#i'm feeling weirdly bad! like i'm almost fine as long as i don't really DO anything productive

[varjopeura]

.

[blossom-hwa]

memory lane | j.yh

I'm nearly two years late but in my defense I had this written for months already, I was just too lazy to create a graphic for it until now. anyway, this was sparked by the memory lane trip that dr. strange took in multiverse of madness - there are definitely spoilers (check the warnings below) and this story might be confusing if you haven't seen the dr. strange and spiderman movies so keep that in mind!

I made some changes to the plots of both movies, so bear this in mind - y/n instead of mingi (ned's counterpart) is the one with sorcery potential and later joins dr. strange at the sanctum, so y/n is the one who goes universe hopping with america chavez and ends up replaying memories they'd forgotten from when dr. strange erased all memories of spiderman (yunho). this story takes place after they've defeated wanda and returned to the sanctum. this should sum up the biggest changes, hope it helps :)

Pairing: Yunho x gender neutral!reader

Genre: angst (happy ending), Spiderman!au

Warnings: spoilers for the last Dr. Strange and Spiderman movies

Word Count: 5.3k

When you return to the Sanctum, armed with a name and the knowledge of a love you don't remember, you go searching for answers. 

Ateez Masterlist

When the dust has cleared at Mount Wungadore and they’ve all made it back to the Sanctum, it takes Strange a few hours to realize that there’s something wrong with his apprentice. Not just the exhaustion, not just the trauma of universe hopping and fighting the most powerful witch in all of the infinite number of universes in existence—that would be normal. This is something different. Something darker.

Something more broken.

“Dr. Strange,” you say later that night when it’s just the two of you, everyone else gone to bed. Flames crackle in the fireplace, glowing weirdly on your face. “Do you remember what happened with Spiderman?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Spiderman?” He knows you were there, remembers that’s how he became aware of your potential for sorcery, but you’ve never really talked about it.

“Yeah.”

He tells you what he remembers. A spell, rips in the universe, a vigilante who wouldn’t let the aberrations die. The mirror dimension, hanging over the Grand Canyon for way too fucking long, and a second spell to right the wrongs of the first.

You take it all in silence, not a single question asked until the end. “Do you remember what the second spell was?”

He looks at you. You don’t look back.

“No.”

“…Okay.”

He ends up leaving first, exhaustion pulling his eyelids down to the point he can barely keep them open as he climbs up the Sanctum’s stairs. He tells you to rest, and you nod, but he’s still not quite certain you heard.

You probably didn’t. Because in the morning when he wakes, you’re gone, only a text left on his phone to give any clue as to where you went.

Gone to visit a friend. I’ll be back. I’m fine.

Please don’t follow me.

. . . . .

Standing in front of the apartment door, an arm raised to knock, you feel like time has been frozen still.

“Memory Lane. Replay your significant memories, now at a discounted price! We remember, so you don’t forget.”

A boy in the spider-suit, face bloodied, eyes broken. A wavering smile on his lips that couldn’t disguise the tears rolling down his face. Hugging you and Mingi with arms so strong but trembling so much you could—you could almost feel them shaking around your shoulders. Eyes zeroing in on the wound on your head, a short gash that left the scar you could never for your life remember where it came from—

He saw it. And asked about it. And heard your babbled reassurances, instinctively steadying you on your bad leg (how did he know? How did he know if you never knew him?) as you and Mingi tried to speak, before saying the words you don’t remember.

“You’re going to forget who I am.”

You swallow hard, trying to reconcile the smiling boy you’d met during your third fight ever with the broken, bloodied man standing before you in that moment. They had the same suit—nearly. Not quite. But they had the same face. The same eyes.

And though you didn’t have a name then, now you do.

“I love you.”

“I love you, Yunho Jeong.”

You loved a boy whose name you don’t know. And he—

He loved you too.

Nausea rolls in your stomach. Your arm has begun to ache from holding it up for so long, but you can’t bring yourself to knock. What if he refuses to hear you? What if he doesn’t want you to remember, doesn’t want you to ask? What if he just isn’t home? You don’t know if you could find the courage to come back again. You can already feel the adrenaline high of the past few days beginning to fade, that initial burst of anger and courage (or was it foolishness? Right now you can’t quite tell) falling away to reveal your confused and broken core.

Your sight blurs, the four numbers marking Spiderman’s door (Yunho’s door, your brain corrects you, and it’s unsettling how easily the name seems to roll off the tongue of your mind though you know you never knew it until the trip down Memory Lane) swimming in your vision. One zero two four. You remember it from the day you walked him back, one of his arms slung around your shoulders, one leg broken and propped up by a cast of your own magic.

The moment had felt—familiar, you remember. Vaguely. At least in the way his tired laughs left his lips, in the way he joked about the villain who had left him in this state, in the way he thanked you as he lay on his bed, the magic cast fizzling out of sight, his reassurance that he’d be healed by morning. It had felt easy, somehow. Like you’d done this before, or something similar.

At the time, you’d brushed it off as Spiderman’s charisma with everybody. The times you interacted with him, watched him fend off villains and help the elderly cross the sidewalk in just two breaths showed you enough. That infectious laugh, the witty barbs, his charming easiness with every person he encountered, villain or no, weren’t special somethings reserved for you, which you reminded yourself in the moments you thought that might be true.

But maybe it was true. That trip down memory lane told you that you knew him even before you did. Knew Spiderman, knew him deeply, knew him well enough to know his name, Yunho Jeong—

Knew him enough that you could kiss him and tell him you loved him, twice, even without the promise of a response.

“Wait. Wait and tell me when you see me again.”

He’d promised. With a nod, and a smile, and words said before that you know from the memory but still don’t remember. He’d said it, sworn it—

“It’s okay. I’m gonna come and find you and—and I’ll explain everything. I’ll make you remember me.” A deep, rattling breath. “And it’ll be like none of this ever happened.”

Yet he never came to find you. For what reason, you don’t know. But you found him. Over and over, you found him—during fights, on trips to the bodega, several times in the Sanctum. And he never said anything.

The ache of a memory that is yours but isn’t thuds dully in your chest. You need to know if it was real. And it if was…

You need to know why he never returned.

Your knuckles rap the door sharply—once, twice, three times. Something clangs and there’s a loud curse in a voice you properly remember, not just know from your trip down memory lane.

Footsteps sound. Something clicks in the door. You have just one moment to prepare yourself before it swings open—

Yunho Jeong’s face stares at you, confused, kind, smiling. If you hadn’t been watching so carefully, you would’ve missed the millisecond of hope and panic that flashed across his eyes that confirms everything you’ve conjectured so far.

You’re not sure how to feel about it.

“Good morning?” He laughs a little, and he’s so good at acting—so damn good, did he take acting classes before? Not that you would’ve known since you only got that one significant memory before you shoved America Chavez on, but you want to grab his shoulders and shake him hard enough to tug those memories loose and plant them back in your own damn head—

“Yunho Jeong.” You take a step forward. “We have a lot to talk about.”

. . . . .

His eyes are guarded when he lets you in the door, but he lets you sit on the couch before he lets loose with a question, more of a statement, of his own. “You know my name.”

You probe his gaze carefully. For once, it flickers as you stare at him, a shard of that steady, easy confidence he’s always had (was there a time he didn’t have it? Were you there when that was the case?) chipped and dropped into somewhere unknown. He doesn’t flinch away, though, not like you originally expected him to.

Maybe it isn’t just paranoia and caution behind those guarded walls, your mind whispers. Maybe there’s a bit of hope, too.

The thought is too much for you to handle, so for all your original bravado you’re the one who looks away first. “I do.”

Spiderman’s—Yunho’s—voice nearly trembles with how carefully he measures his next word. “How?”

You take a deep breath. How do you even start?

“I recently took a…trip, of sorts, with Dr. Strange.” Not really—it was more so just with America, but Spiderman doesn’t know America and you probably shouldn’t be telling anyone about her until Dr. Strange gives the okay. “Went universe hopping. Mostly unintentionally.” Ignoring Spiderman’s—Yunho, Jesus fucking Christ—sharp intake of breath, you continue. “One of them had a curious feature called Memory Lane. For a price, it would replay your most significant memories.” You swallow. “I got a…free trial, of sorts.”

The silence that follows your statement hangs heavily in the air. Never, not once in the time you’ve known him (at least not the second time you knew him, if the first time even existed) did you think Yunho (it’s still strange how not strangely the name flows through your mind) could have let such a tension weigh the conversation—he’s always been so charismatic, so ready to smile and laugh and joke away any heaviness that came. Hell, even when he had a leg snapped into so many pieces only a cast of glowing golden threads was holding it together, he wore a smile on the way back. But in the face of your words, Yunho’s head has fallen, the strong shoulders tensed to snap, his clasped hands trembling underneath his chin…

He looks up, straight at you. His eyes have fragmented and the shards you see in them frightens you—that’s just not a look that belongs on Yunho’s face. He looks ten, twenty, thirty years older than he is (your age, he’d told you with the perfect amount of surprise and warmth on his face the day you’d told him, the first time you’d had more than a few minutes to get to know each other more), with the tortured memories of someone who’s lived through millennia. And, you realize with a pang, there’s a reason for that. Because if you forgot him, if Mingi forgot him, how many others did?

And if you meant so much to him in that life you don’t remember, how much has he had to keep to himself in order to keep you from knowing?

“What did you see?” he asks quietly, hands clasped so tightly his knuckles have turned white. “If it’s okay to tell me, of course.”

Tears bubble in the corners of your eyes. That gentleness, that consideration, feels so warm. So very warm and familiar.

“I was with you. And Mingi. We were hugging.” You swallow. “You looked…beat up, but you still asked about a wound on my head.”

Yunho’s gaze flutters in the direction you knew it’d go, just to the side of your right eyebrow. Your fingers itch to rise, to touch the scarred flesh that’s still there, but you hold your twitching hands still.

“And then you said we were going to forget who you were.”

He goes still at that, still as a statue. It’s funny—there have been a few times where you mused, internally of course, that Yunho’s face—just Spiderman at the time—could have been sculpted by one of the gods, should they exist. A beaming statue of a hero, waiting for thousands to thank and worship him. But now, as he stares at you with no expression on his face, stone still and truly a human statue if there ever was one…

You promise yourself never to make the statue comparison again, because the warm Yunho, the alive Yunho, is the only one you’d ever want to know.

