#like damn i really wrote 2000 words on these guys like that like... damn

[papercorgiworld]

A good excuse to kiss

The requested Theo and Mattheo version of ‘a good excuse to kiss’

In order to keep your best friend’s relationship a secret you have to distract a certain slytherin.

Aria (cameo by @justdizzie ) is your Gryffindor best friend and has a secret relationship with Draco.

Read the Enzo and Blaise version here.

Not really proofread, so let me know if there's any major errors that hurt your brain. I really wanted to write and post something for my 2000 reblogs milestone so this might be a bit rushed. Anyways, here's some Mattheo and Theo content, I feel like it's been a while since I wrote for them, so enjoy and lots of love to all of you.

Damn it, Aria, where are you? It was lunch time and you still hadn’t seen your friend. You were seriously getting worried, which brought you to the door of Draco’s room. You were pleased to find the Slytherin common room empty, since Aria and Draco’s relationship was top secret you really couldn’t bring her up around his friends. 

“I think we should get up.” Draco whispers softly as his hand strokes Aria’s soft hair. With still sleepy eyes she looks up at him. “But I’m so comfy.” Draco smiles and gives her a soft kiss on top of her head, before wrapping his arms around her.  

Your fist hits the door hard. “Malfoy!” You yell and immediately you take a step back hearing a lot of noise and loud whispers. “What do we do? Quick hide.” “Where?” You roll your eyes. “It’s me!” You yell and Aria on the other side of the door relaxes her shoulders. “It’s (y/n). Thank Godric." Draco relaxes as well and can’t help but smile. “We’ve got to stop doing this.” He sighs and Aria frowns at his words. “I mean the secrecy, not the dating!” Draco immediately explains. “Idiot. Like I would ever let you go.” He mutters, before kissing his girlfriend so she can’t complain about his little insult. 

The door opens and you see Aria’s messy black hair and apologetic brown eyes. “We overslept. Keep guard for a moment, I’ll be there in sec.” You nod, but as soon as the door closes you shake your head. Being the only friend that knows of their secret relationship was an honor, but also a full time job. Luckily for you, everyone was at lunch so no one would come looking for them, except…

Theo

You hear someone enter while cursing. “Where is that little sneaky slippery guy now?” You quickly scan the room to see if you can hide somewhere, but you don’t really see a way out and also you suddenly remember that you have to stand guard. Theo’s agitated gaze lands on you, fidgeting and awkwardly staring around the room. Things just got weirder, but also more interesting for Theo. “Why are you standing in front of Draco’s door like you’re hiding a dead body behind it?” You immediately feel caught, but you frown at the mentions of a dead body. “There’s no dead body.” You say, determined to prove to him you have no secrets, taking a few steps towards him in an attempt to keep him away from the door just in case he could hear Aria. “And how would you know?” Theo raises an eyebrow as his eyes meet yours. Gods, Theodore was the most smug and self confident guy you had ever met. 

“I checked.” You state and Theodore’s tongue wets his bottom lip while he raises his eyebrows. “And why exactly were you checking Draco’s room?” Your eyes widen a little as you fall short on excuses. “I-I-I’m I’m-I had a project… with Malfoy. I have a project with Malfoy and I came to check if he had done his work.” Despite your stammering you convince yourself you did well with your answer, but Theodore was far from buying it. 

“You’re a shit liar.” Theo snaps and shoves you aside, heading for Draco’s room. “Now let’s see what that blond’s up to!” Your brain goes blank as you panic when he walks past you, but Aria was your best friend so in an instant your instincts take over. You grab Theo’s arm and pull him towards you. Not expecting you to so violently jerk his arm Theodore turns towards you, but you give him no time to question your actions… or for you to question your own for that matter. Your hand reaches for the back of his head and you pull him in for a kiss. Theo lets you and even moves closer to you, his hands tracing from your hips to the small of your back. When you finally pull away your actions dawn on you and you’re met with a very amused and smirking Theodore. “What was that?” He demands in a soft whisper. Your mouth opens but your brain hasn’t come up with an excuse for your behavior yet, making Theo chuckle softly at your lost expression. “If you can’t come up with any good excuses your only option is to kiss me again.” His voice is suggestive, but you’re still too worried about your friend to realize he’s flirting. “I could always go check that room.” Theo suggests when he gets impatient with you and within a heartbeat you’re kissing him again.

This time Theodore meets you with even more passion and you can’t deny that he’s doing everything right. “Remind me to thank Draco later for whatever he’s got you keeping secret.” Theodore breathes in between kisses as his mouth sloppily works down your neck.

“Thank me for what exactly?” Draco’s voice has you spin away from each other to meet his smirk. Theodore doesn’t look very fazed by being caught, rather annoyed that the little make out got interrupted. When Theo looks over at you he immediately falls in love with your flustered look. You were very embarrassed, but at least you were a good friend to Aria.

Mattheo

“Ey Malfoy!” You’re startled when you recognise Mattheo’s loud and demanding voice. “Get your incredibly white ass to the great hall, you’re la-” Mattheo stops and his eyebrows knit together when he spots your sheepish figure standing in front of the door of Draco’s room. “What are you up to?” He demands, suspicious as he was about everyone but his close circle of friends. You cross your arms. “Nothing.” Your answer only makes Mattheo more curious and assures him that he’ll get whatever secrets you’re keeping out of you easily since you obviously possessed no skills of lying. 

“I recognise trouble when I see it.” Mattheo calmly walks over to you, his eyes falling down your figure, taking in every detail like he was going to find out all your secrets by watching you intently. You huff and try to wave away the fact Mattheo is successfully intimidating you. “You, Riddle, are trouble, I, on the other hand, am the innocence itself.” You state, tilting your head as you make your argument. Mattheo snorts and walks around you, making you turn and narrow your eyes at him. You were not some prey he could circle like this. “You weren’t just standing here, doing nothing. So explain yourself.” You lose all focus when he says those words as you see the doorknob of Draco’s door turn behind Mattheo. 

Smiling and unaware of Mattheo, Aria appears at the opening of the door and the panic that rushes over your face informs Mattheo that something’s going on. “Wha-” He turns, but you grab his face, squishing his cheeks in your hands. “What are you doing?” He demands with his face still smushed together. Aria is still in view and you realize that she’s going to hide somewhere to get out of the slytherin common room. Your attention is brought back to Mattheo when his hands pull on yours, but you can’t let him turn around so here goes nothing. 

You hoped that Mattheo’s eyes would close, but they go wide as your lips slam against his. Knowing that Aria is going to need a few seconds to get out of this room you decide to go in for a deep kiss, all or nothing. It only takes Mattheo a moment to realize what your effort is all about and he wouldn’t be a true slytherin if he didn’t take an opportunity like this to make out with a pretty girl. No secret you were keeping was worth missing out on a little make out session with you, according to Mattheo’s book. His hands immediately slip under your skirt to rest on your thighs and you want to complain about this rather blunt move of his, but when he finally kisses you back you let him because no guy had ever kissed you like this. There was an immense fire of desire in the way he kissed that ignited a deep longing for more within you. 

When he knows he’s doing it right he squeezes your ass urging you to move against him and allowing him to pick you up and push you against a nearby wall. Aria who has by now made it to the other side of the room is shocked by what she’s seeing. Her best friend who’s always so innocent full on making out with Mattheo Riddle of all guys and this before the day had even started properly. For a split second Aria considers coming to your rescue but as a soft moan leaves Mattheo when your fingers entangle with his hair and you throw back your head allowing him to nip at your sweet spot, your friend decides it best not to interrupt this and rather tease you about it later.

Picture source: https://pin.it/1WOSNnX6U

[winwintea]

WayV as my favorite songs

AUTHOR’S NOTE ↬ no one asked for this but i can do whatever i want lol. i need to flesh out every single nct member and this is the easiest way for me to write for them: music

PLAYLIST ↬ here just in case you would like to listen to any of them lol

OTHER VERSIONS ↬ dream | 127 | wish (when i post them eventually lol)

LIU YANGYANG ↬ 火 - A-Mei

yangyang is a certified y2k baddie. i'm fully convinced he was born in the wrong era. like he would've rocked the 2000s so much, if only he was born 10 years earlier. 火 is quite literally yangyang, don't tell me other wise, like yangyang is🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥the lyrics are so him coded. HE JUST LOVES MUSIC DON'T TELL HIM TO STOP! in true wayv fashion the song is probably about sex

XIAO DEJUN ↬ 爱 - 小虎队

my god. dejun....... literally such a romantic, but he's like the youthful style romantic?? (does that make sense) 爱 just fits him so well cause it's like young love, peaceful vibes, literally i'm in love with this man. I BET YOU ANYTHING HE KNOWS THE SIGN LANGUAGE TO THIS SONG BY HEART. heartthrob dejun of the 90s. LIKE CAN YOU IMAGINE HIM IN THE 90s???

QIAN KUN ↬ 你是我永远的乡愁 - fei yu-ching

you know the guy that sings the xue hua piao piao song? yeah this is one of his songs. another way for me to call kun a boomer but am i wrong??? is this man not a boomer??? i'm sorry. nah but i got a feeling that kun really likes old old music. i'm talking teressa teng, all those classics. and i can't blame him they're bangers. couldn't go straight with a jay chou song bc that'd be too easy i wanted to challenge myself.

DONG SICHENG ↬ 我愿意 - faye wong/王菲

i love love love faye wong....... all of her songs. she's so talented bruh. and i love winwin! wow those go great together! jkjk, i have reasons for this too. this song is quite literally so special so romantic like damn. i have a feeling that winwin, whoever his partner is, he would literally worship the ground they walk on. HE WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR THE ONE HE LOVES. these are literally all love songs but my wayv boys... i picture them in love all the time okay.

WONG KUNHANG ↬ 失戀 - grasshoper

everytime i hear this fucking song i laugh so hard bc WHO WROTE THIS???? WHY DID YOU MAKE IT HAPPY??? hendery is such a comedian, we all know that. he just has this extremely playful vibe to him. the lyrics of this song... are certainly tragic.... it's about a dude who's chasing after girl who doesn't like him but also talking to another guy who likes the same girl and they both cope with their misery together. LIKE... hendery gives me the vibe that for all his misfortunes and troubles he would just laugh it off. which is not okay, but it's how he is. :((

CHITTAPHON LEECHAIYAPORNKUL ↬ play/我呸 - jolin tsai

literally do not know any thai songs i apologize, but if you got any good recs. really any jolin tsai song could fit ten's vibe tbh, like especially 舞孃 could work too. i chose play bc the gays like it (this is a joke but also kinda true) i could say that she's basically the "lady gaga of cpop" (not my words okay) play is just so sassy, and playful, really fits the vibes that ten has going on there. gay.

perm taglist ↬ @lyvhie

[gingus-doon]

For AUs... How about an AU where Keiji and Megumi both survive the First Trial? I'd like your take on that :)

you have opened pandora's box! i hope you're prepared to read a whole ass essay JSHDKABD

BUT SERIOUSLY TY THIS IS SO INTERESTING!! i saw your post on this already and commented on it then (in the tags ofc JGVKDDJDJ), bUT that was the meta of yours that inspired me to think that, maybe, keiji wouldn't be the way he is without that particular first trial and its outcome..? so i'll be operating under that assumption for these scenarios, so as not to feed a fed horse! (as peta would say,)

this does seem like quite the task, considering that it would require both conceptualizing megumi when we have minimal information about her, and reconceptualizing keiji to the keiji before the death game, when we also have minimal information on how he thinks in general... (and his characterization in this is all based on a theory to begin with, so it's not the most steady foundation lol)

of course, their first trial would need to be something else for this au… to keep things simple, it'd be best if it was neutral– neither him saving or not saving megumi, to neither restore nor forsake his faith in himself. megumi saving him would probably leave some positive impression of her on him too, so a trial which includes none of those things would be mosy fitting. but the trial itself isn't what's interesting, so i won't go into it further djdksbdk.

assuming they don't have a trial together, they'd meet each other the first time with everyone else-- i'm sure megumi would recognize keiji after the initial shock of how different he looks. and even if keiji tried to distance himself from her, she'd mention she knows keiji right away. i do think she'd have quite a bit of logic in her, but not an unsympathetic amount! however, she has been shown to throw morality to the wind when protecting keiji in the past (though asunaro may have been involved in the coverup in ways we don't yet know), so i think she'd do something similar here. she'd say she knows him and possibly that he's a police officer to solidify his standings amongst the other participants, assuming that keiji doesn't lie for himself first.

speaking of what keiji would do… so, i'm reconceptualizing him as more solemn and maybe a bit less guarded? however, it's also important to keep some level of his chill with his stupid grin and avoidance, because that constitutes a large part of how he copes with his trauma. a keiji wrestling between solemn genuineness and avoidant nonchalance, protector and sacrificer, logic and emotion! a mid-way between the two extremes of before the shooting and during the normal death game. definitely more stoic, though… less smiley but not brooding either. i think a more stoic, perhaps more reserved personality pre-death game would make a lot of sense for keiji, considering that he has absolutely no friends.

BUT ANYWAY!! back to what i was saying– i think megumi would lie in keiji's favour, because she wants to get him out of there alive (sympathetic megumi ftw!) but she may hold it over his head a bit, if only to keep him in line with her plans by means of guilt. it's worth it, though, if she can make up for what happened with the shooting– really, she couldn't believe it when she saw keiji! after he quit, i bet they'd barely seen each other since. the bags under his eyes make his face look so gaunt and haunted compared to how he was when he was a kid…

she still treats him like a kid, too. they slowly fall into the mentor-pupil relationship again they had before, by habit, like ancient cogs beginning to turn for the first time in years. but, this isn't all easygoing, of course.

i don't think megumi would apologise for the coverup. at least, not right away. she seemed very keen on ignoring it back when the shooting happened, so despite any guilt she'd have around the incident, she doesn't bring it up. keiji's somewhat content to keep it that way as well, considering that facing what he did would shatter him. but being with megumi is like facing the shooting… i'm sure being with her like that would bring up bad memories and relight slumbering resentment. he'd eventually want an apology, an explanation, something… how soon "eventually," would be, though, i'm not sure. especially considering that keiji wants to survive, and megumi will help him do that.

though, i think keiji's will to live in this scenario would be a little weaker, oddly enough. because when he kills megumi, that plunges him into the confirmation of himself as a sinner-- he has more to run from, and if he's killed two people now for the sake of his well-being (first because he feared for his life, second in hopes of being rid of his trauma), why not do it again? he's not going to dwell on it anyway, he's not going to look…

but keiji in this scenario is wrestling with himself. he'd still like to be a protector. maybe… it's still possible? maybe he's not damned just yet? maybe there's worth in sacrificing his life for the more vulnerable.

and that internal conflict could potentially clash harshly against megumi's goals of getting them out alive by any means necessary. she's not malicious, and she wouldn't try to get someone killed for the fuck of it, but when it comes down to it, she's just there for them.

i do think megumi would feel guilty for the children, though… gin and kanna are so young. sara is so bright-eyed and clever, it almost reminds her of what keiji was like back then… but she's willing to shoulder the guilt of murder for keiji this time, if only to finally atone for what she did to him and to save herself as well.

there's a few ways this could go though!! i have about four. 1) megumi is ruthlessly logical as keiji is in the actual game, and keiji goes along with it for the sake of his own survival. they end up being the sole survivors of the death game; keiji hates megumi and is entirely broken // 2) same as the last one except the rest of them thwart megumi and keiji's evil plans and maybe keiji and / or megumi die.. :v // 3) megumi is still ruthlessly logical BUT keiji's resentment of megumi and his morals push him away from her and he works against her to protect everyone // 4) megumi starts out logically, but noticing how keiji has changed as a result of his trauma and how cold he's become (she can see the same strains of her "forget morality, save yourself" logic in him and some of his decisions) she decides to let herself fall to emotion and either sacrifices herself for keiji or someone else.

and, some misc. things i didn't get to mention above....!!

i REALLY loved your idea of megumi being team mom. with the above in mind, it's exactly parallel to keiji's role in the normal death game! a should-be protector wracked by guilt who abuses their power regardless. and to think of keiji potentially taking on the role of the abuser while also possibly being one of the vulnerable underneath the force of that power… it's just really interesting!

depressing parallels aside though, i think megumi would be a nice sensible mom figure for this group of idiots sjfhddj. maybe a little blunt or initially distant, but ultimately caring.

as for her role in a wider sense, i think megumi would actually be more trustworthy than keiji is in the normal death game. although she has the disadvantage of sexism working against her, she's actually in a police outfit and lacks the shady appearance. i'm certain she could conduct herself in a way that would garner everyone's trust-- she wouldn't have any questions she needed to dodge like keiji in the main game, unless keiji brought up the shooting, but even then, that's much less severe than murder. there wouldn't be any creepy flirting with her either, not only because there's no questions to dodge in the first place, but i think she'd opt to use her authority to harshly shut down any opposition, like she did with keiji after the shooting. and when that fails, she'd fall back on logical and / or manipulative rebuttals. i also think a large part of why nao and reko specifically don't like keiji is because he's a man! a creepy man at that, and that feeling really is justified, but the point is that megumi's a woman, a respectable woman, so they wouldn't have the same qualms with her. she could also prove herself to be a more capable leader than sara, being older and still having a cool head. she'd very much come off as a reliable leader if she tried to, i think.

