#i'm just thinking about the weirdness of media that came out from 2020 through like... 2022

[softpine]

i like how we all collectively agreed that covid does not exist in any of our sims stories

[grapenehifics]

Making of Monday: Can't Stop the Suns Part 1

(I am thinking SO positively rn that I am calling this part 1, like I will remember to actually write more. YMMV; we'll see how I do.)

I'm hard at work on the concluding chapters of Pick Up the Pieces right now, and working on Pick Up the Pieces means I also need to do a fair bit of rereading An Uncivil War, so it's very much on the forefront of my brain, and also I have yet to participate in a single MoM, so: here's some backstory on An Uncivil War.

Okay I actually need to back up even farther than that, all the way to Solsbury Hill and February 2020. I started Solsbury Hill - it wasn't called that, then; it didn't have a name, just 'weird doc file/outline I'll probably never finish because I don't have a track record of finishing creative writing projects, ever' - and then the very next month I started working from home AND season 7 of Clone Wars premiered.

To get ready for season 7 - and because I was home a lot more during the day, now, and didn't have to commute to work - we decided to do a rewatch of Clone Wars season 1 through 6. And you know how we joke about plot bunnies, and why they're called that? That the hardest idea is your first one and once you have that the ideas just keep multiplying? So, I'm sitting on an outline for what would become Solsbury Hill, and we're watching Clone Wars, and we get to season 5, and the episode with Ahsoka's trial, and I think to myself, huh. That's weird. Why is Obi-Wan acting like that? Why is he not sticking up for our Padawan? If he had, I bet things would have turned out differently. Ahsoka might not have left the Order. Anakin might not have turned to the Dark Side. Clone Wars is full of all these little things that individually might not be enough to push Anakin over the edge, but they start stacking up, collectively...

From there, it was a pretty easy leap to, 'what if Obi-Wan left the Order instead of Ahsoka', and that created this whole domino effect because Anakin would obviously leave with him, right, and Ahsoka was getting kicked out anyway, and now I've got this scenario with three Jedi on the run in the middle of a war.

And that was fascinating to me. Once I started thinking about it I couldn't stop. But I was also getting really into Solsbury Hill, at that point, so this new story needed to take a backseat. I dumped a bunch of notes into a Word doc and went back to my AU.

It turns out, though - and this was the first time I'd learned this about myself - that I liked having both an AU and a canon project going at the same time. Solsbury Hill and An Uncivil War both used such different parts of my brain and required a different skillset and researching vastly different things, and if I got bogged down in one it was nice to be able to switch to the other one and hack away at that one for a while. So I ended up, from early 2020 until August 2022 when I posted the first chapter of Solsbury Hill on AO3, working on both projects nearly simultaneously, although obviously Solsbury Hill (despite being three times longer) got to the finish line first.

For a long time - almost three years - An Uncivil War was just called, An Uncivil War. And it had this expansive outline that I just kept cracking away at, and whenever I came across something cool in another piece of Star Wars media or another show premiered or I read another book I'd think 'Ooh, that's neat! That's going in the fic!' and I'd add it to my to-do list. And at some point I looked at my word count and realized I was pushing 100k and not anywhere close to the end of the story I wanted to tell.

So, I started thinking about sequels, and series. I had (still have) this outline, fortunately, and there was one pretty obvious stopping point at what was then the mid-point of the plot. (I say, 'then' because it has since, of course, expanded. It turns out I'm very bad at guessing word counts.) So I took half my outline, dumped into a brand-new doc, called that one Pick Up the Pieces, and wrote the 'ending' of An Uncivil War, as much as possible, as if it were the ending, just in case I for some reason never got around to writing Pick Up the Pieces.

Because it was important to me that An Uncivil War be able to stand on its own. It's got a beginning, a middle, and an end, and the end calls back to the beginning, and the main threat to the characters is resolved, and they talk about what they're going to do next but even if that was the only story you had, it should still be a satisfying conclusion (or, at least, I hope it is).

But it isn't the entirety of the story I wanted to tell. Because they originally were one big story, I actually had maybe half of Pick Up the Pieces already written by the time I started posting An Uncivil War, so while the first part took me three years to write, the second has technically only taken me a year, but I was definitely not starting from scratch.

I also - and this should shock absolutely no one - was once again wildly off in my word count estimate. Pick Up the Pieces is, right now, already as long as An Uncivil War (120k), and I've still got three chapters left to go...plus a bunch more things in my outline I haven't gotten to yet.

So, in true Star Wars tradition, I'm now plotting a part three! Pick Up the Pieces, like An Uncivil War before it, has a logical ending point, so it will wrap up there, but the plot will move merrily along to the next thing on my to-do list, which is in fact the same to-do list I've had since March 2020. (It's a good thing I love this story so much or I would have quit long ago.) Part Three, at the moment, is tentatively titled Sometimes Fate Steps In, and I'm really, really sorry to have to admit that that's where all the smut is going to be. (I know. It's Solsbury Hill all over again.)

(I do love it, though. I feel like I should...apologize, to my fics, somehow, for having a favorite? I do have a favorite, though. It's this series. I love it so damn much. This is the one thing I write where, if you told me right now that I would never get a single comment or kudos on it, I would still write it anyway, because I just get so much enjoyment out of researching and writing it and re-reading it.)

(Which is not to say you shouldn't comment on it. Please, please do! You will absolutely make my day, week, month, year! But I love it enough to do it anyway.)

[scrunkore]

Scrunkore Media "Thread" 2023: Part 6

the scrunko core has burned out, rebooting

63) Cassette Beasts (PC, 2023)

This is a really cool monster tamer RPG, it came up with a really fun type interaction system and there are are excellent designs in it especially with the eldritch-style bosses, that's super fun. Big fan of the setting and its unique vibe too, if you've played the game you'll know what I mean about that. Great indie I enjoyed my time with, though the romance feels tacked on and I thought the ending was just Fine. [4★]

64) Doctor Who, Series 6-10 (TV, 2011-2017)

Moffat's entire tenure with the greatest TV show in Britain, knocked out within the year, and honestly I think it was quite good. Plenty of flaws, like his messy ambitions, how weird he is about women sometimes, and how some episodes just genuinely fucking suck, but you get that with every era of the show really. The highs are damn high, especially with Capaldi's Doctor in episodes like Heaven Sent and The Doctor Falls, and I think that's enough to outweigh the bad. And I feel like series 10 in particular is often overlooked more than it should be, pretty strong one that is. No rating, but I love Doctor Who when it's good.

65) Mad Rat Dead (Switch, 2020)

MAD RAT MONDAY!!!! I played this game because of the soundtrack, which totally bangs and of course you need that in a rhythm game like this one. Fun one it is too, it has options to make it less challenging and the story is unexpectedly pretty cool. I'm not very good at it, but I beat it and I had a fun time doing so. Rats rule. [4★]

66) Doctor Who: The Lonely Assassins (Switch, 2021)

This is apparently the only good Doctor Who game still officially playable, and yeah, I can see it. Immersing yourself in a mystery contained within a smartphone featuring an iconic monster and fun appearances from existing characters is pretty cool, though it can be kinda janky and there's not that much to it in the end. Certainly an alright experience though. [3★]

67) F-Zero 99 (Switch, 2023)

My only experience with F-Zero so far, the surprise announcement that jumpscared fans of the series before turning out to be a battle royale type game that's actually... kinda good? Chaotic fun with decently engaging gameplay, it's something you pick up and play for a bit before doing something else but don't play for hours once the honeymoon phase wears off. Sure helps add something to NSO, sure hope it doesn't get taken down in a year. [3.5★]

68) Sonic Superstars (PC, 2023)

A good new Sonic game! From Sonic Team! The series really has been popping off lately, and though some people complained about this one, I genuinely think it stands at least close to the classic titles it's following up from. Levels are fun and creative with the only real bullshit being in the optional postgame (which does kind of suck if you're not good), and though the soundtrack has plenty of duds it's still pretty decent overall. Cool cast of playable characters too, and it's great seeing Fang come back, with the new character Trip also being a fun addition. I don't think this is peak Sonic, but for me it was a good time that I enjoyed for the most part. [4★]

69) Super Mario Bros. Wonder (Switch, 2023)

Oh 2D Mario is so fucking back, this takes the formula that the "New" series was running with and gives it a super aggressive shake-up and an injection of creativity that it really needed. It has a really nice visual look, actually cool level design that is great to run through, fun powers, and a large roster of playable characters including Daisy finally. Not to mention it sounds good, the music is a great important part of it and the talking flowers in every level are honestly just fun. One of the best platformers on Switch right now, I like it more than Odyssey honestly. [5★]

70) Shaun the Sheep: Farmageddon (Movie, 2019)

Bit of a silly watch this was, but in all honesty I'll always be a fan of Aardman's work and this is a pretty fun movie that all ages can enjoy whether they like Shaun the Sheep or not. It's animated as well as you'd expect, does some cute stuff, and honestly I kinda like the music in it too. Just a funny little adventure with that silly sheep and his weird cute alien friend. [3.5★]

71) Suika Game (Switch, 2023)

Suika Game.

72) Mario Kart 8 Deluxe: Booster Course Pass (Switch DLC, 2022-2023)

Dropping a two-year DLC that doubles the track list and adds a bunch of new characters and balance updates to a Mario Kart game we thought was over was a fucking wild thing to do, but Nintendo did it and honestly it worked out quite well. Sure, it's clearly all Tour ports and a lot of them don't look too hot, but for the sheer quantity of it I don't think I can complain too much. They even chose pretty good tracks for the most part, with only a few favourites being left out that I can only assume will be remade in the next game and therefore end up better than ever. I think the game is actually done now, and I think it's probably the best Mario Kart at this point. Not bad at all. [4★]

73) PLUTO (Anime, 2023)

An anime that took ages to get made, and it shows all the polish that much time of production should have you expect (perhaps too much polish with all those unnecessary digital effects). It's a pretty complete adaptation of a much-praised manga about war, robots and consciousness, some strong science fiction with quite good writing based on an old arc from Tezuka's Astro Boy manga. It's pretty tragic how things turn out for most of the characters, but it's so good how it goes about things, and I think it was worth the wait. One of the best Netflix-distributed anime, I'd say. [4.5★]

74) Super Mario RPG (Switch, 2023)

Geno fans have not shut up for years, so how does his game hold up now that it's been polished up into HD? Not bad, honestly. It's a solid RPG experience with simple yet engaging battle gameplay that laid the foundations for other Mario RPG titles to come, and now it's all shiny and stuff. It's a fun journey through a whimsical Mario setting with the quirks you'd come to expect, apparently a pretty faithful remake with only a few new additions and script edits that it sort of needed. I don't think this game is really that special in 2023, but I liked it plenty. Funny that Geno is barely a character though. [4★]

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[bereft-of-frogs]

friday! 🌿

books:

(in progress) Salvation Day - Kali Wallace: I have started and not finished this book like 4 times. Which is probably a bad sign because I also didn't love the other book by this author I read. I've heard this is better though. But I couldn't pick anything else, officially DNF'd Kill Show, I skimmed a couple pages of the other book I took out of the library and I think I'm too much in A Mood to read it, so I am attempting this again.

(in progress) The Rising Storm - Cavan Scott: Not much to say, chugging along with catching up on the High Republic, extremely slowly. I'm just happy Bell and Indeera are back! Love them.

(finished) The Hobbit: Not my favorite, but I feel like it's good to revisit occasionally. Still hilarious when Tolkien kind of slips into that super epic fantasy voice, and then goes right back into 'kids adventure' tone

(in progress) The Silmarillion: Ngl, part of this reread is fueled by that person on the 'have you read this fantasy book' who for some reason didn't believe that 300 people (based on the results at the time of their comment) read The Silmarillion and accused us all of lying for clout. (which like...clout? what clout? why would I lie about this?) So I'm reading it again.

tv:

Constellations (AppleTV+): I LOVE this. LOVE it. I mean I'm always a sucker for space ghosts so that was a given, but this is really fun. The lost cosmonaut stuff, communicating through tapes, the fairy tale like elements. I love it Also my toxic trait is basically any multiverse thing I judge based on whether or not I think it could be a branch of The OA's multiverse tree and this passes that test, you can easily imagine Brit Marling and Jason Issacs chasing each other around the universes just off-screen. I only have one episode left, really interested to see where things are going (still wondering who the 'ghost' who appeared when the Soyuz disengaged from the ISS was, I have a Theory, but I'm not sure yet). Also bonus point for having some absolutely genuinely creepy scenes. I am so desensitized, it's always really fun when something manages to unsettle me.

You (Netflix): Trash fave, this is my current 'while I'm cooking/eating dinner' show, it's so cheesy but I love it. I never watched the latest season but revisiting season 1 is fun.

Under the Bridge (Hulu): Yeah so episode 1 I was like 'oh old friends? that would be hot. they'll never do it' and then episode 3 was like 'yeah they're *old friends* *wink* *they make out*' and I was like OH OK.

film:

They Cloned Tyrone (2023): I love movies where at the climax everything seems to go wrong and then it rewinds and shows you how it's really all going according to plan. Also, this was brilliant for the plan basically revolving around the villains seeing what they wanted to see, and the protagonists playing into that. And it recreated the vibe of those 70s exploitation films so well.

Palm Springs (2020): This kept appearing on 'what time loop media is your favorite' polls so I thought I'd rewatch it. Still SUCH a fun time loop movie. I did vote for it in both polls, despite the second also having 'that one episode of supernatural' as a possibility.

The Grudge (2019): ABYSMAL. Like truly terrible. I'm not saying the original US remakes were good, but they do have a special place in my heart because they were some of the first movies to really scare me. And also I thought maybe this wouldn't be so bad, I liked the Netflix Ju-On: Origins series that came out in 2020 fine despite it not getting very good reviews. But no. In this case, the reviews were correct, this was awful. In the running for the worst movie of the year and it's barely May.

