#in other news i am now grinding (re)play because oh wow. oh WOW.

[athela-3]

I call this gif: "my oshis waving me goodbye from the gacha pool as I yet again fail to bring them home" 😅

Well, at least Madara is still missing. Hokuto… came home as starter. Again 🤣 I was gonna reroll between Trickstar and Double Face gachas to see which of my duo will come home first, and he answered immediately. And then reappeared via current gacha 4*, while I only have a random 3* of Madara's. Which brings us to my current home screen:

Hokuto is all dolled up, his outfit even kinda suiting the backdrop, but Madara, didja fall into a fountain outside or something, why are you sopping wet 🤣

[chuckbass-love]

Could you do a fic where Steve or Chris falls in love with an exotic dancer? ❤️

Hi, i hope i’ve done a good job with this. I’ve done it as Steve and i hope you love it

Dirty Dancer

GIF NOT MINE!!! Credit to whoever made this gif, if anyone knows who made it pls let me know so I can give credit. I genuinely just search gifs up on google and I never manage to find out where the original gif is from bc of so many people re posting gifs. I never wanna give credit to the wrong person! So if this gif is yours or if it’s someone you know then let me know and I’ll credit them. Thank you💗

Disclaimer: My work is not to be posted anywhere else other than MY Tumblr, Wattpad and Ao3 without my permission. However, reblogs are welcome.

Warning: Fluff, light smut, explicit language (sorta)

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Dancer!Reader

Summary: It’s Steve’s first time at the strip club and your first week as a stripper...

You never thought it would come to this, stripping for money and yet here you are, your first week in your new job. It paid well and you need the money for school. You’ve always had a talent for dancing so why not put it to good use. 

You were already racking up some regulars that were quickly becoming obsessed with you and the way your body moved up and down the pole, you were informed by the other girls that having regulars come to you within just one week of being here was rare. You must really be good. 

It was the last night of your first week here and although at first you felt a sense of shame for doing this, it soon faded when you got the hang of things. Plus the money was insane. 

As soon as you get to the dressing room to change into your clothes your boss approaches you. Telling you that you’re working the private dance rooms tonight, which means you’ll have to do the rounds on the floor to see if anyone wants one. You didn’t hate this but you didn’t love it either. Money is money. 

“Someone’s looking sexy” a familiar voice calls out to you as you check yourself out in the mirror, you turn around to see your colleague Jessica in the doorway. 

“Well i mean, this is average but you... Dam” she giggles as she walks over to you to help you put your heels on. 

Once you’re ready you head out onto the club floor, it’s packed in here. Time to work your magic.

As you strut around, flashing a couple of winks to some of the randy men, you spot a group entering the club. 3 guys. All 3 of them are fine as hell but there’s a rule here. You have to let them get a drink and sit down first before you approach them, if they come to you first then it’s fine. 

“Sam, i don’t even know why you brought me here” the tall blonde one chuckles as he looks around the room whilst leaning on the bar, his eyes flicker over to you, meeting your gaze. You look away instantly and strut off. 

Steve had never been to a strip club before neither had Bucky and Sam was determined to teach the two of them a thing or two. They get their drinks and find a seat. Right by the stage. You spot them all joking around but your attention is mainly on the tall blonde, he’s your type. You don’t stand a chance though after all, you’re just a dancer and he’s a regular guy.

“Excuse me” a voice calls out, breaking you from your daydream to see if it was calling to you, he was. You approach the group of guys with a friendly smile.

“Do you do private dances?” you nod in response to his question and he nudges the blonde. 

“Sorry, i don’t mean to be rude, i’m Sam, this is Bucky and Steve. Steve here would love a private dance” his name is even cuter. Steve.

You grin as you hold your hand out for him to take it, Sam pushes him up and out of his seat, handing him some money. His hand grips onto yours and you lead him to the back room, locking the door to signal it being engaged. 

He takes his jacket off, taking a seat down onto the chair in a huff. You can’t help but notice that he seems off. 

“Is everything okay?” you ask nervously “I’m fine, honestly i am” you shrug it off as you remove your cover up, your low cleavage purple dress catches his eye.

You strut over to him, the music playing quietly in the background. Your back faces him as your hips start to grind in a circle, your ass brushing over his crotch, you feel him start to get hard. 

He rests his hands on your waist, stopping you mid dance. 

“Okay what’s up?” you stand up, sighing. “Nothing it’s just, do you mind if i ask you something?” you sit down next to him, motioning for him to go ahead.

“Why do you do this and doesn’t your boyfriend hate it?” you look down at your hands before bringing them back up to his blue eyes. 

“I don’t have a boyfriend and i dunno, i love to dance and i need the money for school” you shrug and he rests a hand over yours.

“Shall i continue now or not?” you really liked him, he was attractive and very obviously not the douche bag type. You respected that about him. He nods and you go back to your previous position before turning around to straddle his lap.

You take his hands and rest them onto your ass whilst you continue to grind your crotch on his, teasing him further. 

Minutes later, the time is up. He grabs his jacket from the table and you place your cover up over your shoulders. You both exit and he returns to his table with his boys. They lean in closer to ask him if it was good and he grins at them. 

The rest of the night consists of private dances to all the major dick heads in the club, some try to get a little too handsy, leading you to snap at them. You have to make sure they know their place. 

It’s now 2am and your shift is over, you head back to the locker room, changing out of your stripping attire and back into your high waisted denim shorts and jumper. 

You slip on your converse and collect your money on your way out. As you walk out onto the streets, the cold hair hits you like wave. It feels good, you flick your hair out of your face and start to walk to find a cab. 

“Hello again” you jump out your skin, turning around to see him. Steve. He’s leant against the wall outside the club, his mates are nowhere to be seen.

“Hi, your mates left you?” he looks around as he walks closer. “Sure does seem that way, they left with some girls” you continue to walk and talk with him.

“So is this what you normally look like when you’re not stripping” you can hear his nerves in his voice.

“Pretty much, not exactly sexy bu-” 

“Oh i beg to differ” you freeze in your spot

“If you’re looking for a hookup, i don’t do that okay? i just want to go home” you don’t mean for it to come out as snappy as it does but you can see he’s not at all fazed by your random outburst.

“I’m not after a hookup, just company i guess. I don’t really wanna be alone again tonight and besides i like you” he what?

You can’t believe your ears, he likes you. But why? You’re a stripper, you just snapped at him and you’re probably not even his type.

“Yeah right. You don’t even know me” you laugh, continuing to walk with him

“No seriously, like i know we only met tonight but i think you’re great” you both come to a halt as you stand near a cab. 

“Look, come back to my place? no funny business or whatever you want. I just want to get to know you better” it’s too tempting to pass up. You reluctantly agree, getting into the cab with him.

You soon arrive at his place, it’s a nice but small apartment and it suits him, very chilled decor. A double bed in the room with Egyptian cotton sheets. You sit down on the edge of the bed, removing your shoes. 

“So, how did-” you cut him off

“No no, if you want to get to know me more, at least let me ask stuff too” he holds his hands up in surrender, signalling for you to go ahead. 

“So, Steve. What do you do?” he tenses up a little at the question

“I can’t really answer that” but why not? “Okay then, what’s your last name?” he smirks “Rogers”

“Steve Rogers, i recognise that name. Wait, aren’t you Captain America?” everyone went on a hype a year ago, The Avengers was all anyone spoke about. 

“Indeed” he joins you on the edge of the bed 

“So i gave Captain America a lap dance earlier. Wow. Guess i can tick that off the old bucket list” you both break into laughter at your joke.

“How old are you?” 

“I’m 21″ he seems shocked. 

“I’d have guessed 25 but not because you look old. You don’t look ol-” 

You can’t hold it any longer, he looks so good. You press your lips to his in a sudden kiss.

Once you pull away he sits there in a state of shock.

“You really don’t know a thing about women do you Rogers?” your little giggle comes out and he shakes his head in admission to your question. He seems so innocent. It’s obvious that he’s a virgin. 

His body language screams it. 

“I’m exhausted” you stand up from the bed “maybe i should go home, i know-”

“Stay, there’s enough room for the two of us in my bed and it’s a little late to be travelling home alone” he wasn’t wrong. He stands up too, taking a white shirt from his drawer, throwing it over to you. 

“Wear this” you smile, walking into the bathroom to change and get ready for bed. You walk out to find him, in nothing but his boxers. He’s ripped, his body looks like it was sculpted by gods. You quickly look away and shuffle past him nervously, making your way to the bed. 

He finishes up in the bathroom then steps out of his room to lock up.

You both get into bed and adjust the pillows to how you like them.

You lay there, facing each other talking for a while until you feel yourself getting sleepier.

--------------

The sunlight flashes through the blinds, instantly waking you up. You rub your eyes as you look at Steve next to you. He looks so peaceful. You quietly get out of bed and head into the living room to find your bag, you check your phone to see it’s 7:00am. You should probably go, you collect your things and shove your shorts on with his shirt too. It’s too comfortable to take off and you figure he won’t miss it. 

You unlock the door and make your way out, hailing a cab to get you back home.

Steve reaches his hand to the other side of the bed, only to discover that you’re not there. He sits up, looking around the room. 

He searches around the small apartment, you’re nowhere to be seen. 

Great, you walked out. 

--------------------

You arrive at work again, it’s your third week here now. You were really getting good with your moves and the money is flooding in. 

It’s only a short one tonight, a dance on the stage and a couple of private dances. As you take your money from your stage slot and walk into the locker room, Jessica is waiting for you. You shove the money into your bag.

“There’s some dude out there asking for you” you turn to face her “wait what?” 

“Yeah, tall blonde, very hot” It’s him again.

He’s made a couple of visits to the club since you walked out on him that morning, before he woke up. 

Each time he comes in, he asks for you. You’ve gotten to know him a bit and you’re starting to like him but the thought of him settling for you when he could have a woman who was more together was horrible. You didn’t feel good enough for his attention.

“You again” you call out and his face lights up.

“Me again. Look can we talk?” you roll your eyes and lead him to the private dance room.

“You can’t keep coming here just to talk Steve. I gave you my number for that” he pulls you close to him, taking you by surprise. 

“Let me take you out on a date” your eyes widen at his offer. 

“Please” you wrap your arms around his neck loosely and his hands fall to your waist. 

“Fine, you can take me out” he smiles down at you and you walk away from him. 

“How about tomorrow?” you agree, winking at him before exiting.

----------------

It was time for your date with Steve, you decide on wearing a little black dress with some matching black heels. You strut up to him as he’s leaning on his motorcycle, greeting him with a hug, he presses a kiss to your cheek as he hands you the spare helmet. You get onto the bike, making sure to grip onto him real tight during the ride to the location.

The bike comes to a halt and he parks up at the side of the road. You look around, taking your helmet off to discover that you’re outside of a restaurant. Italian to be exact. He rests his hand on the small of your back and you both walk in. He’s wearing black pants, a white shirt and a jacket, smart-casual dress sense. Not too formal.

Once the waiter seats the two of you, you speak up.

“How come you wanted to take me out?” you rest your head in your hands, giving full eye contact. 

“You’re attractive and funny and like i’ve stated plenty of times i just want to know more” he sure knows the lines.

“I like you but why do i get the impression that you struggle to believe that? That someone could actually want you” 

“Because i’m not the girl worthy of being treated like this”

“Why not? Because you work at that club? You said yourself, it’s for school”

“You deserve a lot better than a girl like me okay” he shakes his head as your drinks arrive. You take one sip and look around. This place is fancy. Too fancy for you. You stand up from the table.

“I gotta go, this was a mistake” you storm out, he follows closely behind.

“Y/N WAIT” he runs over to you, you stay still as he stands in your way.

“Steve, i think you have the wrong girl here. I’m not your ty-” he crashes his lips to yours.

His tongue swipes across your bottom lip and you moan slightly making way for his tongue to enter your mouth.

“Stop with the ‘i’m not good enough’ routine. I’m a grown ass man and i can decide who i want to date”

You feel the tears brimming. You’ve never really felt worthy of love and now a guy who is quite literally perfect is telling you he wants to date you.

“I see this going somewhere but it can only go somewhere if you let it. If you truly don’t want to then i’ll leave you alone, i’ll stop bugging you but if you want to give it a shot then i’ll be thrilled” 

You look up at him, his blue eyes meeting yours, making you melt. He’s so attractive and sweet.

A silence falls upon the two of you whilst he awaits your decision.

----------------------------

That was a couple months back. You still work at the club to help with school fees and supplies but you don’t work as often.

“Steve stop” you squeal as your boyfriend tickles you, leaving you with no option but to squeal and writhe around. 

“Okay okay” he holds his hands up in surrender.

“How about this instead. Do you like this more huh?” he leans down, taking your sweet spot into his mouth, sucking and biting at it. 

You let out a breathy moan, letting his hands roam your body.

“Those men might get a small part of you, but i get all of you” he peppers kisses down to your sex until his face is inches away from your clit. His mouth attacks you, sucking and licking your folds. 

“As sweet as ever” 

“Please Steve, just fuck me already” you whine and he chuckles, it vibrates on your clit.

“Of course my lady” he rests his tip at your entrance, soaking it in your arousal before pushing in slowly.

“Fuck, just like that” he flips you over so you’re straddling him.

“Ride me” he instructs, you do as you’re told. 

The slow movements on his length have him turning into a moaning shambles. You know he won’t last long with you doing him like this. But you don’t care.

“Make yourself cum baby” you pick up the speed, bouncing up and down rapidly, chasing your high and pushing for him to reach his. 

You’ve been teasing each other all day. You’d bend over on purpose in front of him, extracting a grunt from his mouth in the process. He’d adjust his size in his jeans in front of you, making sure you saw it every time. 

“Cum on my dick baby girl, come on” his words send you over into your high. Your pussy pulsates at the feeling whilst you milk him for everything. 

You feel him spill into you, filling you up just the way you like.

“I’ll never grow tired of that” his chest heaves 

“Me neither”

“I love you Y/N” you stare down at him, happy tears brim in your eyes at his words.

“What?” you know what he said but you just want to hear it again.