Swallowing hard, you open your mouth. And close it. Not because you don’t know what to say, because you do—it’s just recounting a memory that isn’t yours, basically a scene from a movie, how hard could it be—but because when you try to speak, you can’t. Your voice is gone.

Yunho’s eyes are shiny. A little too shiny. And there’s a little too much hope in them, now, a hope that makes you want to dig yourself into a hole and have someone cover up the dirt behind you. Because—it’s not right, that hope, it’s not right because you know what Yunho wants isn’t what happened.

He speaks first. “You…remember?”

“I—” You dig your fingernails into your palms so hard it hurts. “I don’t.”

His face falls. Crumbles. And this time, unlike all the other times you didn’t understand before when he’d see you and you’d do something—anything—and his face would do something strange for a second before his easy smile came back up—

He doesn’t try to pull it back together.

“I—saw it.” Your mouth moves on autopilot, trying to patch up a situation you’re not sure you can but anything, anything to bring something back to Yunho’s face. Even the terrible hope was better than this. “I saw it—and—I can’t say I remember it, exactly, because I don’t, but it—it felt like it explained things.”

Yunho looks up. Just barely. But he does.

“You—I’m comfortable with you.” Once it’s out in the open, you realize how stupid it sounds, but you barge forward because who the fuck cares anymore. “And I know—I know a lot of people probably say that, but—even at that first fight, it was like…it was like I knew you a little. Somehow. Even though to my knowledge I had never seen you before.” You wince at how that must sound but Yunho doesn’t, his eyes now fixated more firmly on yours. “A lot of things felt…familiar. Just stuff like your laugh. Smile. The way we could banter and talk and I—just—fuck!” Your own vehemence startles you and you slap your palms to your eyes and to your surprise, you find tears meeting your skin.

Damn it, you really hadn’t intended to cry when you came here.

“Y/N?”

You swallow the lump in your throat, scrub at your eyes with the heels of your palms. “I’m sorry,” you say, and wow your voice sounds so much more ragged than you thought it was. “I’m sorry. I—it all sounds stupid. I don’t know how to explain it. I just know that…sometimes, being around you felt like déjà vu. In some weird way.” The lump in your throat seems bent on returning so you swallow hard again. “The memory that I saw. It made some things, like that, make sense. But other things didn’t.”

“…What didn’t?”

It takes everything left in you to meet Yunho’s gaze. The adrenaline rush of yesterday’s fight has finally faded away fully and you think you might collapse soon, but you force your voice to remain steady even as a stray tear makes it cold way down your cheek.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

. . . . .

For a long moment, Yunho doesn’t speak.

“I…was going to tell you,” he finally says. “I was. When you still had your job at the diner, I was going to go in and…tell you everything. Like I’d promised to. I was—” He laughs a little, broken and fragmented. “I was right outside. I could see you. Mingi was at the counter, too.”

There were many days like those. You’re not sure which one this was. “I didn’t see you.”

“No, you didn’t,” Yunho agrees. “But I saw you. And I saw your scar.”

This time, you can’t stop your hand from touching the warped skin on your forehead.

Yunho’s eyes track the movement. “I had a whole speech written out, you know.” That same broken, fragmented laugh from before. “It was on a piece of paper. I was going to read it to you two. But I saw your scar and…you were laughing. You looked so happy. I couldn’t ruin that.” He smiles a little, but it doesn’t reach his eyes at all. “When you knew I was Spiderman, all it did was cause you pain. And harm.”

You open your mouth to refute, but you can’t. Because you don’t remember anything. Not at all.

“Something happened to just about everyone I cared about who knew my secret.” Yunho’s voice drops. “So I thought it would be better if you didn’t know. It would be better if no one knew. Just the way it was after that day.”

“But—Yunho, I—” Words trip over your tongue and for a moment you still can’t speak, not for lack of thought but for too much. “We—you didn’t give us a choice. How did you know we wouldn’t—”

“You were at the battle.” Yunho’s words cut through your own like a knife and you almost flinch. “A battle I caused because I was an idiot. You don’t remember what happened, do you?”

Slowly, you shake your head.

“I went to Dr. Strange with a request. To wipe everyone’s memory of the fact that Yunho Jeong and Spiderman were one and the same. So many shit things had happened to me—and us—because of Mysterio’s stupid fucking video. College admissions, people taking potshots at us across the street…” He takes a deep, shaky breath. “He almost did. But I kept interrupting with exceptions. People I still wanted to remember me. You. Mingi. Aunt Mei. Happy. And that…that messed the spell up.”

You sit silent, quiet as Yunho tells you about the multiverse, about the other villains who knew him but whom he’d never faced—at least not in this world. He tells you about Aunt Mei, how Osborn had found her, how she’d pressed it into him that all of them needed help, not just to be sent back to their respective universes to die, and how he’d decided she was right.

She had been right, Yunho stresses. But she’d paid for it. With her life.

There, Yunho stops talking for a moment. Puts his hands over his face and breathes deeply once, twice. When he finally looks up, his eyes look redder.

“I’m sorry.” You wince as soon as you say the words, how flat they fall in the silence. But the thing is—you knew Mei. Somewhat. You remember her face, her smile, her burned cookies—you remember her, if not necessarily her nephew. She was a good woman, one of the kindest people you’d ever had the luck to meet. “I…remembered her. Somewhat. Probably not as much as I would have…before, but…”

“Yeah,” is all Yunho says. “Yeah.”

He continues. Two Spidermen, two Yunho Jeongs from separate universes. They looked nothing like him and apparently you summoned them with rings stolen from Dr. Strange himself (so maybe some things are best left not remembered, because if Dr. Strange doesn’t remember this you’re not sure you want him to). Back in their own worlds, they’d faced the villains he’d failed to corral here. They worked together and there was a fight at the Statue of Liberty and you and Mingi were tasked with keeping the unbroken spell safe from Norman Osborn and later, Dr. Strange, too.

You failed.

“Osborn freed the spell,” Yunho says, grief and fury etched in every line of his face. “Broke the casing with one of his stupid little toys. And so all these people—villains, friends, I don’t know—from other universes started coming into ours. Dr. Strange couldn’t contain them.”

You’re starting to feel a little faint. “Oh my god.”

“Yeah,” Yunho breathes. “There was only one way to fix it. Everyone had to forget Yunho Jeong.” His eyes bore into yours.

Forget feeling faint. You think you’re about to be sick. “Everyone.”

“Everyone,” he repeats. A little dark laugh falls from his lips. “No exceptions this time.”

For a long moment, you sit in silence. All of this information—your brain was already exhausted from universe hopping and dealing with a crazy, grief-driven witch, and you got maybe three hours of sleep last night before you found your way here—it’s so much. Almost too much. Maybe you should’ve waited to confront Yunho, should’ve given it a couple of days of thinking before coming here all tongue-tied and stupid—

“But—Yunho. You promised to tell us. You promised to tell me and Mingi.” You can feel your face scrunching up like you’re about to cry again and you don’t need that, don’t need that right now at fucking all. “You could’ve told us—you didn’t have to go through this alone—”

“Yes, I did,” Yunho snaps. “It was my fault. All of this was my fault—”

“No, it fucking wasn’t!” you retort. “It was Mysterio’s fault—hell, it was mine and Mingi’s for not protecting the stupid spell enough—”

“No, it was mine, for trying to change something that couldn’t have been changed!” he yells. “I got the villains into our universe because I couldn’t think of anything beyond our fucking college admissions! I did a fuck up job of keeping the villains in line! I got Mei killed, I got you and Mingi injured, I caused so much trouble for Dr. Strange because I wasn’t thinking—”

“You were a kid!” you yell back. “We all were! Barely fucking eighteen! Not even college students, not even legal adults! And—Yunho! I may not remember anything, but I do fucking know that we never would’ve been coerced or something into helping you. You wouldn’t have done that! If we were helping you in that fight, it was because we agreed to, because we wanted to!”

“It doesn’t matter!” Yunho snaps. “It doesn’t matter that you wanted to! Because in the end, this was a fight that I started and that I should have ended myself! Instead, I got a whole bunch of other people involved and people were injured for it, people—people died for it, Y/N.” His face crumples, and he turns away.

All the fight leaves your body. You reach towards him, slowly take his hands in yours. To your surprise, he doesn’t tug them away.

“I wasn’t going to get you and Mingi killed off because I wanted you back,” Yunho whispers. “My fights were going to be on my terms and only mine. I know you fight now, as Dr. Strange’s apprentice—don’t bring that up with me. Those fights are your choices and on your terms.” Teary eyes look into yours and you can barely fight the urge to brush the wetness away. “It kills me to watch it happen, but that’s your choice. And I can’t interfere with that.” He takes a deep breath. “But I can interfere with the stuff that shouldn’t happen because it’s my fault.”

The anger starts to rise up in you once more. “You didn’t give either of us a choice in deciding that—”

“Right before Aunt Mei died, she told me something.” Yunho’s hands tremble in yours. “She said, ‘With great power, there must also come great responsibility.’”

You swallow hard.

“I don’t think I ever understood until then,” he says quietly. “Sure, I’d always known I had power, and I tried to use it well by being the friendly neighborhood Spiderman, you know. Protecting the little guy while others fight the big battles. But the responsibility…my lack of that is what started this whole thing in the first place.” Yunho swallows. “When I saw you and Mingi in the diner, and I made that choice. That was my responsibility. I wasn’t going to purposefully involve anyone else in my fights, my issues. Not now. Not anymore.”

One of his hands releases itself from yours. It rises toward the puckered scar, brushes it with a gentle touch. His fingertips tremble against your skin. “Do you know how you got this?” he asks, whisper soft.

Slowly, you shake your head.

“One of Osborn’s…gadgets, sliced you.” Yunho takes a deep, shaky breath, and you grip his hand harder. “And because of that, you—you fell. Right off the statue.”

You couldn’t speak right now, not even if you tried.

“You fell.” The words seem to rip themselves from Yunho’s throat and he looks away, his free hand covering his face for one, two awful moments before he turns back to you. “You fell, and I tried to catch you but Osborn knocked me out of the way midair, and it—it was only a miracle that one of the other Spidermen caught you. A miracle,” he repeats, almost as though he still doesn’t believe it.

This time you do reach up to brush the tears from his eyes. The movement feels so remarkably natural that you have to wonder how many times you made the same motion in a time before.

