#like the only way to keep up with school announcements and stuff is through facebook like we have class pages and announcement pages

[hobisolostan]

85 question tag thing 🏹

tagged by: @sleepbugs (ilu !!! 😙)

rules: answer these 85 statements about yourself, then tag 20 (lmao funnyyyy) people

tagging: uhmmmmmmmmmmm @libraop @justinsgf @lilchims @namugf @brightjoon @moon9oddess @joonsgoth

last:

1. drink: h2o 

2. phone call: my mom

3. text message: my yearbook group chat .. its just spams from my friend cause she’s touring Europe ALONE , lucky bitch

4. song you listened to: always you - astro (stan talent !!!) 

5. time you cried: two days ago ish

ever:

6. dated someone twice: no

7. kissed someone and regretted it: what is this kiss?

8. been cheated on: no

9. lost someone special: yea

10. been depressed: is this a question?

11. gotten drunk and thrown up: no

12. favorite colours: blues/neutrals 

in the last year have you:

15. made new friends: yup!!

16. fallen out of love: no

17. laughed until you cried: yea ig ?? not like crying with tears streaming down my face but definitely a few tears slipped out 

18. found out someone was talking about you: o yea

19. met someone who changed you: yup

20. found out who your friends are: lets not go there :)

21. kissed someone on your facebook friends list: nope

general:

22. how many of your facebook friends do you know irl: all of them ??? stranger danger kids dont friend people u dont know irl

23. do you have any pets: skjfl i wish :(( 

24. do you want to change your name: no actually, as much as i hate when it gets mispronounced and not like even a tiny mispronunciation, it literally gets butchered :) , it has a lot of ties and significance to my culture which is important to me

25. what did you do for your last birthday: my friend whom i would die for (the one in Europe rn) invited me over to her place and her and two other friends planned surprised gifts and hot pot ! her mom literally paid for all the ingredients akfdskjl i love her sm :(( 

26. what time did you wake up today: 7 am, my body she just did it ? idk lol

27. what were you doing at midnight last night: watching a horror movie

28. what is something you can’t wait for: MONSTA X CONCERT TOMORROW AKFSJD;LF IM SO MFCKING EXCITEDDD GONNA SEE ALL MY BABIES 🤩🤩🤩🤩

29. what are you listening to right now: aint nobody takin my baby - russ

30. when was the last time you saw your mom: this morning

31. have you ever talked to a person named tom: no

32. something that gets on your nerves: narrow-mindedness, arrogance, ignorance, when ppl chew with their mouth open skfsjldfjs

33. most visited website: definitely between tumblr and youtube 

34. hair colour: black

35. long or short hair: short, it’s just below chin level rn sklfjsld

36. do you have a crush on someone: u ask me when hoseok is right ... there ?

37. what do you like about yourself: uh my lips and dimples and the fact that I’m pretty self-driven 

38. want any piercings: more like need ????? ive been wanting double helix piercings for the longesstttt time. might get some this year .. hopefully

39. blood type: i literally dont even know sklfjskd but its definitely a or b or ab since my parents are a combination of those 

40. nicknames: utshee ? just my normal name but instead of the ending ah sound its an “e” as in the letter e lol and then ironically its usa, long back story id rather not get into lol. shira if ur reading this u know 😔

41. relationship status: married to hoseok obviously

42. zodiac: this is virgo solidarity !!! 

43. pronouns: she/her

44. fave tv shows: dont really watch tv shows anymore tbh but the last good one i can remember was supernatural but its .. been awhile lmao

45. tattoos: nooooooo , i want a few small ones tho one day when im of age

46. right handed or left handed: normal regular righty 

47. ever had surgery: nope, i did fracture my arm once tho when i was like uh 2-3 

48. piercings: 2! just regular earlobe piercings, one on each

49. sport: volleyball, lacrosse, and gymnastics i did for a while competitively. i also love ultimate frisbee and long distance running on my free time

50. vacation: i havent been out of country since i came here to the states ksdjsdf my family just isn’t one of those that take family trips, at least out of country 😔ig my last family vacation was 2016 winter break where we drove down to las vegas and arizona to see the grand canyon. it was so damn cold omg

51. trainers: um i have superstars and two pairs of nikes that i wear on the daily. i really want some new van slip ons tho ugh 

more general:

52. eating: i eat literally everything lmao, im one of the least picky eaters tbh but i prefer seafood over meat. i still like and eat meat but sometimes id just .. rather not lol

53. drinking: water !!!!!!!!!! ( i down a good 10 cups at least everyday) i also love boba so much omggg u dont understand but i really do try to limit myself 😔

54. i’m about to watch: perfect man jimin focus skdjfklsdf jimin stans raise up for ur national anthem !!!!!

55. waiting for: college apps to be over even tho they technically havent opened yet akfjds;lfs

56. want: to go into my career field with zero in debt so basically impossible but a girl can dream :( 

57. get married: yea if it happens sure

58. career: medical !!! looking into anesthesiologist but im not set on anything, just wanna do Doctors Without Borders as my end career goal 😔

which is better:

59. hugs or kisses: kisses pls 

60. lips or eyes: eyes bc they just convey sooo much about a person but also pls ... if ur lips are as cracked as the sidewalk outside of my house we’re never smooching 

61. shorter or taller: definitely taller, also wanna be the little spoon during cuddles so yea

62. older or younger: older for sure because i look at the underclassmen and shudder in disgust bc they’re ur typical overgrown yet immature high school students. honestly dont know wtf happened to selecting genuine students to enroll into our school but skfjsdfjs im out of there in less than a year so whatever

63. nice arms or stomach: arms bc i like tummies but if u have abs i dont mind either

64. hookup or relationship: can’t really see myself doing hookups so relationship

65. troublemaker or hesitant: depends? i definitely want a playful relationship but they should know when their behavior is verging on immature so ig slightly  leaning on the more hesitant side

have you ever:

66. kissed a stranger: no

67. drank hard liquor: o yeaaa, new years eve and home alone with my in-college cousin lmaoo

68. lost glasses: I LOST MY FIRST PAIR IN 5 MONTHS AND I STILL DONT KNOW WHERE THEY ARE ???? i had to buy another pair after begging my parents for a good 2 months bc the first pair were so mfcking expensive ksfjsld tbh the ones i wear right now are a lot cuter tho so 

69. turned someone down: yes

70. sex on first date: no

71. broken someone’s heart: maybe ? dont know to the extent the other person liked me so

72. had your heart broken: no

73. been arrested: no

74. cried when someone died: yea

75. fallen for a friend: yea 

do you believe in:

76. yourself: love urself right hahha :)) lmao im trying ig

77. miracles: hmm sure 

78. love at first sight: idk depends, im neutral. definitely think theres more to it tho

79. santa claus: no, wish i was still at that age where i did 

80. kiss on first date: hmm depends

81. angels: yea

other:

82. best friend’s name: i have two: one’s andreana and the other is sybil (the one who left me here to die while she went to europe yea, love that betrayer)

83. eye colour: dark brown

84. fave movie: was gonna say black panther but thats too much of a popular opinion so the ritual ?? its a horror movie which i love so much omg fljsd and it was surprisingly good ??? definitely have not said that about a horror movie in the longest time bc the newer ones are always so cringy and predictable 

85. fave actor: mistre kim seokjin of course 🤩🤩

[worksby-d]

A Great Mentor: They’ll Come Around

A One Shot

Summary: Being with Andy for the better part of a year now, you decide it’s time to tell your parents. 

Pairing: Andy Barber x Reader

Warnings: Age gap relationship, upset parents

Word count: ~1700

a/n: You can find the rest of this series by checking out my masterlist :)

Dividers by @royallyprincesslilly​ 💖

Just barely opening his eyes, Andy has to squint, eyes too sensitive from sleep for the glow of your phone in the dark room.

“Y/N?” he asks quietly, reaching to put his arm around your waist so he can pull himself closer to you. “What are you still awake for?”

Putting your phone face down on the bed, complete darkness taking its place, you sigh. “Am I a bad daughter?”

“Hey…” You feel him shake his head before pressing a soft kiss to your neck. “What’s going on?”

“I feel guilty, Andy,” you explain. “I told my parents I wasn’t coming home until tomorrow… but I’m here now… with you. God, they literally live like five minutes away from here.” He stays silent, letting you talk about it.

It’s your spring break, but you wanted to see Andy before spending the week with your parents, so you told them you wouldn’t be home until Saturday, saying you wanted to spend your Friday night with some school friends before being gone a week.

“I don’t want to have to lie to them anymore. I want to spend time with you without lying about it, or worrying if they’re going to find out,” you go on. “I think I just have to finally tell them tomorrow.”

“It’s up to you, angel.”

Half of you hoped he’d talk you out of it. Damn him for being so supportive. You roll over to face him, tucking your head under his chin, listening to his heart beat for a moment.

“They’re gonna kill me,” you chuckle nervously.

His chest rumbles as he laughs at you. “They're not gonna kill you,” he assures. “They’re gonna kill me.”

“Oh good,” you exhale, feigning relief. “That makes me feel so much better.”

“Relax,” he urges, continuing to laugh. “They’re not gonna kill anybody, sweetheart,” he tries to assure you, gently rubbing your back. “By the way, I think sleep will make you feel better.”

You roll your eyes, but you know he’s right. There’s no use in worrying about it right now, so you let out one more deep sigh and let his comforting touch lull you to sleep.

In the morning, you wake up to the bed empty. Feeling the space where Andy should be, it’s cold, so you figure he’s been up for a while.

Before you have the chance to check the time, he walks in carrying a plate and a glass of water.

“Well if it isn’t Miss Sleeping Beauty herself,” he teases, putting the food on the table next to the bed. He’s giving you a quick kiss before you can retort. “Good morning,” he greets you more seriously, sitting next to you, leaning to peck your lips one more time. “Or afternoon, I guess.”

Sure enough, the clock tells you it’s 11:34 a.m. when you finally look at it. You just groan, rubbing your hands over your eyes. “Sorry.”

“Hey, you’re on break, you’re allowed to sleep in,” he chuckles. “I brought you some sustenance, though. I’ve seen what you call ‘breakfast’ when you’re at school, and I don’t know how you survive, so thought I’d make something good for you.”

“Excuse you,” you scoff. “I cook fine breakfasts.”

“I wouldn’t consider a bowl of cereal with a cup of sugar on top a cooked breakfast.”

“Ass,” you chuckle. “Well, thanks. I appreciate it.”

He sits in bed with you while you eat, getting some residual work stuff done since he quit early yesterday to be with you all evening.

“So what time do you have to be to your parents’ place?” he inquires, breaking the calm silence.

“Um, just sometime before dinner, I suppose,” you shrug.

He looks up from his laptop and over to you, giving you a sympathetic look. He can sense your nerves, the same ones that were keeping you up last night. “It’s gonna be fine,” he smiles, putting his hand on your knee. 

You flash him a weak smile back. “Yeah,” you nod, honestly trying to convince yourself more than him. “Yeah, of course.”

You lounge around with Andy for a few hours before deciding it’s now or never. He gently grabs your hand before you head out the door, pulling you against him tightly for a hug. “I’ll be here if you need me.”

You nod against his chest, savoring the feeling of his embrace. “Thanks,” you mumble and lift your head to kiss him. “I love you.”

You spend dinner with your parents internally debating when you should break the news, but you almost choke when Andy’s name is brought up, your dad saying something about him not talking to them as often as he used to.

Trying to seem indifferent, you just comment, “Huh, weird.” It works though, your parents promptly moving onto other things you’ve missed since you were home last.

Later, you're curled up on the couch, knees to your chest, sipping on a cup of coffee while your parents sit in their respective recliners on the other side of the room, reading the newspaper and scrolling through Facebook.

“So, I want to tell you guys something,” you speak up. Apparently you’re doing it now.

They both look up at you with raised eyebrows. “What did you do now, Y/N?” your mom teases.

“No, it’s nothing bad,” you laugh. “At least, I don't think.”

“I’m kidding sweetie, what is it?”

“Well,” you start, trying your hardest to suppress your smile, reminding yourself you have no idea how they're going to react. “I’m seeing someone.”

You've never been in a serious enough relationship to announce it to them before, so their interest is piqued instantly.

“About time,” your dad teases, and you roll your eyes.

“Someone you met at school?” your mom asks.

Getting closer to the part you're dreading, you stammer a bit. “Uh no, actually we’ve kind of been hanging out since last summer.”

They give each other a look, and you’re confused. 

“We figured you were maybe seeing someone,” your mom explains. “You've seemed really happy the last couple months.”

You smile at that, but it doesn't last long when your dad chimes in. “We also figured there was no way you were actually spending that much time with Andy Barber last summer. Kind of thought it may have been a cover up,” he chuckles.

“That… wasn't a cover up,” you shake your head. “I was spending all that time with Andy Barber,” you pause, trying to gauge their thoughts, but they're just looking at you. “Because I’m talking about Andy.”

“You’re…” your mom tries to understand. “What?”

“I’m dating Andy,” you admit slowly, and watch your dad’s eyes widen.

“No you’re not,” he shakes his head. “No-”

“Dad,” you plead quietly, shaking your head.

“He’s my age, Y/N. What the hell are you talking about?”

You flinch as he raises his voice, and look toward your mom, but she's avoiding your gaze.

“What is- Is he your sugar daddy or something?” he continues his interrogation attempt. “Are you guys just screwing around? Dear God, he’s using my daughter for sex-”

“What? No,” you scoff. “What the hell? You guys told me yourselves you’ve noticed how happy I am. I love him.”

“You-” He stands up from his chair, not able to finish his sentence without pacing a few times. “You love him? You’re shitting me. I’m gonna kill that bastard.”

“Dad, stop,” you beg, teary eyed this time. “He's so good to me. He’s supportive. He tells me I’m beautiful-”

“Of course he does!” he cuts you off. “You're half his age!”

“Let me finish!” you yell back at him, even surprising yourself. You let out a deep breath attempting to calm yourself. “He's been there for me when no one else could be…”

“Have we not been there for you, honey?” Your mom finally joins back in. “What is it that we weren't there for?”

Of course you're talking about the pregnancy, but you know you can't tell them about that yet, or ever the way this is going. “I just mean law school stuff… He’s stayed up so many nights, talking to me on the phone, assuring me it's all gonna be okay. He just understands what I’m going through.”

A silence fills the room, neither of your parents knowing what to say next.

“I can't believe this,” your dad utters quietly. “No daughter of mine is ruining her life by being in a relationship with a man old enough to be her father.”

“Dad, wait-” Despite your plea, he's walking out of the room. “I'm not ruining my life,” you affirm, only to your mom now. “I’m sorry,” you whisper. “I can't stay here. Let me know when dad wants to talk to me again.”

As you gather your stuff, you ignore your mom’s apologies, not wanting her to be the one doing damage control for your dad. You tell her again to let you know when he wants to talk to you himself, and then you leave.

Andy’s expecting you when he hears his front door open. You texted him to let him know you need to stay with him.

“That bad?” he asks carefully when you walk straight to the kitchen and pour yourself a glass of wine.

Leaning against the counter, you close your eyes and sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose. “I wish they would trust me…” You finally look up at him. “My dad’s pissed. Said he's gonna kill you, by the way.”

Andy tips his head back laughing. “I expected as much. I’m sorry, baby.”

“I mean shit,” you continue. “I’m 23. I’m capable of making my own decisions. They’re the ones that raised me to think for myself and be confident with my choices… And now, my dad’s not talking to me because of who I decided to fall in love with.”

“Sweetheart, they love you. They just care about you and want to protect you,” he tries to justify, but you roll your eyes. “I would probably react the same way if my daughter told me she was with someone older.”

“Oh, come on, Andy,” you snap. “Whose side are you on?”

You push yourself off the counter to walk away, but he grabs your wrist. “Hey, hey, stop.” He wraps his arms around you, and some of the tension finally leaves your body as his hands stroke your back. “They'll come around.”

[prorevenge]

[Long] How we destroyed our teacher and principal:

Apologies in advance if some details are blurry as this happened almost 14 years ago. Also, this is going to be a long one, so bare with me, I swear the result is worth it, at least it is to me.

The beginning: It all started when I (M25) was 12 years old. My grade 7 teacher (M46 at the time) was infamous for being intimidating and, in my opinion, abusive to his students. He was the disciplinarian of the school. He was in charge of keeping track of detentions and announcing who will be sitting every Friday during assembly.

We suspected at that time that the reason why he never got fired was either because his students were too scared to report him, or because of the fact that the principal was his brother-in-law.

Reasons why I hated him: He was constantly making vaguely racist remarks, complaining about the "New South Africa" and constantly bringing up how his life was better during the Apartheid regime (He's a white guy who was raised on a farm).

I always felt like he had an issue with me as a person because I'm a practising Muslim. He would make the class laugh at how "funny" Muslim women looked with their heads "wrapped up". His jokes about Muslims missing out on eating bacon were endless, in fact, he one day purposely stood in front of my desk eating a cheese and bacon panini.

He used to often rant about how the school is no longer a "pure Christian institution as it once was back in the day". He would say these things and glance at either me, my twin sister, or the black students in the class who practiced their own African religions.

When it was his birthday, my mom encouraged me to buy him a gift. I spent of my pocket money, which was already limited (my parents didn't believe in allowances) to buy him a big slab of chocolate and a long piece of Droëwors (dried sausage). Throughout the day, he would get gifts from students in his class and others.

He would get up from his desk to greet and thank them, and then shake their hand. I remember noticing this because I always found it weird when students shook hands with teachers because of how small our hands were compared to theirs.

