#idk if people like them but i enjoy live posting about the movies. combining my love for community and horror in one

[lesbianwithchainsaws]

Might do that thing later today where I watch a horror movie with a Community cast member in it and live post about it again. I recently discovered a new one with Gillian Jacobs that I didn't know of before and there's a Christmas slasher that has Joel McHale in it

[biggestthighestgeminiest]

Here are my combined thoughts about Barbie (2023) as I saw it on the 18th and have had more time to think abt it.

Some good, some bad - overall I very much enjoyed it, laughed my ass off, cried quite a bit, was enthralled by the set and costume design, but left feeling like some things were off and perhaps not accomplished in the best way. This will all be delivered in bullet points in a very chaotic and random way and is NOT ordered in importance omg. Anyways i love media analysis and I will probably not explain this in the best way but HERE WE GO

the casting was fantastic, everyone read the assignment and lived their campiest life, margot robbie was phenomenal and ryan gosling absolutely killed me with laughter, glorious glorious

set design, costume, props,, perfection when it comes to bringing the mattel products to life. bangin'

i had that stupid fucking dog that eats and shits. i lost my mind when he came on hsdgkhakh

the message of barbie being representative of all little girls is still very lost on me. the idea brought up when barbie speaks to the teens, where they tell her that she gave them unrealistic body standards- well this never really gets resolved at all. Yes there was a diverse range of Barbies but they were all still beautiful in a conventional way that adheres to western beauty ideals. every barbie has perfect hair and skin and clothes even by the end of the movie. and yes i guess barbie is supposed to be this "above everything else" sort of divine feminine beauty but is still not representative of most young girls. as hilarious as the line narrator's line about margot robbie is, it sort of knows itself, that it is showing us the most perfect looking women, but doesn't address it at all beyond a simple joke. honestly what will mattel do beyond this? i imagine people will be more than happy with this movie so they won't have to make any big changes. i mean their "curvy" fashionista isn't close to being fat, and i don't believe they will ever make a barbie that isn't conventionally beautiful... so this movie just sort of gets to say it's about accepting yourself without actual real-life substance if that makes sense? it reminds me of that cartoon of all those diverse yet conventionally attractive models, with diverse people who don't fit those standards standing outside that box looking angrily. what's the point of the film at the end of the day when not addressing all those people left out of the conversation? also made me annoyed that cellulite was still the big thing that barbie was concerned about, like really?? it's a bad example as people are coming to embrace cellulite and it's also relatively easy to hide, i don't think they would have margot robbie have like, idk, dark under eye circles or a double chin,, idk someone say this better than me but the cellulite thing annoyed me (as someone who has loads of it!!)

the plot was BONKERS and i for one don't really care about plot holes or cartoon logic. there were some things that made me overthink about barbie lore and then i thought to myself that it doesn't really matter. the campiness of it is more important. im sure it will deter some people but again i dont mind it being silly in that way as long as it delivers on its messages and themes, which it does to a certain extent

absolutely lost it at the you are kenough shirt, ljadhkglkhd

as i said in a previous post i predicted that it was going to be the mom who was paired with barbie. i loved the idea sm and it was very heartwarming

i CRIED when barbie first sat down and watched the humans around her living their life, she was so overwhelmed by so many emotions and it was such a simple moment of show-dont-tell and man did i weep :))

i LOVED the ken bits and i did feel as though there was a bit too much ken. especially at the end. but at the same time i loved the dance sequence. its hard loving it so much yet wanting it not to have been to prevalent. i felt like it took away from the barbies a bit which goes against the whole point of the movie????

um the barbie's plans of distracting the kens was... i guess reminiscent of all these spy or superhero movies where women use their beguiling nature against men to get the upper hand? like i am woman so i will flirt with man to distract while my team escapes and hooho it works :)) it was slightly different and not overly sexy or about flirting but it still had the same undertone. like really? the best way to get the other barbies out was to continue to conform to patriarchal standards and pump the ken's egos? surely there's a better way? yes the kens are idiots and turning them against each other works but it still felt a bit icky. i guess i just find this trope annoying being like... ok i am being taken advantage of men so i will USE the thing they oppress me for against them,, idk surely surely there's another way.

also America's character's plan of kidnapping the barbies and ... using very true and very valuable feminist lines to snap them out of it felt... weird? like what she was saying was 100% true but taking them out of context and almost using them as one liners made them feel less serious???? like making women "wake up" by just telling them about how the patriarchy takes advantage of them is just... idk. like in real life women who are indoctrinated and truly believe misogynistic things won't just wake up by being told such a line. and i know the barbies are brainwashed to forget their powerful feminist backgrounds so it's not entirely comparable to the women i just mentioned but... idk it felt disingenuous. i did laugh my ass off at the guitar scene but it still had that ickiness attached like..

i would watch this movie again, no doubt about it and i will definitely pick up on new things and easter eggs etc

mattel's board did make me laugh, perfectly casted and performed but again- mattel has its name on this. they know what they are doing. they know we will love this movie and not demand any change. it will still be full of men controlling the output of production. it will still put out products that don't reflect all young people's desires. it will still make products that uphold current societal norms. so having these buffoons in the board meeting just gets soured a bit when knowing these people will still be in power in real life....

the ruth bit made me cry and no i do not care that her ghost is just around. i loved it

the marketing team knows exactly what they are doing. the huge push of promotion made me gobble up all their interviews and im sure people will be buying all the barbie products. i am yet another victim of capitalism and i will thank them for it when i inevitably buy their you are kenough sweater

again i loved this movie despite all the bad things abt it. i love being critical of the wider impact of this movie while still enoying it as a piece of media and entertainment. i needed this movie and fuck it i want to go to barbieland so bad. i know i shouldnt. i love ken and think about ken more than i do barbie which is fucked up but the movie also played into it in a way,, as described before. i mean even ryan gosling being so iconic in all the interviews is adding into this lol. how many people are posting videos of him vs videos of the actresses i wonder.

also cockring ken. BUT HE WASNT WEARING THE COCKRING SO WHATS THE POINT EVEN???

the narrator was an interesting choice, personally wasn't a huge fan of it but it did somewhat fit with the rest of the cinematic language of the story so i can't say much about it

mattel knows exactly what its doing with putting its name on this movie. i think greta did a great job despite the constraints that mattel probably put on her,, it's hard to tell if the flaws of the movie come from the corporation's infuence or from the writer and director's creative decisions, most likely it's a combo of both. again i believe that the actors and designers and production team did a fantastic job with what they had, they committed to the bit. i would have loved for the movie to have been better, but it is still a great film in my book. as said before i would watch it again and would still enjoy it despite the flaws. the himbo part of my brain can shake hands with the media literacy one and emerge with an overall positive experience, yet PLEASE do not think this is the ultimate feminist movie, it is a step in the right direction, it could have been better, and i understand if you don't like it at all. but also i dont think it would be right to blindingly love it and call it perfect bc it's not.

[petrichoraline]

EIGHT SHOWS TO GET TO KNOW ME

tagged by @littleragondin mwah🥰 these are not all my most fave but they all represent a bit of me so i find them suitable

W.I.T.C.H - now i'm not gonna pretend to be the biggest fan but this used to be THE show for me before WINX came along and i'll always pride myself on being a witch girlie first and winx girlie second (the "not like other girls" syndrome began very early on for me); their powers, the visuals, the adventures combined with the daily struggles of teen girls, the boyfriends, the intro song omg, there is sm about this show, the countless books, the og comic.. good stuff <3

also those two >>>

Lovely Complex - my first anime iirc, i wish people would pay attention to it (but also i'm the only one who's allowed to get it, y'know); only a young romantic towering over her classmates could have the chance of understanding my feelings for it

also read the manga <3 but uh you can skip the live action lol

Hana Yori Dango - broooo- bro. this show was made for my basic romantic ass, it was my first asian drama (or one of the first), it introduced me to Matsumoto Jun, had me hooked for two seasons (though im pretty sure i binged the second season and movie in 24 hours, long after i had watched the first season..? idk what that was about)

i am of the opinion f4 thailand did best in many ways but this will forever be THE adaptation in my heart. the songs were unmatched, the drama breathtaking (there are so many cliches that i didn't know were cliches back then lol) and the experience surreal. i'll always treasure this questionable classic 💖

Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? - i enjoy this an unreasonable amount - my country's edition, that is; i just like having it in the bg and being a smartass, sometimes i run my mouth off so confidently and proceed to apologise to the tv when the contestant turns out to have been right lol

Weekly Idol - hear me out on this - aside from all of its issues, the show has always been my way of finding more about groups. especially back in 2015, those low quality episodes on yt helped me so much with getting into kpop; it can be very hit-or-miss but i have so many faves; many artists have been on multiple episodes throughout the years and yet show something entertaining every time. you can find new groups to stan through the mixed episodes and learn more about the members of groups you're already interested in (though for that i also rec individual shows like gose, wanteez, monsta x-ray etc.). i'm especially excited for eunkwang and minjoo as the new hosts, they are so funny on their own and i want to see their dynamic so bad

Pride & Prejudice - i've watched this just once but i can't not appreciate the accuracy to the book (except for the iconic lake scene lmao) and it covers british tv, 90s shows, austen books and period dramas all at once - all things i enjoy

Bridgerton - i had a whole piece written bout this but simply put - season 2 and kathony were a Thing for me. got me researching and binging a bunch of jonathan shows, reading most of the book and a bunch of tumblr posts..even looking through gifs now im going feral, i love them

New Girl - i usually play shows like this in the bg but i found myself paying a lot of attention and actually losing it laughing so many times, also nick and schmidt are the most precious intense bromance i've witnessed in fiction

[tmmyhug]

bestie (nicest way possible) as someone who was new to the fandom last September I wouldn’t recommend making a sideblog and like talking about comics/batfam/etc if you haven’t read the comics? people get really touchy about that, because fanfic interpretation tend to be really far from how characters are in canon (and character relationships get butchered and softened and straight up invented for plot, which once again, creative liberty + that can be fun but often tends to be incredibly ooc & excludes women (cass, helena, steph, etc) or poc (duke (though his case is different considering when he was introduced), cass, damian’s poc but isn’t really ignored) in favor of white boys (jason especially, who shows up far later than said women & isn’t really close to the fam yet fandom tends to give him their relationships with the family) so like...you’ll probably be mostly wrong and people are rather unforgiving about that because they’re tired of people that haven’t read comics talking about the characters (incorrectly) while refusing to interact w/ source material, and it’s a huge problem & very prevalent so I can’t really blame them? idk I just don’t think it’s a good idea unless you want to reblog just art and stuff, which is fine! but like...everything's really confusing w/out proper research if you want to get into the fandom (everything post-reboot/post-2011 is largely ignored unless said otherwise because the reboot was so awful), so i just want to point that out! but I don’t want to be mean, just some advice :) (if you ever change your mind about comics, just give the say so! we’re (and i) am very glad to help you out with what to read and in what order, and take it from someone who was in your position six months ago, they are truly really fun!) /gen /nm

not to worry my friend this sounds pretty much exactly like the dsmp experience where new people never properly interacted with the canon content and the fanon got more and more bastardized over time as a result and everyone got touchy abt it. including me . you could say im familiar . im just on the other side now (oblivious newbie) which should be interesting. i have no intention of treading on anyone’s toes or making assumptions or even talking abt the characters with any sort of authority. if i do make a sideblog it’ll be just to reblog art n stuff.

plus i am ah. very aware that the fanon im consuming is an extremely warped perspective of the actual comics. and with how many different “canons” there are i’m sure it’s a mess. at least in dsmp we could always point back to just the og streams. here i’m gathering there’s 174958637 comics + 284871 writers + movies + live action AND animated tv shows + multiple video games and they ALL have intersecting characters and possible canons it’s giving me a headache just thinking abt it dear lord

so yeah. i’m perfectly happy sequestering myself in an oblivious fanon corner and not claiming to know anything. normally for a new fandom i would seek out the full source material and examine it thoroughly but theres just. too much. and i also just don’t enjoy reading comics. at least not the superhero ones. (i think the art doesn’t appeal to me? and something about the combination of written word and still visual art like. rankles at my sense of pacing and story <- just guessing though) i did watch the under the red hood movie tjough and it was cool so i may do more of those!

i’m glad you said you like talking abt this cause i just wrote you a whole essay lol. if i may ask do you know of any good fanon/fanfic content i could check out that stays mostly true to the comics canon? i’m curious ! but regardless thank you for the very nice message and warning it’s appreciated mwah

[hiisheart]

MEET THE MUN !

what made you pick up the current muse(s) you have? kind of a combination of them all being my blorbos, characters i can personally relate to, my finding them interesting, or just me liking them generally as a character. a mix of all four is generally the best bet tho in picking a muse!!

is there anything you don't like to write? anything regarding noncon, rape, pedophilia, and tbh somnophilia/sex with sleeping/waking/falling asleep people too. i personally just have a weird internal reaction to that kind of content esp when i'm the one who's writing it and idk why 🤷‍♂️ 🤷‍♂️ 🤷‍♂️

is there anything you really enjoy writing? fluff, light angst, hurt/comfort, slice of life, honestly anything that expands on canon i.e. mike talking to nancy about her experience with getting vecna'd

how do you come up with headcanons? it really depends on the headcanon. if it's a bit longer and meant to make a huge point about my muses and their lives, i might draft it for a few days, but other silly little things i'll probably just post at random!

do you write in silence or do you play music? it kind of depends on my mood, if that makes sense? sometimes i write better with no music, other times i need to hear some kind of music or background noise to keep my train of thought flowing.

do you plan your replies or wing them? 99% of the time i'll wing them, but that doesn't mean i'm against plotting!!

do you enjoy shipping? ummm YES of COURSE i enjoy shipping

what's your alias / name? noah!

age? 22

birthday? april 24th

favorite color(s)? probably earth tones, & i also like some nice deep blues c:

favorite song(s)? uhhh shit lemme see, stay tonight by chung ha is a bop, same with eyes roll by (g)idle, i dunno if i can pick any more specifics without it turning into a goddamn essay tbh lmaooo

last movie you watched? saltburn

last show you watched? spongebob (lol)

last song you listened to? mia martina & edward maya - stereo love (also lol)

favorite food? hmmmm probably anything with noodles tbh

favorite season? spring or summer

do you have a tumblr best friend? not really, i correspond with my irl bestie a lot through tumblr but in terms of the community i have here in the rpc i can't possibly pick one of you out of the whole group, i love all y'all equally <3

tagged by: stolen from @rebelliousfamily hehe tagging: YOU!!!

[goji-pilled]

Okay @princekirijo you want an essay? Well here it is now, or as I like to call it Felix's "Asumari is great and this fandom has no fucking taste" rambling and infodump. Congrats fellas, thanks to Prince you ALL get an asumari essay. But before that I'll try to give you a rundown of Mari and Asuka. 

(I'm also so sorry for putting this long ass post on everyone's dashboard)

(Spoiler warning for Evangelion 3.0+1.0 Thrice Upon a Time!!)

Alright on one hand we have Mari Illustrious Makinami. Her whole deal? She's a walking ray of sunshine, literally lol. Unlike any other character in the Evangelion franchise she doesn't suffer from her trauma, she's quite literally the only healthy and functioning human being, she's just slightly leaning towards "batshit crazy" with the stunts she pulls 🤷‍♂️. Other than that she just loves living, she loves being with people, she keeps moving forward, stays positive and decides to live life to it's fullest even after she experiences loss and multiple apocalyptic events (Second Impact, Third Impact, etc.) and she really just embodies the joy of living. That's all there is to her, or at least all we know.

On the other hand, we have Asuka Langley Shikinami who is... well it's hard to explain what she is to be honest. She's part-German and part-Japanese and part of a line of clones specifically made with the purpose to pilot an Evangelion and later on be used as a sacrifice to trigger another Impact (ITS COMPLICATED I KNOW-) Asuka is, unlike Mari, very much suffering from her trauma. She doesn't have her parents and has a very deep seated belief that she's completely alone, which she says doesn't matter as long as she can pilot the Eva. She also very much wants to fight and kill angels all by herself, and it's seriously messing with her when she can't achieve that.

Now we get to the more interesting parts (hopefully this so far wasn't too confusing, then again it's Eva and even I can't fully wrap my head around it all LMAO)

In the second Rebuild movie (Evangelion 2.0 You can (not) advance) we get introduced to both of them, Mari's introduction scene (in the original English dub) has her pilot an Eva and singing about how she'll take the world on by herself, while in the third movie's (Evangelion 3.0 You can (not) redo) opening scene she's piloting the Eva again but this time it's together with Asuka (in her own Unit 02 though) and during that Mari sings about how wonderful it is not to be alone. It's nothing big yet, but it's a really cute detail me thinks,,, you know what else I love about them? They bicker and they banter and it's genuinely so fun to listen to shskdhsuwj

(For a quick catch up: During the end of 2.0 Shinji (the protagonist) triggers another apocalyptic event, the Near Third Impact, and was only stopped due to Kaworu (the guy in my pfp) stepping in. Also between 1.0/2.0 and 3.0/3.0+1.0 are about 14 years (without Shinji bc he's like comatose) where A LOT happens AND we learn in 3.0 that Eva pilots don't age physically bc of "The curse of the Eva"... honestly Eva is wild lmao)

Okay okay I'll get back to it!

So one thing that happens is that Asuka during 2.0 develops a crush on Shinji (girl why-), unfortunately things take a turn for the worse. Asuka had volunteered to be the testpilot for a new Eva (Unit 03), she seemed happy at the time and it was a really sweet build up with the "I can smile, I didn't know I could still do that."-line. And then? Then it turns out the Ninth Angel had infected Unit 03 (Angels are basically the Kaijus they fight using Evas btw). The thing goes on a loose and Shinji is forced to fight it (With Asuka inside mind you), he refuses and his father uses an autopilot to destroy Unit 03. And boy did it destroy the angel, well it and it crushed Asuka between its jaws (you can actually hear her scream btw haha pain :)).

Asuka survived though, but the whole incident cost her her humanity and she ended up becoming an angel herself/she took the place of the Ninth. But despite that, there's one person who keeps believing in Asuka's humanity, who fiercely believes Asuka is still a human and tells her as much.

Yep, that one person is Mari and she keeps holding onto that belief until the very end when Asuka uses her last resort, which is using the power of an angel (Doing so was a guaranteed death sentence btw). Mari's own words (in the German dub) were, "Princess, you're giving up being human…" AND IT MAKES ME SO EMO GOD FUCK

While I'm at it, Mari and Asuka are a fucking killer combo as a team. They rely on each other for support in combat, listen to the other's orders and advice. Especially in Asuka's case it's kind of a big deal that she so openly relies and counts on Mari's support. Like these two trust each other with their damn lifes!!! Holy shit!!