“I’ll admit, you had me wrapped around your finger the second we locked eyes for the first time. It’s clear you’d spent so many years doubting yourself and not believing anyone when they slipped you even the smallest of compliments but i meant every one i gave you and i mean it now when i say i love you”

“Steve, i love you too” 

[bleachbleachbleach]

HELLO.

I just wanted to say that I love, love, love your tags on that character/tool post a lot! Some of my favorite shows/books involve characters that can't keep it together and just barely make it to the end of the story or make it there in an "inconvenient way" and tbh I find that usually the narratives that follow these characters don't really work away from them either--the narrative is just usually more questioning instead of fully formed.

Like, 'what if/how would', y'know? There's less of a clear meaning and more just 'what if they hadn't done that. what if they had done that. what if all that meant nothing. what if that struggle was all there was'.

But oh boy, when they DO work away from the narrative. *chefs kiss*

I mean, most of my favorite Bleach characters are narrative nightmares who either hinder or cut off lines of theme in the story entirely. And, in general, I think there are A LOT of characters in shonen--a genre known for very long narratives that can't possibly complete every thought but also can't just abandon all those characters introduced ESPECIALLY the fan favorites or personal favorites--work in the way you described.

Tbh i think your tags really highlight why so many ppl get drawn to these characters/why they're so fun to play with in fanfiction.

If you have more to add or more thoughts about this you want to lay down I am here, eagerly awaiting and ready to pick them up.

Also, who do you think in Bleach is the most fun characters who sort of drop kicked the story, in your opinion? Who's the one you like the most? And who's the one you dislike the most?

[For posterity the referenced post is this one.]

Aww, thank you! That’s really lovely to hear. I was anxious about even putting it in tags because I don’t think I presently have the capacity to explain it well—and even if I did might still sound bananas to many. Or at least the bit about negotiating with characters and how *they* feel about being subjects in stories. Because as much as that really is my practice saying it out loud takes me back to like… FFN in 2003 where every store was prefaced by extensive chat-form back-and-forths between the fic author and their character "musies" and that is not something I think fandom would benefit from bringing back in force, hahaha. But anyway.

Here’s the part where I disappoint because I don’t think I actually know Bleach well enough to speak to it in this context. WHICH SOUNDS DUMB EVEN AS I TYPE IT BECAUSE LOL WTF IS THE NAME OF THIS BLOG WE ARE CHARLATANS AND POSERS FOR CLAIMING AS OUR NAMESAKE NOT ONE BLEACH BUT THREE BLEACHES but truly, my experience of Bleach has a shallow depth of field. I feel like I have weirdly intimate knowledge of some severe rabbit holes but a non-existent to uneasy sense of the gestalt.

Like idek man, in my "slow re-read where I am actually paying attention" Ichigo hasn’t even met Byakuya and Renji yet. ToT

I'm gonna put this behind a cut because it spidered all over the place, but in summary:

characters and their capacity to produce narrative failure

the charm of longform serialized series and their invitations to imagine stuff

me attempting to talk about Hitsugaya and feeling a fool, as usual

I guess in general terms, I’m really interested in characters and their capacity to produce narrative failure. Not failure as in 'bad' but failure as in things that break form or are circuitous or are actively detrimental to a narrative arc. All my strongest examples of what I’m thinking of are from a different fandom and therefore not relevant to this blog, alas. By comparison I think anyone in Bleach can keep it together better than the characters that are immediately coming to mind, lol. But I think this idea dovetails often with trauma narratives, or depression narratives, because these things are often… non-narrative? Like, there’s no fourth or fifth for minor fall or major lift. Sometimes it’s the same thing over and over again, or maybe nothing. Maybe it’s the exact same self-sabotage narrative dictates could have been avoided. Maybe it’s some act that emanates forth but cannot be explained because it cannot be explained and will never be explained. That’s a version of what I’m talking about, in any case, though not the only version.

Your note about longform shounen definitely resonates with me, too. In my mind I don’t like long things and I prefer series that are more self-contained but whenever I have ever landed in a long-term fandom, with a piece of media I felt obliged to carve out chunks of my life for, and to interact with at that level of creative fannishness, it’s always been something stupid long and serialized by the seat of its pants. I know plot holes or dropped threads bother a lot of people (makes total sense, don’t get me wrong) but I find these things incredibly attractive. I see them as invitations to join in the fun. Especially when it’s so much a part of the form and genre to have this, as you said, lack of real expectation that every thread will be followed to its conclusion (or that it would be worthwhile to do so) and every thought completed.

There’s this piece by David Grann that was published in The New Yorker in 2004 that I really love that speaks to part of this idea, albeit in terms of fictional universes versus fictional characters. But Grann is talking about Sherlock Holmes (Doyle original) and the ways that Sherlockians would like, approach apparent lapses in narrative and then solve them according to the established rules of the universe. I just love that. There’s also the line, "Never had so much been written by so many for so few," which LOL if that ain’t fandom I don’t know what is!!

I feel like I’m actually talking about three distinct but related facets of these thoughts in this post, except all at once and without clear transition, uhhhhh.

Gah, I am broken and now can ONLY think of examples from my not-Bleach fandom, but to try a different tack and add yet another facet to this already funhouse-mirror post, my various attempts to write Hitsugaya often feel like they come up against a version of this. I think Hitsugaya has aggressive side character energy, and I find it difficult to make him the center of a story and have it feel right to me. He feels different to me than writing other minor characters, where they can be the center of their own stories even if their story is not the main story. Like, two of my fave characters in my other fandom have literally like… three lines in 350+ episodes and it feels easier to imagine THEM at the center of their story and I think what it comes down to is that Hitsugaya probably prefers what he not be written. And when he does become more narrative I think he’d prefer that none of it was happening in the fist place. But at the same time he always seems to be…around??? whether there is really a good reason for him to be present or not. XD So while, say, he and Bartleby "would prefer not to" (because THAT'S what this post needs, a Melville reference), Bartleby actually opts out and Hitsugaya out here volunteering.

He also often feels non-narrative to me because he feels very declarative, if that makes sense? Like, the coming-to-decisions or coming-to-realizations parts of existence happen pretty quick, or are approached perfunctorily. I feel like I find narrative in the "coming" part of that equation and instead Hitsugaya will be like, well, I’ve already done that part without you, and/or plan to do that part in the future and it will still be without you, the audience. Anyway, here’s the determination I’ve made, here’s what I’m going to do, and here begins the long and probably tedious process of my doing that thing (off 2 go train in a cave for a bit). I don’t think he actually believes the world is that simple, Tab A into Slot B, but I do think he’s already made that assessment and can see coming to terms with that as a horizon, if that makes sense. So even if he doesn’t know the answer to something, or is completely at a loss of what to do (what to say to Hinamori? how to productively address the number Aizen’s done on him) there’s still not necessarily a story there. Maybe the answer is you grind, and it is repetitive and boring. Maybe you just hold things. There’s not even the act of learning how to hold things, necessarily, just the practice of doing so.

Wow, that probably doesn’t sound good! I feel like I need to suffix this with the assurance that Hitsugaya is my absolute runaway character in the whole series and this was true 15 years ago and it is still true now (truer, even) and everything I just said are reasons why I love him.

[hecallsmehischild]

Recent Media Consumed

Books

A Knot in the Grain and Other Stories by Robin McKinley. Not bad for a fantasy short story compilation, but as I read the stories I felt like too many questions went unanswered, or the answer wasn’t clear enough. I know there’s an art to not answering questions and making that intentional, but I didn’t pick up the feeling of the author being intentionally vague. It was still fun to read. I’m really just in a fantasy binge mode.

Fire and Water by Robin McKinley and Peter Dickinson. Both books are collections of short stories based on elemental spirits. Eh…. they were okay. Didn’t like them as much as the others.

Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. Hard book to get through. There’s so much monologuing and it doesn’t all make sense to me. People seem to be talking trite nonsense half the time and then being unbearably deep the other half. It is an interesting look at morbid aspects of the human heart. Might be that it’s a bit over my head to appreciate fully, but I’d like to read at least one more by this author. Maybe The Brothers Karamazov.

Movies

Hello Dolly. (mini liveblogging of reactions) There are way too many musicals I have not gotten around to seeing, simply because I have old favorites and sometimes it’s hard to get out of a rut. I am two minutes and four seconds in and CLEARLY not watching this before now was a failure on my part. I am in awe of the opening sequence that is just a series of legs and feet, but they are all moving to the music and they tell a dozen different stories that are very easy to understand even without seeing anybody’s top half, this is EXCELLENT framing and shooting and I feel like I’m in for a real treat. (In the middle of “It takes a woman”) I cannot tell you how much I missed over the top satire. This very much has the feel of My Fair Lady’s “With A Little Bit of Luck”. But then it’s taken up by the protagonist with an entirely different tone and WHAM the feels hit. I’m not enjoying all of the musical numbers, but there’s this one bit in the middle of the song about dancing where Dolly accepts a dance invitation from the grizzled old groundskeeper, and seeing this high-class looking widow take his invitation without a shred of irony, and to see him take her dancing in such a way that shows he’s clearly done this for many years and may be a widower himself, it’s just this strange sweet kind of moment that’s meant to be savored. And then again WHAM this high class widow, whenever she has a musical number in private, just NAILS you with her song and performance and all her emotions. Barbara Streisand was incredible, absolutely incredible. A lot of the other characters don’t really feel real, they feel like Musical People. She slips on the clothes of a Musical Person but then she drops the facade and shows you how hard all this is for her and it’s incredible. The movie is worth it just to watch HER. Even if it is very stressful watching her manipulate conversations and move people around like pawns. I have to say I do not, for the life of me, understand why she wants a relationship with Mr. Horace Vandergelder, or why he agrees. They look like they’ll make each other miserable for life.

Honest Thief. I went in with low “dumb robbery movie” expectations and was pleasantly surprised. I think I was most surprised by the fantastic chemistry of the couple and pretty much everyone’s acting. Aside from the acting it wasn’t anything remarkable, but everyone took it up to the next level. Nice flick. Also it tickles me to hear the voice of Aslan talking about how he carried out perfect robberies.

Nezha. Holy. Cow. Okay it doesn’t make total sense to me, not all the way through, but I chalk that up to missing cultural/lit knowledge and translation issues. Setting that aside, animation was gorgeous. Story was fun, but also compelling. There was some gross-out humor, but I’ve seen worse. And the climactic fight scene? Man. It went SO LONG but I didn’t even care. Some fight scenes drag on, but this one could have been twice as long and I would have been fine with that. The creators of this film really went all out with creativity and variety all throughout the film. I don’t totally understand the ending but I would love to see more (as the credits scenes hinted that there might be more). Oh wait, there is more and it’s called Jiang Ziya…

The Mitchells vs The Machines. This movie was so full of heart and also so full of complete over the top dumb goofiness. It kind of reminded me of Despicable Me in that way. Definitely brought a smile to my face.

Shows

Star vs the Forces of Evil. I had to re-watch through Eclipsa’s and Meteora’s arc because I’d seen that much before, but too long ago to remember. I re-watched it, then settled in for the last season which I hadn’t seen before. Watching through the new content and… I’m… disappointed. Story seems to be all over the place. The conflict is so forced it hurts. People are flatter than flat. And they’re all idiots. I feel like the show is trying to reach for a moral and don’t even know what that is from episode to episode. Wow. And as I go into the final arc, it just gets worse. Ham-fisted with zero focus and twists out of the bloody blue that make zero sense. You know… this series was hard to get into because characters were annoying and gross at the start. But then it added depth to each character and made me care about them as it went along. But everything after Eclipsa became queen has flushed all of that down the toilet as fast as possible and it is maddening to see that story-trust wasted. Nothing means anything in this story, that’s the conclusion I end up coming to. Nothing means anything and there is nobody worth caring about. I am radically disappointed. And kind of angry at the sheer number of levels at which the storytelling became terrible.

Games

Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. I wasn’t sure how I’d handle another controller-based game after getting so accustomed to Breath of the Wild (I’m on a second re-play of that, I play it whenever my brain is on the fritz so badly that I can’t do anything else). But it turned out to be pretty easy to get into. The hardest part is getting stuck about how to solve certain puzzles and trying to figure it out over and over. Sometimes I figure it out, but sometimes I need to look up a hint online. I’m almost at the end of the game and I’ve enjoyed it quite a bit. I want to play more Zelda games...

Katamari Re-Roll. This is so stupid. I mean, SO VERY STUPID. And so much fun. You start off as this tiny little person just rolling a ball around and you can pick up anything smaller than you (thumbtacks, coins, caramel candies) and as your ball gets bigger, your options open up (mice, carrots, eggs, crabs) and open up (shoes, toys, cats, dogs) and open up (humans, food carts, cows). I hear you get to roll up houses at some point. I’m looking forward to that. For now I’m at the level where I’m rolling up a lot of people. They’re all wiggly and shrieky. It’s funny. There’s a time limit on each level, and you have to reach a certain size by the time limit, which is the only really annoying thing about it. But I’m still having a lot of fun.

World of Warcraft: Classic. Of all the games I never thought I’d play, this is probably toward the top of the list. I don’t like the concept of grinding. I like story. But after playing Breath of the Wild, I also found out that I love exploration/open world type games. My husband helped me build a character and we ran around doing quests and levelling up. Now I’m a level 17 Dwarf hunter who does skinning and leatherworking. I have a pet wolf named Chompers. I’m having a lot of fun. Probably not obsessive levels of fun, but enough fun that I’m happy to sink a couple several-hour sessions a week into playing.