However, when I gave him my gift, all he did was look at me for like a second, look away and nod his head slightly. I remember being thankful for not offering my hand out for him to shake because I thought he might have ignored it in front of the entire class. To say I felt like shit is an understatement.

The experience that made me hate him the most happened just before we wrote 2nd or 3rd term exams. I was walking with my friend David (fake name) back from the tuck shop during interval. We took a shortcut between the English and Afrikaans kindergarten classes and saw a group of boys huddled together.

One of them walked towards us and I saw that he had one of those camping multi-tools with the folding knife out, and instantly got a fright. He told us "Give me your stuff before I cut your neck" and then started laughing and walked back to his friends. It was clearly a joke but David looked close to tears and I had a very bad fright because of what he done. I told the guy (Fake name Xander) that he's not allowed to have knives at school and that I'm going to tell my teacher.

We walked straight to our teacher and when we spoke to him, David burst into tears.

We told him what happened and David was sobbing when he said he felt like he was going to die. Our teacher barely looked up from his computer while we were speaking and when he asked for the guy's name. We told him the name and he said he will deal with it and for us to go out for interval again.

I went home and told my mom who I felt didn't fully believe me at the time.

The next day we saw Xander were basically making fun of him for getting into trouble with our teacher and likely getting expelled at worst, or sitting a Saturday detention at best. He laughed back at us and said our teacher just came to his class, asked to speak to him and told him to never bring it to school again. No detention. No suspension. Basically nothing. He still had the knife on him for the rest of the day before.

We were so upset we went back to our teacher and I told him that Xander said that he didn't get into trouble for having the knife. He gave me the ugliest look as if I was bothering him, and coldly said to me that maybe I should fix my late-coming problem before I try to get other people in trouble.

I would come late 4 or 5 times a month because my mom's car's battery terminals were broken so the battery would run flat and she couldn't afford to have it fixed. She had to put the neighbour's battery in her car, start it, and then idle it while she took that battery out and put her own battery back in to charge up. My mom taught me the value of always having a number 10 spanner in your car lol.

I felt betrayed by my teacher. The person who was supposed to make us feel safe while we were away from home.

When I spoke to my friends about it, they told me that Xander was actually the principal's son, meaning he was my teacher's nephew. I decided to take the opportunity to speak to my friends about getting evidence that our teacher is treating students unfairly.

3 of my 4 close friends had camera phones. I sat in the far left corner, my one friend sat in the opposite corner by the door, our other friend sat in the middle, and the last friend was right at the back of the class by the window on the left. One thing about our teacher: he did not give a fuck about where we sat as long as we answered him when he done roll call and didn't bother anyone when we swapped seats.

We came to an agreement that whenever our teacher would sound like we was going to say something vaguely racist or islamophobic, we would all discreetly take videos of him.

Any private conversation we had with him was voice recorded on our phones. We caught him on camera telling a really racist joke about black people, and saying that Hindus must have a lot of problems since they have so many Gods. We caught him saying a lot of bad things, but a lot slipped through our fingers because we weren't fast enough.

It was extremely difficult to keep our friend group motivated to record him and not tell anyone else about it. It was especially difficult because at the time I had a hand-me-down Samsung D900 which was seen as an expensive phone at the time.

My mom prohibited me from taking it to school. She instead bought a cheap R79 ($5) phone for us that could only make calls and send SMS's. This was in case she needed to reach us in an emergency. I got caught several times sneaking my camera phone to school. My biggest mess up at school was when my mom phoned me on my Samsung and I answered it. Big oof but I was a dumbass.

After I think a month we decided that we couldn’t let it go any further.. One of our friends was a black guy named Tatenda (fake name). Tatenda was a problem child. His mom died when he was four and his dad was an alcoholic. He was raised mostly by his uncle who up until today I think was a pimp. He used to act out at school because of undiagnosed ADHD, his dad and uncle didn't believe in learning disabilities and always assumed he was just lazy and badly behaved.

Tatenda especially got onto our teachers nerves because not only was he black, but because he would bring broken calculators from home and take them apart during class. One day our teacher told him to clear his desk and throw away the bits of plastic and calculator shit. He ignored the teacher. The teacher then started screaming at him, and Tatenda done the only logical thing an 12/13 year old would do in such a situation: he mockingly put two pencils into his ears.

Our teacher lost his shit, grabbed Tatenda and threw him against the door. The narrow window pane cracked and Tatenda's head was bleeding. He told us he was fine during interval afterwards and we put money together to buy him a Sprite. I almost cried when my friend who sat way behind me said he got the whole thing on camera. We didn't even trust that the whole class' testimony would get him into trouble. We decided that enough was enough.

The revenge: First we showed the video to Tatenda's uncle, who showed it to his father. Then I showed my mom all the other videos and recordings.

She. Lost. Her. Mind.

One of my friends sent all of it to his older sister who had a Facebook account and she posted it there and tagged the school and as many parents as she knew. It blew up. Parents and people from around the province phoned the school demanding answers as to what is going to happen to our teacher. He was immediately suspended.

There were rumours circulating that he had to go into hiding because Tatenda's uncle and his friends were looking to kill him. I even met Tatenda's dad for the first time in the weeks after the whole thing exploded. He liked to joke that his dad sobered up especially for this lol.

The principal pulled Xander out of the school. We never saw him again. My mom told me an investigation was launched against the school because of the improper handling of bullying complaints. If I remember correctly, 3 English kids in my class alone spoke out against teachers dismissing their complaints of bullying by the Afrikaans kids. We were a mostly white, Afrikaans speaking school with 3 Afrikaans classes but only 1 English class per grade.

They called us"souties" which was short for "soutpiel" which literally tranlates as "salty dick". It's a derogatory term for English speaking, white South Africans. It means your one leg in is South Africa, your other leg is in England, so your dick is hanging in the ocean.

We only saw our teacher once after he was suspended. He looked badly beaten up, and was accompanied by a policeman and two other male teachers so he could gather the rest of his stuff from his class.

But it didn't end there.

Because so many kids needed the evidence that they were being bullied and nothing was done because of it, the CCTV footage was brought up. My friend's mother who was part of the school governing body that time, told us a few years ago that when they reviewed the footage, it became apparent that the principal was having an affair with one of the grade 2 teachers.

He could be seen grabbing her ass at the furthest point away from the camera. They slipped up a few times and kissed in clear view of the camera, but I guess once you're surrounded by the cameras everyday at work, you forget that they're there. It was very apparent that sometimes they thought they couldn't be seen.

My mom's friend's sister (basically my aunt) sells Tupperware and one of her regular customers and close friend's is the principal's ex wife. Not only did she leave him, but they were not married in community of property due to a prenup agreement. The house they lived in was in her name since before marriage, so she effectively made him homeless because none of his family wanted to take him in.

He ran into severe debt from staying in guesthouses and burned many bridges from overstaying his welcome at friends. As for my teacher, his reputation was destination fucked. He served jail time, don't know how long, and eventually left the country because it seemed everyone knew his face from the media attention he received.

The reason why I made this post: I was never going to tell this story on Reddit as I've told it over and over through the years since primary school. But I felt I had to because of what I experienced at the beginning of this year.

My family is part of a non profit organisation that has feeding schemes all over the country. The last Friday feed of February I'm standing security as I usually do since we're few volunteers and there's many homeless people and most are on drugs and can get violent.

I'm walking down the line to make sure there are no fights or anything that could start a riot, and I see a familiar face. My old principal is standing in the line, waiting for a bowl of stew and bread, with absolutely no idea who's standing beside him. Obviously he wouldn't have recognised me, but I never forgot his face. I'm not gonna lie, I cried quite a bit behind my sunglasses. Seeing him brought back the feelings I had when I was 12 years old in 7th grade, trying absolutely every excuse in the book to not have to go to school and be bullied by my teacher.

So yeah, for those of you who are still reading, this is the end of how my friends and I destroyed the lives of my teacher and principal.

If you got this far and are feeling depressed, worthless, or less than your peers, I love you. I appreciate you, and you, are seriously fucking awesome. Bye Bye..

(source) story by (/u/Mobi_Wan_Kenobi786)

[nagisasstunningpersonality]

TINSITOGS, a retrospective (happy birthday)

(yes I’m like two days too late I know I’m sorry) 

Why hello followers and ass class fandom, nice to see you there. I’m sure MOST people know about this, but in case you don’t, hi. On AO3 I’m better known as livixbobbiex, writer of maybe one of the most infamous Assassination Classroom fics. 

Which I mean like, if you haven’t read it yet you totally should it’s fanlore at this point I promise- 

Shameless plug that I don’t need aside, I felt that, on its first birthday since actual completion, I just wanted to share some things about it. Some tit bits about writing it, fun facts, maybe even some author advice TM. I appreciate that it’ll be super annoying if I do that in the tags, though, so that’ll all be under the cut. If you don’t want to read the whole post, then no matter what, thanks for the support in general! 

I also want to take the opportunity to announce that I’ve reopened my discord, so if you want to talk about my fics with me (and others), you’re more than welcome to join! (the link is here) 

The origin story 

I’ve stated this many times, I think, but TINSITOGS was never supposed to be a serious story. Taking you back, quite a long time, it actually started in a facebook DM with a friend. We used to come up with “head canons” with each other, which were basically just very condensed fanfiction plots over a multitude of text messages. I believe I was trying to cheer her up, and I tried to come up with some kind of plot line. 

At the time, I was fairly fresh to the Ass Class fandom, and I was joking about how there were no teen pregnancy melodrama fanfictions. It wasn’t that I wanted one, I just thought it was strange for a school centric anime with a bunch of ships to NOT have one. And, back then, I only really cared about karmagisa. So I just decided ‘right it’s happening’. The reason I decided to make it ABO was due to ‘it making sense’. Fun fact: it was almost written as AFAB trans Nagisa, but I decided against it as I didn’t rate my ability to handle it well back then. Looking back on it, I’m glad I made that decision. 

Over around two months, writing out the plot of this story took over my life a little bit. I had no idea where I was going with it, but I was having so much fun with the drama that I decided that Karma and Nagisa shouldn’t get together soon at all, and I had a lot of fun teasing my friend with the ‘will they won’t they’. It was only when I got bored that I invented this intense drama plotline to finish it all off. 

That period of time was a lot of fun. And whilst that friendship didn’t end well, I still have a lot to thank her for. She chose Daichi’s name because I had no idea, and she wanted to annoy me because I didn’t like Haikyuu. When I couldn’t decide on his hair colour, the purple was her suggestion because ‘why logic?’ Daichi speaking Korean was because of how much she liked Kpop. She even helped me choose the title of the actual fic, so there’s a lot you can thank her for, honestly. 

After I finished that story, though, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Whenever I daydreamed, I used to think about that damn Daichi Akabane, and how much I wanted to tell his story. I’d even come up with extra stuff to fill in a lot of the gaps, and developed his character in my mind. I decided that I was really desperate to write it down. Usually that worked when I had an idea I wanted to work through. 

I wrote the first chapter in late 2017, and then the next two as well. I just, kept going, and realised that I could go further still. TINSITOGS was never something that was supposed to be shared, but I decided I may as well. After all, that fated ‘teen pregnancy drama’ fic still didn’t exist, and I thought it would be funny to make it happen. 

Yes, as I’ve stated publicly a few times, TINSITOGS was a crack fic. If I wanted attention from it, it was infamy. We even joked about me cursing the fandom if it ever became the most popular fic (whoops?). What I wasn’t expecting was a bunch of people, in a fandom where at the time there were NO ongoing karmagisa fics and it was pretty dead, to really seem to enjoy it. It was enough to have me keep writing it, at least. I still don’t know at what point I actually started taking it seriously, but somehow I did, and the rest is history? 

The reception 

In my wildest dreams, I never thought that I would be the author of one of the most popular fics in the fandom. To this day, the amount of views TINSITOGS has is insanity to me. For the record, across all platforms it’s on today it has 238,000, which is literally a number I can’t even visualise anymore. Almost quarter of a MILLION. To this day on AO3, it’s the most viewed Ass Class fic that’s an ACTUAL ass class fic (the others are multi fandom compilations). So yeah, I achieved the original goal, I guess? 

Now you might be wondering, “omg the karmagisa fandom is fujoshi trash”. And, considering the origins, it is kind of funny. The thing is, though, TINSITOGS was written at incredibly good time. It was written when there were, essentially, very few long form Karma/Nagisa stories. If any other fics did get posted on occasion, they were usually just oneshots. I was also, at that point, writing very fast. A symptom of ADHD is becoming obsessively productive over certain things. Since I was able to get a 3k chapter out every few days/once a week, TINSITOGS was consistently bumped to the top of AO3′s default view. And some of those first few chapters were altered canon, and transcribing the canon dialogue didn’t take very long. The more views it got, the more people would read it out of sheer curiosity. 

I think it also helps that, at least after it started getting some positive feedback (which was honestly after the pre written chapters), I purposely tried to make it ‘not terrible’. I mean, I personally think the first chapter is pretty weak and if it wasn’t somewhat iconic to a lot of people I’d rewrite it. But in general, I purposely tried to make the world of ABO my own, to make it more accessible to those who don’t like that genre, and stay away from the inherently grosser stuff as much as possible. I genuinely do get comments about how I introduced people to the genre as a whole, still not sure if that’s a GOOD thing but hey, it happened. 

TINSITOGS turned into a lot more than just a joke. It turned into my favourite hobby. It turned into a research project (honestly, you would not believe the amount of mummy vlogs and legit scientific articles about child development I consumed). It turned into something that, at least I believe, was widely loved. 

Meaning 

I think it might be wrong to say that I don’t have AN idea of when I started to take the fic super seriously. For me, it was around the time someone commented something along the lines of saying my writing meant a lot to them, that they’d spent all night reading it and had been unable to put it down. 

Not to get too dark here, but I do have a past in writing a very long, somewhat popular fic (it’s still on my fanfic net profile if anyone’s interested, but I don’t recommend it). However, in the latter part of my teenage years, the depression struck. Writing was the love of my life, and I couldn’t bring myself to do it anymore. Maybe I’d be able to muster an idea or even a chapter at the best points of that, but I’d never completely finished any story. Starting to write again was a huge step in my recovery, and one of the reasons I convinced myself that life was worth it was being able to impact someone’s life somehow. Even to this day, I still remember the fics I read when I was, like, thirteen. How much I still remember them, and how much they meant to be at the time. I wanted to be that writer for someone else. To be honest, it was actually Yuri!!! On Ice that got me out of the super bad, but I still never wrote anything of real consequence. TINSITOGS was the first time in a long time I actually committed to something. 

And, to be completely honest, there were a lot of times I was tired of it, and wanted to just quit. But, the thing was, I felt like people depended on me in a way. I got so many comments that were just FILLED with support, telling me how much they looked forward to every update. It wasn’t just empty words, either, a lot of the times these comments would be super engaged with the actual writing. I can’t even describe just how much they meant to me, how much I would look forward to reading everyone’s opinions. And then discord happened, which was a lot of fun. 

TINSITOGS went a lot further than I ever thought it would. There were comments, discussions, fan art, fan FIC (which is honestly incredible to me). Someone even added it to TV Tropes, at one point. Not to mention the Cards Against Humanity deck and quiz It makes me so unbelievably happy that I could inspire that much creativity, but it’s a two way street. It was all of that which inspired me to write, too. 

Writing 

The only real goal I actually had was aiming for around 3000 words per chapter. I had a whole facebook log of plot points as planning, and I was mostly just trying to expand on them into prose. I honestly thought that, at its completion, the entire fic would be around 100k words, if that. Not, at one point, being literally the longest ass class fic on AO3. 

There are a lot of aspects that were directly adapted from the original messages, and I tried to stay faithful to it more so at first, even if I later removed some of the pure crack. But the style was also vaguely similar, with the story being told mostly from Nagisa’s perspective with swaps to Karma when it made sense. All the main plot beats, too, are pretty much identical. The plus to this was I was able to add a lot of really fun foreshadowing, and I feel like it’s a fun reread because of it. 

Honestly though, if there’s a demand to release those OG message logs, I will. Mostly because it’s kind of funny, and interesting to see. Isogai and Nagisa were engaged at one point, even. 

Obviously, it changed somewhat. 3000 was the minimum length, and the time to completion was whenever it felt right. One of my big concerns was about pacing, so it took a lot more fleshing out and maybe ‘filler’ content for some of the main arcs to work. 

There’s parts of TINSITOGS I don’t think aren’t written that well, and some that I’m still super proud of. I think you can definitely tell there’s a gradual shift in style, and I get a lot more comfortable with writing them as characters as it goes along. To be honest, my pride for the fic overall is what it represents. 

It is funny to think about the places it got written in, though. I started it when I worked at McDonalds with no life direction, then it went through my first year of university with me. It’s been written in at least four countries. Aeroplanes, night clubs, long haul buses, a train through the Japanese southern coastline. Even the start of covid. TINSITOGS managed to see a lot. I even turned a scene in (the boat scene during the India chapter with altered names) to my university as a legitimate assignment. 

There were also a few messages I wanted to achieve, once I realised I had the platform to put them across. One of them was, obviously, ‘use protection kids’. It was important to me that I didn’t glamorise it too much, and I think that came across. I also wanted to dispute some of the issues with ABO, and subvert the consent issues as much as I could. An arc I really ‘liked’ writing was how abuse doesn’t always look the same way, and that it can be a drawn out change in behaviour. How the most important part of ‘being a good parent’ isn’t perfection, but genuinely loving and doing the best you can for your kid. How love doesn’t solve everything, and effective communication can take a very long time to learn and build a functional relationship. I mean, there definitely was a lot I tried to put in, and you’re free to interpret it all how you want. But, I like to think some people learnt some of these things, at least. 