Guess what though, they also have nicknames for eachother. Mari always calls Asuka "Princess" or "(Your) Highness" while Asuka calles Mari "Four-eyes" / "Four-eyed chrony (idk how you spell that tbh RIP" Even better though, in the German dub Asuka calls Mari "Brillerella" as in a combination of "Brille" (German for glasses) and "Cinderella",,,,Cinderella and her Prince,,,Brillerella and her Princess,,, man, that was a gay fucking move of the translation team. Spoiler: I owe them my life.

Funfact: There's exactly two times throughout the Rebuild movies where Mari uses Asuka's actual name. These two times being when she watches Asuka "die" and be used as a sacrifice for Gendo's selfish plan and when later on she begs Shinji, "So please the Princess… Asuka needs your help!" And the best part? That wasn't even the first time she did that. The mentioned line came from 3.0+1.0, but she did that too in 3.0 with the, "At least save the Princess!" line (although her tone was much more...pissed, like she was really angry lol)

Remember the crush Asuka had on Shinji? Well due to the Unit 03 incident a whole lot of other shit got mixed into that and her feelings for him in general became really bitter (understandably so). Now Mari being who she is sometimes teases Asuka about said old crush but she really does want Asuka to get closure and sort that mess out. 

As an example for the teasing, in 3.0 there's a scene that goes like this (please imagine Mari with a literal :3 face while saying that):

"Unit! Are you back in the game?"

"I'm on it, your Highness. But first things first, how was our little puppy (Shinji)? Did he sit like a good little boy?"

"He's exactly the same! Same stupid face talking mayhem!"

"That goofy face of his, that's what you wanted to see? Riiiiight?"

"Shut up! I went there to bat him one!... And I feel better!"

There's also a very short bonus manga that was released in Japan for Thrice Upon a Time's release that has Mari trying to convince Asuka to come with her on the mission to get Shinji, given everything that follows, it's just another thing to prove my point. And the final bit relating to that is this:

"Feeling better now?"

"Yeah, I do feel better."

That's the exchange Asuka and Mari have after they talked to Shinji, it's nothing special but I think it's really sweet and this time Asuka actually sounded like she was feeling better instead of when she was screaming after she nearly broke pretty thick glass with her fist (If she had hit someone with that much force she definitely would've broken something omggg #violentimpulsesgang)

To get back on track though: I already mentioned it but during the second half of 3.0+1.0 Asuka "dies" (and honestly that entire scene is worth its own in-depth post because its just one huge parallel to The End of Evangelion), the point is: You can tell that the loss of Asuka honestly hits Mari hard. Not only because of how Mari screams Asuka's name but also because of her expressions. They're pained, like really fucking pained and Mari even apologizes to her that she has to fall back due to the fact that she's injured AND because eveything is going wrong.

After the events of Evangelion 3.0 these two got seperated from eachother, Mari was with WILLE (the organization both of them are with) and on board of Wunder (the ship WILLE basically operates from) while Asuka was in a Village full of (Near) Third Impact Survivors. When they do meet again it went like this:

Asuka, barely back, comes to the door and calls, "I'm back." And within seconds of Asuka stepping into their room after the door opens Mari already runs towards her, arms wide open and she says, "Welcome back, your Highness! Good job. I missed you so much!" And she says that while she literally nuzzles into Asuka,,,like,,,what the fuck gay people real!!! 

Best part? Asuka clearly has enough strength to push Mari completely away if she were uncomfortable, but she doesn't. Asuka merely wanted enough space to look at the room (because Mari managed to horde even more books lol) and play her game. During their entire renunion Mari keeps hugging her, and part of me thinks that perhaps deep down Asuka actually enjoys the feeling of physical affection.

Before we get to the last point though, let me say that Asuka and Mari have scenes in 3.0+1.0 that parallel Shinji and Kaworu's from 3.0. (Fyi Kaworu loves Shinji (yeah, like that, and 3.0 was basically them being gay as fuck for an hour) so like...do I even need to explain? 

And then of course there's also this, the "Take care of yourself, Princess…" line. That is the last time Mari talks to Asuka and as much as that line alone already is so much, it's Mari's expression in particular that kills me. Because this? This soft, almost bittersweet expression she has, as she basically says goodbye? Because she knows Asuka will finally be happy and safe? It just makes me feel so much actually. Man.

In the end it's a fact that Mari loved Asuka, wether that is interpreted as platonic or romantic by someone is up to them. But it is a fact that Asuka was loved enough that someone wanted to hug her, was happy to see her, to praise her, was hurt by her loss, wanted her to be safe, that someone told her "Take care of yourself…" Asuka was really and honestly so loved that someone would tell her, "I missed you."

But Asuka? Asuka was too hurt, too wrapped up in her own head to actually see how loved she was by Mari (and other people) that she genuinely believed she's completely alone and always will be alone.

It makes the "Take care of yourself" line hit even harder to me, because it's not only Mari's goodbye, but it's a goodbye during the one time Asuka allowed herself to be vulnerable and admit what she really wanted.

And honestly? All of this? Its makes me feel so many things and I just love them  so much man.

[annetteblog]

I got a very long ask and wrote even longer reply, and now Tumblr for some reason doesn't want to publish it through asks. So I'm making a separate post, because what else can I do? 😀 I hope Anon wouldn't mind

Hi!

Thank you for such a long ask! I really enjoy replying those, although it may take some time to actually write whatever I have on my mind 🙂 However, I feel like for every question that you posed, it's possible to write its own big reply or even an essay, so this piece of mine probably won’t give them justice (but I’ll try my best.)

As usual, one big IMO.

1) Ethics, “gueer coding” and discussions

I believe I’ve already partly touched this subject here. Shortly, I think that everything the boys did (and still do) had its own purpose. They decided to put these "undertones" (or whatever one may call them) in their art. They made some statements with a very small room for interpretation. And it didn't happen once or twice. More like, it's been a consistent behaviour throughout years.

I don't buy this excuse some fans write - "oh, he just didn't know about this/didn't understand how it looked like/didn't..." So apparently, JK wasn't able to figure out shit about Troye, didn't give a damn about his GCF, didn't think how his tattoo looked like; JM didn't realize to what conclusions could lead his quite bold words about 4am or waking up and seeing JK; both of them didn't have second thoughts about the Black Swan dance; Bang PD is just a CEO who pays zero attention to BTS in general and KM actions in particular (which sometimes actually backlash, e.g. that stop gay fanservice thing after the Seoul concerts), because he clearly just doesn't care AT ALL; whatever PR service they have in BH is just asleep all the time... Etc etc etc, you got the idea

Well, if one wants to perceive JM, JK and BigHit as a group of complete morons with no brains, this "oh, they just didn't know" explanation may work. But if all of them were idiots, how would BTS become the biggest group on a planet? They are smart enough, deal with this.

And YET. KM still do what they do. It's their choice, so apparently they have their motives. You wrote it yourself too - "Jikook and BH put out all that stuff for a reason."

Keeping this in mind, I truly think it's fair to discuss queer undertones or KM's bond. It's meant to be discussed and speculated. They made it public, and they continue to make it public (and quite obvious, to be honest). Why? Well, I guess they want us to speculate.

From here comes the second point

2) Art and its interpretations

In general, I believe that any good art should allow various interpretations. That's what a good piece of art is supposed to do - provoke a thought. As well as it's quite customary to analyze and (sometimes) overanalyze art. Thousands of universities worldwide have programs which are focused on fine art, literature, theater, music, film, etc.

And why is it okay to write about Avengers or Madonna or whatever weird art you're able to find in the closest Contemporary museum (like a banana taped to a wall), but not okay to interpret BTS' songs and/or performances? Again, I strongly believe that art is meant to be discussed. Especially as cool as theirs 🙂

Actually, some popular fandom theories turned out to be true here. Since Spring Day release on Feb 2017, fans speculated about its connection to the Sewol ferry tragedy based on the song's lyrics, MV and choreo. We got this confirmation like when, December 2020? But before it was also just an interpretation.

Coming back to KM. Combining these with the idea that JM/JK/BH clearly know what they're doing and how it may look like, I don't see a problem in having various interpretation of their art. Including queer ones.

3) Escapism

Isn't all art targeted to escaping in a sense? We want to take a break from reality and/or mundane life or just gain some new experience. In this sense what's the radical difference between staring at pictures or sculptures in a museum, watching a movie, reading a book or scrolling through Tumblr reading BTS/KM centric posts? All of these are means to escape and entertain ourselves.

As for this "if they are a queer couple, is it okay to derive pleasure and 'what a beautiful love story' feelings from two members of systematically oppressed minority?" - and you would prefer doing what - ignoring them? pretending that they don't exist? 🙃 In case if they are a queer couple, I guess showing support and benevolence is even more important. Exactly because, as you mentioned, they are a part of the oppressed minority. And the hatred is/would be definitely in place.

4) Fanfiction

Oh my, what a controversial theme these days.

Firstly, some forget it was not invented in the 21st century. Even slash fanfiction (cough Star cough Trek). As for incorporating real people, it's been a part of literature for like what.. always? There are millions of different writings about emperors, nobles, military figures, lives of saints, etc. And it's not like personal opinion of people in question bothered those, who write or wrote about them. I clearly remember a scene in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, where Alexander I [Russian emperor 1801-25] after losing a battle against Napoleon, hits a birch tree with his sword while crying hard and just being kinda hysterical. Would real Alexander be satisfied with such image if he read the book? Idk 😄

About having "the right to comment on such [different from your own] experience". I suppose, if authors wrote only about what they had experienced, our literature would be 95% poorer than it is. How can one write books in historic settings if they didn't live there? How do books about future and space travel exist, if we live in 2021? Is it needed to be a part of mafia to write about mafia? What about other cultures? Should an American author write only about American people and American lifestyle or it's fine to have characters from other countries?

Writing is not about experiencing something and then making a fanfic or a book, it's more about research and compassion. If you have reliable info on your theme and are able to look at the world using different lenses, why not?

I don't perceive fanfiction as a worldwide evil. Sure, there are creepy examples as well as authors, who write fetishizing weird shit. But it doesn't mean that all fanfiction=bad and all slash fanfiction=objectification of male homosexuality. Fanfiction is just one form of fiction, it can be good or bad based on how it's written. But the label itself doesn't define anything, as well as reading it should not be a reason to accusations.

5) Jikook, shipping and politics

I'm among those, who perceive pretty much everything as a part of politics. We all exist within some political conventions and have certain political laws over our heads. And yes, it includes art. Even if an artist says something like "oh, I decided to stay away from politics, my work is beyond it". The decision to stay away from politics is also political, because apparently there was something within the political structure what made this artist say that and forced them to make this distinction between them and some institutional conventions.

And that makes me believe that shipping/supporting KM is also political. But I don't think it's necessarily bad? Basically, you decided to support potentially queer people from a country, which doesn't really approve LGBTQ+. It puts you in the opposition towards a particular government. You made a choice. You could google some SK stuff, read all that you mentioned in the beginning of your ask, and say something like "oh, that's not okay there? well, fair enough, I guess their government knows better"🤠 and forget that this KM thing even exists. But apparently you didn't

Imo, is it politics? Yes

Is it bad that it's politics? Well, no? 🙃

|

P.S. I hope I was clear enough with my ideas. Thank you again for the thought provoking ask, and I hope I'll hear from you again 🙂

And honestly, I don't think that you're problematic in any way :)

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

Happy new year everyone 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

I know 2020 has been hard for everyone.

And I want everyone to know, suffering isn't a contest and we all suffer in different ways. But I feel I should give my year in Review. Just some things that happened to me personally.

This was an intense, and long and spiritual and emotional journey for me...

I really discovered what it meant to have community, family and what my life means to me.

But I feel I need to get this in writing cause I can remember the year with vivid detail and I will probably forget if I don't get it down.

Do I have to share this publically online to my tumblr account for a bunch of strangers to see? not really.

Do I want to?

Yes. I think so. Just from how so many people on tumblr and real life have touched me.

This is kinda long and no one needs to read this.

(idk how to do a readmore on mobile. But this is where I would add it later. No one needs to read if they don't want to.)

January/February: (and some background on the last five years of my life cause.....well. it's important.)

As people knew, I got way into Invader Zim last summer. I spent most of my waking life working a dead end job at a grocery store. I lived a sad lonely life, going straight home to a single dark studio apartment. With not many material possessions outside of games, my laptop and my tablet to my name. Half of my material loves, such as home furnishings and books were still in boxes from when I moved in. In case I ever had to move again, or get some "big screenshot or copywriter" job in the city.

....

I lived in that city in the same dead end job and apartment for five years.

No friends. No social life. I often refused to make doctor appointments or attempt to establish myself in that city. I didn't even talk to anyone in my workplace.

Work. Go online. Go to sleep.

I lived like that for five years.

I thought it was good.

Even my therapist thought I was doing well.

When I really wasn't. My main character flaw I struggle with is motivation.

I can talk to someone about very detailed plans I have to fix a problem... But I tend to never follow through.

Just because I can describe in detail how to fix my personal problems, it doesn't mean I will do it.

(I have gotten better at this but it's a major struggle)

I might have been a Zombie during the day...

But by night I was pouring my soul into my AU and my analysis.

After being so thoughly ignored or overlooked by the Naruto fandom and the Undertale fandom, I felt like I had finally found my home and was settling into a community there.

I just loved that people loved what I had to say.

Especially my AU.

It's no secret that a lot of themes in my au revolve around found family, grief, and loss.......

Fatherhood, in particular.

What it means to be a father, how much do you need to try when you mess up, how willing should a child forgive their parent, especially those that have wronged you and how much of it is factually accurate and simply a self projection of what children want their parents to be and visa versa... What amount of forgiveness and change is nessasary...is it needed?

....

It's no secret that a lot of my AU is a giant coping mechanism for my Dad's death. Espessially the falling out and growing closer with a lot of my family members throughout the years following his death. (Most of the time I keep it ambiguous to how it relates to my personal life unless I include a readmore that states so outright. I feel my au can be enjoyed by a variety of people in the fandom who don't need to know me as a person or my life story.)

My Dad passed away in 2016 in February and my family still feels the aftershocks to this day.

It's part of the reason I moved to the city, alienated myself from my family and people that loved me and refused to experience life for five years.

My entire world was Zim, and I was okay.

March: When America finally realized and started to feel the effects of the pandemic....

A lot of people got scared.

Me included.

I didn't have any streaming services or access to the news. So I only heard accounts from my mom.

I didn't understand why the store was so dead quiet and empty for a few days, then it went into mass chaos and panic in the span of two days.

It felt like Retail black friday in the worst way. Everyone was packed like sardines. Everyone was yelling. The lines at the registers bled into the clothing department.

I was witness to customers shoving others for toilet paper, being rude to cashier's and just overall unpleasantness.

At the time, I didn't even fully grasp what the pandemic was, and I feel a lot of people at the time didn't either.

I ended up absentmindedly scratching my eyebrow in front of a customer and she screamed and villanised me for it. That they didn't want groceries touched by my "unclean hands"

I ended up breaking down into tears.

The customer behind me gave me a hug and told me I was doing a great job.

But the damage was done. It was the final straw, I couldn't stop crying and I was breaking apart.

Thankfully my Boss (the one who likes me) pulled me aside and asked what's wrong.

It was then that I quit. No notice. Same day. I had to get out of there.

I was planning to move to an apartment with my sister in the summer, but my Mom offered for me to move back in with her temperarily just so I can get out of the city and away from the pandemic.

So I did.

I got scared, broke my lease a month early and quit my job of five years that gave me nothing back.

He told me, "take care of yourself and your family, I won't keep you here, do what you need to do."

So I did.

April-June:

A very eventful few months.

My mom offered for me to live at her place, but for some reason she was acting like I would live there forever. That this wasn't a temporary arrangement, and that I didn't have an apartment set up already.

This was in large part to my sister, who had lived with my mom taking advantage of her for years.

Even though my sister and I were going to move in together, I was just never sure about it cause of how she never packed her stuff or made any effort to find a job.

My mom often acted like I was lazy and not searching and was treating me like... Well, an unruly teenager instead of a woman of 29 years. She acted like I was a failure for returning home when it was her idea in the first place.

I would have just been petrified in the city.

Like usual, I retreated to my au again.... And in the spring, something eventful happened.

In may, 8th 2020:

I was invited by @rissynicole to join an invader zim discord.

Now, I've never really used discord before. I always thought it's interface is too confusing.. and I'm a member of a few other iz discords and I usually don't follow them that closely.

Rissy assured me it was different cause some friends of thiers made it and it was smaller.

Before I knew it, I was sharing memes and getting to know everyone there.

It wasn't long after I invited my partner in IZ crimes, @paketdimensioncomic who was genuinely wary of iz servers due to a bad experience with the last one they were a part of.

But soon they were sharing memes and laughing with everyone else.

My eyes were starting to open and I was able to connect to fans of my work in an interpersonal way. And I was able to discover new artists and aus I never knew about.

I was also able to meet so many others of the community and invite them to the server myself.

The moo-ping 10 server kept me sane while I was living with my judgmental mother.

Not only that, the summer was very productive for my au.

Drawing was all I did, and it was a huge break from the job as a cashier I had.

Not only that, June came, and with it, me and Ceph's first collab fic:

A result of us just going back and forth in our DMs constantly about Professor Membrane and how he changed in ETF for the better and how much we adamantly stan "trying-to-be-a-good-dad-brane" and how much of his ETF development has to be implied off screen in order for the emotional resolution in the movie to matter.

The only reason I never professed my love for Membrane as a character in the fandom before the fic dropped was.... Well....

Membrane can be a decisive character in the fandom and I was so worried people would hate me if I did an analysis on him, simply because he's not the best parent in the world. (As an understatement)

Ceph and I really encouraged each other to scream our love for the science himbo loud and proud more frequently and so often.... I actually start to see less Membrane hate posts and breakdowns then their used to be.... I like to think it's a combination of Me and Ceph's influence, along with ETF and the Quarterly's painting Membrane in a slightly more nuanced light then he was previously.

I never wrote a collab fic before and it's such a rewarding and fun and unique experience that I don't think I'll ever have again. And I love working with Ceph on our fics so much.

So much so we did it again...

July-August:

I never thought I would be one of those people who writes NSFW IZ fic... But here I am.

The Brainbrane au started.... An au of my au where Membrane and the Computer fall in love and Membrane makes him a body.

This ship was based around the idea where we joked that Membrane and Zim's Computer would have funny interactions if they ever met, under the pretense Membrane thinks Computer is Zim's parent.

Our headcanons morphed and shifted until we just full blown started shipping them.

Just because Membrane and Zim's Computer have overall REALLY entertaining chemistry.