[ibringyouasong89]

Self-Awareness Time, Part One:

So I’m reading this article one day, (see article here: https://psych2go.net/6-signs-youll-be-single-forever/), and realize how some of this is true, but also some of it is bullshit. Spoiler Alert: I haven’t had a boyfriend since I was 18.  Is it because I haven’t wanted to be with someone, or be in a relationship, since that one ended? Quite the contrary, actually. I have dreamed, since I was a small child, of a perfect soulmate for me, and that it would be a Disney-movie-ending come true for the rest of my life. Having my first (and since then, only) boyfriend break up with me (so he could go out with my ex-best friend, who in turn, dumped her boyfriend of three years - who was my childhood friend from elementary school - in order to be with him; it was dramatic, stupid, and messy, i.e. we were teenagers who thought they knew themselves but didn’t have a clue) did not, in fact, deter those dreams at all. The problem is that I didn’t learn to love myself. I learned to move on, which is always wonderful, but I didn’t hold myself in any higher esteem than I had before, and while I was with him. It wasn’t a reflection on being with him, but more or less, a reflection of myself and how I saw myself, based on my childhood and certain experiences. Fast forward a couple of years later: my parents are divorced, my father is dead, my childhood friends have disappeared out of my life for the most part, I live with my mother and grandfather (who was close to dying himself), and I am now living in a different state, faraway from everything I know and love and hate everything about this new place. I hated (and still do, for many of these points) the polluted environment, I hated the lack of nature (I moved to a metropolitan-region within the realm of a major city), I hated how crowded it is, I hated how everyone lives on top of one another; I hate the noise, the traffic, and most of all, I hated how alien and out of place I feel. I knew I didn’t belong, but because of finances, and having an ineffective bachelor’s degree (that didn’t come with a lifetime guarantee of having a career, as promised by my parents and elder generations. Though it did come with the nice guarantee of student loans), I was unable to move anywhere else. I was unable to be independent, financially or otherwise, and could do nothing to make my dreams a reality or to improve my life. In short, I was stuck. And hating every minute of it, along with myself. To be fair, I wasn’t an emotionally healthy person to start off with - but I mean, who is by the time they’re 23, 24 years old, and a culminating reflection of time, pressure, past abuse, parental issues, trust issues, abandonment issues, lack of socializing/being ostracized for being different, and self-worth and self-love issues? No one, and I mean, NO ONE, is taught how to love themselves, completely, as a child. I don’t care who raised you or where you grew up. This is a fundamental truth and fact. But I met someone. Lo and behold, there came this divine gift, one day, of someone who was just like me! He didn’t have the same issues as I, but he understood in a general sense (as any individual who has a certain degree of sympathy and empathy can do), and made me feel seen (even if I hated it at times). Someone who, in all honesty, has fundamentally changed me forever. And to think I met him at my job! (i.e. retail). This person...well, I thought he might’ve been THE ONE. I was really, REALLY in love with him. More so than I ever thought I could be with someone.  Our connection was real and based on emotional, mental, and spiritual intimacy (there was none of the physical, which was probably for the best, in the end), and I had never loved anybody before, in the entire history of being connected to family and friends, the way I had loved him. I thought he was truly something special - a gift from the universe that not only allowed to experience this once-in-a-lifetime kind of love, but also because of how OBVIOUS it was that we were meant for each other. (I was so arrogant back then and admit it heartily now). Well, suffice to say, it didn’t end in rainbows-and-sunshine-for-years-to-come. He had already been entering a relationship when I met him, while also having his heart broken by another girl. As the saying goes: wrong place and time. While I was busy pining over him and fantasizing about us being together romantically (after building this incredible connection and deep friendship), he was happily living his life and enjoying his relationship...even though, for a time, he went out of his way to spend time with me and deepen our emotional intimacy further. He told me things about himself, and his life, that he swore he had never told another human being before in his life. But it all came to a grinding halt one day - out of the blue - when he severed our connection with all of the swiftness and severity of a well-placed swing from a sharpened blade. Later he would confess that it wasn’t intentional - it was because he was busy cutting other people out of his life and I got caught up in the “crossfires” of it all via social media and the like *insert eyeroll here* - but that he had also been conscious of my burgeoning feelings for him, and felt “flattered” that I had come to regard him so greatly. He promised to re-open the lines of communication between us again and to be a better friend. Spoiler Alert Part Two: None of these promises were fulfilled. Now, some of you (or whoever reads this long-ass personal post) might say “Well, maybe in knowing about your feelings, THAT was why he didn’t bother talking to you anymore. It made him uncomfortable, especially since he was in a relationship with someone else. He just wanted to make a clean break.” To be completely honest, I was aware of that possibility from the get-go. The problem is that he claimed (during this period of seeking me out and spending quality time with me) his relationship with his girlfriend was “casual.” That he was more than aware that he was her first boyfriend, but that he knew it wouldn’t last. In knowing that, he still pursued a relationship with that girl (though his self-prophecy did come to pass...three years later). Now, there were never any promises made about entering a relationship with ME, as some of you may point out as well. I agree. There are, and never will be, any guarantees when it comes to the heart. Someone who learns to love another is quite capable of also learning how to un-love that same individual, at any time. And hatred, as many know, is not the opposite of love; apathy is its true counterpart.

No, what was truly hurtful was that he knew that truth, honesty, compassion, consideration, and genuineness were core values of mine. Values that I thought he shared...but turned out to be lies when he revealed his regard, or lack-there-of, for me in the end. When he did not confront me over my feelings for him and instead played ignorant for the sake of his own happiness. When he promised that this did not interfere with his ability to be my friend, even after confessing said romantic intentions to him, and probably lying about it all the same. He knew of my past, my issues, and had probably guessed at my level of loneliness and knew about my lack of friends since moving away from my hometown...and didn’t think twice of ditching me, nor of how his sudden “ignorance” about our bond would effect my feelings. That being “one of the guys” was my true status - despite the fact that I have breasts, a vagina, lack a penis, and had never acted in a “masculine way” around him (aside from being intelligent, having common sense, being interested in comic books, music, and movies, having a deep appreciation for classic muscle cars, and a biting sense of sarcasm); i.e. no hanging out in bars with him and his male friends, no doing stupid shit for giggles, no running around in the middle of the night to each other’s houses to smoke pot and drink in the basement, not being into sports and wrestling, recalling the same stupid stories from high school and retelling them, over and over again, along with the same stupid jokes, etc...And I’m not judging any female (or person) who does DO this, or enjoy these things! I’m just simply describing how he, and his friends, acted and what their similar interests are. I was “friend-zoned” (which is a ridiculous phrase, but I can’t think of anything else to describe it as), but was NOT treated like a friend any longer. I was treated like a stranger or an acquaintance that you remember vaguely seeing in the hallways and cafeteria when you attend your high school reunion (that guy who makes you go “Oh, *Insert Name Here*! Omg! How are you?! Wow, it’s been a while! Great to see you lost all that weight! So uh...how’s things?��). In short: I was being gas-lit. For anyone who has experienced this, you have my deepest sympathies and my ear and shoulder, whenever you would like. Of course part of the blame falls on me too: for treating romantic love like a drug I couldn’t live without, for depending on someone too much for my happiness, and for allowing myself to be treated as someone who is less than worthy of real love, respect, consideration, kindness, compassion, and honest, open communication.

So, not only did this guy break my heart, but he also threw me, and our friendship, away like it all meant nothing. It became obvious then that I, and our bond, had never mattered to him at all.  The worst part is that he continued to flirt with me, stringing me along (unknowingly or not), while also maintaining this enforced distance! (Which is also COMPLETELY WRONG TO DO TO ANYONE!) In truth, I think he’s an unaware narcissist who doesn’t realize, on an unconscious level, how manipulative he can really be. It’s sad. But I know, without wishing for it or egging the universe on, that there is a lesson waiting for him in the wings of the cosmos that will enable him to truly understand the lows, and highs, of true personal awareness (if it should come to pass - anything is possible, in any way, shape, or form). But back to the point: In conclusion, my soul was shattered. My heart was a destroyed. I fell into a depression based, not only on this heartbreak, but also my heart being broken by ME. I was so unhappy with everything going on, and not, in my life and it all felt so hopeless and pointless. I could see no path forward, no future for myself, that didn’t result either in me being unhappy or being unstuck. (Hell, even writing about all of this is allowing the phantom pains to rise from their graves in my heart, which makes me realize how much healing, and self-love, I still have to gain). This, however, was the beginning of my awakening for me.

It dawned on me like the rising sun within me that I really SHOULDN’T put stock into having people depended upon so much to MAKE me happy. I should be making MYSELF happy. But then the deepest question, out of the pit of darkness within my soul, arose: Why WASN’T I happy with myself?

[screamhole]

MY DATE WITH DEATH: A TRUE MEMORY & STORY

Did I ever tell you about my date with Death? Well, it’s a pretty horrible day where I’m at, so what better way to kill it than by spinning up one of my famous stories? And let me tell you, this one spins like a Beyblade in Hell on acid! 

Folks, let me tell you about the time I died, and all the fun I had along the way.

1. 

It all started in the bathroom, as so many classics do. I was brushing my teeth in the shower, as I am wont to do (note to reader: this means ‘as I want to do’; it looks dumb written out, but it’s actually smart as hell). Shower-brushing is a small time-saving trick of mine, which I never fail to apply on the daily. This day was no exception. I was all over those holy molars of mine when suddenly, I lost my footing on a bar of soap that I stand on (another of my time-saving manoeuvres) and I came tumbling down onto the slip mat. Slip is right, I thought, and would have made a note of that zinger had the toothbrush not become stuck in my windpipe. Choking, as I recall, I scrambled out of the tub and, knowing the house was empty because my wife Angie was at work, I rushed over to the neighbours’ apartment. Maybe they had air at their place, I thought. Sadly, I wasn’t quick enough; I was inches from their door when my body just couldn’t go anymore, and I collapsed on the landing floor. Luckily, I wasn’t naked; I had paused on the way to put on several pairs of pants. 

So that was it. Dead. Me. Me = Dead. Except it wasn’t how I expected. I mean, I wasn’t seeing all-nothing, or even all-black. In fact, I got up and saw myself, lying there, all-dead-and-all-soapy. “Ghost!”, I said. And I was right. I was a ghost. A ghost who got to hang around and see it all, as it unfolded over the next few hours: the neighbours finding me, the two police officers standing over my stiff, sud-ridden corpse. “What do you think, Sarge?” said the young one. “Another shower-sex hallway suicide?” “Don’t be stupid, kid” said the sergeant. “This guy’s wearing pants. I think we can chalk it up to a classic toothbrush-in-the-neck life hack gone wrong.”  “Good think I put on all those pants” I quipped, realising immediately that it was pointless because they couldn’t hear me. They couldn’t hear me! Damn, that was the deal, wasn’t it? You have to get all of the talking out of the way while you’re livin’. But there was so much I still needed to say about dyin’! This chin could be wagging forever, let me tell you. That’s some deal, huh? The one thing we all want to know about and here I am in the middle of it, with lips too stiff and dead to flap about it. How’s that for ass blastwards? So there I was, with a hell of a story to tell. And I knew there was only one person I’d be able to tell it to. 

Whoopi Goldberg. 

2. 

My grandma was dead. Is dead. She was dead, and now she is dead... again. Am I making sense here? She told me about the first time she died, back in the 90s. She was sucking on a Werther’s Original when it went down the wrong way and got stuck in her toaster and burned her house down. Lying on that hospital bed, she was legally dead for a good 27 minutes before they realised and resuscitated her (I think they were too busy watching some dumb Patrick Swayze movie on the communal television to notice). Thinking back, we all felt like she had gone crazy while she was dead, but now it seems there might have been some true-speak in all that wack-talk of hers. “If you ever die,” she once said to me as a kid, “If you die and you have to say something to a loved one, go to Whoopi Goldberg. I saw it. She helped me tell your grandfather he had soup on his good pants in the hospital, it was driving me crazy and was probably what set me off dying in the first place. I know it will work, son. If you need her, she’ll be there for you”. With those words in my ear, I packed a bag and headed out in search of Whoopi. 

I made it to the airport, and was having trouble scanning my passport with no corporeal form, when out of nowhere the whole room grew dim. People froze in motion, and there was an icy chill which took over the whole space. And then, a small light, like from the end of a tunnel, grew from behind the baggage claim. A screeching whistle came with it, before a train of bones roared past my face. The brakes braked, and as the bones ground to a halt out stepped a cloaked figure from the carriage. 

“Hello” he said. “You’re dead”. 

“I’m dead?” I asked. 

“You’re dead” he said. “And I’m Death.”

“You’re dead too?” I asked. 

“That’s right, I am Death” he said.

“Me too” I said. 

“I doubt it, kid” he said. “Anyway, sorry I’m late. There was some protest at Limbo station. All the staff walked out right after this demon... you know what? Not important. What is important is that you kicked your bucket. So hop on in, pup, next stop is your new forever home: Hell. OH. OH! That is, unless you want to play chess?” 

I turned away from the stranger. “Sorry, I don’t play that game… not anymore, that is.” I was kind of hoping that he would dig into my deep dark past relationship with the game of kings. 

“Suit yourself, friend” said Death. “Half the pieces are missing anyway. The one chess set on this hell train, you think these devil freaks are gonna put it back neatly? Fat chance. Anyhoodle, let’s get moving, up you come”. 

“I’m really going to Hell?”

“Yeah” said Death. “Frickin’ Hell City, USA. And unless you wanna effin’ play chess, kid, I don’t wanna hear any more fuckin’ back talk. Hop the eff on”. 

I couldn’t believe it. I had to escape; to re-live, and tell the tale of what death is like, and also what Death is like (note: make clear very handsome in second draft). A plan formed in my head, just like the plan to do a checkmate on the other guy forms in the head of a grand master chess player. “Oh, but Death,” I said “I really do want to play, but like you said we can’t play on that old set. It has no bishops”.  “That’s how we like it in Hell,” said Death, “it’s really more of a drinking game. Anyway, I take your point, kid; this chess board sucks. But where do you suggest we find a decent travel chess set at this hour, in this realm of existence? You got one in your great coat?” 

“No” I said. “But I think I have an idea. Let’s make a stop in… New York (maybe?)” 

3. 

Luckily, my plan worked out. I had managed to guess Whoopi Goldberg’s exact location: a Starbucks on 6th Avenue (note: check real place). I had also tricked Death into taking us there on the promise there’d be chess, and also he wanted a coffee. The train of bones crunched through the coffee shop window, shattering the glass and grinding the tables beneath it. Thankfully, this all played out in the dead dimension so it was totally fine. No one noticed. No one, that is, except Whoopi. 

“What the hell?!” she cried, jumping back from her table. 

