch a scheme", but you can see how "weaving" would go into "plotting"

so pena de = "under pain of" You don't often see so used in Spanish today, since it's a more direct link to Latin and Italian. And today la pena rarely means "pain" in the physical sense, it usually means "sorrow" or "anguish"... but again in legal cases, so pena de muerte is "under pain/penalty of death"

a diestra y siniestra = "all over the place" This expression literally means "to the right and left". The word diestro/a is still "right-handed" (also means "skillful" or "dexterous"), but siniestro/a used to mean "left-handed"... the idea that the left hand was more evil and "sinister", and "under-handed". In older contexts, siniestro/a means "left-handed", but in modern contexts you say zurdo/a for "left-handed"

al tuntún = "impromptu", "improvise", "on the fly", "by ear" This expression is derived from Latin, ad vultum tuum which is literally "to your face" in Latin. You never see tuntún anymore unless something is done al tuntún but it might be more regional; it just means you're making it up as you go

dormir como un ceporro = "to sleep like a log" Most people today say dormir como un tronco which is the same idea; el ceporro is a variation but it's extremely unusual to see it. Most people will use tronco if they have to

tuerto/a = one-eyed I'm actually not sure if people use tuerto/a still, since there are other ways to say "blind in one eye" or "one-eyed". In older Spanish, tuerto could show up as a "grievance", but in the expression en el reino de ciegos el tuerto es rey is still used sometimes, literally "in the kingdom of blind people, the one-eyed man is the king"

(el) haba = bean [technically haba is feminine] Not common to see el haba used much anymore except in certain contexts, and it's the root of la habichuela "bean". In Spain, sometimes haba is "idiot" so if you see el tonto del haba it's like "the biggest idiot that ever lived"

Vuestra Merced = "Your Lordship/Ladyship" This is the original form of it, but it eventually turned into usted "you" used for polite things. The title was Vuestra Merced and it was how you addressed someone without knowing their title, so it became very polite. In older Spanish you'd abbreviate it as Vd. which eventually became Ud. as the abbreviation for usted. Keep in mind that at a certain point in time, Spanish wrote the U sound as a V, and it followed more of the Latin pronunciation where the V had a softer U/W sound at times. Outside of Spain and works set in older time periods, you're unlikely to use vuestro/a - it even became informal plural "you all" in Spain - but you rarely ever see merced used. Chances are you're only going to see it was vuestra in front of it. But just know that vos has a very different meaning today than it did in the Middle Ages

meter/sembrar cizaña = "to sow discord" You're never going to see cizaña used in any other context unless you happen upon some botanical book. The literal translation is "darnel" which is sometimes called "false wheat"; basically la cizaña looks like trigo "wheat", and it grows close to wheat but it often has a fungus that's poisonous so you need to separate it. The idea behind it is that if you're deliberately planting cizaña you're actively trying to poison someone or make things worse

la celestina = "a go-between, a mediator" This word comes directly from La Celestina a novel written in Spain's Golden Age by Fernando de Rojas. In it there's a woman named Celestina who sets up meetings between women living in convents (who weren't always nuns) and men; acting as a go-between and chaperone for love affairs basically. The term was also la alcahueta but became celestina after the character in the book. Certain characters in literature are considered celestinas like the Nurse in Romeo and Juliet; basically the girl/woman can't risk her reputation so she has her maid or chaperone working to arrange things, and they're often the catalyst for things going wrong. In other contexts, celestina or una alcahueta is a "pimp" or "madame", or sometimes "a gossip"

pardo/a = brown, brownish-gray Today you’re only really going to see pardo/a used with animals. Specifically, el oso pardo is a “grizzly bear”, and pardo/a can be used with horses as “dun”. I don’t know if “grizzly bear” counts as an expression but anyway. In older Spanish pardo/a was another word for “brown” when it came to people too. Today, if you’re describing hair color as “brown/brunette” you’re using castaño which is literally “chestnut”, either castaño claro “light brown” or castaño oscuro “dark brown”. When it comes to things that are brown, the typical word is now marrón or sometimes you see it as color café which is “coffee-colored”

ser un caco = to be a thief Not commonly used as ladrón, ladrona “thief”, but un caco literally means “a Cacus”. Basically, Cacus was a mythological figure who stole some cattle and Hercules killed him. In some places people use un caco to mean “thief” as a euphemism

la Parca = the Grim Reaper Orginally, las Parcas were the Parcae in Roman (originally Greek) mythology. They were the sisters of fate who would measure someone’s life and eventually cut the thread. Today, it’s just one Parca and it’s typically a male figure, skeletal, with a scythe as the “Grim Reaper”, rather than it being a woman with scissors. That’s because during the Plague, people thought of Death as being a skeletal figure that held a scythe, the symbol for “reaping” wheat that was ripe.