It's a character dynamic never seen in the show or comics (yet) and I imagine thier interactions to be nothing but entertaining banter.

The fic was also born from spite... Making fun of the troupes and cliches that we found personally destestible in some questionable zadr fics.

So an angry ace and a demi-bisexual collab on a porn and end up blessing the fandom with

Compapa headcanons,

Computer being recognized as a more common used fanon character,

The ship of Brainbrane.

The fandom having a crisis of "oh God, not only are we xenophiles we're technophiles too!!!" Or "why you gotta give Zim's Computer an ass"

More android Computer designs

It was an eventful summer.

In the midst of all this, I moved into my new place, got a new job, and I was able to see my friend (who is def my platonic straight soul mate) who lives in Indiana.

She came to visit, showed me how to decorate and how to take care of my body better! Things were looking up! It was great.

September-November:

My job was at a boat store. If was approaching the fall and my hours were being severely cut.

I was getting into a rut of depression again.

I thought things were changing but the same routine I was trying to escape from was the same thing coming back.

But instead of letting it take hold, I decided I was going to do something about it... I was gonna visit a museum and go with my sister. Just... variety stimulation.

Well that didn't happen.

I talked about this shortly in my au itself...but..

My sister had a complete mental breakdown.

She stopped taking her meds, went off the deep end and was in the hospital a total of five times throughout November.

A lot of it was acting out and the perfect storm of environmental factors that made her scream and act out so she would keep going back to the hospital.

It was traumatizing for me.

I just can't explain what it's like. For her and for me to be in that position.

I'm not telling the full story and a lot of bullshit things happened I won't share here.

She got diagnosed with bipolar one and my mom expected me to be a caretaker for her.

I threatened to disown my family and move away out of state.

It was just too much for me to handle.

So much I was a nervous wreck.

I tried to pick up a second job... Cause my sister was in the mental ward so frequently and couldn't pay the bills.

But I was fired within a week cause I was so stressed I couldn't retain the basic information they were training me for.

It was an office job.

My dream.

It could have been.

I was fired from something I really wanted.

I was only there for three days.

I could not retain any information.

I was a mess.

My sister was a trigger, my mom wanted me to live with her. I couldn't live like this.... I had to get out.

I had to get out.

December:

Remember my Indiana friend?

Well the first week of December is my birthday.

My 30th to be exact.

While I did pick up a seasonal position at Target (not my first pick)

I took the first week of December off so I could spend time with her. Cause she agreed, I needed a break from this crap.

Surviving 30 years is cause to celebrate and if I had to celebrate with my sister I would have cried.

I know there was a risk traveling out of state during a pandemic...

But I needed out, I needed a friend..

And I kinda wanted to look at the place since I was considering moving there.

My friend's mom was sick so she avoided me and her daughter and got us a hotel room.

It was fun! I got to swim in a salt water pool, we talked about Naruto, I showed her the iz and su art books I brought, also Computer and Membrane tea.

I also got to meet her other friends and get crunk. And her bf who is super nice and funny!

I had a super fun birthday....

Until her mom told my friend that her grandparents had covid and that was what she had. And my friend got sick within that same day.... As did I.

I owe so much to her family.

I was an entire state away...about a ten hour drive from home.... She let me stay at her house. "The covid house" we called it.

Cause everyone (except the father. He avoided everyone and booked a hotel immediately cus he was an ER doctor) had covid within a day.

I called in, the test results were positive and I had to stay with her family for ten days quarantine before I could work again.

Which would have been fine....

If my tumblr didn't log me out perminately of my old account. @dana-chan325 .... Which really sucked cause I had a constant headache and was too sick to engage with tumblr or much of the fandom. I didn't want to make a new account when my head was in a bad fog and I could barely breathe or smell.

It's not like I saw much of my friend either.... We all slept at different hours and she had more symptoms then I did.

It was just netflix, danganronpa v3 and cry.

I was miserable, but at the same time.... Not?

I really feel like God himself was the one who pulled me off from tumblr, and my living situation.

Maybe a whole extra week feeling like a bobblehead was what I needed.

It gave me some much needed clarity on my relationships with my mom and sis and friend.

Running away to Indiana was not the solution here.

Once I was better within ten days and no longer had a leave of absence, I drove home.

I am glad I fully recovered (but from how I understand it, my dear friend is still ill. I'm praying for her)

I might have gone to work a bit too soon, cause I had an asthma attack after trying to unload a single cart in the span of six hours.

My boss lectured that my speed was unacceptable, and even though I explained the covid situation and breathing problems many times, she threatened that I'd be fired if I'm that slow again.

Que the next few days of work where they put me on register.

Instantly I was sent into a panic remembering the last time I was on the register and how that panic attack caused me to quit.

I even asked if I could go back to stocking, since my breathing had improved. My boss assured me that I was put on the register cause they needed help and nothing to do with my covid thing.

Then as December concluded and the new year began, my boss said that this was the last shift for me cause my position was seasonal and they were letting a lot of people go.

I then asked why I was on the schedule for Sunday, and he told me to ignore it and I'm free to reapply for full-time.

I mean.... They can act smart about it...

But putting your general merchandise stocker onto register after she had an asthma attack and missed working the first two weeks of December due to covid.....

Not a good look.

So once again, I'm jobless once more.

Will probably continue to live with my sister for awhile.

But I do not feel as if it's a bad thing....

I met so many good people this year....

My friend's family even gave me 500 usd to cover my rent since I couldn't work for a majority of December.

I've seen evil and good from humanity this year. I've seen acts of god, good friends and what my real family means to me as well as friends I consider family.

This year really made me look back at the person in the mirror and say,

"I deserve better."

And actually worked for it this time.

Oh and after Christmas I got a horrible yeast infection that burns over most of my body currently.

Very accurate doodle to the pain I'm in right now.

(seriously my body is a fungus.)

But hey, good news, I respected myself enough to go to the doctor about it!!

So that's progress.

I really hope 2021 holds good things for me.

Thank you to the mooping 10 server for always being there and keeping me sane,

Thank you tumblr for liking my au and everything.

AND A SUPER SPECIAL THANK YOU TO @evartandadam and her family for housing me and my dumb diseased ass. Everyone, she is an angel and I can't express how much she means to me. Please check out her art and buy her stuff on redbubble.

Anyways... Byebye 2020.

I look forward to what I can accomplish for myself this year.

[irondad-not-ironsad]

WandaVision Episode 1 Reaction

Spoilers below!!

I enjoy the music over the marvel logo

But also a 43 second logo feels kinda long for a 29 minute episode- is it just for the premier or is this gonna happen before each ep?

Also I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that there is a title sequence, which will probably be similar in length. Combine that with the lengthy credits people have been complaining about, it seems that the percentage of the thirty minutes that is actually the story is lower than it should be

not that I don’t love a good title sequence! But I’ll take a well fleshed out episode over fancy logos, title sequences and credits any day

now that I’ve got that of my chest, on to the actual show

I like how they have the frame shaped like that of an old timey tv, combined with the black and white it really adds to the old timey sit come vibe

I like these bells

Ok I know I complained about to much time being wasted with logos and such, but i LOVE how cheesy this theme song is and I love them showing vision and Wanda driving tp there house in wedding attire

“A regular husband and wife” 2 seconds late *vision disappears into a cloud of sparkles*.... 1 minute 8 seconds in and I love this 

Even there acting is reminiscent of an old timey sit com this is amazing

feel like I should note he title sequence ends at the 1.36 mark approximately, which may not seem like a lot but again the show is less than thirty minutes so it adds up

Wanda talks with a fifties accent: I already love this show

Also I wish I had magic I could use to clean, I’m moving back into my dorm right now and Wanda’s powers would be SO helpful

Also I LOVE the laugh track

Also Wanda’s short curly hair is so cute

I love how neither of them knows what the heart means so they play it off by being like “yeah of course I know what it means, how could I forget? Do YOU remember what it means

Also Vision is literally part computer shouldn’t he have a photographic memory? 

Also how old is Wanda? I could have sworn someone said she was 19 in civil war, which would make her like 21 here? I think?? Idk tho, as a 19 year old I don’t think she has ever looked 19 in the movies, even back in Ultron she looked at least in her mid twenties

The face Vision makes when he makes himself human is so funny

Also Vision blowing Wanda a kiss and her reaching back to grab it is the perfect amount of corny that makes it still cute

Also I wonder what vision’s job is

The backing music is so funny

I can already tell Agnes is going to be some great comic relief in a show that’s already hilarious

“I assure you, I’m married. To a man. A HUMAN one!” I know I’ve said before that I was never the biggest fan of Wanda or Vision but I love Wanda in this show

Obv there is something clearly off here, but I feel like I need to mention that it’s clear this is some warped reality. If I had never seen any of the MCU before, I may believe it was just  witch and her robot husband living in the fifties, but the little details really make it clear to the audience (the majority of whom I am sure are familiar with the mcu) that something is off. This scene is one of those, where Wanda cannot seem to recall how long her and Vision have been together and plays it off by saying “It feels like we always have been together”

Is Agnes giving Wanda advice for the bedroom? is this really what I’m watching? Or have I wildly misinterpreted this?

Love the old timey lingo

Vision working a desk job is so funny

Love that vision doesn’t even know what they do at his job, I know it’s part of the false reality thing but also lowkey relatable

“you’re like a walking computer” “I most certainly am not! I’m a regular carbon-based employee made entirely of organic matter”

I started this like twenty minutes ago and have only gotten 7 minutes in because I keep stopping to type my reactions. I am going to try to shut up and watch, and stop screaming about every little detail for a bit 😂

Real quick though does Vision just go by Vision at work?

Ope apparently he does. 

I wonder if Vision took Wanda’s last name

Or is he Vision Stark-Banner since it was Tony and Bruce who made him??

He probably isn’t called that but I think it would be funny if he was

Love that instead of writing “dinner with boss” or “Dinner w/ Harts” or even just “Harts” he drew a freaking heart like im dying

if my lack of emojis seems weird I’m typing this on a computer which I never normally do and I’m to lazy to pull up the emoji keyboard, so basically imagine there’s a cry laughing emoji after everything funny

“No skeletons in the closet?’ “I don’t have a skeleton sir.”

Yup I was right, Agnes is giving her sexy time advice

“you should stumble when you walk in a room so he can catch you. It’s romantic!” that is the only way I will be flirting from now on

Also I got to say, I'm guessing it’s a fifties thing but those pointy bras don’t look comfortable

So she answers the phone “Vision Residence” Is Vision also their last name now? Does he go by Vision Vision??

They make the best facial expressions

This phone conversation where Wanda think they’re having a date night whereas Vision is talking about his boss coming for dinner is comedy GOLD

also I love the fact that they’re giving us stereotypical sitcom drama while keeping it clear that there are bigger problems than dinner with the boss

Fake commercial break is at 9.56 (these time stamps are for myself I want to calculate how much of the episode is actually the story)

I do love the fake commercials tho! And I suppose in a way they ARE part of the show

They missed the chance to make it the toastmate three thousand and make every ironman fan cry

The beeping toaster sounds like a ticking bomb..... also the little red light is the only color we’ve seen this episode I think

Commercial ends at 10.46

Also love that it was an SI toaster, still wish they had made it 3000 instead of 2000

How did Wanda confuse Mr. Hart with her husband? Not that I’m complaining, her coming out in a robe and covering Vis’ Boss’ eyes is HILARIOUS

“This is the traditional Sokovian greeting? Didn’t I tell you my wife is from Europe?” “How exotic!” “We don’t break bread with Bolsheviks”

Visions pants are SO high waisted

“It’s our anniversary!” “Our anniversary of WHAT?” “WELL IF YOU DON”T KNOW I”M NOT GONNA TELL YOU”

Poor Vision is trying to figure out what kind of company he works for this is sooo funny

Agnes coming in clutch with a full meal

So Wanda needs the ingredients in order to magic a meal she can’t just make one appear

Vision breaking into song was amazing

How did one chicken turn into like 30 eggs

Vision is singing old McDonald with his bosses wife this is great

“Diane!” “That must be my wife summoning me!” “She calls you Diane?” “Yes... it’s her pet name for me” “I’m coming... Fred”

So many clichés in this show but it’s done in such a purposeful way that it’s still funny

Also we have only seen three rooms: the kitchen, the living room and Vision’s workplace

“Well I think tonight’s going SWIMMINGLY”

Mrs. Hart is SO NOSY

But I love that they don’t know the answers

Wanda looks SO disturbed when Mr. Hart is demanding her and visions story, you can tell her mind is fighting itself and it’s so sad

Mr. Hart is choking, is it bad that I think he deserves it?

Mrs. Hart keeps cheerily repeating stop it, and gone is the stereotypical sitcom camera angles and and the backing music is switched for something eery

This is lowkey scary, Mr. Hart Dying while his wife keeps cheerily saying Stop It and it just feels creepier the more she repeats

Wanda looks distressed and vision is just looking to her for what to do, her old timey accent is gone and she sounds nearly robotic as she tells Vision to help

Poor Wanda, she is so clearly going through it mentally right now

Laugh track is back, and just like that the Harts are leaving, despite only having one bite of food

And somehow Mr. Hart is impressed? Was Wanda rewriting reality to make them so?

I know that this is clearly some alternate reality and nothing is right, but wanda and vision deciding to choose that day as there anniversary and this little convo here is soooooo cute

Aw her making them rings and them both saying I do is soooo cute

And vision saying “and they lived happily ever after’ is so sweet but also so sad in context

What is that little remote vision is holding meant to be?

And love the hexagon closing in on them with the cute music playing to end the episode

Are the people in these credits real? Because it lists the start as Wanda Maximoff and Vision but are the rest actual people?

So there is some sketchy dude watching the maybe fake credits so there's something going on there

The actual credits start with 7.13 left and I’ve been told there's no mid or post credits scene. I’ll let them play while I finish this up anyways

8 minutes and 49 seconds of this show is the logo, title sequence and credits. Out of 29.36 total this means only 20 minutes and 47 seconds is the show, which I suppose is standard for a sitcom but I think I felt deceived by it showing as 29 minutes

Also 50 seconds of “commercial takes the show time down to 19.57 if anyone was wondering

I swear tho I’m not all that bothered by the length, just did the math in case anyone was curious like I am. 

I thought I was going to really enjoy this going it, but it still really surpassed my expectations and I can’t wait for episode 2!

This is my raw reactions, but I’m sure that as I mull it over more I’ll be posting more about the show

This is somehow a perfect combo of lighthearted comedy and mild horror

I wanna let this episode stew for a while, so I prob won’t watch episode 2 for at least a day

Also what are your guys’ thoughts on this format of reaction? Did I write to much?

Also what did y’all think of this episode? Feel free to let me know what you think of my reaction, and whether you agree or disagree. I’d love to hear your thoughts!

[from-home]

𑁍 MARK LEE┊ 𝒔𝒊𝒙𝒕𝒚 𝒔𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒏𝒅𝒔, 𝒔𝒕𝒂𝒓𝒕 / one ˎˊ˗

𑁍 summary : the one where mark lee time travels back and forth throughout the past and future with his crush, (y/n) ˎˊ˗

𑁍 pairing : mark lee x older!reader (by like three years lmao) ˎˊ˗

𑁍 word count : 6.7k ˎˊ˗

𑁍 genre : fluff, comedy (i hope??), minimal angst, time travel!au ˎˊ˗

𑁍 warnings : swearing, unrequited love (i know that shit hurts omg), my humour is ass, mark gives me slight second hand embarrassment in this, bad writing??, i gave up like halfway through this lol, first time writing a fic like this pls have mercy, it’s almost 2:30 am i'm too tired to proof read fuck ˎˊ˗

𑁍 a/n : first chapter of my first ever fic on here hehe - idk when the next chapter might come tbh but hopefully i’ll continue this series for my own enjoyment! in the meantime, uni still kicks my ass >:(( but anyway, enjoy and i hope that at least someone will find joy with this!    ˎˊ˗

[ 𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟬 : 𝗗𝗔𝗬 𝟬 ]

when your pastor dad’s best friend was the biggest nerd in high school and became an eccentric scientist

O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,

  What a beautiful Pussy you are,

       You are,

       You are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!

      If he could write like that, maybe Mark wouldn't need to be here in this boring literature class of his. Don't get him wrong, he liked writing, and he liked the way he could express his emotions through a pen and paper. But for the twenty-one-year-old boy who could barely sit still in one place without his mind wandering off into four different dimensions, it was hard to be interested in whatever the professor was rambling on about. Maybe Professor Jung was telling the story of how she met Dylan Thomas' widow's sister's friend's cousin, and how much of an artistic impact it had on her. She had told the story a good three times in the past two months - Mark kept count.

      Yeah, writing was fun and all, but literature class specifically was boring and dull to him. "Oh but Mark, why take this course then?" one might ask. But one should also know that it was a necessary course if Mark wanted to earn his oh-so-coveted diploma.

      Curse him for majoring in creative writing. His dad always did wonder why writers even bother writing when the bible exists.

      But maybe one day, an hour and a half of John Keats would produce him some ideas for a romantic poem that he could write and gift off to his love of seven years... and counting.

      (Y/N), the shiniest of all pearls and the most beautiful of all Mona Lisa's, the older woman and her beauty often left Mark stunned and helplessly in love. He first met her when he was fourteen, when she had been introduced as his seventeen-year-old tutor. She was so pretty back then, and still was now. In fact, it was as if she didn't age at all!

      Someone who resembled a goddess like (Y/N)  deserved only the most romantic of all romantic poems, and Mark Lee made it a mission to be the one to write it for her. He was so helplessly in love with her that he was able to channel his feelings for her into five different written forms: poems, song lyrics, an 'A for effort?' drawing of her, letters, and anonymous blog posts about how "unrequited love hurts".

      Sure, those blog posts were anonymous, but as good as Mark thought he was at hiding his feelings for her, everybody in town and their ancestors' spirits knew about the big crush Mark had on her. But no one bothered to tell (Y/N) about her not-so-secret admirer and nobody bothered to let Mark know that his mysterious crush wasn’t as well-kept to himself as he thought it was.

      But it was cute. Not the part where Mark slowly died on the inside as each day passed without his feelings being returned (that was pretty sad, everybody acknowledged), but the part where the adoration in his eyes were so clear for (Y/N). Legend went that he held stars in his eyes whenever his gaze rested on the older woman - like, actual stars from the galaxy. Or so the first-hand accounts go.