Daichi 

Honestly, Daichi developed almost of his own free will. I had a good idea of his appearance, and that he was smart. Writing him from birth until around nine years old (older if you read the sequel fic) pretty much allowed that fluidity. It was really fun to explore a nature vs nurture development, and let his own characteristics speak for themselves. 

He’ll always have a special place in my heart. 

This is the first image I ever made. When I was trying to figure out what Daichi looked like, I honestly just edited Karma’s hair (pretty well, actually? I’m impressed with my past skill). That’s where the ‘he looks just like Karma’ meme kind of came from. 

This was the first image I actually created of Daichi. I THINK it was on rinmaru games mega anime creator or something, but it’s literally not available on the internet anymore as far as I can tell, so I can’t double check. This was in the pre-piccrew days. His eyes are closed because they didn’t have the right tone of goldish/silver.  

His sister, Kaguya, didn’t even exist originally, even though I decided on that ending pretty early on. Actually, she was going to be called ‘Irina’ due to some hijinks. Initially, when Karma found out about Irina’s pregnancy, she was going to get super emotional and mad at him and basically force him to name his first born daughter after her. Karma agreed to shut her up, never intending to have another child, so when the surprise second child later came along they had to live with the pain. However, to be honest I just forgot to write in the actual scene that set it all up, and I decided against adding it anywhere else. The name Kaguya was a very last minute decision, and it was a chance for me to explore some ideas that didn’t fit with Daichi’s character. 

Interestingly too, Daichi and Nao were never intended to be a thing. I only decided that towards the VERY end. Even though the reason I named Nao that was because of a ship I had in a J Drama (Good Morning Call). It just kind of ended up happening because I won myself over with imagining the cute. 

The music 

I used to write with a lot of background music, though not all the time. Particularly towards the start, there was a lot that didn’t really make sense thematically, yet I would write to a lot. 

Here’s a link to the spotify playlist if you want it it’s basically all the ones I noted I’d listened to a lot. Not including the smut ones, though, I have a whole playlist for that. 

Some of the notable ones: 

Five String Serenade - the first scene I wrote of the entire fic, in Chapter 25 New Year Time where they fell asleep cuddling. 

Cosmic Love - when I wrote Nagisa’s love confession scene in hospital (I also wrote this pretty early on) 

Northern Downpour (though it was actually a cover by Emma Blackery) - The chapter after Daichi’s born (30) 

When The Party’s Over -  Confession Time Third Period, Chapter 69. I literally listened to this song on REPEAT when I planned and wrote the kind of ‘break up’ scene, and it’s one of the few parts that made me cry writing. 

Turning Page - I know I said no smut, but this song actually gave me the idea to have the “I love you” in chapter 108 be less on a whim and actually more built up. In the original plan, Karma really did just say it without thinking. I’m glad I changed that.  

Bury Me Low and Numb - pretty much all I listened to when writing the last few chapters, because Evil Nagisa core. So much so that Bury Me Low was in my top 2020 songs rewind. 

As for the title, there’s actually quite a funny story. I had no idea what to call the fic, and when that happens I usually just try and find some song lyrics. I really wanted to use something from ‘October’ by the Broken Bells. Not only because it’s my favourite song (has been for years), but thematically it really worked. The issue was, it worked as the WHOLE song, there were no individual lyrics that captured everything. And, if they did, they didn’t flow very well. And naming the fic ‘October’ would have been weird for a lot of reasons. There Is No Sweeter Innocence That Our Gentle Sin really was just plucked randomly, in a desperate search to find any snappy lyrics from any song that had some kind of meaning. After a bit of discussion, we settled that it kind of worked... if Daichi is innocent and they committed a sin or something. It also wasn’t the most obvious lyric from the song (Take Me To Church if anyone doesn’t know) so I just went with it. It works out, I think, because TINSITOGS turned out to be a pretty good acronym and pronounceable word in its own right. 

The merch  redbubble drama 

It’s a well known fact that I’m not very good at art. However, I decided to try pixel art because it seemed the easiest to not mess up. I made Karma and Nagisa, before deciding to also give Daichi a try. 

This, to this day, is the only good quality art of Daichi that I actually own. The only one I’m actually happy sharing and thinking it doesn’t look terrible. As much as I love people sending me fanart, it’s not ‘my property’, right. 

So, I was kind of joking about TINSITOGS having merchandise. At first I just made two funny quote things, and uploaded it to redbubble. I was never intending to actually make money from this, and I’d agreed to myself that if I did, I would just donate it to charity. I was joking with the quotes, but since I had this artwork I figured I may as well uploaded. Separately, there was also an image that had pixel Daichi next to pixel Nagisa and Karma (which I also created). 

Aside from showing up in a few people’s adverts across the internet, there was no real harm with this. In fact, I didn’t make money anyway. It was just... more the joke of it existing. I did, however, buy myself a Daichi phone case, which is one of my favourite possessions. 

The funny ‘drama’ comes in when they got taken down due to copywrite. Sure, the one with Nagisa and Karma, I understand. But the other three literally had no mention or anything to do with Assassination Classroom, aside from being from a fanfiction. So basically, someone who owns those rights claimed my OC as theirs. Which makes Daichi canon? Whatever the case, I found this hilarious don’t worry. 

How has TINSITOGS changed my life? 

This is quite a strange thing to think about. Because, in a lot of ways, it really hasn’t. As I’m sure a lot of people know, I don’t really consider myself to have any real ‘fame’, despite the impressive numbers. Whenever I tell people in my personal life, they seem to think I’m some sort of internet celebrity, but that’s never been the case for me. I mean, it’s hardly a cultural phenomenon. 

In a lot of ways, I’d much rather befriend someone than have them admire me. Possibly because being someone’s inspiration is kind of weird... I’m just an awkward duck who likes to write after all. I don’t mind it, though. I genuinely find it an honour, even if I don’t necessarily agree. I also want to take this time to say that if anyone ever wants to talk or message me, you’re more than free to do so. I’m usually super casual with people who do that, I promise. 

TINSITOGS was the first story I ever finished in the way I truly wanted to. Start to end, a full narrative. And it took a LOT. There were so many times I almost felt like quitting, or took super long breaks. For me, ADHD queen, actually finishing something was a huge deal. And I know I wouldn’t have done it if I didn’t owe it to everyone who read it, and myself, to see it through. You know like, if I were to die tomorrow, at least I’ve left something behind. 

In a lot of ways, it’s changed me for the better. It’s helped me develop my writing styles, and way of thinking. It encouraged me to become more active in the fandom, and develop some important friendships. I always feel like my Tumblr and Fanfiction ‘known’ factor is separate. I think most of my Tumblr following is more to do with my theories/Japanese context research if anything, for example, but I know I wouldn’t be so interested in that if TINSITOGS hadn’t lead me to deeply examine character and really look into analysing source material for clues. I also think there’s just... a lot of myself in it. 

I was 17 years old, when I first came up with the idea. I finished the story when I was 20. Now, at the time of writing, I’m 21. That time has seen some pretty significant changes - just in general life facts and my own personal human development. For me at least, a lot of that was pretty turbulent, and TINSITOGS stands as a time capsule for that, in a way. 

I know I gained a lot of confidence, and it affirmed to me that writing is what I love. Telling stories and sharing them is what I love. 

Conclusion

Do I think TINSITOGS is an outstanding piece of writing, or the best fic ever? No. I really don’t. It’s strange to say because I definitely spent a lot of time on it, but it’s not like I put my full unbridled efforts into the story. I don’t fully plan, use a beta, or even read through on my own. And that’s okay - that’s not what I write fanfiction for. Fanfiction is my place to have fun with characters and stories I like, without the pressures of having to stand on my own complete originality. Yes, I’m fully confident that I can write at a “higher quality”, if I really wanted to. I’m also aware that some authors put their full effort into their fics, and that’s just as valid! 

It feels odd to say this about my own writing, but I honestly think there’s just something in this story. It might not be written in the best prose ever, and the premise might be kind of dumb for a lot of people. But, I think, there’s some part of this fic that managed to grab people. Somehow, at some point, many readers get captured into the emotions and so drawn in that ‘they just have to finish it now!’ Again, I’m not sure myself how I actually achieved that. Of course, that won’t apply to everyone, but I do feel there’s some truth in it. And it makes me happy, to have caused that. 

If TINSITOGS is your favourite fic, or if you genuinely think it’s the best story you’ve read, then thank you. I really appreciate your support, and I’m happy to have been a part of your life, I guess. I know how much fanfics can mean to a person, and that’s why I’m not going to take it down, or edit it at all. And it’s fine too, if you loved the fic for a while and moved on -i t happens. Whatever the case, I’m very honoured to have been able to occupy a moment of your life. Or if you find this fic in 10 years time, even, I still wholly appreciate you. 

This story was incredibly important to me, and thank you for reading if it was ever important to you too. 

You may ask, what now? Well, this is only intended to be a detailed look back for whoever’s interested, and it’s likely the only one I’ll actually do, a year after completion. Of course, if you ever want to ask me anything or just discuss the story, you’re honestly good to contact me in whatever way I have available. 

I’m still writing my ongoing stories, of course, despite taking a small break due to the university work load. I fully intend to complete the stories I’ve already started to tell, at least. After that... I’m not sure if I’ll still write fanfiction. Don’t panic, this isn’t a ‘I’m quitting writing’ thing. I may, however, have bled the Karmagisa genre a bit too dry at that point. Who knows? I am pretty interested in writing something original for once, so maybe that’ll work out. 

For now, at least, thank you to anyone who read this fic. To anyone who commented, liked, or interacted with me over it. To anyone who created or learnt from it. I’m really glad that I got to share this story with you all, and ultimately left some kind of mark, no matter how big or small. 

Happy birthday, TINSITOGS. I had a lot of fun writing you. 

[keepyourpantsongohan]

Ayesha Liveblogs Death Note

I’m watching this show specifically because of that text post that said, “Watch how quickly this one guy decides to be the worst person ever” and he has killed two people in the first ten minutes

Though 2 be fair he’s killing people to save people so it’s a trolley problem kind of thing for now

“In fact I’ve been waiting for you... Ryuk” ok weird flex Light but u do u

“You’re the first one to use to this extent in five days” WAIT DID HE MURDER ALL THOSE PEOPLE IN FIVE DAYS I THOUGHT HE WAS JUST LOOKING AT A LIST OH MY GOD??

“So there isn’t a price to using Death Note?” said Light, as if killing people is just a normal thing that we all do

Fhkjfhfkjb Ryuk really went ‘u used the book so we’re friends now’ 

I was wondering why the book was in English, and I guess that makes sense British and American imperialism really Did That

“I can write down the names of criminals, and slowly reduce the number of evil people” uhhhh doesn’t u being a Book Murderer also make you a criminal Light

“Human lives shouldn’t be taken so lightly” bah dum tss

Also I guess that revelation lasted about thirty seconds for you huh

Update from 15 seconds later: Even less than that

“I would create a world of earnest, kind humans” really because I don’t think places that allow the death penalty are generally nicer societies 

It’s interesting that they use English in the classes and the notebook but the conversation at Interpol takes place in Japanese (despite the implied internationality and Ryuk’s aforementioned claim about English being most common) 

Huh I won’t lie I do think it’s confusing that the main characters are L and Light, which also starts with L

“I am justice” I mean if anything this show just proves that no one should be allowed to use the death penalty on apprehended suspects in criminal justice cases ever 

OH SHIT PLOT TWIST HIS DAD’S A COP (IT WAS IN THE TEXT POST I THINK BUT I FORGOT)

Wow this show is full of mind games already I guess I can see why like, crime show fans would dig it

“But I’m going to say this as your roommate” OH MY GOD THEY WERE ROOMMATES KJHRGKJHKJHG

Interesting that someone is following Light specifically already

I mean not to poke too many holes in your plan Light but wouldn’t it clash with your plan to become God if you die at like 35 or smth 

“You’re already much more of a shinigami than they are” Ryuk said my friends are BORING I want to hang out with this MURDER TEEN

“I may not look it, but I’m pretty popular” Light is exactly the kind of guy who ends up in a true crime special where a bunch of people say he seemed like a nice, charismatic young man

Man this poor girl that Light brought on this date is going to be straight traumatized after this

I mean isn’t it MORE suspicious if someone dies around someone with direct ties to the police even if it’s not a heart attack

“You were indeed a brilliant FBI agent once, but now you’re my fiancée” kjhfkjhg WHAT FBI AGENTS CAN’T BE MARRIED 

“Once we have a family, you’ll be so busy that you’ll forget that you were an agent” I’m not a fan of Raye Penber 

What’s the point in killing Raye at all???? He told you he was part of a special investigation so clearly he’s not that suspicious of you

Light sure is bold to announce his Killing People Experiments in the middle of a busy sidewalk 

Incredible that consistently no one notices Light’s increasingly threatening declarations????

Fjkfkfhk these five cops finding out their Hail Mary is this strange little goblin man,,,, wow

This woman has really pushed Light to the brink just by giving a fake name, I admire her tenacity

Cops wearing fake IDs really did not age well oh boy

SERIOUSLY HOW DOES NO ONE EVER HEAR LIGHT SAYING SUSPICIOUS THINGS IN PUBLIC THOROUGHFARES HE LITERALLY JUST SAID “I AM KIRA” AS A DETECTIVE WALKED BY, WHILE HE WAS TALKING TO SOMEONE HE KILLED IMMEDIATELY AFTER

Wow it really took only eight episodes for L to track Light as close as one of two families

“You have a wife and daughter, right?” “I know!” I mean..... not 2 be that guy but... cops

 “To me, apples are like... Well, like cigarettes and liquor to humans” Vcvhcjhj every once in a while Ryuk says something that really tickles me

I know the word sociopath is kind of outdated but man does Light have actual interests outside of school or does he just do stuff to fill the void of his lack of interests (outside of murder)

JKHGKJHGKJHKJHG I cannot believe that this has turned into a fake classmate situation first of all 1) are you going to become friends and 2) How old are you Ryuzaki/L?

“Where is that rich kid from? And he’s even at the top of his class? What a jerk” honestly a mood

I DESPERATELY want Light’s mother or sister to overhear his evil cackling will someone finally eavesdrop on this god complex

“If I sit normally, my reasoning skills drop by 40%” weird flex but same 

Sidenote: I can’t believe how many episodes of this show I already have watched

Ngl I was VERY shook that Mr. Yagami had a heart attack. Also does Light care if his family lives or dies or is he kind of neutral on the subject? 

“If Kira is an ordinary person who gained this power, then he is a very unlucky person” Dad and L said ‘if u ARE Kira could you please stop murdering thank you <3′ 

Light really underestimated how much cops hate anyone who has killed a cop oops

OH SO IT’S NOT LIGHT I WAS WONDERING WHY HE HAD NOT MADE AN APPEARANCE THIS WHOLE EPISODE U MEAN THERE ARE TWO GUYS WITH THIS EXACT SAME IDEOLOGY AND PLAN? INCREDIBLE

Update from ten seconds later: Two people, I guess

Well this explains the girl in the short dress which serves as the Netflix thumbnail of this show I was wondering when she would show up 

Also she sounds like she’s very young? Clearly Shinigami don’t have a minimum age of informed consent when it comes to their Murder Eyes Contract 

Hahah I bet Light didn’t imagine that his petty and fucked up apple joke would bite him so quickly in the ass

Dhkjdhdkjhd Misa is so bold dropping her Death God deets in a video for anyone to see 

“The way to kill a Shinigami, is to make them fall in love with a human” does this mean that Ryuk is going to fall in love with Light or Misa? Both would make me uncomfortable

Oh wild guess Misa became a Death Note Wielder through the Power of Unreciprocated Voyeuristic Love

“Yeah, I have a girlfriend now,” said Light, after a girl contacted him through a series of anonymous video tapes implicitly vowing to be his disciple 

“No one could tell who he’s attached to if I’m with this many people” [20 seconds pass] “Found him!” HAHAHA the funniest part of this show is consistently watch Light going “got ‘em” before it immediately is revealed that he doesn’t got ‘em 

Why is Light so incredibly searchable??? I think the only way people people could find my height online is if I happened to answer it for one of those Facebook note memes in 2007 lmaoooo

“There are many places that will go and sell your personal records” ah, data breaches; a problem that has not gotten any better in the last 15 years since this anime came out

HKJHFHKJFHF Light immediately jumping into fake-dating his weird disciple in front of his mom... what is this show

“Please make me your girlfriend” OH MY GOOOOOD

This is one of the weirdest romantic dynamics I’ve seen in recent memory but you know what? Whatever, at least it’s not Anxiety and Murder

“Does that mean I’ll have to deal with her until she dies?” Light is truly exuding some Ladybird Book of Dating Energy rn: 

The fact that to kill L all Light had to do was get an obsessive girlfriend... astounding

Beautiful that it took Misa less than a week of knowing Light to ruin his whole 15 episode game plan and also life

“I think I may be Kira” Well this show keeps taking one escalation after another this is exhausting why can’t Light just be a normal person who found it, tried it out of interest in the occult, discovered he’d committed a horrible atrocity and then went to therapy for the rest of his life only to confess to Magical Murder on his deathbed while his family goes, ‘Wow, Grandpa’s crazy’

Does L not think that keeping three different people imprisoned for days on end will lead to some psychological repercussions for him

FOR WEEKS ON END????? OH MY GOD???? The fuck L, I know two of these people are murderers but there are some minimum conditions of correctional facilities and this seems a little Stanford PE

THE DRAMA OF THIS EPISODE I KNEW IT WAS GONNA BE A BLANK BUT HOW FUCKED UP TO PUT EVERYONE THROUGH THIS L I THINK YOU NEED THERAPY!!!!!!! I MEAN LIGHT AND MISA ARE MURDERERS BUT FORCING A MAN TO HOLD HIS SON AT GUNPOINT AFTER IMPRISONING THEM FOR OVER A MONTH IS REALLY A REFLECTION OF A COMPLETE LACK OF EMPATHY (especially when you think that this version of Misa and Light don’t know anything!!! Oh my god!! The fuck)

“I will make arrangements so you and I are together 24 hours a day” call me crazy but I would not want to spend 24/7 with the man who imprisoned me for over a month while playing cruel psychological games all the while

“I’m one of those people who’ll accept Kira, I’d think of ways I could help him” Misa said Bimbo Rights

“I could never toy with a woman’s emotions like that” Light’s dating life and personality has gotten a LOT funnier since he forgot he was a murderer I kind of wish THIS could be the whole show 

Also: Nice to know Light USED to have standards of how to treat women

Honestly fair play to both L and Light they both deserved to be punched and it’s funny to see eighteen episodes of mind games culminate in punching and kicking each other in the face

“Matsuda’s being an idiot again” “Well, Matsuda is a natural at that” wghkjhgkj what has Matsuda done to any of you

"He’s punishing criminals as a front, and killing people for the benefit of this company” is Light unknowingly going to solve the murder chain he himself started... inspiring

“I was testing you” this is why Light is your only friend, L, Aizawa has kids and it’s a dick move to ask him to put his convictions before them

Poor Matsuda realizing he’s got the least to offer to their team... me in high school science labs 

I understand Aizawa’s moral crisis but why do NONE of these cops care about their wives or daughters they’re just kind of like, ‘I will provide for you but I have no interest in or fulfillment from being part of your life’ (ACAB)

Matsuda is truly about to die for being dumb and eager to help 😔 Rest in Pieces

“We must not allow Yotsuba to figure out that we are investigating them,” said L, just after it cut from Matsuda being obvious about investigating them. Oh Matsuda 😔 you’re so bad at your job 😔

MATSUDAAAAAAAA oh thank goodness; Bimbo Rights save the day

“I can’t go along with your idea, it’s wrong!” said Light, despite the fact it took him 15 seconds to get over murder the first couple of times he did it 

Staaaaaaaaay Good Light, I don’t want ur Deathnotesona I want this young man with moral convictions!!