The Stranger (2020): Maika Monroe has such a weird typecasting haha but I don't hate it. I learned that this was apparently supposed to be a Quibi series and was stitched back together after the fall of Quibi. It probably would have been more effective as short form content. I probably would have ate it up. But as a film it just felt like 'ok wtf is going on'.

to do:

work day: I'm hoping to get through my tasks fast so I can write on the clock. ('doesn't that mean you should be doing them and not making this post?' SILENCE.)

oh man so much writing because I set myself a deadline so now. there's that. well ok it is self-imposed and if things do go catastrophically wrong, I can JUST post the first chapter. That's for sure ready. ideally though: finish the last 2.5 chapters this weekend -> resolve comments (most of which are just 'come up with secondary character name', 'check spelling on wiki', but there is one I know I have to be clever for which...we'll see how clever I can be) -> full read-through. I'll eventually (sooner rather than later) have to rewrite the action sequences of chapter 9, but I think that should be enough to make me feel like I can start weekly posting.

I might go to my favorite thrift store tomorrow to look for some 'person who cares about their job' dresses/blouses/idk for annual corporate socializing event week

Star Wars day! lol remember how exactly a year ago I was like 'idk man, it's star wars day but I'm really not feeling it' and then had to eat my words like literally less than two weeks later? that was funny. cheers to that. Meeting my dad and brother at the movie theater and then we're going out for pizza just like it's 1999 (ok my brother was not actually there in 1999 because he was 4, but we welcome him to the nostalgia trip)

the monthly Big Clean (aka I fell behind on recycling so I have to take a lot down to the recycling bins, and the vacuum and mop are coming out)

pretend to care about my job for 3 days. Ok, no, I do care about my job in that I actually do like it and I want to do a good job, I just don't really care about like...*the company*. but I will get a lot of free food and probably wine if I pretend to care about the company for 3 days. so. fair exchange.

[standupcomedyhistorian]

Holy shit.

I was going through my old screenshots pre-Pandemic, and I came across a part of my Twitter history I had completely forgotten.

So, as I had written about at length in my recounting of the history of Bo Burnham Historian, one part of my social media past was running a parody Rocko's Modern Life account in 2019.

Called Rocko's Thoughts, it was pretty easy to set up. Every tweet was "_____ is a very dangerous day," with the blank filled in with whatever stupid Twitter holiday it was that day (Like "National Hot Dog Day is a very dangerous day.").

So I did this from January 2019 until January 2020 when I completely abandoned the account and never really tweeted again frequently until BBH/UBBH.

But that's just background for the absolutely bizarre thing that happened to Rocko's Thoughts.

So, I had amassed a moderate following of 23 people, but I would get replies to my very basic tweets from people trying to actually converse with the nervous wallaby. I assume most were young or perhaps mentally impaired, but I'd respond back in character, saying "mate" and stuff since Rocko is Australian.

HOWEVER, there was one freak I never replied to...that would be Terri.

Oh, I'm sorry—her full name on Twitter was this weird mix of emojis:

Terri⚖️⚜️🎶🎸✌️🌴

This was legit my exact train of thought about if I should follow or interact with my BIGGEST fan who made a pretty cute thesaurus joke (definitely appealing to my word nerd self):

Me: So, that seems pretty innocent, right? Maybe a bit more law-focused than I would have preferred from Rocko’s followers, but Terri seems like she wants to rock out and hang at the beach. Cool!

Let’s read a bit further before I decide to follow one of the few people to interact with Rocko.

Hmm…

@ LilPolkSalad

Me: That’s fine. Who doesn’t have a weird handle…maybe she’s a fan of James Polk and veggies? I’m still onboard, but there’s this weird list of sentences (?) and hashtags. Okay, let’s check THOSE out.

Cotton sharecropper’s granddaughter.

Me: Huh…

Indndependent.

Me: Okay, typo isn’t helping here…

Patriot.

Me: Oh no, no…

MBA, JD, LL. M.

Me: Well, that explains the scales at least…

#AmericaFirst 🇺🇸

Me: Can this get any worse? Now I’m just curious…

#DrainTheSwamp

Me: Ah, there it is. What else ya got, you right-wing nut job lover of a Nicktoon character from the nineties?

#TermLimits

Me: Ugh…do these people know you don’t need to capitalize the letters in a hashtag?

🚫#FakeNews #MSM

Me: Okay, this is definitely like my mother who calls anything but Fox News “the lapdog media.”

Um…do you think Terri ever realized that “no” could be accomplished by just writing “No”? I mean, she’s written a novel already in her freakin’ Twitter bio.

So, long story short, Terri is now undoubtedly a member of Moms for Liberty, harassing school board members and burning books that say gay people exist.

And, no, I did NOT interact with or follow her. 🤘💙🌈🪩🏳️‍🌈✌️

[nimuetheseawitch]

rules: list eight shows for your followers to get to know you better

Tagged by @marley--manson

I'm pretty sure I did something like this recently where people were using the shows' posters. Since it says "get to know you better," I'm going to assume anyone reading this can read my little description and already know I'm into those shows. I'm also going to do that because it makes it harder/more interesting for me.

Doctor Who This was the show that got me onto Tumblr (that's not entirely true - my roommate dragged me on here, kicking and screaming, just like how I have joined every social media site ever), and it's one of the first shows I was weird about as a (kind of) adult. I'm an Eccleston fan through and through. This is another show that my partner and I stalled on because of a variety of life things, so we're years and years behind.

Veronica Mars I love this show. I didn't actually watch it until I was in grad school (and then I binged an entire season without sleeping one time during a PhD-induced anxiety spiral, so), but I adored it. I have always loved the girl detective, or even just boy detective, genre (looking at you, Harriet the Spy, Sammy Keyes, and Encyclopedia Brown), and this just did that dripping in early 2000's teen tv drama. And I adore Enrico Colantoni as her dad. I also always appreciate a detective show where the cops are the bad guys.

The O.C. I am often kind of ashamed of my deep love for The O.C., and I'm trying not to be. I got the DVDs out from the library and hid in my bedroom to watch it because my family would've made fun of it (probably - I was also a teenager and just afraid of people judging me). This marks the beginning of my massive crush on bisexual characters played by Olivia Wilde. I loved every moment of this show, sometimes especially when it was being awful.

The Avengers (1965-1967) British spy-fi starring Diana Rigg playing Emma Peel, an actively publishing theoretical physicist who knows martial arts and wears catsuits. What more could you want? If anything made me queer, it was Emma Peel. And although she's partnered with John Steed, supposedly a professional spy while she's an amateur, she regularly came in kicking to save his butt. I have only ever seen Series 4 & 5 with them as the main team, so I actually have zero opinions on the rest.

Killjoys I love this show so much. I wish it had been allowed to have more than 10 episodes a season because I would've loved to see more unabashedly queer sci-fi bounty hunter side plots. I love that the main characters are platonic life partners who did crime until they ran out of money and became bounty hunters. And that there are assassins and creepy conspiracies and cyberpunk awesomeness and the show is almost more bisexual than Lost Girl.

Anne With An E I loved Anne of Green Gables as a kid, and this show was beautiful and compelling and did a really good job with most things. This was one of the first shows I did a virtual watchalong with friends in 2020 at the beginning of COVID, and those watchalongs reminded me that I had internet friends and showed me how I could shift my social life, so this show is important to me.

Pose I don't even know where to start. I love this show, and Papi and Angel are perfect and deserve the world.

Buffy/Angel Buffy and Angel were incredibly important to my development as a queer feminine-presenting person. I actually didn't watch Buffy all the way through until after I'd become obsessed with Firefly. I have lots and lots of feelings about Buffy and Angel and I have so many of the comics that were a continuation of the show, and I got really into the lore, and I'm glad it existed. I'm glad I enjoyed it, and I'm glad I went back and saw how problematic a lot of it was. And whenever I think about it, I think wistfully of Monster of the Week style shows with a bajillion episodes per season.

I hope people feel like they know me better because I feel like I just went on an emotional journey, y'all. I'm not tagging anyone because I'm tired, but if anyone wants to do this, I would love to read what other people have to say.

[alegocarmadein]

Long read ahead I do warn.

4. What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral?

Somber. Morose. Melancholy. Those three are my holy grail of insane meanings.

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

Yeah my own work, the Shaman was too late. So, I wrote it in 2021. Very beginning of 2021. I had just been put on bupropian, after years of trying anti-depressants, it finally worked. Slowly. But I still had psychosis, so I'm getting less depressed but I'm still psychotic. And literally the last day of 2020 into the early hours of Jan 1st 2021, I listened to (and binged) Kane and Feels. Obsessed. FUCKING OBSESSED. IMMEDIATELY. But I was off of social media in its entirety, so I had one (1) person to scream at and she was busy in school and shit. So I turn my mind to fanfiction. Psychosis is a BITCH. It robbed me of my memory during and after, it made me paranoid, and a horrible insomniac. So I sit in my room and formulate this plot in the early hours of morning, just muttering to myself. This weird story that would not ever truly make sense but vaguely had a plot and a destination. And I wrote it! And because my memory was so terribly dogshit, every night and every morning, in between edits and writing fits, I would read it. Uh. Out loud. It took hours to read, partially because of how long it was, partially because my reading skills were close to non existent. For a while I considered making a podfic of it to go along with it, but I didn't have recording equipment or money! I was really isolated and spent well over a hundred, maybe two hundred hours on a 13k fic. My writing skills at the time were…diminished, and far from polished, so it took a lot of edits to make it readable. But it was my baby. It was the first fic I'd truly fallen in love with of my own. And eventually I posted it and didn't hate it like all of my others. I would reread it every month, sometimes every week after, checking for errors (of which there were many). Again, my baby. And still, I consider it one of my best fics, this fic I wrote in between 16 hour sleeps, interrupted often by hallucinations and paranoia attacks. And its just terribly special to me, because I know it so very well. I spent two months writing it, and I love that fic, truly. 

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy?

Okay its not really a subject matter, but fluff? So hard. Don't get me wrong, I can come up with it and put it on paper….but keeping it around is sooooo very hard. I am very much a kill-the-part-of-you-that-cringes, but with kaf especially….eeek. Like the first bit of physical affection I think we've ever been aware of them doing is in the end of WHY, right? So writing close affection is like….babe no, this is Kane we're talking about. but….I think I've had enough independent events/developments (character wise) through my string of fics that I can stretch the lines a bit and put in a little affection here and there. Not super shippy either, just…"holy fuck I'm so glad you're alive that really sucked man." oh and verbal affection is a BITCH. Dude NO. I can't. it never sounds reasonable. I can't do fluffy I CAN'T DO FLUFFY. I'M A MAN OF ANGST DEAR READER. ANGST. Anyway, I wrote a fic about them waltzing. You should read it. And I'm also really proud of the next of kin scene in Next of Kin.

And memory related magic trauma whatzits are my favorite thing to write. I have it so many fics of mine. Psychosis <3 you are so fun to write about, my beloathed.

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

This is from The Shaman was too late, near the very end.

"Lucifer Kane is standing on a cliff, overseeing a hazy ocean with a soft lavender-grey sky. Distant golden-grey light shines through the clouds, and the smell of salt and a gust of a warm, ocean breeze puts him at ease."

First off, full name, this is serious talk. Usually I call him Kane, Lucifer when I'm trying to make a point, full name is for introductions and endings. The present tense is something I very rarely do, I generally get tripped up with present tense. The only other time recently I've used it is in Next of Kin at the very end of chapter 4-7, where Kane notices Brutus and is back in the present moment. Weird choice. And I don't really know why I had such a clear image of the hazy ocean with the golden light, streaming down, crepuscular rays (god's rays) streaming from the cloud, but still hazy. The lavender grey was such a spur of the moment thing while I was writing it, it's the color theme for the fic, the other worlds are lavender grey all over. I knew I wanted an emotional yet…like…quiet moment for them being reunited? Keep in mind at that point only season one and WHO, the first ep of season two had been put out, so no hand squeezes, no ocean, not yet, no reuniting, and I didn't know if kaf would ever be coming back. Sigh. Rough times. Well the scene at least hit dyn hard enough for them to make some really baller art of that scene, so I'm happy.

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

so…..so much. Most of the time at least. Big fics are almost guaranteed to have a separate notes document with a general outline, to keep my ideas on track. You usually find them in the final end note on the fic, though occasionally they're too messy to really share. This is actually what has tripped me up so bad with the sequel to Next of Kin that I've been working on FOR A FUCKING YEAR NOW, JESUS, is that I wrote an outline for an ending, went a completely different direction, wrote a new outline, then changed it again and now I'm super duper stuck and have no clue how to get to the end. :\ 

It's a document with bullet points or checkboxes with short plot points and weird details/characters/places I want to add. I ignore them at my will. I actually do enjoy it…for any other fic than the elphame fic. jesus.

37. If you were to be remembered only by the words you’ve put on the page, what would future historians think of you?

a fucken weirdo. Not like. WEIRD weirdo, just a weirdo. like, that artist who did the beautiful, colorful cat potraits that look very interesting? the one who had schizophrenia so now everyone attributes the weirder ones to his mental illness instead of to his creative ability? louis wain? I feel like they'd attribute all the weirder stuff I write to mental illness, when instead that was hand crafted and delivered by my loving, not-really-stable-i-kinda-have-a-tremor-but-lets-pretend hands.

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Louis_wain_cats.png)

(my ao3) https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlegoCarmadein/profile

40. Please share a poem with me, I need it.

(Not my poem (rest of the post is a poem))

Ode to Silence by Edna St. Vincent Millay

---

Aye, but she?

Your other sister and my other soul

Grave Silence, lovelier

Than the three loveliest maidens, what of her?

Clio, not you,

Not you, Calliope,

Nor all your wanton line,

Not Beauty's perfect self shall comfort me

For Silence once departed,

For her the cool-tongued, her the tranquil-hearted,

Whom evermore I follow wistfully,

Wandering Heaven and Earth and Hell and the four seasons through;

Thalia, not you,

Not you, Melpomene,

Not your incomparable feet, O thin Terpsichore, I seek in this great hall,

But one more pale, more pensive, most beloved of you all.

I seek her from afar,

I come from temples where her altars are,

From groves that bear her name,

Noisy with stricken victims now and sacrificial flame,

And cymbals struck on high and strident faces

Obstreperous in her praise

They neither love nor know,

A goddess of gone days,

Departed long ago,

Abandoning the invaded shrines and fanes

Of her old sanctuary,

A deity obscure and legendary,

Of whom there now remains,

For sages to decipher and priests to garble,

Only and for a little while her letters wedged in marble,

Which even now, behold, the friendly mumbling rain erases,

And the inarticulate snow,

Leaving at last of her least signs and traces

None whatsoever, nor whither she is vanished from these places.