      Mark Lee was a talented and hardworking boy, that much was a shared sentiment by everybody in town. He excelled at all subjects, mowed the lawn twice just because he thought he missed a spot, gave it his all at church every Sunday by rapping and dancing in the name of Jesus Christ until he was reduced to sweat and threatening to rip his dress shirt off - he was a jack of all trades. There were even rumours that whenever it was time for a 'Make a Wish' patient to... make a wish in heaven, he would dress up as Spiderman and visit them in the hospital to make their final dreams come true. So maybe that's why it was so endearing, his one-sided love for his noona. If there was one person who could jump over that hurdle of "just friends" and out of the friend zone, it had to be Mark, the boy who's always gave it his all in everything ever since he moved here from Canada when he was twelve. It was one thing to have this crush that you desperately wanted to be returned, but it was another to have the whole town cheering for you - it said a lot about Mark's character.

      Which is why! There was no other perfect test subject for Scientist Kim, the local eccentric scientist who was obsessed with creating his "next big invention". He also happened to be the best friend of the town's pastor (weird combination, everybody knows), courtesy of their high school days and a misunderstanding over a carton of milk. The town's pastor also oh-so-coincidentally happened to be Mark's father, who had lived in Korea for all his life until he moved to Canada so his wife could give birth to baby Mark. He ended up moving back to his hometown, however, thus creating a new relationship between his best friend and son.

      Now Scientist Kim - who liked to go by "Cabbage" as a homage to his idol, Charles Babbage - didn’t really care about Mark's painful one-sided love, but he knew the boy could never say no to his father's best friend from high school, so there was no one better to try out his experiments and inventions than Mark. Like, there was literally no one else at all - the whole town swore Cabbage was out of his mind and were still waiting for the day the newspaper would come out with a headline that he's been charged with involuntary manslaughter. Everybody would be disappointed, but not surprised. But such an incident hadn’t happened yet, so for now, Cabbage was still freely working hard everyday to successfully complete and unveil the invention that would propel him to "the front page of every science magazine and a Nobel Prize in Physics".

      And it just so happened to be today, October 30th 2020, when Mark received a phone call from his dad's best friend in the middle of class. He was glad he kept his phone on vibrate, but god, was it distracting. To answer or not to? Why now of all times? Right, he forgot that some people don't have anything else to do with their lives other than... creating things that usually end up on fire by the end of it. You know, now that he thought back on it, the last time Mark willingly participated in Cabbage's experiment which involved some tinfoil, antennas, and laser beam machining, it left Mark's right shoe on fire - thank God he had brought a fire extinguisher over to Cabbage’s house with him.

      Just that memory alone convinced Mark to ignore the call, nearly forgetting about it once it had stopped ringing if not for the fact he received another call just seconds later. "What is this, an infatuation?" Mark grumbled to himself, before glancing up at the front to see if Professor Jung was distracted enough for him to take this call without her noticing. It didn't help that he sat three rows away from the front. But she still seemed to be rambling on about how much she loved Dylan Thomas' works, and that was a sign for him to accept the call. He kept his voice to a hushed whisper, however, "Hello-"

      "Mark! You have to come over!" There was no way Professor Jung did not hear that screech that came from his phone. He glanced up nervously, noticing his classmate's startled gazes on him. But his eyes wandered over to the front, and judging by how Professor Jung was now going on about Dylan Thomas' "attractive appearance", it seemed he was in the safe for now.

      "Cabbage, I'm in class, so could you keep it down?" Mark hissed quietly into the phone.

      "Right, right, sorry!" While he was still loud even after lowering his voice down, it was more than quiet enough for Professor Jung not to notice, thankfully. "Mark, I've just completed my latest invention. But this isn't just any invention, it's the invention of both my - and everybody's dreams!"

      Mark would be mildly curious if not for the fact that Cabbage said that about every invention of his, but he figured that his dad was going to urge him to go anyway, even if Mark didn’t want to. "But he's my best friend, Mark!" Jeez, because how could he possibly say no to the power of friendship?

      "Mark? Boy? You still there?" Cabbage’s voice pulled Mark out of his thoughts, and the boy could do nothing but sigh. This was just going to be like every other time - he’d be introduced to some machine that supposedly did one thing, said machine would catch on fire the next minute, and it would all result in Mark going home an hour later.

      "Fine, I'll be there. After class in like, half an hour." Mark reassured the scientist, and he swore, he could hear something catching on fire in the background.

      "Great!" He then heard rushed footsteps and... a fire extinguisher? "See you then!" And the call ended.

      He just couldn’t wait.

       When visitors would come to the humble town of Uicheon (의천), located just thirty minutes away by car from the bustling capital city, Seoul, the first thing they would notice was how much the town gave off Suburban American vibes, like walking through a town where the main characters of some random Disney high school movie lived. All single detached houses, varying in style from Country French to Cape Cod with recent contemporary and modern upgrades to those houses by residents who wanted to "spice it up".

        Uicheon was a town seen by others where most of the population was upper-middle class. There was nothing wrong with that at all, and actually, the residents of Uicheon were both happy and welcoming of anybody and anyone who stepped foot into town or even took an interest in moving, no matter of their social or economic status.

       If anything, the residents of Uicheon - the ones who've lived in the town for longer than ten years at least - were often worried that those who did show interest of moving in inevitably get... scared off. By one particular daunting house.

       It was a beautiful town. No seriously, Uicheon had been mentioned on multiple "Top 5 beautiful towns just outside of Seoul that you should visit!" lists published on the internet. And in the beautiful small town where all the houses provide comfort and beauty, surrounded by flowers on nearly every available patch of grass like something straight out of a magazine, there stood a modern house - the only completely modern house in the town - its exterior all... black. Even the big windows were tinted black, and it was obvious that the house stuck out like a sore thumb. Sometimes, the local kids told stories of how the house was abandoned, and was home to a ghost with a vengeful spirit inside who wanted to steal your teeth. The residents of Uicheon had gotten used to the house's presence already, but it didn’t stop the mutual sentiment of "...really?" amongst them.

       And currently, Mark stood in front of its black front doors, ringing the black doorbell and covering his ears as trumpets echoed from inside the house, playing to the tune of the guitar solo of Gun N' Roses' 'Sweet Child O' Mine.' Only seconds later, did the door swing open, revealing a robot, half of Mark's height. "SCANNING FACE... HELLO M-A-R-K, MARK." It greeted, well, robotically.

       "Hey, Edison," Mark greeted the robot nonchalantly, walking in and shutting the door behind him, "where's Cabbage?" He asked as he took off his shoes and placed it on the nearby shoe rack.

       "LOCATING THE DOCTOR..." Edison's eyes turned yellow, colour blinking repeatedly until it turned into a green light and stayed like that. "DOCTOR LOCATED - HE IS IN HIS LABORATORY DOWNSTAIRS."

       Because was it really surprising that the house belonged to a guy who invented things for a living and went by the name of a vegetable in a bizarre way to honour his idol?

       "Got it, I'll go meet up with him then." Mark informed, heading down the hall until he reached the black spiral staircase that led both to the third floor and bottom floor. It was really nice up there on the third floor though; Mark had been there before and it even came with a movie room! Too bad Cabbage rarely used it because he "doesn't have time for action sequences". So Mark, being the loyal lab assistant/test subject he was, headed down instead to the bottom floor, where he was greeted by a hallway that was lined up with pictures of old men on the walls. "My inspirations!" Cabbage would say. Among them were the likes of Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison (who he named his robot after, clearly), Nikola Tesla... you got the drift.

       Regardless, Mark never stayed in the hall longer than he needed to - he wasn’t sure if portraits of old men who were dead by now staring at him was exactly his kind of vibe.

       At the very end of the hall, all that awaited him was a grey metallic door that had some vapour seeping through the narrow space at the bottom of it. "Shit, I didn't bring a fire extinguisher today..." Mark cursed, grabbing onto the straps of his backpacks and readjusting it on his shoulders. "It's okay, Mark. He hasn't killed you before, so he can't kill you today...?" He wasn’t sure what the logic behind that thought was but you couldn’t blame him for trying to... reassure himself for whatever was about to come beyond those doors. It was funny to him; he had been the lab rat of many of Cabbage's crazy experiments and inventions, yet he kept coming back and every time he did, the jitters were always there.

       Maybe it wasn’t because he was scared of death. Because he wasn’t - his father always drilled the idea into his head that God would welcome him with open arms when the time came. At the very least, if Mark died - most likely because of one of these experiments and inventions - he'd be bringing Cabbage with him. But hey, that was beyond the point.

       If not the fear of death, then what? Maybe, just maybe... one of these days, one of Cabbage's revolutionary inventions would actually be successful. That for all of the craziness that's going on inside the mad scientist's head, it would finally pay off.

       If only he knew when.

       Mark reached for the handle and twisted it, pulling the door open and nearly coughing when a whole cloud of mist and vapour rushed at him. "Jeez, Cabbage, what are you doing this time?" Mark coughed into his arm as he took a step into the laboratory. He actually couldn't see the scientist at first, waving his hand around in hopes that he'd be able to swat away the mist and vapour. The space around him eventually did clear, though, revealing...

       Nothing?

       Instead of the usual grand machine that looked like it was taped together, Mark was greeted with... a clear space. The scientist was over at his desk just up a set of stairs that led to a second floor within the big room. "Cabbage!" Mark called after him, waving his hands to get his attention.

       Whatever the scientist was busy doing, it was important enough to leave Mark ignored for a good five seconds. It left him pouting, though the scientist eventually did glance over at the boy, his eyes widening behind his circular glasses. "Mark, boy, there you are!" Cabbage sprang out of his seat, quickly rushing down to the boy he had called over. He held some sort of watch in his hands, like it was the most precious thing in the world. Jeez, since when did Cabbage wear Rolex? "Took you long enough! I was bouncing in my seat waiting for you to come over! But in the meantime, I was able to complete another one after confirming my calculations for the twenty-seventh time..."

       One thing that nobody wanted to do was sit through Cabbage's rambling, prompting Mark to speak up. "Whoa, calm down, Cabbage. What's going on? Where's your invention?"

       "Oh Mark, you're looking at it." Cabbage held out the watch and Mark raised an eyebrow.

       "That small thing?" Mark narrowed his eyes at the watch in the scientist's hand. "Are you sure? Last time I came in for one of your creations, it was twice my size and almost killed me." But knowing the kind of person Cabbage was, Mark wouldn't be too surprised if this little watch managed to wreck havoc as well. How ironic it would be, for something so small to cause so much chaos.

       Cabbage shook his head, meeting Mark's gaze with oddly serious eyes. "Mark, the creation I hold in my hand can - and will - change the world. If left in the wrong hands, everything could collapse. Society will crumble, the universe will be left in a never-ending stream of terror, reality will no longer exist, the concept of time will-"

       "Okay, okay," Mark was left, once again, trying to calm down the frantic scientist, "Cabbage, deep breaths. Tell me, what did you create?" It couldn't be that bad that it left the older man going on some admittedly fear-inducing rant.

       "A time travel machine."

       One Mississippi, two Mississippi...

       "Alright, I'll see you next time then, Cabbage." And almost immediately, Mark turned on his heel, prepared to just dip out of there.

       "Wait, no, Mark!" The scientist called after the boy, grabbing a hold of his sleeve, "Please, hear me out!"

       "Time travel, Cabbage!" Mark whirled around, disbelief painted in his features. "Do you even hear yourself right now? That's impossible! This is impossible! Listen, I'm fine with being your test subject but even I have to put my foot down somewhere when things get a bit too crazy!"

       Despite Mark's reasonable concerns, Cabbage really didn't feel like letting his lab assistant slip away from the tip of his fingers, especially now of all times. "Come on, Mark! Twenty-seven times! I checked my calculations twenty-seven times! Don't let my hard work go down the drain!"

       "Then do it yourself! Time travel yourself!" Mark exclaimed.

       "I can't! I need you to go so I can stay behind and collect all the data while making sure you don't get stuck in the future or something!" Cabbage explained.

       Unfortunately, Mark's face still showed utter disbelief. "You know, this really doesn't help your case, Cabbage!"

       "Fine! We'll do this the fair way then!" Cabbage shouted, holding his fist out.

       "Are you serious? Rock, paper, scissors?!" Mark cried out, covering his eyes. If there was one thing he couldn't say no to, it was rock, paper, scissors. Why? Maybe because he boasts a seven-hundred-fifty-two win record, with a mere twenty-one losses in the game. As you could probably assume, Mark was the undisputed rock, paper, scissors king in Uicheon, and only two kinds of people would dare challenge him in the game when it came to bets. Those who were bold and those who were desperate.

       "I mean it, Mark! If you win, you can walk right out that door and never look back. I won't force this onto you. But if I win..." If Cabbage won, "you have to at least give this experiment a thought."

       "Wait, that's it?" Mark uncovered his eyes, surprise in his voice. But hey, it wasn't a bad deal at all - in fact, the opposite. If Mark won - which he was pretty much guaranteed to - he could leave. If he didn't, he could pretend he thought it over and just say no in the end. "Well shit, say no more, Cabbage." And out Mark's fist went. “On shoot?”

       "On shoot." The scientist confirmed, the two men placing their fists behind their backs.

       "Rock, paper, scissors, shoot!"

       Rock for Mark, and... rock for Cabbage.

       "You got lucky." Mark rolled his shoulders back. "But this is it." And back their fists went behind them.

       "Rock, paper, scissors... shoot!!"

       Scissors for Mark, and... rock for Cabbage.

       "I won..." Cabbage glanced down at his fist, mouth left agape, "I-I won! Against you!"

       Yikes, better make that record seven-hundred-fifty-two wins to twenty-two losses now.

       "I-I..." Mark was still in disbelief, for a totally different reason now, however. "I... I lost?" Under such circumstances too... but seriously! Time travel was a bit too much! "H-Hey, that doesn't mean I'm going to be going through with this! Remember, you said if you won, you'd let me think about it!" Mark reminded.

       "Yeah, but only because I didn't think I'd actually win!" Cabbage snorted, shaking his head as he tucked the watch safely in the pocket of his white lab coat. "But I am a man of my word, so I'll give you some time to think about it. How about until the end of the day?" He suggested.

       "That's a bit too soon, don't you think?" Mark frowned, not really liking the idea of being forced into a decision so quickly.

       "Sorry, is that loser talk?" God, that damn Cabbage always knew how to get under Mark's skin.

       "Fine, by the end of the day. But don't be surprised if my answer doesn't change." Mark warned. "Now if that's it, I'll be going." Mark huffed, turning around and heading to the door once more. This time, the scientist let him go, but not without some parting words.

       "See you soon, Mark."

       (Y/N) doesn't know where her life went wrong.

       Okay, maybe that was a bit of an exaggeration and a dramatic one as well, but it didn't change the fact that instead of living out in the city and pursuing her dream as a world renown film director, she was stuck in her small hometown, working full-time at a film-rental store.

       What was even the point of this store anyway? Everything was online nowadays anyway - who did the owner think he was, trying to compete with Netflix?

       "One Mississippi, two Mississippi..." (Y/N) mumbled to herself from behind the counter, staring dully at the analog clock hung just above the front doors. An analog clock - what year was this again?

       "(Y/N)," the voice of the store's owner, Mr. Yoon, was a less than welcoming disruption to her daily "clock-watching" (as she termed it herself), but at least it was a good way to remind her that the day was almost over, "did the kids all go home already?"

       (Y/N) nodded, reaching below into the counter for a piece of paper with names and times. "Yup, Jungwoo and Sungchan just finished their shifts half an hour ago." She pointed to their names on the paper, "Signed out here."

       "Great. You're in charge of closing up for today then, I have business in the city." Mr. Yoon informed, proudly readjusting his grip on the handles of his briefcase.

       "Godspeed, Mr. Yoon." (Y/N) nodded, watching as the man left with a nod. And as the doors closed behind him, the female found herself alone in the store. All alone... which actually wasn't even that uncommon.

       (Y/N); twenty-four years old, graduated from a local college two years ago with a degree in Film Studies with hopes of eventually entering the field of film-making and directing. She had high hopes, especially when she graduated. "To the city and A-list I go!" She could remember cheering that day in her car, diploma in hand and graduation gown still on.

       But somebody must have forgotten to tell her that the university you went to mattered - and just how competitive the job market was for... pretty much every job.

       Now this wasn't to say the college she attended was bad or anything, it just wasn't... one of the SKY universities.  And before she knew it, when it came time for job hunting, the positions were constantly being filled out by "better candidates" and after a certain amount of "we regret to inform you"s, (Y/N) decided to go back home.

       Home, in the beautiful yet small town of Uicheon. All she wanted was to make it big, live in a nice condo in Seoul and shop at luxury brands. Yet now, she found herself wearing what was possibly a ten-year-old uniform from the back storage with a name tag that was always tilted at a forty-five degree angle no matter how many times she tried to fix it.

       But don't get her wrong! She hadn't given up yet - she absolutely would not! Her films might not be playing in theatres or at the Busan International Film Festival, but she still enjoyed writing up ideas and getting some of her co-workers to act out some scenes for her while she filmed eagerly with her trusty camcorder.

       The Sony HDR-CX675; this bad boy cost her a good two months of saving up but God, was it worth it. Jungwoo in a wig and Sungchan throwing pens like they were daggers had never looked so good in HD until (Y/N) had gotten her hands on that beloved camcorder of hers.

       "Should I film the clock or something?" She sighed, eyes wandering back over to the analog clock. At least she only had an hour left before the store closed, and she usually spent most of that time cleaning up anyway.

       And so that hour began, dreadfully long until with only ten minutes to spare, the front door had opened, prompting (Y/N) to rush back to the counter from the storage room, though not without grumbling to herself quietly about what asshole comes into a store ten minutes before they close.

       But it wasn't just anybody who came in - it was Mark, the boy who always complimented her hair no matter how lazy she had been to brush it that day. Still, flattery always earned some brownie points in (Y/N)’s books. So she wasn't hesitant at all when she had greeted Mark. "Hey, it's nice to see you here! Renting a movie?" She asked, resting her arms on the counter top.

       "Yeah, looking for some Christian-friendly Halloween movie. For the kids at church this Sunday, since Halloween is tomorrow." Mark chuckled shaking his head.

       "Let me see what I can find," (Y/N) grinned as she slipped away from the counter and to one of the shelves, "I'll be honest though, you're probably better off showing the kids some cartoon from Netflix or something."

       As if Mark was going to tell her that he insisted to his dad on renting a movie, for he wanted to see and talk to the girl of his dreams who currently had her back turned to him. "Well you know us, terrible with technology." Instead, that was all he could muster up.

       "I'll bet." She snickered jokingly, turning back to him with a movie now in her hand, "Toy Story of Terror sound good to you?"

       "Better than showing them Scream." Mark shrugged before heading back to the counter with her. "I'll pay with debit."

       "Mhm," (Y/N) nodded, taking his card and swiping it for him through the machine, "you know the usual, watch within thirty days and return it after those thirty days." She reminded him with a yawn. God forbid Mr. Yoon ever see that.