but back to happier things!! i think keiji would take on a less authoritative role if under megumi's wing. it's hard to say exactly how his role would change, considering that we don't know if keiji saw the percentage papers normally, and if he did in this au, would megumi as well and would they both try to cling onto sara for survival's sake? BUT i'm not going to get into that, i just want to say that i think it'd be neat if keiji took up an older brother position to in group! kind of the same as the normal death game, except he has less control over what the group does and is more on the same standings as the other participants. i think he'd get closer to being a genuine protector in this scenario, fail sooner at his attempts to avoid emotional attachments to the other participants, and i also think he'd do a lot less of the creepy flirting!! because really, the only reason he did that anyway was to dodge questions, and that'd be a lot less necessary if 1) he had dependable megumi vouching for him from the beginning, therefore making him less suspicious to the others // 2) megumi's death would no longer be a topic of concern cos it didn't happen! // 3) if someone attempted to dig up info about his past or something of the sort, something that could get in the way of the group's trust of him and therefore keiji and megumi's chances of survival, megumi could likely shut it down as she has a good reputation amongst the group. besides, the only one who would say shit like that is shin, and people don't trust him very much anyways sjfjsbfnd.

i think keiji and sara would potentially have a less manipulative and more wholesome friendship in this au ahhh ;<;

as much as a manipulative dick megumi is to keiji in this au, she gets softer when his hallucinations seem to be affecting him more, or when he has nightmares. (CAN YOU TELL I'M A SUCKER FOR FLAWED BUT GENUINE MENTORSHIPS YET)

i've started to become STAUNCHLY AGAINST the notion that keiji killed megumi maliciously or that he would kill megumi maliciously!! because logically, it'd probably be more beneficial to have such a trustworthy ally in the death game (maybe not trustworthy to him, but to everyone else) and emotionally, I JUST THINK THEY'D HAVE BEEN CLOSE BEFORE OKAY AND I DON'T LIKE THE IDEA THAT HE'D KILL HER 😭😭 (that's more my emotions than his LOL, but i think it's so important that megumi's murder was an inactive murder that keiji was unsure of to the moment it happened and beyond!! you could say his angst about killing megumi during the 2nd main game is more about him killing another person, regardless of whether or not it was megumi, BUT i like to think the fact that it was megumi SPECIFICALLY was significant to him.) so that's why throughout i haven't really entertained the idea of him trying to kill her or anything like that, especially considering the theory i'm weaving this au under, which dictates keiji would likely be a lil softer + more emotional :>

CONSIDER,,, in that scenario i posed where megumi sacrifices herself for someone / keiji: while she's dying or before her death, she hugs keiji and tells him she's sorry, it wasn't his fault. no one's ever told him this before because he's refused to talk about what happened with anyone after her dismissal of it. after she says that, though, it feels as though he's let out a breath he's been holding for years and some of the weight of the shooting is finally gone.

that's all i can think to say at the moment, SO… to sum things up– a tl;dr, if you will--

(i never actually watched this show so pls don't kill me if the casting choices are weird 😭😭)

i hope this wasn't too derivative of yours or too horribly self indulgent to read LOL. this wasn't nearly as thorough as i could've been, but it might've been a bit much to consider more branching paths ajdbsns. thank you for letting me rant about keiji and megumi, i was thinking about them earlier today so it's nice to be given a chance to ramble about them again!!

[furblrwurblr]

Patience, love!

Hey hey hey! Guess who made another Douxie x reader soulmate fic? m e

Douxie x Reader Soulmate AU, fluff, angst. crack if you squint.

Warnings: Swearing, I was far more casual this time, more misunderstandings aha, angst if you squint but it's not that hidden

The song in question: here, viewer discretion advised. It's emo boy by Ayesha Erotica, and this fic doesn't make a whole lot of sense without it? It can but you'll have to wait for a vague clarification.

Please enjoy our boy feat. Zoe!

Part 2

For as long as you’ve lived, your soulmate’s thoughts about you wrote themselves on your body, just as they had for nearly a millennium. You could tell you’d missed yours a few times. Back in Italy, you’d often stumble out of an alley after a riveting fight with a litter of canal criblets and their mother (why did the only aggressive species of hippocampi have their kids in the canals?) with quiet compliments and passing thoughts along your limbs.

“Another wizard? I wonder where they studied,” or “That was quite a spell, great technique! Wait! Watch out for the-” (that time you’d been a teeny bit distracted by the compliment and whirled around just in time to meet a screaming criblet doing its damndest to bite your face off with its nasty little teeth and bruise you with its impish little hooves. The fuckers were sharp.) The critter left you in a blinding blast of blue. Someone dressed in near all-black ran past you, but by the time your eyes cleared, the blue light was blasting away across the canal and a couple of violent hippocampi babies prevented you from following. Since, you always kept an eye out for that telltale blue light.

༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓

Over time, soulmate laws abated, seen as inhumane towards those unfortunate enough to not have one and those who simply didn’t want one. The law changes allowed you to date around a bit, but, with each partner, you felt more and more guilty as you learned about your true soulmate. By now, you’d discovered he’s a he, he’s a wizard, and he’s a hopeless romantic. Often he’d daydream about all kinds of cheesy dates and tropes he hoped to do with you. Most painfully, he thought about how excited he was to experience everything with you for the first time. Of course, you two had already had mental conversations about it and though he always accepted it, you could tell he was a bit disappointed. You didn’t have many firsts left and said you’d save those at least, but he, sweetheart he was, said he’d just give you more firsts. First scuba dive. First romantic boat date, but in the clouds. First couple’s bake at 3 AM in your shared flat. 

You stopped dating after that.

༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓

Now, it was the start of the 21st century and you were impatient. You’d traveled everywhere, sign of that beautiful blue, and no help from your cheeky soulmate. Every time you asked if he was in a new country, he’d tell you: “That’s for me to know, and you to find out.” It made you tear your hair out, never settling down anywhere. After a while, he seemed to notice you were moving slower, motivation no longer able to breeze you through three large villages in a month. He started being super obnoxious about how much he “looooved America, Merlin’s beard, Land of the Free! Free! Dobby is free! What a wondrous place!” After a sharp word and a warm, giddy feeling from him, you were on a plane to The ‘States. What a way to start your 2000’s, huh?

Sixteen years. It had taken you sixteen years to comb the country, starting from New York and finally reaching California. You could feel your hope dwindle, but you had one last straw to go on: Benoit’s. He’d wanted to take you there a couple times within the past couple years so it must be in his area. Problem is, the entire west coast was covered in them, every city, small and large, having at least one. You’d ruled out the other states after years of searching, only California was left. With a bittersweet, determined huff, you boarded the plane.

༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓

You gave up. Where the fuck was this guy? For the first time in your life, you decided to settle. You’d looked in every nook and cranny California had to offer and didn’t find him. No magic, no man, no nothing. Seeing as you couldn’t seem to find shit, you turned to your magic. You could cast a few defensive and offensive spells, but your speciality was tracking. Ironic, isn’t it? You’d tried searching for him that way, but his aura was too warded and its memory too faded from your memory to work. However, now you were doing it for yourself. You bought a map and worked your magic, seeking stone swinging in perfect circles and settling around a small town called Arcadia. Funny, you hadn’t been there yet. What if- no. “He’s gone”, you reminded yourself. You found a flat in the area and set off. 

༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓

Douxie felt it the moment you gave up. He didn’t know exactly what you’d given up on, but he did know he hadn’t seen any more locations pop up in a couple weeks. For some ungodly known reason, he didn’t realize that all your questions of his whereabouts weren't just a passing curiosity. He was waiting for fate to bring you two together, not considering his soulmate might be so impatient and eager to meet him that they’d travel the ends of the earth. 

He’d been washing dishes at Benoit’s when his coworker pointed out the little black letters on the back of his shoulder. “He’s gone.” He went back to work with a heavy heart. “So much for waiting for fate,” he thought.

You’d just moved the last box into your new flat when you saw it. So much for fate? You spent the rest of the day in bed, tears christening your rented mattress. “I guess he gave up too.”

You couldn’t live off your savings forever, you only had so much gold left from the Golden Age of Piracy to sell to museums. Within a week, you’d secured jobs at the local Speedway and HexTech. You convinced yourself you were okay, that this was better for you. You bonded with your coworkers at HexTech, but there was one you were having difficulties with. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue, but you really admired her. Her name was Zoe, and you couldn’t get enough of her. 

One day, you worked up the nerve to strike up a conversation during your shared counter shift. She liked you when you got to talking, and said she’d help you finish unpacking your flat as soon as you told her why you didn’t generally act so free as you did in the past hour of conversation. You agreed to tell her while she helped you.

The two of you made a day of it. She brought snacks and a housewarming movie for you both to watch when you finished, and you made a smorgasbord for lunch paired with a good wine you’d been saving since the 1800’s. No time like the present, eh?

You plopped onto the stained couch that came with the place. Heaving a great, satisfied sigh, you looked over your flat with a smile. Settling felt good, like you had a place you belonged.

“It looks fantastic, Zoe, thank you for the help.”

“I’m good, aren’t I,” she said with a confident smile, sitting next to you on the couch. A few moments pass in silence. Her tone shifted. “Spill,” she demanded.

You sigh and recounted all that’s happened with your soulmate. Your passing in Italy. Your shame. His enthusiasm. The shift that seemed to occur all at once, both of you switching gears at the same time.

She looked at you sympathetically, knowing full well how it felt when things went wrong with a soulmate. Sucking in a breath, she hesitated. You could tell she was trying to find the right words. You almost told her it was alright that she didn’t have to-

“He sounds like a dumbass,” she blurted. 

You shared a laugh, agreeing.

“I really do like him,” you sighed. “Some part of me still has something there, you know? This is one of the few places I haven’t looked, there’s a Benoit’s here, but I’m… I’m petrified.”

Zoe looked you over. “Give me your phone.” She held out her hand and cut off any protests. After some fiddling, she handed it back and you found 5 alarms and 2 calendar events, all with very obnoxious titles. “You. Me. Benoit’s. You’re not getting out of it, I’ll bring a grit-shaka if I have to.

You groaned and moaned about it as she put in the movie, the self-satisfied smirk never leaving her face. You quieted down as the movie started, realizing there was no way around it. You were secretly thankful for such aggressive support, but opted to shake all thoughts of soulmates from your mind as you shared this moment with your new friend.

༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓

Today was the day. You’d gotten into something comfortable to try and calm your nerves, but it wasn’t doing much. After fixing your hair for the third time, you jumped at a knock on the door. Zoe came in, grabbed your purse, and pulled you out of the building by the wrist. You started walking, the cafe only two blocks away. By the first block your hands were shaking. Zoe pulled you behind Stuart’s electronics and held up a grit-shaka.

“Mother Midril, you were serious?”

“Deadly,” she said, looping it around your neck.

Your shaking calmed instantly, your magic preventing it from getting too out-of-hand. Troll magics were tricky.

You two walked in and sat at a booth, ordering your respective coffees and breakfast items from a nice young man, he couldn’t have been older than sixteen. After a bit of a wait, the voice of Adonis himself asked you both how you were doing, handing you your coffees. He spoke with Zoe a bit and introduced himself to you as Douxie. You confidently responded in kind, but your mind could only think of one thing.

You struggled to keep your composure, even with the grit-shaka. Yes, the thing calmed your nerves, but damn did it bring back some old habits. You saw Zoe’s eyes widen at Douxie’s arm but paid it little mind. He was hot. Long hair, tight jeans… you barely responded coherently as Emo Boy by Ayesha Erotica blasted through your brain. Yes, it was embarrassing, yes, you wanted your soulmate more than anything, but gods above he was your type and you’d be damned to not appreciate it.

As soon as he left, you brought your hand behind your neck and removed the blasted thing, looking at Zoe in shock. Her expression mirrored yours but for a very different reason. Douxie was the dumbass. And you’d just technically praised his dick, insulted him, and asked him to fuck you over 10 times, and it was all written up his arms and probably around his torso. She broke out into a cackle, tears mildly smudging her mascara. You were utterly confused and looked at his retreating figure over your shoulder, noticing a thought coming up the arm you’d slung over the booth chair. 

“I’m flattered, I think? You must be the little minx at table three. I knew you weren’t one for waiting, but at least buy me dinner first! I’ll be right out, just let me grab my sweater to cover this a little bit. Think of the children!”

You stopped breathing altogether. Tightening your lips, you let out a muffled scream and pulled Zoe from her seat across you. Your elbow knocked over your coffee and you nearly did the right thing of helping, but you didn’t have time. All these 800 years, all your hope and searching, and you make the worst possible first impression. Sure, it wasn’t good already, but now he had a face to put to the shame. You stumble out the door, Zoe’s laughter still following you out of the now-silent diner.

Douxies pale cheeks were blazing with color as he pulled on his sweater in the break room. Going over, ahem, such blunt words, no matter the context, wasn't good for his health. His shirt raised and he saw the hurried words appear near his hip, chuckling as he started to read. He’d seen the grit-shaka; they must have taken it off.

“Shit, it’s you? I knew going was a bad idea, I’m so sorry, I’ve probably made you so uncomfortable, I’ll be going now.”

Wait… going? Douxie slammed the door open, hearing the wall plaster crunch inside. Table three was empty and covered in coffee, your purse was still there, and the diner was completely silent. Your coat swished out the door and he tripped over himself, stumbling between tables to get to the door. He ran out into the empty street, looking for something, anything. His boss called him back in to help, and he sulked into the diner. Bending down to pick up the cup so he could mop up the mess, he lit up. Your purse. It sat on the seat, the various charms and keychains glistening with the glow of one of Mordrax’s miracles.

༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓

You and Zoe made it back to your flat, out of breath. Zoe was still giggling as she reactivated the wards on the door. You plopped on the couch again, this time in shock. Zoe shook you out of it, eyes sincere. 

“You have to go back.”

“I one hundred percent do not, there’s absolutely nothing holding me to that.”

“There’s me, dipshit, and there's something else. You’re too empathetic to put him through any more.”

You looked at her, surprised. “What do you mean?” you asked, voice small.

She explained how much it hurt him that you’d dated others even though he knew it was entirely your decision. How much of a hole it made in his heart when you gave up. How he dropped his regular temperament for a sullen, depressed shell of the man he was, going through the motions and not much more.

“I understand if you want to wait a while, but-”

“But I have to go back,” you said, drawing your knees to your chest. She scooted closer to you, wiped your gathering tears, and planted a light kiss on your forehead. She snorted when you brought your hand to the spot she’d just kissed, checking for residue from her jet black lipstick.

She gently swiped a thumb across her lip and bopped your nose. “No-transfer. I buy the good shit,” she said with a smile.

She put on a calm movie and wrapped you in a blanket, telling you how proud she was at your bravery and discussing plans for returning to Benoit’s.

༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓・༓

Three weeks later, Douxie had called you a few times. You'd left your phone at home in Zoe’s insistence and left your purse at the scene of the crime. Now, you were ready to sort out more than your missing belongings. You walked out of your flat prepared to have another go. Sort of. You had a decorative facemask on, a large dark sweatshirt (to deter being perceived in any way), and no intention to actually speak to him. You just wanted him to know you were there and not completely rejecting him. Zoe had spoken to him, so he knew you’d be there during his shift and how nervous you were. You were grateful for her, she’d told him the gist of what you couldn’t say yourself, but some things she’d said were best heard from you. 

You sat down, fingers twitching. God, did you want to pick at something. You settled for scratching at the table, not feeling like making a mess of lint in the same booth you’d drenched in coffee not three weeks prior.

Douxie came with your drink, already having memorized what you ordered last time. Your purse was strapped across his body, laying at his hip. He gently placed it on the table and pushed your coffee towards you after carefully slipping something under it out of your field of view. You went to check and he covered it with a chuckle.

“You really aren’t very patient, are you?”

You covered your face and laughed. Taking a deep breath, you pulled the mask under your chin and placed your hands in his. “No, I’m not. Which is why I won’t wait any longer. I’m sorry. I was so caught up in myself I never thought to properly communicate with you. I hurt us both unnecessarily, can you forgive me?”

His eyes softened, lips lifting into a gentle smile. “Of course, love. I’ve waited for you for so long, and I had my part in this misunderstanding, so of course I can. I’m still on shift, but- ah, just check under the cup, would you?” He lifted one of your hands to his lips, gently brushing over your knuckles. “I’ll see you soon, darling,” he said, getting up and back behind the counter.

You took a slow sip of your now-cooled coffee and nearly spit it out at what he’d placed under it. Two tickets to Warped Tour laughed at you from the tabletop. You eyed them warily as you picked up the accompanying note. 

“Hey, love! I hope you haven’t been to Warped Tour, it can be our first first! Apologies for the strange wording. I’ll see you at 7:00 on XX/XX/20XX outside your flat, I’m taking you to dinner before we go. Plus, we can get that romantic boat ride in the clouds I promised so long ago out of the way too! I can’t wait. You must be rubbing off on me. I’ll be seeing you, love. -Hisirdoux”

Next to it was a paw print. Did he have a cat? Either way, he was an absolute cheek. You drank your coffee in silence, a new calendar event to look forward to. 