“I saw you with the scar. And suddenly I was there, watching you fall with no way to stop it.” Yunho squeezes his eyes shut. “I couldn’t have that happen again. Not to you. Not to anyone.”

His eyes open, and between the tears, all you can see is the certainty of his choice weighing dark in his pupils.

“Not because of me.”

. . . . .

Silence falls in Yunho’s studio apartment. The sun has risen, slats of pale light filtering through his windows, illuminating his face. In the glow of morning, Yunho’s young face only looks older.

And suddenly you feel guilty. So very guilty. You came to his apartment unannounced with a name in one hand, news you were certain he wouldn’t like in the other, and caused him pain. That was it. You forced him to relive all these memories, made him explain things he perhaps wasn’t ready to speak of, and yelled at him for a choice you’re not sure you would’ve made differently had you been in the same situation.

“I’m sorry,” you croak, throat suddenly choked. You drop his hands and step back, desperately trying to swallow your tears. “I—I shouldn’t have come.” Yunho’s eyebrows furrow, but you refuse to look at him. “It wasn’t my place to demand answers of you and I shouldn’t have yelled—”

“Y/N.”

This time it’s his hands that take yours, large and warm and gentle. You look down at your joined fingers, then up at his face. If you had loved each other as much as your memory would have you believe, this must have been a common occurrence.

No wonder it feels so safe.

“I don’t blame you,” he says, and it’s the steadiness of his gaze that convinces you he speaks true. “You had questions, and no one else you knew had answers.”

“Even so.” You blink a tear away. “Even so, Yunho.”

“No.” He grips your hands more tightly. “Do you know how I felt after I saw you the first time after? When you showed up with Dr. Strange in the middle of fighting the drakon?” You open your mouth to respond, but he cuts you off. “I was terrified, obviously, but watching you…” Yunho looks down at your joined hands and you think he’s going to start crying again, but when he looks back up, there’s a smile on his face despite the faint tears in his eyes. “It was good to see you, Y/N. Just so…good.”

You look down at your hands. Back up at Yunho’s face. 

Eyes so soft with tears, so warm they could melt.

“I was happy to see you,” he says quietly, and for all his words are unbelievable you have to believe them because of the way he says them. “So happy. I mean—I’d made the decision. And I’d come to terms with that I probably would never see you again, or at least never be close with you again. But seeing you then, healthy and happy and just—you—”

A choked noise escapes your throat. Something like a laugh. Something like a sob.

“I thought I’d gotten over it, you know.” Yunho smiles and it’s beautiful and broken and brittle, echoes of joy bittersweet on his lips. “Thought that I’d be able to move on. And I did, in a way, but before I thought that I would forget it all. I thought that I could. But that moment just showed me that I’d really never be able to, and that I would be okay with it. Because seeing you like that—it was good, Y/N.” The smile grows. “Even now, seeing you in front of me like this…”

Oh. Oh, damn.

You’d thought that you were all cried out, but your eyes betray you once more. A headache is starting to build up in the back of your head but you force yourself to focus, to decipher Yunho’s words for what they are. “So—” You swallow. Try to speak. “Do—do you—”

“I still love you,” he says quietly. “Every time I see you, it feels like I’m a little more whole.”

Your face burns. “I—”

“You don’t have to say anything right now.” Yunho smiles, and even on his teary face he looks so handsome, so steady, and if it’s true that you were in love with him before it’s not difficult to understand why. “I know it’s a lot, and that you’ve only just begun to figure some things out. I’m not looking for an answer when I tell you this.” He takes a deep breath. “I just wanted you to know.”

For a moment, the two of you sit in silence. You look at your interlaced fingers, think about how natural it feels to have his hands in yours, to have come to him in this hour of answers and need. Briefly you think of Mingi, and it doesn’t surprise you to think that they could’ve been good friends too.

“I’m not…closed off. To anything.” You swallow hard, looking back up at Yunho. “Yet, at least. I can’t say I—that I love you, not now, but I do believe I loved you once, and I could be there again. Someday.”

Yunho’s eyes fill with tears again, but he doesn’t say anything.

“I just.” Tears of your own start to squeeze down your cheeks, past your lips and chin. “I don’t know if I will ever remember everything,” you finally warn, voice wobbly. “I think it’s more likely that I won’t. But if you’re willing, even then…”

“It’s okay.” Yunho’s smile is warm, and it’s what finally sends the rest of the tears spilling out of your eyes. “This is more than I ever could have hoped for in my life.”

“I want to remember,” you choke. “I want to remember, I want to so badly—”

“I do too,” he says, pulling you into his chest. His warm heartbeat thumps quietly against yours and you take comfort in its steady pace, one, two, one, two. “But even if you don’t, I want you to know that’s okay. And it always will be.”

“…How do you know?”

Yunho’s arms, warm around your body. His hold so gentle yet so firm, so safe and steady as he murmurs reassurances in your ear.

“Because,” he says, pulling away. You look up at him with your sticky, aching eyes, feel all of your trust in him only grow as he smiles.

“Because we can always make more memories of our own.”

If you enjoyed, please don’t forget to reblog and leave a comment to tell me what you thought! Thank you for reading and have a lovely day <3

[stormoflina]

Regarding szobo and Trent’s friendship. I think it’s one of those situations when u are an introvert person and friendship dies down. Not saying they not friends anymore obviously are. However, compare his friendships with other people like Jude he publicly shows support to Jude and Jude does the same if not more to trent tbh😂 he comments on every single Trent’s post. Trent doesn’t mind being seen on camera with Jude hence england content and story reposts . Where as Trent doesn’t like szoboszlai posts anymore for long time or comment in months either. I know Jude trent are a lot closer friendship wise but I think Trent did see comments and now you can tell he doesn’t like being seen on camera with szobo anymore even when szobo tries so hard to walk with him/grab his attention Trent ignores it and doesn’t want to be in same picture frames either or in training too he always purposely makes sure he isn’t. I don’t think they are as close as some think they are in my opinion anymore. Like Trent publicly shows so much love to ramsdale madders Jude hendo ect where as with szobo he hasn’t since September

Ngl, reading this kinda broke my DomiTrent heart 💔

I will have to disagree on the part where you say Trent purposely tries to avoid being seen with Domi on camera / avoids him. If you look at the fancams and bts stuff, they are still very much glued together. Trent seems image- conscious, but I don't think to this level. Yeah, he's an introvert, but he also seems like a kind, nice person, so I don't think he would do this.

It's also important to highlight that obviously Trent is going to be different with all the people you have listed. They have known each other for years and are national teammates. That's such a significant part, sharing the same nationality, speaking the same language, having been brought up in the same culture. Domi is also very different, much more relaxed around his national teammates. We joke around a lot about how he is being a "beg" around Trent, because to the naked (and DomiTrent focused,lol) eye he's totally acting like that, but , okay hold on.

I think I'm about to get a bit defensive here 😭

So Trent's mother tongue being English, him still in his boyhood club, playing for England, those are such huge advantages that players like Dominik will never get. I think it just doesn't show, because he speaks fine English and moves around like a very, naturally confident person. But still, to someone who has followed the Hungarian NT for years, he is almost weirdly """"shy"""" in some of the lfc content. You can tell English is his least strongest language and that he knows he is basically a little nobody in Liverpool.

Okay, Hungarian tax over lol. So, I think if any of the 'they are being forcefully separated' stuff is true, in any shape or form, it's probably only the sm team making a choice to not throw them under the bus for engagement basically. They obviously get along well, most likely not life-long besties, they have only known each other for like what, 6 months? But I like seeing them together, and especially with comments like the one, where Dominik said he often feels lonely moving to England, then saying how Trent was the first one to ask him out to hang out? That's so sweet!

Sorry for the long answer, I think I just really feel for Dominik in this scenario you raised, because he is even posting his dog, who technically is not even his dog anymore, so I just feel bad for him 😭

[woodsfae]

B5 s02e20 The Long, Twilight Struggle Table of Contents • previous episode

Wow, we're almost to the end of another season! It's been a really good one, despite my own rocky start with its beginning. It's been interesting how my perspective has shifted enough along the way that I had change of minds about my change of minds of some characters. In The Gathering I loved Garibaldi, then came to dislike him for his sexism, police brutality, abuse of position, stalking Talia, being a shit about his ex, and general cop-ness, but the writing really brought me around on him! Weirdly, I now believe he can and will be better.

Almost the same for Londo. I didn't really like him at all, came to like him a little, then was to be SO disappointed in him that now I'm just fascinated to see how far his moral depravity and Sunk Cost Fallacy-ing will go.

And on to the episode!

Their CGI planet is really lovely and colorful, and does look quite 3d! And it's Centauri Prime (presumably). Must be a Londo episode!

This guy is petting the throne. wtf Refa. Very blunt about the fetishization of power that's going on here.

Londo: "Lord Refa, I have come a long way, and I am tired. Is there a reason I have been summoned here, now?" Refa: "Indeed there is, I have good news. The war which began six months is about to end. Sooner than any of us could have hoped. And you, Londo Mollari, will be the architect of our victory."

ope, the Centauri are about to do some crazy war crimes, I see!

Finally, a sexy transparent glass silhouette showering scene! I've been waiting for this since the show started. Classy of them to make it be Sheridan.

Friendly Draal Planet!!! I hoped to see him again! How delightful! What a bad omen, though.

Delenn is becoming just…transcendently beautiful. The lighting and camera shots, her expressions and grace, are all just astonishing. I am glad she gets to see her friend again. Maybe some of the other serene characters will pop up for a reunion. I'd love to see the little telepath girl who went to Minbari, Janice the Healer, and Thomas Jinxo the Seeker of the Grail again, and I think they'd all get along well (or at least interestingly) together.

Draal, appearing before Sheridan fresh out of his shower: "I've been watching you for quite some time, Captain. And I thought it was time that I introduce myself. My name, is Draal. How do you do." *Minbari bow* Sheridan, damp and be-robed: "Uh, fine. I'm fine." Draal, who has no idea how to talk to humans: "Good. You don't have any idea who I am, do you?" Sheridan, who did his research on B5 tysvm: "Unless there's another Draal who can do what you just did, you're the Minbari who took custody of the planet we're orbiting." Draal: "Ah, Captain, you do not take custody of the planet, the planet takes custody of you!."

This made me laugh really hard. The planet really did take custody of Draal. Near-total isolation, but youth. idk if I'd go for that.

Details…details…lmao Draal.