The level of hubris it takes to answer a phone call during your secret Murder Meeting while people continue to talk about their Murder Plans is just out of this world

“If I die, you could probably become the successor to the ‘L‘ name,” said L, to the person he has been trying to catch for twenty episodes 

“I won’t say anything under any kind of torture” “Yes that’s true” Which he knows because he tortured her for six weeks!! You see that that’s fucked up, L, right? RIGHT??? RIIIIIIIIGHT? (LIIIIIIIGHT???)

Seriously not to beat a dead Shinigami but Light is so much better like this. He doesn’t want to throw people’s lives away for the investigation! He wants to protect Misa! He thinks Kira is wrong! Why does he have to be a murderer!!! Why can’t this show be about a nice young man!!!!

“Hey Ryuzaki, that’s messed up!” THANK YOU LIGHT AGAIN I KNOW YOU BOTH HAVE KILLED PEOPLE BUT YOU DON’T KNOW THAT RIGHT NOW SO FOR ALL MISA KNOWS HE’S JUST A GUY WHO TORTURES HER AND TELLS HER CRUSH WILL DIE IF SHE DOESN’T HELP

Wow Rem is so ride or die for Misa protecting Misa from creepy Higuchi, giving her info and telling her to trust Light, that’s love bitch

Props to Misa for getting a confession out of Higuchi after one (1) car ride 

Why do I feel like L is going to be responsible for reawakening Bad Light is it because he psychologically tortured him for six weeks? Had his dad hold him at gunpoint? Forced Misa to investigate on his behalf? Constantly and unerringly presses him on what Kira would be thinking as he’s handcuffed to him 24 hours a day? Maybe!! This is like Build-a-Bear but he’s customizing his Teen Murder Friend 

“Only Mr. Matsuda can do [the mission to lure out Higuchi!Kira]” Death Note really said the Himbos, Herbos and Thembos shall inherit the Earth 

They keep saying they don’t know how he kills but it seems pretty obvious that he writes down their names to kill, they literally saw him do it

I really don’t want any of the investigation team to die but things are not looking hot :(

“Ryuzaki, I never knew you could fly a helicopter” “It’s just intuition” what does that MEAN

“Those aren’t allowed in Japan,” said Light, about a gun, as if he had not killed probably thousands of people without one 

In spite of this fact I really do want Good Light to stay 😔 Why! Can’t! This! Show! Be! About! A! Nice! Young! Man!

Also they really are playing into this father-and-son duo I will be very sad when the dad inevitably dies as I’m sure he will 

Family side note: I’ve been wondering this since the prison ep but where do Light’s mom and sister think he IS now that he’s dropped out of first year uni to be a teen criminal investigator handcuffed to a maladjusted homebody private eye

AIZAWAAA and also the other two guys I guess there was a plot relevant reason for him to rejoin the police huh

Well what a clean ending to this Kira arc. No one died and the killer was caught! Yikes that the next ep is called ‘Revival’ tho 😔 Rest in pieces Good Light

Also a new and very threatening intro???? What happened to the Twilight Apple Hands 

BOOOO I knew Light would get his memory back but I was hoping it would at least fuck him up for a while he sorted out his two personas but I guess all roads eventually lead to Bad Light 

Full disclosure I stopped watching for a few days just after Light got his memory back and let me tell u coming back later hasn’t made it any more tolerable I am truly not built for this EUGH

“Do you really want to halve your life a second time” “Well, that can’t be helped” REALLY???? CAN’T IT BE HELPED MISA??? WHY ARE YOU AND LIGHT SO CRAZY

Oh I guess we’re back to Light saying incredibly suspicious things right near the investigators lmao what if those cameras secretly had audio or you know, L simply knew how to read lips 

“Misa, let’s make a new world together” Remember a bunch of episodes ago when Good Light was all ‘I could never toy with a woman’s emotions’?? What was the reason!!!

“Have you ever told the truth at any point in your entire life” L cutting straight to the core lmao (also the answer is obviously ‘no’)

This show has taken a jarring tonal shift why are they having a post-rain-confrontation massage and towelling each other off this is a level of intimacy I was not prepared for I NEED PEOPLE TOOK LOOK AT THIS:

OKAY OKAY OKAY I KNOW THAT IT WAS PROBABLY NOT THEIR INTENTION BUT THE ONLY WAY I CAN READ THIS SCENE IS AS “Don’t kill me Light~ 🥰 I’ll fuck you~ 🥰” 

I guess L knew he was forcing Rem’s hand to kill him if he disproved the rules written in the book?? But to what end omg how does this help anyone 

“In April 2012, Light Yagami, age 23, joins the National Police Agency” should’ve known we’d land here eventually (ACAB)

Ah, I see another person who doesn’t know how to sit, clearly they will inherit the L title next lmao

Update from the first few mins of the next ep: “Near should succeed L” told you

“There’s no way I’m letting Sayu marry a detective” ahjfkhkjf he’s a little old for her I think but it wouldn’t be the worst thing this show has done romantically lmao; maybe Sayu would get to investigate her brother

“I might’ve considered going out with you, if you were a little younger” HA GOOD FOR HER

“[...] the Japanese police are unreliable. In order to solve this case, we want you to hand over the notebook to our country.” Of all the Japanese-speaking Americans in this show, this is the most accurate jkhfkhf the US government really is Like That 

Ah, so that’s where Mello’s gone, oh how the turn tables 

Also way to sell your subordinates out immediately, NPA Director, will you give them the Kira task force’s home addresses too

The real question is if Light actually cares about his sister enough to prioritize her over the notebook

“Call me... N” Oh my good L... M(ello)... N(ear)... Oooooooooooooooo

It’s my saving grace that I only need to get through 9 more eps but as always I must wonder where this is going will Light just die and end up in Shinigami purgatory while the people who knew him after the fact go, ‘hey, that guy was fucked up’

“If things get bad, I’ll have to kill Sayu” well I guess that answers that question, my expectations of Light are so low and yet he continues to find new ways to be awful

Good for Mr. Yagami and Sayu for getting out of that alive I guess but hoo boy I think this is going to have some psychological repercussions for both of them 

Uh oh this episode is called ‘Father’ I’ve been dreading this one bc I think that means Mr. Yagami is about to die 😭😭😭

“It was an institution for brilliant children, to raise them to become L‘s successor” okay calm down Professor Xatari that’s not what children are for lmao 

Well I guess it’s a lot easier to track down info about these two guys than it was to figure out L lmao

HAHAHA Sidoh haunting Ryuk to ask for his stuff is a fun addition to this madness  

“He’s scary for a human” jkhhfjh how unhinged does Mello have to be to threaten a literal Shinigami 

I truly don’t understand the logistics of how they revealed Ryuk to the police force isn’t the second Kira notebook supposed to belong to Actual Kira, in the police force’s eyes????? I do not understand how Light can just turn up with another notebook and everyone’s like ‘sure cool’ did I miss something 

Mr. Yagami killed for being unable to take human life ugh this is the worst 

“You’re not Kira. I’m really glad.” WAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH THIS IS SO SAD MR. YAGAMI NOOOOOOOOOO THAT’S WHY HE RENOUNCED OWNERSHIP OF THE NOTEBOOK 

Neither Mello nor Near seem overly concerned with the lives of people around them does being a Super Genius Investigator also mean you have to be a dick (is this Benadryl Coddleswab Sherlock syndrome)

Lmaooo genuinely love how it’s constantly apparent that Light is the least smart of all of the smart people Light spent five years working on his reputation and it took Near one (1) phone call to destroy it 

Ghjkhgkhgkgjh Light outsmarted by Near yet again never think people will prioritize principles over money

Lol yeah Aizawa needn’t have given a name after he said the “Deputy Director Yagami would kill Kira and then himself” thing, you don’t do that just for anyone who was he fooling 

How does Light keep track of all the renunciations and notebooks bc I certainly can’t 

Ffhkfjhfj Mikami truly looks like the son of L and Light it’s like Light missed him and was like, “Miss u boo :( (even tho I kinda killed u) I’ll adopt An Evil 27-year-old in ur honour :)”

Is Mikami’s story really, ‘I got bullied in high school and have mommy issues so now I think people I don’t like should die’ ok Shonen Snape 

“I just want you to meet with me and hear me out” Light really proving to Aizawa that he can lie AND manipulate people’s feelings 

“The truth is, she’s not smart enough to be my partner” first of all Light I think this show has proven you’re not that smart, and Misa’s Herbo Energy is effervescent and will outlast you, and third of all go to jail

“He’ll look suspicious if he doesn’t say something soon” “Ide, have you ever been in love” Matsuda continues to be the only good part of this show

“You’re the only man I’ve ever respected and admired in my life” GET SOME THERAPY KIYOMI

“You’re going to be the goddess of the new world” so it’s not enough for Light to be a murderer he must also be a cheater

Lmao Near’s powers of perception do seem a little B/BC S/herlock because L tried for literally months to work out the possibilities and Near is just like ‘I KNOW IT NOW’

“The only thing I can deduce from this is that Light Yagami is popular with the ladies” HEAVEN KNOWS WHY (PUN NOT INTENDED)

Every moment Aizawa gets closer to proving Light is Kira is another step closer to death 😔

“This is definitely Mikami’s handwriting” Not to be a know-it-all, Near, but handwriting analysis has been proven faulty many times in multiple courts of law

This truly is a game of Cat and Cat. All these hidden plans give me a headache fkjhkfjh call me Misa-Misa and spin me sideways I don’t have the braincells to spare

Well this is definitely some kind of s*xual assault absolutely fucking hate it wow this show truly just drains the life out of you 

“Matt, I never thought you would be killed” why wouldn’t you think that at this point anyone who comes close to this investigation eventually dies (also wjkhkjhgk why is Matt special didn’t you kill all those thugs you had before -- Mello said ‘the lives of my allies are only important if they are drawn in handsome protag style’) 

As of yet I haven’t really talked about Near’s wild toymaking but hoo boy is that L finger puppet something to observe

“Everyone who knows about the existence of the notebook will die” I’m still pulling for their survival, particularly Matsuda (himbo rights!!!)

Imagine if they just shot Light Yagami on sight how ironic would that conclusion to all these mind games be 

“I’m waiting, for the one who will solve everything, to arrive” Lmao if it turns out L is alive I’ll pee laughing this show is so fucking stupid 

Take a shot every time there is a Humpty-Dumpty-in-Puss-in-Boots style explanation about how everything actually happened

“I’ve won, Near” I bet/hope what gets Light caught is his inability to hold in his hubris for one (1) minute

Although the last episode is called New World, in which case maybe he wins in a very weird ending to a very weird show

Sjkfhkjhfkhfkjhf well I guess what gets Light caught is that the person he invited to be his murderous disciple keeps calling him God

“A second ago, you said ‘I win.’ That’s as good a confession as any” HA hubris strikes again also bold of Aizawa to clap Light on the shoulder knowing he is a mass murderer

Ohhh Matsuda he’s so nice and believed the best of Light :((((((((((((

Watching Light become increasingly desperate and crazed is very uncomfortable give it up dude u’ve been beat (though I suppose there is time for everyone here to be murdered still lmao)

LMAO LIGHT SAID “IF YOU CAN’T BEAT ‘EM, CONVERT ‘EM”

Yeah I figured if one of them was gonna shoot it would be Matsuda :( :( Good for him for not killing Light tho!!

Huh I guess that’s the end of the show I thought Light would die but I did think we’d at least get to see him in Shinigami Purgatory or smth... what a wild ride. This certainly was a show.

[annazverina]

2020 Letter to the World

In 2015, I began writing annual Letters to the World to reflect on what I learned during the year. I shared my first one publicly in 2018, and since then I discuss certain topics that were relevant during the year and what they taught me. Enjoy.

***

I typically don’t start writing my annual Letter to the World until October or November at the earliest, but this year has already been a huge whirlwind for the entire world. I started writing this in April and edited it until the day it was posted. At that point, we had been in isolation for a month. A few weeks later, yet another revolution sparked within the United States. As soon as the riots and protests started, I knew this would be the hardest letter I’ve ever written. 

This year I will discuss coronavirus, racism, social media, and the importance of face to face communication. 

Around the time I finished writing last year’s letter, a new illness was taking over Wuhan, China. This new, mysterious strain of coronavirus was infecting people left and right. But like any other American, I didn’t worry about it, though I kept track of it on Twitter. I remember the time when there were only 600 cases, and it hadn’t spread outside of Wuhan yet. Man, those were the days. It’s amazing how much the world changed within a month, a week, and a few days. 

A month before isolation, my friends and I drove down to San Antonio for the TMEA convention. Tens of thousands of music educators in the same building. At that same time, San Antonio had its first cases of COVID-19. Less than a month later, SXSW was cancelled. That’s when I realized that this was becoming a big deal. The same day the WHO declared the pandemic, my university announced it was moving to online instruction for what would eventually be the rest 2020. My first day of quarantine was 14 March. I began vlogging occasionally to document the experience. 

I barely left the house during quarantine. For the first five months, the only reasons I left were to go walking, move out of the dorm, or to pick up food. My family took a trip to Colorado right before I left for school, which was our first time eating at a restaurant in 150 days. None of my family or our friends officially tested positive. At school, my roommate did, which led to a two week isolation for me. It really bothered me that those who could stay home weren’t. I get that the United States was founded with freedom in mind (even though we’re not free yet), but I don’t understand why people weren’t willing to give up a little bit of freedom and wear a piece of cloth on their face. Sometimes, you have to give up freedom for the sake of the big picture. I learned that many Americans don’t understand that. The United States shut down too late and reopened too early. Those above us care too much about money. The economy is important, but so are people. Human lives matter, including Black lives.

We all know what happened.

Every January in elementary school, we learned about the Civil Rights Movement. However, they did not mention that racism was still an ongoing problem. They implied that it was a thing of the past. God, I wish it was. I don’t think it ever will be, but the things we can do to eliminate it as much as possible are promoting anti-racism and teaching those who come after us that no matter where someone comes from, they can’t form any opinions about them until they know what’s in their heart. 

That entire week after the murder was very overwhelming. It made me wonder what kind of families racist people grew up in to think that it’s okay to not be good to everyone. I live my life with one thing in mind all the time: be good to myself and others. And I think everyone else, regardless of socioeconomic background, race, religion, whatever, should do the same. And we must teach those who come after to follow those footsteps.

There was never a class in school dedicated to being good citizens. They just yelled at the students doing bad things to stop, but never explained why it was bad, nor did they tell them how to be better. Common human decency is something that should be taught K-12, and I honestly think it’s more important than STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). We cannot force the students to rely on their parents for something like this, because some parents are uneducated, some are not good people, some suck at parenting, and way too many children in the world don’t even have parents. Schools are the ones that need to teach kids how to be good… all the way through. 

WE MUST BE THE CHANGE. Those currently in power appear to not be doing anything, so those who want change must RISE UP. For us civilians, signing petitions and donating is great, and being good, like I mentioned above, is also something we should do. We must change our behavior for the better. We cannot rely on other people to do stuff for us. We must do it ourselves. Change is not a process that can happen over night. So far it’s taken decades/centuries of work, but someday we will be there. Even if we don’t live to see it, the work we do now will help our future descendants. 