[yoshidas-girl-forever]

Freddie Mercury 

The Great Showman

Our paper will be about the flamboyant frontman, songwriter, and singer for Queen, Freddie Mercury. He was born as Farrokh Bulsara on September 5th, 1946 in Stone Town, Zanzibar which is now in Tanzania. Freddie was born with four hyperdontia  incisors which Mercury attributed to his vocal range and why he never got them fixed later in life.

Mercury was born to Parsi parents, Jer and Bomi Bulsara who were originally from India but they immigrated to Zanzibar because of Bomi’s job with the British Colonial Service. Freddie has a younger sister named Kashmira Bulsara who was born around the time he started his boarding school. The family practiced Zoroastrianism which Freddie never held a strong belief in.

Freddie spent most of his childhood in India and took piano lessons at age seven while living with family and at the age of eight he was sent off to study at St. Peter’s School in Panchgani. It was at St. Peter’s that Freddie started to call himself “Freddie”. At the age of twelve, he started a band called “The Hectics”. A friend recalled that Freddie had "an uncanny ability to listen to the radio and replay what he heard on piano". In 1963 he moved back in with his parents and the following year in 1964 they fled to England from the Zanzibar Revolution.

Mercury studied art and graphic design at Ealing Art College he most likely graduated with a diploma in  the year 1969 but it could be possible 1968 as well. With his skills Freddie would later go on to design his band, Queen’s, logo. Following graduation he would join a series of bands as he worked in Kensington Market selling second hand Edwardian clothes and scarfs alongside future band mate Roger Taylor. 

In early 1970, Tim Staffell would leave Roger Taylor and Brian May’s band Smile and in April of that same year Freddie would join Smile and become their lead singer. A year later in 1971 bassist John Deacon would join the band completing it. Mercury chose the name “Queen” for the band ignoring the warnings from his band mates and studio. Freddie later said about the name Queen, 

“"It's very regal obviously, and it sounds splendid. It's a strong name, very universal and immediate. “I was certainly aware of the gay connotations, but that was just one facet of it."” (Mercury, Freddie, 1970)

Also around this time Freddie Bulsara legally changed his name to Freddie Mercury. 

So Freddie’s speaking tone was in the baritone range which means it's between bass and tenor, most of his songs were in the tenor range. Mercury’s range extended from bass low F to soprano high F, also could belt up to tenor high F.

A quote from Donna Soto-Morettini book “Popular Singing: A Practical Guide To: Pop, Jazz, Blues, Rock, Country and Gospel, A & C Black” says this about Freddie’s vocals, 

“His technique was astonishing. No problem of tempo, he sang with an incisive sense of rhythm, his vocal placement was very good and he was able to glide effortlessly from one register to another. He also had a great musicality. His phrasing was subtle, delicate and sweet or energetic and slamming. He was able to find the right colouring or expressive nuance for each word.” (Soto-Morettini, Donna, book not available for preview)

In 2003 Mercury was posthumously put into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and in 05 all four Queen members were awarded a Ivor Novello Award and that was for Outstanding Song Collection from the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers, and Authors.

Now while Queen is a classic rock band they didn’t just write rock they wrote a wide variety of music genres including but not limited to: rockabilly, gospel, disco, heavy metal, and progressive rock. 

In a 1986 interview Mercury said, “I hate doing the same thing again and again and again. I like to see what's happening now in music, film and theatre and incorporate all of those things.” (Mercury, Freddie, 1986)

And Mercury did extravagant performances on stage for his audience; he even got them to join in vocal warmups with him. It was like a different personality came out on stage and he was this energetic guy who lit up the whole room. Mercury performed an estimated 700 concerts with Queen. Mercury's final live performance with Queen took place on August 9th, 1986 at Knebworth Park in England which drew an attendance estimated as high as 200,000. With the British national anthem  playing at the end of the concert, Freddie’s final act on stage saw him draped in a robe, holding a golden crown above his head, as he bid farewell to the crowd one last time.

Besides Queen, Freddie did have a small solo career.  He had two full solo albums, “Mr. Bad Guy” released in 1985  and “Barcelona” released in 1988.

In the early 70s, he dated Mary Austin but the relationship grew cold when Freddie had an affair with David Minns in the mid-70s. Mary remained close with Mercury until he passed. In the 80s, Freddie settled down with hairdresser Jim Hutton and the two got “married” even if same sex marriage wasn’t legalized until the 2000s in England. He wore the ring Jim gave him forever, it was even cremated with him. 

In either 1985 or 1987,  Freddie was diagnosed with AIDS which was a death sentence back then, proper medications and treatment for it wasn’t really there yet. A few years later Jim was diagnosed with HIV in 1990. On November 24th, 1991 Mercury passed away from bronchial pneumonia resulting from AIDS, he was just 45. He died with his husband at his bedside. Funeral services were held on the 27th and he was cremated shortly after. His ashes whereabouts are unknown and never to be told. There is a memorial plaque with his birth name on it at Kensal Green Cemetery in London England.

Even though Freddie never fathered children he was the godfather to Mary’s oldest son Richard. And he fathered many cats in his lifetime, having somewhat over a dozen cats in his life. Even a black cat showed up at his funeral. This concludes the short long lived life of Freddie Mercury

I ADORE THIS!!!!!!! The writing was perfect,the wording amazing and it was just a great essay!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That teacher damn sure should've gave you a 100/100!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I loved it,thank you very much Bestie for sharing this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! <33333333333

[popculturebuffet]

The Loud House Valentine’s Day Double Feature (Back in Black and Stage Plight) or My My My Once Bitten Twice Shy

What is up my Loudites? And while I am returning to the Loud House I do have some sad news to get out of the way first.. i’m ending regular coverage of the Loud House. I don’t like doing this.. but when I picked up the show, I didn’t really have a set schedule.. and that was a bad thing as I didn’t get nearly everything I wanted done. Now I have one and honestly it’s been great: it allows me to stay focused and if I end up not feeling what I was going to do that day, provided it’s not a comission or specfically needed that day, I can swap things around a bit easier. 

The reason I bring this up is Nick’s way of scheduling means I CAN’T reasonably put the show on the schedule. They often don’t announce airdates until the wee before, which isn’t a bad thing WATCHING, and isn’t unresonable for a children’s network. But for someone who likes to have a concrete schedule at the top of the month, still flexable and able to make changes if they come up but at least some idea of what i’ll be doing and when, that’s a non-starter, as not knowing when a show’s going to be there or not really messes with things. In contrast Disney puts up their entire programming schedule for next month towards the end, so I know if a show’s coming back, and thus that it’ll probably be around for next month’s too. And if it goes away a week earlier than expected then super I have that space for other sttuff. But I just have too much other stuff, paid and on my own time, to keep friday’s open in perpetuity.

I will however still reviewing the show infrequently as I still love it, Season 5 will probably have plenty of episodes I want to talk about, already it has Leni running for mayor which sounds like one of my wonky spinoff ideas and I love it all the more for that, and ther’es tons of episodes I have and haven’t seen to dig into. So like Lori I won’t be in the house on a daily basis but i’m still going to show up a lot. I already have an April Fools special planned, as well as a retrospective ready for some time in the future. And of course if more Sam and Luna episodes show up, you know i’ll be on those as fast as humanly possible so yeah not leaving the show.. just not coveirng it because I like having some control of my schedule, it’s a thing with me. 

Good then we can get to why your ACTUALLY reading this unless you’ve already scrolled past or scrolled up to this. Next Sunday is Valentine’s Day, and so to continue Valnetine’s Shenanigans on this fine blog, i’m doing some romantic style episodes of the loud hosue for you. I did intend for this to be bigger, but frankly i’ve been running behind on reviews and running out of steam lately, so I paired it down to the two I wanted to do most. So for today we’ll be covering two of the show’s couples: One they badly need to bring back and I question why they haven’t, and one that I feel has gotten a lot of flack for things that aren’t it’s fault. Both are really adorable so expect some awkward blushing, bats, blood, and other stuff rhyming with B under the cut!

Back in Black: So we begin our double feature with Lucy

Yeah I have not covered this adorable harbinger of death enough on this blog, and intended to do this one, among other lucycentric episodes back in october.. and the fact I didn’t is a good argument for why I have a schedule now ain’t it? But sometimes your plans not panning out right at the exact time you planned them works out for you. Not getting to do Plan 9 From Mission Hill during Pride Month meant I got to do it on comission later. And not getting to do this one at Halloween means it still works fine just fine for valentine’s day.  

So we begin the episode with Lincoln working on his science project, with Rusty coming over to help. 

Shockingly though not only is he not just taking a nap or hitting on Lincon’s sisters while Lincoln works but actually helping, he’s actually good at it. I’m as suprsied as you. Though this is early in his characterization, so he hasn’t’nt been established as horribly sucking at everything or his friends being done with his bullshit QUITE yet. Give him time.  This is an interesting moment in the character’s history though, as it’s the episode that firmly establishes him as a close friend of Lincolns. While he was already turned from a member of a random violence gang to LIncoln’s buddy in the span of season 1, this episode cements him as one of his closer pals simply by him coming over and the two being fairly familiar with one another. Granted by that same token Girl Jordan should be in the group.. and I have nothing to add to that. Add Girl Jordan to the Lincrew. Just do it. 

Anyways Rusty brought his brother along. And you’d expect me to be terrified as there’s now three of them. But.. nope I like Rocky. He’s a chill kid and his personality goes together well with Lucy’s as while he’s a more typical kid, he’s still very subdued in his emotions like she is. Also he mentions both parents so my divorce theory.. is honestly still valid as this was three seasons ago and I could buy their mother left during that time. 

And yes Lucy’s in love.. and stalking him a bit as she follows him around the house sighing while he wonders who did that.. though it is a nice clue their compatible. When you can sense the presence of someone whose big running gag is showing up out of nowhere to scare the crap out of people that means something. And it’s either that you’d really get that person or your Wolverine. Or one of his kids. Or his clones. Or clones of his clones. What i’m saying is Rusty’s mom banged the wolverine and his family tree is really weird even by marvel standards. 

But I do give her a pass as she’s not trying to be creepy or obsessive, she just doesn’t know how to talk to him as he’s your average kid and she’s a creature of the night. It’s just a kid being shy which is very refreshing both because pre-savnio being fired the show had some very messed up ideas about relationships and gender politics at times, the latter of which actually crops up here, and because having grown up with the cartoons of the 90′s and 2000′s.. I had to put up with things like this. 

Full Disclosure: I DO ship sonamy.. but only after around Sonic Chronicles, where Bioware and then Sega decided to not make “Constantly harasses sonic despite him clearly not being interested and saying so vocally” and “Obessess over him to a point I worry she’s going to break his legs so he’ll never run away from her again”, as well as aging her up from 12. Still find her ungodly annoying at best and terrible at worst before that point, Sonic CD and Sonic Advance excluded. And yes I am that huge of a nerd, damn proud of it too. 

What i’m getting at is that a little girl unable to talk to a guy and only being kinda creepy because that’s what she does is LEAGUES better than “IT’S NOT CREEPY WHEN A WOMAN DOES IT”. Given this episode was written by a woman that probably helped a lot if not entirely but I don’t blame her for that.. more on that later. 

Point is she’s smitten but her first attempt to talk goes back as he rushes to leave after she tries talking to him.. and also appears out of nowhere to spook him. Come on man, your better than that. YOu sensed her before why not now? Up your game. But yeah Lucy’s depressed while Lincoln talks to her about it, about them leaving and once Lucy confesses she’s into rocky asks what he’s into. Lincoln.. has no idea as he’s barely been around Rocky. He’s just an average kid he dosen’t quite understand. Normal is the word he uses and Lucy ponders that.  We next see the three most traditionally feminine sisters, Lori, Leni and Lola, all pissed someone stole their stuff, though Lori does suspect Lola at first because let’s face it, this fits her MO of being an entitled brat and not being above petty theft. But no the culprit is Lucy who genuinely apologizes and understands that their mad but the other girls are fine with it given the context, which Lucy explained, and are happy to make her over.  This is where the problem I was hinting at comes in: ALL the girls are on board with this makeover plan. the problem is.. only the three who came in in the first place make actually sense making Lucy more tradiotnally feminine. Lori loves fashion and is a control freak who has troubles with empathy at times especially at this point in the series, Leni while not INTETIONALLY hurtful is kind of ditzy and thus can miss some cues, and Lola has a yawning starless void where her soul should be. For these three? Yeah this plot actually makes sense they wouldn’t think of Lucy’s feelings and actually help her use who she is to get rocky or tell her it doesn’t matter she’s beautiful as she is.. then presumably bring the wrath of god down on that poor child before things were cleared up.  The issue is more dragging the other sisters into it. It only fits the three above to really give a shit about making Lucy more “normal” and “Girly” and “Other stereotypical bullshit”. Luna is very chill and empathetic and would be the first to say “Wait maybe making her the opposite of herself isn’t a good idea”, Luan is likewise empathetic though I could possibly see it she really doesn’t need to be in this plot, Lynn ENTIRELY doesn’t fit as she prefers sports and getting dirty and what not and is the closest to Lucy out of the sisters and thus would probably be the most defensive about her not changing and that could’ve actually been interesting, Lana would be the same minus the being closest and Lisa is coldly detached a lot of the time and wouldn’t care about any of this on a good day. It feels HORRIBLY offensive and out of character to have them all suddenly be “nah your not girly enough”. These girls don’t give a shit about whose more feminine than who and it’s really bad to pidgeonhole them as that.  However.. I dont’ blame episode writer Gloria Shen entirely for this. She wrote it, she gets some of the discredit.. but she didn’t DIRECT the episode and a LOT can change from page to screen. No  THAT was series creator and known sexual preadator Chris Savino. And i’m not just blaming him because he’s a creepy asshole, but because the seasons he directed, seasons 1, 2 and most of 3, had a bad habit of having episodes where all the girls acted as a group and often to weak ends, like the green house, the one where they all fought, the gender swap episode or  heavy meddle.. which is a headache for another day. Point is it doesn’t surprise me he didn’t fix this or even genuinely cared to differentiate  them and it’d be until next season where the show fully became an ensemble piece. SO yeah I blame him on this not for his horrible history, but simply because it sounds like his writing style and as director, and a producer on the show, he had the power and responsibility to fix things and did nothing. So if it wasn’t directly his fault in the first place , he certainly didn’t fix it, call it out in storyboarding or well anything. So yeah shared blame all around.

So after a makeover montage, Lucy is uh... well I can’t describe the abomination they’ve created. 

I mean.. none of it works, and I think that’s very much the intent, dosen’t make it any less horrifying. Nothing about this is right: makeup REALLY shouldn’t go on a child in any circumstace so the blush on her cheeks is creepy and makes her look like one of those creepy porcelian dolls that i’m 100% sure either are planning to kill us all one day or were made to keep the souls of the damned trapped inside forever. The ear rings just look creepy and again are a bit much for an 8 year old, and the blonde hair just brings it all together. The pink outfit is fine.. I guess but the face is just so unsettling I can’t process the rest of her outfit and i’m not even going to try. 

Point is she looks terrifying, and not in the fun way she usually does, and Rocky dosen’t know what to make of this. Oh and if your wondering why he’s here Lynn just.. took a hockey stick to Lincoln’s project to get the Spokes Boys back over here, and Lisa mocked him for pointing out the obvious holes in their plan despite being 4 and LIncoln having a girlfriend at this point. Granted his relationship with Ronnie Anne at this point is also kinda effed up, but given you all pushed him in this direction, Lisa still has no room to talk and they amicably broke up at some point once the writers decided “Let’s pretend like this never happened and they were just friends, despite her being introduced with a crush on him and us still replaying episodes with said relationship in play, instead of actually dealing with this directly”. You may be easily able to guess what hte retrospective’s about at this point.  So Lori comes in for phase two .. WITH BOBBY!

Just.. I cannot tell you how much I needed my boy to calm me down after the last two scenes of horribly off character writing and ... that thing up there. He dosen’t do much this episode but every episode is better with Bobby and that’s a scientefic fact. So Lori claims they had a double date fall through which Bobby barely follows along with.. and it does kinda feel pressurey to kinda force Rocky’s hand here but her intentions ARE good, and a group date is a good way to relive presssure. It just ends up falling through becaue Lori wants her to act intentionally helpless, which makes no sense both for Lori’s personality given how driven and controlling she is and how Bobby clearly knows both things and likes the first and she worked on the second for him. So yeah the golf date falls through and Lori apologizes for being a bitch about all of this, as they all do, which again. .has me questioning WHY we needed the whole sister group instead of just Lori and co. Or even just Lori. The show REALLY needed to learn character ballance and while it is struggling on occasion, as seen with how lincolncentric this season has been so far, this episode reminds me it used to be MUCH worse. 

But Lucy thanks them because their intetnions were good, i’m going to need a citation on that given it came off as them wanting her to change because they found her weird nad not because they genuinely wanted to help her, and goes off to sulk about being alone. Lincoln dosen’t know what to do till the next day where, again suprisingly, Rusty had the right idea and had them come over to his place. We also find out he’s scared of blood.. which.. I can relate to. Seriously i’ve only insulted the guy once the whole episode

But we find that out because Rocky made his own because he actually found Lucy’s really cool, what a kid. So Lincoln gets the brothers over to his house by damaging the project himself then claming they need to go back and once he sees Lucy’s around has Rocky go into the kitchen to get them some sodas which he agrees to because why not. 