       "Busy day?" Mark offered a small sympathetic smile as he took his card back as well as the movie. "I kind of get it. Cabbage called me in for one of his inventions today."

       "Today?" She asked, watching as the boy across from her nodded. "What was it this time?" Everybody in town felt bad for Mark since he was the one always testing out Cabbage's inventions, but at the same time, at least it wasn't them?

       "Gosh, you wouldn't believe me if I said it." He shook his head with a heavy sigh. "A time travel machine - or like, a time travel watch, I guess."

       "Time travel?" The gasp from the female was expected; anybody would be surprised. "I always knew Cabbage was ambitious but definitely not to the extent of time travel!"

       "Yeah, needless to say, I said no. Or like, I told him I would think about it, you know?" Mark frowned. "I just can't believe... time travel of all things."

       "I'll be honest," there was a smile spreading on (Y/N)’s face, to the slight surprise of Mark, "the idea of time travel sounds so cool though. I'd love to try it out." When Mark had brought up what had happened at Cabbage's house, he didn't think (Y/N) would actually be... interested in the scientist's invention. Definitely not when it was so absurd. But she looked so cute, the way she stood up straighter and her attentive eyes as he talked about it. Gosh, he wished he could tell her that it wasn't worth the time. But her interest was clear, that much he couldn't ignore.

       "Then... why don't you try it in my place?" Mark suggested hesitantly. He didn't want (Y/N) and her pretty little self anywhere near those dangerous creations, for concern of her safety. But she really seemed to be interested in this, and this... it was the least he could do.

       "Alone? No thanks." She giggled softly, to the relief of the boy who had suggested it in the first place. "Maybe if someone else was with me though. Like a time travel duo!" Hold up - someone else?

       "This is your chance, Mark!" His inner voice practically screamed at him. Anything for (Y/N), right? "But it's so dangerous!" His other inner voice tried deterring him from going through with what he was about to suggest. But for (Y/N)! "Then," Mark felt his heartbeat quicken, excitement and hope visible in his eyes, "you wouldn't mind if we did it together, would you?"

       If his friends Johnny and Donghyuck were here, they'd definitely be cheering and slapping him on the back. It felt like he was asking her out, something he always dreamed of doing but never really having the guts to do so. Rejection was a scary thought, but as he watched the wide smile that spread onto (Y/N)’s face, he knew he had something to look forward to, even if through... this.

       "Of course! it'll be fun!" Score! "Too bad only one person can go though, I assume." She frowned.

       And for a second, Mark's hopes had shattered once again. But then he remembered something back at Cabbage's house, and maybe, just maybe, it wasn't over yet. "Actually, I think Cabbage mentioned making two watches." After confirming his calculations twenty-seven times. "Why don't we go together?"

       "Seriously? You wouldn't mind?" Oh, what Mark wouldn't given just to see that wide smile on (Y/N)’s face every single second of the day.

       And with a smile of his own, he nodded. "Of course not, noona."

       Love has always been a motivation for man, ever since the beginning of humans. And as time continued on and advanced, a variety of factors had been added to that list of motivation, such as money and power. But one constant above all was always going to be love - something that had always been interpersonal.

       So that was why Cabbage wasn't too particularly surprised to see Mark come back to his house later in the evening, this time, with a female companion. And judging by the look of awe on her face, it didn't take much for the scientist to connect the dots. "Mark, you came back!" Cabbage smiled down at the boy from the second floor of his basement lab. "With a friend this time?"

       "Right," Mark cleared his throat, gesturing to the scientist, "(Y/N), this is Cabbage as you already know, and Cabbage, this is (Y/N), my friend."

       "Hi! It's great to be here! Like, really great." (Y/N) was still enamoured by the many... things going on in the lab, though Mark couldn't blame her.

       "Anyway Mark, have you given my invention a thought?" Cabbage inquired, standing up from his seat by his computer and leaning against the railing. "I assume that's why you're here, after all."

       Mark nodded. "I have." He confirmed, biting down on his lip. "And I'll do it."

       "You will?" The scientist's eyes widened, grin spreading on his face. "That's great!"

       "But," Mark began, gaze falling over onto (Y/N) for a short second before back onto the scientist, "with conditions."

       "Conditions?" Cabbage raised an eyebrow, pleasantly intrigued.

       "Conditions!" (Y/N) suddenly spoke up with a grin, earning a look from the two. "Sorry, it just felt kind of intense so I wanted to ease tensions a bit." She coughed, glancing back and forth between the two. "Please, continue." She urged.

       "A-Anyway yes, conditions." Mark cleared his throat before turning to the scientist once more. "I want (Y/N) to come with me. You have two watches, don't you?"

       "I do." Cabbage nodded, fishing his hand into the pocket of his lab coat and bringing out two identical watches. "So far, they're the only two I have so I need to make sure that your friend will be extra careful with this."

       "She will." Mark reassured without any hesitation. "I know she will, because she's (Y/N)." A man who was claiming everybody's hearts left and right - except for (Y/N)’s though, unfortunately.

       Cabbage looked as if he was pondering on the thought for a bit before eventually nodding and making his way down the stairs. "Well, if Mark is vouching for you, I guess it should be okay." Cabbage nodded before gesturing for the two to follow him to the back of the lab, where large screen rested on the wall and multiple smaller monitors on both it's sides, resting on a glass desk. Below it were multiple keyboards, a few touch pads here and there with clearly different functions. It was like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. "This is where I'll be monitoring and communicating with you two while you're in whatever time period you land in." He explained, gesturing to his set up.​​​​​​​

       "What about the watches?" (Y/N) asked.

       "I'm just getting to that." Cabbage nodded, reaching for the two watches once again. "Gather around, you two." He motioned for them to come closer. "It looks like a regular analog watch at first, but if you tap the clock face," he did what he had just said, the other two watching in awe as a small digital hologram had appeared in the air, just above the clock face, "it has information such as your battery life on the right hand corner, the date and time you're in, the option to video call me, and the option to switch time periods." He pointed out each detail on the hologram. "Now the problem with the switching time periods is that once you arrive somewhere, you're stuck there for, at a minimum, twenty-four hours before the voltage and particle energies recharge and allow you to travel elsewhere."

       "Wait, so you're staying we might be stuck in a different time for a whole day?" Mark asked, a bit of alarm evident in his voice.

       "Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find out the proper calculations to make the recharging process quicker but for the meantime... yes." The scientist sighed. "But hey, at least it's not twenty-five hours...?"

       "Cabbage!" Mark groaned, running his hand down his face.

       "I mean, twenty-four hours doesn't sound that bad." (Y/N) hummed. "I'd love to explore a different time period, really get to know what it was like!"

       "See, at least someone's optimistic." Cabbage sent a not-so-subtle look over at Mark. "But anyway, I actually have a quest for you two."

       "Ooh, a quest! I feel like I'm in a video game." (Y/N) giggled, and if it weren't for the fact that she was totally digging this right now, Mark would have just straight up left out of fear for his own safety.

       "Exactly!" Cabbage nodded eagerly. "Since you two will be going to different time periods, I want you to bring back a memento of some sort from each time period."

       "Anything specific?" Mark asked, wanting to make sure he was going into this with full details.

       "Yes, for the purpose of analytic purposes due to their high amount of energy." Cabbage turned to the two, a suddenly serious look on his face. "A meaningful item to at least one person you encounter."

​​​​​​​        The two waited for him to say more, but nope, all he did was stare back at them. Mark ended up being the first to speak up. "Hm, I think you're missing the part where you, oh I don't know, tell us what you mean by ‘meaningful item’??"

       "That will vary from person to person, Mark boy." Cabbage sighed, giving an empathetic pat on the boy's shoulder. "One person's 'meaningful item' might be a necklace that their mother gifted them, or maybe a letter from a lover for a soldier - everything in life is a variable anyway."

       "Wait, then how do we know something is a meaningful item?" (Y/N) asked.

​​​​​​​        "That's where this last function of the watches come in," Cabbage turned his attention back to the watches, "this icon," he pointed to one of the icons on the hologram screen that resembled a heart, "will allow you to scan a person once you've talked to them. This only works one person at a time though, and it does drain a lot of energy from the watch battery. It'll allow you to see particles coming from objects, like sparkles. The more vivid, bigger and brighter the particles, chances are that's your person's meaningful item. So be careful with who you choose to use it on - once you scan that person, you'll have to find their meaningful item before you can use it again. Not to mention that the longer it takes for you to find the meaningful item, the more energy it drains." He warned.

​​​​​​​        "Talk about ominous, gosh." Mark sighed, shaking his head. "I can't believe I'm doing this."

       "It'll be exciting though, Mark." (Y/N) glanced over at the boy beside her, a grin spreading on her face. "We're in this together, after all!"

       "Noona..." A shade of red coated Mark's cheeks as he stared down at her, eyes sparkling with adoration.

       "Ahem, and me too." Cabbage interrupted, "Just, I'll be back here handling everything."        

       "Yes, of course, because where would we be without you, Cabbage?" Mark sighed, feeling a bit salty over the scientist's interruption during his and (Y/N)’s "moment".

       "Love you too, Mark." Cabbage blew a kiss his way before handing a watch to Mark and (Y/N) each. "Are you two ready?"

       "Wait, we're doing this so soon?" Mark's eyes widened, staring down at the watch in his hands with a bit of fear.

       "Better sooner than later." Cabbage shrugged, helping attach the watch onto Mark's wrist and then to (Y/N)’s. "You guys will be fine, don't worry. I'm here, after all!"

       "So reassuring, Cabbage." Mark grumbled, about to protest over the quick timing and suddenness of all of this if not for the sudden feeling of warmth in one of his hands. He glanced down at said hand, eyes lingering on the smaller hand that had clasped his own. And as his eyes wandered up to the hand's owner, he swore she was going to be the death of him.

       "It'll be okay, Mark." (Y/N) squeezed his hand softly with a reassuring smile. "We're in this together." She repeated.

       "Right..." Mark trailed off before taking a deep breath and nodding. "Together." He then glanced over at the scientist. "We're ready, Cabbage."

       With an excited smile, the older man nodded before turning to his set up and taking a seat down in the chair. The sounds of his quick tapping against the keyboard keys had Mark worrying with every passing second, but as (Y/N) held his hand, he figured this wouldn't be a terrible way to die. "Adios, you two!" Cabbage called out before hitting one last button. Click!

       And as a bright and large flash of light illuminated within the lab, Mark knew it had begun, especially with the way his limbs practically burned and his consciousness struggling to stay intact.

       The things he'd do for love, huh?

[camelely]

TFATWS Spoilers under the cut

Literally the following is my thoughts and opinions, and there are probably some unpopular opinions lol. It's kinda really long lol.

Starting with some positives.

I loved how the two leads had storylines that mirrored each other. Sam needed to become Captain America and gain a title and Bucky needed to move on from The Winter Solider and loose a title.

Sam. Just Sam I loved him before but now I love him more.

Sam becoming Cap.

I loved Isaiah and his story.

I loved Sam's family, how they welcomed Bucky and the struggles Sarah had.

I really liked how they spent time with both Sam and Bucky and didn't forget the show was supposed to be about both of them. Often times shows tend to lean into the more popular or fan favorite lead and this show didn't do that. When Sam took center it felt natural and when Bucky took center it felt natural.

The Wakandans were great. I love Ayo and her friendship with Bucky.

Zemo was fine and fun enough.

John Walker was incredibly done. Wyatt Russell did an amazing job and the scene with the blood on the shield will forever be in my memory. Hands down one of the most impactful MCU moments.

I like the genderbend on Karl/Karli and the direction they took her character. People that go from sympathetic ideas to unforgivable means, make good villains. I think her more boring elements come from the lack of development she got.

Now on to the negatives.

This show could have been like two hours shorter and still told the same story with the same impact. Also earlier episodes, (maybe later episodes too I might have just gotten used to it and stopped noticing lol), had some weird ADR moments. IDK what happened behind the scenes but it was noticeable.

I would have loved it if one of the episodes was a flashback episode. The Sharon twist was obvious from the first episode she appeared in but like they thought it was good enough to save confirmation for the mid/end of the finale? Both her and Karli would have been benefited from a flashback episode.

Karli should have fought Bucky while Sam was focused on Walker. Sam could have had a moment where he tells him he will never be forgiven and Walker would responded with something similar to "I do what is right. I don't need forgiveness." Then when he becomes USAgent it lands more like the next progression in an arc rather than the redemption arc this could be interpreted as. I personally think this is a stepping stone and not a redemption but the MCU (and Disney) doesnt have a great track record when it comes to handling anything with nuance and the fans have an even worse track record when handling things that arent black and white. I guess my point is they could have handled the John Walker set up better.

Speaking of set up, this entire show was set up. This is my main and only real problem with this show. Nothing felt like it was resolved at the end. Karli even says she was part of a bigger movement. Killing her didn't change the fact a lot of people felt the un blip ruined their lives. People always shit on Tony for wanting to bring people back five years later instead of going back in time but like it had been five years, while some like Steve and Natasha hadn't moved on, others had. Some had better lives. Assuming everyone wanted to back to the way things used to be would also be a mistake. This has consequences too, as we see in these shows. But ruining the lives of the people who had bettered themselves would have been shitty too. And yea some people who had been bettered were worsened once again when the un blip happened but my point is going back and erasing the five years would have been shitty too. There is not really a right answer here as the right answer would have been to either stop the snap before it happened or to come to terms with the fact that the snap can never be undone. Leaving everyone as dead might have hurt, but it was the best thing for a community that had five years of mourning and moving on and counseling ETC. Ooof that was a tangent lol and I could probably write an essay so going back to my original point about set up. The flag smashers, or at least people who think the way they did still exist, Sharon Carter is the powerbroker but Sam and Bucky dont know and now shes back as agent 13, John Walker went from war hero to committing war crimes and his journey as USAgent is just starting, Sam has taken the Cap mantle and is ready to begin acting as Cap, and Bucky is both coming to terms with and moving on from his past. Nothing is actually resolved in this mini series. I know it's supposed to make you excited for the next movie/show/season whatever but have six episodes of little to no payoff IMO made for a flat show.

Building off the set up problem. This show had too much going on. Sam and Bucky each had their own personal journey (The A and B plot depending on the episode), Sam and Bucky being friends and their shared journey (C), John Walker and the Flag Smashers (the D and E plot depending on the episode), Zemo and the Wakandans (F), The PowerBroker/Sharon (G), The boat and Sarah which could be considered part of Sam's plot but since if you cut it out the only thing that actually effected Sam's journey would be the bank in the first episode and yet it still went on till basically the end I'm calling it it's own plot (H), Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, which might be part of John Walker's story but since it's all set up for her to take a bigger role in the future and his set up could be completed without her I'm counts her separately (I), then you have the big meeting at the end, the senators and policy makers making choices the vote that they keep mentioning and once again more set up... (J). 10 ideas by my count, all needed their own set up, follow through, and payoff. And yes some stuff like Valentina the pay off will come later but still... It's all too many plots! And thats not mentioning side characters that were new to the show that they wanted to spend time with but couldn't.

Even though I think the shows aren't comparable/two different genres WandaVision had two more episodes (and yes some were shorter but I already mentioned I think FATWS could have benefited from that), completed all the main plots and had Wanda's journey (A), Vision's journey (B), Agatha, Pietro/Ralph, and the citizens of the hex (C), Outside the hex Monica (D), Outside the hex everyone else and sure you can separate Darcy, Jimmy and Heyward but none of them were setting up future stories or had their own distinctive plot outside the hex thing like Monica so she is the only one I am separating (E), the kids who could be counted as an extension of the Wanda and Vision plots since they didnt really have their own arc or story (F). 6 total. And some of those could be combined. Like I think we should separate Wanda Vision and the kids but technically they are just an extension of Wanda. And same with Monica, her story was mostly intertwined with Darcy, Jimmy and the outside the hex stuff. I separated her since I think she had enough moments to herself and she set up secret invasion or whatever, but like Valentina being a part of John's story it is arguable. Of these plots only the missing witness Jimmy thing, Wanda's post credits moment a moment seperate from everything else, Monica's mid credits i think? moment another one separate from everything else, and white vision were unresolved. They gave Agatha an opening ending but it was still an ending. And yes Darcy Heyward etc will probably come back but the plot they had here was finished. So arguably they had 2/6 unfinished plots. And if you don't count Jimmy's witness as a plot and just count it as an unanswered question then 1/6. And technically white vision is just half a vision and the other vision got a complete plot so really it's 0.5/6 At best they completed 92(ish)% of the plots and left 8 (ish) % for future stuff.

In contrast FATWS only finished Sam's journey into becoming Cap, Zemo and the Wakandans, and arguably Sam and Bucky's friendship. You might be able to argue that Bucky had a full circle moment with the guy whose son he killed, but that is one guy and Bucky has been carrying around a list of people like that guy. It's not the end of a story it is the start of a journey. And maybe it is possible to say the boat thing had an ending kinda. 2/10 completed. maybe 3/10 if you wanna push it 5/10. IMO at best they completed 50% of plot set up.

Clearly FATWS is meant to be this way and thats why it bothered me. They want you to watch Cap 4 or whatever they decide to call the theatrical movie that will come after this. I guess I was just expecting it to stand on it's own, and other than Sam's journey into becoming Captain America, which was amazing and deserved in every way, nothing this show did felt like it could have stood on its own. I know it's arguable that was the main story and only story that deserved to end. But I've already pointed out all the other running plots this show had, and I think at least two or three of them should have had follow through in the show.

Someone who plans to never seen an MCU movie after these shows could have watched WandaVision and enjoyed it. That is not the case for FATWS. If you don't plan on watching any MCU stuff in the future you won't know how over half the plots of this show will end. THis isn't even how the movies work. They each tell their own story while also setting up other things, so it is clear they know how to do this.

I can see why Disney decided to submit it as a series and not a mini series. Not only do they not want to compete with themselves (nominating WV as a miniseries) but also this isn't a miniseries.

I guess to conclude I'll say I did really enjoy watching this show. It was fun and there were some great moments. It featured amazing character and amazing actors, but I wish it had bothered to finish more of what it started.

Thank you so much for reading till the end of a post that has surely become unintelligible gloop by now. If you disagree I'd love to hear why!

[purplesurveys]

994

Basic Information

What's your name? Name’s already posted on my Tumblr but so that nobody has to check that anymore, Robyn.

Where do you live? I live in some city east of Manila, and that’s all you need to know.

When's your birthday? April 21st.

What's your astrological sign? Taurus.

Do you actually believe in that stuff? Never did.

How old are you? 22.

Do you have a high school diploma or the equivalent? Yeah I got a diploma.