The Narn…cannot catch a fucking break. Contact with an entire sector of colonies, lost. They're losing, although their official stance is that they're holding their own. I wish them and their counter attack well! One all-out strike with the majority of their forces is a hardcore strategy! They could lose everything.

G'Sten: "If we make them pay, for every inch of space, we can wear them down, prolonging the war beyond their capacity to fight it. Centauri want a quick victory: they don't have the stomach for prolonging the war."

He also says there will always be enough ships to defend their homeworld, but dang that still feels really risky. I am so excited to see a little of G'Kar's family. His uncle! And he's so kind, warm, and loving. The exact opposite of the way they were described by Delenn and the Centauri in season one. They both call the Narn cold, strange, impossible to empathize with. I hate to see anti Narn propaganda! They have risen highly in my estimation and I am rooting for them so hard.

The Centauri are going to bomb Narn from orbit with banned weapons and wipe out much of the entire population. To "save Centauri lives." War crimes, as I thought.

Everything depends on Londo. It's too late to back out. Bringing the pressure and the logical fallacies down on him! He bends, obviously, and is going to reach out to Morden for help carrying out the sick plan.

Londo: "All right. I will bring my assoociates into this, but this is that last time. We are Centauri. If we are to sieze our destiny, we must do it ourselves. After this, no more." What'shisface" "After this there will be no need! Thank you. Cheer up. By the time you return to Babylon 5 the war will be over, and the Narns will be at our feet. This time, we will keep them there."

Exactly. The Narns will not stop resisting, they will eventually gain their freedom again, and there will be another and another. You can't build an empire without horrifically violating sentients' rights, and those sentients are always going to resist.

Love Delenn's outfit today. I hope Draal won't be an ass about her hair.

Aw, so nice, Londo gets to go watch the Centauri genociding the Narns, live and in HD safe on a warship. How thoughtful. May he choke on the sight.

Dr Franklin is a real and good friend and a great anti-fascist comrade. Gathering deets from his Narn patients to give G'Kar as up-to-date as information as he can, as quick as he can.

Draal Planet light hearted B Plot, yay! And Delenn is now experimenting with swearing She used the f-word even! Frag me, she's so great.

Delenn: "Draal? We're here." Draal: "Did you think I hadn't noticed, my old friend? You've changed. I like it."

I'm glad he's not racist to her! That makes two Minbari who have on-screen supported her: Lennier, and now her old mentor. I'm so glad!

But onto the meat of the visit. Draal has been using the planet's resources to gather information, including Sheridan's history and all the plotting Sheridan's been doing. Convenient, and awesome! Powerful allies are badly needed right now. Draal has been studying the universe and the planet, and he's ready for action! And I"m ready to see that action!

"In the long, twilight struggle which lies ahead of us, there is a possibility of hope."

That's a great message, and good repetition of the same sentiment from earlier with G'Kar and G'Sten. I'm afraid G'Sten is going to die, but I hope he lives. The Narns have faced enough tragedy.

Shadow ships coming for G'Sten and his fleet, the evil shits! The CGI has definitely improved from last season to a degree, although it's extremely obvious with the shadow ships. but I love the effect! They are all cgi and thus fake-looking, which I think enhances how out of sync with the normal dimensional bounds they are. I'd be fucking unnerved if I saw something that fake looking in real life.

goodbye G'Sten. :/

There's people on the Draal Planet! Wow, they must be weird.

LOVE this for Delenn. She's needed friends really badly, too!

Zathras!! Is in league with Draal! Cool!! I didn't think we'd see the Space Werewolf again, but this should be fun! JMS's spreadsheets must have been wild.

Narn is in a BAD position. Centauri have Narn surrounded, there's massive destruction and death, and the Narn fleet has been neutralized. An impromptu re-enactment between Narn and Centauri on B5 is underway. Of course.

Narn looks mostly brown and orange from orbit. I wonder what it looked like before the Centauri ever arrived. Bombs underway, Londo watching on while looking sick. Hope he feels even sicker than he looks!

Ineffective response from Minbari and Earth, of course. An atrocity! They condemn it! Really hard! Finger wag! Don't do it again!

:(

G'Kar. What a horrible horrible place to be. Narn plans to surrender. I hope they can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, but knowing this show, it will be even more grim for them and the universe by the end of the episode. Horrific.

G'Kar is reduced to asking Sheridan for political asylum. If they hand him over to the Centauri…! fuck! That's the kind of dystopian universe this is, too. I hope that won't happen, though.

Ugh. A speech by Londo. What an awful piece of propaganda.

Londo: "A little over five standard hours ago, the conflict which began with the Narn declaration of war, came to and end. The Narn regime has offered complete and unconditional surrender. The terms imposed by the Centauri Republic are as follows. One: the ruling body known as the Kha'ri will be disbanded, and its members subject will be subject to arrest and trial for the commission of war crimes against the Centauri." Sheridan: "Earth requests the right to send observers to these hearings." Londo: "That request is denied. Two: to prevent further acts of terror by the Narn against our people, the penalty for the murder of any Centauri by any Narn will be the execution of five hundred Narns. Including the Perpetrator's own family. Three: a provisional ruling council appointed by my government will take up the responsibility of re-building a more civilized Narn government, as a colony of the great Centauri Republic." Sheridan: "Is there anything else." Londo: "Yes. Just, one thing. Because the Narn homeworld is now a protectorate of the Centauri Republic, we reserve the right to determine who can speak for Narn. As a result, Ambassador G'Kar may no longer represent the Narn in any official capacity whatsoever. His appointment ambassador to Babylon 5 is hereby withdrawn. And as the only member of the Kha'ri still at large, Citizen G'Kar will return to Narn for trial."

"No," quoth Sheridan. Minbari supports Earth and Babylon 5 in this, although Delenn does call him Citizen G'Kar like Londo did. Fuck him, man. He's fully a bootlicker channeling his frustration at his guilt over all the war crimes against the non-Centauri. My least favorite fictional war criminal.

The framing and character work through this scene is WILD. G'Kar, sitting, slumped, not meeting anyone's eyes. Londo, speaking with clear enunciation, racist and imperialist language framed as the ethical, sensible decisions the Narn have forced them to make. G'Kar rising and speaking calmly before leaving when Londo loses his temper and demands, screaming, that G'Kar leave the council room.

G'Kar: "No dictator, no invader can hold an imprisoned population by force of arms forever. There is no greater power in the universe than the need for freedom. Against that power, governments and tyrants and armies cannot stand. The Centauri learned this lesson once. We will teach it to them again. Though it take a thousand years…we will be free."

The Narn will not go quietly.

Centauri is celebrating, they are dancing in the streets on homeworld. Or so the propaganda news broadcast goes.

Sheridan has a very nice speech for G'Kar and offer of support of all his personal assets that can be put towards that aim.

G'Kar: "The last time I took someone's hand we were at war twenty-four hours later." *takes Sheridan's offered hand anyway*

Mad lad.

And now Sheridan's off to a super-secret meeting! Delenn presiding. She has gathered him allies to pledge to Sheridan. Ah, Sinclair's project! <3 Sinclair, good work, buddy. Kosh is there, too! Somehow I doubt he is there to swear TO Sheridan. Along with, benevolently, to help the ants win against the anteater, maybe.

This is an episode of speeches! G'Kar's was terrible and great. Sheridan's falls a little flat. His line has been drawn on the other side of a fascist empire re-enslaving an entire people.

Well. I can only hope for some great and wild successes on the other side of the season finale!

The balance of affection between G'Kar and G'Sten, and Delenn's joyful reunification with Draal and the hope that and Sinclair's rangers inspired were all a much-needed balance against the Narns' current plight, but this was still so heavy and dark. It went there, it did that! Man, the forces of the Light are just fucking crippled without the Narn and their previous resources. All destroyed, and mostly dead, to feed the appetite of the Centauri Empire.

next!

[aita-blorbos]

[AITA for not wanting to save some lady I met less than 6 hours ago who almost got me eaten by a huge snake?]

So I [18M] have been wandering for a long while looking for Giacomo [50M? i think?] to kill him for killing my grandfather. I end up on this one rustic island and get knocked out, this doctor saves me and gets me back on my feet. But I'm still pretty focused on the "killing Giacomo" thing, y'know?

So when I go to leave the village after promising the mayor I wouldn't go into the obviously super evil woods (To be fair I wasn't gonna until he said something) I see this blond chick with two bodyguards head towards the evil forest. I don't like to think I'm super nosy, but she seemed weird so I followed. I was gonna go that way anyway.

When I get to the forest, she's already super deep inside. I fight off bats and firecats (annoying) to go deeper into the woods. Things are creepy already, and then I hear some girlish scream. Cool (not).

I run over and bash a beast in the face and turns out Blondie [17F] is the only survivor of her and her bodyguards. We work together to kill the big ass monster trying to kill us BOTH now (plus its horns are pretty valuable if I sell 'em. Too bad Blondie got on my case about it...). She and I talk for a while, I say I'm gonna go, she says wait no come with me blah blah. I'm like, uh fine? But at least take the useful shit off your bodyguards and don't put it to waste! How'd they like it if you died because you didn't wanna take their old magnus? Girl's some kind of stupid, probably. She gives me a bad look but sends their souls off with a prayer (I mean, I feel a little bad...) and we keep going deeper into the forest cuz she says she needs to find something in here. Okay? So weird.

We get all the way to this spooky pond when her weird necklace starts glowing. It shoots a beam of light at the water and it becomes dark and starry. I'm a little freaked out, I'm about to leave because what the hell is she doing, but then a huge water dragon snake thing rips itself out from this tiny pond and attacks us. Cool.

We beat its ass and it drops a weird golden card. I pick it up (obviously?? It might be valuable!) and I get this really weird and awful feeling and these like... light projections of birds fly out from the card and into the sky in all directions. I drop it after she yells at me and I jump away from the water. She takes it (and somehow it doesn't get weird for her????? okay. cool. ugh.) and we're about to leave when Giacomo's empire soldiers drop from the fucking sky, kidnap Blondie, I try to help (I'm not the worst dude ever), I get knocked over the head with a gun and I'm out.

I wake up a few hours later and my head hurts and this bird is squeaking at me. It's Meemai, kinda cute, kind of an asshole. He jumps in my cloak as I get up and I ask my Guardian Spirit what I should do.