So in a nice little change-up on the running gag Rocky shows up startling Lucy and we get a really fucking cute scene as they hash things out. They have a normal conversation, finally getting past their shared awkwardness, in part because he admits he prefers her as herself.  As it turns out Rocky wasn’t scared.. he just thought she was too cool for him and felt intimidated and like Lucy had no idea what to say. The two then blush and after my heart melts and I freeze it back into shape in a few hours, the two decide to go look at her coffin collection and the next day proudly show off their perfected fake blood.. which destroys the project one more time. WAH WAH WAH. Oh rusty... I knew I could count on you to fuck up at least once. 

Back in Black Final Thoughts: First off Black in Black: Weird Name. I mean it kinda gives the game away, not that fans would thikn horrifying mistake lucy would stick but still, and dosen’t really fit. Call it “Why Do Ghoul’s Fall in Love” or something like that or something related to makeovers. Makeover Mistep. Don’t Make Me Over. Makeover Your Case... okay that last one sounds more like the Legally Blond equilvent of Cobra Kai but the point is it’s just weird.  Outside of the parts I already went in detail about why their dreadful.. this ep is pretty good. That one bit isn’t enough to derail the episode, merley take it’s goodness down a notch, and Lucy is genuinely fun to watch and her heartbreak is hard to watch, and Rocky was an engaging new character with lots of potetial. A large part of why I did this episode. is to ask WHY he hasn’t come back. Rusty’s now a major character, to the point he’s co-headlining an episode next week with Zach... why Zach’s getting an episode, a SECOND one at that I have no earthly idea but the point is the show’s getitng comfortable enought heir giving lincoln’s friends starring episodes without him too, as Liam got one , if alongside Lynn the power couple of 2021 I tells ya. My point is, besides when is Stella getting an episode dammit, that Rocky really should make a come back as he both provides another character for Rusty and the rest of the lincrew to bounce off of, and he and Lucy had genuine chemstiry and now she has her OWN cast there’s an easy story there about her friends reaction to her dating a non goth. There’s a lot of story potetial with this precious boy bring him back.  But overall Pretty in Black is a decent episode, worth checking out if you haven’t seen it and rewatching even if you have.

Stage Plight: So we open with Luann, whose one of my personal faviorites along with Leni, Luna, and Lucy. Granted I haven’t checked out her yearly bouts of going ax crazy on her family yet, but we’ll see in april. But outside of that, which is easy enough to isee iven it’s three episodes out of 214 where she’s like this and she gets her compuance, I find her precious, awkward, and entertaining, from her habit of saying “Get it “ to her love of puns, to the fact she’s essentially a wholesome version of the batman villian the ventriloquist..

Yeah in case you forgot about this gag, she often talks through her dummy Mr. Coconuts.. who functions as her sounding board and helps her figure things out, talks like he’s from the 40′s or 50′s, and in general is a delight. He also once or twice, including this episode acts of his own free will so I don’t know if this is a Child’s Play situation and a dying comedian put his body in her dummy and she’s just rolling with it, if she somehow put a piece of her soul in a dummy or what the hell’s going on here. Compared to the series recently what with it’s mayoral campagins, children murdering guys, and actualy factual spies, this is mildly sane. MIldly. This may also be a serious and untreated case of Disociative Identnity Disorder, but given it’s not framed that way, and Coconuts just seems to be Luann’s way of talking with herself, for now she has’nt gone full vintriloquist. Thoguh givne her april fools day behavior and her profession as a comedian, she probably WILL become the new joker at a some point. 

So the two are talking about Luann’s crush on Benny. Benny was introduced back in L is for Love and is one of the only three love interests there to actually return, and along with Sam the only onen to get multiple episodes about their relationship with their respective loud and a full personality. He was also MASSIVELY hated. For those who joined the fandom more recently, Luann was massively shipped with Maggie, an emo girl who showed up in Luann’s second spotlight episode and one where she didn’t torment her entire family, one I still need to see but have read about. It was pretty cute and nothing was wrong with that or the opposites attract dynamic. But said fans got REALLY and understandibly upset about his introduction and were presumibly none too happy he got to return and got his roll expanded.  And I.. genuinely like the kid. I have nothing against Maggie and in fact poly ship her with both Luann and Benny, as both seem like they’d be open to that and her dour demanor creates a nice contrast between the chipper luann and the somewhat chipper but also chill benny in the middle. I just feel he’s a very likeable character, sweet and awkward and very much on Luann’s wavelength. Like Sam he’s SIMILAR to his love intrest, having Luann’s love of puns, mime and the theater, but is also not quite as giggly about it and as I said has a bit more of a chill to him, in contrast to how sam is slightly more energetic to Luna’s near constant calm off stage. 

I also like him because he’s voiced by Sean Giabrone, an up and coming voice actor who I first met watching the Goldbergs as Adam. His other biggest role so far has been playing Jeff on Clarence, though he’s currently picked up another lead voice roll as Yumulack on Solar Opposites, easily one of the best parts of that show, and has done othe rminor and recurring work, but I feel he’s got the potetial to have a long and fruitful career in voice acting if he wants it. I mean he’s far from the first former ABC star or former Ron Stoppable to make a long and successful voice career of himself. Be the next will fredle man you can do it. 

But yeah I like him and think their cute together and feel demonizing a ship for one that had a low chance of happening isn’t fair, especially when you know, we’re in a fandom where incest runs rampant and is STILL a recurring problem to this day. Pick your fucking battles for god’s sake. As I mentioned you can put maggie in with this relationship or Still ship luaggie regardless. 

So back in the episode Luann and Coconuts notice Benny signing up for the school play and decide to join him. 

Yeah i’ve noticed that a LOT of school set plots are about one of the mains joining a play to either be near or play romantic lead with their crush, or romantic hyjinks happening anyway.  Seriously i’ts a lot. I DID think most of them were around romeo and juliet, and Proud Family, Pepper Anne, and Ned’s Declassified all are probably why, it’s actually way more diverse and i’m happy to give credit to shows and movies for that:  Jimmy Neutron used Macbeth (IN SPACEEEEEE), American Dragon Jake Long used Antony and Cleopatra, as did the comic strip Foxtrot (That one I remembered), Daria used the canterbury tales, Arrested Development used Much Ado about Nothing, and one of my faviorite instances is the film Get Over it. It’s a cheesy as hell early 2000′s high school pg-13 comedy, that I loved as a teen and nos nostalgicaly love but am aware it has issues and some stitled acting as an adult where our hero joins the high school play in order to win his ex girlfriend back from the douchebag she’s seeing now and ends up falling for his best friend’s kid sister instead. They do a mid summer’ night’s dream, which is not only awesome SOMEONE thought to use that one , as the film has given me a special affection for the play.. but it’s a cheesy musical version written by the gloriously over acted director of the play played by martin short. 

My faviorite part of it is the boy band style number about Hermia. Yes really. And I didn’t even get into the fact Siquo is one of the main character’s best friends, Kristin Dunst had to reshoot a scene while making the first rami spider-man , our heroes weird parents who are sex therapists and have no real filter AND offer Coolio a threesome on their advice show, and yes the actual coolio and yes that was an actual person that existed, or best of all the douchey rival who stole our heroes girlfriend, whose not only a former boy band member whose band peformed the song love scud, but also threatens our hero with nunchucks at one point. 

Just see this movie.. i’ll hopefully talk about it some day. 

Point is this kind of plot is stock.. but it’s the good kind you can do a lot of twists and turns with as every example mentioned, even the ones using the crush thing, had some clever twist or turn. And this one is no exception as we’ll see. 

So we meet Ms. Berardo, the schools HAMMY as hell drama teacher who gives herself an entrance and is just wondrously entertaining throughout. She’s played by Grey Delise Griffin, which I could recognize immodestly and man does she bring it. Seriously bring her back. Wonderful character. So our heroine and her leading man audition and in a refreshing change of pace they do not get the lead rolls, instead a modern valley girl and a jock who writes his stuff on his arms do so instead.  But since Bernado’s a bit nuts, she decides to have the Montagues and Capulets practice separately despite tha not making a ton of sense, to drive up tension and what not. I mean isolating an actor to drive up tension is a vallid technique but even having not read Romeo and Juliet since high school, over a decade ago, I can tell you they have several scenes together and this is a logistical nightmare. However our heroine finagles her way over to swapping camps so she can talk to Benny since honestly given the whole thing was a way to get to spend more time with him, she might as well quit otherwise. It also.. isn’t a bad tactic. She wants to know him before asking him out properly, which is fair and a good way to go, and they already know each other and are friendly, and it’s something she likes doing anyway as they were both involved with a play in his first appearance and her liking theater makes sense as she’s a comedian, and while she clearly prefers standup, it’s often a natural evolution to go fromt hat to acting in comedy stuff or making your own show, so it’s not a bad idea to learn that side of the buisness too. 

So Luann FINALLY gets to talk to Benny.. after fast ball specialing mr coconuts in the way of someone trying to sit down

But we get a really cute moment as the two just.. talk like two dorky teenagers; They talk about the real mimes of la, which I want badly to be a show.. even if it’s just to find out what the Mime from Animaniacs is up to now. Where DID that guy go? Did the anvil finally kill him? These are the kinds of things that keep me up at night.. which is probably why I’m finishing this at 4 in the morning. But the two have genuine chemistry with Luann offering him her banana, phrasing, and making a pun he chuckles at. It’s adorable as all hell. 

And Bernardo notices, and since her leads have no sparks she regretfully demotes them.. though their reaction is hilariously realistic as both are just happy to have less lines and walk off. She decides to cast Luann and Benny despite being freshman which would never happen but eh this is a unvierse with a snakebird and spies trying to destroy cherries with a death laser why I do I care two seasons later if two freshman got the leads in the play. Still I love the twist: our hero wasn’t trying to get the lead to creeiply force intamacy or anything.. the two just had natural chemistry and the director noticed that and wants to use it. 

But while this should be great.. it isn’t as Luann keeps dodging actually kissing Benny when they rehearse the kiss. The reason.. is really frigging endearing. Luann simply hasn’t kissed anyone before, this will be her first.. and naturally she’s REALLY nervous about having it in front of a crowd or Benny thinking she’s a bad kisser. And I mean... while I had no personal experience at that age in kissing, most media and personal accounts detail it as awkward as fuck. But that’s the irony: she dosen’t KNOW it’s always awkward and thus is putting a ton of pressure on herself like anyone her age.

So she breaks under the pressure despite the reasurances of her Dummy/Possible Sign that she needs therapy and while she finds a way out the next Day Benny has aburbtly quit because of “chess club”.. which he’s not in. Luann finds him and talks to him about it, worried it’s her fault.. and she’s right, though Benny bowed out because she clearly wasn’t comfortable with him and didn’t want to make her kiss him when she clearly wasn’t comfortable with it. What a man what a man what a mighty good man. Luann TRIES to explain.. and then lets Mr Coconuts do it. Which usually in high school would lead to humilating rejection. instead Benny brings out his own puppet Mrs. Appleblossom. 

Just those eyes.. black and souless.. like a doll’s eyes.. because htey are a doll’s eyes. So yeah Benny also has a puppet he uses to say the things he’s too nervous to say. Which is endearing even if again , KILL IT. KILL IT. I mean i’ts like tha tone guy from victorious if the puppets were actually charming and one of them looked like it was about to play hide the soul. Mrs. Appleblossom explains that Benny is also nervous and with the air cleared and the two realizing theyw ere nervous about the same thing... the inevitible happens

So that fades into the kiss happening on stage, with Luann’s family cheering her, our heroes take a fookin bow and Coconuts and Appleblossom look on.. and talk somehow...and somehow got in the seats on their own. 

Stage Plight Final Thoughts: This episode.. is one of the series best, with great pacing, a low amount of repetition and a relatable conflict, while building up Luann’s love intrest to be a wonderful and engaging guy, and giving us a hell of a guest character and Mrs. Gerardo. This episod eis great, the chemistyr between Gambrone and Pucelli is fantastic. This one is just awesome and worth a look especially if the ship contrversy had hit you hard. It really is good. And there’s always room for benny. Until the next rainbow it’s been a pleasure. 

[corpsentry]

behind the taylor swift gundam was in fact another, smaller gundam: a brief inquiry into the events of june 2020

so back in june this year june and i got together and we made this motherfucker of a story with this motherfucker of a thread to keep track of it all. but you already know that! and i’ve already got one foot and three elbows in my grave, so i’ll spare you the long-winded stuff. you wanna know how i wrote 93,035 words in 4 weeks? i’ll tell you how i wrote 93,035 words in 4 weeks-

-by linking you guys to copies of my planning documents because i feel like those words speak louder than any words i can offer in the present day. these are long documents. but they are also historical artifacts. very interesting. very weird. very, uh, full of cussing. so anyway, here’s

BIG DADDY: THE ORIGINAL PLANNING DOCUMENT

for those, like me, who have no motivation left in life to do anything and rely on summaries from others to acquire new knowledge, it all started with a single line.

prince of a fallen kingdom atsumu tries to kill hinata but falls in love with him instead

june, april something, 2020

with that in mind i tested the concept out with a few paragraphs of text, which you can find at the bottom of the Big Daddy document in the graveyard segment, accidentally sold my soul to the image of hinata with epaulettes, and then worked backwards, structuring an entire plot around two images:

a) hinata getting the shit beat out of him, with snark b) hinata and atsumu dancing in an empty ballroom under the stars

if you want a betrayal, you have to have something worth losing. if you want to fall in love with someone you don’t know, you have to meet them. if you have to meet them, there has to be a reason for that meeting, and so somewhere in between atsumu became a sword instructor and hinata the prince with daddy issues. june and i used this method of glancing anxiously over your shoulder to see what you’d missed to fill out the blanks in the story, after which i tacked up a bunch of post-its, typed out the plot, consulted june, typed out the plot again, and then broke the characters down into a bunch of questions, like ‘what do they want?’ and ‘what do they have?’ and ‘what are they afraid of?’

with the plot more or less ironed out, i decided it was time to start writing, and then i decided that i was actually too scared to start writing after all, so instead i set a couple of timers using classroomtimers.com (15-20 minutes long) and i sat down and i wrote about the world that hinata and atsumu inhabited.

each warm-up was 300-500 words long, and for the first few days, i’d write one before getting into writing the story proper. later these evolved into simply picking a scene from the story and launching straight into it, which became useful for opening those scenes later when i got to them organically.

then i got lazy! so i stopped. but these shitty little exercises were really useful for me because, unfettered by plot, convention, or any kind of tradition hovering over my shoulder, i was able to fuck around loosely enough to realize what i wanted this story to be. it was a very contrived kind of trial-and-error, an exploration of the characters, the story, but most importantly, the tone.

RESEARCH, PLANNING, AND VICTORIAN BOUGIE FASHION

this is a loose map of the castle and Important Locations within it, which i drew up at the start so i could keep track of where everything was and how i could get my characters from point A to point B. i wanted the story to have Some kind of internal logic, you know, even if that logic amounted to ‘a compass would function normally in this world whereas kageyama tobio would not’.

99% of my planning and organizing within those five weeks took place in this lovely dotted cat journal which my sister gave me for my birthday and i repurposed into a metaphorical Diary of Suffering while working on juno. i used it for everything from keeping track of narrative threads to clothing consistency checks, but the main purpose was this: each day at about 10 pm i’d crack open the cat book to a fresh page, stamp the date and the day of suffering at the top, and then write down a list of things i wanted to write, address, or fix today. then i’d sit at my laptop and write like a madman until about 7 in the morning. with breaks, of course, for sitting in the bathroom and staring at the wall and sitting in the kitchen and staring at the wall, but mostly i was writing. and complaining about writing. you were there, you probably remember that.

anyway, here are some pages from the cat book.

aside from the fact that my handwriting is complete shit, you can see that i made zero effort for any of this to be presentable. it was mainly a way for me to keep track of my thoughts because i have the attention span of an ikea wardrobe and tend to forget things as soon as i think of them. the lack of structure also mirrored the way that i went about writing juno. while i did proceed, for the most part, in chronological order, i had a lot of weird and useless revelations during lunch, which by this point was happening around 2 am, and in the 5 minutes before the exhaustion finally hit and carried me down to hell. i changed A Lot. again, to understand exactly how much the story evolved from day one onwards, please consult the big daddy document.

in the meantime, here’s something else.

once june sent over hinata and atsumu’s character designs i sat down like the fucking fool i am and spent 2 hours poring over a document about victorian and other fashion movements of the past so i could assign a noun, adjective, and verb to each element of their outfits. i don’t know why i did this. i certainly could have not, but i attempted to make sense of their ‘fits from a logistical perspective and that went into the cat book too. everything went into the cat book. the cat book is a relic of the past now, stuffed with artifacts such as the birth of oikawa tooru, and also his demise.