After George Floyd’s murder and the explosion of social media, I was super overwhelmed with everything I was reading. I decided to take the month of June off of Twitter, and man, I’m glad I did. Social media in general is a toxic place to be, and cutting out Twitter and Facebook was healthy for me. In terms of toxicity, Twitter and Facebook, in my opinion, are the worst platforms. On Twitter, it’s hard to control what you see in your feed. Most of the tweets in my feed are from people I don’t follow. They’re tweets I never signed up to see, and they flood my feed with posts that sometimes feel like propaganda. Sometimes I feel like celebrities are worshipped like a deity. I often feel like I’m not allowed to have my own personal beliefs on Twitter, rather I have to conform to what the loudmouthed users believe. If I don’t, I’m racist, misogynistic, homophobic, etc. Facebook is similar, but most of the people I follow are my friends or family, so I can’t unfollow them.

Surprisingly, I like Instagram. Reposting is very uncommon, and posting more than once a day is unofficially considered spam, therefore people have to put all their politics into one single post, which I can scroll past and never see again. You never see posts from people you don’t follow, (except for the occasional advert) and overall I think people use it mostly to share photos of their lives. Most of the flaws that come from Instagram are the people who use it, but it’s easy to avoid them. 

My brother shared some statistics with me recently. Only about 10 percent of Twitter users tweet on a normal basis. About 40 percent of people in the United States have a Twitter account. With that in mind, theoretically, the loud mouthed Twitter users only make up about 4 percent of the U.S. population. Or… something like that. I don’t know how accurate these statistics are, nor do I know where my brother got them from. Regardless, social media does not represent everyone in the world. Not even close.

The nice thing about living in a world of social media is being able to keep in touch with friends and family while quarantined. This whole quarantine process made me ever so grateful for face to face meetings. Some people believe no one will ever want to work again once everything ends. That’s not true. I think most people like working. Being able to leave the house every day and do something, even if it’s something you don’t like, is what keeps us sane. When it came time to return to school, I was initially really mad due to COVID. I ended up being okay with it. My school did a fantastic job at keeping COVID cases down for the entire semester (we only had an average of 20 cases a week, compared to some schools who had hundreds). Not only that, but I was able to see my family away from home again. Even though we wore masks and social distanced most of the time, things felt somewhat normal. 

If you are the kind of person who could care less if you see your friends and coworkers in person, don’t forget that most people don’t feel that way. It’s hard to have group conversations on Zoom. You certainly can’t have a party where multiple conversations happen. Don’t assume everyone feels the same way about something. Let people have their social gatherings when it’s acceptable again, and don’t belittle people who feel different from you.

Everyone must do the right thing… all the time. Even when no one is watching. It’s our job to develop the habit of being good to ourselves and to others regardless. If we do that, we’ll be able to go back to a normal-ish life sooner. Lin-Manuel Miranda called America a “great unfinished symphony” in Hamilton. America, you great unfinished symphony, we still have unfinished business to take care of. The change we need won’t come tomorrow. The amount of work we have before we reach the double bar line will take generations to get to. We cannot allow a repeat sign. We must start today. May 2021 be a year of healing.

[surveys-at-your-service]

Survey #275

i’m anxious and my head is hectic so i can’t think of a single song lyric to put here lmao

Have you ever dated anybody online? Yes, but we met up in person for a week+ at a time multiple times. Ever been stalked? No. Ever stalked someone? No. I never got to that point with him because shit’s creepy. Have you ever been called a slut, hoe, skank, whore? Only playfully by close friends because that’s how we show affection sometimes lmao. Have you ever snuck out before? No. Do you eat meat? I wish I didn’t, but I do. If so, do you like meat? Yes. If not, do you have anything against people who eat meat? N/A Have you ever gotten a manicure or pedicure? I went with my old friend and sisters on rare occasions just to hang out. Have you ever been close to getting kidnapped? Jc no, thank fuck. HAVE you ever been kidnapped? No. I’d be so goddamn terrified. Do you listen to Lykke Li? Never heard of ‘em. Have you ever self-harmed? Yes. Do you have any eating disorders? No. Have you ever met a celebrity? No. Do you like Monster Energy or do you prefer other energy drinks? Astonishingly with how much I love soda, I am nooot an energy drink fan. They taste like straight-up poison. Describe the best day of your life? I don’t really know what that would be. About how many times a week do you skip class or just school in general? When I was in school, I’d fake sick as a kid rarely, then in high school I had quite a few mental health days. College, too. Have you ever been suspended from school? No. Have you ever been expelled? No. Do you role-play? Only on designated forums and in serious stories. I need substance behind it. Irl, sexual, and pretty much any other RP doesn’t interest me. Do you watch Degrassi? I never did, no. What is one of the saddest novels you’ve ever read in your lifetime? Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo. Jesus fucking Christ. Orbit or 5 Gum? Honestly can’t even remember their tastes… but I THINK I preferred the latter. Have you ever been in a love triangle? No. How bad are your hangovers? I’ve never had one. Do you think Taco Bell is nasty? No. Do you have a jacuzzi? Definitely not. Have you ever broken a bone? If so, what was the cause of it? No. Do you think vegans/vegetarians look down on people who choose to eat animal products? That’s a very generalizing statement… You can’t say that of them all. Some absolutely do, others don’t. Do your friendships tend to last a long time or are they short-lived? Definitely the former. Name the best and worst things about your current or most recent relationship. The best thing was absolutely that I felt accepted for entirely who I was, like I needed to hide not a single thing. The worst thing was easily distance. Fuck distance. How are you? Aggravated at a lot of things. What part of your body are you most insecure about? Absolutely my stomach. What’s one food you would be surprised to hear that someone doesn’t like? Chocolate. I mean I know at least one person who doesn’t, but boy does it catch you off-guard. Do you think your voice is higher or lower than average? It’s definitely lower than the average woman’s. Do you and your parents like any of the same bands/singers? Oh, loads! I couldn’t even begin to list them all. Is there any food in your bedroom? No. Do you know anyone who has road rage? MY YOUNGER SISTER. GOOD LORD. Riding with her is always a trip. How far away do your grandparents live from you? My only (barely) living one is in New York with family, probably until she dies. It’s like ten hours away. What kinds of cereal are in the cupboard? We have chocolate Special K, Honey Nut Cheerios, a Food Lion rip-off of Rice Krispies, and… maybe one more? Is your mom a big health freak or your dad? Or neither? Neither, really. Given her cancer, high blood sugar, and diabetes though, Mom is much more conscious of what she eats. Do you know anyone who wants to be the president one day? Not that I’m aware of. What kinds of chips are in the cupboards? We don’t have any. Mom and I try to keep snack foods out of the house because we know ourselves well enough to know we WILL eat them too fast. Do you have your mom’s or dad’s hair? Absolutely my mom’s. It’s thick as hell like hers was. What’s the first thing you see when you walk into your bedroom? Probably my massive Nightmare Before Christmas poster above my bed. Do you have any friends who have naturally red hair? Yes. Have you ever cried when a teacher retired? Yep. I’m never going to forget my first band teacher; he was a real comedian with a massive heart. We all adored him and got so excited when he would come back to substitute if our instructor had to miss and he was able to come. Oddly enough, I don’t remember his name… When’s the last time you wore heels? Oh Christ. Maybe Ashley’s wedding? Did I even wear heels? Do you have your mom’s or dad’s eyes? Neither. What’s the best date movie? I am such an average white bitch in how my answer to this will always and vehemently be The Notebook. How long has your current best friend been your best friend? Around three years. Have your parents ever been out of the country? No. Do you swear and yell while playing video games? No. I might curse under my breath. Is there any alcohol in the fridge? Oh I WISH. Do your pets chase after bugs? YUP. Roman loves hunting flies. When’s the last time you were so excited you couldn’t sleep? Why? Excited? Probably not since I was going to see Sara. I don’t know. What is your mom’s favorite movie? Oh shit, good question. How much older is your dad then you? Don’t make me math, please. 30-something years. Do you have any relatives who really spoil you? No. Do you know anyone who has security cameras in their house? Probably. What was the last movie to make you cry? No clue. Has anyone you know ever pulled the fire alarm in school, joking around? I think so? Who was the main character in the last book you read? Starflight. Is the last person you said goodbye to single? No, he’s married to my sister. Who are the last people you saw kiss? Like romantically/on the lips? Ummm probably a couple on Facebook or something. Have you ever posted a fan fiction on a website? No. Do you ever fantasize about your future wedding? Who’s the bride/groom? Not anymore. Do you have any relatives who are expecting a baby really soon? No. My high school friend did just announce she’s pregnant with her second child though. When you get married, who will be the maid of honor/best man? My mom. Does your best friend get along with their parents? Yes, they’re fantastic. Have you ever been in a wedding? What were you? Yes; I was the hideous bridesmaid that just cried all through my sister’s wedding. That was a fucking nightmare. Does it matter to you what kind of shampoo you use? I don’t really care, no. Do you have a sensitive gag reflex? Like STUPID fuckin sensitive. Where are you the most ticklish? Don’t touch my fuckin feet. What was the last situation to upset you? It was a petty envy thing that shouldn’t have upset me, let’s move along. Have you ever had an online argument? I’ve been socially on the Internet since I was 11 and am now 24, take a guess lmao. The general subject of your last text conversation? Asking Sara for permission for something RP-related. What is just down the hall from where you’re located? There’s not really a hall at all; my room opens up into the living room. Do any of your friends know you fill out surveys? Well besides the online friends I have here, no. Do you like the controversial/political surveys? ”It depends on if I have enough opinions (and energy) to give good answers or not.” <<<< Exactly this. Who/What did you last spend time worrying about? Myself and my future and my newfound fear of ending up homeless and hopeless after my parents pass away because I’m a very sorry Adult™. What was the last thing you prepared in the oven? Whoa, who knows. The oven scares me, so I don’t use it myself. When were you last offered something illegal? I don’t think I ever have been, actually. Did you accept or decline that offer? N/A When was the last time that you saw fire? On the way home like a week back or something. Someone was burning stuff in their backyard. Have you ever seen somebody get shot? No. What are you listening to? “Little One” by Highly Suspect. Gorgeous song. Do you chew on your hair? Um no???? Can you talk on the phone while having the tv/radio on? No. What size are all the televisions in your house? I don’t know the measurements, but it’s a large Vizio. One of the few really nice things we got when my parents were together. Do you have health insurance? Yes. How many times have you been pulled over by the cops while driving? Zero. What is one of your favorite movie lines? I don’t know, they’re not really something I memorize. What is one thing you look forward to every day? My morning Mountain Dew lmao it’s my coffee, essentially. What is one thing you dread every day? The inevitable part where I’m bored shitless by early evening. Ever lived through a natural disaster? Lots of hurricanes. What’s the longest you’ve lived without electricity? I wanna say around two days? Maybe even three? I don’t remember. Name all the drugs you have tried: None. Name all of the alcoholic beverages you have tried? Margaritas and sangrias with different types of alcohol that I don’t know. Oh, hard lemonade. Oh yeah, wine too, which was fucking repulsive. Name all the types/brands of cigarettes you have tried: None. What is one thing you stand strongly for? Fucking TRY ME on gay rights. What does your doormat say? We don’t have one. Who was the last person you were on hold with (on the phone)? I don’t remember. Who do you know that’s had a baby recently? Ummm I don’t think any *very* recently. Do you know anyone who got married recently? Again, not very. Do you know anyone who has died recently? No. Do you change songs in the car often? I use my iPod to play over it, where I select the songs to play, so I let them play through. However, if I was actually the driver, I definitely wouldn’t; it wouldn’t really matter because I’m so terrified of driving that I need almost no radio at all. What street sign do you find totally pointless? I’m not familiar enough with them all. What drinking games have you played? None. What made you pick up the last book you started reading? Sara got me into the series. Have you received any bad or troubling news lately? Welcome to 20fuckin20, y’all. When was the last time you were relieved about something? *shrug* What about your life concerns you the most? That I’ll waste it. Is there a common thing most people seem to do without trouble, but it scares you (talking on the phone, driving, interviews, etc)? When was the last time you had to do one of these kinds of things? When I went to the doctor a couple weeks ago, I signed myself in. Yes, that sets my anxiety off because I don’t know how to Talk. When was the last time you went somewhere for the first time? Uhhhhhhhh good question. I don’t go anywhere. What is a situation that makes you feel especially confident? Talking about meerkat behavior ha ha. If you’ve moved out from home, what was the scariest thing about it? What was/is your favorite thing about it? N/A Are there any fictional characters you like even though they’re “bad” or “evil?” What qualities draw you to a character? BITCH yes. I just like charisma. For villains, I really like when there’s a *reason* they’re bad, too, and not so just for the sake of it. And I am a SUCKER for sarcastic lil shit villains. What are your thoughts on “forgiving” murderers, rapists, attackers, etc? Do you think it’s even possible to forgive these people? This is a tough question, after I looked past my initial “hell no.” Like, people change. I suppose it varies case-to-case. What was the last series you finished watching? Do you have any plans to begin another? Actually finished, Ginga Densetsu Weed. I’m sure Sara and I will keep watching Avatar: The Last Airbender next time we see each other. What is one way in which you are different from a year ago? What is one way in which you are still the same? I definitely hate myself more than I did. And that’s the problem: I haven’t developed at all in a year’s time. Is there anything you’ve promised yourself you’ll never do again? Multiple things. Do you prefer fake tanning or real tanning? I prefer not tanning at all. Would you date someone who was addicted to drugs? No. I’m not getting into that shit. If the person was recovered, yes, but I wouldn’t hesitate leaving if they relapsed and didn’t seek help. Sounds brutal, but I’m serious about the damage drugs do, and not just to the user. Do you still talk to the person you had your first kiss with? No. It’s probably best we never do again. Can you make yourself cry? I’ve never really tried, but I don’t think so. Are you ready for kids? I’ll never be. Have you ever woken up crying from a bad dream? Plenty of times. Thanks, nightmares every fucking time I sleep. Do you eat breakfast? Yes. Cannot relate to people who don’t like wtf that’s the best part of the morning. Have you ever trusted someone too much? BOY OH BOY OH BOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! How did you get your last bruise? I don’t recall. Last time you got a text message and smiled? Idk. What was the last kid’s movie you saw? Ummmmm good question. Have you ever shared a shower or bath with someone as an adult? Noooo, not into it. Sounds dangerous but also just… weird to me. Like let me clean myself in peace??? Are you bitter about anything? Oh, am I. Do you use emojis? Occasionally. I’m too biased to emoticons, growing up using those every sentence, lol… but I’m starting to move towards them depending on the platform, and the ones I use are very limited. Do you have any hidden piercings? (this includes bellybuttons) No. I took my snake eyes out. Has anyone called you perfect before? *lips against mic* that was a motherfuckin lie Have you ever liked someone that was in a relationship? Yes. Have you ever gone through a period of mass weight-gain/weight-loss? What was that time like for you? Both, actually. First, mass weight-gain happened due to a medication I was on that murders metabolism + I was a bad emotional eater after the breakup, and those two don’t mix. Then, through recovery, I lost over 50 pounds in around a year from being off of that fucking medicine and my eating habits returning to normal. What’s one incident that has majorly affected your self-esteem? Was it for better, or for worse? THE BREAKUP. It made me feel like an absolute waste of space and time. Do you have a close bond with your sibling(s)? Was it always this way, or has it been better/worse? Not really, but I wish I did. Ashley and Nicole are very close, then I’m like… awkwardly on the sidelines trying to find times where I can insert myself and be a proper sister. Ash and I ARE closer than we were as kids, while it’s a harsh opposite with Nicole. We shared a room and were very close, but now I feel like she doesn’t even like me. Have you used Limewire before? Ha, yuuup… Who do you envy the most, if anyone at all? I’m uncertain about the most.

[justmelagain]

Copied and pasted and 100% ACCURATE!🤣🤣 It’s looong but SO GOOD...

Dear Diary 2020 Edition, In ❄️ January, 🔥 Australia caught on fire. I don’t even know if that fire was put out, because we straight up almost went to war with Iran 🇮🇷 . We might actually still be almost at war with them 🤔. I don’t know, because 👩 Jen Aniston and 👨🏻 Brad Pitt spoke to one another at an awards 🏆 show and everyone flipped the crap out 😲, but then there was this thing happening in 🦇 🇨🇳 China, then 👑 Prince Harry and Megan ✌🏼 peaced out of the Royal family, and there was the whole impeachment trial 👩‍⚖️ , and then corona virus 🦠 showed up in the US ✔️“officially,” but then 🏀 Kobe died 😭and UK 🇬🇧 peaced out of the European Union.

In February, 🌽 Iowa crapped 💩 itself with the caucus results and the president was acquitted and the 👩🏼‍💼Speaker of the House took ten. Whole. years. to rip up a speech , but then The👨‍🔬 🌎WHO decided to give this virus a name COVID-19, which confused 🤔some really important people 👔 in charge of, like, our lives, into thinking there were 18 other versions before it, but then Harvey Weinstein was found guilty👨🏻‍⚖️, and 🇺🇸 Americans started asking if Corona beer 🍺 was safe to drink🤦🏻‍♀️, and everyone on Facebook became a doctor 👨‍⚕️ who just knew the 🤒flu like killed way more people than COVID 1 through 18.