(TL;DR for people not from Mira, it's a spirit that helps me with stuff who only talks to me. Weirdly, Blondie also heard it. Whatever.)

The Spirit goes "Go save Blondie!" and I resist. That girl has been NOTHING but trouble! She got me knocked out, tossed around by TWO massive monsters, and now my Spirit wants to go save her? So what, she can get me into MORE trouble? I will be going to where she is being kept to kick Giacomo's ass, but I'm not gonna stick my neck out for some stranger.

AITA? My Spirit says I am, but my Spirit isn't the only person with an opinion in the world.

[colethekowla]

Dean, Sam, and Castiel come back home after a long hunt... They all are exhausted and immediately go to their beds to rest

Dean had been holding back his regression this whole hunting trip and finally has a chance to regress.

He grabs his pacifier, which was custom made to look like the Impala. And he grabbed his favorite doggie stuffie that always calmed him down whenever he was in a bad mood. He regresses very quickly and plays around with his stuffie until he falls asleep, his pacifer was still in mouth and stuffie in his arms.

Sam wakes up early to make everyone breakfast but to his surprise Castiel is already in the kitchen sitting there looking down

"Cas, what are you doing in here. You okay?"

Castiel jumps up and looks startled for a sec but replies with "yeah I'm fine"

"Are you sure you looked down in the dumps"

"Yeah I'm just thinking about some of the research we've been working on trying to find any answer at all"

"Alright well I'm going to make breakfast, would you like some?"

"Sure Sam, thank you"

Sam cooks and shortly before the food is done he tells Cas to wake Dean up and tell him breakfast is ready if he'd like some...

Castiel knocks on Dean's door but doesn't wait until he walks in the room to see a pacifer in Dean's mouth and his stuffie

Castiel looking shocked but doesn't say anything instead he thinks to himself why would Dean have a pacifer? He's only seen babies with pacifiers and couldn't think of any theory as to why Dean had a pacifer besides for maybe a deaging spell

Dean jumps out of bed so fast he almost falls on his head and throws the pacifer to the back of his pillow and his stuffie

"Uhh hey dude, you ever heard of knocking?"

"I did Dean... Are you feeling alright?"

"Huh yeah I'm fine dude. What did you need?"

"Breakfast is ready, but are you sure you're feeling alright?"

"Never better" he storms right past Castiel to go eat without saying another word

They had a very awkward breakfast and Sam was confused the whole time not knowing why they were looking at eachother so weirdly but he doesn't comment on their behavior

After breakfast...

Castiel asks Dean to go to Dean's room to talk alone, Dean agrees feeling anxious... Castiel closes the door and with a confused look goes

"What's going on with you? Did a witch get to you?"

"No Cas I'm fine"

"Dean... what's going on then? You had a pacifer and youve been acting super weird ever since I came in this room"

Dean uncontrollably shakes and tears come out of his eyes, he tried to stop but it wouldn't stop

"N-nothing" he looks away from Castiel

Castiel gently puts his hand on Dean's shoulder looking concerned "you can tell me Dean..."

Dean uncontrollably sobs and Castiel just sits next to Dean waiting for him to calm down knowing he could do nothing to help Dean right now until he told him the truth...

15 minutes later Dean calms down and says you can never tell anyone about this"

"Sure Dean, okay I won't"

"None of this you can tell anyone about"

"Okay"

"I don't even know how to say this but umm I guess here we are. I'm what you call an age regressor. I know you don't know what that means so I'll try to explain. It's basically where you think and act like a child and I can't usually control it for a long period of time it just happens and man I hate it so much it feels ridiculous"

Castiel looking slightly shocked yet confused

"Why would you think and act like a child? Is it a bad thing?"

"No it's not really a bad thing... apparently it's kinda common apparently there's communities for people like me and it's a coping mechanism cause of my messed up life"

"May I do some research about it? It'd get me off the other research I so desperately don't want to do"

"A-alright"

Castiel does his reseach about age regression and especially caregiving and realizes that's what Dean might need if he allows him. It was worth a shot, maybe it'd even brighten his mood since Dean always is upset

He goes back to Dean's room

"May I ask you something?"

"Have you heard of a caregiver?"

"Umm yeah, why?"

"Do you need that? Be honest please"

"Uh well I guess since you know everything else then um I guess yeah I've always wanted a caregiver"

"How about when it's just us two and you want to regress then I could help out"

"I-I actually?"

"Yeah Dean! You know how much I love seeing you happy"

"Alright uh yeah I guess we can do that, lets just take that part slow though I'm kinda already uncomfortable the way it is"

"Sure Dean" he shows a small smile

[kakushigotofanclub]

Can I ask you about your wips? I'm curious

Oh boy you're so going to regret asking me this but THANK YOU SO MUCH I have been DYING to babble about all my wips

Enjoy this weirdly organized and non-exhaustive "list"

-

The big one is Burning Bridges, which I have a whopping 25,000+ words written for already. Here's the summary:

After Muzan is defeated, Inosuke doesn’t know what to do with himself, feeling unable to either adapt to his new life or return to his old one. Restless and frustrated, when he comes across a chance to go back to demon slaying, he can’t refuse. But getting stuck in an alternate timeline in which Tanjiro became the Demon King was not exactly what Inosuke had in mind.

But, uh. I really don't know if I'm ever going to finish and post it, and tbh the main reason is kind of petty lol...like, a couple years ago I used to get tons of comments on ao3 and lately I just barely get any feedback anymore. I kinda don't want to post anything I've worked really hard on to avoid getting my feelings hurt. I'd be happy to talk about it, though, if anyone's interested.

-

Another multi-chapter fic I will never post but would love to ramble about is A Couple of Bad Ideas and a Shot in the Dark, which is a KnY rewrite that takes place in the MHA universe. Although, this one is abandoned because I got too invested in a side-plot and literally forgot what I was actually going to do with the story.

-

I've also got one called Smother, which I do fully intend on finishing and posting someday! I don't have an official summary for it but it's about Obanai living with the Rengokus right after he was rescued. Here's a piece from the scene where Kyojuro and Obanai meet for the first time:

“Hi! Why are your eyes two different colors? Where did you get your pet snake? Are snakes your favorite animal? My favorite animal is a cat. Or maybe a dog. Or an owl. I don't know, I can't pick! How old are you? I'm eleven years and five months and two weeks and six days old, which means I’m almost eleven and a half. What's your snake's name? Oh, and what's your name? My name is Rengoku Kyojuro. Do you have any-" "Kyojuro." The man who saved Obanai glared at a person that looked exactly like him except smaller and way more annoying. “Give it a rest. I don’t think he’s in the mood for making friends right now. Just shut up.”

-

I have another fic about Obanai and the Rengokus—modern au, no summary but I think the plot can be summed up in this excerpt and the fact that I headcanon Obanai with ARFID:

“No! I said I was going to take her to her favorite restaurant,” Obanai exhaled sharply. “So I’m going to take her to her favorite restaurant.” He hesitated, gaze cast downwards. “That’s why I’m here. I wanted your…help.” “Of course!” Kyojuro exclaimed enthusiastically. “With what, exactly?” Obanai crossed his arms, refusing to meet eyes with Kyojuro. His face was red and he mumbled his next words: “I have to be able to eat food from there without gagging or freaking out by next week.”

-

Then my reincarnation AU called Da Capo Al Fine, which I've posted a few excerpts from before—basically, everyone reincarnates a hundred years later and Tanjiro and Giyuu are the only ones who remember their past lives. Honestly this one I feel like would just be a pain to actually write the whole fic the way I have it in my head lol. I might write one-shots for it, though, idk.

-

That's. Not everything but I think I've probably talked for long enough now 😅

[riddlerosehearts]

still not gonna fully come back on tumblr yet but i just wanna say that i... finished my dreamworks tier list... i have now seen all 46 of this studio's movies--well, i guess technically not all, since i'm including the direct-to-video release joseph: king of dreams (which, despite only being at the top of the B tier on my list, i do think is pretty underrated and idk why nobody seems to give it a chance), but excluding the trollhunters movie because i've never seen the trollhunters show. maybe someday i will, but right now i'm just not interested.

so, this all just confirmed for me what i've thought for a long time already, which is that dreamworks is an incredibly weird and incredibly inconsistent studio. they've created some of the most beautiful and magical animated films of all time with releases like how to train your dragon, rise of the guardians, and prince of egypt, and some of the most absolute bottom of the barrel trash i've ever had to experience with things like antz, shark tale, and boss baby. and then they've also made a handful of very middle of the road movies, that i wouldn't really say i enjoy all that much, but which i don't think are necessarily bad either--this is the C tier on my list and i will be honest, the first shrek movie was originally in this tier for me because i'm just not that into it. i only moved it up a little because i felt like i had to admit that it is objectively a pretty good movie that was groundbreaking for its time and paved the way for shrek 2 and the puss in boots movies, all of which i love, to exist.

i guess i should share my final ranking, huh? before i do that i will also say that this ranking is absolutely not objective at all and is almost entirely based on my own personal enjoyment. like i said, i originally had shrek 1 in C tier lol. and i have trolls world tour in A tier because i just genuinely love a lot of things about it and very thoroughly have a fun time watching it. the trolls franchise as a whole is so much better than most dreamworks stuff and i will die on this hill. i also tried to rank things from best to worst within the tiers, but i'm very indecisive and some of these movies were hard to rank simply because i couldn't decide if they were closer to "okay" or "bad", or "bad" or "awful"... i could see some of my rankings maybe changing slightly if i thought about it a little more. for now i'm fine with where everything is, though.

anyway, here's my list that is sure to make at least one person want to yell at me lol:

so, to break it down, my top 5 favorite dreamworks movies are:

Prince of Egypt

Rise of the Guardians

How to Train Your Dragon

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

How To Train Your Dragon 2

(i feel so bad that spirit: stallion of the cimarron got pushed out of the top 5... puss in boots: the last wish just existing + me rewatching HTTYD 2 and remembering how much i love it made that inevitable. but hey, it's still top tier.) and my top 5 least favorite dreamworks movies, starting with the least terrible one, are:

The Boss Baby

Turbo

Shark Tale

Antz

Spirit Untamed

(i watched these movies all out of order and for the longest time i thought nothing would dethrone shark tale as the worst of the worst, but i really did hate antz and spirit untamed that much, which surprised me lmao)

again, if i called your favorite movie bad, that really just means it's not enjoyable to me personally--i'm no professional film critic. also, i feel like the tiers came out sort of weirdly even, and i ended up with 21 movies in S-B tiers and 25 movies in C-F tiers, which really speaks to the inconsistency of dreamworks as a studio. i plan to try and keep up with their releases from now on, so i do hope that kung fu panda 4 & orion and the dark turn out well... but dreamworks keeps doing shit like releasing prince of egypt right after antz or putting out ruby gillman right after puss in boots: the last wish, so i guess we'll see! i'm just glad that i can currently say i've seen basically every movie from this ridiculous studio.