“Whoopi,” I said climbing down, from the bone train, “you’ve got to help me. I’m dead and I know for an absolute fact you can send messages to the living.” 

“Oh I get it,” said Whoopi, “you think just because I played a medium in that movie that I can really talk to dead people?”

“Listen Whoopi, I’ve never even seen Sister Act, so please don’t assume I would be so irrational and quick to judge people like that. Instead of accusing me of stuff, how about you accept that you’re talking to a real ghost right now, and so therefore I am right.”

“Oh my God” said Whoopi. “I guess I can speak to ghosts. I guess all my years on The View have made me capable of speaking to anyone”. 

“Yeah: you, Jimmy Kimmel, Graham Norton… all supremely cursed folks. Talk-show hosting is a real double-edged sword. Back to me, though. Whoopi: can you call my wife and tell her I loved her? Oh, and also I won’t be able to make it to our Saturday UNO game for obvious reasons. Oh, oh, and that the obvious reasons are that I’m going to Hell on the bone train with Death. Sorry, so much has happened today, I forget to bring people up to speed.”

“I guess I don’t have much of a choice” said Whoopi. She closed her script for Sister Act 3 and opened up Skype, making a call to the account details I gave her. The little jingle played before a familiar voice answered. 

“Angie?” said Whoopi. “This is Whoopi Goldberg”

“And?” said my wife. 

“Angie, I’m calling on behalf of your departed husband.”

“Oh my god,” Angie said. “What has he done now?”

“He’s dead, actually,” explained Whoopi, “choked on a toothbrush before you got home. The police must have taken him away but stopped for lunch, so they’ve not gotten a chance to let you know about it. He wants you to know that he loves you, Angie. You were the best thing in his life. Doesn’t sound like tough competition for a man who loved toothbrushes and chess, but all the same, he wanted you to know.” 

“Cool, good to know” said Angie. “Hey, one second: does this mean that he’s talking with you right now?”

“Yeah,” said Whoopi “his spirit is here. Right now he’s looking at his hair in the window, even though he’s literally invisible.” 

“Well, if he’s really there,” said Angie, “I’ll ask him something only he would know and that will prove ghosts are real. What’s my favourite colour?” “Shit…” I said. “Uh, I dunno, green maybe”. 

“Uh, I dunno, green maybe” said Whoopi. 

“Wow, that’s spooky”, said Angie. “It’s actually purple, but that idiot always thinks it’s green. He even painted the house green for our anniversary. What a dunce. Ok, cool, tell him no worries. If he can make it home tonight for UNO, great, but I’ll not be holding my breath.” 

“Don’t worry, my wife,” I said. I have a plan”

“Don’t worry, his wife, he has a plan,” said Whoopi. 

“I’ll definitely not wait up then. Thanks Whoopi. We loved you in Sister Act by the way” said Angie, and hung up. 

“Ah, guess I have seen it,” I told Whoopi. “Well, thanks for your help. I guess there’s only one option left: I’m gonna have to kidnap and murder Death”. 

“Why don’t you just beat him at chess and win your life back, like in that movie?” asked Whoopi. 

“For the last time, Whoopi, I don’t remember Sister Act at all!” I said. “More to the point, I don’t play chess. Not after… that night.” I was kind of really hoping someone was gonna ask about the deep dark past thing. It’s not often I get to tell these stories. 

“Suit yourself, kid” said Whoopi. “I guess you’re going to Hell, then”. 

4. 

The bone train door slammed open. 

“Ok kid,” said Death, “it’s been 50 minutes now. Do they have my mocha frapp or what? Are we gonna play chess now, or what? Honestly? I kind of feel like you’re using me for some kind of plot thing that’s going on for too long, and I just want to play some games to take my mind off the fact that my job sucks forever. You + Me = Hell, RIGHT NOW.” 

Think fast, I thought, at a normal thought-speed. Suddenly, it hit me. 

“Alright, Death. Time to play, for my very soul.” 

“Sweet,” said Death. 

“But not at chess.” 

“Ah, Jeez!” Death groaned.

“No, I could never play chess again. It’s actually a really cool and dark story that I haven’t had a chance to tell, but maybe I could tell it if…” “Yeah, yeah, what’s the game, kid?” said Death, doing the wrap-up-the-story hand gesture with his bone-fingers. 

I pulled a pack of cards from my great coat pocket (as in, the coat pocket is really great, it’s just a regular modern fashionable coat). 

“UNO?!” cried Death. “Kid, you really are going to Hell.” 

“Not if I can help it,” I said. “I was taught by the best: my wife. She made me the player I am today. And she takes no prisoners. So yes, Death. I’d wager my life on the back of her teaching”. 

Death pulled up a table, and leaned his scythe against the coat rack.

“Whatever, dude. Just deal ‘em out.” 

I played Death best of three. Best of three is right, I thought. More like the best three games of my life, let me tell you. They had to be, given what was at stake. We tied one-to-one. Death learned the game so fast, and he was soon a worthy competitor. It was down to the knuckle, which was unfair given his were so much more visible. We were down to two cards each, and it was his turn. I had to pull it out, but these last two cards were the worst I could have had. He slammed down a green 3. 

“This is it, kid. This next card’s a ticket to Satan’s ass. STANDARD CLASS.” 

I flipped a yellow 3. 

“UNO,” I declared, “and guess what, Death? You were so busy sassing me, you forgot to say UNO yourself, so you have to PICK UP.” 

Death shuddered realising his mistake. 

“What?! No!” he cried. “Ah, fuck this game! Why couldn’t we have played Demon Party Drunk Chess anyway. Oh my god, these cards suuuuuck!” 

The last card was one of those wild cards you can write on. “I’m done, Death. And my custom rule is that you have to give me my soul and my life back.” 

“The game’s over kid. Also, I don’t think that’s a real rule you can make anyway. But a bet is a bet.” He waved his hand, doing cool Death magic or something. “Now get back to living before I do something I regret”. 

I felt my spirit form fading as I regained my life inside my body. It looked kind of like that scene with Marty McFly in Back To The Future where he’s almost erased from existence. 

“Wow,” I said. “This is just like that movie”. 

“Yep.” said Death, walking away sulkily. “Just like Sister Act.” 

“Thanks for everything” I said. “So long.”

“You know, it is a shame. I would have liked to play with you again. But I don’t have friends much anymore. Things have been a little tough since the whole… incident.” 

“Suit yourself, kid" I said, vanishing into the air. 

“Oh well I guess I could stop by now that you mention it, ok thanks, see you and your wife tonight at 8??” 

Damn, I thought. My body had left that realm, but his words followed me. I guess it wouldn’t be the worst date I had in my life! I thought (man I gotta write these zingers down). “See you then, Death” I whispered, my voice going all ethereal. “See you then.” 

5. 

I woke up in the ground, soil trickling onto a cheap coffin the cops had stuffed me in. Weeping, some folks were throwing handfulls of dirt into the hole where I was lying. I didn’t recognise them, I think they just wanted a day out at the graves. I bust through the lid of that thing like it was cardboard, and climbed out. “Come on guys” I said, pushing off the coffin lid. “You gotta throw more dirt on than that, I haven’t got all day. If you give me a shovel I’ll get it done much faster.” And I did. And when I was done filling my own grave, I walked home, knocked on my door, and was met by my beautiful Angie. “Boy, did I miss you” I said, shaking her hand in a friendly manner. 

“You have soap in your hair” she said. 

“I know. And soil in my shoes babe, it’s a weird combination. But there’s also love in my heart. And if you’ll have me, I am ready for UNO. Speaking of which, I may have invited a friend along…” 

So there you have it. That’s how me and my wife Angie got ourselves a weekly dinner date with Death, of underworld fame. And you know what? It’s a lot of fun having him round. It can be hard to make friends as a couple, and he’s a good guy. Even though I sometimes worry a little too much about our fate beyond this lifetime, every time I hear that screechin’ bone-train a-comin’, I smile knowing it will all be ok. In fact, I think I hear it coming now…

…ok never mind, it was just my wife screamin’ at me again. 

[v-le]

Kmusic: JTBC’s 슈퍼밴드(Superband) Review

Foreword: SUPERBAND WAS AMAZING AND IT WAS EVERYTHING I NEVER KNEW I NEEDED IN MY LIFE. yup

--

After binge-watching this entire program, I knew I had to write something about it. This show literally took my breath away, this show filled all my senses with overwhelming excitement, appreciation, and respect for every single participant, and the music, THE MUSIC, that came out of this show will forever be some of the most amazing songs I have ever heard in my life. But above all else, this show filled a void, an emptiness, a traumatizing, painful longing in my heart that has been needing some intense healing for a while now.

With all the things that have happened with my singer, Superband coming into my life and being the show it was, with all those amazing artists doing what they did, it was a literal blessing and I just……. I just cant believe they did THAT. They did it and it was AMAZING.

First off, whoever thought to make an audition program for MUSICIANS, SINGER-SONGWRITERS, ARTISTS, PRODUCERS, and just instrument-playing people AND VOCALISTS…….. you are a fucking genius and I am so glad that this idea never died in the shadows and was allowed to come to life on the screens.

What I found so poignant about this show from the get-go was how GOOD THESE AUDITIONS WERE… these people came in being REALLYYYYY good at (presumably) one thing like the guitar, or singing, or the violin. These people each had their specialty, they were exceptional music-making people. No one was quite mediocre or “rookie”, each person had some pretty credible expertise or experiences with music, and that in itself, the fact that we got to start off with these sorts of contestants, is something ive never seen before.

I don’t want to compare to other singing shows or the Produce series or whatever else countless audition programs Korea has been churning out over the past years, but since Superband began with this concept, it was already a show that I knew I would LOVE. For the 2 times ive watched Produce, I was always so perturbed by these prepubescent pretty boys frolicking around on stage, barely being able to even pull off a simple note. I just thought so many of them were so TALENTLESS…. But who am I to judge.

I think it really just comes down to preference, and even though I knew very well that idols and k-pop are not even things I enjoy anymore, I forced myself through programs like Produce. But now, with Superband, I felt so HAPPY and glad to be watching and discovering such talented musicians…THIS IS WHAT I WANTED ALL ALONG.

Even with the very first audition with Ha Hyunsang… OMFG UGHhHhh THAT BOI IS SO FLUFFY but so good at the same time… I feel like each time I see him, I ACTUALLY just want to give him a hug :’-(( the emotional depth in his singing is beyond describable and im SO PROUD TO HAVE WATCHED HIM GROW !!!!!!

That’s another thing I really really realllyyyyyyy loved from this show........ it was the process of watching these people develop, mature, change, grow with show. Some contestants went through some major growing pains, but it was so heartwarming to watch them improve, not that they were even bad to begin with. And the reversals!! Or the expansions?? The turnarounds?? The CONMEN!!!

AHHhhHHhhh okay im still very obsessed with the infinite amount of talent some dudes had, but before I get to that, let me continue on with those stellar auditions, aka the three genius guitarists, too ;_______; they. Are. So. Amazing. I love them a lot. I think I completely fell for them. And I hate myself. I hate to admit it a lot because I used to ALWAYS shit on dudes younger than me, I disliked basically every contestant on produce that was younger than ‘99, I thought they were all useless young children… but 김영소, 이강호, & 임형빈, were a completely different story. I LOVE THEM!!! I always had a bias toward a man that could play the guitar well… but these guys holy moly, they blew me away… they are so exceptional at what they do and the fact that theyre still so YOUNG… good lord…..my poor heart was so conflicted but ultimately so happy to have discovered them.

To watch these guys be thrown into that first 1:1 perf, and literally tearing up the stage and setting the bar VERY HIGH from the very beginning of the competition… phew… my goodness…. The talent with these kids… o my…. Okay yeah, nope im never gonna get over it. The ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’ stage will always be an iconic one from this program, and we all know it. Who knew a pure acoustic, musical performance, no vocals included stage would be so amazing…. I LOVE THEM!! Have I mentioned that yet?

Going back to the reversals/scamming thing... I guess this goes with watching some people grow……. I want to give a holy and blessed shoutout to probably my favorite contestant out of this entire show: 신광일….. he was such a dark horse. In fact, I don’t even remember his audition tbh because he was THAT not-memorable in the beginning LOL (or also.. I believe they never showed his audition to begin with)… but he quickly caught my eye as the eps went on because he came out of nowhere and whipped out all (or maybe not even all…) his skills like secret weapons, stage after stage.. he came in as a vocalist, picked up the bass for two the performances after that (all while still singing, too), although having never played the bass formally... and then once joining hands with Juhyeok and Yechan, he just miraculously becomes the drummer, because they ultimately decided that they needed percussion in their songs. So from thereon after, since ‘Hold Back The River’, Gwang-il, to me, was literally GOD(신) Gwang-il, as he played the drums and SANG TOO…..and may I add, hes not even that old?????? HES FRKING ONLY 2 YEARS OLDER THAN ME WTF;__; the boy got all these crazy blisters while perfecting the drums, but he didn’t let anything stop him and he was sucH A SOLID BAND MEMBER ALL THROUGHOUT, AHHHHHH MVP GOES TO SHIN GWANG-IL, YALL….(also I just found out that hes a trainee from Mystic Story, aka Yoon Jong shin’s agency aka the agency that I’ve been following for many many MANYYYY years now bc a lot of my favorite artists have come out of it…. Wow what is this fate)

And special recognition goes to Im Hyung-bin aka one of the 18 yr old genius guitarists bc he … oh my…. He frking became the pianist and singer by the end of the show…. Omfg… yall.. HE is also another infinitely talented soul. AND HES EXTRA FRKING YOUNG…

Besides these two though, there were many many many manyyyyy other people as well that took up multiple instruments throughout the show, or even began singing, or just did EVERYTHING….I was so mindblown by this, im still honestly not over it at all.

Because like, is this normal?? Isn’t that so unprofessional?? Its already so crazy that this show already starts us off with NON-amateur musicians and artists. But then some of these dudes have never done any other things formally before they got thrown into it; they came into this show “specializing” in something completely different, yet they jump onto the stage and do what they needed to, HELLA FRKING WELL…… so many of these dudes, you wouldn’t know that was his first time playing the bass, playing the drums, first time playing that piano, or first time being on the keyboard AND being a vocal, you wouldn’t know any of that unless they mentioned it, unless you watched the show and saw their story.