In March, stuff hit the fan👿. Warren dropped out of the presidential race and Sanders was like Bernie or bust 💥, but then Italy 🇮🇹 shut its whole country down 🚷, and then COVID Not 1 through 18 officially become what everyone already realized, a 😱pandemic and then a nationwide state of emergency 🆘was declared in US 🇺🇸 , but it didn’t really change anything, so everyone was confused or thought it was still just a flu 💁🏻‍♀️, but then COVID Not 18 was like ya’ll not taking me seriously? 💡 I’m gonna infect the one celebrity everyone loves and totally infected Tom Hanks👨🏻, get y’all to close all of the schools so y’all can 🙏🏼 appreciate teachers 👩‍🏫 for once (because you can’t teach them anything other than how to use a touch screen🤦🏻‍♀️ ) close down all of salons so you can’t get your 💇‍♂️ hair or your nails done💅 , everyone had to work from home and attend Zoom meetings in their underwear. The 📉 DOW took a crap 💩 on itself, and most of us still don’t understand why the stock market is so important or even a thing 🤔 (I still don’t), We were then all introduced to 🐅 Tiger King and the ONE thing we can all agree on this year , 👍🏼Carol totally killed her husband⚰️ ..... whacked him! And then Netflix was like you’re welcome, and we all realized there was no way we were washing our hands enough in the first place because all of our hands are now dry and gross and were all searching for lotion now.

In 🌧 April, Bernie finally busted✌🏼 himself out of the presidential race 🏃 , but then NYC 🗽became the set of The Walking Dead 💀 and we learned that no one has face masks 😷, ventilators, or toilet paper, or THE FREAKING SWIFFER WET JET LIQUID , and by now our 🦁outgrowth is showing, so there’s a shortage on 📦 box hair dye and all of our hair dressers are like , 😱 NO DONT DO IT!!! But, then Kim Jong-Un died, but then he came back to life … or did he? Who knows, because then the Pentagon released 🎥 videos of UFOs and nobody cared, and we were like man, it’s only April….

In 💐 May, the biblical end times kicked off , historical locust swarms, we learned of murder hornets 🐝 and realized that 2020 was the start of the Hunger Games🙈 however people forgot to let us know. people legit started to protest lockdown measures with 🔫 AR-15s, 🏀⚾️sports events were cancelled everywhere. But then people all over America finally reached a breaking point with race issues and violence. There were 🗣protests in every city🌃 ,which was confusing to some of us because people were definitely gathering in 👫crowds of more than 🖐🏼🤚🏼10 and for sure closer than 6 foot away ⬅️➡️from each other . Those people must have forgotten about the 😖pandemic called COVID Not One Through 18. Media 📺 🗞 struggled with how to 🤬focus on two important things at once, people in general struggle to focus on more than one important thing. A dead whale 🐋 was found in the middle of the Amazon rain forest 🌳 after monkeys 🐒 stole COVID 1 Through 19 from a lab 🔬 and ran off with them, and either in May or April (no one is keeping track of time now) that a giant asteroid ☄️ narrowly missed the Earth🌍.

In ☀️ June, science and common sense just got thrown 🤾🏼 straight out the window and somehow 😷 wearing masks became a 🏛political thing, but then everyone sort of remembered there was a pandemic, but then decided that not wearing a mask was somehow a ✝️God given right (still haven't found that part in the bible or even in the constitution). then 👨‍🔬scientists announced they found a mysterious undiscovered mass at the center of the earth, and everyone was like 🙅🏽‍♂️🙅🏻‍♀️🚧DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH IT, but then everyone took a pause to realize that people actually believed Gone With The Wind 💨 was like non-fiction, but then it was also announced that there is a strange 🛰radio signal coming from somewhere in the universe 🌌 that repeats itself every so many days 🗓 , and everyone was like 👽 DON’T YOU DARE ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE WITH IT‼️🚫 but then America reopened 🙌🏼from the shut down that actually wasn’t even a shut down, and so far, things have gone spectacularly .... not that great 👎🏼. All of the Karen’s came out at once, and people started tearing down 🔨 statues. Everyone is on Facebook arguing 🤼‍♀️ that masks kill because no one knows how breathing works 👃🏼, but then Florida 🏖 was like hold my beer 🍺 and let me show you how we’re number one 🥇 in all things, including new Not Corona Beer Coronavirus. Trump 👱🏻‍♂️decides now is a good time to ask the Supreme Court 🏛 to shut down ❌Obama Care because what better time to do so than in the middle of a pandemic 💁🏻‍♀️ , but then we learned there was a massive dust cloud ☁️ coming straight at us 📍from the Sahara Desert 🐫 , which is totally normal, but this is 2020, so the 👻 ghost mummy thing is most likely in that dust cloud. We then 📚 learned of meth-gators 🐊 , and I'm like that is so not on my flipping 2020 Bingo card 😡 can we use it as the free space?? 🤷🏻 Then we learned that the Congo's worst ever Ebola 🚨 outbreak is over 😓, and we were all like, there was an Ebola outbreak that was the worse ever? 👀 ....... and don’t forget we just discovered FLYING SNAKES! 🐍, seriously! FLYING SNAKES!!!!

So here comes July…. at this point we are over it , just tell us what’s next .... 👽 Aliens? 🔱Zeus? ☄️ Asteroids? Artificial Intelligence becomes self aware? Can it just be something cool 😎 or fun for once? Maybe even a good laugh , like hahaha 😂 April Fools! We all actually wouldn’t mind that joke at this point.

I have no idea who wrote this.

Also, why didn't I know about the whale in the Amazon? Or a few other things because I just can’t keep up anymore!

But I’m sharing it because as long as we make it through 2020, I really want this to pop back up in the memories a few years from now.

[natsunoomoi]

Chinese Romance Novels in English

So by chance and obviously successful marketing, I’ve had a lot of web novel apps being advertised to me and out of boredom I downloaded one and got hooked real bad.

The first app I got I think I might delete because most of it seems like trash and was clearly like American wannabe writers. I kind of just read the first few chapters of one story that they happened to put into an advertised Facebook post and I just wanted to continue the story 1 or 2 chapters just to get off the cliffhanger, but the story itself actually isn’t that good and the character motivations seem kind of stupid. The main character also seems kind of like a Mary Sue where like she is just special by some huge coincidence of fate and it’s kind of annoying. Like the beginning part was alright, and then it took a sharp turn when the first guy she was into that rejected her decided for some stupid reason to challenge her new guy who accepted her and then when he claimed to not concede a fight to the death, he went absolutely apeshit and somehow it traveled into dark magic. Idek. Plus like...almost all the stories on that app for some reason have to do with wolf people and packs? Like it’s obviously some kind of trend inspired from Jacob and Twilight and I don’t even like that series. And in addition to that, it’s like on par with the famously former Twilight fanfiction 50 Shades where it has some really uncomfortable unhealthy depictions of BDSM relationships. Like it’s just kind of thrown in there for no reason...? Like whatever floats your boat, but you can totally write it in there in a more sensible way and not just like throw it in randomly. In that sense, maybe it’s actually worse than 50 Shades. Seriously a lot of the stories on there read like horribly written fanfiction by a 12 year old. I was 12 once and my stories then were no better because I had too many ideas and wanted them all in. That’s how much of a mess those stories are. This one I just mentioned is the better one. There’s another one I started reading that’s much worse that’s like a high school drama that I barely remember the story too, but I remember the person putting in a whole ton of One Direction lyrics, which I think is going to get the person and the app sued because lyrics are copyrighted and the writer shamelessly pointed out they are a Directioner and to unlock new chapters you need certain items that you can earn or buy and basically they’re definitely making money off of it.

But then similar to how I found this app, I found another app that had Chinese romance novels translated into English in the same way I found the previously mentioned app through a Facebook ad, which is cool cuz I don’t often get to read literally anything with main characters that are Chinese let alone Asian. Most of the Asian protagonist media I consume is from Japan and I just gave up on looking up anything in Chinese cuz I honestly didn’t know I could find any in English.

But damn, the quality of writing is rather good. The translations could use some work and consistency where sometimes the translator doesn’t know common English expressions or there’s grammatical mistakes in newer chapters or sometimes I think they’re speed translating too fast and accidentally mix up characters. But the story itself is top notch and suspenseful. I’ve been reading non-stop for the last week and a half and caught up and am awaiting new chapters. Sometimes there’s bits where character decisions are a little frustrating or like some of the plot twists are like again or like how come this person can’t catch a break, but I got invested in the story so quick.

There’s two in particular I’m enjoying right now. One is Irresistible Romance and the other is Thorny First Marriage on Bravonovel. It’s actually a bit pricey to charge for diamonds and pearls to continue the story, but I felt like it was worth it because I did want to read more and didn’t regret it. I actually started a third today just because I ran out of chapters in those two. Both are similar in that the male lead that the female protagonist is with or trying to get with is like a rich Chinese business man that is so well-known for their business acumen and power via their company that they can strike fear into the hearts of other people and companies. So there’s like some intrigue and like really fascinating maneuvers and media manipulation.

In Irresistible Romance, the main character is an actress that had a really shitty relationship with the loser President of her management company who was cheating on her with another actress and he had convinced his fiancee (the main character) to basically give up her life for him and help him to push the actress that he was ultimately having an affair with. The main character, Yan Wen, gives up the final straw when like he ditches her at the Marriage Registration Office for some lame excuse where he’s with his mistress and by chance the rich guy in this story shows up at the Registration Office and gets stood up by his own prospective fiancee although for him it was a random girl he picked from a pile just to satisfy his family getting on his case about not finding a wife. So basically because the main character grows a spine and decides fuck her fiance she’s not going to just take his bullshit, she asks the rich guy, Jiang Sui-an, if he’d mind marrying her. He totally accepts though and they get married on the spot. He seems at first to be kind of a cold-hearted jerk, but he’s actually super cool. Like he marries Yan Wen just to get his family off his back, but then after he does some research into his wife and finds her super interesting and as she begins her journey of trying to take back her life from her ex-fiancee and his stuck up bitch mistress, he like finds out and helps from the shadows and like realizes she’s actually super cool too. And then like through the whole process they actually fall for each other and are super sweet and have each other’s backs. They have a really beautiful and healthy relationship where they can each have their own separate lives and do their thing, but they get supported and help when needed.

It was so refreshing cuz like the rich CEO thing was like a huge fetish for sure especially after 50 Shades, but like a lot of people noted, that relationship was hella unhealthy. This story though, Sui-an lets Wen take her time fixing her career and life in her own way and like postpones announcing their marriage so she can set things right herself. He totally supports her space and her own decisions, but if he ever sees that she needs an extra boost or gets backed into a corner by some unexpected thing, he steps up and lends a hand. But ultimately he leaves everything up to her decision. And like on her end too, she’s totally a really good supportive wife and tries to make sure she doesn’t worry him too much and that he gets plenty of sleep and eats regularly, and she even tries to help him where she can with his work. They are so cute together. Along the way a lot of other people try to defame Wen or pull some shady entertainment world tactics, but she stays poised and lets the truth come out on its own or even does some defensive research and stuff. It’s so good.

Plus, writing-wise it’s really fascinating how they intertwine the online commentary tabloid headlines into the story so you can see different angles. And then when they write the antagonists’ sides they give you their internal dialog POV so you can understand the situation the best. The actual story and plot development is so good.

Then Thorny First Marriage, holy shit the intrigue. Plus for the most part, the main character is most like my personality only I’m not a former journalist. It’s just a lot of her reactions and sassy thoughts to things are really similar to me and how I feel like I would react if I was in her position. There’s a few times where she does things that I don’t think I would necessarily do or I would do things a bit more drastically, but so good and I identify with her. Writing-wise I don’t think it’s as good as Irresistible Romance because there’s been two times where they kind of forgot about something that they mentioned in an earlier chapter, so they have some issues keeping track of their plot twists, and there’s a few times where I’m reading like, “Why don’t you just tell them what happened and then they’d STFU?”

But yeah, this story starts out with the main character, Xia Zhi, waking up in the presidential suite of a hotel and not knowing how she got there and distinctly feeling like she was raped and finding some...remnants on the bed next to her. As the plot develops you find out that her asshole husband, who had never touched her himself for some reason and has the spine of jellyfish, sold her to some rich guy for 2 million bucks (she finds out later). What the actual hell? What kind of husband pimps his wife to another man?! And like she gets a pregnancy test later and somehow someone blabs to her mother-in-law and her mother-in-law totally doesn’t believe her and she knows that her son and her were never intimate, so she throws her out of the house. Then some dude that’s like some kind of secretary or assistant just comes by all stalker-like that appears to be from some rich guy that knows her and basically coerces her into going with them and going to some mystery safe house mansion. She’ll be cared for there by two staff, but she also tries to escape and find out who tf this guy is and if he’s the Dad. She still has a job and goes to work as a journalist, but gets assigned to interview some rich VP of a famous company. All the while she’s trying to get a hold of her asshole husband to find out what the hell happened to her that night she didn’t remember where she got super frickin’ drunk at his company party. This dick has been in hiding and trying to avoid her for some reason since that night and he finally calls back in the middle of her interview and because she’s freaking out about her unexplained pregnancy she unprofessionally takes the call. The rich VP, Sang Qi, ends up calling her boss and getting her fired, which I mean, obviously. That’s a thing where I probably wouldn’t have taken the call. One of the differentiating things between her and me. But how she reacts to being fired, yeah, that’s totally me. She runs into Sang Qi later at a rich people shopping mall shop and somehow manages to steal his phone and starts a plotline where she tries to use it as leverage to like get back at him and make a living for herself that also involves him being crafty and like kind of tricking her into some situations like confronting her ex-husband. And then like at some point she remembers a custom cufflink she remembered finding in the room she woke up in that one time and starts to wonder and suspect if maybe Sang Qi was the guy cuz he does have those kinds of things. And she like looks at the cufflink she has that she took from the room as evidence, but she has to do a direct comparison. He like uses GPS to find her mansion prison and tries to take back his phone and Zhi gets like even more suspicious that he is the guy cuz for some reason he knows how the balcony door at the place works even though it has a weird af lock, and they have witty banter and somehow he ends up staying over and she tries to sneak in his room at night to check out his cufflink but he catches her. And like hot damn, so much intrigue. After like a ton of frustration with trying to interrogate everyone around her about who the baby Daddy is she’s just like f it, I’m not going to be your baby incubator and tries to go get an abortion (I would’ve gone way sooner) and before they can start the procedure Sang Qi shows up and claims to be the Dad, and then afterward also takes care of her because she’s allergic to anesthetic. Since she knows who now they like stay together and stuff and she tries to question him about that night, but he actually has no memory of it either cuz he was super frickin’ drunk too. It’s just a lot of unanswered questions. And like since he’s supposedly the Dad, he tries to get closer to her, but she won’t let him really. There’s a lot of witty banter between them and like he even helps her out with her loser husband by getting him demoted. Over time they actually become fond of each other and like used to each other, and it’s really sweet. He actually is there for her and helps her on a number of occasions even though she doesn’t really trust him cuz of course he bought her right? But then little by little you see them really start to like each other and it seems like he might be more interested whereas Zhi is like more reserved because he’s her captor as far as she knows. But then just when you think that maybe they’ll get together, Qi disappears and then the process of him showing up you find out who the actual Dad is and a whole lot of family drama, and other drama where like you actually don’t know where Qi stands, and it like isn’t until like where I am that you find out he was actually upright the whole time. It’s so stressful but it’s so good.

There was a couple of times earlier one where there’s misunderstandings with other people, where I was like, dude, just tell the people your asshole husband sold you for money. I think they’d be more understanding of your situation if they knew.

And then like...for me, I like Qi and I came around to him after awhile, but like I suspected him and didn’t like him toward the beginning especially because he didn’t do or say anything that made him seem trustworthy. He never really lies except for one thing (about being the father), but also he like isn’t that truthful either, or rather, he doesn’t stop to actually explain himself properly which would have made Zhi not like freak out or mistrust him and would have made me not mistrust him. Like I shared a lot of Zhi’s fears because she was in an unfamiliar situation and being manipulated like a puppet by someone with money, and this guy claims to be the one that bought her like an object to be a baby incubator. I and the main character can’t respect that no matter how nice he is. If he admit he didn’t do it at the beginning it would have made all the difference. It’s a trek to find out who though. And at first even that guy sounds disgusting, but like where I am in the story maybe not? Like almost sympathetic.

The only one that I like really hate and disgusts me is her original husband. Like eww. He’s such a greedy asshole. And like later on you find out that actually he lied to her about how much he sold her for and it was actually more. What the actual fuck?! It wasn’t bad enough that you sold your wife for money, but you had to lie to her too about how much it was so you can hide the money from her? And for such a long frickin’ time he tried to coax her to come back and to not divorce him. What the actual hell? What kind of delusion is he living in?! But like also her original husband reminds me of someone I knew in real life when I was in uni. He was a friend of mine initially, but at some point he started making really uncomfortable jokes and it seemed like he liked me or something. I never viewed him that way, but we just hung out. And then at my uni because there was a huge rush to like try to figure out 2nd year housing, we arranged to do a co-ed roommate situation where like me and another girl and him and his friend would stay in apartment from our second year. To me that seemed normal cuz other friends of mine did that too because there’s only so many people you know and you have to try to snatch up and apply for apartments as soon as possible. There were long wait lines and I actually hadn’t thought about it until the last minute, so I didn’t see it as having much of a choice. But he started making cracks and fantasizing about neighbors and people misunderstanding and thinking we were married, which I didn’t find funny and how and why when there were other people we were living with too? It made me super uncomfortable and during the summer he was kind of like a stalker and tracking where I went so I just started avoiding him every chance I could. After awhile thinking about him made me feel physically ill. The next year after that my roommate decided to move out with two other girls into a different apartment (after unsuccessfully trying to make him leave). But the whole thing with how Zhi’s first husband was written totally reminded me of that guy. Especially with the lame excuses when confronted and stuff and not thinking and his unhealthy tie to his parents’ way of living.