"She will love well," I said,

"If love be of that heart inhabiter,

The flowers of the dead;

The red anemone that with no sound

Moves in the wind, and from another wound

That sprang, the heavily-sweet blue hyacinth,

That blossoms underground,

And sallow poppies, will be dear to her.

And will not Silence know

In the black shade of what obsidian steep

Stiffens the white narcissus numb with sleep?

(Seed which Demeter's daughter bore from home,

Uptorn by desperate fingers long ago,

Reluctant even as she,

Undone Persephone,

And even as she set out again to grow

In twilight, in perdition's lean and inauspicious loam).

She will love well," I said,

"The flowers of the dead;

Where dark Persephone the winter round,

Uncomforted for home, uncomforted,

Lacking a sunny southern slope in northern Sicily,

With sullen pupils focussed on a dream,

Stares on the stagnant stream

That moats the unequivocable battlements of Hell,

There, there will she be found,

She that is Beauty veiled from men and Music in a swound."

"I long for Silence as they long for breath

Whose helpless nostrils drink the bitter sea;

What thing can be

So stout, what so redoubtable, in Death

What fury, what considerable rage, if only she,

Upon whose icy breast,

Unquestioned, uncaressed,

One time I lay,

And whom always I lack,

Even to this day,

Being by no means from that frigid bosom weaned away,

If only she therewith be given me back?"

I sought her down that dolorous labyrinth,

Wherein no shaft of sunlight ever fell,

And in among the bloodless everywhere

I sought her, but the air,

Breathed many times and spent,

Was fretful with a whispering discontent,

And questioning me, importuning me to tell

Some slightest tidings of the light of day they know no more,

Plucking my sleeve, the eager shades were with me where I went.

I paused at every grievous door,

And harked a moment, holding up my hand,—and for a space

A hush was on them, while they watched my face;

And then they fell a-whispering as before;

So that I smiled at them and left them, seeing she was not there.

I sought her, too,

Among the upper gods, although I knew

She was not like to be where feasting is,

Nor near to Heaven's lord,

Being a thing abhorred

And shunned of him, although a child of his,

(Not yours, not yours; to you she owes not breath,

Mother of Song, being sown of Zeus upon a dream of Death).

Fearing to pass unvisited some place

And later learn, too late, how all the while,

With her still face,

She had been standing there and seen me pass, without a smile,

I sought her even to the sagging board whereat

The stout immortals sat;

But such a laughter shook the mighty hall

No one could hear me say:

Had she been seen upon the Hill that day?

And no one knew at all

How long I stood, or when at last I sighed and went away.

There is a garden lying in a lull

Between the mountains and the mountainous sea,

I know not where, but which a dream diurnal

Paints on my lids a moment till the hull

Be lifted from the kernel

And Slumber fed to me.

Your foot-print is not there, Mnemosene,

Though it would seem a ruined place and after

Your lichenous heart, being full

Of broken columns, caryatides

Thrown to the earth and fallen forward on their jointless knees,

And urns funereal altered into dust

Minuter than the ashes of the dead,

And Psyche's lamp out of the earth up-thrust,

Dripping itself in marble wax on what was once the bed

Of Love, and his young body asleep, but now is dust instead.

There twists the bitter-sweet, the white wisteria Fastens its fingers in the strangling wall,

And the wide crannies quicken with bright weeds;

There dumbly like a worm all day the still white orchid feeds;

But never an echo of your daughters' laughter

Is there, nor any sign of you at all

Swells fungous from the rotten bough, grey mother of Pieria!

Only her shadow once upon a stone

I saw,—and, lo, the shadow and the garden, too, were gone.

I tell you you have done her body an ill,

You chatterers, you noisy crew!

She is not anywhere!

I sought her in deep Hell;

And through the world as well;

I thought of Heaven and I sought her there;

Above nor under ground

Is Silence to be found,

That was the very warp and woof of you,

Lovely before your songs began and after they were through!

Oh, say if on this hill

Somewhere your sister's body lies in death,

So I may follow there, and make a wreath

Of my locked hands, that on her quiet breast

Shall lie till age has withered them!

                             (Ah, sweetly from the rest

I see

Turn and consider me

Compassionate Euterpe!)

"There is a gate beyond the gate of Death,

Beyond the gate of everlasting Life,

Beyond the gates of Heaven and Hell," she saith,

"Whereon but to believe is horror!

Whereon to meditate engendereth

Even in deathless spirits such as I

A tumult in the breath,

A chilling of the inexhaustible blood

Even in my veins that never will be dry,

And in the austere, divine monotony

That is my being, the madness of an unaccustomed mood.

This is her province whom you lack and seek;

And seek her not elsewhere.

Hell is a thoroughfare

For pilgrims,—Herakles,

And he that loved Euridice too well,

Have walked therein; and many more than these;

And witnessed the desire and the despair

Of souls that passed reluctantly and sicken for the air;

You, too, have entered Hell,

And issued thence; but thence whereof I speak

None has returned;—for thither fury brings

Only the driven ghosts of them that flee before all things.

Oblivion is the name of this abode: and she is there."

Oh, radiant Song! Oh, gracious Memory!

Be long upon this height

I shall not climb again!

I know the way you mean,—the little night,

And the long empty day,—never to see

Again the angry light,

Or hear the hungry noises cry my brain!

Ah, but she,

Your other sister and my other soul,

She shall again be mine;

And I shall drink her from a silver bowl,

A chilly thin green wine,

Not bitter to the taste,

Not sweet,

Not of your press, oh, restless, clamorous nine,—

To foam beneath the frantic hoofs of mirth—

But savoring faintly of the acid earth,

And trod by pensive feet

From perfect clusters ripened without haste

Out of the urgent heat

In some clear glimmering vaulted twilight under the odorous vine.

Lift up your lyres! Sing on!

But as for me, I seek your sister whither she is gone.

Weird Questions for Writers (because writers are weird)

1. What font do you write in? Do you actually care or is that just the default setting?

2. If you had to give up your keyboard and write your stories exclusively by hand, could you do it? If you already write everything by hand, a) are you a wizard and b) pen or pencil?

3. What is your writing ritual and why is it cursed?

4. What’s a word that makes you go absolutely feral?

5. Do you have any writing superstitions? What are they and why are they 100% true?

6. What is your darkest fear about writing?

7. What is your deepest joy about writing?

8. If you had to write an entire story without either action or dialogue, which would you choose and how would it go?

9. Do you believe in ghosts? This isn’t about writing I just wanna know

10. Has a piece of writing ever “haunted” you? Has your own writing haunted you? What does that mean to you?

11. Do you believe in the old advice to “kill your darlings?” Are you a ruthless darling assassin? What happens to the darlings you murder? Do you have a darling graveyard? Do you grieve?

12. If a genie offered you three writing wishes, what would they be? Btw if you wish for more wishes the genie turns all your current WIPs into Lorem Ipsum, I don’t make the rules

13. What is a subject matter that is incredibly difficult for you write about? What is easy?

14. Do you lend your books to people? Are people scared to borrow books from you? Do you know exactly where all your “lost” books are and which specific friend from school you haven’t seen in twelve years still possesses them? Will you ever get them back?

15. Do you write in the margins of your books? Dog-ear your pages? Read in the bath? Why or why not? Do you judge people who do these things? Can we still be friends?

16. What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever used as a bookmark?

17. Talk to me about the minutiae of your current WIP. Tell me about the lore, the history, the detail, the things that won’t make it in the text.

18. Choose a passage from your writing. Tell me about the backstory of this moment. How you came up with it, how it changed from start to end. Spicy addition: Questioner provides the passage.

19. Tell me a story about your writing journey. When did you start? Why did you start? Were there bumps along the way? Where are you now and where are you going?

20. If a witch offered you the choice between eternal happiness with your one true love and the ability to finally finish, perfect, and publish your dearest, darlingest, most precious WIP in exactly the way you’ve always imagined it — which would you choose? You can’t have both sorry, life’s a bitch

21. Could you ever quit writing? Do you ever wish you could? Why or why not?

22. How organized are you with your writing? Describe to me your organization method, if it exists. What tools do you use? Notebooks? Binders? Apps? The Cloud?

23. Describe the physical environment in which you write. Be as detailed as possible. Tell me what’s around you as you work. Paint me a picture.

24. How much prep work do you put into your stories? What does that look like for you? Do you enjoy this part or do you just want to get on with it?

25. What is a weird, hyper-specific detail you know about one of your characters that is completely irrelevant to the story?

26. How do you get into your character’s head? How do you get out? Do you ever regret going in there in the first place?

27. Who is the most stressful character you’ve ever written? Why?

28. Who is the most delightful character you’ve ever written? Why?

29. Where do you draw your inspiration? What do you do when the inspiration well runs dry?

30. Talk to me about the role dreams play in your writing life. Have you ever used material from your dreams in your writing? Have you ever written in a dream? Did you remember it when you woke up?

31. Write a short love letter to your readers.

32. What is a line from a poem/novel/fanfic etc that you return to from time and time again? How did you find it? What does it mean to you?

33. Do you practice any other art besides writing? Does that art ever tie into your writing, or is it entirely separate?

34. Thoughts on the Oxford comma, Go:

35. What’s your favorite writing rule to smash into smithereens?

36. They say to Write What You Know. Setting aside for a moment the fact that this is terrible advice…what do you Know?

37. If you were to be remembered only by the words you’ve put on the page, what would future historians think of you?

38. What is something about your writing process YOU think is Really Weird? If you are comfortable, please share. If you’re not comfortable, what do you think cats say about us?

39. What keeps you writing when you feel like giving up?

40. Please share a poem with me, I need it.

[skepticalarrie]

I want to share my Larry story!! Sorry, this got kinda long lol

So, I was introduced to both 1D and Larry during the same conversation ironically enough. I was at either a church or school event when I was about 16 years old and the group I was hanging out with started talking about this boyband called One Direction. One of the boys we were with was adamant, ADAMANT I tell you that two of them were romantically involved but one of the girls kept denying it vehemently. The funny thing was that neither of them was willing to back off from their stances. Naturally, when I went home later that day, I looked up One Direction and found it odd that, if there was a romance in the band, it wasn't bigger news.

Live While We're Young had just debuted either that day or the before so they were in full promo mode. Coincidentally, the first 1D interview I ever watched was the now infamous MuchMusic Larry denial interview. I was like "oh how lucky am I that I just happened to stumble on an explanation for this!" I didn't really give to shits about any of it and took everything they said at face value cause I didn't see any reason not to and just assumed that it was one of those instances in which fans thought Harry and Louis would look really cute together. I'd seen shipping before in fandom, so it wasn't anything new to me. From what I could tell at the time and for all I cared, they were just good friends and I left it at that.

I never fell into the 1D hype and it wasn't until OTRA (or around the time they announced the hiatus) that I became interested again. I was now in college and far more advanced when it came to online sleuthing and that was when I learned that some fans seemed to have this weird theory that Harry and Louis were communicating with them through rainbow teddy bears. My opinion of Larries immediately shifted from "aw it's just a cute ship" to "oh shit, these people are insane..." It didn't help that every Larry proof video I found was just what I saw as overanalyzed body language.

Cut to the hell that was 2020. Now, I'd always had th mindset that it wouldn't bother me at all if Larry did end up being real but I was pretty convinced that it wasn't. However, there was one thing that always bothered me: if I were to accept that theory that Harry and Louis found the Larry conspiracy theory so disturbing that it actively destroyed their friendship, why in the ever-loving fuck would they allow whichever crew member who was responsible for the bears to continue doing it? Espeically if they knew it was being connected to Larry because there was no way in hell they weren't aware of that. So, there was always this tiny piece of me over the years that kept thinking...there has to be something more, something I'm missing for people to have taken this so seriously for so long.

That's when I fell down the proverbial rabbit hole. It wasn't until I stumbled upon a fact that I had never heard before that I couldn't think of any reasonable explanation for that my mindset completely shifted. That fact was that apparently Louis's mother had deleted every single picture of Freddie off her social media right before she passed. I could not comprehend that and perhaps it's wrong of me to think too hard about a dying woman's decisions but I could not for the life of me understand why a woman or anyone for that matter would delete every single picture of her one and only newborn grandchild before passing. That was when my mindset shifted again from "oh shit, these people are insane..." to "well...stranger things have happened in that industry..." and all I could weirdly think about was the fact that Adam Driver and his wife kept her pregnancy and the birth of their child a secret from the press for 2-3 years, so it's completely possible to hide things if you want to and that's kind of where I've been sitting ever since

The hysterical thing is that I was fully expecting to kind of be proven wrong about Larry when it came to Louis's tour but to my complete and utter shock, Louis's tour convinced me far more than Harry's tours ever did and the home shit happening right now has sort of solidified it for me tbh

Anyway, that's my story lol

That's a great story! Thank you for sharing, anon. It's so impressive for me to think some people were in the fandom for ageees before becoming a larrie. Because that basically requires to throw out of the window everything you knew about them. It's a big shift and it kind of messes with your head a little bit, it's not easy. Good for you though <3

[experiment-000]

My Top 10 Ships of 2020

It's been a weird year but I've seen other people doing this. Plus this year I've been way more into gen fics (love a bit of found family especially in clone wars and marvel) than anything shippy. So I genuinely don't know what imma put on here aside from two ships for sure. Sorry this post is super long idk how to do the below the cut thing and I've had this app for 5 years...

10) Viktor Nikiforov and Yuuri Katsuki - Yuri!!! On Ice

It was a real toss up between this, supercorp, kanera and wolfstar cos they're all very integral ships to my fan heart but this son because of the Yuri on Ice fandom's rebirth this year. I've never stopped shipping this, never stopped reading fanfic of them for any extended period of time, they're still my most bookmarked ship on ao3 (although I think now star wars - all media types may have overtaken them for fandom). They were one of the first things I watched where the queer ship I loved became canon and I can't wait for the film (and hopefully someday a season 2). Heck I even made my mum watch Yuri on Ice with me so I think that says it all.