Because they all pulled it off THAT well.. these people that did these things for the first time ever while being on Superband, they executed their roles so well and showcased such wonderfully exhilarating talent…. IM SO BLESSED TO HAVE DISCOVERED SUCH AMAZING ARTISTS….

That was one of the biggest feats of Superband for me. The limitless talent that came out of it. I LOVE watching people like this. Their passion for music fuels such undeniable skill and fervor, and when they step onto that stage, they are literally unstoppable. They made music that stopped my time, stopped my heart, in the moment, but literally MOVED me...i applaud these people so much. I really do.

Thinking back to it now, the number of stages that came out of this show was like…. Countless…. Like… A LOT…. Since episode 1, each stage was very well-produced and I truly enjoyed watching each one from the start. This show was just so jampacked overall, although I admit that sometimes it was arduous due to the GRIND that these people were on, presenting stage after stage after stage, and then listening to LOTS of feedback from almost each judge over and over and over, but it was still nothing short of musical masterpieces out there. I really appreciate how STUFFED, how FILLED TO THE BRIM, this show was with dynamic, enjoyable, exceptional performances (and words of valuable opinions & evaluations, too)

I can re-watch many of them, every day, for days on end. I loved it. And can we just talk about how impressive these dudes are for pulling off something new, for taking on a brand-new challenge with a brand-new set of members, time and time again, stage after stage, week after week, until we came down to the 6 solid bands in the last 3 episodes? They constantly had to work with new people, match their music preferences, fill spaces in their music where they didn’t exactly have someone they may have needed. They had to compensate, compromise, and ultimately DELIVER, at the end of it all. Multiple times. I don’t even remember how many rounds they did… was it 4? I think they had 4 rounds of eliminations before they settled into their official bands. But still... its crazy impressive to think about how driven and flexible a lot of these artists were, to be creating, producing & then performing despite all the different teams they were getting put into week after week.

ANDDDDDD, despite all the odds up against them like the time crunch, the new collab of members each time, the potential lack of a missing instrument or sound, SO many of these teams still came out with self-written and self-produced songs!!!!!!! I mean, even for the cover songs alone, many were already re-arranging everything & basically turning them into new tracks. BUT WITH THOSE SELF COMPOSED SONGS??????????? Some teams literally started from scratch each time, but busted out some amazing tunes and lyrics and executed very very very impressive stages and IM JUST AKFJAKJFKJBSN how…. Are they….. so…. Talented…… I still ask myself each time.

By far, the combo that took my heart and kept it for good….. LUCY ;_______;. I never expected to like Juhyeok’s voice tbh, it was a little TOO weird for me in the beginning… but watching him perform with Yechan and Gwang-il and Wonsang really brought to life his vocal potential for me… that team is literally a combination made in heaven, they have all the right pieces to make ARTWORK… their signature sound was so prominent from the very beginning and i was SO HAPPY when I saw that they stuck to the same exact members once the finale came around.

Before the winner was announced, I told myself very honestly that I didn’t even care who won because the two teams left over, Hoppipolla & Lucy, were already my two all-time favorite combinations of artists from the entire show, and I was already MORE than satisfied with all the wonderful music and stages that everyone had delivered up until that point anyway. But even with that, I was still thoroughly shocked when they announced Hoppipolla as the winning band LOL I gasped aloud. I thought that Lucy at least had a chance. Or like I guess, in my heart, I assumed that Lucy actually won.. LOL but they didn’t.

And in terms of the finale in general, I really would also like to address how I purposely tried really hard to avoid any spoilers and rewatching of performances on youtube before actually finishing the entire series. I tried like reallyyyyy hard, because I wanted to watch the program as thoroughly as possible without spoilers. I HATE SPOILERS. But oh the irony. It was in all in vain anyway.

Once I finally DID finish all 14 episodes, when trying to look for more information/reactions/articles/videos (initially searching in English), I actually struggled SO HARD LMAOOOO bc there was like NOTHING OUT THERE……..i should have known better; this show was definitely NOT catered to the intl. audience (yet?), especially because its in its first season still. There were probably like 2 articles max in English about Superband & it was just about its upcoming premier. Nothing about winners nor results nor anything else i was wary of, anyway. LOLLL THE INTL COMMUNITY DOESN’T CARE; or at least the intl population that DOES care about Superband, is probably reallyyyyyy small……a reddit thread I found was the most substantial discussion I could find, comprised of a few comments max.

And so that brings me to how I always see a lot of comments begging for English subs and everything, but honestly…….. all I have to say to yall is: LEARN KOREAN IF YOU REALLY WANT TO WATCH THE SHOW THAT BADLY !!!

If after all these years, I could pick up Korean to an extent where I can watch things raw, im sure others can do the same as long as they put their mind to it. Ive been really appreciating how far my skills have taken me LOL not trying to be THAT person, but I just know that if I COULDN’T read or listen & comprehend or type in Korean like I can now, I would be missing out on a WORLD of amazing stuff. E.g. superband. And if anything, I would like to think that this show helped me practice my vocab skills a lot more. Listening to the judges’ evals after each stage was really enjoyable: I learned plenty of valuable words out of THEIR words.

This show was phenomenal in that all the contestants had total musical freedom. It was soOOOOO refreshing to watch. They got to choose all their music & their teammates in a fair manner (maybe not so much their competition), but seeing them take their passions & what THEY wanted to do with music and laying that all out onto the stage, was so compelling!!! This freedom allowed for countless, ICONIC AF transformations and growth journeys for soooo many of the artists too!!!! I really realllyyyyyyyy loved watching some of them stepping WAYYYY outside of their comfort zones / the image that they originally came in with (e.g. HONG ISAAC HAAAAHAHHA, Jisang, Hyunsang!!), and also watching alllllll those multitalented “scam characters”!!! HAHAHA, without this program being as open as it was, it would’ve been impossible to be able to see such a myriad of sides to so many different people. I appreciate, I really do.

And I really really realllyyyy enjoyed watching all the behind the scenes of each performance as well!! Of course, its normal to give viewers some background story before each stage, but in Superband, we got to see some very raw sides of music-making��.. these dudes literally lived like hobos in the recording studios, all disheveled and sleep-deprived human beans, but ceaselessly making music because that’s what they love. I liked watching teams try out a lot of different songs & styles as they searched for THE right one. And then we got to see the final result on stage after the countless discussions and trials behind the scenes. And these processes repeated for months on end. All the contestants are so commendable in this right. The grind was real, and the show didn’t try to hide that. I enjoyed this very realistic approach !!

At this point, after drowning myself in this show for a few days straight… (those episodes are LONGGGGG, close to two hrs each) ive literally spent every night, and basically day, too, watching all the cuts that jtbc uploaded on youtube over and over and oVERRRRR….. ive also been watching some Superband concert clips, from when the entire final 6 bands went on a domestic tour and performed together for several concerts!!

THAT OPENING STAGE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BLESS THOSE PEOPLE THAT CAUGHT IT ON CAMERA BECAUSE IT IS LITERALLY SUCH A PIECE OF MUSICAL HEAVEN, omfg the energy on that stage IS SOMETHING ELSE… IF I WERE THERE IN PERSON I PROBABLY WOULDVE CRIED INSTANTLY……. lee juhyeok, kevin oh, chae bohoon, im hyeongbin, kim youngso, ha hyunsang, lee chansol, and kim woosung, all the guitarists/ vocalists lined up in the front… (hearing each vocalist sing a line each made my HEART HURT....I LOVE THEM SM) then the bassists, lee jonghoon, kim hyungwoo, kim hajin, jo wonsang, clustered up AND HAVIN A TIME all by themselves, and the three epic electric guitarists, yang jiwan, kim junhyeob, and Zairo, literally held SUCH stage presence… on the drums: kang kyungyoon all the way to the right, and red haired hwang minjae in the middle, and the super in-sync, traditional drum banging bois, choi youngjin, shin gwang-il, a-il, & jung gwanghyun, all 4 of them bouncing up and down in the back like intense oompa loompas LOL THEY LOOKED SO CUTE, and the string bois!!!!! Shin yechan & benji on the violin next to hong jinho on the cello; yechan and benji started off sitting down but as the song goes on they literally WENT AT IT HAHAHA as expected of two of the most high-energy musicians. On the piano, lee na-woo, the classic icon himself starting off the entire intro, and next to him hong isaac the transformation legend himself on the keyboard + his super distinctive voice!!!!!! And of course, d-pole with his much-expected little music break in the middle….. in fact many of them got ICONIC solo time: kang kyungyoon’s drumming part, kim hyungwoo’s super duper solid bass, minjae’s powerful beats, kim hajin’s LOUD ass bass, lee jonghoon’s legendary slap finger bass playing, jo wonsang’s super ting-y, classic bass section, and yang jiwan’s loud ASS ELEC GUITAR TOO, omg they were all so cute, pointing to each member & hyping them up as it was their few seconds to shine….AND THOSE COLLECTIVE VOICES???? HEARING ALL THE VOCALISTS SING TOGETHER ONE BY ONE… OH my gosh it was soooooo GOOOODDDDDDD.... just watching all those dudes literally have THE TIME OF THEIR LIFE on stage (literally an ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME), the energy was off the charts… I loveeeeee seeing them so happy, making eye contact with each other, jumping up & down, rocking out, laughing with each other, all while playing their instrument, so fervently, all 27 people on the stage, connected by one song…. Theres SO MUCH OVERFLOW of talent in one freaking place, that song sounded SO MASSIVE just thru the video I cant imagine….. if I were actually there omfg… that’s an actual BAND Like A HUGE FRKING BAND… AHHHHHHHHHH a really legendary stage.. the finest of finest……I can literally watch this opening on repeat without getting bored because I just loveeeee the concept of all of them being together like that :”)))

After watching member after member, team after team get eliminated, seeing them like this on one stage with such happy expressions and making a beautiful piece of music like that o MANNNNNN…. This show…… has really done something to me…

I appreciate every contestant SO MUCH and I wish I could watch everyone be together FOREVER….because knowing how artistically talented each person is on their own, to watch them join together is like the avengers times 72737446352 or something, its just talent & skill plus talent & skill stacked onto even more skill & talents and just an INFINITE amount of potential AND THAT…IS LITERALLY.. THE POWER…. OF A BAND………and of great ass music.

This show was GENIUS TO combine so many musicians from so many different backgrounds…but watching them work together to make pure art, that is so frking rewarding and heartwarming and I feel so blessed to have witnessed it all.

The genres and potential were literally limitless……I think this is what encompassed Superband for me, this is what made me enjoy it SO damn much…. I think ive finally run out of things to say… this piece of text is quite a mess, not very polished….. but I was hasty in recording my thoughts & emotions before they left me, so I tried my best.

My biggest regret with this show is that I didn’t watch it sooner. (what is really ironic is that it took me FOREVER to start the first ep, despite having tonssss of time on my hands... I had it open on one of my tabs for the longest time, but I lowkey grudgingly, eventually, forced myself to finally start it LOL..(thank god I rly did tho) I watched it 2 months after the finale, which is… kinda late? If I had watched it while it was airing, all while I was still in korea, I feel like I would’ve been EVEN MORE in love, even more fervent and passionate about everything. Digging thru old vids & watching things from contestants before they came out onto the show, seeing the artists they were, I could’ve easily gone and seen them myself probably… goddamnit I probably could’ve gone to the superband finale live show, if I had known.. I COULDVE VOTED IN REAL TIME... not that I could’ve brought myself to do it anyway, probably lol….. but basically, if I had known of this show WHILE I was there with them… I don’t know, I could’ve been a lot more active as a fan, I feel like..

Now im back to my original roots: crying in front of my laptop screen and tap-tapping away at my keyboard as a I rant to no one but myself. Being in korea made my appreciation for all kinds of artists, all my beloved ones, EVERYONE, a lot more tangible.. but being back in America… it all becomes hidden into the depths of my heart, once again…

PHEW……I think now is a good time to mention my favorite stages… as I mentioned before, the Lucy AND pre-Lucy lineup will always hold a really special place in my heart so basically all my faves include their stages LOL

‘Swim’ cover by LUCY(신예찬, 이주혁, 신광일, 조원상)

‘Hold Back The River’ cover by 신예찬, 이주혁, 신광일

‘Adventure of a Lifetime’ cover by 조원상, 김영소, 이강호, 임형빈

‘누구 없소’ cover by 케빈오, 박찬영, 신광일, 강경윤

‘선잠’ by LUCY

'Castle on the Hill’ cover by 아일, 하현상, 노마드, 홍진호

‘1000x’ cover by 아일, 하현상, 홍진호, 김형우

‘One More Light’ cover by HOPPIPOLLA(아일, 하현상, 홍진호, 김영소)

‘Cry Bird’ cover by LUCY

‘Viva La Vida’ cover by 하현상, 홍진호, 김영소

‘Flare’ by LUCY

‘Find You Again’ by People on the Bridge(이찬솔, 임형빈, 김준협, 강경윤,  김형우)

My favorite funny moments:

“이게 무슨 짓이야!!?” - mellow kitchen (the stealing of the 3 kiddo guitarists)

“okay let’s be honest, you can’t even hear the bass” - shin hyunbin 2k19

울보 팀

Hyunsang’s fam: 아일 the mom, 홍진호 the dad, 김형우 the hyung

“idk if im allowed to say this but it looked like zombie movie” - yoon jongshin, as they all gathered around the cello man

“I thought to myself, isn’t that cello expensive tho..” - yoon jongshin as youngso slapped & tapped jinho’s cello for percussion

Ah-il’s iconic castle on the hill pose

Zairo’s luck with member choosing lmao

HONG ISAK’S DANCING in ‘Time of My Life’ LOLLL IT GETS ME LAUGHING EACH TIMEEE (& all his nicknames, like eungalchi lmaooo)

Benji’s “YO-RO-BOON HAM-KAY HEY-YO” during ‘Woo-ing’

Gwanghyun’s “do-doom-tak”

Gwanghyun calling Gwang-il’s drum skills equivalent to that of a middle school band’s LOLLLL

**I watched Mone’s radio appearance on Arirang Radio where Benji is the host, and they were an absolute MESS LMAOOOOOO THEY WERE HONESTLY ALL REALLY FUNNY THOUGH.. they kept roasting the crap out of each other and laughing their asses off and man… it was gr8 time and it was really cute to discover that Hong Isaac is now a part of one of Benji’s radio shows too!