MEDIUM DADDY: EDITING, PROOFREADING, AND CREEPY MURDER CATS

i finished writing on june 26th, 2020, approximately a month after i’d first started planning, somewhere around may 27th or 28th. at that point i had about 90,000 words’ worth of story and no sanity left whatsoever, so i took a day-long break to stare at a wall and listen to taylor swift’s enchanted on loop.

and then i made a new document, which you can look at using the link above, and i laid out everything i had to do. i’d discovered a fuck ton of plot inconsistencies and general errors while writing and lying awake in bed at 9 a.m., sleepless in seattle, and now that i was free of the demon egging me towards the first finish line, it was time to Deal with them. i speed-scrolled through the draft, which was 200+ pages compressed into one google doc, because i like to tempt god’s wrath, and fixed up all the plot issues over the course of a few days. this was the fun part.

the actual, hard editing was the extremely un-fun part. i reread the entire thing, paragraph by paragraph, line by damn line, from start to finish, paying especially close attention to awkward phrasing, incomplete dialogue, and moments which had fallen flat in my haste to get on to the next one. this was really fucking terrible. i spent more time lying facedown on the floor than actually editing anything, but after a long time (about a week), that, too was done.

SMALL DADDY: TITLES, SUMMARIES, AND GOOD FUCKING BYES

i spent a good eighty days thinking about the title, though hilariously enough we ended up with something that was a blend of our names. june + elmo = juno, which is, all things considered, pretty perfect, but the process of picking the title was Hell, and i Did Not Come Up With The Title until about 2 hours before posting. you can take a look at the haphazard clusterfuck of my title-selecting process in small daddy, which is linked above.

so the title was a last-minute choice. so was the summary. and the chapter divisions. and actually all the songs in the playlist for juno. the day we dropped juno onto planet earth like a newborn baby pitched out of the sky, i spent an hour hunched over my laptop, cutting my 213 page google doc into chapters based on nothing more than a Vibe. two days before that, i also attempted to voice-act the entirety of juno, an affair which ended at the 20,000 word mark with a sore throat and the kind of exhaustion one typically wants to sleep in a coffin for 23 years to get rid of. so in all honesty, i did very little editing, which is why there are definitely minor typos and/or mistakes hanging out somewhere on that chunky ao3 webpage. but whatever.

my attitude by july 5th (was it july 5th? or 4th? somewhere around there) was basically whatever. anything so i could get finish this damn thing, chuck it out of the window, and never see another google doc until the next century. i’ve been asked a few times how exactly i wrote at a rate of roughly 2000-3000 words per day for four weeks straight, and my answer has always been this: i died. what died, you ask? my soul. my spirit. my Will To Live. i’m a creature of fixations, and juno was my fixation for june. will i ever be able to do this again? would i recommend this experience to anyone? is god real? the answer to all of the above is probably no. juno was a fever dream, and so is my cat book. and so are all the lattes i had. and so was my 9 am to 4 pm sleep schedule.

but what we made is real. the research, oikawa tooru, the 4 am conversations in which i was like ‘how the fuck do i end this’ and june was like ‘jade proposal’ (the proposal was her idea. all rise for twitter user atsuhinas. she is the mastermind behind all of the Inch Resting moments in this story; i just flapped a korok leaf in her direction and made sure the air circulation was working properly) are real as fuck, and looking back, there’s a lot i’d change, but i’m lazy. and college is starting. and anyway, i did write 93,035 words in just under five weeks, four if you don’t count the week of Editing Hell, so i think that’s pretty cool.

thank you for reading this to the end, and for following us on our journey through the enigmatic taylor swift gundam fic which quite literally consumed my entire twitter account for the five weeks i spent working on it. retrospectively speaking i really was butt-obsessed so i am frankly incredibly impressed with everyone around me for putting up with a Husk of a Man for a month. thank you for doing that. thank you for indulging my vague tweeting, and our butterfly dns, and for reading 93 thousand words of gay fanfiction set in a high fantasy world with epaulettes and galettes. on behalf of june, once again, we are incredibly grateful for all your support.

if you have any questions about specific aspects of the writing process, or anything you’d like to know in general with reference to JUNO, feel free to drop me an ask through my tumblr inbox, or through my curiouscat over here. i’m aware i didn’t cover everything, but there’s frankly too much to put in a tumblr post without passing away somewhere around the 56% mark, so let me know what’s on your mind, and i’ll try to answer that to the best of my abilities. but anyway, before i go, here are some

TAKEAWAYS

one: don’t try to write 93,000 words in five weeks. seriously don’t fucking do it you will end up jittery and sleep-deprived and you will leave all your friends on read for a month. pace yourself. set realistic goals. you wrote 2k this week? that’s fantastic. you wrote 4k in a day? you absolute motherfucker. i hope you’re taking a long fucking break tomorrow. your story will not run away from you, but if you run too fast, you will get tired, and then you will pass away.

two: you don’t have to know everything about your story before you start writing. in fact if you have a single camera shot of two characters holding hands under a rose garden awning, i think that’s fucking wonderful. if you look at big daddy, you’ll realize that my initial plot draft, and all the ones following that, are not perfectly aligned with the final version of juno. i improvised over half of the scenes in this motherfucker, and to be completely honest, some of the improvised scenes were the best. fucking oikawa tooru was improvised out of nowhere. he only got written in way later, around chapter 8 or something, because i realized i needed a plot device and a source of information to keep the playing table from toppling over. i Sat Down one day and was like ‘okay, it’s time to write oikawa into the introduction. because he matters now. he didn’t matter last week but now he does, and soon he’s going to be the fulcrum of the entire story, because it’s like that with oikawa tooru’. it’s okay to change your mind halfway. it’s okay to go back and rewrite entire scenes or segments. it’s okay to highlight 4 pages of fresh, sentimental writing, and hit delete. writing is a fluid process, and you Will make discoveries as you progress through your story alongside your characters. be understanding of that iterative process. be kind to yourself.

three: You Are That Motherfucker. you, me, your dog, your dog’s friend, your dog’s enemy, all of us are that motherfucker. i never thought i’d be able to write anything longer than the great big map, which was a much simpler, linear story in which the other main character did not appear in the current timeline until like the eighth chapter. juno was different. juno was the motherfucker, and i was scared shitless of it, and to cope with that fear joked constantly while writing that it’d never see the light of day.

but it did. it was a rocky process, and i was awake for 48 hours after posting it because of the sheer adrenalin stuck in my skull, but i got through it. and i wouldn’t have been able to do it without june, who stepped in when i flopped over facedown on the floor and dragged me to my feet like the badass friend she is, and without everyone else in my life, who put up with me talking about The Thing that i couldn’t really talk about, but juno’s up there now. forever, or until the internet collapses and civilization goes extinct. and if the nineteen year old clown with the attention span of an ikea armchair and an a level certificate from hell wrote the 93,000 word long thing, so can you. i mean this completely unironically and with every ounce of genuine emotion i can summon from the cracked asshole of my heart.

writing is hard. writing is scary. writing is an investigation of the world around you and therefore, by extension, yourself, and that kind of honesty is freaky. it’s like going skinny-dipping next to the president’s mansion. who’s going to see you? what if they take a photo? what if you lose your spot at university?

but don’t think about that. our world is overrun with stories the way cereal bowls are full of cereal, but it’s those stories that keep us all sane in the disgusting day-to-day muck of reality, so think about your story. what’s haunting you today? what message do you want to leave printed in font size 666 comic sans across the southern hemisphere of the planet? what will you be tomorrow?

a writer. you’re going to be a motherfucking writer.

[sircarolyn]

douz thoughts:

man i love this episode and yes! that is because of carolyn! if there is one thing these thoughts will compound it is that i adore her

finally ben putting a bit of life into the credits

'the vast sandy thing on the ground?' i absolutely love douglas and arthur together i wish they'd had more moments

poor arthur missing the point, bless his heart - and of course setting up the end again, finnemore literally uses the same structure to every single ep but i'm not even mad because it really really works

oh my goddddd arthur doesn't understand their sarcasm stop leading him on like this! say sorry!!!!

'i require my biggles hat' literally douglas has so much right to be mad at martin in this one martin is, as ever, such a tit

'i was not the chef du jour'

stephanie cole why did you put that emphasis on 'pilot' it's gonna haunt me forever

'sahara not only brilliant but hot, i see where arthur gets his way with words' no but! it is! carolyn and arthur are so similar!

carolyn strangling a passenger shbdjfjsjksbd

wait is this the first proper 'no i'm the captain'

martin he's having you on! don't listen to douglas honestly when will you learn to stop letting him get to you

'ah! my cover is blown!' this whole bit is so funny - 'but our fire trucks do not just happen'

carolyn literally screeching to a halt for being called generous hshbshdjs

'they omitted to mention it' goes round my head a lot

'a little man with a little job' vs 'a medal for being alive in the year 2000', the growth

'arthur will you put that damn thing away before i make you eat it!!!!

and of course now martin digs them into an even worse place by being unable to shut his mouth but i do enjoy 'shut up martin' and of course no one questions carolyn

arthur and his customer service <3

'i don't have time for your stupid squabbles' she's right though they're both so petty

'what an unintended consequence' another one that goes around my brain a lot

'they wrote it on... me' oh arthur bless his heart

hhh hh h i have far far more things to say about 'better than a little old lady' than i have space or inclination to here but just... this is it. this is the moment they start to become Family, the moment carolyn trusts them enough to let them in a bit. it breaks my heart so so much every time i literally love her more than anything

and of course douglas backing down to actually help, because he cares..... .. . ..

'I just like talking like this'

and as he so often does, finnemore lets arthur have the winning idea <3

the Agony 'do you know what you are?' 'yeah...' 'brilliant' and arthur's surprised little oh just Gets Me every single time like.... he was so sure douglas was gonna call him an idiot again and he was just gonna take it.... oh god

the parallels between this and st p tbh, the whole gang vanquishing the bad guy and having banter in the flight deck

'byyeee' i love how he says that

'i have had. a little drink' and the fire truck picture, oh arthur shappey <3

[ratralsis]

Been a while

Well, there's some news, I guess. I still struggle to believe that anybody reads this blog, but if you do, you're in luck, bud.

My year-long novel-writing class started last week. I wrote my first prose piece for it today. My earlier pieces were all very short and simplistic exercises on, like, what kind of characters do you like, write a one-sentence description of them, that kind of thing. Boring stuff. Had to write a 350-word-maximum piece showing my "main character in a predicament that pressures their weakness" and went with a scene I'd used in an earlier class. Rewrote it from scratch, though, and it's a little different now.

I finished the entire damn novella between classes. Came out to just shy of 27,000 words. It's very rough, with some significant weird spots and jumps in place/time that I don't love. I think that some scenes could be removed entirely, shortening it even further. But I love the characters and I love their story and I love their world and I want more than anything to figure out how to turn the whole thing into a real book, something 80-100,000 words long, that others could read and enjoy and maybe, just maybe, love it, too.

I don't want to post the novella here. To be blunt, I'm embarrassed by it.

Started dating a woman I met through an online app. She's great. Super smart. We've been texting and seeing each other for a little over a month.

It's more than a little awkward. I'm not good at the whole "dating" thing, and being asexual makes it tricky, too. I'd feel bad saying much more than that. There's a chance, however small, that she might read this someday, for one thing. For another, the details really aren't anyone's business but hers and mine. But it happened. Or is happening, as I write this. Hopefully it continues to happen.

Dropped like $2000 on home improvements like improved insulation and AC in this last month so it wouldn't be so damn hot, then another $370 on a two-cushion couch so that she could come visit me and we could sit together instead of in two separate chairs.

As a wise man once said, "when you see a guy reach for stars in the sky, you can bet that he's doing it for some doll."

I like to think that these are things that I needed to do anyway. The house I live in is over 50 years old and still had only its original fiberglass insulation in the attic, and the ductwork connected to the furnace and AC had never been cleaned, ever. The furnace and AC, at least, are only about nine years old, so they didn't need to be replaced. They just got their yearly tune-up and a few replacement parts.

Anyway. That's what's going on these days. I continue to post 4 things a day at @megatownac for an audience that continues to very slowly shrink, and I wonder every week if I should just fucking stop.

In the meantime, here's that 350-word piece. It still stars Kevin and Katia, because I love them.

Kevin swung open the tavern door and came in from the rain. He got the bartender's attention and asked for a towel as Katia barreled past him and to the little girl they'd left at the bar. The hearth was doing a fine job fighting off the autumn chill, and as Kevin dried his hair and face, he felt warmth returning to him.

Katia knelt in front of the brown-haired girl and put her hands on her small shoulders. The girl, no more than four or five years old, shivered, her eyes wide. "Don't worry," Katia said, her gruff voice soft. "You're safe now."

Kevin tapped Katia's shoulder. All conversation from other patrons had stopped. It was a slow night, less than half the tables occupied, but Kevin still felt every pair of eyes on him and his large companion.

"Katia," Kevin said, clearing his throat. She stood and looked down at him. Kevin went on his toes to whisper in her ear. "Maybe it's different with orcs, but human children don't react well when someone rushes up to them dripping blood and rain."

Katia looked down at herself, her pale blue skin streaked with red. She took the towel Kevin offered her. "Orc children wouldn't, either," she muttered, drying herself.

"What's your name, kid?" Kevin asked the girl. "Why were those guys after you?"

"Isabella," said the girl, turning her big eyes to him. "They're with the ones who took me and my father."

"Your father? Where's he?"

"He got me time to run away while they... they..."

Kevin groaned. His head and muscles ached equally. "He's dead?"

Isabella only nodded.

"What do we do?" Kevin asked Katia. "About... this?"

"She's our responsibility now," Katia said, crossing her arms.

"Absolutely not," Kevin said, teeth clenched. "Putting aside the logistical and moral problems with us claiming some orphaned child, you have someplace to be. I only meant for right now."

Katia narrowed her eyes. "You're suggesting we abandon her?"

"I suggested we not get involved to begin with!"

"Maybe it's different with humans," Katia growled, "but orcs care about children."

[raksh-writes]

Healthy eating habits

Fandom: Teen Wolf

Pairing: Nogitsune/Stiles Stilinski

Word count: ~2000

Read on AO3 here

Guys, I don't even know.

I've been writing a long, multi-chaptered Voiles fic for weeks now and wanted to share something so badly - it's probably the reason for this thing. It came to me while I was eating spaghetti and reading other fics, so, go figure. I laughed my ass off, then wrote it in one sitting.

Now, finally, I could contribute something to this lovely ship that took over my life. No beta, this is barely edited, all mistakes are my own, swearing up ahead, etc. Let me know if I should tag something more!

Enjoy, hope you'll like it!

✦✧✦✧

His dad was not getting away with it. Not now, not ever. Sneaking fries behind Stiles’ back, roping his deputies - side Parrish, because he was firmly with Stiles’ on this, thank you very much - into bringing him burgers, and even fried himself bacon when he thought Stiles wouldn’t notice. But the sheriff must’ve forgotten just who his son was, and who he had by his side, mind you, to think Stiles wouldn’t find out and do something about it. Because he would and he’ll be damned if he won’t see it through.

Which is why right now he’s standing in the sheriff’s office, staring him down into eating that kale salad. The whole thing.

„I’ll get every single deputy here on this getting-my-dad-healthy-food-because-he-has-heart-problems if you won’t eat it now,” he threatened, arms crossed, the picture of meaning-serious-business, as his dad looked doubtfully into his bowl. „It’s not that bad, for Christ’s sake! There’s even chicken there!”

„But kale’s not real food, son, it’s for rabbits, not humans.”

Stiles only stared harder - or rather - glared harder, jaw working tightly not to start yelling at his dad. It was serious, goddammit! But his dad still refused to touch the kale, spoiled as he was these past weeks with burgers and fries - and oh, was Stiles getting a talk with those deputies, oh they were getting it for sure, he’ll even rope Parrish into it, hell, he’ll even-

„Eat it, dad, or I will get Void to make you.”

Noah looked up at this, absolutely horrified and betrayed, which only made for the irritation in Stiles’ chest to grow, with just a little side of glee. Which may be what tipped his shadow off.

„Get me to what?”

They both startled, even though Stiles should’ve been used to Void appearing from out of nowhere, all easy nonchalance and amusement, always, without a fault, looking at Stiles like he wanted to eat him. And, okay, maybe he didn’t appear from nowhere but the shadows in the corners, but still - he wasn’t there, then a blink later he was. How one could even get used to that? Stiles also promptly ignored the fact that he was just too occupied with being frustrated at his dad to notice the tale tell sign of Void coming, a small, shivery tingle along their connection that never really got old.

„Make my dad eat healthy,” he finally answered after gathering his wits and shooing away the little thrill in his gut at seeing the look in Void’s dark eyes. That, too, never really got old.

The demon made a barely there, little sound in the back of his throat, something close to thoughtful, as he stepped right into Stiles’ personal space and got all up into his neck, nose and cheek rubbing against him, absolutely not caring about the abomination of an expression going on the sheriff’s face. So of course that’s the reason why Stiles has flushed bright red and hot, not the way he needed to fight delighted shivers with his whole body - he just about hated how much he loved Void doing that, scenting him, marking, reaffirming the highway of a bond, thrumming with want and content. But he was doing it this intimately exactly because of his dad’s torment at the sight, so after few seconds Stiles had to nudge Void in the side, fighting both embarrassment creeping up his face and arousal stirring in his gut. Not a good combination, not at all. And although Void got the message, thank fuck, the cheeky bastard just had to go and nip at his skin, right under the ear, teeth too sharp, cool lips and hot breath, before retreating to a more safe distance. It was, in fact, nowhere near safe. Stiles was just about ready to drag Void out, give him the lecture that would get cut in half for a much different purpose, but he was on a mission, goddammit, and he was seeing it through no matter what.