Do you have an undergraduate degree? If so, in what? Yup. I’ve graduated but I haven’t received the diploma nor did I get to walk on a stage because of the stupid virus, but I majored in journalism.

What is your favorite...

Quote? I don’t have any. My brain doesn’t really store quotes for me to go back to; I don’t find the majority of them interesting.

Color? My main favorite is pink, but I enjoy looking at pastel shades and muted colors in general too.

Song? Picking an all-time favorite song is impossible, but for now I really like putting Hayley Williams’ Why We Ever on repeat. It used to be just a sad song that I love listening to but unfortunately the lyrics have since become relatable, so now there’s a sting whenever I hear it.

Band/singer? My favorite bands are Paramore and Against Me! while my favorite solo act is Beyoncé.

Book? I never had one. I was a big bookworm as a kid, but I didn’t get to keep it up as a teenager and now as an adult. Most of the books I own today are still just the novels I had nearly a decade ago, and it’s been a struggle trying to find a genre to get into.

Author? Same situation as book.

School subject? History. A lot of the social sciences are also great – anthropology, pol sci, psychology, etc. In another universe I definitely would’ve taken up a degree in a social science instead of journalism.

Science (chemistry, biology, physics, etc.)? Biology has always been a strength of mine and a favorite. I find memorizing terms fun, and I’ve always enjoyed studying living things instead of chemicals or energy or force or any of that boring stuff. 

Math (algebra, geometry, calculus, etc.)? Advanced algebra is fun. So is geometry, but only as long as you know all the formulas and theories; otherwise it’s so easy to fail it.

Language? I don’t have one. I think all languages are individually beautiful.

Operating system? Wow this is random lol. macOS, I guess. It’s what I’m using.

Instrument? I like the sound of many instruments, but in the grand scheme of things the piano has to be my absolute favorite.

Letter? I don’t pick a favorite letter.

Number? 4.

Car? I don’t know the first thing about cars but I suppose my dream car is a Mini Countryman, if that counts as a favorite. I swoon every time I see one in real life; they’re just so pretty to look at.

Pattern (polka spots, stripes, plaid, etc.)? Stripes are my cup of tea, but polka dots are also cute.

Word? The word that’s been my favorite for a while is ‘poignant.’

Animal? I love animals, but I’m biased to dogs and elephants. :)

Country? I don’t have a favorite country. That’s a pretty odd favorite but *shrug* I guess some people have theirs.

Drink (alcoholic or otherwise)? Water, milkshakes, and cocktails.

Food? Sushi, curry, cheeseburgers, and macarons. You can’t make me go with just one choice when it comes to food, my dude.

Restaurant? Yabu and Torch.

Website? I rely a lot on YouTube for my sanity these days so it’d be fair to call that my favorite, at least for the meantime.

Sport? If it counts, pro wrestling. If it doesn’t, I like playing table tennis and watching volleyball and tennis.

Flower? Peonies, roses, and sunflowers.

Ice cream flavor? Cookies and cream is a classic.

Television show? Breaking Bad is my favorite ever, but I also enjoy Friends, The Crown, and Bojack Horseman, and at one point The Walking Dead before it got honestly boring.

Shirt? I don’t really have a favorite shirt, but my favorite type to wear is anything sleeveless. I like giving my skin air to breathe, lol.

Shape? I don’t pick favorite shapes.

Eye color? Olive is beautiful.

Hair color? I’m indifferent to hair colors. Whatever suits a person.

Movie? Two for the Road and Good Will Hunting.

Gum flavor? Fruity ones.

Random Stuff About You

Do you have your drivers' license? Yeah. I had to get it as soon as I graduated high school because no one else was going to be able to bring me to school in college. I was in driving school like a week or two after marching on stage for my high school diploma haha.

Have you ever been swimming in an ocean? I don’t know if I have. In the vacations I’ve had, I don’t really keep track if I’m swimming in a sea or if I’m already in one of the oceans.

What's the last song you listened to? No clue but it was probably something by Hayley.

Do you prefer coloring pencils, crayons, or markers? Coloring pencils! I miss coloring. I just can’t see myself going back to it at the moment because I had bought a really cheap set of coloring pencils that have to be sharpened every five minutes. During my coloring phase I’m pretty sure I spent more time sharpening my pencils than actually filling in my coloring books. I’ve yet to find a replacement set with better quality.

Can you make any origami figures? If so, what? I’m terrible at origami and have always been. Even if I’m given a one-on-one session, I’ll for sure get lost early on in the process.

Do you still sleep with a stuffed animal? I never did. I always preferred pillows.

Do you get cold easily? I do haha, but I don’t mind it. I’d rather shiver or have my teeth chatter than have a pool of sweat on the back of my shirt from being too hot.

Have you ever been to a chiropractor? Nope.

Do you have great eyesight, or do you wear glasses or contacts? It’s very poor. I’ve had glasses since I was 11, but I needed them a lot earlier, like since I was 8 or 9 maybe. My mom refused to believe me when I started telling her my vision was getting worse because she legitimately thought I just wanted glasses to look like other kids. God, how shitty was that parenting? I can’t believe I just fucking let that go as a kid. My eyesight was getting increasingly blurry by the day and I stopped learning at school and her worry was that I wanted to fit in. I’m gonna get more stressed and hurt if I continue to think about this, so let’s just move on...

Do you know how to play chess? Never learned. I’ve watched my cousin play and he tried to teach me so many times, but I just never understood.

Do you know how to play checkers? At one point I think I did, but I didn’t enjoy it.

Do you like Sudoku puzzles? No. I never got the hang of that game either.

Do you like word searches? Love them.

Do you like crossword puzzles? They’re fine but the ones on our newspapers are too hard and use too many references or plays on words that I’m not able to pick up.

Do you like logic puzzles? It’s a hit or miss.

Can you play any card games? Other than solitaire, no.

Do you play board games? Hmm I played some as a kid, but I’ve always been too competitive and I’m never able to just sit down and have a friendly game so I’m not too big on board games now. I’m a lot happier sitting on the sidelines and watching my friends play because it’s more entertaining that way.

Do you do jigsaw puzzles? Not normally but I’ve been thinking of investing in one of those 1000-piece puzzles to take my mind off of things whenever I get depressed or when my mind starts to think about things it shouldn’t.

Do you listen to the same song on repeat for a long time, even occasionally? Yes. Sometimes I do it on purpose when I’m REALLY feeling a certain song at the moment; other times I don’t even realize the repeat button is turned on and I don’t notice I’ve been listening to the same song over and over.

Do you take any prescription medications on a regular basis? Nope.

Would you prefer to be too hot or too cold? I’ve said this a few questions ago, but too cold.

Do you like to swim? Sure. Being in the water calms me down instantly.

Have you ever been to a farm? I’ve probably been. I just can’t pinpoint a certain memory right now.

Do you like instrumental music? Depends on what the genre is, but I do generally prefer instrumental music when I’m working or have to focus.

Do you drink diet soda? Nope.

Do you drink soda? Andddddd nope.

Have you ever put Mentos into soda? I haven’t but I know what it does. There’s already like a million videos of other people doing it so I don’t need to do it for myself. 

Have you ever combined baking soda and vinegar? No.

Did you ever make Oobleck in science class when you were a kid? We never did and I learned about oobleck from watching a Good Mythical Morning episode, not in school. But I’ve always been curious as to what the texture is because it looks so fun to touch hahaha. I’d try making it myself but idk if we ever have cornstarch at home.

Do you know any HTML? Yes. Early days of Tumblr, man. People customized their themes and text posts all the time.

Have you ever read any of Shakespeare's work? Well, yeah. I had to read four of them - one for each year in high school.

Do you write poetry? No.

Do you read? Occasionally. A lot less than I used to.

Can you throw a frisbee? Sure. My friends and I played back in high school.

Do you watch a lot of television? Eh, not really. It’s rare that I discover a TV series I’m willing to invest in; I’ve always preferred movies since they can tell me a story within 2-3 hours. Following an ongoing show is just exhausting.

Do you think that you have a good sense of humor? Humor is subjective. I could mesh well with certain people but others might not find my sense of humor funny. I don’t think either of those can determine if my sense of humor is good or not.

Are you a mean person? Well, I try not to be...I think that’s what most people strive to do.

Do you have any bruises? If so, how did you get them? I have one on my knee because a few days ago I knelt to the floor to try to look for something under my bed, and I ended up landing on the floor quite hard and it was purple in minutes lmao. It’s mostly healed now though and I can barely tell where it is.

Does the thought of public speaking make you nervous? It only does if I ultimately also have to pitch something, because I don’t consider myself persuasive at all. But if I had had something memorized or had enough practice or if it’s a topic I’m fairly knowledgable about then I don’t have much of a problem with it.

Are you afraid of heights? It doesn’t bother me as much as other things and I’ve always wanted to go to the top floor of those towers where the floor is glass lol, but like I’d absolutely piss my pants if I found myself standing on a tightrope between two really tall buildings.

So, what ARE you afraid of? Flying cockroaches, plane crashes, and fire.

Are you listening to music? No.

Has anyone ever called you 'disturbed'? I don’t think so, at least not to my face.

Have you ever been kicked out of a place? If so, where? And why? Yeah. From a McDonald’s, but it was my noisy friends’ fault. I knew they were being loud (they were playing some card game) so I just stayed at the very edge of our table, pretended not to be associated with them and waited for a customer to complain about us lol. Normally I’d speak up and tell friends if they’re being too immature, but in that friend group in particular I was the shyest and didn’t really hold a lot of influence so I didn’t have much of a choice.

Do you take a lot of these surveys? Yeah I have this entire blog dedicated to just them, and even before this account I had another survey blog.

When was the last time you fingerpainted? No idea. Kindergarten maybe? If we even ever did?

When was the last time you sent an e-mail? Yesterday afternoon.

A text message? 1 AM earlier.

Called someone on the phone? I think it was around two weeks ago.

Tripped over something? I’m sure I tripped over Kimi fairly recently, like sometime this week.

Do you like chocolate? Sure but on its own it can be too sweet for me, like the Hershey’s milk chocolate bar. I do love chocolate-flavored stuff or if it’s incorporated into other meals or snacks, like chocolate chip cookies.

How many pillows are on your bed? Right now there aren’t any because I brought the two pillows, that I do normally have on my bed, to my desk where I’m currently sitting at.

Do you have any pets? Yeah one of them is licking their balls behind me. The other one is probably playing with their toys downstairs and miraculously being quiet this morning.

Have you ever been on a horse? Yep.

Have you ever climbed a tree? I don’t think so. Most trees here have fire ants anyway.

Do you like art? Sure do.

Do you use any sort of social networking site? I mean normally yeah, but I’ve deactivated all my accounts for the meantime. Depression is a bitch. I’m no longer updated on the news nor am I familiar with the trendy memes anymore but idk, this seems to be the healthiest thing for me right now.

What time is it? 9:11 AM.

Have you ever been in a car accident? Super minor ones where the car I was in only got a paint scratch or, at worst, a dent or two.

When was the last time you felt embarrassed? Yesterday when I almost sent a message talking about a certain person to that certain person. It was nothing mean, but I was horrified nonetheless.

Did it rain today? No. I’m not sure if it will but I hope it does.

Have you ever had a poison ivy rash? No. When was the last time you felt immensely happy? LOL Do you take a multivitamin or any other supplement? We have vitamin C tablets at home but I’m so bad at taking them. What household chore do you absolutely hate? Washing rags. Not really a chore, but once they get all dirty and I have to clean them up it just feels so icky and ueughdhffgbduifhsuf Tell me something random about yourself. I’ve won a couple of spicy noodle speed eating challenges. Can you cook? No, but I’d love to learn. Do you like to be silly? I’m a little more serious than silly for the most part...but when I’m in the right mood at the right time with the right crowd, I can be silly too. What kinds of things have you wanted to be 'when you grow up'? The first was astronaut. Then I came across this interview with a veterinarian and I wanted to be one too. Lastly, a firefigher. Have you ever been on a boat? Yeah, lots of times. Sometimes it’s the only way to get to certain provinces or cities in the country so we’ve had to take boats for a few trips. Do/did you like school? For the most part, yes. I like that I made a lot of friends in school and I don’t have complaints about learning. What I hated the most about school is the scheduling, I guess. In my first school I had to wake up at 5 AM everyday to catch the school bus; and then in college I had to take several 7 AM classes and those were just the biggest, most inconvenient bitches. I also did not enjoy the concept of Catholic school. Do you have a camera? I used to have a DSLR but I’ve since handed it down to my sister since she’s taking up film. The camera on my phone works just fine. Have you ever been bitten by a tick? I don’t think so.

Have you ever seen a wild snake? I don’t really know what counts as a ‘wild’ snake but I’ve handled and held snakes before. Have you ever gone hiking in the woods? Hmm I’ve gone hiking, but not in the woods. Do you have a lot of friends? There’s a lot of people I can call friends, yes. We aren’t constantly in touch, though. All my friendships are super low-maintenance which I appreciate. Do you keep a diary/journal/blog? I have a journal and this blog where I write my thoughts and emotions down. What color are your eyes? Dark brown. Answering this yet again this week... Do you like snow? I’ve never experienced it so I can’t say. I think I would enjoy snow though. I feel that I’d be able to find comfort in it, like rain. Would you prefer to sing or dance in front of other people? Both sound awful. But I’d go with sing because at least I don’t have to move my body as much. Would you prefer to sing or dance when you're by yourself? Sing.

Can you spell really well? I’d say I can. I was really inspired by the movie Akeelah and the Bee as a kid and that made me want to be constantly good at spelling. Do you mind poor grammar? If it’s coming from a native speaker of whatever language, yeah. Like people who can only speak English but still use ‘would of’ or ‘I could care less.’ I’m more forgiving towards people who speak one language, or those who are speaking in a language they know they aren’t 100% fluent in. What's your favorite texting/IM abbreviation? I don’t have one. ‘lol’ I guess? It’s convenient. Do you wear a watch? No. Do you shop at thrift stores? Sometimes, if I find their offers interesting enough for me to want to go inside. What is your dream job? It’s pretty straightforward but it’d be nice to be able to work my way up and end up as an executive at a PR or media agency that I look up to. What is one thing that really freaks you out? Charlie Kaufman movies. Do you like bananas? They’re okay. I don’t hate bananas as aggressively as I do other fruits. Do you eat meat? Yes. Do you drink coffee? Yuh. I can go for a cup right now, actually...maybe when I finish this survey. Do you clean your computer screen often? Not often. Just every once in a while or once I start seeing too many smudges. Have you ever sneezed onto your computer screen? Probably.

Let's talk about numbers.

How many people live with you?

Four. We also have two animals.

136+95=...?

231. That’s essentially 136 + 100 - 5.

How many digits of pi do you have memorized?

Just the first five.

Can you count using binary numbers?

No. Never understood those, not interested enough to start learning.

How many states have you visited?

Zero.

How many countries?

Six. Would’ve been seven or even eight if Covid never blew up. I know my dad mentioned there were plans for us to go to Vietnam this year, and I also asked for a Thailand trip as a graduation present. Damn bat soup or whatever it was.

How many browser windows/tabs do you have open?

I have three Chrome windows in total. On the one I’m on, there are 13 tabs.

How many times have you blinked in the past minute?

I dunno, I never count that?

How many seconds are in a minute?

60.

Are you afraid of mathematics?

Calculus and trig, yeah. The other ones aren’t so bad.

What's the square root of 121? 11.

Sorry, sorry, the nightmare is over :) How about some more random questions to let you relax?

Have you ever read the webcomic xkcd?

I doubt it. I don’t think I’ve heard of it before.

Can you play an instrument?

Barely.

Can you read sheet music?

Not a chance.

What's your favorite kind of sandwich?

Monte Cristo! Omg, that sounds so good right now :( Banh mi is great too.

Do you have a bedtime?

Not strictly but I always try to get 7-8 hours of sleep on weeknights so that I’m sufficiently energized for work the next day.

Have you ever gone sledding?

No, I haven’t.

Have you ever carved a pumpkin? If so, what kind of face did you make?

Also no.

Do you ever make funny faces at yourself in the mirror?

I guess it’s happened before, but it’s not a regular occurrence.

Have you ever played the classic shaving-cream-in-the-hand prank on someone?

No.

Do you think that's a mean thing to do?

I don’t think that prank in particular is since shaving cream is harmless, but some pranks can definitely go too far which is why I’m generally not a fan of them.

Do you like cake?

Only very certain types. I can think of more cakes that I don’t like than the ones I can never get tired of.

Do you like pie?

Just savory ones, like chicken pot pie. Those are more up my alley than sweet pies, which are for the most part stuffed with a kind of fruit.

Do you like popsicles?

Sure, they’re refreshing.

Do you use the television or computer more?

Laptop.

Do you have a favorite chair to sit in?

Not really lolAre you getting tired of this survey?

It’s lengthy but I knew about it when I started this so I can’t complain about that; and the questions haven’t been annoying too so no, I wouldn’t say I’m tired of it.

Do you like to wear hats? When I have the chance to, yeah. They’re never a must for me though.

Do you wear your seatbelt in the car?

Most of the time no. Oops.

Do your shoes provide lots of arch support?

I...don’t know. I don’t really pay attention.

Do you like to go to yard sales? I haven’t gone to one since I was a kid.

Have you ever had a yard sale at your house? I don’t think we ever did.

Do you like apples? I like some apple-flavored things like juice or candy. I can’t stand the actual fruit but y’all know that by now, haha.

Do you like peanut butter? Yessssssss. I love peanut butter and any peanut butter-flavored food.

Do you like licorice? Not really. They’re not common here so I don’t seek it out.

Do you like lima beans? It doesn’t sound like something I’d enjoy.

Do you like limes? Not particularly.

What color are your bedroom walls? White.

Guess how many questions you've done. I don't know either, so just guess. Before clicking on it I saw it had 200 or so questions, so I’m guessing we’re at the 180 or 190 mark considering how many questions are left below this.