9) Edelgard Von Hresvelg and female Byleth - Fire Emblem: Three Houses

My first fire emblem game was fates when I was like 14 (and finally gay awake lol). I was so disappointed that I had to be with a guy character because the only female option was kinda creepy and also I wouldn't get the character of kana. So when three houses came out I was so happy because finally there were beautiful incredible female characters my female byleth could romance (I'm so sorry mlm you deserved so much more than you got). I got the game as soon as it came out (had to search a lot of shops let me tell you) and started on black eagles. I was actually kinda disappointed back in 2019. I didn't like the explore the monastery bit (still find it kinda tedious) and the battle mechanics weren't quite the same as fates (no pairing up?! Aka my main battle technique for protecting the weaker units). So I got like 20 hours in and put it down. Came back to it in lockdown and finally finished it! I'm so proud of myself I virtually never finish games. And I fully fell in love with the useless lesbian edelgard in the process. When I started back playing in 2020 I was like eh I wish I'd picked a different character to romance (like shes an emperor that's morally very shady) but then the romance stuff started with edelgard and I fell the heck in love.

8) Cory Matthews and Shawn Hunter (and Topanga Lawrence) - Boy Meets World

Disney+ was released in the UK this year and I finally got the opportunity to watch boy meets world in its best quality (aka not on YouTube). I watched it back when I was like 12 or 13 and it's such a nostalgic show for me. Watching it again I still absolutely adore it (and my bi ass was low-key crushing on Shawn especially in chick like me - I'm 18 btw and I got so scared for a sec but rider strong was 18 when chick like me came out so it's fine woah). And of course now I see the possibilities of the beautiful Cory and Shawn relationship like they were so bromance it was basically romance and throw in topanga it's the perfect ot3 (but I'm also fine with just Cory and Shawn or just Cory and Topanga). Read some good fanfic for them this year. My favourite was one about Shawn stealing makeup and stuff and exploring gender (need more fics like this I'm biiii).

7) Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes - Marvel Cinematic Universe

I rewatched all the MCU films this year too. And got really into Peter parker whump and irondad. Plus my eternal obsession with identity and relationship reveals of course led me from Spiderman identity reveals (and found family cuteness) to stucky coming out. Especially when it involves the internet and social media. Not my favourite ship but it's been significant to my year due to the sheer amount of marvel stuff I've read.

6) Satine Kryze and Obi Wan Kenobi - Star Wars

I rewatched clone wars in prep for season 7 and wow Satine's death was sad and sudden. She first appeared in S2 E13 I think and just the sheer sexual tension of their bickering. "The sarcasm of a soldier. The delusion of a dreamer." Just ugnnhhh my bi ass can't take much more of this. And Anakin just sipping his wine in the background grinning. And I fully believe korkie is a Kenobi.

5) Commander Cody and Obi Wan Kenobi - Star Wars

I am very much an Obi wan multishipper. I don't really have a favourite but I fully believe he was with satine and Quinlan in his life. I don't think be would've actually done anything with Cody because of the whole superior officer thing. And this probably isn't even my favourite Obi wan ship - that honour probably goes to quinobi or obitine. However the most popular ships in the fandom are codywan, quiobi and obikin. No offence to anyone who ships these they're just personally not to my taste, but I can't stand quiobi, and obikin I find only slightly more tolerable and I think that's just because there's so much obikin content so if I like the concept of a fic that happens to be obikin I'll read it. I'm just not a fan of the mentor/student relationships. So I generally favoured the codywan fics when there was shipping involved meaning I read a lot of them this year. Needed that nice fix it content post season 7.

4) Zuko and Katara - Avatar: the Last Airbender

Again I am a multishipper I have nothing against zukka it's cute. But I'm a zutara shipper first and foremost because when I first watched avatar I was like 13 and denying my gayness and gayness in general so I shipped the straight things and the straight things only. Most of these ships I stopped shipping - dramione, spuffy, some my little pony ones which we don't talk about. Zutara stayed. (I have nothing against any of the things I used to ship I just stopped shipping them so much/shipped new things more). I've continuously shipped zutara since I first watched avatar even if I didn't necessarily spend that much time on it it has always been here as one of my favourite ships. It has such good fanfic I swear including my favourite ever fanfic from any fandom - love thy enemy. Plus like the black games (reread this for the millionth time this year), a delicate subterfuge (which I read for the first time this year and damn it's so good) and so many more. With the avatar resurgence this year I haven't actually rewatched avatar aside from my normal random episode every now and then when I feel like it. But there's been a lot of avatar on my dash from people I follow getting into it and people I followed for avatar returning so naturally I returned to the fandom and read quite a lot of fanfic. I also read just a lot of avatar gen fics which were great at the whole found family thing I've been so obsessed with this year.

3) Catra and Adora - She Ra and the Princesses of Power

Catradora is canon! They kissed! What more is there to say. Arguably they should've been top but I never shipped them that much since I was always very much a multishipper when it came to she ra so yes I was very happy it became canon because we actually won for once but also I've never read much fanfic for them etc. But they are very much a dynamic I love and watching she ra all again in prep for season 5 I really enjoyed the build up of their relationship. The other two only go above because Buffy is my favourite show ever and damn there's some good fuffy fanfic and Aphra and Tolvan is both fresh in my mind and star wars owns me. Would love some catradora fic recs btw if anyone has them tho.

2) Buffy Summers and Faith Lehane - Buffy the Vampire Slayer

I didn't realise it was last year that I got super into them but according to my ao3 bookmarks it was lol. 2020 I swear it's lasted an eternity. I got into them about a month before lockdown (which feels like another lifetime). I've loved Buffy since I first watched it when I was 13. It's arguably still my favourite TV show. I've been through a lot of ships for Buffy - bangel to spuffy and now fuffy. I still think angel and her were a beautiful ship back in season 2 and especially in the angel episode I will remember you. But faith and Buffy had so much chemistry in season 3 - she would've been a fresh start for Buffy and the amount of fix it fics I read I swear. My favourite has to be one where they met in LA during Anne and how that changed everything feat Buffy's internal homophobia.

1) Cheili Lona Aphra and Magna Tolvan - Star Wars

I read Darth Vader (2015) and Doctor Aphra (2016) for the first time at the end of 2020 (got a comic subscription which has served me very well already I've nearly finished the star wars canon comics). Just to see canon queer ladies in star wars was so magical for me as a queer lady. I didn't think star wars would be so overt yet as to have a queer kiss in canon (even if it's in the comics) and especially not with the main character of arguably their main comic series. Now we just gotta hope that we'll get it in live action someday soon. They weren't the ship I consumed the most content of in 2020 but they were the highlight of my 2020 because star wars did that and I finally found out about it

Honourable mentions: Vivian and Elle - Legally Blonde, Candace and Vanessa - Phineas and Ferb, Stevie and Alex - Wizards of Waverly Place, Xander and Spike - Buffy the Vampire Slayer (I actually don't ship this but damn some authors are good - this was the ship that made me realise I don't need to like a ship if the author is good enough to write it well), Eli Vanto and Mitth'raw'nuruodo - Star Wars (started reading the books last year but finished this year and only started with fanfic this year), Villanelle and Eve - Killing Eve, Kanan and Hera - Star Wars, Barriss and Ahsoka - Star Wars, Remus and Sirius - Harry Potter, Kara and Lena - Supergirl (let's hope this becomes canon next year!) (Those last four are ones I've shipped forever some of my og ships but nothing particularly big has happened for me this year with them so)

I got Disney+ this year so rewatched a fair few things from my youth and though hey my obsession with that character may have been a little gay.

[hazelenergy]

asks: 1, 5, 15

– sorchamidnite

1: Origins! How did you come up with the concept for your OC?

Hazel was created on a crisp September mid-morning in a hotel lobby in New Albany, New York. My coworker had pitched idea of us trying a different tabletop game. That coworker, soon to be storyteller, told me and my fellow players to have two to three concepts of a person in our minds. Answer questions. What do they do for a living? How do they feel about the supernatural? Fight, flight, freeze, or friend? My answers were 1. Begrudgingly works retail, 2. Fucking loves the weird and esoteric, 3. Flight.

Understand that I had no prior knowledge to what Vampire the Masquerade is. My consumption of vampire media was strictly limited since my preteen years were dominated by Twilight merch and not-so-secret drawings of Victoria in the margins of my school work. So I had never even heard of White Wolf when my storyteller placed a blank character sheet in front of me and began scrolling the PDF for v5.

The only concept I had for her was Goth, pretty, and loves the idea of being a vampire. From there I wanted her to be quick and clever, as that's how I prefer to play my characters, and my storyteller directed me to have high Wits, Resolve, and Dexterity.

From there we just played. I learned about her each session, and she developed into the strong willed thinblood she is naturally.

5: Were you nervous about putting your OC out there? How long did it take before you decided to play your OC here on Tumblr.

Oh I was simultaneously petrified and saying "fuck it. I'm in a pandemic and I have written a last wishes document for myself in case I fucking get sick and die. I'm gonna play a vampire on the internet and you can't stop me."

A little before then, maybe mid January 2020, I made the side blog to put all my vtm stuff in one place. It then developed as a way for me to vent post semi in character, as well as collect inspiration for a nightclub Hazel was trying to get- the budding idea of what would become the thinblood safehouse.

It was April/May 2020 when a few role players stumbled across my blog, which wasn't hard to find since I tagged things as vtm and vtm v5, that I got a taste of what fun it could be to run the side blog as if I was Hazel.

I then made my first introduction on a post of Elders complaining how they go baby! Whenever they see a kindred under 50. They proceeded to get younger and younger commenting on the infancy of fledglings when Hazel popped into the reblogs and shouted,

"I'm baby."

15: Does your OC have any awful fears? Do they get paralyzed with fear or can they work through their fears?

Oh Hazel tries to run from her fears. Rarely she freezes in place, knowing that is deadly for her. She is less terrified of dying, though no one wants to die again. She is far more terrified of being humiliated in front of her cause, and that spark dying right before she does.

Her beast is a paranoid one, thinking any and everyone is out to get her. And most of the time it's right- which sucks. She uses physical intimacy to cope with that, trying to push those fears away with pleasure. And most of the time, it works. She can talk through some of them, but has a difficult time trusting individuals, aside from a few. Those that realize to act motherly to her will find the Thinblood in their arms, babbling about everything.

The few times her fears came true were pivotal moments for her as a kindred. When her lover, Lisa died, the world felt like it was ending- and she ached and felt hollow. And then immediately got her blood boiled, and really felt achy and hollow. She knows it can always get worse. Kindred have a knack for that.

[rwbyremnants]

WARNINGS: gender play, anal play, analingus, prostate orgasm, pegging, masturbation.

NOTE: Oh SHIT! It's all going down! Haha I'll see you guys in 2020 with the final chapter in this tale (but not in the White Noise universe, of course)!

=Chapter 10

The usual bag of tricks rested comfortably in the passenger seat of Winter Schnee's car as she neared Qrow's apartment. They had not been set to have a meet-up for a few more days, but she thought she might surprise him with an impromptu visit. A cancelled business meeting left her afternoon wide open, and she would rather check in on him - and hopefully net herself some "afternoon delight" - than find some paperwork that hadn't been done yet, or else go bother Weiss and Yang yet again.

Of course, one of the unspoken reasons she was being so nice and considerate of him lately was because she felt a bit guilty for keeping secrets. It was implicit that when Ruby had contacted her with a few simple-yet-direct questions, she would not tell her uncle. That was a line neither relation wanted to cross, and she full well understood the reasons.

Especially when she had asked Winter if she'd be willing to engage her in what she termed a "practice session"; not a real one, and not one that would end in either of them being stimulated to orgasm, but just one that would sort of walk her through the types of things that could happen in person, rather than reading or talking about it in theory. Winter had of course started out asking why she didn't approach Blake, but when directed to ask her herself, Blake's response-text was pretty curt.

"You really think I want to Dom my ex's little sister?! No WAY, not even for practice; it's just too close to home for me personally. You can if you want to though, I trust you to treat her right"

With that thought in mind, Winter chuckled to herself as she pulled into a parking spot near Qrow's apartment. It was going to be weird, taking on someone as inexperienced as Ruby who was even slightly related by blood to her usual Dom, but she also thought it showed remarkable maturity for her to ask for this type of session rather than jumping straight into the deep end. And, as directed by Blake, she would treat the girl with the utmost of care. That was a lot more important than her other reservations.

Then she was knocking at Qrow's door, so she decided to put all thoughts of Ruby out of her mind until afterward. It was only prudent. The first few seconds of Winter knocking, there was no response. It wasn't until she knocked for a second time that some footsteps could be heard approaching the door, and the latch was heard turning.

"What part of 'give me a week' do you not understa- oh…" The instant the door was thrown open, the angered rant was immediately cut off. An unshaven, unkempt Qrow had opened it, looking rather worse for wear – and smelling of beer a lot worse than usual, as well.

"Oh," was all she had to say at first. Seemed Winter caught him on a bad day. Her excitement over surprising him began to dwindle at an accelerated rate as she took in the look of him… and the smell. It was a combination of liquor and unwashed male that did not become him. "I… sorry, I should have called first. Don't know what I was thinking." Of course, she did, but now it seemed stupid and she didn't want to admit she was hoping to "surprise" him.

"No no I- uh… Sorry, been a hectic day." Although that's all he admitted, it certainly seemed like the wrong word. Taxing, perhaps, but this didn't seem like something caused by a rush of being busy for a single day. Realising he'd left her still standing in the doorway, he stood to one side, gesturing to the living room. "C’mon in."

With a duck of her head, she did so, looking around the room. Everything was a shambles. A few things were in cardboard boxes, and everything else was stacked up randomly, or else stuck in trash bags.

"What… happened to your apartment? Were your robbed?"

"Huh? Oh, uh, right." Shutting and locking the door behind the door behind them both, he ran a hand through his greasier than usual hair in thought. This was particularly strange for Qrow. His place was rarely tidy, but this much was a different story. It clearly wasn't just things the usual day-to-day mess, and unless he suddenly developed a hoarding habit, there seemed no explanation he could give.