[scarecrowmax]

misc. tag game...

Thank you for the tag @the-cinnamontography-is-amazing <3

a band you don’t like that many others do:

not technically a band but taylor swift. i just never really liked her music and i find her so overplayed that it's actually gotten to the point i get annoyed when i hear it played.

a childhood memory that you remember vividly:

one day i came home from school after we got to visit the school library and i borrowed the bailey school kids book about cupids and so when i got home i laid down on my top bunk and read the whole book and finished just in time for dinner and i was so proud of myself for finishing it so fast until i remembered it was gonna be a full week before we got to go back to the library

least favorite animal and why:

i don't necessarily have a least favorite animal but i guess small dogs? i just find them weirdly unnerving and so often they're so loud and badly trained and not washed often enough so they smell and i just don't really like them

hot fandom take:

just because someone/something is popular in the fandom it doesn't mean it/they're good. sometimes people or concepts just suck either in general or for your experience and it's fine to not interact/block/not consume that content if it isn't doing it for you.

do you wear any jewelry, if so, what’s your favorite piece:

i wear a ring on each hand every day and i wear earrings and necklaces sometimes too. i love my rings, my hands feel naked without them honestly, but my current favorite piece is probably a necklace i made out of a broken ring. it was an adjustable one and one side snapped off so i snapped off the other side, added a jump ring through an open part of it and added a chain. it's a spider holding a skull. its super fun and very different to a lot of my other pieces.

a movie others liked but you didn’t:

i'm not really a fan of the original evil dead trilogy. like the concept is cool but the humor, the stop motion animation, and a lot of the deadite makeup is just not really my taste. i do love the 2013 movie though. big fan of that one.

three things you love about yourself:

i've learned to be just okay at things and still have fun doing them, i have really pretty eyes, the fact i make a lot of things be it food or crafts or fandom stuff i just like making things

a place you hope to visit in the future and why:

i'd love to visit somewhere outside the us sometime because i never have before

an actor that gets on your nerves and why:

there's several and honestly it's either their energy or they did some fucked up shit and im tired of people talking about them. im not gonna name names though.

things you’re excited for in the nearby future?:

i'm gonna see a band I really like on the 17th of next month and it's gonna be so great because it's a small venue so I'll almost assuredly have a great view. plus tickets with service fees were $17.50 a piece which rocks. im spending more on gas to see them than on tickets which i find funny.

least favorite ship in a fandom you’re in:

i have zero interest in naming names here, i'll keep that in my exclude tags lists on ao3

what’s the most toxic fandom you’ve been in?:

i don't think i'm actually in any. i don't interact with shit like that because i'm in fandoms to have fun and enjoy shit so i stay out of drama and will block people who suck and then forget they exist

list three things you find beautiful about life:

people care about each other even when we don't know each other, there's a million little joys to be found in life, you can meet someone and have a great time together at an event and never speak again but you'll remember them fondly and do it over and over again.

any dreams for the future?

uhhhh, not really? I've never been a big dreamer. i'm a day by day girlie from way back

how are you really feeling today?

not too bad, i was good earlier but i played a couple video games too long earlier and now my ability to focus my eyes is a little screwy and I've got a bit of a headache

tag you're it if you're up for it @rossmccallsqueen @fromcrossroadstoking @tvserie-s-world

[bee-the-whovian]

My thoughts on "The Artful Dodger"

1st, I haven't read Oliver Twist or know anything about the story except the very surface level.

2nd, this isn't going to be HEAVY spoilers, but also not spoiler free so if you are wary... ok

So I just finished it, 3 sittings or so to get through 8 episodes. I was *iffy* after the first but each subsequent episode I did get more invested.

The Good:

The vibes are good. Victorian Era Australia, very nice. Medical drama, Crime/heist show, bit of a romance

Thomas Brody-Sangster is a gem (he's the reason I watched it in the first place, sue me. I have a thing, ok?)

Jack and Fagin's relationship is very interesting

As is Belle and Jack's dynamic

They are actually very cute on several occasions

I thought the story issue from the first episode was going to be the entire plot and it wasn't and the show was so much better for it. TIME PASSED and that's so important for character growth

All of the characters were good or pretty good in their developedness, even/especially the side characters. I understood nearly everyone and they feel like people and I understand their motivations, which is quite the task for a show with this size supporting cast

Good through line story without feeling like "this is a very long movie." Each episode was its own story, but they did all tie together well

The foreshadowing about Belle was well done

The... something

The gore is a lot so if you have gore issues, definitely not the show for you. It didn't bother me since it was plot-relevant. Victorian surgery, yes it's a bloody mess. It wasn't slasher movie gory. But if you're messed up by any blood, period. Yeah not it fam.

I don't know much about Oliver Twist, as I said, but I do know he was the protagonist of the original book. I intend to go and read it. In any case, pretty sure this was a disservice to him. In a few ways. You can have a story that focuses on a former antagonist, and show their redemption without making their former adversary an idiot or worse.

The costuming was kinda strange. The gentleman looked really nice most of the time, but varied, (Jack was a whole vibe, and I liked Fagin too with his fun patterns) but the lasses were weirdly distracting. I liked some of Belle's dresses but a good few looked like costumes. They looked fake. Outrageous colors and patterns. The colors, ok, maybe, but a lot of the patterns were just, lol, no. Fanny... her costumes seemed relatively era-appropriate, from what I know, but them being so gaudy on purpose... thanks, I hate it. Insert the same for that one suitor and for Oliver Twist. That collar the mother always had... oof.

Its streaming on Hulu only so if you don't have Hulu, you're up a creek. I've got access through a friend, with ads, and the ads along with my initial misgivings made me almost give it up.

The music is fine. Not bad. But nothing stand out. I read something about Australian rock and... cool. The music sure is there. I'm willing to give it another go, but good music makes a name and I just didn't feel anything here

A couple episodes end in the middle or right before something crazy happens, and the next episode just cuts to later and... ok I might have liked to see that, at least a bit (notable, Red in the cemetery)

The Bad

As most television has now-a-days, quite a bit of language and innuendo. Sometimes it's tolerable, sometimes it's completely uncalled for.

2 scenes I had to skip through, one very bad (episode 3? I think)... at least the main characters waited until... no, no it was just bad, and took away some of the importance of their conversation in the previous episode. The "not just the last in a long line" thing. It felt pandering and disrespectful to Belle as a character, and to the audience... well, me. I know the creators know there is an audience for that, which is a problem in itself.

The feminism was... weird. Fanny and Belle are talking and it's just... they are not from the same century. Their dialogue is a Frankenstein of two wildly different scripts. There is nothing wrong with women who fight for things but the way they show us in ep 1 that "look Belle is a strong woman" felt so gross and hamfisted. The misogyny was pretty heavy-handed too, not that I believe it's far from realistic for that time (people are the worst and have been for a long time) it was also very weirdly implemented.

Everyone was cheating. All over the place. Not one health relationship in the whole show. Just... rough. Also, very few if any of the characters are good or nice people. They have their moments (Belle is actually not terrible past the 1st episode and Jack is pretty inconsistent, which when it comes to wibbly morality is actually a blessing rather than a curse) but in general, yeah not really any straight up role models. Is that too much to ask? Character don't need to be perfect, in fact they shouldn't. They'd be rubbish characters. But having clear cut flaws and labeling them as flaws is important. I think the best arc in the show is actually Fagin (not to say Belle's and Jack's are useless, they're just not GREAT. I actually also liked what seemed to be a bit of an arc for the governor... it had a bit of hope.)

The depiction of religion was upsetting, though not surprising par for the course. It was catholicism so... ok, understandable, but the frequency of faith being the butt of a joke irked me

So, overall....

There is enough ill in here that if I knew what I was getting into, personally, I might have skipped it. I know my triggers and issues and this isn't great. But, since I did watch it, I will acknowledge it's good parts. I am glad I watched it. I'll probably watch a 2nd season if it comes out since I'm already invested in these characters. But at the same time, I wouldn't recommend it to friends without heavy warnings. I have plenty of friends who would deal fine with this content, but personally... it's a very caveoted recommendation, if that. More of a, I watched it and it won't kill ya or anything. There is stuff to enjoy. But bad stuff up to your ankles to wade through, too.

Thanks for reading all that if ya did. Cheers.

[karltface]

*thunk* Let's get greasy.

Testing out a new backdrop here while I'm at it. Lighting may vary.

We'll kick off with the most metal thing you've seen all week. All the boners are fairly modern, but as cheap skeletons and skull rings go, these have a classic feel despite not being around too long.

The spider rings, on the other hand, are pretty damn good. It's the old-school sculpt I mostly remember in black and orange, but as GITD. They really do stick out next to the usual kind.

Stacking Toki Heads are always welcome, as I've got another foot of space on either side of the shelves. The Tooly Birds are also nice, but man...

I'm weirdly proud of this thing, actually. I just don't want to mess around with replanting it's roots again.

Minis are a fine lot as usual: a couple clowns, a couple keshi, a Pocket Goblin scout. The demon is a bit of a mystery, though. Heroquest? The plastic has a slight translucence to it. The Kitaro character is unfamiliar to me, but appears to be carrying a paintbrush. The Kinnikuman dude's name evades me at the moment, but I feel like it was problematic.

Other Oddities! A Hong Kong blow mold poodle (0n an authentic Hong Kong plastic cord!) makes the Whoopee Cushion a bad choice of backdrop. Oh well. Another Demons & Wizards figure is epic, and that's a mighty fine resin repop of a Mini Boglin there. And so far, the only one I have that might still fly today. Boglins were kind of messed up. In a joyful and tongue-in-cheek way.

The blind-bag Monopoly piece is pretty sweet. Now I can bring my own piece to game nights. It'll bring a touch of class to one of the most brutal board games this side of Risk.