One important question I have for this show though: where tf did all the females go? Why was there no female presence at all in this show, I have no clue…… :/

At the end of the day, this show reminded me once again, how to feel happy and excited because of music. how to let great music fill my life with undeniable joy. Being able to look forward to listening to these songs every day, definitely had lifted a small part of me that has been down for all too long. I really appreciate, I am very grateful for, I just… im so thankful to have discovered this show & all its wonderful masterpieces & the beautifully, magically, PASSIONATE artists behind it all………. I needed this in my life at this point in time, I really did. 

Thank you for coming to be, Superband.

[cosmiclunarprincess-fanfic]

A Succubus Tale (Series) Pt.3

Feeding Time

Fandom: Marvel

Pairing

: Bucky x Reader 

Characters: Bucky Barnes, Steve Rodgers, Natasha Romanoff, Wanda maximoff, Sam Wilson, basically the Avengers lmao

Warnings: I’m not the best when it comes to following writing rules. I pretty much write how I want to, so if you’re a stickler for grammar and what not just ignore it or don’t read loll (I’m nice I promise). Swearing, Anxiety, Kissing, Some Kinks, Fingering, A Lot of Smut.

( Word Count: 2236  )

Tags: @5aftermidnight @stevieboyharrington

Plot: Now a part of The Avengers, you’ve moved into Avengers HQ met the rest of the team and settled in. While wondering you run into Bucky and you two have a steamy encounter, where you discover something new about your powers.

I flinched feeling the cold of his metal hand reach into the band of my sweats and down to my dripping core. His other arm wrapping around my waist pulling my hips away from the wall. “Spread your legs a little for me sweetheart” He said placing kisses on my shoulder. I did as he asked while taking my hands off of the wall, to pull my sweats and then my panties off allowing him easier access to me. Bucky’s metal fingers caressed my folds with a gentleness didn’t expect from him. He went slow teasing me. A whimper escaped my lips begging him to do more. I could feel him smile into my neck as his fingers began rubbing tender circles on my clit.

My knees buckles, good thing he was holding me up with his arm or I might’ve been on the floor. I moaned grinding onto his fingers still wanting more. When he stopped, I groaned in frustration. His fingers slid back from my clit until one of them was slowly sliding inside me. I inhaled deeply enjoying the feeling of something filling me up. I arched my back and began moving my hips back and forth. His finger was at just the right angle hitting my spot perfectly. Bucky wrapped his arm around my waist even tighter stopping my movement.

“You just take what you want don’t you?” He asked releasing his grip on me to brush my hair away from my neck, then he was holding me again.

Slowly his finger began moving in and out. His lips attacking my neck once more this time he was relentless biting and sucking at my skin roughly. I knew a mark would be there for days but I didn’t care. He pulled his finger a third of the way out re adjusting his hand to place two fingers inside. I gasped at the feeling, I thought one of his fingers felt good but two of them was amazing. He explored the walls of my pussy gently with his fingers before he began pumping them in and out of me hard and fast.

At this point I was moaning so loud I was sure everyone in the building could hear me. I bit my lip feeling my wetness run down my leg. I’m sure his hand was covered by this time. I was getting so close. My walls began tightening around his fingers, waves of heat and pleasure consuming me. Bucky didn’t let up. His fingers pounding me in a way I’d never felt before. He pulled his head away from my neck to look at me.

“Look at that face.” He said smiling with satisfaction. I groaned reaching down pulling his hand from around my waist and placing his hand around neck.

I was done for. My eyes rolled back, I dug my nails into the skin of his arm. He growled, the speed of his fingers increasing. “I’m gonna cu- I’m cumi…” I couldn’t even form coherent sentences at this point. He groaned squeezing my neck even tighter. “Go ahead baby, cum all over my fingers.” My entire body tensed up, waves of intense pleasure washing over me, my walls contracting on Bucky’s fingers over and over again as I came all over him just like he wanted.

My breathing heavy and even. I stood in that same spot for another minute while I came down from my orgasmic high. Bucky kept his fingers inside me until I calmed down. Then he gently pulled them out. I shuddered feeling a bit of aftershock. I heard him chuckle. “What’s so funny?” I asked turning to face him smiling.

“Nothing, stay there.” He walked around the corner and to the back on the room grabbing towel. He brought it back and began cleaning me off and then himself. I was about to pull my clothes back on but he beat me to it gently pulling up my panties and sweats. He bent down and kissed me. I pulled back looking down at the bulge in his pants.

“What about you?”

“I’m fi…”

Bucky began to blink rapidly, he stumbled back a bit before catching himself. He shook his head trying to get rid of the dizziness. I walked over and rubbed his back. “Hey are you okay?”  He brushed the hair from his face.

“Yea I’m okay. Sometimes I get these headaches, it’s nothing.”

“You scared me there for a sec.”

“Nah its nothing I’m good, but when did you get in here? I didn’t even hear the door open.”

“What do you mean?” I giggled. I assumed he meant when I first came into the room. “I mean I was here doing inventory on the armory because I couldn’t sleep and the next thing I know I have this headache and you’re here asking if I’m ok.” I took a step away so that could look him in the eyes. A serious expression was written on his face very different form the loving one he had just moment ago. “Bucky, you can’t be serious right now?” I stood there waiting for him to come to his senses.

“You’re telling me you don’t remember anything that just happened?”

“What exactly am I supposed to remember?”

“Come on you can’t just forget something like that?” He chuckled walking back to his station where he had been doing inventory. “I think you’re sleep deprived it’s pretty late and plus you start training in the morning, go and get some rest. I have work to do here anyway.” He was so cold to me. Did he really not remember what happened between us? It literally just happened and it was amazing. You can’t just forget a moment like that. He turned to see me still standing in the same spot. He got up and walked over to me. “Tell you what why don’t I walk you back to your room so you don’t get lost huh?” I was at a loss for words it seemed like my feet just moved on their own. I was out of it the entire time we were walking when we finally got to my room Bucky said good night and left me there standing outside of my door in the middle of the night like some lost puppy.

I walked into my room a plopped on the bed face first. How could he just forget like that?I thought to myself. This man had just given me the best orgasm of my life and he didn’t even remember doing. I sat up racking my rain trying to figure out what could’ve happened to make him forget. It couldn’t be anything to do with hydra he’d been with the Avengers for two years straight and hydra was all but destroyed. Could it be some kind of trick? He could be pretending not to remember just to play with me…no Bucky isn’t the playing type as far as I know. I was a little upset but I decided to let it go, I’d never been the type to cry over a guy and I wasn’t about to start now. I crawled up my bed and just as I was about to climb under the covers this surge of energy came rushing through my body I looked down and my lower half was covered in this light pink smoke like cloud. Freaked out I ran to the full-length mirror on my wall and sure enough my whole entire body was cloaked in this thing, I had no idea what it was. It felt hot and tingly like electricity. I tried rubbing it off and that didn’t work. Then I absorbed it into my body through my skin. Now it felt good. I felt powerful, sexy and strong. I couldn’t help but look into the mirror and loving what I saw. I decided to take some sexy selfies to showcase just how hot I was but I picked up my phone, it shattered in my hand. My other hand shot up to my mouth shock. The pieces of the broken phone fell to the floor. Next to me.

What just happened? I thought to myself I knew I wasn’t that strong before. I looked down at my hands. “What’s happening to me?” I said to myself alone in my room.

The next morning, I woke up to an alarm that was effective yet not harsh at all. It went off on its own when I opened my eyes. I sat up in bed feeling relaxed and euphoric. “Thank god last night was a dream” I said while yawing. When I placed my feet on the floor to get out of bed something poked me in the foot. I looked down to see what it was…and there was my phone in pieces on the floor. “Oh no, are you kidding me?” I through my hands in the air frustrated at the fact that all the events that took place last night were real. I went to the bathroom to get ready. I took a nice shower, brushed my teeth, I thought about washing my hair but I wasn’t mentally prepared for drying and styling and shit. I knew I was going to be training so I put on a pair black high waist leggings, a hot pink sports bra with straps that went down my torso, a black pull over hoodie that said baby girl on the front and some black and pink Nike free runs. If I was gonna go down there and get my ass beat I was going to look damn good doing it. I took one last look in the mirror spraying some chanel N°5 on my pulse points before walking out the door.

I walked into the common and headed straight for the fridge and grabbed a grapefruit and overnight oats I had made last night and some water. I grabbed a plate, spoon, some sugar for my grapefruit and sat at the middle table. I guess today was sleep in day and I never got the memo because it seemed like I was the only one awake. I sat alone eating for about ten minutes when everyone started rolling in. “Look at you up all bright and early” Natasha nudged me a little as she walked by. “Ha yea I wanted to make a good impression.” She waved her hand shooing my comment away. “Y/N you don’t have to do anything to impress us. Especially not me I already like you a lot.”

“I second that.” Wanda chimed in from behind her coffee cup.

“Third.” Sam raised his hand smiling at me. I smiled back. “Ahh, Fourth.” Steve stretched as he sat in the seat next to me. His plate was loaded with healthy protein filled foods. I took a bite of my grapefruit. “Wow, are you really gonna eat all that?” Steve snickered while starting to eat his food.

“Yea, I am. This body needs fuel same as everyone else.”

“True, true. Especially for all your…extracurricular activities huh?” I winked nudging him with my elbow a bit. Everyone except Steve bursts out into a fit of laughs. He had a confused look on his face. “You mean like on missions, right?” That’s just made us laugh even harder. “No Steve I mean…you know what never mind. You enjoy your breakfast.” I gave him a reassuring pat on the back. Natasha was sitting across from us eating a bran muffin. “Remember earlier when I said I liked you, I lied I meant I love you.” We high fived and began having meaningless girl talk. A few moments later Bucky walked in he gave the room a general “Good morning” and made himself some food. He sat next to Steve. They started going over my training regime for the day. After everyone had there breakfast we all headed to the training rooms. We stretched and got right to it. Steve my first trainer for the day. He had a clip board and a timer ready to record all my results. “So,

Y/N the first thing we’re gonna do is see that kind of physical condition you’re in right now and go from there. I nodded. “So, I want you to run a mile for me, that’s gonna be four times around the track. Can you do that for me?” I took a deep breath thinking what did I get myself into.

I took a deep breath and went to the Steve had shown to me. He yelled across to me. “Ready?”

I yelled back “Yea!”

“Okay on the count of three. One, two, three.” I took off running, a light jog at first gradually running faster and faster. My body started to feel hot and tingly, just like it did the night before and before I knew it I finished my fourth lap. I was barely out of breath which was both shocking and exciting. Jogged over to where the rest of the group was. When I got to them they all had looks of shock and or confusion on their faces. “Why are you guys looking at me like that?” I asked partially not wanting to know. Sam broke the silence.

“You just beat both their records girl!”

“Who’s?”

“Them.” Sam took a step back not wanting to be seen he pointed to Steve and Bucky.

Continued in Pt.4 Coming soon…

[spiteandstrength]

Greetings again

Hello again Tumblr (and by extension the internet).

Wow has it been a LONG time since we have spoken in this format. (Though you would have known me by a different pseudonym back then)

SO MUCH has changed these past 7 years.

I feel it appropriate with the advent of my new life being put in motion that I would bring back my internet presence in full.

Things seem to be re-building at an adequate pace, I will admit it’s much harder starting over than it is to keep the original metaphorical wheel in motion.

Where do I begin?

3 relationships later, a grocery list of loss, trauma and betrayal, a completely new home and a much bigger life and world than I could have imagined.

I guess we’ll start with the negatives.

My dissociations are worse than ever (hey! I learned there’s a word for this now too, who knew? I always thought I was just a daydreamer)

I am constantly fluctuating in and out of psychosis, I seem to be splitting now too (that’s a new one)

My dissociations seem to come on stronger, last longer and are more involuntary than they used to be.

My pit of rage that was once completely quelled has come back with a burning vengeance, there isn’t even a combination words I could formulate a sentence with to describe this level of anger.

Gosh and I was doing SO WELL, what happened? Ha I guess I’ll fill you in over time.

Now for some “positives”

I broke into my industry finally after nearly a decade of struggle, I seem to have landed the “Grad program” of wet dreams.

1 year from this post I will be hyper specialised in Networking, Software Development and ITIL/ITSM practices.

I have already been deploying such responsibilities as “Change Manager” and “Incident Manager”.

Now if you search these terms on seek or linkedin you’ll see they command extremely high salaries.

Does this excite me? Not really. People new to my life over the past couple years had taken a very wrong impression of me, I have been accused of being fearful of being “alone”

They’re partially correct, the reasons are wrong.

I am not fearful of being alone because of needing others, but it’s because I become so comfortable in my own company and my own grind that I lose touch and the desire to want to be around others.

I don’t wish to be arrogant (or could even be conflated with narcissistic? Maybe to some audiences I guess) but I really do find interacting with normies and playing their stupid social games where they try to shit test me so very tiresome.

So I’ve been given the golden faucet and I’ll never have a materialistic worry for the rest of my life, to some this would be thrilling, well coming from Perth where all the people I was friends with in highschool went off to grab themselves 6 figure salaries at just hitting 20 and having their houses paid off before being 25, materialism has been a bit of a joke to me for a while.

I guess the culture on the east coast is a bit different, nevertheless here I am, a late bloomer (better late than never)

In the end, it feels rather empty, what’s the point in all these riches with nobody to share it with? It’s the journey that’s the most exciting part, the learning experience, the ups and downs.

Who wants to be with someone that shows up at the finish line? How repulsive.

Anyway that’s it for now I guess.

Oh PS: I have learned to re-connect with my authentic desire to be alternative, there will be some cringe moments involved as I try to nail the desired look, but I trust I will be able to find the perfect balance.