"I'm just…” Qrow laughed and shrugged. “Havin' a good oll clear out. Y'know, throwin’ out some trash, organising, all that Queer Eye shit."

"Some trash? This is… just about everything you own!" Then she cleared her throat and attempted to smile, despite being so wrong-footed by the circumstances. "Well, if you'd like a lift to the store, or… to Goodwill… I have my car."

"Not today, thanks. I still need to decide what I can put on eBay, what I can give to the nieces… I guess I got pretty caught up in it all." Again, it seemed like a made up excuse. At this rate, him being robbed would have made the most sense for his behaviour and the strange circumstances she found him in. Still, Qrow was stubborn, and too proud for his own good.

Although there was one thing that was shooting his pride down a little, that was becoming obvious when he held an arm up to quickly sniff, only to curl his nose up. "Right… I should probably have showered today. Just got distracted."

Her own nose curled just as much. "Indeed. In fact, in you get, and then we'll… find you some supplies, or I can help sort. Ah, ah, ah!" she cut him off when he tried to speak, pushing him toward the bathroom. "Shower now, worry about these other things later."

"Alright alright, fine. Just, let me look at stuff before you throw 'em out, alright?"

The instant the water could be heard running, Winter set to work. The coffee table had already been cleared, and was now home to a stack of boxes, each labelled accordingly. With the weight of some of them, it really did seem like it was everything rather than just a charity haul. The rest of the room was more or less cleared, which left the only two alternatives to be the kitchen or the bedroom.

Considering Qrow would still need to use the kitchen, Winter headed to the bedroom instead. A sight that appeared much more like Qrow; an unmade bed, clothes over the top of the sheets, and a messy computer desk. At the very least this didn't look like a looter's treasure trove like the living room did.

"Even in here," she sighed, beginning to straighten up the papers on his desk a bit. There wasn't really anything there that looked like it might need to be sold off, so she focused instead on making it look orderly. However, as she was stacking a few of them up…

She saw the word "overdue" in red. Much more importantly, she saw the "eviction notice" at the top in large, bold letters.

Freezing on the spot, she looked away from the paper as she thought furiously. This wasn't her business. Qrow was not her "boyfriend", or someone that was more permanently part of her life; they didn't have a domestic arrangement of any kind. At the same time, he was a friend, and one she cared very deeply about. She knew she should forget she saw it and pretend that she never had, but concern for his welfare won out over the need to respect his privacy.

As she had feared, he was being evicted. Too many late rent payments seemed to be the main cited reason, although the letter also made sure to mention a few noise violations. Her head dipped guiltily; that was as much her own fault as Qrow's. How could he never have mentioned this? Her curiosity demanded she dig further into the other papers, but she resisted. The one on top had been bad enough, and it was in plain sight.

As she set the papers down, she bumped the laptop and the screen came on. The browser was open to craigslist, showing a few pictures of an apartment above someone's garage. It was a small space that didn't even have its own bathroom; something for a boy fresh out of college to think of for saving money, but nothing for a fully-grown man to call home. Other open tabs were also listings of various different apartments; similar, tiny one room places that didn't even come furnished. One of which even showed a photo of a mattress on the floor being the bed of someone previously. Why was Qrow looking for something this cheap?

Perhaps he could answer those questions in person. The sound of running water had began to fade away, and within a few more minutes, the bathroom door opened. Having forgotten to take a spare set of clothes, he entered the bedroom with only a towel around his waist to cover up.

"Sorry, Snowbird, I just gotta grab-" But he stopped in an instant when noticing the expression on her face, and that the laptop screen was now lit.

"I… apologize," she told him immediately, face carefully neutral now. "It wasn't my intention to snoop, and I hope you can believe me, but you should have told me about this."

There was a deep sigh from him as he ran a hand over his now shaven chin. So she had obviously seen everything, considering how all the bills were sorted into a pile as well as the lit screen. No faking out of this one. "How exactly do I tell ya? With flowers and a smile? Winter, it's fuckin' humiliating admitting I've been late with one payment, let alone four months straight."

"Four months? And you didn't…" Then again, he had just said it was humiliating; obviously he wouldn't want to tell her a single thing for fear of losing face. "Well, I'm… sorry to hear you're having money problems, Qrow, but I assure you that-"

"But nothing," he interrupted, glaring in her direction instead and frowning. "Everyone's got enough to worry about, with Weiss being ready to pop and the media trying to get into all that. The record biz for you and your pops. My income issue’s the last thing you guys should be worried about."

With a heavy sigh, Winter leaned against the desk, staring down at a patch of floor between them. "So, when were you going to let the family know? When they came to call and the landlords told them your forwarding address is under a bridge?"

"C’mon, don't exaggerate." Rolling his eyes for a moment, he went back to what he intended in the first place; find a set of clothes to wear. As he got a set of underwear from the nearby drawer, he was able to see one of the flats on the screen again. One of the worse of the few he had looked at. "So I'm not gonna be setting up in the Hilton… so what? Who needs a personal bathroom anyway? Just more for me to clean."

"Don't be stupid. You're not taking that place, even if you do have to take one of these." Her hand drifted toward the laptop again, but she opted not to touch; she had seen too much already, and he was cross. "Do you… want me to come with you to look?"

"No!" Leaning against the desk, he couldn't even power himself to look at Winter anymore. This was probably the worst she had seen him in a long time, and she'd caught him in some of the roughest patches. As he looked down to the numerous notices again, he found his hand curling into a fist. "Don’t need your damn pity, okay? I don't want people worrying about me! I'm a grown man, I can look after myself. I-I… I should be able to, anyway. Not some big baby."

She started to take a step toward him, then thought better of it and remained where she was. "Yes, but… if that isn't working, you should also feel like you can reach out for help. It's a brave man who does all he can on his own, but the foolish one who keeps trying alone when…" Her sigh was regretful, but she finished her statement anyway. "When clearly, it's not working."

"I don't need the speech, or a pity party." There wasn't much more he could say other then that. Finally turning back around, he sat himself on the end of the desk instead, running a hand through his damp hair. "What's done is done. Unless I somehow win a wad of cash, I can't exactly afford somewhere decent."

"You could stay with Taiyang, couldn't you? Just until you get back on your feet. And I have spare room, and I'm fairly certain Yang and Weiss do, too." A hint of a smile ghosted across her face. "You could be their live-in nanny. Sounds like a sitcom, doesn't it?"

Yet again he found himself rolling his eyes. "Yeah, I'd be a great influence on a kid, ‘specially on the days when I'm so wasted I can't get up. They've already got one mental case in that house, they don't need two."

But the instant that phrase left his lips, he froze up again, eyes beginning to widen when he realised what he'd just implied, and what he was referring to. That was a line that should never have been crossed again, especially not aimed at his own family.

"That was too far. Way too far. Shit."

Winter did laugh, but it was a strained, uncomfortable laughter. "As if I'd blame you. Don't forget, I'm the one that essentially caused her to have a mental illness in the first place."

Yet again, he deeply sighed, looking off outwardly into the distance. He knew he'd said enough, even if the person in question wasn't around to hear it. It still didn't make it fair. "Some surprise this is, huh? You come for some afternoon fun for yourself after a long day and have to be dealing with me being a dick to our family. Feel free to bail now if you want."

"A 'dick', hm? Not to my way of thinking. This… has been worrying you for a long time, hasn't it?" He didn't answer, so she finally walked around the desk and sat next to him, close enough that they could easily touch. "I wish you didn't think you have to walk through this alone."

"But I do have to, Winter. I'm the one that didn't pay my own damn rent, I'm the one that needs to find a new place. As much as I appreciate the company and the thought, I'm not gonna drag anyone down into my own personal swamp of bullshit!"

This wasn't like anything Winter had ever seen before in him. Qrow was usually so full of himself, annoyingly so. It was like he was an entirely different person. After a long minute of silence, she said in a soft voice, "Then… should I leave you be? You didn't invite me over, and clearly I'm just in the way here. When you have this much to think about, I'm…" Her hands made a helpless gesture.

There was still no further response. But it only took looking at him to see that one wasn't needed. The words might have strongly suggested he wanted to be alone, but from the shrugged shoulders and tense expression, it was very obvious he wanted the opposite. He was just far too stubborn to ask.

"Stop being so anal," she teased, bumping his arm with her elbow. "Relax. I know the temptation to be all wound up about this is heavy, but I know from experience, stressing yourself out will not improve a single thing."

"How the hell do you put up with me?" He finally found himself looking up from the floor and toward her. The confidence was still absent, but at the very least, he was able to force a nervous laugh of his own, even if it only lasted a second. "I can't be what you picture of an ideal guy. Alcoholic, unemployed, arrogant; yet you still give me the time of day. Makes me wonder if you're kinda nutty yourself."

"Obviously. Then again… I sometimes think we all are, in our ways. At least, when I said that to my therapist, she agreed that it's probably true - and she's a professional."

"Huh. Didn't think you were the therapy-going type." But after that, there was yet more silence in the room. As much as jokes and comments were Qrow's strong point, this didn't seem the time. But in the end, he rubbed the back of his neck again. "I guess… Well, it's embarrassing enough for me to admit this shit to Tai. And with the baby n' all, I’d be dumping stress on top of stress. I barely know Glynda, didn't feel right even thinking about talking to her. Then you…" Shrugging his shoulders again, he followed that with, "I'd rather not risk the best thing that's happened to me in a looong while."

Winter had no easy response for that. Instead, she merely leaned back against the desk for a few seconds, pondering his comments. Eventually, she whispered, "I'm not going anywhere. Especially not when… it looks like you need me right now."

"Then you really are crazy." He chuckled to himself again, getting up from the desk at last to continue fetching a set of clothes like he'd first intended. But pausing just after he'd pulled out one of the drawers, he looked to her with a smile. "But… I guess I should admit, as miserable as I am right now, I am happy to see you."

"That's good. If you saw me and thought 'Oh shit, it's Winter,' I'd be more concerned." Smirking as he fetched his clothes, she gestured around the room. "And anyway, you've made a good start with packing, wherever you end up. So I don't think you're totally hopeless."

More and more, he was beginning to think about what was said. She had a spare room. He'd noticed it a few times in his moments of staying overnight, but never really got to have a look. If it was anything like her master bedroom, it would be a fair size. Definitely no worse than the very flat he was about to be kicked out of – and a considerable upgrade from any of the ones on craigslist. It also offered good company, in and out the bedroom.

But there was a problem.

"You offering me your spare room though. No offense, but it’s kinda outta my range; I couldn't afford to pay toward rent of that place if I sold everything I had."

Her lips quirked into a slight pout. "Do you really think I'd accept your money if you tried? Not when you're in the position you are, Qrow. I do expect you to help keep the place tidy, buy some of the groceries, things like that, of course. But that's only if you would consent to living there."

"…You're serious?" He had been just about to slide on a pair of boxers before he froze, looking over to her again and raising an eyebrow. "What about your pop? Or Weiss even? Thought you had rules with mixing work and play."

"I do," she sighed heavily. "But this is more important; it's about your survival, your quality of life. I'd still prefer to keep my family from finding out, but they so rarely visit my apartment that it won't likely be an issue."

"Huh." It still seemed such an alien concept to him, that someone was so willing to help him and ask for nothing in return. Apart from paying for groceries of course. "You're actually willing to put up with me in your apartment? Cause I warn you now, I like watching cheesy sitcoms and war movies."

"I tend to watch more documentary programming than anything. However, I'm sure we can find a happy compromise." Then she fixed him with a hard stare. "I would insist that you try finding employment again; I know luck has been against you, but there has to be something out there for you. Just so you don’t think this will be a handout."

"Well, I'm doing that anyways. I do the odd job for cash-in-hand when people call, but other than that most of my day is job hunting." Though when Winter raised an eyebrow in doubt, he spared her a small smile. "And drinking, I guess."

"Well, there will have to be less drinking. I'm not saying give it up, but you have to cut back if you're to be presentable to interviewers; keep it to the evenings."

"Never drink before an interview." The very conversation with Winter was seeming like an interview of its own, but it was far more bearable when the end game was considered. It really would be a solution to his problems, and be far more convenient for them both. In fact… "Does this mean extra play?"

That brought about the most catlike smile he'd ever seen on the businesswoman, but instead of responding verbally, she merely shrugged.

"Oh come on, your big strapping Rooster just down the hall; how can you resist?" There was the Qrow she knew and liked. Over confident and flirty, and still with nothing on. Giving a small smirk, he abandoned that task, and instead sat on the edge of the bed. "And I can tell that's why you came today, right?"

"Well, yes. Not that I knew there would be a problem, of course, but… I had intended to grant you a surprise session with Princess." Her head nodded toward the living room as she added, "And I have the accessories to prove it."

"Then I guess these will be useless for the evening…" He threw the pair of boxers straight back into the drawer, standing up again as his smirk got even more mischievous. "One more noise complaint won't hurt; might as well leave with a bang."

"Pun intended?" she chuckled, walking past him into the living room, where she had left the supplies. In no time at all, she was walking back into the bedroom, eyes flicking to his nude form.

"So, I brought along a pretty fair selection. Nothing big or bulky, but most of the various items we might use are here. Anything you're in the mood for?"

That was a good question. In their months together, there wasn't much left to explore. Most anything dominating with Winter had been tried, and most things with Qrow had also been attempted, apart from those that didn't abide by his rule.

Although, that rule was starting to become less of an issue. The more Qrow thought back to the conversation with Blake that first time, that gesture with her finger, the more he was beginning to seriously consider letting the rule slip. Winter would know what she was doing, and they had safety words. There was very little reason to stop them from experimenting except for his own anxieties.

"Maybe… you could Dom tonight?"

That caused Winter to blink, and quite a few times. "Me? Oh… I had assumed you'd want to be on top." Mostly because his life was so out of control at the moment; she presumed he would want to regain that through play. Quickly she followed up with, "But of course, that's fine by me! What sort of experience are you interested in? Petplay? Spanking the naughty schoolboy?"

"Well, I kinda want your input on this one. Cause… something I wanna try. You remember the rule I set?"

"Which rule was that? Oh - the anal limit? Don't worry, I won't even go back there tonight. We can focus completely on Rooster's rooster." The last was said with a slight lilt of teasing, but mostly, her tone was very gentle with him. She wanted him to know that anything he wanted was his; she was fine with him playing the "power bottom" role for one night.