manjar de los dioses = “nectar of the gods” / a delicacy el manjar is used in some places in certain contexts but it originally came from Italian as “food” or something “to eat”. Today, manjar is usually a “snack”, or in some cases it’s dulce de leche, but most of the Spanish-speaking world doesn’t use manjar so much. It is sometimes “delicacy”, but in older contexts it was code for “ambrosia”, the thing that the Greek gods couldn’t get enough of. The world manjar still feels very antiquated to me, but when it’s used it’s some kind of good food or eating a lot of food

valer un potosí = “to be worth a fortune” un potosí is pretty antiquated, but it came from the city Potosí in Bolivia which was famous for its silver mines that the conquistadores exploited. There are still some places that will use potosí as “something of great value”, though it’s not so common anymore unless you’re talking about the actual city.

moros y cristianos = “beans and rice” Usually it’s black beans and white rice, though this is literally “Moors and Christians”. You still use cristiano/a today but typically you only use moro/a in a historical sense

Also there’s the expression más sordo/a que una tapia where it means someone is really hard of hearing; literally “as deaf as a garden wall”, but I’ve never seen people use tapia ...only a muro or a cerca as “wall” or “fence”. The idea of tapiar is related to “mortar” and “masonry”

There are also some expressions related to metal and older words for it. For example, saturnino/a is an older word for “gloomy”, though it now refers to “lead-poisoning”. Saturn was linked to “moodiness” in alchemical society, and the symbol for Saturn was the older symbol for “lead”. 

This is similar to how áureo/a is “gold” but also linked to the “sun�� because the Sun and gold are linked.

Another is el azogue which is the older word for mercury so it’d be “quicksilver”. You may see azogarse in some texts where it means “to be fidgetty” and it’s related both to mercury-poisoning, and probably to the idea of Mercury/Hermes being the messenger god so always on the move. 

There is also hidalgo/a which doesn’t have quite the same meaning it did originally. Today, hidalgo/a is sort of like “having noble blood”. It literally means “son of something/someone”, where originally in Spain hidalgos were the children of nobles - specifically, it tended to refer to the children of nobles who weren’t the firstborn male. Firstborn sons often got about 2/3 of the money and were expected to run the estates. The second or third or fourth children were usually on their own. It became a running joke that the firstborn became the lord, and the others would either join the army or the clergy. In Cervantes’s time, hidalgos could be among the poorest of society, even poorer than slaves in some cases. They were still “noble” in terms of blood though, and hidalgos couldn’t be tortured by the Inquisition because of it. So they were afforded certain rights, but usually tended to be poor or lower than you’d expect a noble to be. Today it just means “of nobility”, but in Cervantes’s time a hidalgo was the symbol of Spain under the Holy Roman Empire - wealthy and noble and glorious in theory, much poorer in reality.

I'd also add the phrases levar ancla "to raise anchor" or "anchors aweigh/away", where levar is rarely used today aside from nautical terms. Similarly, izar la bandera is "to hoist the flag"... not a lot of chances to use izar if it's not related to "flags" or la vela "a sail"

I also would say errar is less common today in Spanish. It's still used, but you normally say cometer un error "to make a mistake". Still, errar es humano, perdonar es divino "to err is human, to forgive divine". Also errar is weirdly irregular at times, it turns into yerro as present tense yo

And I’m also going to include when la manzana means a “city block”. Today manzana is not rare, it means “apple”. But manzana as a “city block” was originally mansana where it meant a “collection of manses/houses arranged in a block on a grid”. So there’s that. If you ever see manzana used for blocks in a city, it’s technically a separate word

Also depending on context el mar “sea” will be la mar with the feminine article. That’s usually more particular, usually meaning “open water” or deeper waters like alta mar “high seas”. The more poetic or open the water is, the more likely it is to be feminine, and so la mar isn’t quite so antiquated but it’s a little special

[aguecheek]

recently realised shakespeare is actually kind of very good & i've seen very few actually good productions of his work. i want to watch more of his work but i have no idea where to start and i'd prefer to avoid films where possible, so are there any recordings on youtube or some google drive or anywhere else online of productions that you know are good, or if not any movie adaptations you think are alright? btw, your blog is pretty cool!!

I completely get the struggle--good shakespeare is unfortunately pretty hard to come by out in the world. I'd love to give some suggestions!! This is gonna be pretty non-comprehensive unfortunately bc most of the best Shakespeare I've seen is...live </3 but I'll give u some places to start, anyway!