Flattish Fun is a pair of classic pranks, neither of which I've ever witnessed in use. They still make 'em, though. Someone has to be buying these. Anybody familiar with 'em? Also a Dynamite Pen, which is news to me. Apparently you take apart some ring caps and insert them into the fake pen. When someone removes the cap, it makes a shockingly loud bang and a puff of sulfuric smoke, probably within a foot of someone's face. Use with caution, indeed.

Space Fun is a pair of those plastic spaceships and one of them deserves a closer look), and an Astro-Nit that appears to be a steampunk cross between a pillbug and a pipa frog. Oh, and two more monster pins. One of them is named Bot Eye. And he does indeed have some suspicious-looking eyes. Almost larva-esque. Just sayin'.

Seriously, though. It's like a furious little robot. I love it.

Well, that's another month's booty. Monster's Booty. Get' em while they're hot!

https://greasycreeps.storenvy.com/

[ceiling-vents]

Unwanted Mental Breakdown

So I work as a cashier now a days. They obviously taught me the important things on the first day, but somethings you can only teach when it happens. Like what to do when you get different types of checks. Some you give back to the customer, some you keep. Well when this nice lady had given me her check my machine kind of ate it. It seems to be fine when I opened it, but apparently it caused it to skip the prompt that tells me whether to keep or release the check. So my assumption was to release. I have learned today that I was wrong. The lady’s bill was around $90 and I had two choices. Try and pay it in full, or they can take a part of my check. I was obviously upset and distract by this. But what else am I meant to do? So I just say take it from my check. And I thought that was it. Well my brain thought not. Of course I dwelled over it, who wouldn’t? But it seems my brain thought I was under reacting. So trying to stop the tears and that gross sad face. I was doing okay. It was a hot day so I passed off the tears as sweat for as long as I could. Until the fucking dam broke. I have no idea what was coming over me. Now was not the time brain! I'm still at work! My only thought is that being in a rush where I didn’t have a second to even think to myself didn’t aid me in my emotional distress. In fact it may have been why it happened. I was so embarrassed. I couldn’t hold it in any longer as I tried to punch in the barcode for eggs since it got scratched off and the machine wouldn’t read it. She kept asking me if I was alright and if I need a minute but I honestly just wanted to ignore it. I felt the outbreak was unnecessary but I couldn’t make it stop. What makes me feel worse is her kid even felt bad for me and asked if I needed a hug. I honestly didn’t but… I don’t know I guess I wanted to make her feel like she helped? I’m not sure what I was thinking, I just wanted to stop feeling like I was humiliating myself. My co-worker noticed me and just told me to take a minute in the bathroom. So I did, there I continued the fit. Feeling stupid, idiotic and humiliated. I kept the lights off and just sat on the floor, crying and hiccupping. I called my fiancé I desperately needed someone to talk to. Someone who would understand and someone I felt comfortable telling this. He was also at work so again, feels bad man. He picked up asking what’s wrong. (I never really call him if I’m at work.) I was hiccupping trying to tell him what happened. And he got extremely worried. Saying how he’ll be there in five minutes and how he’s going to take his break. Deep down I guess I did want the comfort but surface wise I felt it would have made me feel stupider. It did help though. I told him about it and he was trying to say how it would be okay. So there I am him and myself trying to calm me down. And here comes my co-worker who tries to tell me, in the nicest way possible, that I am needed upfront. and there I go back upfront with puffy red eyes and a reddened face helping check people out. Then I see my boss come walk up next to me and I just know she's going to try and ask me if I am okay for try and make me feel better. Which won't make me feel better at all. In fact it will make me feel worse, because two things may happen. 1. It reminds me of what made me sad 2. It reminds me of how I couldn't fight my own emotions. Both with just bring the emotions back and make me feel worse. And something about the way she said what she did. Both her tone and the words she chose. Just made me feel like she was being condescending. Almost in a demeaning my feelings kind of way. Whether I was really feeling that way or not. It just irked me. She then said that I was weirdly sensitive. Then that things she thinks would upset me don't upset me and things she won't think upset me upset me. What was I meant to say to this? Honestly?? She said something else and I don't know what compelled me to say this maybe I was more talking to myself.

[gaywriting]

Alex in Wonderland book review

Alex in Wonderland by Simon James Green (2019)

⭐️⭐️⭐️✖️✖️

"Are you having an OK time?" "Ben, oh my god, I'm having the best time!" He nodded. "OK, cool. Because sometimes I think you look like you're about to burst into tears, and I just wonder if I shouldn't just give you a hug." (p. 190)

i finished this book october 13. i finished it in one day, it was an easy read. ive had this book for so long (felt like a lot of years but it came out in 2019 so i guess not lol)

the story follows Alex, a 16 year old incredibly awkward gay boy living with his dad and dad's girlfriend Kendra. his only two friends had recently become a couple and left for the summer for a couple-y summer vacation, leaving Alex to spend the summer alone. Being pushed by Kendra to get a summer job, he stumbles into Wonderland, the towns little arcade on the pier and ends up passing out in one of the attractions. two of the workers there, Ben and Efia, take Alex under their wing. he gets a job there (to avoid him suing the place) and they're set on getting Alex a boyfriend! a pointless endeavour, since Alex has set his eyes on Ben. sadly Ben claims to have a girlfriend and so Alex does his best to get past the crush on the supposedly straight boy.

i'm really bad with secondhand embarressment (i've quit shows and movies before because some people seem to think it's super funny...) and it can be fun with embarressing moments happening, but speaking from an equally-to-Alex awkward person it's sometimes almost painful for me to read haha... basically i had to skip some paragraphs, which is a shame, but i just, i saw where we were headed and i just can't do that to myself haha... but other than that i did enjoy the book! it was a fun little YA lgbt book, and Alex is just a cutie! Ben is cute too, but very confused, which ends up hurting Alex unnecessarily. i don't hold it against him, concidering his family situation and that he's just a teenage boy, but the lie he tells about Bella just ended up feeling very redundant and weirdly executed i did like in the end of the book (no spoilers here) that Alex stood up for himself and in the end he received apologies, i feel like it's always the main character who misunderstand, who assumes and who has to apologise in the end, eventhough it's not always called for imo. but in this story everyone apologised and Alex were super adult about it too, knowing he needed some time to himself and some space, before things could go back to normal. i loved that!

all in all this is a lovely little lgbt YA book. it won't blow your mind or become the greatest literary art you've ever laid your eyes on, but for a simple afternoon read, where you just want something fluff (and some secondhand teenage embarressment) it does the job fine. i think works like this are just as important as the earth shattering ones that end up as big hollywood movies. these kind of books shows the realistic everyday lives of lgbt people. not every lgbt story have to be sadness and tough living, but showing the youth that we too can have a normal everyday romance, that you might find in fx straight romcoms, is so so so important!!

lastly, the face i made as i opened the book and were faced with a photo of the cutest dog ever, who Green dedicated the book to, and who he even named a character after. best way to start a book!!

for bella indeed 🐶

[aeolianblues]

Was anyone else's mum just weirdly particular about giving long and emphatic lectures about how bad drugs are, and how they ruin lives and all, and how you've got to avoid certain industries, types of work/lifestyles and certain people because she just automatically associates them with drugs? (What am I saying 'was' for, my mum brought it up literally two weeks ago...)

Thinking of it now, I find it almost absurd, the association of certain fields with illicit and life-altering drugs. Because I'm someone who currently works in music and entertainment, my mum has been bringing this up nearly bi-weekly since I accidentally mentioned to her once that I felt a bit embarrassed at how I didn't really know how to order a drink, nor had a drink of preference because I just hadn't really done that very often, and whenever I had I was super awkward, because through a mixture of growing up in a very bar-free environment and lockdown hitting around the time I came legal, I just didn't have a drink order ready at the top of my head the way my housemates (way heavier drinkers) did the second they'd locked our front door to step out.

To me, knowing what you wanted when you stepped up to the bar was a slight power play thing, if I was interviewing a group backstage at a venue or whatever, and people are looking to me to lead the way on things because 'it's your show, we'll do whatever you want', then I feel like you've at least got to look like you're comfortable in your environment and don't look out of your element or like you've never been to a bar before. And it's just such a common thing for people to be all, oh yeah, let's get a drink to break the ice and then we'll settle into a nice chat, hopefully a little looser and more comfortable chatting than when you'd first met. The last thing you'd want to do then is make things awkward in the moment that's supposed to loosen things up.

My mum took that as all the possible warning bells that I was on the verge of becoming an alcoholic, because 'that's how it begins, just take an orange juice' (I had one (1) drink). It's completely not about the drink at all to me, it's about not seeming like I'm 12 and flummoxed at a place where I've technically invited someone. I've sort of dragged myself into this one: I got right annoyed at the writers at our campus newspaper's arts and culture sections, because they write like absolute idiots. I've had at them before, I think their music writers have written some of the worst pieces of music journalism I've had the misfortune to lay my eyes on. Sure, the pieces get worse as you read further down, but right from their opening sentences, they sound like they've never been to a musical event that hasn't been musical chairs at an 8 year old's party, and there and then I lose all respect for them.

This writer was at a gig and had requested an interview with a huge artist (you know how Foo Fighters are widely known and pretty much decorated with at least three Grammys every year that they release music? This artist was like that, but for my country, and my country's equivalent of the Grammys. To me, they're the Coldplay of our country and I think they're a bit naff, but whatever, people really like them).

Requesting an interview with an artist is fine, shoot your shot, I repeatedly do, but you have to understand when people turn you down, and you also know that the bigger the artist, the earlier you've got to reach out, because the layers of bureaucracy and email chains only get bigger as you go up in stature and to bigger record labels. Their writer reached out to a band that's been nominated for 15 [our Grammys] in about as many years, 5 hours before the gig, was unsurprisingly turned down, and then was in a huff about it the entire show. Complained about the venue staff being 'hostile' towards them for... informing them that their request, which had been passed on to the band's management, had been turned down after being asked the day of the gig. Months babe, you've got to reach out months in advance! When we reached out to a significantly smaller group than this one, who were on BMG Records, a Sony subsidiary and so by proxy a major label, it took us 3 months and the reason we ultimately got it was because the guitarist in the band liked us. The label said no, he said yes and so we could tell the label to suck eggs. You can't reach out on the morning of, or even the week of, and then throw a tantrum in print because you didn't get the interview. First time?