„I could make kale taste like fries,” Void suggested, though, and Stiles’ mind screeched to a halt.

„You can do that?”

„Of course I can, darling, you’d still doubt me now?”

It was downright dirty teasing, using that raspy, amused tone, but Stiles refrained from taking the bait, pursed his lips and then turned to his dad. Anything he wanted to say died on his lips at the sight of the sheriff, his face contorted in something hard to name. It was both hilarious and a little guilt-inducing, because Stiles knew exactly what was going through his dad’s head.

First, the I should’ve killed the thing long ago, then the astonished, confused realization the thing wasn’t that bad, then acceptance that it lived among them now, somewhat peacefully, attached to his son, which prompted the thought of Stiles essentially dating the demon - at which point the sheriff’s mind short-circuited, most of the times, deciding he was too old for that and his son could make his own damn choices. And Stiles really couldn’t blame him, his own mind sometimes still shut down at that thought, especially when Void’s hand pointedly rested at his hip, light, but firm, in a way too fucking hot and possessive, more than it had any right to be. The bastard just knew too well how to work Stiles up. Fuck.

After about half a minute of the sheriff staring at them with that long-suffering, what did I do wrong to deserve this punishment, kinda look, he let out the longest sigh, then slumped at his desk.

„You could do that?” he asked finally, all the fight gone.

Oh, okay, Stiles could get behind that. Catching the little smirk on Void’s lips only made the small ball of glee in his chest to grow.

„Try it out and see, Sheriff,” his shadow said, easily, nonchalant, forgoing the smug undertone usually there - and Stiles was thankful for that. This wasn’t about railing his dad up, but keeping him healthy.

So, with breath held back, Stiles watched him eye the kale for a second, dubious, then taking a bite - and promptly staring at the kale with something close to wonder. And, okay, now Void was smirking, but that was totally warranted, the ball of glee just about exploded in his own chest.

„Yes, great, this is great! Now, eat it all, dad, from now on kale is your best friend,” he flaunted, victorious despite not contributing to it that much, but the somehow resigned smile on the sheriff’s face and him reaching for more was quite enough reason for it to feel like an absolute win. „Wait. Can you make veggie burgers taste like meat, then?” That wouldn’t be asking too much, wasn’t it?

Void hummed, low in his throat, the glee coming down the connection not just Stiles’ now.

„Done.”

He could just about kiss him for that, and by the look in those black eyes, Void would like nothing less, but still - his dad’s there. No kissing in front of the sheriff, that was the one rule. So, later.

All raised brows and full on grin, Stiles turned to his dad and waited for that tell tale sigh to cut through the air.

„Alright, you win,” the sheriff relented, getting more on his fork, there you go. „I’m okay with that.”

„Good answer.” Stiles was possibly beaming at this point, wholly not caring about it too. „Now eat, I’ll see you later.”

And he was dragging Void out of the office with the answering goodbye following them out - some weeks before it’d be accompanied by a suspicious glare, but now the sheriff resigned himself to ignoring that particular thing all together. Which suited Stiles just fine, he’d rather die than have his dad know anything of those kind of... things. There was a reason why his room had all the sealing off and silencing runes he could manage to put up.

No one paid them any attention as they walked through the station, Void invisible - for obvious reasons, looking too much like Stiles for it to not be suspicious - to anyone not Stiles or Parrish, who only nodded at them shortly in acknowledgment, receiving same nods back, even from the demon. There was nothing close to friendship there, Stiles wasn’t even sure if Void could form those, but there was at least something close to respect there, which thank fuck for, he didn’t need his friends fighting him on that one. Just, no. They wouldn’t win. A losing battle from the beginning if there ever was one. And Stiles wasn’t afraid to admit it anymore. The fact that Void seemed content enough to just exist beside his friends, only tormenting them with some non-harmful pranks and his overall smug-bastardness, ‘cause chaos and strife and what-not, helped immensely. What a life Stiles led, honestly.

Getting into his jeep, ignoring just how eager he was to get home, Stiles couldn’t help but notice that the smirk was still present - and it was just a tad bit more vicious than normal, which-

„Okay, why are you smiling like that? What more did you do?”

Because that, that made him suspicious right away. And the clear amusement in Void’s tone was doing nothing to soothe it.

„Your dad’s going to order fries now, to compare the taste, isn’t he?”

Stiles blinked, the thought not occurring to him before just now, but-

„Yeah, probably, so what of it?”

The way Void looked at him then, all smugness and sharp smirk, did something really funny and squirmy hot to Stiles’ insides.

„Well, little fox, I’m afraid he may find that, for some reason, the fries started to taste like kale.”

And Stiles’ brain, just, blue-screened for a second, watching the utter glee on his shadow’s face. The absolute-

„Fucking genius.” How did he never thought of that? „Oh my god, this is so evil. Fucking brilliant.”

Still in wonder, Stiles started up the jeep and pulled away from the station, head shaking a bit at the possibly best prank ever - and it would make his dad eat healthy, fucking finally! Maybe he could ask Void to-

„Don’t even dare trying that on me.”

He’d kill him, he would, especially because the bastard just started to chuckle at him, that low, raspy sound that was too fucking nice to hear.

„I’ll think about it.”

Then the demon was right up in his personal space, sharp teeth tracing up along his neck to stop just under his ear, nibble, just a little, lick it over, make a too-hot shiver travel all over Stiles’ body, then he fucking smiled and bit down, hard-

Stiles just barely managed not to swerve off the road, a startled sound choked somewhere in his lungs.

„Or you could try and persuade me otherwise,” Void downright purred in his ear, nipping at the skin, teeth just on the edge of too sharp, and Stiles had to wrestle him into the passenger seat with one hand to avoid crashing.

„Fucking, don’t distract me while I’m driving!”

Void chuckled yet again, as he spread himself comfortably, all amused smirks and lazy content with the way Stiles was squirming in his seat. The absolute audacity.

„I hate you sometimes,” he grumbled half-heartedly, glaring at his shadow from the corner of his eyes, pointedly ignoring that little thrill along his spine.

„Of course you do, little fox.” Void leaned closer, spread his arm over the back of the seats until he could thread cool fingers through Stiles’ hair, curling in the strands in that same gentle-yet-firm, downright possessive gesture. „You can show me all about how much you love me at home, kitten.”

The ramrod-hot shiver that run down Stiles’ spine in that second just about tore the groan out from his lips.

And the demon only smirked further, but didn’t take his hand away, brushing his thumb behind Stiles’ ear. So Stiles shut his jaw, tightened his hold on the steering wheel, and went straight home. Crossing one or two too many speed limits, but-

No one had to know.

✦✧✦✧

[asherwritesastory]

Hi there folks! So this is something that I’m choosing to not post on my AO3 page (for now) and instead just posting here.

This is a one shot I wrote for @grymmeoir for the @craigandthoseguys-week secret Santa event. I’m sorry it’s late but the person who originally had you needed to drop out due to some personal issues which lead to me taking over.

I hope you like it as it was literally written in maybe an hour at most (however I’m just guessing on that).

Anyway please enjoy and happy holidays! (story is below the cut)

It was that time of year again. The time of year where snow fell a little harder and everyone seemed to put all their differences aside to come together to celebrate the season.

Yes, it was Christmas time in South Park. And there were a number of ways the townsfolk celebrated this holiday. Some stayed in and some went out and partied. Some participated in snow sports or something outdoorsy activities. And some left town to venture elsewhere to visit family.

However, when it came to Craig and his friends they decided to stay inside where it was warm. Stay inside of Token’s mansion by the fire and drink hot chocolate, wear Christmas sweaters (Clyde insisted they match but Craig shot that idea down just as quickly as it had been presented), exchange gifts and do one of Tweek’s absolute favorite pastimes… bake Christmas cookies!

It was something the group had done for as long as they could remember celebrating the holiday together. But maybe it started happening more frequently after Betsy Donovan passed away and Roger busied himself with work, which left Clyde alone. Maybe it started happening more as they realized that the years they had to spend together during the holiday season were dwindling down as they got closer and closer to high school graduation (they only had two years left!)

But whatever the reason for it was, they had made it into their very own tradition, it was theirs and it was how they celebrated. It was always the Sunday before Christmas when the group got together and they made sure of it.

“Hey Token,” Tweek called out from the kitchen as he rifled around in the cabinets. “Where’s your mixing bowl?”

“Uh…” Token thought for a moment as he grabbed some mugs to behind making the hot chocolate. “I’m pretty sure my mom put it in the cabinet above the stove.”

Tweek looked up, then at the counter, then back up at the cabinet. Sure, he wasn’t the tallest one out there (unlike a certain black haired boyfriend of his) but he could manage to do this on his own without any assistance required.

The blonde hoisted himself up onto the counter top and reached up, being careful not to let anything fall and hit him on the head.

“Do you want he-“

“No no Token I’m fine,” he smiled victoriously as he managed to grab said mixing bowl that was in question. “I’ve got this.”

“Alright man,” he shrugged and watched how Tweek scurried back down. “I trust you. And I’m pretty sure Craig would kill me if anything happened to you so I’m staying put until you’re back on the floor.”

Tweek rolled his eyes as he stood unharmed in front of his front with the mixing bowl now in his hands, “yes mom.”

Token said nothing but the eye roll and friendly push on the shoulder caused Tweek to laugh.

“I’ll stay out of your way while you bake but the hot chocolate shouldn’t take too long to make.”

“Token you’re fine, your kitchen is huge so I really doubt we’ll get in each other’s way!”

They both went to work, busying themselves with the task at hand. They made simple conversation to pass the time before Token found himself finished with what he came into the kitchen to complete.

“I’ll leave your mug here so you can drink it as you work,” Token offered up a smile as he placed the snowman mug near the blonde.

“Thank you!”

Token waited a couple seconds before taking his leave with four mugs on a tray he held in his hands to head back to his other friends.

“Hot chocolate!” It was Clyde who bellowed our first as he darted towards his friend, Damn near giddy with holiday joy. “Thanks Token!” He took his mug enthusiastically and took a long sip.

“Breath Clyde, you need to breath!”

When the brunette lowered the mug he had a very prominent hot chocolate mustache lining his upper lip.

“I don’t know what it is about your hot chocolate,” Clyde licked away the liquid that resides on his face. “But you always make the best I’ve ever tasted! What’s your secret anyway?”

“I use milk instead of water?”

“Genius! Absolute genius!”

“A tr- true madman!” Jimmy chimed in as Token handed him his mug.

Craig merely rolled his eyes and thanked Token by mouthing the words as he accepted the warm mug. He held it in his hands for a while before taking a sip and humming content lot to himself.

“So,” Token sat down on the couch between Jimmy and Clyde. “What did you guys have in mind that we do?”

“I’m not opposed to playing Mario Kart or watching the Grinch,” Clyde spoke up.

“Which Grinch movie?” Craig asked inquisitively. “The 1966 version, the 2000 version or the 2018 version? And make sure you choose wisely since there’s only one right answer.”

“The 2000 version, duh!”

Craig groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose, “why?” He shot a glance in Clyde’s direction. “The superior Grinch movie is clearly the original.”

“You take that back Jim Carey is the best!” Clyde seemed offended, like actually offended, by Craig’s statement.

“No he isn’t.”

“You’re just saying that because you don’t like him!”

“So what if I am? That movie is still literal garbage.”

Token chucked.

“Bu- but fellas,” Jimmy decided to join in on the conversation. “I personally like the 2018 ver- version be- best.”

“What?” Both the brunette and the black haired teen looked at their friend.

“Why?” Craig asked as Clyde continued to stare wide eyed and in shock.

Jimmy shrugged, “not dissing the original bu- but I like the new ta- take on it.”

“So you agree,” Craig smirked. “You like the original.”

Jimmy nodded.

“See, Jimmy agrees with me! Screw you Clyde!”

Clyde feigned hurt as he put a hand over his heart, “Jimmy! My best friend in the whole world! Why would you betray me like this?”

Craig flipped Clyde off as he took another sip of his hot chocolate while Jimmy merely laughed.

“Token what about-“

“I’m not getting involved in this.”

Okay, so maybe that was a silly thing to have a disagreement about but it was a conversation the group had every year. And every year the results were always the same. But it was a tradition for them, so why should they break a system that had no flaws and wasn’t even broken to begin with?

“I’m going to check on Tweek,” Craig stood from his seat in the recliner with a half empty mug in his hands. “See if he needs any help with the cookies or what not.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to just make out with your bo-“ a pillow made contact with Clyde’s face. “Why?”

Craig said nothing as he walked into the kitchen, where he found his boyfriend busy at work. The blonde was covered in cookie dough and flour and the kitchen counter could use a nice wipe down, but Craig smiled at the sight.

He made his way behind Tweek quietly and wrapped the blonde in a light hug (after he had put a tray of cookies into the stove), which caused Tweek to jump.

The blonde turned around and smiled up at his boyfriend as he lightly hit him on the chest with his fist, “you scared me!”

“I’m sorry.”

“What if I was holding cookies and I dropped them?”

“But you weren’t holding cookies so…”

Tweek pulled away, not like he needed to try as Craig wasn’t holding him tightly, and made his way over to the counter to begin cleaning up his mess.

“But what if I was?”

“But you weren’t.”

“You’re such a jerk.”

“Yeah well…” Craig walked over to him and wrapped his arms around Tweek’s waist and kissed his cheek before resting his head onto Tweek’s shoulder. “I’m your jerk.”

Tweek turned to the side slightly and poked Craig’s cheek, which caused the black haired teenager to look up, and smile when he was greeted with a gentle kiss to the lips.

“You taste like a sugar cookie,” Craig licked over his lips after Tweek pulled away. “Were you eating the cookie dough?”

“Maybe I was, maybe I wasn’t… what’re you going to do about it tough guy?”

Craig thought for a minute before kissing Tweek again, “that. I’m going to do that.”

Tweek smiled as he turned in Craig’s hold to wrap his arms around his boyfriend’s waist, “you nerd.”

“Yeah yeah…”

The two stood like that for a while, Tweek making them both sway back and forth as if they were dancing to music only the two of them could hear while they waited for the cookies to finish baking.

This is just how it was. Every year for the past however many years this is how the boys spent their holiday.

And okay so maybe it wasn’t much but it was their tradition and they wouldn’t change it for the world.

[jerepars]

Throwing Copper Extended Chapter Notes

1 / 5 Reinventing Your Exit

Hyperlinks appear in blue (underlined on mobile). The story is posted here.

Teresa could see the stress James carried in his jaw and the dark circles under his eyes. She recognized it because she’d seen it in herself before, the restlessness and slight delirium, when she wasn’t sleeping.

The first sentence is an ode to the opening lyrics of Remo Drive’s “I’m My Own Doctor”: I’ve been self-diagnosing all of my problems, carrying all my stress in my jaw.

David Lee Autry was one of many aliases James had over the last few years but one he maintained with close attention because the so-called Autry had a credit card in his name. James hadn’t exactly had time to pack a bag when he broke out of a CIA facility to warn Teresa about impending doom. He showed up in New Orleans in a stolen car, the clothes on his back, contents of his pockets, and a bullet lodged in his chest.

David Lee Autry is the name written on James’ fake passport in 2x03 (around 20:54 in the episode); Pete from the militia group reads it.

James felt a lump in this throat. Whether it was because there was something very domestic about letting someone else do his laundry or because he worried the warning he’d come with wasn’t enough to protect Teresa every time she walked out the door, he wasn’t sure. But he swallowed his feelings down and didn’t put up an argument to her laundry suggestion. He appreciated the clothing George had lent him, but oversized tracksuits and brightly patterned button-down shirts were far from James’ aesthetic. And he absolutely refused to put on King George-branded attire, aerodynamic or not, so he’d been going commando while waiting for David Lee Autry’s online order to show up at Teresa’s PO Box.

When Teresa and James meet King George for the first time in 2x01, we get the lovely scene where he yells for someone to get Teresa a King George bikini (1:12) and later points to the speedo he’s wearing, saying “aerodynamic as shit, will make you feel alive, I trust” (1:18). And, like, who am I to not bring up aerodynamic speedos and going commando?

The doctor had come back and after patching him up, again, prescribed bed rest for the patient who seemed to be doing everything to keep aggravating his body rather than help it get better. Teresa had been furious, asking if he had a death wish after all, so he’d spent the last two days bored out of his mind in bed from inactivity, barely sleeping and reading Faulkner. Or maybe he’d barely slept because he was reading Faulkner. Either way, James knew it best to tread lightly where Teresa was concerned.

That didn’t mean he couldn’t sit in a chair at a desk though. Anything would be an improvement over laying on his back and waiting for his thoughts to float up to the ceiling.