Feels good to at least have that level of normality to my life.

[ghostmartyr]

Pokémon White Randomized Nuzlocke Run [Part 3]

It’s time for hunting for thieves with Burgh! Long may no one else die in the process!

Team headcount:

Boeing (Latios)

Frogger (Seismitoad)

Ptera (Archeops)

Palm (Shroomish)

I’ll also throw the Miracle Seed on Palm, since I forgot to do that last time.

Hm. This is technically part of the same route Palm came from, but it’s a different area. I think if the randomizer considers it part of a different area, I will too. So if it has something from the outside part, I won’t catch it. If it turns out they both happen to have some things in common, and the first one was one of those, oh well. It was the first one in the area.

Stepping forward to find out if we get a new one or not.

I don’t want it.

This might be a bad idea, but I think I’m going to let Palm just murder it. I do not want an Octillery, and then I’ll still only have one thing from Pinwheel Forest. It might be something I end up regretting, because as of right now, if my team wipes, I have nothing eligible to start over with, but.

Exp gotten, Grape avenged one more time.

So far there is nothing in this forest except for Octillery. What is this hell.

I do not like the Patrat line. I might never like it again. Appropriate that Team Plasma currently seems to do almost nothing else.

Okay, so for future reference, the insides of Pinwheel Forest are counted as a different area by the Randomizer. That future might not be so far off, depending on how this goes. The important thing is that something besides an Octillery can exist in these woods.

I have photo evidence.

Without it, even I wouldn’t believe at this point.

Awesome, recovered the skull. Considering the size, I am not sure how a boy my age manages to do anything with it but not be crushed by it, but thankfully the plot is uninterested in such complications. Skull get.

I have no memory of what that means. I assume it means that if I live long enough, I’m gonna beat you up.

Oh good, we give the skull to Lenora. She’s someone I have faith in to be able to lift it. She is very mighty, and when I don’t think about the consequences of our battle I still am highly appreciative of her.

I basically don’t do anything for the next twenty minutes but run around and let Ptera kill stuff. I am overusing Ptera because Ptera can one-shot everything into oblivion, and that’s a comfort.

But.

There is good news after I remember I have other pokemon.

Boeing

no longer has Psywave.

I’d never really bothered looking up the accuracy, I just was sad when the damn thing never hit. It turns out, in addition to having variable damage, Psywave has 80% accuracy.

I have never hated a move so much.

It’s gone now.

Boeing can murder things.

Together, friend. We will make it to the end of this.

Oh, the bridge! This is the one with the bridge! Bridges, even!

Best part of this generation for sure.

Now we’re in sections I think I remember a little more about. Mostly in relation to how often I ended up lost in this place. It’s not really that difficult, but for many, many years all of the towns and other locations were nice and neat 2D things. You might not know where to go next in some spots, but having trouble figuring out where you were wasn’t really a thing.

Along comes Castelia City, and it’s all “hold my drink,” and I, a mere ten-year-old, trip down back alleys trying to find out what in the heck I’m meant to be doing.

Now I, a mere ten-year-old, will probably do much the same. With an active interest in seeking out any grass.

The real question here is which evolution stone I want. I can’t use Panpour. So I guess... hm. I might as well go with the Fire option? I think I mussed with the evolution settings, so I’m not sure if I need them or not (I shouldn’t need to trade anything to get it to evolve, but past that, it’s one giant shrug). I also don’t have anything in my party that needs a stone yet, and there is no way to guess at what I might find in the future.

What I do know is I have a Grass and a Water pokemon, so let’s just round that out. That’s what the chimp options are there for, after all.

Fire Stone get.

I have zero memory of what’s up with the ship, but boats usually mean trainers to fight. Whatever the case, it is presently plot-locked.

We’re going through the city to try to gather all the Dancer trainers for a squad, which basically means beating up more of the Pan-squad, and a guy in the alley jumps out and gives us Flash.

Pokemon games are the best.

Dance squad assembled. Now that I think about it, I think this might be the version where rotating battles are introduced. I also think that might not be the right name, but the important bit is that three pokemon are participating at once and you can rotate through. I bring this up now because I’m wondering if talking to these guys again will set one off.

...Nope. I do get an Amulet Coin, though. Those are always good to have.

A building full of trainers I didn’t remember! That’s much better than running back to Pinwheel Forest or going ahead for grinding. Too bad this resource doesn’t renew itself.

Oh, nice. The guy to our right gave us Quick Balls and Timer Balls. Those are some of my favorites.

I’m not touching the Gym until everyone’s 30. I already regret that decision, but you know something else I regret? No longer having a Fire type. So yeah, this is the program and we’re sticking to it.

A Hyper Potion and Revive are also in this building. One of those has no use to us, so yay free money. Here’s hoping that we don’t use up the other one right away. I’m already imagining the horror that is the Elite Four.

Also, since I never play these games with the volume on (ancient suspicions about battery life from the era of AAs), can I just say how wonderfully spooky the Scientist theme is?

Heeeeeey. That is a good thing to have.

Time to check if I’m able to go forward, or if my grinding has to be stuck at Pinwheel Forest. As much as I like the bridge, let me tell you my preference.

Forward enough, anyway.

I think there will be some sort of roadblock ahead, but I should be able to come across my next teammate first. And some Fishermen.

Palm enjoyed meeting the Fishermen.

First encounter spotted.

Huh. I don’t think I’ve ever used one of these in a game before. The evolution is never worth bothering with unless you’re shooting for the pokedex entry, and I think by the time you run into its first form, you’ve already got most of your team arranged already.

The real question is if I have something that won’t kill it...

I think Cut might be the answer.

...I am the worst trainer ever, fml.

So. Uh.

The Escavalier is caught.

Apparently it knew something besides Fury Attack and Leer. Funny story, that.

Boeing is dead.

Ahahaha. Wow. I do not want you. You murdered my best friend. You are also now more necessary than you were. So. You need a name.

You’re a dark knight.

First girl on the team is named Batman.

Batman does not kill.

The real challenge of this game is going to be whether or not I can ever have six usable pokemon at a time. Dang. This is much rougher than anticipated. Boeing was one of those beasts I thought would be with me until the very end.

Of course, the same can be said for all that now lie here. I was definitely arrogant enough to assume that I could go through the game with none of you dying.

Serves me right, I suppose.

I really hope I don’t need to teach something else Cut now.

Goodbye, Boeing. We had four levels of being useful together. You taught me to hate Psywave, and your sacrifice brought Batman to the team. In time she will learn to honor that.

Batman is Adamant and loves to eat. That is about the best Nature I could ask for. She isn’t going to be very useful at the moment, but she has the Exp. Share now, so. We’re going to change that.

This run just got much harder. Again.

Apparently Bug is the theme of this desert.

That is one definite disadvantage to starting with a Psychic pokemon. Bug hurts. It doesn’t help that I almost constantly forgot what Boeing’s typing was.

Huh. Geodude also frequent this area.

It’s funny. Out of what’s available, so far I’ve been pretty darn happy with what I’ve ended up with. I mean, I would prefer Batman being a little weaker so I still had Boeing, but Escavalier is not awful. And I’ve never used one before. All praise the randomness.

You know what else is funny?

All the wild Escavalier here need multiple hits even with moves that are effective. All those turns I spent Cutting Batman down to size, allowing room for Boeing’s death, were unnecessary.

Haaaaa. Live and learn.

Unless you’re Boeing.

Frogger’s just going to murder everything in this route while the meager party slowly grows to level 30. Once more I feel my boredom setting in, but at this point I don’t think being less cautious is really a good idea. Getting six pokemon in my party has become something to strive for instead of the expectation.

-checks in an hour later-

Someone save me from this hell.

I think when the time comes, I’m going to take Ptera and Palm back to Pinwheel. The level differences aren’t that great, and ALL the Blaziken kills would probably do them both some good. Ptera can probably take the things in the desert, but his Defense is terrible if something goes wrong (which it easily might) and I’m not so sure about Palm. Either way Palm’s getting the Exp. Share for it, and that’s probably still twenty minutes away, because grinding.

I really wish I hadn’t accidentally killed Timon and Boeing.

You never realize what a useful tool letting pokemon faint is until you can’t. Sigh.

I am going to giggle like a small child every time that question pops up. My only good decisions in this run are their names.

Fun fact: Grinding is boring.

Batman and Frogger are all set, so I did make my way back to Pinwheel Forest in the hopes of helping Palm’s unfortunate Nature out with some better EVs and just generally having him and Ptera fight against things they could kill in one hit.

That’s working out.

This is taking forever.

I refuse to do this for the next gym. Isn’t failure the spice of any challenge?

I don’t even know what the next Gym is... Wait. Is it the electric model one? I think it might be. I remember liking her. I like her pokemon less. Flying electric squirrels are hardish to kill.

Ptera learned Acrobatics. So that’s neat.

Two. More. Levels. Come on. Bring on the massive surge of wild Blaziken.

Have I already pointed out that this is one of the generations where exp is calculated in part by level differential? The more I need the less I get.

At long last. It is done.

In your memory, Timon.

Dude, c’mon. It was going to be touching. I was going to murder all your Bugs and be like, “this is for all the things I accidentally got killed on my way here!” and now you’ve gone and ruined it with your plot interruptions. Sigh.

I’m supposed to go to one of the piers. If I’d been reading the text instead of mashing buttons I probably would know which one, but walking down each option and trying them all in order is fun, right? Right.

It’s always the last one you check.

I remember just enough of the story to say that was one heck of a mistake they done made.

Oh wait, Bianca’s pokemon? Oh. That’s much sadder.

Team Plasma grunt shows up, and it’s time to run after it. After all, I am ten. I am the most reliable aid anyone could ask for in a situation such as this.

I say, brilliant deduction, Burgh!

There is probably art of Burgh and Looker somewhere on the internet. They solve crimes.

Guess who has thirteen levels on Team Plasma like a boss. It is all four of my remaining pokemon. Yay.

They keep bringing up the Seven Sages, and I keep not remembering any of them except for one. My memory was that there was the one guy. And even that guy was pretty blurry. Now there are seven?

I just wanna catch stuff and pick fights hurry up plot.

The plot hears my requests and punishes me with an infodump about pokemon mythology of the region. Why this.

For my current purposes, I don’t care, but I actually like Black and White’s background for Unova. I like stories about heroes and dragons, and having the cover legendaries being relevant in things that aren’t just glamorized sidequests. It’s a fun game.

The monsters are just so much funner.

Let us try this again!

I love all the gyms in this generation.

Our first victim starts with a level 20 Sewaddle and a level 20 Venipede.

Ptera covers his claws in their blood.

...Okay, that one’s a little too dark. The opponents’ monsters aren’t actually dying, just fainting. My guys are the only ones who can die, adding new weight to Batman’s name. She will go into battle for justice, never inflicting lethal damage, yet she might one day fall.

Burgh’s pokemon are probably mid-20s. It’s fair to say I didn’t need to grind as much as I did, and it’s also fair to say I’d do it all over again because the last Gym was traumatic.

I wonder if part of how they decide Gym Leaders is asking them what they’ll do if they get their own building and carte blanche to design it. That should be the new Sorting question: What Type would your Gym be, and what are your thoughts on its interior design?

I think one of them this gen has you being shot through the air with cannons.

We look so serious.

Burgh does not.

First up is a level 21 Whirlipede. I feel fairly confident in saying that Ptera is up to the challenge.

Following that is a level 21 Dwebble. It does not have Sturdy.

Last is a level 23 Leavanny, and if you think these short sentences are a really uninspired way of describing such an epic fight, you’d be right, but they did not have much to work with. Ptera took everything that didn’t have an Ability preventing such acts down in one hit.

His prize.

He has the option of learning DragonBreath, and I normally wouldn’t bother with it, but considering how worried I am about whether or not I’ll manage to have six pokemon in a party at once, AncientPower with its 5 PP taking up a move slot is... maybe not what I want to go with.

On the other hand, Ptera’s a physical attacker and DragonBreath only does 60 with no STAB.

We are abandoning the way of the dragon, Ptera.

That was Boeing’s realm.

Badge get! Now, are we going to be able to leave the Gym without the plot calling?

No. The answer is no.

Look, it’s free exp! I mean one of my best friends!

With that invitation received, our time in Castelia comes to a close. This segment saw our most painful loss yet. Hopefully that has taught me a thing or two about being careful, but those lessons tend to be really temporary with me and video games.

Until next time.

[chacusha]

FFVI live-blogging (1/?)

While I wait for all my game consoles and my PC to make their way here, I decided I would replay Final Fantasy VI on an emulator. In particular, I’m trying out the GBA edition for the very first time. Exciting!

Little known fact: I have never finished FFVI despite it being one of my favorite games. I have probably started a new game and played through a significant portion of the story about five or six times (the farthest I got was the World of Ruin after having re-collected most of party again i.e. able to fight Kefka at any point but still dicking around with sidequests).

Followup fact: This is because there are some aspects of this game that I struggle with because I’m really obsessive about how I play games. In particular, the magicite/Esper system is really hard for me to deal with, because I obsessively try to make sure every person in my party builds up a fairly complete repertoire of magic, which takes an insane amount of grinding. (And then I don’t really use magic other than healing spells, so uh... I don’t know why I do that.) The second thing is Gau’s Rage skills. I also get really obsessive about building up a fairly complete collection, which usually involves HOURS of grinding on the Veldt (an activity that doesn’t even give EXP, apparently? somehow I never realized that...).

So anyway, I’m now at the point where Terra rejoins your party after turning into her esper form (and Celes is back in the empire). In other words, I am now at the point where I have a new flood of magicite and the Veldt is newly accessible again and uh... it might be a while before I move on. 😅

Anyway some thoughts:

One thing I like about the early Final Fantasy games is how obviously inspired they are by Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, and I think FFVI is the game that makes that inspiration most clear. The story framing of a small group of people (each of them a distinguished person in their own right -- a king, a general, the strongest knight of a kingdom, a gambling airship pilot, etc. etc.) band together to take down an expansionist empire against all odds, even if that means sneaking behind enemy lines to carry out a dangerous mission. (I forever love Biggs and Wedge, and the “Aren’t you a little short to be an Imperial trooper?” line.)