So I know you said you'd like to steer clear of movies, and I totally get that bc I honestly do the same, so I'm only gonna rec one:

Baz Luhrman's Romeo + Juliet is genuinely a fantastic adaptation. It's well-acted, well conceived, and it's genuinely just fun to watch all around, and Shakespeare should (above all else, imo) be fun to watch.

Now some non-movies!!

I've no doubt you've encountered it bc it's everywhere, but the Much Ado About Nothing with David Tennant and Catherine Tate is an absolute delight any day of the year.

A lot of Shakespeare companies started offering online programming because of the pandemic, and some of them are still doing it! American Shakespeare Center has a few of their plays available for virtual ticket purchase (I recommend Henry V and Macbeth, I wasn't a huge fan of their All's Well but I'm also not a huge fan of All's Well in general, so take my word or don't) (it says that Macbeth isn't available for some reason but if you poke around on the website the links lead you to you can still purchase it from the calendar I think? Technology is weird, I dunno)

If you're in the UK (or have a VPN that can set ur location to the UK) then the RSC's 2021 Winter's Tale is available until April (so hurry up if u wanna see it lol)

Along that line, RSC has a lot of their stuff recorded and on DVD, so if there's a particular play you're dying to see, they've probably got a version of it, and given that it's the RSC, it's probably at least a comprehensible and well-acted version (everyone's got opinions abt the RSC and I'm no exception, but whatever I think, I've seen them do some damn good stuff so I say go for it) (just make sure, if ur gonna buy a DVD, that it's compatible with ur DVD player, I think their more recent stuff is region 0 but I'm not sure, and it's caused issues for me in the past!!)

If you've ever seen a good Shakespeare play, it's worth checking the company that did it to see if they've got any online programming as well! Look for shows in your area, try to find a company that does classics, maybe look for some outdoor Shakespeare once we hit summer (great thing abt outdoor Shakespeare is that its usually free and you can just leave whenever if you're not enjoying it) and take a chance on a college production or two? They can surprise you

I think that's it for now, I'm sorry I don't have more to offer but unfortunately, I just happened to get lucky with a few really excellent local sources, so I don't have much to offer in terms of what's available online. If anyone has anything to add, please reblog and add on, I'm always looking for more recs, and I'm sure anon is too. Thanks so much for dropping by the blog!!!

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

Oh, well personally, I think your style of writing really shines in Lofi! The more slow paced rhythm you have going on actually suits the story as a whole really well, because as beings that have just recently come into existence with no guidance to speak of, Sun and Moon will have to think a lot about what they’re experiencing and what the consequences of their actions end up being, especially because they don’t know any better. Moon knows he is security so he has to analyze situations and other people thoroughly in order to figure out how to act, and Sun only has so much time to figure out what to do with how frantic his day is. There��s also the element of the reader knowing in theory what’s going to happen. Children will die. Sun will lose his sanity in trying and failing to understand and fix the situation. Moon will lose himself to self loathing as he becomes an unwilling instrument for something terrible. Like a classic play, the audience knows what happens, but sticks around due to the rising tension and seeing it all unravel makes the coming punch hit even harder. I don’t think anyone for now has felt at all like a mind reader, so if that’s something you are working on improving, I can say with full confidence that you have succeeded! This comment is getting way too long, so in short, I’ll just say your writing is wonderful and you are doing amazing!

AWWWAAAAAA ;w;

Thank you!

This really means a lot to me.

And I'm glad you're enjoying Lofi so far.

No matter how many times people like my stories I often get really unconfident in my abilities at times.

I've been steadily working on building my confidence, but something happened this year that kinda put me in a relapse mindset.

I might ramble it vaguely from time to time, but I'm trying to find my self worth again. Lol it's like I had a grasp on it, but dropped it, and forgot where I left it. So sometimes I just get these little bursts of sadness, that I need to let out and move on.

Doing good now and far better then I was... Probably three months ago? But it still leaks out in some ways. Worrying about my self worth as a writer or artist is definitely one of those ways.

And I'm glad you see it as a Shakespearean tragedy because that's EXACTLY the vibe I want to invoke.

I always remember my Shakespearean classes fondly, even if I barely passed that class. I always loved, how in most every single one of his plays, The muses will tell you what you're heading for. I'm pretty sure Romeo and Juliet opens up with the muse talking about young love and how they will die. Same thing in Richard the third pretty much Which can be played for great tragedy or great comedy.

Sometimes I forget not everyone can see my rough drafts or exactly HOW these things will happen but me. So sometimes things feel obvious to me, because I've only written them one specific way, but I'm not seeing everyone else's speculation about how the story will go, or the audience guesses.

Anyways. I love comments and stuff like this. Sorry if I rambled a bit too personally there.

Thank you very much 💘🥰❤️💜