"Actually… damn, how do I put this?" Yet again he scratched his head. This wasn't going to be a regular session of play. It seemed that Ruby wasn't the only one of this side the family she'd be guiding through certain experiments. "I was wondering if we could, uh… try out some stuff."

"You… wait, wait." She walked over to sit down next to him on the bed. "This is a pretty sudden change, isn't it? Are you… sure? I mean, I have no problem - especially with you freshly showered - but if you're on the fence about this, then perhaps we should talk through it first."

Cheeks the tiniest bit rosy, he answered, "I've been meaning to bring it up a while actually. That first night we went to the club, Blake was tellin’ me about it. I was curious. But… y'know, macho pride, or whatever." He shrugged his shoulders yet again. "But I figure, you've just seen me at my worst, so there ain't exactly any shame anymore."

For a moment, she watched him as he carried the burden inside of himself. Then she leaned in and pressed her lips up against his neck before whispering, "I'll fuck your ass until you're begging for mercy, Qrow. But that won't heal what's inside of you. If you do want to talk later, I'll be around."

It brought a smile to his lips. Turning toward her instead, he looked once again between two things. Her eyes and her lips. Both were fast becoming his favourite thing, even if the relationship wasn't a romantic one. It was a friendship that brought comfort to them both, something that meant it didn't matter what people thought. With that in mind, he asked, "Don't suppose you wanna stay the night?"

"Oh, I could be convinced," she sighed, as if it were some great burden. Then she reached back and gently patted his hindquarters. "Now, as for this… you'd better start thinking about just how much you want to try tonight. I'll give you a good fingering if you want, or we could go even further than that. Up to you."

"Fingers sound like the best start," he agreed, finally undoing the towel and tossing it to one side instead. It seemed pointless to keep it on now. Yet again, he found himself looking to the bag that Winter had prepared. No doubt she would have only brought items to suit her needs in anticipation he'd take charge as normal. The strap on wouldn't be in there. However…

"Hey, what about that vibrator? That in your bag of tricks?"

Her smile was growing wider. "Somebody really is feeling adventurous!" Her hand trailed up his toned chest, through the iron-grey hairs that curled gently there. "How about… you let me take care of you, and worry about what I have with me later? I'll start off wearing a glove and then try some fun things." The hand stilled. "But don't forget our safety signal, and use it if I try something that doesn't sit right."

"Yeah, the chicken noises, got it." Nodding in agreement, he finally shuffled himself further back on the bed, laying back on it. A glove didn't sound so scary, not when Winter would know how to take absolute care. Looking to her from his angle, he smirked. "Have at it, I guess."

"You guess?" she burst out, unable to keep from laughing. Meanwhile, she did stand up from the bed to fetch her bag, out of which she nipped only two things: a small bottle of lube, and a pair of disposable latex gloves. "Now, this doesn't have to have all the 'domming' language if you don't want, but if it is what you want… you know what two words you have to say to start things off."

"Long as you're gentle." He had already began to part his legs, enough to give Winter plenty of room to work with. If it was any other situation, he would have leapt straight in, allowed Winter to call him everything under the sun. But in this instance, he wished for a more gentle start, just till he was used to things. Still, he trusted her enough to do that, and uttered those words: "Begin Play."

Winter paused to smile down at him as she pulled on the second glove before she nodded to convey her understanding. A thoughtful expression passed over her face; there was a route she could take their evening, but wanted to test it out first. See if he was interested.

"Someone's been a bad little girl." Then she raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for a response.

Little girl? That made Qrow raise an eyebrow. Seemed they were going to be experimenting with more than just his back end. Not knowing how else to respond, he lowered his head. "Yes, Princess."

A hand pressed to her lips as she suppressed a laugh. She had been expecting him to gruffly brush off calling him a "girl" in this situation - or any other! But now that he had acquiesced… this might be fun, indeed.

"Poor girl," she sighed, trailing a hand from hip to down along the thigh. "Keeping secrets like this… it won't do. Princess will have to punish you."

"This is gonna be so weird…" he muttered under his breath, yet did nothing to stop her as she toyed and stared at him more and more, finding himself beginning to blush. Her other hand fell to her hip as she gazed down at him, wondering where she might go from there. His anatomy was not erect, but it was fully exposed for her to toy with. But should she?

Not yet. "Turn over, because this little girl has earned herself a spanking."

"Yes, Your Highness." Back to spanking again. Seemed Qrow had discovered what Winter particularly enjoyed when it was her turn to be dominant. As much as he didn't mind, he was rather glad that she didn't have the paddle this time; the last session had him unable to sit properly for a few days. Rolling over as asked, he couldn't resist giving his hips a small shake to entice her.

"Ooh, she wants it," Princess chuckled as she watched her target sway. "We'll see how long that lasts." And without another warning, she reared back and gave it a little SMACK!

"RGH!" Even if it was barely anything compared to what Winter was capable of, it was enough to make him flinch, and clench his backside in response to the pain. But it wasn’t really bad. He could never explain why if someone were to ask, but it was almost an enjoyable sensation.

"Naughty little thing," she breathed, rubbing her hand in a circle over his cheeks. "You know you should have told me about the money. That you wanted to be fingered. This is what happens when you don't tell Princess everything."

Then, another spanking, this one with a smidgen more force. Flinching yet again, he growled under his breath. As much as the money situation was still a worry, Winter had offered enough of a solution for it to be talked about without too much stress. Frowning, he tried to look back toward her.

"S-Sorry, Princess. It won't happen again."

"Of course it won't. My naughty girl is learning her lesson, isn't she?" Another swat, followed by more caresses. "Learning it good."

Another flinch, another grunt, Qrow could only push his head into the pillows. The treatment and name calling still was an alien concept. Not that he got as much out of it as Winter did, but he could handle it. Yet again, he swayed his hips side to side, trying to entice more. Rearing back, she obliged what his hips were telling her, rearing back to thud her hand into him yet again. And again. With one more, she stopped and stroked over his soft hemispheres of flesh, taking a moment to trail down to the dangling sex and rub over everything there, as well.

"Does she like this?"

"Yes…" Perhaps it was the idea of being owned that made the pain so titillating. He could certainly see why Winter enjoyed being dommed so much. But yet again, it couldn't last. One strike hit the same spot too hard, and the pain was too much to ignore. Wincing, he grasped the sheets, breaking his character a moment. "O-Okay, no more. It's good but… argh."

"Agreed, I think you've had enough punishment. Now, it's time for your reward." Instantly, a finger was pushing up against Qrow's tightly-puckered hole. "And I think you've been waiting for this for a long, long time, haven't you?"

"Argh!" Instinctively he was pushing himself further against the bed, eyes snapping open wide as he gripped the sheets yet again. "Easy! Your… girl needs… a little warning. Help me get ready."

"I'll make her ready." But a moment later, there was a cold, wet sensation dribbling down from higher up, and the fingertip began to move from side to side as it coated the opening in wetness.

"Nnnn! Nnnoooo waiting with you, is there?" With this being more of an experimental session, Qrow wasn't too concerned with keeping his character. If anything, it made it more enjoyable, putting him at ease on what was going to happen. Within no time, he was relaxing into the sensation, letting go of the sheets and letting himself fully sprawl out for her. Already he could feel his rear relaxing as well, muscles loosening to let her in.

"Nope," she told him easily as her digit moved back and forth. He seemed to be much more open to this action than last time, and she could already feel the resistance giving way. The other hand drifted back and forth over his package, but not truly stroking; just teasing lightly.

There was a pleased smile on his face all through her actions. The more she prodded, the more he was opening up to her actions. Eventually he even found himself pushing back against them, biting his lips in anticipation for what was to come. He could tell this was going to feel good.

And it did - when she replaced the finger with her tongue, pushing it in to the level the fingertip had penetrated without any hesitation.

"AAaaaahhhh!" For the second time, a tongue was pressed into his tight opening, wedging him open around the wet muscle. Why was someone of her stature so keen on putting her tongue here? It was mad! But it was doing the trick, helping him open up more and more.

"Mmhhh," she breathed into him as she continued the treatment, both hands gripping his backside - and a lot harder than was strictly necessary. Her tongue was deeper than she had pushed last time, waggling from side to side slightly.

"Nnnn! Wint- u-Uh, Princess!" he called out, finally now starting to clench at the sheets as her tongue worked its way deeper, opening him further and preparing him for what was to come. That was if she planned that anymore.

"Is this what y-you like? T-to put your tongue there?!"

Back her face pulled, only for her finger to slide right back where it had been a moment ago. "Do you hear yourself?" she asked him in a confident tone as she easily flew past his lowered defenses. "Why do you think I like doing it? It makes little girls moan."

"Aaah… Hah… Aaaah…" But the moaning didn't begin until he felt the gloved finger return to the area again, until it pushed even firmer past the outer ring. The lubricated latex had finally worked her magic inside his body. Knowing it was his first time going that far, in that area, Winter began to push in and out at a very gradual pace. She knew how wild she could drive him, but there was no sense in scaring him off by jumping the gun.

The noises coming from Qrow were unreal. She was barely even in there and already he was continuously moaning and growling under his breath. How could he have not known how sensitive that area was? How could people in general not know this?! It was no wonder men like Sun would submit themselves if this is what they were feeling.

"Look at this little slut," Winter purred as she increased her pace, watching as the skin dragged against her knuckle on its way back out of him. "She really enjoys what I'm doing. Probably wanted this for a long, long time now… just didn't know how to ask."

"Hhhh!" He continued to growl out against the pillow, finding himself even pushing back against the fingers! For shame, he really did enjoy this more than he wanted to admit.

Especially so when he felt her finger brush against something very particular inside, and ended up suddenly gasping. The little sound caused Winter to hesitate, glancing down at him.

"Ooh, did I find something fun inside of her? What could it be?" Her finger hooked downward again, attempting to tease the same spot. Of course, she knew where it was, but she hadn't been aiming for it so early on.

"Fff-fuck! W-What is…" He could barely string a sentence together anymore. The finger stroked over that something a little more fully now, rubbing up against the oddly ridged little mass inside of him. This wasn't her first time toying with one, but it was the first time she'd touched Qrow in such a deeply sensitive region. His reactions were enough to encourage her to do more.

It was such an intense sensation. He couldn't get enough of it! The tightness of his own muscles around her finger added in with the massaging of the gland was becoming one of the greatest things he'd ever felt, even if it had barely began. In fact, it brought another bout of delicious shame when he could already feel his legs beginning to quiver, as if he was about to finish.

With a giddy little laugh, she stretched down and behind her as she continued to tease his little entrance, having to stretch her arms out but being able to reach. Then she began to shift slightly from side to side as she maintained the pace, not even bothering to explain her actions.

The strangest thing Qrow had ever felt happened. He finished, as he suspected he would, ending up shivering and shuddering at the mercy of Winter's fingers while he growled out loudly. And yet, he could feel nothing had happened with his member. It was barely even hard, but there was nothing aside from the slight glistening of pre. But it had felt like an orgasm.

"Whu…" he panted. "What was that?"

"Ooh, interesting…" Leaning back in, Winter's free hand drifted up and down his thigh as she held her finger still for a moment. "Seems like you have just enjoyed your first internal orgasm. You really are a good girl now."

"Internal… what?" Eyes widening, he took another few breaths to compose himself. "You mean you can have a butt orgasm?!"

Giggling bemusedly, Winter's finger began to move again now that he had a moment to recover. "I can't, not really. But you can in very rare instances. Anatomical differences, you know."

"Jesus…" Qrow laughed to himself, still gripping at the sheet as Winter's finger kept itself buried in his rear end. Amusingly, he could continue. In fact, he welcomed the sensation. This really was something new.

"Is my little butt-slut ready for more?" she asked. There was no further elaboration on what she meant, only the question itself.

More. It was something totally new to Qrow that he could do this multiple times in one sitting, or that he even felt up to that. But the finger buried deep within him was still sending tingles, still made him feel incredible. He certainly did want more. Slowly nodding against the pillow, he muttered, "Yeah."

At this muttered wish, she began to more vigorously move her finger back and forth. In the meantime, there was a snapping sound; the lube bottle being opened again, followed by the wheezing of it being poured… but he could not feel any more lube dripping onto his body. What did she mean to do next, exactly? For now, he didn't care. He was just continuing to enjoy the sensations of the finger pumping in and out of him, pace speeding up faster and faster. He might very well have felt like another one, but it felt like something was missing. He'd need stimulation in another area.

"Highness?" He only just managed to ask. "C-can I… Stroke myself?"

"Not yet. Princess still has a surprise for her girl."

A surprise indeed. Next second, the finger withdrew from inside of Qrow and was replaced with something… rounder, larger. Slightly more blunt. Already, it was edging into his body at an extremely slow pace.

"Wha- ah AH AAAAH!" Something was spreading the backside muscles far more than before. Qrow didn't even know that he was able to open up that wide! When it slid inside an inch, he had to look around to find out what it was…

And there was Winter, towering above him, with a length of her own attached to her hips. A rubber one that was doing it's job penetrating his body.

Noticing his gaze, Winter smiled sweetly down at him. "She's noticed her new friend." Her voice was honeyed and soft, and she paused that slightest amount inside of him, letting him adjust. "Do you like it?"

"You're… You're actually… F-fucking me?" It was stating the obvious, but he still couldn't believe it. Even when it was right there before his eyes, he could barely believe he was letting Winter do this to him. Nor could he believe how good it felt there, how good his backside felt being filled by the new object. He needed more of that. As best he could, he tried to shamelessly push himself back onto it, biting his lip to resist moaning again.

"O-oh!" Winter gasped quietly when she saw him being so eager. "The little slut really seems to be enjoying herself! Well, then… shall we begin in earnest?" Pushing her hips forward slightly, she gave him another full inch of the implement before halting again. "Still good?"

"Ooohhh…" He nodded against the pillow, still growling outward in pleasure. It was still an incredible sensation, just as her fingers were earlier. He wanted to keep going, to let her thrust freely.

But he still needed more if he was going to finish. Unable to help himself, one of his hands released the sheets, and immediately went straight to his soft length. Grasping it, he already began to work at it, trying to get it firm and hard again. Never before had he felt this needy, and it was all caused by a fake dick in his backside!