I love the maximally steampunk aesthetic of Figaro Castle going into submerging mode.

Edgar is a very similar character to Ringabel -- charming and flirts with every woman in a kind of gallant way. Despite how that kind of behavior would be irritating in real life (and occasionally crosses into sketchy territory, like when flirting with children), they are both perennially popular characters among women. I find that fascinating. Like, I also know I’d find that behavior annoying if I encountered it in real life, but I also really enjoy both of these characters??

The reveal of Locke’s literal dead girlfriend in a basement will never not be amazingly hilarious, creepy, and very sad all at the same time.

Guy in Jidoor: “After they threw out all the poor people in town...” Me: After they did what now? (Not sure how I feel about the class politics of “all the poor people are pathological liars” that is Zozo. Then again, they also had a “rich dude betrayed everyone in South Figaro to fascists the empire for money” so maybe that makes up for it.)

The opera scene is still A+++. Like, one of the things that make it so great is that the sets (like the balcony that Celes is on) would be crazy amazing if they actually existed in real life. Like, imagine going to the opera, and they have this amazing multi-level tower, complete with a balcony, pillars, and a beautiful night sky backdrop. You’d be like, holy shit, they didn’t hold back!!

Having played FFIX, I now can see how much of FFVI is in that game. The theatre troupe, the auction house, the lady-protecting thief, etc. are all very familiar.

The scene with Celes and Locke in the Magitek Factory (where Kefka claims that Celes was on the Empire’s side the entire time) reads differently to me than it did in the SNES version for some reason. I always thought that Celes was obviously what she appeared to be (a deserting general) and that Locke’s “omg is it true, Celes?? 😧” reaction was just him being dumb/gullible. But during this playthrough, this scene makes it seem like Celes actually WAS meant to infiltrate the Returners and she had a change of heart halfway through. I think the reasons it reads differently are (1) that there isn’t as much flavor text that indicates Celes’s character or personality (the SNES description of Celes having “a spirit as pure as snow” makes it sound like she deserted the Empire because she could no longer stand its crimes, but the more accurate GBA description that people have never seen the woman that lies underneath the general simply suggests that she is hard to read AKA a good spy), and (2) Kefka’s more detailed claim that Celes “deserted” and was “rescued” in order to infiltrate the Returners seems too specific for him to be making that up on the fly. I wonder if that was the writers’ intention, though... Okay, wow, looking up information on the FF Wikia and comparing game scripts, and I think spy!Celes is canon: “Celes was originally meant to be a ‘conflicted spy’ archetype—a spy working for the antagonists, but swayed by the benevolence of the people she was supposed to be spying on and how nice Locke was to her.” Woolsey translation: Cid: Can it be true that you came here as a spy, seeking to cause an uprising!? Locke: !? Celes...? Kefka: So that's it! Magicite... Cid, you miserable blockhead! Now... General Celes!! The game's over. Bring me those Magicite shards! Locke: Celes! You... decieved me!? Celes: Of course not! Have a little faith! Kefka: G'hee, hee, hee! She has tricked you all! Celes, that's so... YOU! Celes: Locke... Please believe me... GBA translation: Cid: Is it true you worked your way in amongst the rebels as a spy? Locke: ...!? Celes...? Kefka: Oh, I see! Magicite...! Excellent work, Cid! General Celes! We needn't keep up the charade any longer. Bring me those magicite crystals! Locke: Celes! You...tricked us!? Celes: Of course not! Please, trust me! Kefka: Hee-hee-hee! The sweet taste of betrayal! Oh, Celes! That's so...you! Celes: Locke... Believe me... (Cid’s line is no longer ambiguous which side Celes is spying for. Coming from Cid (a more reliable character than Kefka), the story that Celes is a spy is not so easily dismissed. Kefka is also so unruffled at encountering Celes in a secure empire facility that it just doesn’t seem like he’s improvising either...)

I love the Maduin flashback. I don’t know if it’s significantly different/pared down in the English SNES version or what, but those scenes never really stuck with me before... But seeing them this playthrough? OMG the feels. First, the ominous esper music playing throughout is so Atmospheric and Foreboding. You really get the feeling that the events depicted changed the fate of the world. (Also, it reminds me of this track from the Sailor Moon RPG, which is also a great track.) Second, Madeline is such a clear and striking character given how little screentime she has. The one trait she most clearly has is, like, a misanthropic hatred of humanity. And throughout her scenes, you get this really strong impression that she’s really fierce, bitter, and almost... thorny? Like really hard to get close to -- a determined loner. Third, the Maduin/Madeline relationship -- first off, I appreciate the metaphorical sex scene where they dance/fly around a cave together and drop two sparkles that combine to form a baby. Second, that last scene where Madeline kind of foolishly runs off and Maduin chases after her and they have this “you’re being a dummy” “I know” “let’s go home” kind of tender moment before EVERYTHING GOES WRONG. Ouch my heart.

Also, it strikes me that Terra and Aerith are very parallel characters -- half-human, half-supernatural race, captured and experimented on as a baby, mom dies trying to save her, etc.

Also, I find Gestahl a very unsettling character. I feel like Kefka is the Voldemort or Bellatrix of Final Fantasy VI -- unstable, weird, very over-the-top, god complex villain who screams “eeeeevil” with his design -- while Gestahl is the Umbridge of Final Fantasy VI -- civil, polite, reasonable, functional, and yet utterly uncaring and dismissive of other people’s concerns. Whereas with the Kefka type, you’re like, “who would follow this person?” and don’t feel threatened, Gestahl is not only a person people would follow; he’s a person many people already ARE. That’s scary to me.

[nuzblog]

November 29th, 2017

MORN

At 4:30 in the morning, I healed my team using the fight against Bugsy and headed West to Ilex Forest, to be confronted by my rival, Luster, with IndieCindy switched for Rainwater.

Rainwater's Mud Slap took out Gastly with no issue. Rock Star's Rock Throw does similar for Zubat.

And then... well, I already knew thanks to the fishermen on route 32 that I've been having issues with water types, and unfortunately, the answer to that problem is on the other side of this battle.

Luster's Croconaw one-shots Rainwater. As they say in the business... "oh fuck." I switch to DrinkyBird, trying to get SOMETHING going, but she gets critically low on health, and Rock Star is 4x weak. I get stuck just using potions over and over, but I'm either gonna run out or he's gonna crit and I'll be done for, so I make a snap judgement and switch to Rock Star. As expected, he does down, but it gives me that extra turn of healing, and it lets me reset his Leers.

At this point I notice that he's using Leer and Scratch instead of the STAB Water Gun he's got, because he knows that my Special Defense is my highest stat. I Growl him down and try to survive as best as I can until he changes gears and starts using Water Gun instead, healing when I can. I use a found X Attack, and keep attacking and healing, trying desperately to hold on, at one point being dropped all the way down to 1 hp but managing to survive... and after an awful slog of a battle, losing two dear friends, I beat him. This was very nearly a run-ender.

Ilex Forest is my next stop, for a Pokemon capture and Farfetch'd herding. Now, my initial plan here was to enter at night, where I would essentially either capture an Oddish or a Paras, both of which would cure my Water problem, and then also get Headbutt and be able to potentially catch an Exeggcute, which would do similar but would also be a Pokemon I haven't used before.

Of course, I entered in the morning, so I got a Weedle. Which, is fine, it just means I can DEFINITELY get an Exeggcute from Azalea Town. I name it "KnifeFight" and, with a lack of anything else I particularly want to teach Cut in the party, I start backtracking to collect berries and grinding it to level 10.

Speaking of grinding, the level curve in this game is already bothering me. Why is the highest level Pokemon encountered in Ilex Forest at Level 6? We are two gyms into the game, have fought Level 16 Pokemon with trainers behind them, and yet, the wild Pokemon aren't even level 10. They're 2-3 levels higher than the ones found on the first route of the game. This is dumb! Why is it this way???

Anyway grinding takes six eternities but whatever, eventually I have a Beedrill and I can teach it cut and actually progress through the game. I also get to knock out some of those cut trees from earlier in the game, which mostly just makes the walk easier.

Back in the forest, but not for long, I grab Headbutt and re-exit to Azalea Town, find a nice tree and start butting it.

After 6 Weedles, followed by a Beedrill, followed by 11 more Weedles and a Kakuna, FINALLY, some eggs fall out of the tree. I mean, an Exeggcute. NOW I can progress through the game! Its name is "Deliver", and...

Hm. I hadn't actually checked its movepool until now. It might not be as useful as anticipated. The TMs for Psychic and Giga Drain are both in Kanto, and while it'll get Confusion in just 9 levels, the first and only STAB Grass move it gets by level up will be... SolarBeam at Level 43.

My only other option is Mega Drain... which is an egg move. Well, fortunately, I am about to be at the Pokemon Daycare... so, I guess that's what I'm doing - catching a Sunkern at the National Park during the day, hoping that's my first encounter, and hoping it's male so I can breed it with my thankfully female Exeggcute. That's a lot of hopes. And, to muddy the issue, I then stopped playing for the day, and the next day was Thursday, which means the Bug Catching Contest is on, which if my understanding is correct, would have prevented me from catching a Sunkern.

November 30th, 2017

MORN

I drop Deliver off at the daycare, and head for Goldenrod, where the Name Rater lives, allowing me to change the name of my Hoothoot from DrinkyBird to T.I.M.E.

Speaking of time, just do be extra safe, I decide to play around with it a bit. I set it exactly 36 hours forwards, putting me in the daytime of Friday, and safely outside of the reach of the Bug Catching Contest. I do this by holding Down, B and Select at the title screen and inputting a password that is generated from my character's name, ID Number and current money total. Thanks, PsyPokes.com!

I head to the National Park ASAP, and... yes!! The Sunkern I need is exactly what I get! I name it Sundial, shove it right into the daycare, and go attend to some business in Goldenrod. I grab the Bicycle, I fight some guys without meaning to... actually, can I say some stuff about the dialogue in this game? One guy said he gave his Pokemon a haircut, which would make sense cause the haircut place is right there by him... but then he sent out a LICKITUNG. Which, if it has hair... I super duper don't want to know where. Also, one trainer said "Behold my graceful BALL dexterity." Like, capitalized like that, because of this game's weird thing with capitalization. (Seriously, how did it take until Gen 5 for them to fix the antiquated adventure game CAPITALIZATION of KEYWORDS?) Which is just hilarous.

Anyway, while waiting for my eggs and seeds to breed, I run to some freshly available routes and catch some new boys for my team.

On Route 34, I find a Drowzee, who I name Nightmare. Again, this is a Pokemon I used recently, so... boxed.

On Route 35, I found a Male Nidoran! I name it Showdown, and since it has Double Kick, I'm definitely at least gonna use it for Whitney! Speaking of, that's a whole dangerous thing. She's well known as being a difficult fight. As I collect andrun around to grind and hatch the egg, I think about my strategy. I also backtrack for berries while trying to hatch it, and rematch Hiker Anthrony while I'm at it.

Eventually, the egg hatches into more eggs, which I name Fine, and I'm grinding it from Level 5 to something usable! And yes, it has Mega Drain! I use both my heals in the process of grinding, the one in Goldenrod and the one from the Luster fight at the beginning of this post. Also, wow, they are REALLY pushing the Game Boy Printer in this game, huh? Like, wow.

NITE

I slept, and kept playing when I woke up! I fought the gym trainers, and backtracked ALL THE WAY to New Bark to heal, and then went back to Goldenrod, and... sigh, bluh, FINE. I go ahead and fight Whitney.

The really dangerous thing here is that since she only has two Pokemon, well... so do I. Showdown and IndieCindy accompany me, while the full-health T.I.M.E. and Fine (and the essentially obsolete KnifeFight for that matter) are boxed, and I head for the leader herself.

As with most gym leaders, their non-ace Pokemon are basically meaningless. Clefairy goes down quick and easy. Miltank, though... hff. I lead against it with IndieCindy and get off two Smokescreens before his health got too low to keep going. I switched, healed, used Double Kick, and was disappointed by how much damage it did. Showdown (who had evolved in the process of grinding) was infatuated, so I switched back to the restored Cindy and got off some more smokescreens, and so it goes. Friggin' Milk Drink... such garbage.

Showdown got killed by a critical Stomp, which leaves me one Pokemon away from the end of the run, yet again. Ember burned Miltank, but I was infatuated back. It could be a simple war of attrition thanks to the burn, if not for Milk Drink making it last way longer.... but I did, EVENTUALLY, manage to do it!!

I lay Showdown to rest. He wasn't with me for long, but he served his purpose very well. I pull TIME and Fine from the PC, and head off towards Route 36, to fight that Sudowoodo!!!

Rock Throw takes down a solid half of Fine's health. That's less than ideal. I manage to put it to sleep and heal, and drain its health, catching it handily! I name it Wiggles. Since I'm close enough, I run back to Cherrygrove, and heal there, finally.

On Route 37, after 3 Hoothoots, I run into a Stantler! But... I ran out of balls trying to catch it.

While exploring Ecruteak, Luster appears, catching me off guard. Fortunately I match his team size (4 to 4) but I'm unprepared for the battle.

I mostly get through it alright. T.I.M.E. evolved into Noctowl. And Fine... well. Fine died. Which sucks, and means I wasted a lot of time, but also... I have an infinite supply of fresh Mega Drain Exeggcutes. I run back to the daycare after talking to Bill in the Center, retrieving another egg egg, and in Goldenrod I visited Bill's house, and he gave me an Eevee, which I named Furries! Which also means I can't get a Pokemon from the Goldenrod Game Corner. :P

You may notice that “Furries” doesn’t lead to a link to the song in question there. That’s because the official video from Neil’s own Youtube channel featuring that song has been wrongfully taken down based on a false copyright claim, despite it being Neil’s original mashup work. If you want to listen to it, it’s track 3 on the freely available album Mouth Silence.

I catch Pokemon in the Burned Tower (a Koffing, named Fuzzy) and on Route 38 (Meowth, named Cat Hacks) and box them both before going to work... and then I put off writing this for nearly a week! But I did that, so I'll be playing again soon.