That said, finding these stories are kind of like an unexpected comfort. I wish I could find someone as supportive as Sui-an or Qi. Especially when the men I’ve met in my life were just as bad as some of the other male characters or arguably worse. I’ve been bullied by the guys I fell for, I’ve liked some guys that were way too moody, I’ve had guys that liked me that were not creepy too, but I just wasn’t interested in them or the timing was just wrong, I’ve given up someone I really cared for because a mutual friend of ours crossed a line and then posthumously went kind of crazy from the grief, and I’ve met guys that were really fucking stupid and didn’t know how to act appropriately in a professional situation and actually sexually harassed and retaliated against me. I’m so tired and almost 4 years into living in Japan, I’m starting to realize that because of that last one, I think I gave up on my life because of trauma. Just hurt too many times, so don’t even think about love anymore cuz why bother? It took awhile for me to even be able to become a functioning human being again after the PTSD of harassment. I was really bad and freaking out because the guy that did it was so frickin’ stupid that he like wasn’t actually responsible enough to know the things he shouldn’t do and it was freaking me the hell out that he just didn’t know when he crossed a line. So I ran away to another country and tried to rebuild some semblance of a life for myself. Now my home country is a goddamn mess and I’d be in a worse position to go home, but at the same time, although my heart has healed enough to the point that I can function as a human. I am not at all motivated to look for anyone or let myself care for someone ever again. When I was younger I had so many dreams and really wanted a family. But now I am sad to say I have resigned myself to believing that that will probably never happen because I am apparently plagued by horrible people. I haven’t met horrible people since I’ve been in Japan, but I also don’t go out and talk to anyone other than co-workers and students because I’m busy and in my free time I want to introvert. It’d be kind of nice if I was lucky and had a kind of random chance like Yan Wen cuz like, I just can’t and don’t want to put up with low quality people.

That said, I was talking with my boss and co-worker the other day and we were discussing how China’s population problem with the bachelor society so there’s a lot of men but less available women to be their wife, so I was kind of wondering if that was also kind of how come so many modern day Chinese romance novels seem to involve a rich CEO. I suppose in China right now the chance that you could marry one is greater than anywhere else in the world because of the population problem, so maybe they’re trying to promote moving there and marrying them. LOL I’d be kind of suspicious of whether or not they’d be able to be like actually good husbands for real, but I suppose there probably is some sense of desperation.

And then because I ran out of chapters to read for today because I have to wait for them to translate more, I started another one about a Bossy Ghost Husband? It’s kind of creepy at the beginning, but the ghost husband thing has been something I was kind of curious about because you can marry the dead in China. But like for real I also wondered if youkai really are real or not and if you could unknowingly marry a youkai or something too, so basically it’s right up my alley too. And then also because my life is garbage I was like seriously thinking and wondering if it would actually be so bad to be single to the people who know you around you, but married actually to a ghost and have a ghost husband to go home to? Like would that actually be bad? I suppose in that same vein, it’s not much different from WoL having a secret relationship with Emet-Selch, but yeah.

Anyway, all of this gave me a lot to think about.

[clarity-forest-water]

I DIDN’T WRITE THIS BUT WHOEVER DID IS HILARIOUS!😂😂😂 spot. on.🤣🤣

Dear Diary 2020 Edition,

In ❄️ January, 🔥 Australia caught on fire. I don’t even know if that fire was put out, because we straight up almost went to war with Iran 🇮🇷 . We might actually still be almost at war with them 🤔. I don’t know, because 👩 Jen Aniston and 👨🏻 Brad Pitt spoke to one another at an awards 🏆 show and everyone flipped the crap out 😲, but then there was this thing happening in 🦇 🇨🇳 China, then 👑 Prince Harry and Megan ✌🏼 peaced out of the Royal family, and there was the whole impeachment trial 👩‍⚖️ , and then corona virus 🦠 showed up in the US ✔️“officially,” but then 🏀 Kobe died 😭and UK 🇬🇧 peaced out of the European Union.

In February, 🌽 Iowa crapped 💩 itself with the caucus results and the president was acquitted and the 👩🏼‍💼Speaker of the House took ten. Whole. years. to rip up a speech , but then The👨‍🔬 🌎WHO decided to give this virus a name COVID-19, which confused 🤔some really important people 👔 in charge of, like, our lives, into thinking there were 18 other versions before it, but then Harvey Weinstein was found guilty👨🏻‍⚖️, and 🇺🇸 Americans started asking if Corona beer 🍺 was safe to drink🤦🏻‍♀️, and everyone on Facebook became a doctor 👨‍⚕️ who just knew the 🤒flu like killed way more people than COVID 1 through 18.

In March, stuff hit the fan👿. Warren dropped out of the presidential race and Sanders was like Bernie or bust 💥, but then Italy 🇮🇹 shut its whole country down 🚷, and then COVID Not 1 through 18 officially become what everyone already realized, a 😱pandemic and then a nationwide state of emergency 🆘was declared in US 🇺🇸 , but it didn’t really change anything, so everyone was confused or thought it was still just a flu 💁🏻‍♀️, but then COVID Not 18 was like ya’ll not taking me seriously? 💡 I’m gonna infect the one celebrity everyone loves and totally infected Tom Hanks👨🏻, get y’all to close all of the schools so y’all can 🙏🏼 appreciate teachers 👩‍🏫 for once (because you can’t teach them anything other than how to use a touch screen🤦🏻‍♀️ ) close down all of salons so you can’t get your 💇‍♂️ hair or your nails done💅 , everyone had to work from home and attend Zoom meetings in their underwear. The 📉 DOW took a crap 💩 on itself, and most of us still don’t understand why the stock market is so important or even a thing 🤔 (I still don’t), We were then all introduced to 🐅 Tiger King and the ONE thing we can all agree on this year , 👍🏼Carol totally killed her husband⚰️ ..... whacked him! And then Netflix was like you’re welcome, and we all realized there was no way we were washing our hands enough in the first place because all of our hands are now dry and gross and were all searching for lotion now.

In 🌧 April, Bernie finally busted✌🏼 himself out of the presidential race 🏃 , but then NYC 🗽became the set of The Walking Dead 💀 and we learned that no one has face masks 😷, ventilators, or toilet paper, or THE FREAKING SWIFFER WET JET LIQUID , and by now our 🦁outgrowth is showing, so there’s a shortage on 📦 box hair dye and all of our hair dressers are like , 😱 NO DONT DO IT!!! But, then Kim Jong-Un died, but then he came back to life … or did he? Who knows, because then the Pentagon released 🎥 videos of UFOs and nobody cared, and we were like man, it’s only April….

In 💐 May, the biblical end times kicked off , historical locust swarms, we learned of murder hornets 🐝 and realized that 2020 was the start of the Hunger Games🙈 however people forgot to let us know. people legit started to protest lockdown measures with 🔫 AR-15s, 🏀⚾️sports events were cancelled everywhere. But then people all over America finally reached a breaking point with race issues and violence. There were 🗣protests in every city🌃 ,which was confusing to some of us because people were definitely gathering in 👫crowds of more than 🖐🏼🤚🏼10 and for sure closer than 6 foot away ⬅️➡️from each other . Those people must have forgotten about the 😖pandemic called COVID Not One Through 18. Media 📺 🗞 struggled with how to 🤬focus on two important things at once, people in general struggle to focus on more than one important thing. A dead whale 🐋 was found in the middle of the Amazon rain forest 🌳 after monkeys 🐒 stole COVID 1 Through 19 from a lab 🔬 and ran off with them, and either in May or April (no one is keeping track of time now) that a giant asteroid ☄️ narrowly missed the Earth🌍.

In ☀️ June, common sense just got thrown 🤾🏼 straight out the window and somehow 😷 wearing masks became a 🏛political thing, but then everyone sort of remembered there was a pandemic, then 👨‍🔬scientists announced they found a mysterious undiscovered mass at the center of the earth, and everyone was like 🙅🏽‍♂️🙅🏻‍♀️🚧DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH IT, but then everyone took a pause to realize that people actually believed Gone With The Wind 💨 was like non-fiction, but then it was also announced that there is a strange 🛰radio signal coming from somewhere in the universe 🌌 that repeats itself every so many days 🗓 , and everyone was like 👽 DON’T YOU DARE ATTEMPT TO COMMUNICATE WITH IT‼️🚫 but then America reopened 🙌🏼from the shut down that actually wasn’t even a shut down, and so far, things have gone spectacularly .... not that great 👎🏼. All of the Karen’s came out at once, and people started tearing down 🔨 statues. Everyone is on Facebook arguing 🤼‍♀️ about masks 👃🏼, but then Florida 🏖 was like hold my beer 🍺 and let me show you how we’re number one 🥇 in all things, including new Not Corona Beer Coronavirus. Then we learned there was a massive dust cloud ☁️ coming straight at us 📍from the Sahara Desert 🐫 , which is totally normal, but this is 2020, so the 👻 ghost mummy thing is most likely in that dust cloud. We then 📚 learned of meth-gators 🐊 , and I'm like that is so not on my flipping 2020 Bingo card 😡 can we use it as the free space?? 🤷🏻 Then we learned that the Congo's worst ever Ebola 🚨 outbreak is over 😓, and we were all like, there was an Ebola outbreak that was the worse ever? 👀 ....... and don’t forget we just discovered FLYING SNAKES! 🐍, seriously! FLYING SNAKES!!!!

So here comes July…. at this point we are over it , just tell us what’s next .... 👽 Aliens? 🔱Zeus? ☄️ Asteroids? Artificial Intelligence becomes self aware? Can it just be something cool 😎 or fun for once? Maybe even a good laugh , like hahaha 😂 April Fools! We all actually wouldn’t mind that joke at this point.

Also, why didn't I know about the whale in the Amazon? Or a few other things because I just can’t keep up anymore!

But I’m sharing it because as long as we make it through 2020, I really want this to pop back up in the memories a few years from now. Copy and share to your page!!!!! (Copy & paste...)

[purplesurveys]

735

Hola, hablas espanol? Un poco. Haha most of my Spanish is based off of context clues from similar words and phrases that we have in Filipino, and the very basic lessons I’ve gotten from Duolingo if that even counts, so I most likely would not survive a conversation. Overall though, I can read Spanish much more quickly and better than I can listen to/speak it. Music is playing right now, isn't it? What song? No but for some reason I have the OST of one of the Mario Kart 8 tracks playing in my head. Do you use AIM? What's your screen name? No, I didn’t really catch that era anymore. How many cell phones have you gone through in your life? I had two of the classic Nokia phones, a flip phone, a hand-me-down from my dad, two iPhone 5S, and my current iPhone 8 so that makes it a total of seven. Do you have a little sister? What's her name? Yeah. We’ve always called her Nina at home but for some reason she chose to go with her full first name in school and everywhere else, so it’s always a source of confusion when her friends and I are in the same room and we call her different names hahaha.

Who was the last person you screamed at? Why were you screaming? I think my mom? I was filming my dad doing one of the Tiktok dances (yep, my parents are into Tiktok lmaooooo) but my mom blocked the camera at some point so I jokingly yelled at her to go away. Can you crack your joints? Which ones? Just my fingers, which is all I ever feel like cracking anyway. What's your favorite name for a guy? And a girl? I repeat my fave girls’ names too much on this damn site, y’all know at least one of them by now. I don’t really think of boys’ names but I suppose my current favorite is Miguel. Are you good at answering trick questions? I don’t really encounter them a lot so I wouldn’t know. Do you use Myspace or Facebook? Or both? I don’t use Myspace/was never addicted to it the way I am to like Twitter now. I do use Facebook for various reasons – to stay connected to family, to be updated with announcements from school, to communicate for work, and to share memes hahahaha. Do you need spellcheck in order to spell things correctly? Not really. Sometimes I’ll Google a word before typing it out to be 100% sure but it’s only usually for words that are commonly misspelled, like ‘occasionally.’ Do you do too many surveys? How many have you done today? I don’t know if taking them daily counts as taking them too much but to be fair I only take one to three surveys a day. I definitely take much fewer surveys than I did, like, seven years ago when I would fill out ten a day. Have you ever changed yourself to impress someone? Who? I remember trying to like bands like The Summer Set, You Me At Six, The Maine, We Came As Romans, This Century, etc in Grade 6 because all the cooler, hipster kids liked them. UGH thinking about how I acted during that period is so cringe because I never even liked any of the fucking music but I tried so hard to, lmao. There were only three bands I ended up genuinely enjoying: All Time Low, Sleeping With Sirens, and We Are the In Crowd. After that I stopped paying attention to what people liked. Who was the last person you gave up on? Why did you give up on them? I think it was Macy. She has changed a lot and it’s obvious we are not as close as before and when we do talk it’s mostly awkward small talk. I don’t know what happened along the way, but I just hope she’s happy. What was the last thing you printed? Is there even ink in your printer? I usually have stuff printed in school because with my dad not being home most of the time, my mom and brother never printing anything, and my sister living in a dorm, it doesn’t seem worth it to keep buying ink just for me. The last thing I printed was a news article I needed to turn in for business writing class. What's your favorite number? Is there any reason that's your favorite? 4. I honestly liked it initially because it’s Beyoncé’s favorite number so I just stuck with that answer for the longest time haha. What kind of shampoo do you use? Does it smell amazing? It’s one of the Dove shampoos. It’s nothing life-changing but seeing as it’s a hair care product, it of course smells nice and decent.   Do you go to concerts? What was the last one you attended? Not a lot. I save my attendance for my absolute favorites which means that so far I’ve been to two Paramore shows and one One Direction show. I make sure they’re bigger, more mainstream acts that don’t happen in the Philippines a lot because it’s my dad who pays, and I wanna make sure what I’m asking him to treat me to is gonna be a super super worth it experience, if that makes sense. Have you ever had a conversation with someone through bulletins? I don’t think so. Do you shop online? With your own credit card, or someone else's? I have food delivered from online but I barely buy other stuff online. I use cash on delivery since I don’t own any kind of card. Who's your best friend? How long have you known each other? I’ve known Angela for 15 years and Gab for 9. Who was your first boyfriend/girlfriend? Why did you break up? She freaked out and thought we were rushing too much at 17, which she was right about. Have you ever gotten your nails done? Or do you get them done regularly? Never but Gabie keeps telling me that we should have a nail day hahahaha. Idk, I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of someone working on my fingers or toes or any part of my body. Have you been outside yet today? What were you doing? Sure. I stepped out into our backyard to walk my dog for a few minutes in the afternoon; in the evening my family and I had dinner on our rooftop which is technically a part of outside. Tell me about the last thing that made you laugh until it hurt. It was one of the more recent segments from a Korean reality show I watch. It’s not gonna be funny if I narrate it lmao but suffice it to say it’s a show about kids and their dads, and the kid that I watched in particular is exceptionally smart for his age and says a lot of witty things. One of the things he said was bullseye for me and I ended up nearly screaming in laughter at 3 AM. When was the last time you got a new bed? Is your bed comfy? 2008. We never changed my bed from when we first moved here. Yes, I’d say it is. What kind of games did you play on the playground when you were younger? I loved playing at the sandbox because I found the texture really fun to touch and play with; I also liked the swing and the trapeze bars.

Have you ever buried a time capsule with a friend? Did you dig it up yet? Nope. I find them very interesting though. Tell me one thing you'd like to change in 2010. There's gotta be something. That was a whole-ass decade ago, holy shit. I don’t remember what I sought for 2010 back in 2009 but I imagine one of them is for me to find a friend to be with because it was in 2010 that two of my closest friends, Andi and Angel, both migrated to New Zealand and Canada. Spoiler alert: I didn’t, and I was sad the entire year. Do you have or want any tattoos? Of what? Yes. The only design I can think of right now is my dog’s pawprint. Do you remember the first time you ever drove a car? Who were you with? Yeah, it was in my parents’ old Mitsubishi Lancer. I was with my mom and I drove too close to curbs/walls the entire time haha. Do any of your friends drink excess amounts of alcohol? Do you? JM drank a lot at the start of the quarantine to the point that I started to get worried, but I think he’s lessened his intake in the last few weeks. Other than him I don’t know anyone with a drinking problem. I certainly don’t have one. What color is your favorite hoodie? When did you get it? Hoodies aren’t really my thing so I don’t have a favorite one. How many pairs of shoes do you have? Are they under your bed? Around 10-15 would be a safe guess. They’re in a shoe rack in a bodega-like space underneath our stairs. What exactly is under your bed? Is it a mess? Not a mess. I just have my old WWE magazines and other various magazines that I collected as a teenager with Beyoncé and Kristen Stewart on the cover stored in two large containers. Have you ever been in handcuffs? Why, exactly? Not by the police, lol byeeeeeeeeeeee What's your favorite thing to do when drunk? Would you do this sober? I join games a lot more and I’m generally friendlier and louder. I can be the first two when I’m sober, just a lot more reserved. When was the last time you bled? What happened? I caught a mosquito sucking blood off of my knee a week ago. Have you ever had to be put to sleep at a hospital? Why? Nope. Do you actually have a calendar on your wall? What are the pictures of? I do not. When are you planning on moving out of your parents' house? In 2-3 years when I’ve saved enough, probably. I’m itching to do it as soon as I can though. Tell me about your day today. :) It was my parents’ 23rd wedding anniversary so we had a bigger brunch that consisted of pancit Malabon, several sticks of barbecue, sisig, and various kakanin to celebrate. The afternoon was uneventful and I just spent most of it brushing up on my Spanish lessons hah, then I had a quick siesta; then for dinner we had burgers from a local place that recently opened again while the quarantine is ongoing. Are you a fan of dogs? Do you have any pets? I LOVE dogs, except for chihuahuas which I genuinely am unable to start liking because of (most of) their personalities. I will definitely care for one if I see them starving at a road but ugh idk, I just like all other dogs a lot more. And I know there are cuddly and behaved chihuahuas out there but I’ve simply seen more feisty ones and since then it’s been hard to have my mind changed about them. Who was the last person in your family to graduate high school? Was it you? My sister graduated in 2018. Have you ever been on a cruise? How many? Where did they go? Yeah, just once, for my 18th birthday. I went to China, Japan, and South Korea.