So, listen, since they’re in Louisiana, and given their close proximity to matters of death and dying, if James is going to be reading anything at all, it just feels fitting that he’d be reading Southern literature, specifically William Faulkner. As I Lay Dying is an obvious choice, but personally I think he’d be reading The Sound and the Fury. Not that it matters.

The last sentence in the second paragraph is a reference to “Dreamspace” by Glacier Veins, and the line that goes I’m on my back so I float up to the ceiling to feel different.

Teresa had cried herself to sleep that night thinking about everything that could have gone wrong, if he hadn’t made it in time, or if he had but if it had been too late for him. It wasn’t just anyone—it was James, and he would’ve spent his last dying breath to tell her to chase safety if that was what it took.

Never did I think I’d manage to make a nod to and with my one last gasping breath I’d apologize for bleeding on your shirt from “You’re So Last Summer” by Taking Back Sunday. To be here, in 2020, as an adult, and finding a way to make that reference is...strange yet somehow satisfying at the same time. Also, the chapter title is in reference to a song off the Underoath album They’re Only Chasing Safety, and it looks like I found a way to work that in as well. I don’t know why my musical inspiration for this version of Jeresa seems to come from music that peaked in the early 2000s?

There was a time when James had been her mentor to the underworld, always keeping her from sinking to the bottom, even when he’d been the one who had to make the tough calls and take the brutal actions. She didn’t think he’d ever be able to rid himself of that balancing act, of showing her the ropes but strongly advising her to untether herself from the line completely, to walk away. Teresa could still hear his voice in the back of her mind, from the night after the party at the Birdman’s when he told her in a matter-of-fact fashion why he’d sent her in: your job was to learn. Since then, and especially in his absence, it seemed there’d been only tough lessons to learn and bitter pills to swallow.

I have so much appreciation for the early dynamic between James and Teresa. The car scene in 1x05 outside the warehouse is a highlight because when Teresa gets out, all indignant, she thinks she has the last word (0:15), and James comes right back at her (0:21) to tell her how it is. He’s kind of smug about it. I love it.

And I know that there’s trouble all the time. But it’s interesting that when they get away from this dynamic (especially in S4 where it doesn’t exist, because James isn’t there), it seems that’s where the real trouble comes in.

The balance that they create is delicate.

They were so far removed from the time he’d said I’ve got a plan for a future and it doesn’t include getting killed by crossfire meant for you. But he’d chosen crossfire—sought it out, really—that was what his future devolved into. And like he’d said back then, she was trouble. More and more, Teresa had begun to wonder if there was anything the James she’d first met in Dallas wasn’t right about.

I know this scene in 1x04 is often reblogged and quoted. After watching it several times, my only question is if it’s just the lighting of the scene or did they forget to apply James’ tattoos on set that day? I can’t watch it or see gifs of it now without that bothering me.

It only took Teresa a day to get the cat to venture inside and it only took George a few minutes to declare its name: Peach. God damn, we got ourselves a grumpy cat on our hands, George had exclaimed as she sunk her claws into his flesh before escaping from his embrace like a magic trick, she’s got the same personality as Giant Peach over here. She’s little Peach.

So I guess I rolled with that bts picture of Peter from Alice’s story and wrote the cat into the story. I bet this cat makes zero appearance in S5 and at no point do any of them ever have a pet but I did it anyway. The first thought when I saw it was “Peach and Giant Peach”. Would James be a cat guy? I think he would.

George suspected there was much more to the exchange than the parting words voiced out loud, noticing there was a sense of thanks in her eyes, too. The looks Teresa and James gave each other exuded the tension between them and always made it feel at least ten degrees hotter than it actually was in any room. They had their own way of communicating that only made sense to them, that no one else was privy to. There were better odds throwing copper down a wishing well than trying to decode their language of silence.

The story title comes from “Throwing Copper” by Touché Amoré. Like throwing copper in a well. You’ll never know if wishes work only time can tell.

This is not really the part that made me decide to name the story after the song, but I was still happy to find a place for it in the narration.

“Think you might need to reinvent your exit strategy, Giant Peach,” George said with a frown, nearly in disbelief with himself over what he was about to reveal to James.

“Reinvent?”

“Reinvent. Rethink. As in don’t make one. Methinks the last thing Little Principessa needs right now is more people leaving.” George spoke without his usual puns, so James didn’t have to question if he was being serious.

As mentioned earlier, the chapter title is from a song off of They’re Only Chasing Safety, “Reinventing Your Exit”. I think this might be the biggest Underoath song there ever was? Just listening to this makes me feel 14 again. This was such a gateway to other music that I ended up loving.

Teresa’s evolving thirst for vengeance, to even the score, was foreign to James. It was part of Teresa that scared James a bit. Before he left Phoenix, he’d seen tiny red flashes of her anger, questionable decisions so far removed from when she’d stood within shooting distance on a train car and said we can do a different way, where none of us has to die. Her vision had seemed clear then; she wanted to move product without the same bloodshed as Camila. When James worked for Teresa, he’d never wanted her to lose herself in the business, and never thought she should stay in the business—those were things she’d said she never wanted, too. But being at the top in the business, like she was, it changed people. It was inevitable. It pulled them down into the fire until there was nothing left but scorched earth.

I get the sense that we are never ever getting this kind of James in canon, who is not totally cool with the part of Teresa that she shuts off in order to be queen. I think we probably get another yes man. And for canon, for the sake of Teresa being the queen, I get it. That’s fine. But, in any fic, I always find myself trying to humanize characters and not just leave them as archetypes. The reason this story got so long, the reason there was no way I was going to get through it in 2500 words or less (lol, who am I kidding, I can’t write anything of that length), is because I realized this is the James I want to explore. I want to see him push back at Teresa and not just let go, not just get shut down. Because Teresa is far from perfect and she doesn’t always make the right decisions (tbh, I think she makes a lot of dumb decisions). It’s a delicate balance between the two of them that gives the best outcome.

James’ thoughts in this first chapter are the setup for the exploration of the Jeresa dynamic in the next two chapters.

James used to see a blinding light when he looked right into Teresa’s eyes, a moral compass of sorts, always willing him to choose the humanity he’d buried so deep. But now it was light mixed with dark, integrated too well to be separated. Now looking into her eyes was like staring at a flickering light, not sure if it was going to illuminate the cave or burn out.

Here is the part of “Throwing Copper” that resonated with me for this whole thing: Like staring at a flickering light, you don't know when It'll burn out, or how much time you have left to let it light up your life.

So relevant.

I don’t want to lose you. Maybe that had been a proclamation of love in her own way, and maybe that was the last honest thing Teresa had ever said to James, after she’d realized she’d been wrong to doubt him. Those words had gripped him and followed him. He’d found solace and comfort in them even after he left, because he’d wanted nothing more than to stay, but he left to protect her because of what Devon had hanging over his head.

One of the lines in Tegan and Sara’s “This is Everything” is baby, this is the last honest look I’ll ever give. But by the end of the song it turns into baby, this is the last honest love I’ll ever give.

Teresa and James so obviously love each other but they never say that out loud, right? I feel like that moment in 3x12 when she says “I don’t want to lose you” (around 23:05 of the episode) is the closest we’ve gotten thus far. There’s a silent moment before she says it, and a silent moment after, before James answers and I swear all of it is so telling. The silence. The way they look at each other. The body language. Everything. They know.

[a-silent-symphony]

INTERVIEW – MARKO HIETALA OF NIGHTWISH

Like any band, Nightwish has a story to tell. Full of ups, downs, frustrations, and triumphs, in reality, few can tell a tale quite like these Fins. Coming at a crossroad at the peak of their success, they made a bold decision, yet landed on their feet. Then a few years later they were faced with yet another difficult choice, and still righted the ship. A testament to comradery between the key members of the band, one of the steadying forces through it all has been Marko Hietala.

Joining up just prior to their 2002 Century Child album, Hietala has become a cornerstone in Nightwish not only on the bass, but also as a leading voice. A signature part of the band’s success over the last two decades, Hietala recently sat down to chat about his time with Nightwish, weathering the storm of challenging times, his other projects, plus a whole lot more.

Cryptic Rock – You have been an intricate part of the Nightwish family for nearly two decades now. Before going any further, tell us, what has your time in Nightwish been like?

Marko Hietala – Woah man! It will actually be two decades next year. It’s probably been the biggest, lasting part of my life that there has been. Of course, there is my older band, Tarot, which we started in the late ’80s and still did things in the 2000s. That was a long lasting thing, but as life goes, Nightwish has made my living. There has been ups and downs as well as joys and sorrows.

Cryptic Rock – You have certainly accomplished a lot with Nightwish. When you came on, you became a very big part of the band right off the bat, particularly with your voice. That addition of your voice added a new dynamic to Nightwish’s music. What was it like initially working with the band and utilizing your voice to the music’s advantage?

Marko Hietala – We started from a pretty good common background; the guys are Karelian and I’m Savonian. There was already that kind of country boy attitude with us. Then when we started, rehearsing and swapping ideas for Century Child (2002), it became really comfortable really fast. We just got along.

Of course, when you have humans, you get drama occasionally, and of course we’ve had those times. In the end we have been pretty honest about troubles and being understanding, and if need be, forgiving. We have a great personal chemistry with this bunch.

Cryptic Rock – It shows. The band has faced adversity and overcome it. Let’s look back for a moment. In 2004, Nightwish released the Once album, which launched the band into a new stratosphere of success. However, shortly after that release, the band parted ways with Tarja Turunen. Looking back 15 years after, was that a stressful time?

Marko Hietala – Yes, it was. Everyone was anxious, restless, and troubled all the time already. We had no connection and we decided, just as the band started to get bigger, we needed to take back our voice in the band. That’s why it happened. It was scary, but it was a thing where we were already eating so much of our own spine; in order to survive we had to amputate. We were already feeling bad about so many things, it was something that had to be done.

We survived until the next few years of troubles, and we still got through it. I said this already in the documentary, but I think we showed an exceptional persistence and group spirit through a lot of times. God damn, I cherish it!

Cryptic Rock – That unity is evident. It all just adds more to the story of Nightwish. The band has settled in nicely in recent years with Floor Jansen. A fantastic addition, what has it been like working with her?

Marko Hietala – She’s brilliant! She’s a powerhouse vocalist who wants to perform, sing, and loves doing shows. I’m pleased with how things are now. Of course some people have been complaining that I’m hanging a little bit more in the shadows now that she is there, but I’m not. I’m doing a shitload of vocals and background harmonies; there are just a good bunch of songs and we do them the best way they will sound.

Cryptic Rock – Understandable. It is about what the music calls for. If the music calls for you to be more upfront and center, then you will be.

Marko Hietala – Indeed. It’s not like I don’t have things to do. I have bass playing, which on some nights with hot lighting, is compared to shoveling in its calorie consummation. (Laughs)

Cryptic Rock – (Laughs) Well you have done a great job. Speaking of new music, Nightwish recently released the epic new album Human. :II: Nature. What was it like putting this record together?

Marko Hietala – There are certain ways we have gotten used to doing things. We had a month and a half of summer camp rehearsal sessions and then started recording. Kai (Hahto) went to a different studio to record the drum bottom tracks because our summer camp didn’t have the space with the proper ambiances for that to be recorded. We then put up the amps/vocal mics and we laid down all the other stuff for the album pretty fast and comfortably.

Of course there was this thing that we started to do, which is apparent on the album, where we had some pretty nice harmony vocal sessions. I have spoke about this a few times, but when we did the Decades Tour, we wanted to do something different for the oldies – so we figured with Troy, me, and Floor that we could do a bunch of live harmonies to beef them up. It sounded so nice that we figured that we could do them more on the album. Tuomas (Holopainen) wrote stuff so we could do those harmonies, and we ended up doing quite a lot of them.

A lot of our barbecue sessions at our summer camp there would be an acoustic guitar or battery-operated keyboard; we would try some lines out, figure out ideas and swap them. I would say Troy and I were writing that stuff mostly, but Tuomas and Floor were also always around so we could test things and see how they went. It was nice.

Cryptic Rock – The end result is quite good. It is a very well-balanced collection of heavier and more somber tracks. What can you tell us about the concept behind the album?

Marko Hietala – I guess if you take human nature, and either two words, separate or combined, the theme is a bit loose. All the songs on the album connect to those things – human or nature, or human nature.

Cryptic Rock – Very interesting. Then there is the second disc, which is predominately all instrumental. Were you apart of the second half of the album at all?

Marko Hietala – I didn’t really work on it. When Tuomas was writing it, he did ask the rest of the band if it was okay to have a classical orchestra for the second half of the album. Basically, the only people who worked there was (Troy Donockley) with some piping and Floor with some vocals.

Cryptic Rock – It is a great addition to the first half of Human. :II: Nature. You also released your solo album, Pyre of the Black Heart, earlier this year. What was the process behind that album?

Marko Hietala – It was a long time dream for a guy like me who writes a lot. When Nightwish had a sabbatical, I called a couple of friends of mine to work on the album; there was Tuomas Wäinölä on guitar and Vili Oillila on keyboards, who I have known 10-15 years. I had this idea this album was not going to drop into a straight Heavy Metal box, but that it was going to be more Prog Rock or Hard Rock with Metal in between. They helped me finalize the arrangements.

Tuomas Wäinölä also ended up recording and producing most of the album. It turned out to be an inside project with me and those guys. Then we ended up hiring a drummer who we also knew, Anssi Nykänen. As a result of the making of the album it started to grow into a band. We actually had a little tour in February before everything closed out. It was really great, a lot of people liked it and we had a lot of wide grins in the audience.

We also did a Finnish version of the album. About half and half of the songs were written in Finish or English. I just had to crisscross translating them to get both albums out.

Cryptic Rock – Very cool! It really turned out well. You have offered your talents to many other bands through the years. To name a few, you have worked with Eternal Tears of Sorrow, To/Die/For, Charon, etc. Do you enjoy collaborating with others?

Marko Hietala – Yea. When I was in my twenties I got to be an apprentice recording engineer. That is why I was sitting in the studio and helping people out. I was also doing a lot of studio vocal work; both coaching, arranging, and singing harmonies. It had been an interest of mine, but I do have to say lately I have been putting the brakes down. (Laughs) At some point in time I was doing so much work it started to lose its point. These days, I try to very basically keep it to projects who I am friends with and whose music interests me.

Cryptic Rock – Understandable, you do not want to spread yourself too thin.

Marko Hietala – Yes, but also, interesting things are interesting. A couple of years back, for the first time, I did a Modern Classical thing with Ayreon. There were a lot of words, melodies, keys, tempo, and time signature that was changing all the time. I have to say before the premier I was crapping my pants, but I pulled myself together and it went well.

Cryptic Rock – It sounds like that was an exciting new challenge. Obviously we are in the midst of this worldwide pandemic. It is hard to tell what tomorrow will bring, but is Nightwish going to resume touring when they can?

Marko Hietala – We have had cancellations for the summer festival. We were also supposed to go to China in April. We are trying to move some things to 2021. The Central European tour, it should be sometime next fall, it’s still open. With the summer festivals, it seems like we are watching dominoes fall.

Cryptic Rock – It is unfortunate. Hopefully we can return to some sense of normalcy soon.

Marko Hietala – I agree, but what can you do? It’s a god damn virus, you cannot reason with it. This is the situation. Although, we have the album out and hopefully people are getting to listen to it. Hopefully we get to see each other some time in the future. I love doing shows and I’m really bummed out that we have no shows. It would have been really great to go out there and start doing it together. After all, there are vibes involved when you build up that bubble for people, yourself, and your bandmates. When you do it together, it’s a vibe that you are hooked to… at least I am.

Cryptic Rock – Yes, a lot of people are hooked to those vibes. Last question. If you are a fan of Horror and Sci-Fi films, what are some of your favorites?

Marko Hietala – In Science Fiction, a film that went kind of under the radar was Predestination (2014). It has a brilliant time travel story. Of course everyone knows Interstellar (2014), which was big and great. Europa Report (2013) was also great as well.

Horror is more problematic for me, because I can’t be scared anymore. Netflix’s The Haunting of Hill House was pretty good.

[dotdotdottie]

Cats and Dots || Dot & Luce

LOCATION: Ink Inc.

TIME:  Before Bea’s Death

@divineluce

Clicking on her “Bad Ass Bitches” playlist on Spotify, Luce set to work on fixing the absolute shitshow that was Dot’s tattoo. Not only was the placement bad, it looked like a drunk toddler had decided to go to town with a machine. Which is why she was more than happy to be working on it. Nothing was more interesting than fixing a bad tattoo and turning it into something worth showing off. “How the fuck did you wind up with this hot mess? And, you can’t fucking smack me for saying that because I’ll make it worse.” She grinned as she dipped the needles into ink and set to work, bobbing her head along to the beat of the pounding bassline. “Like, love is love, but christ.” She gestured to the god awful rainbow plastered on her hip. “The lines on this are hot garbage.”

The rainbow tattoo had been something Dot got in a frat house in her junior year of college. Her friend had ordered a tattoo gun off the internet and the ink had been sourced from somewhere she had no desire to examine. She didn’t regret the tattoo, it was a funny fucking story and she liked being a dumbass with a rainbow tattoo... But if she was going to make sure everyone going down on her knew she was pretty fucking gay, she wanted it to a nice rainbow. “I got it done by a coked-out frat named Braydon.” She had almost considered eating him afterward, but her colony would have been pissed. She wished she had done it. “I probably could have done it better myself, but it was kinda fun watching him struggle. Hope you know how to make it look less like an idiot did it. I don’t need people to focus on the rainbow when my snatch is out.”