This writer then went on to complain about health and safety when caught in a moshpit of 17 year-olds, then complained when they went to venue security about it and were offered to be moved further back in the audience, saying how were they supposed to do their reporting job if they couldn't be in the front, where the pit typically is, but while also not taking part in the pit. If the 17 year-olds who've been locked indoors throughout lockdown for 3 years and are now attending their first-ever concerts can know this, why don't you? First time?

This writer also went on to say some fairly questionable stuff about the opening acts and the crowds, talking pretty exclusively about the opener's sex appeal and subsequently describing the excited 17 year-olds as groupies, which is always a fun accusation to be throwing at minors about a band of twenty-something year-olds. Got all your band info from movies and AO3? Have you been to a gig before??

And so I lost all respect for that writer and the entire paper, I do not fucking understand how they ended up as arts and culture editor of the student newspaper, they'd have got fired as a contributor from like, Melody Maker back in the day for less, and let me tell you some of those 90s and 00s British print publications let them write some pretty indulgent stuff. They spent the whole entire article moaning woe-is-me, I learned nothing about the gig they meant to review from the article.

And I never want to be like that, I won't let anyone think that of me. You've got to come across as comfortable in your surroundings. This is your place! You're the music journalist, you are expected to have been in a bar or a pub before. I was reading the recent long feature interview NME did with Fontaines D.C., they talked separately to Grian and Carlos, and the entirety of the interview with Grian takes place in a London pub, and that's necessary because it adds to the character. Grian, with some good descriptions courtesy of an astute writer, can completely believably inhabit the character of the pub poet, the people's poet, the punk poet and spiritual successor to John Cooper Clarke, and to do that, it is necessary to sit him down in a London pub on a hazy afternoon, let his character take its time to really come through in its natural home. Here, the focus isn't on you, you can't really disrupt that flow with a fucking orange juice. You aren't on the same wavelength, I think, if he's talking about his Guinness and you're sitting there, having fumbled at the bar because you don't have a made up mind about a drink, and are clearly out of your depth in the company of someone that can contemplatively nurse a pint while reflecting on when to let go of the ordinary lad in a loose tee, incognito in a pub, and embrace the weirdness.

Now I could be being extra harsh here, after all the very same NME have interviewed Grian previously on a walk in the countryside. I suppose everyone has something new to bring to the table, and that's what makes things interesting. And if you're a good enough writer, you can place your subject onto any sort of backdrop and find them either right at home, or at odds with their surroundings in ways that allow you to highlight their interesting qualities. Writing is fun. But I do think being able to order a drink is 1) a good confidence skill to have 2) something you probably should be able to do once you're inching towards your mid-twenties 3) does not fucking mean you're becoming an alcoholic, my god. I don't even like a drink, I just think I should 1) be allowed to push and discover what my limits are rather than not know it when I need to know it 2) be allowed to be drunk like once ever properly without it being considered a moral failure on my part 3) be able to hold myself up in the second home of the music scene: the venue with a bar, a pub, a nightclub.

But the reason why I find my mum's association of music/nightlife and the direct pipeline to hardline addiction absurd is that she thinks getting into other fields somehow makes it safer. Some of the worst stoners I've known have not necessarily been actors or musicians, though that could just be because I know more people who aren't actors or musicians. And my god, I'm in the tech sector (outside of music journalism, because as we all know, none of the things in the music industry except accountant, lawyer or exec's son, have been actual jobs for the last 20 years and the rest of us are really just wasting our time chasing sweet nothings. We make nothing from what we do, so we also have other jobs and degrees). It's basically an open secret that tech sector folks are at this point abusing ritalin/ADHD medication for the productivity and often are also booze abusers. My sister is a business student. The 'London bankers doing cocaine on the clock' stereotype doesn't come from nowhere. These are brushed aside as unfortunate realities of a dark industry that you should strive to avoid, but for some reason the entertainment industry is a no-go for these specific reasons. (Although tbf the fact that I don't get paid to do a lot of the stuff I do above is also a pretty massive problem in my mum's mind, which is fair.)

It frustrates me that you can 'corporate-wash' all bad habits away. If it's happening in an office, then it's acceptable, a sad reality but what to do. If you're a coked up banker, you're a respectable and ultimately wealthy dog of a human being, if you're a musician smoking weed, you're the dregs of society. If you're a crazed developer driven to exhaustion by a gaming corporation with unrealistic deadlines, being asked to work 24 hours with no overtime pay during the 'crunch period' that seems to come every year and for every single game the company launches, then you're just doing what you have to do to stay alive in an industry where you should remember that there will be ten more people eager to replace your lucky punk ass if you pass out from exhaustion, but an artist on drugs is better off dead. Baffling to me.

Is this just my mum though?

[oyungitis]

I'm listening to the songs you assigned to me earlier while filling my lungs with another packs of cigarettes. I used to be scared of cigarettes advertisement at this hour, around midnight, yet I'm feeling weirdly... serene right now. Was it because Sampai Jadi Debu ringing in my ear and giving me some sort of the sensation of being safe and comfortable by knowing I have your steady arms to hold me? The answer is possibly Yes.

I never yearn the feeling of being in love, yet when it comes to you, I feel like I wouldn't get enough of it. To be able to love you... to be able to be loved by you, it's close to a fever dream in my mind. Am I really in love? Is it just an admiration towards a dear friend whom I treasure the most? You're more than a friend for me, Ichiya. You're the love of my life, the one who takes the only seat in the very center of my heart, making my own universe can't help but revolves around you. I wouldn't get enough showering you with endearments and affections, laying my head on your shoulder to ramble things or just simply to get your attention, getting to hear 'Gemas.' or 'Lucu banget, sayang.' and another petnames you give to me. By that way, for the first time, I think my name sounds beautiful, so light, so right, when it flows from your lips.

The main reason I mostly call you Oyu and Kakak Sayang instead of using 'kamu' is because I love your name the way it is. I remembered the moment I thought your name is quite wibu gemblung-coded before I reach you out for the very first time and I planned to tease you about it, yet when you replied to my not-so-proper introduction, I got lost at words. Something from the bottom of my heart said that I might feel something for you in the future, but I denied it right away— a careless decision, indeed. Now, I've never yearn for love until I see you. Everything about Ichiya is incredibly special, I want to dive deeper into his heart and mind. How could possibly someone be this lovely?

Around you, the void inside my heart is healed, filled with the shape of you, our memories, the gentle tone in each sentence you stated. I'm holding the urge to thank you once again for indirectly bringing me into the realization that living... is not as bad as I think. I'd build the whole factory that produces ammo of love just to tell you that I won't run out of love even when the time is running like wind.

I love you, Ichiya. Please don't get tired of my long ass confessions that are— and will be— sent almost every night. Please don't get sick nor feeling pressured of me and my feelings. It's a fact that I'm not someone who loves something flawlessly since /love/ are either very fun to have inside your heart or eating you from the inside without remorse— my love for you is the first option, of course. Even when our time finally runs out and we will lost what we're currently having in each grasps of our hands, I will still be here. Watching you from afar, feeling relieved when you're happy and doing fine, praying for you when you seem down so you'll be able to enjoy his ayam geprek or another hearty meals with the right temperature.

I love you, it's not another clumsy decision of mine to state my feeling. I love you, it's not just a mere admiration. I love you, I want to look after you.

Please live and eat well, love of my life.

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary12

getting better all the time. 9/16-17/2023

today was better than yesterday. yesterday i was so miserable because basically i realized that i was mixing everything with bad ears (the usual setup i was using was sapping a ton of low end, kind of shelf effect where everything around 100hz and below was super quiet and almost nonexistent) which leads to obvious overcompensation when mixing otherwise, bass and kicks too loud. so i had to go through, today, and figure out what was fucked up and what wasn't. less than you'd expect was fucked up, but i had to run through about 25 or more songs and then start a and b-ing things to see what was fine and what wasn't, but some stuff has really messed up mixes and that takes hours to unfuck, i don't know, like 5 songs about, 1 taking a bunch of my time today especially. this setup also sapped a lot of high end while also saturating the mix, so everything just sounds different now, some stuff sounds less clinky, and i need to get some kinds of distortion more right/see if i like putting saturation on the master. one song sounds alright with it, but will i feel that way tomorrow. another thing is it really messes with the vocal mixes. it's weird, because the mid-range is so favored in that setup by its nature i guess, it kind of begins to favor where the vocals and "guitars" sit in these songs, and so i mixed around that trying to get the vocals less emphasized and guitars more up front. this puts me in a weird place, because in this other setup which is just me getting my system audio, it's weirdly not favoring guitars, and the vocals are duller because of the lack of saturation and say, not cutting them too much in the lows. the vocals are an easier fix, i need to put a multiband on them and boost the highs, i did that to the songs that i've done vocals for recently to get the brighter/better. when i go to the old setup, it's really fucked up, because it pushes them up front even more, but if i swap in shitty earbuds on the system audio setup, it sounds a lot better to have the vocals pushed out of the mids a bit more than have them fully there, because it eats like every other sound on the song. maybe i'm just bad at mixing, if i were good, these things would sound serviceable in these other environments, but now i think i'm figuring that out now. i guess.

the guitars are either going to be really frustrating or i'll have a breakthrough. it makes me want to cry though. it's so strange because they both have more body and feel like they need some tweaking, more brightness maybe or saturation still, but they're so distorted already.

i think what i'm really getting hung up on is one song, a super short one, that i want to be more readable, so maybe i'll just kill myself doing that or something forever who knows. i'm already opening ableton again to try and get it right lol. i have been doing this since 1 pm today and now it's 1:37.

the reason this takes so long is cuz my computer sucks so bad it makes me want to give up or not really just makes me want to die.

okay and now another version of that same song is rendering and could you believe i am back here typing one who hour later. i spent maybe an hour and a half in the shower and around dinner (11 pm) i finally let myself take a break after finally getting what felt like a good amount done, but here i am, back again doing this. i am stupid and insane.

i still need to work on it. i think i can get it right it's just so difficult.

wwow more than 2 hours later still not where i want it but closer i think.

ok now it's 6 in the morning basically and i think i did it. i hope. i'm waiting on it to render but this should be it, i think.

yayayayayayay i think i have it and when i wake up tomorrow i think i'll like it and whatever needs to be done to it now is like at most moving the high pass on it up probably to remove some dullness but i want to hear it tomorrow to see if i'm crazy for thinking that might need to be done at all.

i'm so tired now i hate being up this late.

soon i will be happy with everything again i hope.