For another moment, she held still and watched him perform, enjoying the show. Then, deciding he was ready for it now, she leaned forward and pushed herself all the way in to the hilt. He was so tight! Still, tight though he was, his body fully accepted her toy with relish. And it would again, and again, and again.

"AAAHH!"

When Qrow first talked about ending his time in the apartment with another noise complaint, this definitely wasn't what he had in mind! In fact, if anyone would have told him a few months ago that this was going to happen to him, he'd have laughed in their face. Yet as he pumped his hardened member, he continued to moan out loudly, unable to help but clench his muscles around the thick dong in his backside to feel it there.

"Honest question," she sighed as she began to thrust in earnest, in and out of his tight hole. "Would you rather do this on your back? I know we started like this, but… up to you."

It would make it easier to pump his length. And it would let him see just who was doing this to him. That was a factor he didn't mind at all, knowing a woman was bringing him so much pleasure in the only entrance he had. Deep down, he preferred that. There was less shame that way.

"O-on my back," he agreed. "I-if you don't… mind."

"Not at all, cutie." But she had a fun surprise in store for him. Lowering her hips as much as she could, displaying an incredible flexibility as she nearly did the splits behind his end, she began to roll him while the cock was still deep within his backside. It was not an easy task, but she seemed determined to make it work.

There was another strained moan as she moved him around as she pleased, feeling the lubed member swirling inside of his sensitive innards. He ended up on his back, resting his legs onto her shoulders to give her plenty of room to work with. Once more, his hand returned to his member, grasping it to keep it hardened.

When he looked up toward her again, his face was completely red. It was something she'd never seen before in him, an animalistic urge to submit. And it was only her who would ever see him like this. Wrapping her hands around his ankles, she favoured him with a dark little grin as she pressed her hips in a little more and rumbled, "So… are you ready for me to ride you all the way to the finish line, my little mare?"

"I thought… hah… Glynda was the mare?" he managed to pant out. Still stubborn, even when he wasn’t the Dom. But regardless, he was already starting to pump his member again. Slowly, just enough to keep the pressure on before she could continue. Clenching around the shaft inside him, he nodded. "R-ready."

"Tonight," she sighed as her hips drew backward an inch at a time, "you are my fine steed, young lady." Then, with no other forewarning, she thrust forward with twice the speed from before, slamming their bodies together with a soft little thud!

"Aaahh!" Another moan for Winter's mare as he was thrust into again with far more intensity than last time. And it didn't stop there; soon Winter was building up her pace. Quite literally fucking him. He increased his pumping to try and keep up, desperately trying to get himself to get another finish. It was more to prove that he could than anything else. Prove that he could finish with Winter being the one inside him.

Only Winter. Ever.

"That's right!" she crowed out, bending his legs back as she picked up to full speed. "Fuck yourself, little princess! Come all over yourself! Show me how much you like me drilling you!"

"AAAH! HAH! HAAAH! H-holy SHIIT!" It was the last he could take. Everything was all too much, and he found himself giving into her completely. Another shudder of his legs while she grasped his ankles, another few pumps later of himself, and he was done for. The length throbbed in his hand while he felt the muscles in his rear end clamp on the member, pushing him to orgasm for the second time this evening. It was unusual for Qrow to see this much seed he was releasing, and all over his stomach and chest, no less! It truly was a shameful sight. But by this point, he'd completely transcended the boundaries of shame.

Of course, Winter fell silent when she saw the white fluid splattering all over his body, looking down upon him with mingling awe and satisfaction. That was something she never thought she would see the normally-proud man do, but it was most definitely satisfying. Her pace began to slow gradually, but she didn't come to a stop entirely; it was too fun to resist.

Gradually, the moaning was beginning to get slower, quieter, and more strained. His pumping slowed to a stop, and he had to grasp the bedsheets instead. Two was more than enough for one evening, especially in this quick succession. With that in mind, he tried to push himself backward off the member himself, managing to pant a response.

"T-that'll do… M-mare's had enough."

Chuckling quietly to herself, Winter gave one good, hard, final thrust just to get a rise out of him.

"NNNN!" Amusingly, that firm push had pumped a little more seed out of him, only just dotting his abdomen. But he wouldn't let that continue for any longer. "Hey, knock it off, I'm gettin' sore here."

"Party pooper." But the next thing she said was, "I'm going to try to pull out slow and smooth. Are you ready?"

After grasping the sheets to brace himself, he nodded. "Ready as I'll ever be." Nodding her understanding, she drew back and out of him in one fluid motion, an inch at a time. One last shaky moan, and she was free. Already he could feel his muscles beginning to tighten up again, and already there was an odd feeling of emptiness now that she'd gone. Not that he would be asking her to put things back in any time soon.

"So…" He just began to catch his breath again. "This doesn't mean I'm gay now, does it?"

"Perhaps a little, but no more than I am." Her shoulder shrugged as she rubbed up and down his hip once his legs were lying flat again. "And as I keep insisting, I'm straight with some small amount of leeway. It's not an either-or."

"Yeah, guess so." Finally, he gazed down at his chest. Splattered with his own juices, more than he had ever thought he alone was capable of. "Jesus! And I just showered, too!"

"No reason we shouldn't both shower now," she sighed, looking down at the implement she had taken him with. "After taking care of this, I might want to. No offense."

"Hey, you're the one that decided fucking me with a strap on was a good idea! I just wanted fingers!"

Half way through his sentence however, there was a repeated buzzing sound coming from Winter's jacket pocket. It was too late in the day to possibly be a client, and her father said he wouldn't bother her. Who could it be? Stripping off her gloves as fast as she could, so they would be inside-out and not get on anything, she tossed them onto the bed and snatched up her phone to see who it was. When she saw Yang's number, her eyebrows rose as she answered it.

"This is Winter."

"Hey! It's me! Um… Y-y'know how you said to call if anything changed?" Yang was sounding a lot more flustered than normal, talking quickly and stammering the odd word. From the background noise, it sounded as though she was driving.

"Yes?" she put in. "So I take it something has-"

"DON'T TALK ON THE PHONE AND DRIVE AT THE SAME TIME, YOU IMBECILE!" a screeching voice ordered a little further away from the microphone. "WERE YOU RAISED IN THE WOODS?!"

"WELL I COULD HARDLY SET UP THE HANDS-FUCKING-FREE RIGHT NOW, COULD I?! DO YOU WANT FAMILY THERE OR NOT?!"

The yelling was even heard by Qrow, who had just been about to clean himself up with some tissues when he recognised Yang's voice. Stopping for a moment, he listened in.

"Sorry, didn't mean to yell, but yeah! You could say that; I think from the yelling she's in labour!"

"Oh? OH!" Completely stunned by this development, Winter's hand pressed against her face, leaving a very light powdering from the latex glove. "God, this is- SHIT! Shit, does it have to happen NOW?!"

"What? What is it?" Qrow had whispered to ask, still not even close to being clean just yet. He'd been too busy trying to listen to one half of the conversation.

"I know, why couldn't Weiss have held it in for another week like she was suppos-" That thought was beginning to trail off for a short moment. "I'm joking, Winter said something about the timi-"

"IF YOU WANNA PUSH THIS BABY OUT YOUR FUCKING DICKHOLE, BE MY GUEST!"

"Eh heh," Winter said in response to her sister's moaning. "Just… hold on as best you can. Which hospital are you going toward?"

"Vanderbilt. That seemed the best one and it's closest. And will you please STOP FUCKING YELLING AT ME, I'M TRYING MY BEST!"

"Hospital? Wait… are you kidding me?!" Qrow had finally caught on, sitting himself upright at last and actually making more of an effort to clean himself up this time. No doubt Winter would want to leave straight away, and he hadn't even got a fresh pair of clothes ready!

"And I'm wearing THIS!" Winter shouted, gesturing down at her pelvis. Next second, her good sense had come back to her and she told Yang, "I m-mean, I'll be there as soon as I can! Just take care of my baby sister! I trust you!"

"GO FASTER! Run that red light!"

"I ALREADY RAN THREE! O-okay, later!"

It wasn't exactly the most reassuring way to leave a conversation, but there were obviously other things on Yang's mind right now. Just as there were Qrow and Winter's. They would need to skip their shower, and definitely rush the clean-up. Grabbing yet more tissues, Qrow continued to clear away the vast amounts on his chest. "She's a couple weeks early, ain't she?!"

"Tell that to the baby!" Winter grunted, dashing into the bathroom. The only sensible thing in her mind at that moment was to take the strap-on off in there and leave it in the sink, where she could also wash her hands afterward.

Collecting a random shirt from the dirty laundry pile, Qrow took a quick moment to sniff at the pit area. No real stench, it would do. He was hardly going to put on a spotless shirt when he was still barely cleaned. Forcing it over his shoulders and quickly grabbing some underwear and pants, he was trying to rush as quick as possible to get ready.

"Can't she hold it off or something? Clamp her legs together?"

From the bathroom, he could hear a near-outraged, "Don't you know anything about biology?! She can, but not for very long before her body decides she's being stupid and pushes it out anyway!"

"Well how am I supposed to know that?! It thought it was like takin’ a… y'know what? I'm not even gonna finish that." Quickly forcing on a pair of socks, he was more or less finished. "Mind giving me a lift, too? I'm still over the legal limit. Didn’t think I’d need to drive tonight."

"Of course. We'll just… say I picked you up on the way there." Just then, she returned, sans one strap-on and looking much the same as she had when arriving, though a little worse for wear. "Oh, and… try not to be too startled when the inevitable happens."

"And what inevitable is that?" he asked, hurriedly walking to the front door to thrust his shoes on and collect his house keys.

As she passed him to open the door for him, given that he was still struggling into his shoes, she muttered two words under her breath: "Lube fart."

"Lu- oh come on, you gotta be kidding me! Way to make me feel super gay." Finally finished, he quickly dashed out the door, waiting for her to follow first before he locked it and they could get on their way.

"Aww, listen to her; she's so angry about the lube fart!" Winter cackled as they locked up and raced down the hallway. Undignified though it was, she would continue to laugh about lube farts all the way there.

[bread-tab]

I'm a younger millennial and I still get this. We're in the 2020s and I'm still thinking of the 80s as being twenty years ago, which hasn't been true since I was like five.

There's a radio station I listened to for much of the 2010s that used the tagline "80s, 90s and today!" A couple years ago they changed that to "80s, 90s, 2k and today!", which gave me a slight existential crisis.

I have a sense that pop culture for people older than me is this limited set of cultural references that everyone is expected to be at least somewhat familiar with, whereas for people younger than me, what you're into depends on what you find on the internet and what other people in your network (at school or on social media) are into. There's just so much out there.

It's really interesting for me to listen to my parents and their peers (older genX and young boomers) talking about media because they process it completely differently from me. To them, I'm a lightning-fast memester who's into all sorts of weird esoteric forms of media. When I compare myself to people in their teens now, though, I'm a "boomer" who's out of touch enough that I've never been on snapchat, tiktok, amino, or wattpad. (I'm not even sure which of those are relevant anymore, or to whom. I was a facebook/twitter/blogspot/tumblr/ao3 early adopter and then I stuck there, and part of me still thinks those sites and web 2.0 as a concept are the cool new thing.)

The point about media being longer-lasting now is really interesting to me because I was barely around for that era; I grew up as cassette and VHS tapes evolved into CDs and DVDs and then mp3s and Netflix. Early meme culture also had much more longevity. For me, the medium was fleeting, but the content and the cultural milieu were immutable.

Nowadays though, memes grow stale within a couple weeks and lolcats and advice animals are considered "ancient." New shows, games, and sometimes even books have a hype train for a couple of years and then the fandoms die off. Sometimes they violently self-destruct (see Voltron, which btw I still think of as a new show), sometimes they fade into obscurity as the hype train gets bored and finds new targets (why is everyone saying Among Us is dead?! It just got popular!). There are so many "classics" piling up that their value is starting to feel less canonical and more arbitrary. And why watch dated "classics" when there's so much new stuff coming out every year?

I think Harry Potter is an interesting transitional case that shows the changing trends of young people's attitudes towards media and the shape of fandom culture. For millennials, especially the ones a couple years older than me, the Harry Potter franchise was one of the biggest landmarks in pop culture. A lot of the internet's fandom infrastructure as it exists today was built by the Harry Potter fandom (building on foundations laid by pre-internet fan culture from fandoms like Star Trek, and followed up I think by the likes of Twilight, Naruto, the Hunger Games, and Supernatural).

The experience of the Harry Potter fans of my generation was of a hype train that lasted over a decade as the books and movies came out. If you were in fandom spaces on the internet or nerdy spaces irl there was no escaping it, even as the hype train was cooling down after 2011 when the last movie came out. (I only got into Harry Potter fanfiction in 2012 or so and it was still basically a thriving literary genre unto itself at that point.)

In the last year or two, the only things I've heard about Harry Potter are a few people (older than me) reminiscing about it, a few people enthusing about their own Hogwarts house, and a lot of hate directed at the entire franchise and even the fandom based on J.K. Rowling's transphobia and other bigotries. I can't really tell if that's widespread or just what's trickling in through my own connections. Potterheads have always been seen as "cringe," but these days it's more like "cancelled." (And the meaning of "cancelled" itself is a lot different than it was ten years ago. That's a whole other can of worms.)

The Harry Potter fandom of my generation grew up, diversified their interests, and don't participate as much in the fandom spaces of the current "young fan" demographic. There seems to be a weird gap where some pockets of the Harry Potter internet fandom of yesteryear still persist and yet other large swathes of the fandom scene kind of put the entire franchise on par with Voltron or Game of Thrones; old hype, yuck in hindsight. (Supernatural is kind of in a similar place, but way less mainstream popular.) Meanwhile in real life London the Platform 9 3/4 store and other Harry-Potter-themed tourist traps were still packed to the gills in 2019. (Will they even be there after the pandemic?)

When I say fandoms die off, I fudge the truth a bit. They're kind of undead. People say they're dead because there's still this current of public attention, the successor of the pop culture pools of previous decades. Things cycle constantly in and out of obscurity. People keep getting into the media industries and doing reboots and sequels to the touchstones of their own childhoods, and in doing so they spawn fandom revivals and grand dramas when old and new fandom cultures clash.