What's your favorite color to wear? I feel prettiest in dark green or maroon. Do you tell secrets when people confide in you? I’m not sure what this is supposed to be asking, but I’ll give two answers. (1) I don’t spill other people’s secrets when they confide in me, and (2) When people confide in me, sometimes I’ll be inspired to share a secret of my own too, especially if it’s relevant to their situation. If I don’t think it’s going to be helpful, I just keep it to myself. Do you listen to your music with the volume up really high? Only when I’m extremely upset or furious. Do you like to try new foods? Absolutely. How many different programs are you currently using? Like applications? Currently, I have Chrome, Viber, and Notes turned on. How many different operating systems have you used? I’ve gone through Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 8, and then whatever updates have been done on macOS since 2015 - I don’t really keep track of their names lol. What time is it now? 12:03 PM. Are you wearing socks? Nope. Are you comfortable with yourself? These days, no. Do you lose small things (like your car keys) often? Hah, yes. Is your mind in the gutter? No. Have you ever broken a bone? I haven’t. Are you more of an introvert or an extrovert? I’m a healthy mix of both, I’d say. Which is still a great improvement for me because I used to be an introvert all the way through. Do you read the dictionary for fun? I literally did this for a time right after watching Akeelah and the Bee and having that movie change my life. It made me want to join a shit ton of spelling bees, but my interest waned when I realized there weren’t any being held here.  Tater tots or fries? Fries, only because I’ve never had the first. Do you like to wear flip flops? No. The thongs irritate my skin all the time and they always give me wounds. Are you more of an optimist or pessimist? I’m normally optimistic but it’s easier to be pessimistic nowadays. Do you like animals? Yes :) Do you like little kids? If they aren’t being a giant, rude pain in the ass. Are you a 'people person'? Yes. If I can’t satisfy everyone it bothers me. Have you ever seen a rainbow? Sure. How was your day? I haven’t cried today but I’m still sad. Otherwise, I don’t have a lot of strong feelings about this day just yet. What do you plan to do tomorrow? I don’t know yet. When was the last time you did laundry? Around two or three months ago. Have you ever played Snake? On the really old Nokia phones? For sure. Have you ever played Scrabble? Yeah. I took it up for one semester as a PE, hahaha. I also played it a lot when I was younger. Are there any television commercials that really get on your nerves? At the moment no, but this has happened many times before. Do you like scary movies? Sure. Are you itchy anywhere on your body? The left side of my forehead started to feel itchy when I read this. What's the title of the last book you read? Midnight Sun. Do you read more fiction or nonfiction books? Nonfictionnnnnnn. Are you a member of any clubs or organizations? I used to be, but now I’m an alumna because I’ve graduated college. What color is your favorite pair of socks? I don’t have a favorite pair. Do you own a lava lamp? No. Do you have anything else to say? Thanks for serving as a distraction and letting me kill some time.

[saezutte]

yuletide letter 2020

Dear Yuletide Writer, 

Oh, hello again. I didn’t see you there.

This year, I have transcended earthly desires and struggled to find any fandoms to request. I want nothing. I wish my cat was nominated as a Yuletide fandom so we could all write stories about her life. 

Nonetheless, I have some small requests!!!! I believe you can make me happy in ways I’ve never been happy before. I trust you. Happy end of 2020, the cursed year, I hope you are blessed with rest. 

My AO3: saezutte

My public twitter: juncassis

My tumblr: here but I do not use tumblr much anymore, sorry.

Do Not Wants

[note: I have no actual triggers, nothing you can write for me will make me any more depressed or anxious than I already am]

Death (of major/important/beloved characters)

Suicide attempts, self-harm

Rape (outright; OK with dub con, manipulation, noncon short of violent-rape-for-violence-only)

Eating disorders, body shaming

Angst without a happy ending, really too much angst at all

Established relationship

Cheating

Actual Unrequited Feelings

Pregnancy (the actual process; breeding kink is fine)

Scat or watersports

Hard BDSM or any kink complicated enough that the characters would have to discuss it ahead of time

Homophobia as a plot device

Excessive attention to identity or politics, sometimes known as “issue fic”

Note on AUs: I am ok with the usual popular AU tropes but I do not want them combined, e.g. A/B/O is fine and coffeeshop is fine, but I don’t want an omega barista getting his scent all over the lattes he makes for some alpha lawyer who comes in every morning. (Ridiculous example, but you get the point.) For AU/modern settings of fandoms with magic, I often like it when the magic is still there in the AU setting. I also like AUs which maintain the general outlines of the character’s relationships, like if the characters are childhood friends in canon, I like to keep that intact.

General preferences:

I am a pretty basic bitch when it comes to fanfic: I like it when two clueless boys pine for each other through some shenanigans and then lock eyes/lips/dicks.

If you fed a neural net every fanfic written in Stargate Atlantis fandom between 2005 and 2010, the result would probably be some nonsense I’d enjoy.

I love many tropes. Tropes! Bed-sharing. Sharing an umbrella. WASHING EACH OTHER’S HAIR? Confessions where they are having an argument and then one of them yells “Because I love you!”

I love situations where characters are forced to spend time in close proximity and find themselves with feelings.

I love fakeness: fake dating, fake marriage, arranged marriage, marriage of convenience, fake lust induced by sex pollen or heats, aliens make them have sex, whatever.

I love porn, if you want to just write me some quick porn, that’s great. I do prefer (per the established relationship DNW above) that it be first time or get together porn. I know that can make it hard to just write porn, but I don’t need much to be convinced of sex.

Nirvana in Fire (TV)

Requested characters: Mei Changsu, Xiao Jingyan

Note: I also love Lin Chen so if you want to write some MCS/LC or LC/Fei Liu or LC/MCS/JINGYAN OT3??? go for it. I am also a Nihuang/Xia Dong shipper so if you want to put that in… somehow… my gay little heart would be happy. I also like Nihuang/MCS/XJY or MNH/MCS + MCS/XJY but I’d like the focus on the men in that case!

I watched this show because someone recommended this show to me as, like, Chinese Game of Thrones but good. I think it’s genuinely one of the best TV shows I’ve ever seen. I love plots and revenge and good people doing bad things for justice. Even the ending is good for me though obviously it left me unsatisfied on several points.

I am deeply into sickly doomed genius MCS and every time he got even more deeply ill, I fell deeper in love. Every time he coughs up blood, my heart would race. I love his terrible schemes and stupid self-sacrificing choices. I find watching this show very soothing because I knew he would always come out on top in his schemes. I trust him. I love handsome clueless Jingyan and how he’s just so good (it’s terrible.) I love his mom and how much he cares for her. I love him but he is useless, he needs his Xiao Shu and I need fanfic to restore him to him.

Note: So my limited research on this says that male/male sex practices were accepted and well-known in this time period in history, so I really don’t want them thinking “oh no what are these weird gay feelings.” There are other barriers to them being together, like a ruler or official being overly attached to one person was considered very bad. I am also a big supporter of the socially-approved polygamy of this time period, so I don’t need Jingyan to refuse to sleep with his wife or something out of loyalty to MCS—he has to do it! Or all their plans are ruined! And he can enjoy spending time with her or the concubines without affecting his feelings for MCS—you could explore that complexity in fic if you like.Prompts:

Mei Changsu isn’t dead, he’s hiding again, Jingyan searches for him

They start having sex during the series, the ending is averted [somehow]

Post-canon, MCS is alive and Jingyan hides him in the palace with his consort/concubines to keep him on as an advisor without anyone objecting

omega verse where MCS was an alpha before he “died" but an omega after he came back.

AU where male/male marriage is customary (maybe aristocratic men are expected to have one male and one female consort?) and so MCS decides the best way to influence and help Jingyan in the capital is by becoming his wife or one of his concubines

anything just get them together and happy.

Tokyo Babylon 

Characters: Subaru, Seishiro

I read Tokyo Babylon as a child and I imprinted on it deeply, now I love politics, ghosts, stalking, age differences, magic. Within the CLAMP canon, I love TB for its episodic focus on smaller stories, the commentary on contemporary society, and Seishiro being an outright creep. I love onmyojutsu and exorcism and Subaru’s innocence getting ruined. I love the city of Tokyo (where I currently live! but do not be intimidated, I don’t know the city well because we’ve been in quarantine most of the time I’ve been here and won’t judge you for details.) I’m open to fics that comply with X canon or not.

With Seishiro/Subaru: It’s bad but I love that predator/prey dynamic where the predator ends up being hopelessly entranced/obsessed/in love with the prey. My read was always that Seishiro lost the bet and couldn’t admit it—he’s just, you know, killing twins to avoid dealing with his feelings! Relatable! (?!?!) Subaru, I love particularly in his evolution from innocent to adult in love to betrayed. I’d prefer post-TB fic to during-TB fic (so Subaru knows Seishiro’s deal and loves him anyway.) I am also a fan of Hokuto and you should feel free to bring her back to life to troll if you desire.

Prompts:

AU or reincarnation plot where they are Heian period rival onmyoji

Because this is such a heavily place-based series, if you are a writer who likes to play with details of real life locations, I’d be interested in versions of different “Babylons” if you have an idea for it.

Tragic first times post-TB lol

Seishiro is a virgin the first time they have sex

I’d probably love some fucked up dub con for this, however you want to play it

Honestly, do whatever you want as long as you don’t fuck me over like CLAMP did.  

プリティーリズム | Pretty Rhythm

Characters: Hiro, Koji

Pretty Rhythm came to me at a weird time in my life. I lived in a house of spiders in Yokohama and did nothing for eight weeks. King of Prism cheer screening transformed my life and I didn’t even know what it was. Then I got weirdly deep into Rainbow Live and the Pretty Rhythm franchise overall. I am a scientist of prism theory. Idk why I like it, it’s just wholesome and crazy and there are penguins and DJ Koo. I love every TRF song because I’m a 90s gay at heart. It’s truly the end point of all media development. The prism world represents the fearsome power of virtual/digital+real hybrid life. Yes, I know I’ve lost my mind. I went to one of the real Prism Stone stores, the one in Harajuku.

Hiro Hayami: one time a fujoshi asked me to describe what types of anime boys I like and the first type I listed was “prince but bad” and my example was Hiro. Hiro is the crazy gay stalker disaster of my heart. He overcomes great hardship to achieve his dreams and foolishly falls in love along the way and he does everything wrong and Koji keeps leaving him. The moment when Hiro is crowned King of Prism in Pride the Hero was one of the top ten moments of my life. I made friends who don’t even know Japanese watch the movie unsubtitled with me on my birthday.

With Koji, I’m a bit guilty of “I want to give the character I love the most the character he loves the most” so I do like him less (it would be impossible to like him equal to how much I love Hiro). But he has many good points that make him perfect, like how he also sucks underneath his chill exterior. I love to see him go apeshit.

I also love everyone else in Rainbow Live, no exceptions. I love all the girls. If you do write the girls, I would prefer they not be paired with the OTR boys. I would prefer they be paired with each other, any combo is good.

Prompts:

this is the sort of pairing where I love fic where they split up and then 15 years later meet again as washed up has-beens but there’s still time for them to find each other

Canon-compliant companion piece showing the “background” of them getting together romantically over the course of the series.

AU where Koji is a prism world fairy sent to inspire Hiro but Hiro is kind of a mess

dirty, dirty porn… let Hiro get fucked

I have a lot of doujinshi with multiple copies of Hiro (a la the Mugen Hug jump) but I’d like something where Hiro gets overwhelmed by many Kojis

They start fake dating as a publicity stunt and have to keep doing it… especially good if it starts when Koji is at max hating Hiro level

Ring Fit Adventure 

Characters: Dragaux, Ring

Keeping this one simple: I like to be encouraged to exercise by a storyline and a trainer that never mentions weight loss, lol. The world is fun and pretty and I love that buff dragon.

AND THEN THE PAIRING. I’m sure Nintendo has some market research that told them a certain subset of users are very motivated by enemies who seemed to once be lovers or best friends. I am that user.

What is up with these two? They were so in love! Now Dragaux is a horrible swole bro (not in a good bro way) and Ring is training me instead? I can’t compete with their love. It’s the only time the game makes me feel inadequate.

You can keep Dragaux and Ring as dragon/ring-like as you like. Obviously I’m down with dragon fucking but you can also make him a human fucker too. I play with Ring on the masculine voice setting for maximum BL vibes as I exercise, but, you know, it’s a ring, I don’t think it has gender. Feel free to incorporate the player or other random characters too.

Prompts:

AU where Dragaux and Ring owned a gym together and Dragaux sold out to a big chain of gyms

What happened between them when Dragaux was still captured, pre-game? Bondage… literally??

Ring is always bossing me to train, but I’m really doing all the work. Why doesn’t he fight Dragaux on his own for once?? (because the sexual tension is too powerful.)

Tragic flashback to their dramatic break-up ending with their present day reconciliation.

Player/Dragaux/Ring threesome??? I’ve unlocked the sexercises???

With all fandoms, you are free to disregard the prompts and do your own thing. If you’re not sure about me, you can probably dm seriesera on twitter, she knows what I’m into. 

Well, I suppose that’s all for now. Please stalk me online to get more details on my bullshit. I hope you have a nice time.

Best,

Caitlin 

[vitosscaletta]

🍓 🍓 🍓🍓🍓🍓 for ALL your vampire kids! 🦇

AIRIKA..TY FOR MY LIFE! ok this is gonna be long 

CHRISTIAN

🍓 — he’s over 300 years old (that technically makes him an elder according to the lore book… overpowered king) & was embraced in the 1600s, he was the son of a french marquis back in the day 😳 He lived in Versailles for a long time & considered it his home even though people would literally shit in the corners there -_-

🍓 — has NO idea how technology works… he has one of those ugly early 2000s flip phones because he saw other people having those but has absolutely no idea how to use them, much less a computer. Most people just think he’s ~romantic or something for writing letters but he really has no idea how to write an email :(

🍓 — He’s the baron of Bel Air.. has a nice mansion there bc living for over 300 years gives you time to hoard that much money ig. 

🍓 — His grand-sire (??) is Helen of Troy 😳 overpowered af bloodline

🍓 — He doesn’t care about vampire politics in the slightest and is sort of aligned with the camarilla bc he has power within them but there’s no loyalty or conviction.. the main reason he’s in it is to start drama and watch it unfold 💅 He and La🥐 can’t stand each other but also can’t do anything about it… Strauss is okay with him but they’d also sell each other out for one corn chip.. He’s sort of frenemies with Gary, they hate each other because… yknow toreador and nosferatu but they’re equally shady so there’s mutual respect… in an odd way 

🍓 — He doesn’t have any other childe..r… whatever the term is except miss Helena.. he hangs around humans a lot but has no real attachment to them (except being kind of a hoe and.. yknow.). She’s the first mortal in a long time he felt anything for which was mostly just good old toreador obsession but he thought it was love.. she vaguely resembled a lost love of his. and had potential I guess so he actually got permission for embracing her babey… just not from her bc he didn’t even consider someone wouldn’t want to be a vampire.. 🙄

HELENA

🍓 — Having OP Christian as her sire did have its perks even though she hates his guts for embracing her… She automatically had a pretty good position within the camarilla through connection alone :^) she works as sort of an informant/spy for the prince directly.. which puts her at odds with a bunch of people - they either think she’s an inexperienced little girl who doesn’t know what she’s doing and works for an incompetent prince OR hate her for being in his sort of inner circle without having to work for it (like Victoria. she thinks that)

🍓 — CRINGE but it be like that sometimes… she’s descended from a looong line of vampire/witch hunters on her dad’s side - he’s from a catholic german family who was largely involved with the society of Leopold. Michael himself wasn’t overly religious (still studied theology but didn’t actually care) and left all of this behind when he moved to america & got married but after he and Jenny divorced he was like “know what… time to become a zealot again”. His ex-wife and daughters are completely unaware of that of course 😳 dunno if Helena sees him again after becoming a vampire 🙄 but yknow.

🍓 — Doesn’t have any of the “vampires are better than mortals” superiority complex that a lot of the others seem to have.. does think thin-bloods are losers though kjdkjdfnms

🍓 — Only video game she plays is the sims!! she bought ts1 when it came out for fun and got hooked.. ts2 is even better!!!!! first thing she did was make a sim that resembles her and marries a business tycoon 💅💸

🍓 — owned one (1) YSL dress she bought from her savings (which was USED)  but she couldn’t afford anything else so she just wears it with something she found at hot topic every time she goes out with her rich fake friends pre embrace. When she works for La🤡 and actually makes some money she can afford a SECOND dress babey! with shoes!!!

🍓 — She’s actually really into some standard 2004 radio pop songs but also emo songs at the same time.. except the genre didn’t have anything good in 2004 except three cheers for sweet revenge (she’s also really into evanescence, green day and blink 182 which isn’t really emo but it was still part of the experience™ nfdkjdf) - which is also her entire aesthetic summed up, emo meets theatre kid prep.. Helena: *googles “how to look like Gerard Way and Britney Spears at the same time makeup tutorial”*

ERIN

🍓 — sdjhsdh cringe but she’s always been kind of a weirdo but was pretty good at hiding it/acting normal & was part if the prep gang in her high school days (not the leader, more the kind of the replaceable third wheel), she always preferred hanging out with the weirdos though. Post-embrace everyone just thinks “lol crazy malkavian” so she’s just like 🤷‍♀️.. 

🍓 — Her sire, Ray, was suuuch a freak but she liked him because he was something.. different in her sheltered, dull life and made her feel excitement she hasn’t felt in a long time. He bails on her after embracing her bc he sired her without permission & fears execution (even though literally no one cares or even knows he sired someone) but has letters delivered to her from time to time instructing her what to do lol

🍓 — Actually enjoys the freedom vampirism gives her? She’s officially dead so she has the option to start again and be whoever she wants to be… it’s scary at first bc she has no idea what’s going on and where these voices come from but she gets used to it, also the voice of her late grandmother in her head is a comforting presence for her… I imagine she’s actually in there kinda like the heart in dishonored, afterlife isn’t her granddaughter’s mind but it’s sort of an echo of her? IDK she tinkered with magic in life so supernatural schizophrenia added that to Erin’s mind.

🍓 — She loves early 2000′s radio pop (yknow.. Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Kelly Clarkson… etc) but also classical music, stuff from the 20′s, alternative rock, the early 2000s goth music that’s playing in L.A.’s nightclubs …. she’s gonna thrive in 2006 when a fever you can’t sweat out drops!!!

🍓 — She’s part of the anarchs but mostly hangs out in hollywood or downtown (only goes to santa monica to visit the asylum (BEST nightclub ever in her onion. isolated SLAPS)

🍓 — yknow in the 2000s when people had invader zim merch from hot topic.. she owns this backpack 🤦‍♀️ it clashes with the rest of her style which is already a horrendous mix of victorian/early 20th century gothic and 2004 prep style 

VICTORIA  

🍓 — her background is still a BIG wip but she was born at some point in the late twenties/early thirties and embraced in 1954 :^) she was a bit of a workaholic and had an intense work ethic but never made it far within the company she was working for because it’s the fifties (thinking maybe it was her father’s company bc she was RICH.. there was a feud between her & a few male relatives on who’s gonna lead or something)… She was eventually noticed by a ventrue businessman who thought her ambition and no-nonsense attitude would be a great addition to the clan - She was promised a opportunity to rise within a different society without le sexism. Go white feminist queen!