Stories like this weren’t super surprising, especially not when it came to shit tattoos. Luce nodded as she filled in the stencil, a black cat whose body covered the majority of the rainbow. What bits it didn’t, she was planning on incorporating into a rainbow collar around its neck. And besides, even without the collar, it was still gonna be pretty gay. “You know, that doesn’t fucking surprise me in the slightest. Braydon,” She wiped away the excess ink, “Had awful goddamn hands. And, trust me. This is gonna be dope.” Luce grinned, “Definitely a pussy out kind of look.” She laughed. Given the fact she usually tattooed straight, toxic masculinity dudes all the time, it was a goddamn delight to be tattooing someone who wasn’t. And, Dot was cool enough. She was dating Blanche, which honestly sounded like a match made in chaotic heaven.

Listen, Dot didn’t love cats, but she would get one tattooed on her for a pussy joke. Most of her tattoos were jokes anyway. She knew plenty of people thought tattoos had to have meaning but she thought they just had to have a fun story and be cool to look at. “Oh trust me, I know Braydon’s hands were terrible. He’s one of those boys who think the clit is a suggestion instead of required.” She had slept with him a few days later simply because she had been bored out of her mind. “Can’t wait for the summer when I can show it off when I’m at the beach,” She cackled imagining the horrified faces of suburban mothers as they covered their kiddie’s eyes. She liked Luce and if she wasn’t with Blanche, she would have considered trying to smash, but for once Dot didn’t have the desire to cheat. “You got anything fucking weird tattooed on you?”

Letting out a low whistle, Luce shook her head. “Sounds about right. Boys are the fucking worst.” She said, remembering her ill-fated attempts at dating boys in high school. For the most part, they’d been boring and dumb and not terrible to hang out with. But, Jared, he was a fucking time. “Sounds like the dude I slept with back in the day. But, I gotta say, hats off to Jared. He did in fact, turn me gay.” She joked. That had been a hilarious thing for him to realize, when they ran into each other at a house party the year after they graduated. Specifically, when he found her fucking a girl on the side of his house. “Oh, it’ll be a look. And a damn good one at that.” She said as she finished up the tail of the cat. At Dot’s question, Luce laughed and nodded. “Of course I do. This is a good one,” She said and backed up to show Dot one of the tattoos on her ankle. At first glance, it was a normal anchor tattoo with a scroll script around it, the cliche every college girl got. But, the scroll read ‘Fuck your Anchor.’ “A tribute to all the stupid anchor tattoos I have to do.”

“Men are good for two things, paying us and looking pretty,” Dot said with a grin. There was a third, very important thing they were also good for, but she doubted that Luce shared her passion for sinking her fingers in the chests of frat boys and eating their hearts. “Speaking for the community, I thank Jared for his contribution. We’re glad to have such a hot gay with us.” Was she flirting? Yeah, but Dot didn’t think it was terrible to do so. It was a joke after all. She craned her neck a bit to see the progress and grinned, honestly, it looked fucking sick already. She couldn’t wait to show Blanche… And literally anyone else who was willing to look at it. She let out a cackle as she took in Luce’s tattoo. “Wow, what an icon. I hope you make sure everyone sees it when they ask for an anchor tattoo. You get a lot of those stupid mom heart ones?”

“You can say that again.” Luce laughed, thinking back to the random venmo that she’d gotten from Adam. As much of a big dumb frat boy he seemed, the dude was half-way decent. When he wasn’t talking about his crotch goblins or giving her stupid nicknames. That said, Dickcleaver Vural had a nice ring to it. “You’ve got that right. I am, in fact, a gift to the ladies and they-dies of White Crest.” Luce chuckled to herself as she filled in the body of the cat. Was she aware of the tone behind Dot’s words? Yeah, which is why she dug in just a little deeper with her needle. Not enough to blow out the ink, but just enough to remind Dot that she was, in fact, tattooing her. Besides, Luce was a lot of things, but she wasn’t the other woman type. “You know it. Oh, I’d be fucked if I did. Ulf would have my head on a spike if I went flashing that around.” She remarked as she looked at her handiwork. “Nah, most dudes have figured out those are out of style.”

Adam’s venmo had sent Dot into a cackling session that lasted for several minutes. She hadn’t expected anyone to actually send her money, but when she got the notification on her phone, Adam had gained a few brownie points. She gave Luce a mock salute,“Thank you for your service. You should be given a medal of honor.” Her eyes narrowed as the needle dug in deeper, sending a glare Luce’s way. She was pretty sure the tattoo artist was too practiced at this point to change pressure like that. Guess flirting, even jokingly, wasn’t allowed with Luce. “If Ulf doesn’t see it happen, what’s the harm? Some people wouldn’t even read it, I bet.” Even if they did read it, Dot was pretty sure some people would just get it anyway. She laughed,“That’s tragic. I love when I see them, it’s just so funny. Teasing guys about it is so fun.”

“Every lesbian who ever slept with a man should, honestly. Gold star lesbians, my ass. Give me a gold star for having to suffer through forty seconds of super sexy thrusting.” Luce grumbled as she wiped away the last of the excess black ink. Popping over the rainbow array of ink, she dipped her needles in to color after color, filling in the rainbow pattern on the cat’s collar. “The harm is when all the piss babies storm out or write bad Yelp reviews. I’m in customer service,” She pasted a fake smile on her face before rolling her eyes, “I gotta service the customer.” Arching an eyebrow at Dot’s words, Luce couldn’t resist the urge to snicker. “Well, I can tell you this, you can and should make fun of anyone who’s got a terrible tribal. God, 90’s and 2000’s tattooing was the worst.”

“Wow, he lasted a full forty seconds? You had a marathon runner. Most boys out there are one thrust wonders.” Dot loved moments like this where she just got to make fun of men as brutally as she wanted. So many people got uncomfortable when she talked about boys and her sexual experiences with them. “I’ll write you a five star Yelp after this. I’ll even include that I reccomend the lesbian artist.” It wouldn’t be the first time she wrote a long review just to praise a friend. She was great at acting like a Karen and if she used her real name, everyone thought she was seventy anyway. “I should make them tip me extra for making me witness their bad tattoos. At least my bad tattoos are covered up or I’m getting them fixed.”

“I was truly #blessed.” Luce said in a mocking voice, as she shut off her machine. “What got me was the fact he had the balls to ask, ‘was it good for you’? That was when I straight up told him I was pretty sure I preferred girls. Whoops.” She said as she wiped off the last of the ink and gestured for Dot to take a look at the tattoo in the mirror she had on the wall. “You better mention me, otherwise people will come in thinking it was Rory who did this sick pussy tat. God knows how the girls would react to that.” She snorted, amused at the other artist’s struggles with the fairer sex. “Honestly, they really should. And hey, you’re getting there.” She said as she tossed her gloves in the trash and began to clean up her station. “When are we gonna fix that jank ass dolphin tattoo of yours, huh?”

“‘Was it good for you?’ Well, bud, if I’m getting up to leave then I’m pretty sure it wasn’t good for me. Boys are fucking stupid,” Dot laughed. This is part of the reason she ate human boys, they were just so annoying. She stood, looking into the mirror with an almost feral grin. “This is fucking awesome.” Turning back to Luce she let out another half laugh,“Yeah I’ll make sure I tell them it was you. Try not to hit on all the hot ones I send your way.” Dot took out her phone to take a photo to send Blanche and a few of her old college buddies. Snorting, she shook her head,“The dolphin is staying as messed up as it is. It’s a Dot classic at this point.”

“Right? You’d think me grabbing my shorts and booking it out the door would have been a dead give away.” Luce said with a laugh as she grabbed the aftercare instructions pamphlet and stuffed it into a baggy with a little Ink Inc. sticker, some candy, and a few packets of Aquaphor. “I’m glad you like it.” She said as she held out the grab bag. “And, no promises on that.” Luce winked and shook her head as they walked out to the register. Setting the station up for her, Luce shook her head with a disappointed snap of her fingers. “Damn, and here I thought I might have a chance at getting you to rethink that. But, hey. You win some, you lose some.” As she leaned against the front desk, Luce glanced up at the clock. Dot was a dope lady, if chaotic. And, coming from her? That meant she was pretty much chaos incarnate. But, she was good company for a drink. “You wanna grab a drink? Celebrate your new art?”

[boydcastro708]

Casual affair theory

The song starts off with an anti gay propaganda message called “Boys Beware”

“Looks innocent enough, doesn't it? But sometimes there are dangers involved that never meet the eye no matter where you meet a stranger be careful if they are too friendly”

Which could mean this could be about a gay affair or that this takes place during a time being gay wasn't really respected or the norm meaning they could be bullied or harassed for being gay (AKA any time in the early 2000’s).

I personally think that the song specially is being told in the perspective of the fling/side chick (AKA probably Brendon) and the good majority of the album is written from the perspective of the person wanting to smash (maybe Ryan)

I’d like to start off by saying that the topic of being together had been brought up before, not wanting to sleep with Ryan until they made their love official, prompting this line from maybe Ryan...

“If you change your mind you know where to find me” (g/g/b) and since Brendon can not resist because he loves the guy so damn much he shows up- “Well, I never really thought that you'd come tonight” (ftytd) (this could also be untrue cause ya know, Dallon wrote ftytd lmao)

----

“Lover on the left”

Brendon is the lover because he is convinced that they are in love when the reality is, is that they aren’t, and he’s laying on the left side of the bed (duh)

“Sinner on the right”

Ryan is committing “sins” such as, doing the big gay (Which could be weighing on his conscience or something), cheating, lying, and lust. That too..

“Just lay in the atmosphere

A casual affair

(Hush now, baby don't you say a word)

Lay in the atmosphere

A casual affair”

Ryan doesn’t want Brendon to ruin the mood after sex with Brendon's needs to be in a relationship with him

“Break involuntary ties

A secret so the spies

Could never find us out-”

Ryan doesn’t want anyone to find out about them having sex, it could ruin his reputation, ruin the bands reputation, ruin the band, and Ryan's relationship his girlfriend

“-Stay for as long as you have time

So the mess that we'll become

Leaves something to talk about”

This line could imply that their friendship has already been destroyed do to creative differences or because Brendon fell in love with him, and either Ryan or Brendon wants one or the to stay for pillow talk, because that's all they have left in their relationship, whatever it is. 

“I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it, I did it again”

Ryan feels guilty for constantly calling Brendon over to smash despite not loving him 

Or

Brendon is mad at himself for letting Ryan get to him when he wants more than just sex

(sorry if it made no damn sense i tried bruh)

[morlock-holmes]

I never said that I expected you to have *positive* strong opinions about that story :)

2) Damn, what I wrote could be interpreted as tumblr-style not-so-passive aggressiveness, “of course you'd dislike it because it shows how horrible you sound :) ” — it wasn't that, honest.

Oh, no, no, that's okay, I was theatrically overreacting, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable.

It turns out that I have a lot to say about this story, it's just all of it is negative.

Here are several billion more words of close reading that you may feel free to skip.

Everybody in the story talks like they're on the internet all the time. Tony Tulathimutte has a relatively good ear for how people talk about this shit on the internet, and I won't lie, one or two passages even moved me, but this is because we are projecting our own knowledge of why people talk like this onto the story, not because Tulathimutte has given any of his characters any real internal life.

The fact that his feminists and Bros are just as much two-dimensional troglodytes as the story's anti-hero doesn't make it better.

Also this character is not an overly scrupulous feminist. The entire first half of the story is meant to be an ironic send-up of the way his feminist pieties contrast with his actual behavior, and I'm surprised people don't see that.

For example:

One classmate junior year had a crush on him, but he wasn’t attracted to her curvaceous body type so felt justified in rejecting her, just as he’d been rejected many times himself.

"Curvaceous" is a euphemism for "Fat". Notice that the first time he rejects someone is given significant time in the story; this character later reappears, complete with eating disorder. The first time someone rejects him is entirely glossed over, with the woman who did it never appearing in the story and the whole thing glossed over and forgotten in a few words.

Wouldn't we expect this character to obsess over those first rejections? To play them over and over in his mind?

This is why I say that, as much as any individual passage might be moving, this character has no real internal life.

Note also that the woman's disquiet about her body is expressed in neutral, sympathetic terms ("eating disorder") and given a sort of origin story: we are told she was fat in high school, was rejected for it, and has since developed an eating disorder.

In contrast, the main character's dislike of his body is expressed in absurd, satirical terms (his obsession with "narrow shoulders") and we are never given any insight into why that became his focus.

Now that he’s self-conscious, he realizes he can’t compete along conventional standards of height, weight, grip strength, whatever. 

How did he realize it and when? Has he ever been shamed for his body? Notice that this realization predates his internet radicalization. Why did he fixate on his physical attributes, rather than, say, his economic situation? Tulathimutte shows no indication that the question has even occurred to him.

Nor, for that matter, does Tulathimutte spend much thinking on why feminism in particular appealed to this character.

Still, the school ingrained in him, if not feminist values per se, the value of feminist values. 

Ah, see, he always viewed feminism instrumentally, never as a serious deep down commitment.

But why did he choose that instrument rather than another?

Again, we won't be shown.

Also, in a different thread @thefeministthrowaway spoke very emotionally about going through high school and even into college terrified that any expression of sexual interest in a woman would constitute a terrible burden on her or even become sexual harassment, and scrupulously avoided it.

Our main character did not go through such a phase; he had, according to the narration, already been rejected several times in High School.

Which leads me to the question of why on Earth this is written in third person. A first person account might allow us to read the narrator as unreliable, reading between the lines to see that what he viewed as a lifetime of rejection was really him blowing a small number of incidents and misunderstandings out of proportion; the third person narration invites us to see it as fundamentally honest and accurate: he has already asked many girls out by the time he leaves high school.

Certainly he asks out several more in college; and rather than the exagerrated fear of imposition we have, he sends several pestering, passive-aggressive emails to a woman who turns him down.

This exact scenario happens four or five more times. 

He's not scrupulously terrified of women; he pursues them to an uncomfortable and borderline stalkerish degree.

Later, he has an exchange about sexual mores with men who are identified not as friends, but "co-workers", and he calls them out for their anti-feminist ways. This is part of a general issue where everyone acts like they're on the internet all the time.

I was once out with a friend of a friend who convinced us to go meet some girls he knew (No shit, part of his pitch was, "They're real dumb") and when we got to the bar they had an elaborate drinking game from their sorority days and part of the mnemonic for the rules was about "bitches."

So, as a brittle feminist, I of course got up and made a big speech about how they shouldn't devalue themselves-

Of course I fucking didn't. I privately thought "that seems like a gross way to think about yourself" while being God damned terrified of what I'd have to do if someone asked me a question about sex during the truth or dare part.

There's no awareness in this story about the difference between real life and internet behavior, or how they modify each other. (The same problem crops up later when QPOC friend calls him out in a way that, if we saw it as a Tumblr anecdote we'd all respond with, "And then everyone got up and applauded")

“Go ahead then,” his coworker smirks, “ask your female friends what they think.”

Bristling, he calls his QPOC agender friend from his college co-op, whom he’s always gotten along well with, in part because he’s never been attracted to them.

It took me a while to twig that QPOC here was assigned female at birth, even though on a second read the juxtaposition is obviously deliberate, but I just can't fathom why our main character appears to have no male, or even AMAB friends. Doesn't that seem utterly bizarre? That he's so self-conscious and self-hating and also totally willing to expose himself and his questions to women and co-workers?

Shouldn't that be explained?

This time she gives him a two-armed shove, sending him to the ground, and instead of yelling, her mouth opens into a smile and she says, “Oh my god are you wearing shoulder pads?”

Tulathimutte knows that sport coats and suit jackets can have shoulder padding, right? Like as a completely normal thing? Why wouldn't our main character wear a suit?

Does Tulathimutte not know about suits?

Anyway... I have trouble placing this story ideologically because the main character is an awful person but his feminist "friends" are gaslighting assholes and I'm really not sure if that part is deliberate or not. They tell him that he should never act like his bro-y co-workers while privately resenting the fact that he doesn't just go ahead and do what it takes to get laid again.

There's also his date with the girl from high school; her neediness and damage turns him off as much as his turns off other people, and also she treats him like shit, but his friends ask why he doesn't see her again.

I have trouble understanding whether we're supposed to see this double standard because, as I said earlier, her damage is comprehensible and sad while his is portrayed as a sort of BOGO deal, where every bad feminist dude has bonus body image issues shrink wrapped to him when he comes out of the factory.

Nothing in this story gives us any sense of why the actions any of the characters take appeal to those characters.

@self-winding I believe it was, said that the main character can't get laid because his try hard feminism is a turn-off and I really hope that's not the point because if it is, Jesus Christ this is just a circa late 2000s Amanda Marcotte style rant about "Nice Guys" that has been sitting in the back of the fridge gathering mold for a decade.

I know I said that I went in wanting to hate it, but I don't want it to be that awful.