Kids these days think of internet fandom spaces as belonging to them and are often offended or at least surprised by all us old people hanging around (and apparently mid-twenties is old and I'm as almost as much of a boomer as my dad is). Meanwhile the millennials are like "excuse me? *We* were the internet generation! This has been our playhouse since before you were born!" (Wait, there are teenagers who were born in 2008 now?!) There's this crazy time dilation where each year exposes us to the same amount of new information and cultural moments that we used to see in maybe an entire decade. Meanwhile in real life... my parents are still probably thinking of Harry Potter as a new thing, the same way I still think of the Star Wars sequel trilogy as a new thing. My grandparents probably feel like Harry Potter came out last week.

What confuses things even more is that the lines between the internet and "real life" are dissolving. It used to take months for mainstream media to catch on that a major internet trend was happening, if they even did at all. I'm talking less than a decade ago. That's not that much of a long time if you're an adult!

Nowadays, fandom has gone mainstream. Creators and media companies are swayed by the fans, and what we are exposed to, excited about, and having discourse over is ever-increasingly manipulated by corporate powers. And in the world beyond that, half the people on the internet are using their real names, your shitty boss wants to friend you on Facebook, and you can't swing a bat on your own Twitter timeline without hitting a U.S. senator.

The pandemic was the last straw. The cultural impact of work, school, and social interaction shifting largely online for so many people, even if only for a few months, is beyond my ability to quantify. It's changing the internet, it's changing "real life" social norms for every age group, it's affecting today's kids in ways that even we millennials, the so-called "first generation to grow up online," won't be able to predict. It kind of feels like a dam has broken, sending a wave of long-expected changes across the landscape in an unexpectedly sudden flood.

The pace of cultural evolution, conversation and the cycle of creation and deconstruction and reconstruction is faster than ever before. I feel like an old man on this website. Heck, I bet even the teenagers feel old at this point, with all the things they've seen and been through in the last few years. It's nuts.

The funny thing is, we're all in the same boat. I have bonding moments with my grandma talking over this stuff. It's scary, it's exciting, it's interesting, it's stressful. Humanity is making things happen. There are more of us, we're getting more connected on a global scale, and we're making more things happen faster.

A lot of it is bad, a lot of it is good. I see so many people being pessimistic about where the world is going, and more so the older they are. We have more access to bad news than ever before. Our brains are hardwired to pay attention to that. On top of that, all this change is difficult and scary. But behind all that, good things are happening that weren't possible even in 2000.

In this last few years, I'm seeing a kind of grassroots trend in media shifting from grimdark to hopepunk, from cyberpunk to solarpunk. Amidst all the news of climate crisis, surveillance states and big tech monopolization, that's very encouraging. I hope we stay on that track.

Turns out, 2000 was 20 years ago. Which is odd, since 1980 was also.

[julialouisdreyfest]

NIAT Interview

So to start off, what does the name N.I.A.T. stand for?

JR - Never ingest apples, Timmy. Will - NIGHT IN AT TIANANMENS - Take your time and sound it out. Danny - Nice Interstate At Toronto

I saw that you guys recently went on tour, how'd that pan out? 

JR - We had a great time! Looking forward to our next tour in October! Will - For our first tour it went exceptionally well.  Minor vehicle issues halfway through but we were able to perform every date with minimal setbacks.  We are going back on the road in October for a little over a week and playing with some good friends - couldn't be more excited. Danny - It was really dope. I haven't been out in a really long time so getting back out there was awesome.

Favorite venue from that tour?

JR - The Plaid Pig in Tacoma for sure. The locals were all super nice and made us feel right at home.  Will - Haufbrau House = Hall of Fame - the venue in Tacoma, The Plaid Pig, was badass.  Major Railyard (R.I.P.) vibes for sure. Zach - Substation in Seattle! Danny - The pinball bar next door to The Plaid Pig, the venue we actually played at.

Over the years you have had quite the lineup change, how has that affected your sound, or has it? 

JR - I think it has changed our sound in a lot of ways. Everytime we have a member change, the most important part to me is keeping the feel that we have always created. The chaos, the energy. At this point I am the only original member but luckily for this last member change, Danny and I had worked together playing crazy weird music in the past. So it just felt obvious to me to ask him. I have always loved making music with Danny. I can honestly say this new chapter has me more stoked than ever!  Will - The sound has changed to a degree - I think much of that lies in Edward Longo's departure from the band in 2019 (that guy is in a league of his own) but with Danny integration into the band, it has brought back an element that I thought we had once lost.  Having to deal with those abrupt lineup changes has also allowed us to explore different avenues - I started a solo noise project called PLVMES in mid 2020 after Tony Morales departed and now incorporate elements of that into our live sets to replace the samples he wrote for our first album, "Blasphemist".  Slowly working on re-incorporating that again but at the moment, the noise walls become more and more cohesive as we get along it might be awhile before that happens.    Danny - I'm the new guy, It seems like it's changing a lot, but also, it doesn't?!

For the metal laymen, how can you describe the fucked-up sound that is grindcore? 

JR - Imagine driving by a music festival going 90 miles an hour with your windows rolled down trying to make out who's playing. Will - The sound of a government building being razed. Zach - A garbage bag of empty paint cans rolling down a hill on a windy day. Danny - S.C.U.B.A. if you know you know.

I was super excited to see you guys contribute to the Nirvana grind cover album. How did that come about and why Aneurysm as a song choice? 

JR - I want to say Will found the Label that put it together and asked if we could submit. "Territorial Pissings" was already taken so I picked my second favorite song, "Aneurysm". The recording process for that one was a lot of fun. Will - I came across a post in a random grindcore group on social media and contacted Sudden Strike Records out of Ireland about submitting - it only took us a few rehearsals for it to come together before we recorded, mixed and sent them the track.  There were a good number of bands that had already picked their songs so it was our first choice but even if we hadn't been able to get on the compilation, we probably would have ended up covering it anyways.  Zach - Always one of my favorites, we all immediately gravitated towards it (seems kinda obvious). Danny - I have no idea. I was not in the band. If it was up to me we would have tried to do a Weezer song and see if anyone notices.

What's your take on Montanas metal scene, its growth and what it could benefit from? 

JR - It has come a long way. I think the biggest thing is just more bands. More bands making more music. Like Zach says, go record your homies if you can. Make terrible music with your friends until you make something you think is awesome. There's no fast way to make our scene bigger or better. It comes from more people, trying new things. Will - The scenes are ever changing, ever growing - we're still reeling from losing The Railyard and Smiling Dog Records, two DIY mainstays that provided countless bands here the opportunity to play.  The influx of residents in the state has resulted in there being many more musicians around than there used to be, leaving us in a good position where we can really expand what we're working towards if we put in the work - I think much of this can be addressed with better organization and networking.  It is also beneficial to provide a service to your scene if you're able, whether it is flyer design, street-teaming, shooting photos, promoting online, etc.  The list is endless. Zach - At this point in my life I’m very thankful for the metal scene, and Montana music scenes in general for their sense of community and the friendships. I think something the scene could benefit from is more DIY boots on the ground: house shows, homies recording homies in the basement for free, cross genre DIY shows, etc. Danny - It has definitely come a long way. I think we just need more  high quality music of all sorts, there is never too much. Hahaha. 

What is the most annoying thing that people do at a metal show, besides just standing there looking at their phones? 

JR - Gatekeeping. Also people requesting you to play literally anything lol. Will - Showing up late or ditching out early because you gotta work in the morning.  Your job ain't going anywhere, bucko. Zach - Karate bullshit in the pit. Danny - Smoking weed when I'm trying to worship the Lord with my music.

What goes into your writing process? 

JR - When this band started we just liked the idea of writing with no limits. I think we still encompass that. It usually starts with a drum part I make but lately we have been jam writing more with Danny. Will - Generally starts with a skeleton brought to the table by JR; Danny and Zach then take the reins and construct the guitar parts.  Vocals are constantly evolving just like the lyrics and go through multiple edits before anything is set in stone but there have been a few songs where the lyrics were basically written on the spot ("How Long Does Shit Burn?", "Coffee Is For Closers").        Zach - One person brings an idea to the table, usually JR with a drum part, and we expand upon it. Danny - Mostly just starts with a riff, work around it, bring it to the guys and if they like it we keep working around it. Sometimes we just jam one out too. I don't think there's really a right or wrong way to do it, just whatever works for you. Don't be afraid to try new things.

Favorite Seinfeld character and why? 

JR - Morty Seinfeld, I mean the guy worked for Harry Fleming for 38 years. Will - You got a question, you ask the eight ball. Zach - Kramer Danny - Bender

React to this: You're watching a stage play. A banquet is in progress. The guests are enjoying an appetizer of raw oysters. The entree consists of boiled dog stuffed with rice. The raw oysters are less acceptable to you than a dish of boiled dog.

JR - The only reaction I can think of, would be to go home and hug my dogs. Will - *lights blunt* Zach - Raw oysters are absolutely delicious. Pop one with a little hot sauce, uncultured swine. Danny - Wait, you guys aren't eating boiled dogs? I thought this was metal.

Working on any new material, what can we expect to see in the future?

JR - Well, you can watch us attempt to write ourselves into a never ending wormhole of weirdness and loud angry noises. Will - Find out for yourself this Saturday @ The Nova Danny - Degeneracy, overall.

You can catch NIAT during this year's fest at Nova Center on August 6th at 10:15pm!

[dingyuxi]

replying directly to ur reply: ofc + THANK /YOU/!! my majors are media & cultural studies + asian studies so nothing as intense as pharmacy but one project was sooooo stressful, i'm glad the semester is over with! ahn bohyun kind of has a punchable face................. i mean i think he was even a boxer or smthn but ..yh i get what u mean. most of the time i can overlook what i think abt actors' visuals unless they're a trashy person like lee byunghun or yoo yeonseok. watching through gifs though is the best way to enjoy a drama sometimes, especially when they're your gifs ;) and YESSS LINK!!! i agree that their visuals look good together and it's refreshing that gayoung is the older one of the two, they had table reading clips out and she seemed like an older friend that teases him !! it'll be interesting to see how they incorporate crime into the drama tho!! also if u have time pls give from now on showtime a chance! it's sooo good ik i said this in the last ask but i look forward to it the most each week out of korean dramas airing rn! i do think to my star had v natural chem and also their visuals were nice together, i'm a sucker for people who have compatible faces..ok that sounds weird but ygwim! SKIPPING THE SECOND COUPLE IN PLUS & MINUS?? *insert kermit falling off building gif* but yh.. fu ligong is my beloved. king could've hidden it anywhere in his apt but decides on one of the most open places 😭i love how cheng isn't rejecting his confession but needs time to think about seeing him romantically, super realistic and sweet! i'm still SOOO behind on lap but junyoung.. all i've been seeing is that she's starting shit like u said. she would've been better off in spainnnnnn. WAIT U THINK ONE SPRING NIGHT IS SUPERIOR TO HALF OF HALF?? i could go on for days abt half of half. the fact that it was shortened 4 eps still makes me MADDDDD. but one spring night is <333 tbh i haven't watched more since i sent u the last message but i wanna savor this haein x jimin magic. kp ep 6.. was amazing.. v obsessed w the ep!! also i only knew about alchemy of souls because of minhyun 😋i have one song saved from both flor and the band camino!! i've never heard of vinyl theatre or gentle bones so i'll definitely check out their musiccc!! also gaho!! <333 i almost saw plt in chicago when they came but i had gone to too many concerts at the time and another ticket was not in the budget 😭i haven't listened to gaho since 2020 but my fave songs are still then and pink walk!! also lucyyyyy, i need to stan them more as a band but i really liked flowering!!! gwangil's cover of 난춘 is also in my favorite videos playlist for youtube, and i very rarely hit the like button on vids but that video is liked!! also umm i saw ur carrot cake post the other day. um. ummmm. sammmm.. how can u like carrot cake ??? after all these times i've said u have superior taste w dramas i'm afraid u don't have superior taste w desserts 😥:( it's been a stressful week but hopefully next week i'll get some answers and have less stress! i'm sorry you tested positive for covid tho :( i remember at the start of the pandemic my mom's son invited my sis and i to decorate his christmas tree and then i went back home and not soon after my mom's son tested positive and my mom blamed me for possibly getting it :)))))))) but i hope u aren't feeling too sick and resting up!! i hope u are having a lovely day as well despite having covid!! - z anon

don't demean the arts like that! your studies are just as vigorous and important <33 asldkjf HE DOESSS (I don't find him hot either :D) sometimes I am a very vain individual and like to watch pretty people being pretty on my screen..."especially when they're your gifs" Z PLEASE. awww that's cute I actually haven't watched the table reading but I've seen the trailers and short clips of them. I totally forgot how old gayoung is lol but they seemed similar in age so I rolled with it. also I think they were both child actors? I know jingoo was, I think gayoung was too but I could be wrong. ahhh I'm glad you're enjoying itttt I've been kinda in a kdrama/cdrama slump since none of them are really hitting for me rn (even of the ones I am watching I'm not like SUPER invested in). kinnporsche sustains me at the moment. I'll keep showtime on the list and try it out if I have time ^^ omg is skipping the second couple a controversial take oops. I don't even want to talk about junyoung...she gets my blood boiling. UMMMM YES?? (ngl I had to google half of half because I forget apoym was also called that lol). Don't get me wrong apoym was soft and cute, but idk own just hit me more with them mature characters and themes. the episode cut our the drama I think, it really could've been better if they'd gotten the full 16 eps. omg PLT in concert! that would've been fun I'm sure. ohhh what concerts have you gone to? I've actually never been to any lmao. gaho my vocal king, love all his covers/arrangements he does with his friends KAVE. love LOVE flowering, the taste! NO DON'T YOU DARE COME FOR CARROT CAKE LIKE THAT. what did carrot cake ever do to you. I actually made carrot cake the other week, cream cheese frosting and all yummm. what's your favorite dessert then? thank you for the well wishes! I was well other than a slight sore throat and sniffles, but they only lasted for a couple days. it just sucked having to isolate myself for the whole week. I'm all better now!!