🍓 — her embrace wasn’t really what she thought it would be.. drinking other’s blood REPULSES her and she has a hard time adjusting to it, plus kindred society isn’t really what she imagined - by the time she’s embraced L.A. has no camarilla presence so there’s really nothing for her to do so she moves to New York to join them there.. except she’s stuck with a shitty job and no one taking her seriously because of her age 😒 When they establish a presence in Los Angeles she’s the first to suck up to the prince & be assigned a somewhat high position (I guess adviser to the ventrue primogen and also being tight with the prince is good!!)

🍓 — She dresses very business-y BUT always designer bc she got money 😳 her wardrobe is chic but also minimalist, also with a hint of fifties design because fashion peaked then in her opinion.. mostly in dark colors, reds, browns and mostly black combined with minimal jewelry and high heels… very very elegant

🍓 — genuinely loves romcoms from the 50s and 60s (doris day & rock hudson movies b*tch!!) but also “newer” one from the 90s and 2000′s.. notting hill, pretty woman and 13 going on 30 are her favorites that she watches when she’s off duty, cozy in her downtown apartment.. but don’t tell anyone 😤

🍓 — She’s THE queen bee within the L.A. camarilla… doesn’t have any friends in her workplace but she’s respected by everyone and that’s what matters to her (it does get lonely sometimes but it be like that. She’s not gonna give up her status for shallow friendships 😒)

🍓 — loves those ugly small 90s/2000s glasses but they clash with every outfit she has so she doesn’t wear them

[normal-thoughts-official]

Ok hmmmm fake dating art school au with Malec, Claia, Lukemaryse and (platonic, obviously) garrowbane where hmmm magnus is with an ex at the start and tries setting up Luke with people

well this got really cracky really fast

okay so im gonna go ahead and say that i have no idea how art school works in the US so for the sake of My Convenience™ imma go with the way it is in Brazil, which is "there are numerous kinds of arts going on in the same institute/college"

so im thinking..... clary obviously is doing visual arts, painting, whatever its called (this is probably where i should warn you that i know nothing about visual arts). maia is not really an arts major, but she's doing a course on technical/scientific drawing since shes a biology major and that's useful for her field studies. magnus is on the same course, except hes like an engineering major really. im a slut for inventor Magnus so yeah he wants to be an engineer to develop new kinds of technology so technical drawing is important for him. meliorn (watch me slip meliorn in literally everything i can) is a theatre major, and Luke and Maryse r both studying music

Luke and Maryse r older and like idk how common that is in the US but here in Brazil some ppl (spec retired ppl) come back to college to study something they have Always Wanted To but that wouldnt bring them money. i know that the whole "no free college" thing makes that harder but they can be post-graduates i guess. or Luke is and maryse is a regular major but shes a super rich hotshot lawyer who after the divorce decided to be less stuck up and dedicate herself to things she enjoys, and since shes rich, she has the money to do a major or a music course just for fun

anyway! Magnus is the kind of guy whos friends with everyone from all ages and courses. he quickly becomes friends with maia (shes on his course after all) and meliorn (who is a theatre major but takes classes in everything they can because.... they can)

i just realized maia/meliorn has a LOT of brotp potential but ok anyway

magnus and maia bond greatly over their shared interests (yeah shes a biologist and hes an engineer but magnus' interests vary a lot and also hes a fan of biochemistry. they also have relatively similar life stories and a similar sense of humor, even if maia is sharper at the edges - which is something Magnus likes, really. she's fierce and fun and unafraid and he wishes he were more like her sometimes. they have a mutual admiration and kind of protection pact). meliorn on the other hand is kind of the local queer cryptid in a way, which of course means magnus immediately befriends him, and Maia is just delighted at how much of a trickster they are. magnus also likes meliorn a lot because they're so... chill and easy and unbothered by social conventions to the point of being nearly unaware, which makes Magnus feel so comfortable. and meliorn thinks Magnus is interesting, and they all get along.

maia kind of brings luke into the group. luke is kind of maia's adoptive uncle. she lives alone but once she ran away from home luke was super nice and helpful and also one of the ppl who most encouraged her to go after her major like she wanted

luke and maia are clearly close and have each other's backs, but they also tease each other a lot. so when one day luke teases maia over her crush on clary, she retaliates by looking DIRECTLY at meliorn and being like "he's just jealous. did you ppl know he hasnt been on a single date in years" and meliorn, who thrives on the chaos, is like "oooh we should set him up" and magnus of course jumps at the opportunity

so the three of them keep trying to set ppl up with luke, and it just ...... never works. like doesnt come even close to working. its kind of a disaster actually. its awkward, it never clicks, and at this point luke is begging them to stop but you know thats not gonna happen. so as a last resort, luke lies that he's dating a woman from class. cue him asking maryse, whom hes never talked to in his life but is the only eligible woman his age at class, to like, please do him a solid. and maryse is just so shocked by this random (but handsome) man's life, shes like. lmao sure. look shes a post-divorce woman she wants to be free and cease giving fucks

and maryse kind of has fun pretending to date luke, but she's a busy woman and she doesnt hang out with them often, and they are like [BANGING POTS AND PANS] WE WANT TO ACTUALLY MEET HER

and luke is all like "well maybe if all of yall singles got dates we could have a date together otherwise get out" so maia asks clary out purely out of spite and turns out it works, but Magnus and Meliorn are like "uuuuhhhhh,,,,,,," so meliorn is like "what if we pretend to be together lmao" and Magnus is like shit we're gonna do that aren't we

i know its not exactly Magnus having an ex but look im struggling to put all of this together okay udhdhdbd also im not big on the whole "breaking up because of someone else" trope ya feel

god this is just the setup for malec to meet, im,,,, a mess

so anyway Magnus and Meliorn are determined to totally sell this to luke (maia knows its a scam of course, she can smell bullshit from miles away). and luke and maryse are also totally determined to sell this cuz everyone is an idiot. so they keep having, like,,,,, dates together, until eventually they kind of become a solid group of friends. they all welcome maryse and are really impressed by how critical she is of her pre-divorce self and how it did wonders for her, they think shes really strong. she even shares about how she struggled with her son being gay and her daughter deciding to become a forensic pathologist instead of a lawyer like her, you know. in short they all become good friends

so now everyone (but maia and clary who are happy and drama free and laughing their butts off at Magnus and Meliorn) is in a difficult situation because now theyre all friends! what are they gonna do, confess it was a scam all along? pretend to break up and make the whole thing awkward? they're trapped in their fake dating and it looks like they're just gonna have to, like ... deal with it

and in luke and maryse's situation it's even more complicated because they are kind of getting into each other, and theyre like groaning because theyre grown ass adults they shouldn't be living this trope. and yet

anyway as they become closer they start going to maryse's (shes the only one with a large enough place) and that's when Magnus meets Alec and meliorn meets izzy

which,,,,, despair

because they had been doing a great job of fake dating so far, excuse you, they are partners in crime. they're a well oiled lying machine and they work together flawlessly. magnus is not even a good liar but shit if meliorn didnt teach him every trick on how to not technically lie, and also they are very close and the kind of ppl who are comfortable with sharing affection, so yeah they drape their arms on each others shoulders and hold hands and kiss each others cheeks NO PROBLEM but now theyre both interested in someone else

hell, theyre both interested in maryse's kids

fuck

shit

goddamn

meliorn is all like "i told you we should have pretended to have an open relationship" and Magnus is like luke KNOWS im monogamous he would KNOW we're lying and meliorn is like FUCK and maia and clary are losing their shits

meanwhile luke and maryse are becoming more and more domestic and oblivious to the world. they will b like "you kids put the movie on, we'll make dinner" and be all like fluffy asshole

izzy quickly picks up that its a scheme cuz shes smart, and flirts with meliorn when maryse isnt around, while Alec is like SHIT dude i cant believe ur into a TAKEN MAN what the fuck kind of sad gay stereotype r u

but their pull is like,,, stronk and they frequently find themselves getting lost in their own little world and lowkey flirting and just being a liiiiil too close (especially in alecs case since hes like ..... stoic extraordinaire) and then theyre like AH SHIT WAIT and they jump and pretend nothings happening

and look, izzy would tell Alec about the scam, but she's, como se dice...... having way too much fun at his expense. she and meliorn start dating on like day 1 and make a pact to see how long they can keep the act up and enjoy the show

maia and clary have eaten their combined weight in popcorn by this point

the intrigue. the chaos. the misunderstandings

it gets more and more ridiculous as time goes by but Magnus is still determined to yknow keep the act up and not expose his and meliorn's lies

they just,,,,,,, live like this

it lasts for so long

like ..... months of ridiculousness

and alec is suffering because hes into a taken man whos obviously very in love with his partner and he feels guilty and all of that shit

and magnus just.... doesnt know what to do with his predicament. look he has anxiety this was a bad idea how is he gonna walk up to Alec and b like "hey so I'm not really dating meliorn it was all a scam so we could spy on luke and ur mom but it went too far" and the more time passes the more awkward it gets

the dam probably breaks when magnus finds meliorn and izzy on a date on accident, and hes like rjrhrjrjdnc SO THEY KNOW???? and meliorn is like nah only izzy knows we wanted to see how long itd take for u and alec to get ur shit together. and magnus is like oh my god and meliorn is like "in my defense i didnt think it would take literal months!!!!!! and then it started to feel awkward to just tell you to go for it"

so magnus is like FINE i guess i will TELL ALEC and ask him if he wants to DATE ME IN SECRET so we can keep NOT HAVING TO CONFESS WE LIED TO HIS MOM

and then i guess he tells Alec???? and he still isnt sure whether or not Alec likes him so he isnt planning to ask him out immediately afterwards, just, you know, let him in on the secret, and Alec is like "dude my mom is lying too" and Magnus is like what she and luke are like married

anyway knowing about that gives them full permission to come out as lying bitches so they're like "how dare you lie to us like this.. but also we did the same thing"

eventually luke actually asks maryse out

i dont even know whats happening anymore god im done

this is your fault anon

if anyone wants to actually write this, feel free rjrhdjdn honestly id read it

[princess-of-the-corner]

Taking a little break from Monarch to write out some of my ideas for how Love Eater and Miracle Queen work out in the Lady Luck AU. I thought about waiting for Chat Blanc and Felix but oh well!

As the Lady Luck AU focuses on Chloé having the Ladybug Miraculous from the beginning and getting actual character development until she’s a decent person and leader of an entire team of Heroes, there is no subplot about her and the Bee Miraculous.

Other things in the AU involve the lack of a Love Square by this point(it was only a lopsided triangle to begin with, but Secret Identities have been tossed out the window), and the fact that Chloé’s parents are getting divorced as Audrey is a horrific person.

So naturally, the entire episode has to be rewritten. I have a couple ideas on how to do this, but one of the biggest ideas involves Senti!Bug, or rather, Senti!Luck sticking around a bit longer. So here we go!

After the events of the Episode ‘Ladybug’, the corresponding chapter being called ‘Lady Luck’, Senti!Luck accidentally is left existing.

This is due to a combination of the Peacock malfunctioning due to being damaged combined with the Miraculous Ladybug ability trying to ‘fix her back into existence’.

As she seems like a real person now that she’s not being puppeted by Mayura, and the fact that she doesn’t seem to have an Amok Item(I forget the technical term right now), they decide to treat her like a real person.

Before I go further, let’s discuss how ‘Sentient’ the ‘Sentimonsters’ are, along with ‘Is Senti!Luck a real person?’. And tbh, I’m going to use a computer AI metaphor.

Sentimonsters are like a program’s AI. You program them, give them enough learning capabilities and executive decision making abilities to let them do their job efficiently, but ultimately, they are just a tool.

Senti!Luck, is like this at first. Sure, she’s good at seeming like she has emotions, but she is following her Programming.

After she comes back with the Miraculous Ladybug, she is much more real, like a real person.

The crew decides to treat her as a real person, and tries to figure out how exactly to do that.

Since they’re still not entirely sure if she’s real or not, they don’t let her in on the secret identities.

Lady Luck drops her off at Chloé’s place and then later comes back as Chloé saying ‘oh Lady Luck trusts me to help you’.

Chloé even discusses it with her dad a little bit. She tells him that ‘Lady Luck trusted her to look after a friend’, and basically convinces him to pretend Senti!Luck is a distant cousin or something if asked.

Many things go into cementing Senti!Luck as a person. This all happens during what should be ‘Love Eater’.

One of the first things is a name. After all, they can’t keep calling her Senti!Luck. I’m choosing the name Astra Avalon.

Firstly, because when Senti!Bug happened in Canon, I got flashbacks to W.I.T.C.H. and Will’s Astral Drop.

Secondly, way back in the day when I was writing TOWCK, I was planning on giving Chloé a half-sister named Astra Avalon. Though at that time I had picked ‘Astra’ because I planned to make her an Akuma called ‘Star Maker’.

I’m going to call her Astra from now on in the post.

The next thing is honestly a bit of a make over

Despite being made to imitate Lady Luck, Astra doesn’t look like Chloé. There’s similarities, but between the mask and whatever Magic goes into keeping the identities, Mayura doesn’t know what Lady Luck looks like and just guessed as it would work well enough for the same reasons. Chloé and Astra could pass as related, but not identical twins.

However, they do want to minimize the chance of Hawkmoth and Mayura finding her.

This ends up being a drastic haircut and maybe a bit of hair dye, and a montage of Chloé digging through her closet and finding her an outfit.

The next order of business is seeing how smart Astra is and where to put her in school

Originally I was going to use Ms. Bustier for this, but… Kwami Buster made me switch it to Ms. Mendelieve. Maybe both work on it idk.

Anyway, they want to see what all she knows. Both in a ‘what grade level is her intelligence/learning ability?’ and in a ‘how well does she understand social norms?’ way.

They eventually figure out that she has pretty average intelligence for someone of Chloé’s age group, and a basic idea of how to act in society, but a weird blank in her knowledge on things like common phrases or popular media. It’s not a big thing, but it’s something a little noticeable.

Overall, they agree that Astra could be put in Chloé’s class, but will need some support in social interaction. Since most of the class are Heroes and know about all this, they’re all willing to chip in. Adrien is already planning a movie marathon to catch her up on things.

Cue montage of Astra loving life and being alive

The class is very friendly and understanding, and she’s enough of a blank slate that she can get along with all of them fairly well.

She’s hella curious since even if she has an understanding of things, she doesn’t quite ‘get it’ until she does it herself.

From music to food to tv shows, it’s all new experiences and she enjoys all of them with a hell of a lot of enthusiasm.

Where everything goes wrong is a combo of Lila being a fuck and Astra having a breakdown over the standard ‘oh god I’m not a real person’ thing.

Lila figures out that Astra is Senti!Luck.

As a liar herself, Lila is good at figuring out other people’s lies. She realizes something is up with Astra due to how many lies everyone else is spinning about her, and eventually finds out.

While the info is filed away for the next time Hawkmoth Akumatizes her, Lila decides to confront Astra and threaten her.

Basically, it’s a ‘you help me, and I won’t tell everyone you’re a Sentimonster!’.

Said help would be things like turning against Chloé and friends, getting any dirt Lila could use against them, backing up Lila’s lies, etc.

When Astra refuses, Lila gets all ‘come on, they might be friendly now, but what do you think will happen when they find out what you really are? Our so-called Heroes didn’t even want you around! Just dumped you on some brat with enough resources to keep you alive’.

Cue existential crisis

I mean that literally. Astra begins to question how ‘real’ she is. And to make the AI comparison again, it’s the ‘Sure I feel things, but do I really feel them or am I Programmed to?’ thing.

She also panics over the fact that Lila might be right. As far as Astra knows, only Chloé really knows that she’s just a Sentimonster. The rest of the class has been nice and friendly, but would they do the same if they knew that she wasn’t even Human? Just a Magic Construct that happens to imitate Humanity enough.

I guess it’s a little similar to the Robustus situation, but tbh there’s also the added in ‘Sentimonsters are something evil’ thing added in.

Of course this is enough for Hawkmoth to Akumatize her.

Due to the nature of Astra’s Akumatization, Hawkmoth now knows that she’s Senti!Luck

That’s bad for a few reasons.

I’m debating on Astra’s Akuma form.

Miracle Queen is still an option, being able to control Miraculous holders.

Star Maker though, I could bring her back. Star Maker has the power to create fighters out of Constellations. Think kinda like the Ursa Major/Ursa Minor from MLP. She could use the Zodiac against the Zodiac!

Eventually Miracle Queen/Star Maker is defeated.

Astra is still upset, but the Heroes decide to tell her the secret identities. They didn’t abandon her, and the ‘normal civilians’ she’d been befriending knew what she was the whole time.

She’s still a little sad that they didn’t trust her in the first place, but they explain that even if they trust her, they weren’t sure how much influence Mayura still had over her.

But Mayura had made another Sentimonster during the fight and wasn’t able to control Astra like she did with Feast.

As for what happens to Astra after, I’m not sure. I’ll have to see what happens in Season 4. Unfortunately.

Maybe she stays. After all, she’s a real person now and Hawkmoth can’t control her more than he can control anyone else.

On the other hand, he still might try something with her, so it might be better to send her away. Like the ‘My uncle lives about an hour away from the city and he can take her in’ kind of way.

Either way she is safe and happy!

As for the plot with Master Fu and the Miracle Box…

Lady Luck doesn’t have to go to him all the time because all the Heroes are permanent, so Hawkmoth wouldn’t be able to reliably make a plan that would let him follow her to the Guardian.

And even if he was just waiting and hoping she would, Astra is the only Akuma this time, so it would happen after she’s Akumatized.

Maybe Lady Luck tries to add a new Hero. Maybe Master Fu himself slips up.

Actually, so far I’m thinking that no one slips up.

Master Fu sees how far the Team has come, and especially how far Chloé has come as their leader.

He realizes that they really don’t need him anymore. The only time anyone really comes to him about something other than handing out more Miraculous is either training Chloé as the new Guardian, or Mylene visiting(Something she does so that Master Fu can still talk with Wayzz, since he misses his friend.)

And honestly, with the training there’s very little he can teach that isn’t either clearly outlined in the Book of Miraculous Bullshittery, or things she’d need to learn through experience.

So Master Fu decides to retire.

While he names Chloé as the new Guardian, she does say ‘this is a hell of a lot of responsibility for one person, so the whole team is getting part of this’. Basically creating their own Order of Guardians, in a way.

Since he’s retiring and not ‘giving up Guardianship as a last resort’, the memory wipe thing doesn’t happen.

Instead, he meets up with his girl(I forgot her name like an asshole, sorry), and they leave the country.

Chloé still has his number, just in case he’s really needed, but for the most part he’s still hella gone.

So, again, I might change some things depending on Felix and Chat Blanc, but for now…. >:3c