[artificialqueens]

if we have eachother (Branjie/Ninex/Everyone) 2/5 - PinkGrapefruit

chapter one.

chapter two. in which family means adventure

A/N - I’ve got 10/27 exams left and that’s something to celebrate. I really love this chapter, it’s soft as all hell and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed Frey and Qtips comments on it (thanks to them it looks like I can use punctuation). Anyway, Enjoy!

*

When the kids start school Vanessa comes to the startling revelation that he can’t keep doing this (this being travelling non-stop, gigs across the country and long-ass tours) - it’s not a bittersweet farewell, but it’s the end of an era, he supposes. And then he makes himself a set of rules instead. One tour a year, no more than two weeks, must be able to find childcare. Avoid international gigs without another queen. No gigs on school nights. And it works, for three years, it works perfectly, and then the kids are eight and they’re moving house and he realises that,god , he misses touring - just a little bit. Misses the feeling of waking up in a different city than you fell asleep, new crowds every night, the atmosphere of it all. But he wakes up in his king-sized bed curled up around a Canadian hunk, and sometimes there’s still a child on his back if it’s been a really bad night, and he also knows he wouldn’t give it up for the world.

He does a gig at least every week, got a steady hosting job at Micky’s WeHo on a Friday night and Brooke doesn’t work them, so it’s his night with the kids while Vanessa dips and twirls and screams on stage, whipping the crowd up into a frenzy before announcing the latest in a stream of Drag Race girls and up-and-coming queens. Sometimes Silky or A’keria joins him and they have a proper good time of it, but even when he’s alone up there he still feels as at home as he does on the sofa, Allie on his lap, legs on Brooke’s who has an arm around Noah as they watch ‘Clueless' or something else that is definitely not appropriate for eight-year-olds, but ‘our kids are gonna know shit, babe - I didn’t have them for them to be uncultured.’

On his days off, he goes full ‘PTA dad’ as Brooke likes to call that - it better be as affectionate as Brooke’s ‘Dance Mom’ title - stemming from him watching Noah and Allie dance like he himself is doing it - but Vanessa isn’t quite willing to take that chance. He makes the kids packed lunches every day while the rest of the family is asleep. He cuts the sandwiches into little animals and the fruit into stars using cutters Brooke and the twins bought for Fathers’ Day, and usually halfway through, more often than not at this point, his man will traipse down the stairs and wordlessly make them both coffees in their ‘world’s best dad’ mugs, which they’ll sip at the table, holding hands and watching the news until they have to get the kids up for school. Allie is always easier to wake up, so they alternate who wakes up who, and get them dressed for the day before Brooke tries (and fails) to make pancakes, Vanessa sitting at the table with his coffee and dying laughing like it’s not a daily thing.

The kids had been excited when he told them ‘Uncle Brook’ would be living with them all the time, even though they stopped calling him that years ago and he’s basically living at theirs anyway (his flat is more of a glorified drag closet than a flat at this point). They switch between ‘Brock’ for everyday stuff and ‘Dad’ in really tender moments, ever since Allie slipped up at an ice-rink one Christmas and had cried into his arms. Secretly Vanessa can’t wait until they call him ‘Dad’ all the time, but he already has a mug from the last Fathers’ Day so he figures they’re getting pretty close.

*

They move on a Tuesday, out of the cosy condo they’ve always lived in. It’s only a little across LA, still close enough to go to the same school, but they’ve been saving all the extra money they have to mortgage a little townhouse and it’s everything they could have asked for. Allie squeals as she runs through the door, sprints up the carpeted stairs before Vanessa can call out to her, screaming “PAPA, PAPA, LOOK!” as she counts the bedrooms again and again. There’s four: one for each kid that they can grow into, one for him and Brooke, and one for drag. The drag room might be the second biggest - they’re not ashamed.

They get Monique, Monét and Nina over to paint and decorate, and as Nina and Brooke do the heavy lifting downstairs, Monique and Monét start painting Noah’s room. It’s a periwinkle blue, something he’d been insistent on when they’d been planning, Chinese food and paint swatches littering the table like some sort of fun brainstorming session - it was, but it ended with the adults drinking red wine on the couch and Vanessa bitching about PTA moms. It turns out that Monique doesn’t understand how to use a paint roller and Vanessa leans against the door, watching as she rolls it horizontally. Monét has to sit down - she’s laughing so hard - and it draws the kids upstairs to watch as the queen can’t string together a sentence properly. It’s a hot day, so he goes downstairs to make juice, but when he hears Monét teaching the twins ‘Yo mama’ jokes - he can’t help but tell Nina, “your man is corrupting my babies”. Nina blushes frantically as she tries to put together an Ikea chair, Brooke already having built the other three.

“How’s it going with him by the way?” He asks, nodding his head upstairs with a smile.

“It’s really good,” she replies, handing the chair carcass to the other man who puts it together without even thinking, half paying attention to the conversation, half staring at Vanessa in his painting shorts. Brooke is topless, so Vanessa is only half paying attention too.

“We talked about kids the other night,” She continues, coyly. “We’re thinking of doing what you did.”

“Adoption? That’s amazing, Andrew!”

“Seriously, I can’t think of anyone better,” adds Brooke, beaming at his best friend.

“We’re looking at international, we think, but it’s a little too early to say.”

“I’m really happy for you, mate, we both are,” Brooke says, standing to wrap an arm around his man’s waist, kissing his temple lightly before taking the pitcher and the cups and gesturing upstairs. Vanessa nods slightly, leaning into his body before helping Nina to unpack the table. Neither of them can follow furniture instructions, he goes back to painting Allie’s room yellow in a matter of minutes.

They somehow finish all the painting by Thursday, get to move from all sleeping in the master bedroom (the only one they’d pre-decorated) to finally sleeping in their own rooms, and the first night the two spend alone they just enjoy the amount of space they have. They enjoy it for about 5 minutes, all stretched out, and then they return to their natural state instead, Vanessa curled up into Brooke’s side, head on his shoulder, one leg over his waist like he’s trying to climb the man. He isn’t, but Brooke would argue otherwise.

*

Noah dances in the school talent show, a feat neither of his parents thought possible until he asked Brooke for help one day after school, citing a show in three or so weeks. Vanessa knows that his boys have spent every night since, hunkered down in the garage blasting something that sounds classical, probably. It’s Brookes expertise, he and Allie have just been baking healthy cookies and watching ’The Office’. Neither of them is complaining.

He knows how much work has gone into the minute-long solo, so when he watches it, he is so proud. So proud that he is crying and the phone he’s holding up to film is removed from his hand by Brooke who takes over, because he is shaking too much to get a good video. If he posts it on Facebook after, he can’t be blamed. He has the best kids, he really does.

“Papa!” Noah calls out to him as he runs from the door next to the stage. “Papa! I won!” And Vanessa swears that if Brooke didn’t film that too, he’s not sleeping in their bed.

“I know baby, I’m so proud of you!” He says as he pulls him in, bear hugs him like he has since the boy was three.

“Do you want to get ice cream, buddy?” Calls Brooke from where he’s got Allie’s hand in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in another. When the pair walk over, he kneels in front of Noah with a smile. “You see, dancers get flowers when they do really well,” and he hands his son them, “So we got you some.”

Vanessa pulls Allie into his side as Brooke and Noah hug, the bouquet held out awkwardly so as not to squish it.

“Ice cream.” Allie declares definitively and they all laugh.

*

The kids’ ninth birthdays come too quick for Vanessa’s liking. He’s had them for almost six years and that scares him more than he lets on. He always wonders if he’s raising them right, if they can really be well adjusted with two drag queens as parents, but then he remembers that really they’ve got an entire family of drag queens and that makes him feel a little better.

He hosts a traditional Puerto Rican dinner for their birthdays. He sends Brooke around Los Angeles to find the perfect plantains, yelling through the car Bluetooth that, ‘Yes I need green ones’, but also ‘THEY NEED TO BE BROWN AND SQUISHY, WHAT ARE YOU NOT UNDERSTANDING.’ He explains, when he gets home, that there are two ways you use plantains - super ripe or super squishy. He needs both. Brooke just laughs.

The man comes up behind him when he is trying to fry the tostones, wraps his strong arms around his waist and kisses his neck softly, “My little housewife,” before dipping his finger in the mayo-ketchup and leaving before Vanessa can beat his ass with the spoon. He frets around the kitchen all day until he’s made an entire banquet of classic dishes from arroz con habichuelas to pastelón de amarillos and pollo guisado. And then, somehow, he finds the energy to fret about table decorations for a little while longer.

It is the eve of the twins’ birthday and everyone is over, the food is already mostly gone and they’re all sat around the long table Brooke created through the open plan living area, chatting and yelling every-which-way. It’s noisy and ridiculous and there’s no place they’d rather be.

*

Nina plans for them all to go to Disney for ‘Gotcha Day’ in August and Vanessa pawns his Friday show off on A’keria and Silky the second he can. They pack easily, Brooke and the kids piling into the family ford, and tailing Nina and Monét the whole way there, switching Brooke and Monét out halfway because Brooke ‘has a headache’.

Unbeknownst to Vanessa, Brooke and Nina sit in Nina’s classic beetle planning a proposal. Brooke has the ring in his pocket, has had it in there since they left LA an hour before (the traffic is horrendous), and it feels like it’s burning through the shorts. Like a hot potato, he needs to pass it to someone else. He puts it in Nina’s rucksack instead.

They discuss it at length (although ‘discuss’ implies that it wasn’t just Nina orchestrating the entire thing) and quickly realise that Vanessa has always wanted her fairytale, so maybe it needs to be somewhere truly magical - somewhere from her favourite Disney film… “ARIEL!” Brooke shouts, startling Nina slightly as the Canadian grins at her from the passenger seat. “You know Disney, Nina, where is there an Ariel bit?”

Nina pauses for a second while she changes gear, her eyebrow quirking up as she thinks. “I know a guy,” she says, “There’s a ‘Little Mermaid’ ride and there’s a model where Ariel and Eric are sat in a boat, so maybe, I was thinking, you could go behind the scenes and propose there?”

Brooke lights up as they pull into the carpark. “Could you make that happen?”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

*

“Papa, do you want the rest of your Dole Whip?”

“Yes, baby.”

“Brookie, do you need the rest of your Dole Whip?”

“Uhuh.”

“Monét, are you going to eat the rest of your Dole Whip?”

“Yup, kiddo, it’s mine.”

“Nini, can I have the rest of you Dole Whip?”

“Sure, here you go, kid.”

“NINA.”

*

“You sure you’re tall enough to ride, baby?”

“I swear to god , Brock, imma kick you if you make that joke again.”

*

“Papa? Can we buy Mickey’s ears?”

“I’ll get you them, kiddos.”

“Nina, no. Ugh, fine. Kids, say thank you to Uncle Nina.”

“You know you love it, Vanj.”

“Sure.”

*

Monét takes the ring out of Nina’s rucksack while she’s on the 'Under the Sea’ ride with Vanessa and the kids. She hands it to Brooke with a pointed stare and a muttered joke about ’forgetting everything, you dumb bitch’ before dutifully returning to the small pile of rucksacks they’ve accumulated as a unit. Brooke smiles down at it as he thumbs the black velvet box, opens it briefly - just to check - before shoving it deep into his cargo shorts. “They’re practical!” He’d defended in response to the ridicule of his soon-to-be fiancé that morning, pairing the offending shorts with a white Mickey Mouse T-Shirt (that matched Noah’s).

When everyone gets off the ride, Nina claps her hands as if to make an announcement before turning to the kids. “So, you know your papa likes Ariel? I may have arranged something, follow me.”

The kids squeal as Nina leads them down a slightly hidden hallway behind the ride, pushes open the doorway like she owns the place. Monét hoists Allie up onto her shoulders and runs ahead, leaves Vanessa and Brooke bringing up the rear, hands entwined.

Brooke giggles as he watches his boyfriend get excited over every little aspect of it, the music playing even though the ride is shut for 'maintenance’. He can feel himself get a little swept up in the magic, letting the kids run ahead as they near the point he’s going to do it.

It’s a model of Ariel and Eric sat in the boat, hands clasped as they face each other. He pulls Vanessa over with a smile, requests Nina take a picture of them re-enacting. They face each other, holding hands and looking into each other’s eyes for a second before Vanessa turns to Nina and gives the cheesiest grin he’s ever seen.

Brooke takes the moment.

He slowly moves down onto one knee as Vanessa whips his head back around, staring at him. His head tilts to the side and his eyes start to water as the Canadian lets go of one hand to reach into his pocket. He knows what’s coming, sees the glint of the ring before the box is even fully open, eyes pouring with tears as he looks to Nina to make sure this is definitely happening. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Monét, knelt with the twins, beaming. He melts a little more.

“José, my love,” Brooke sighs, relaxes his shoulders as he looks back up at the man. “It’s been a long, long road to get here, but I’m so glad we took it.” Vanessa nods, glassy-eyed. “For the record, I asked the kids’ permission to do this,” he chuckles quietly, “Allie only told me she would have to call me Dad. I don’t know about you but that doesn’t seem like a bad price.” Brooke tears up too now, his hand clammy in the other man’s as he squeezes it loosely.

“I love you more than life itself and I really want to share a drag closet with you, a coffee machine, and children, and a last name. I want it all, and I want it with you. ”

“Yes,” Vanessa whispers and Brooke swats at him.

“I haven’t finished yet, bitch.”

“Sorry.” He flushes a subtle red under the set lights - the slight strobing making his tears glitter like diamonds. Only diamonds would be good enough for him, Brooke decides.

“José, will you marry me?”

“No.”

“Baby.” He raises an eyebrow but the contented smile stays, he doesn’t need to worry, knows the real answer and the exact way the man’s mouth will form it, soft consonants and a hard vowel.

“Yes, Brock, always yes.”

They kiss and it feels like victory - crossing the line of a racetrack on an easy win, knowing you earned that crown, that trophy, that kiss. They melt into one for just a second and it’s all Vanessa needs to say everything.

Then the twins are running towards them at an alarming rate. “Dad! Papa!” They shout and it almost brings Brooke to tears again as he picks up Allie, spinning her round and round before pulling her close. She’s getting big and he almost can’t do it anymore butgoddammit he’s going to try. As he holds his fiancé and their kids close, he watches Monét press a kiss to Nina’s temple, thanks God for the family he has.

[yeet-me-into-oblivion-please]

Well, Supernatural is actually ending and I don't know what I'll do

[ Brevity is not a strong suit of mine since I've included personal details but there's stuff I feel everyone in the SPN family needs to read]

You might be expecting another post about how Supernatural saved someone's life and how devastated they will be when it ends because they've watched it for so long as well as how the actors have impacted their lives. This is probably one of those but please hear me out.

Supernatural premiered in 2005 and I was in preparatory class (aged 5 years and was before I began 1st grade). I heard of it because my aunt would watch it time to time so I'd also tried to get some peeks myself but I wasn't allowed to because it was "too scary".

Then our local cable began to show seasons 1-5 and that was when everyone in class started watching and quoting it. This was in 6th grade and I was frustrated because I knew about it before most of them yet they acted like it was a new show. I had a fair idea about the story but once I began watching it, I fell in love with it and loved it like a part of my soul.

Yes, Jensen Ackles was my first crush but I still thought (and do think) that both he and Jared are super hot. So I was sucked into this vortex, this Neverland which I never thought I would end.

I joined Tumblr for this show in 2013 because I saw the jokes about there being a Supernatural gif everywhere and wanted to be a part of the fandom/community. This was also the year I actually became interested what other fans felt though I never used this site properly until 2016 I would read the IMDb discussion boards because I hated scurrying through Destiel-infested posts.

(Fun fact:I wasn't using any social media of my own but on my mother's Facebook I liked a Supernatural fan page asking people's opinions on Destiel. This is was around the time season 8 was just finishing or had already finished so I read the comments--- people talked about Dean and Castiel being gay and didn't approve of it as there was this one girl who was conservative and didn't believe in homosexuality while others went on how Dean was always a ladies man which I agreed with. Not that I commented but I thought there was something I missed and I thought Castiel used Dean as a vessel, thus Destiel.)

But I digress. I was in deep by the time season 9 premiered and majority of the people I knew stopped watching the show except for this girl who bullied me throughout preschool who put up this update that Dean had become a demon. I doubt she watches the show now but it was hard seeing her put pictures of "I heart Dean Winchester" and pictures of Jensen when my mom asked me why I don't do the same.

Supernatural, I feel, has become that embarrassing thing you are into in middle school but suddenly drop when you're older, looking back and thinking, "Yeesh, I can't believe I used to watch this show."

I'll be a grown woman at 30 or 40 and probably eventually in my 70s and 80s but I will still look back fondly, the good, the bad and the ugly because I have like many teenagers have undergone many changes (friends, family, emotions, hobbies etc) but Supernatural has always been this constant in my life.

Because let me tell you, I'm seeing these posts saying stuff like how people are glad that it's finally over with its "bullshit" and that's it's dying. That is extremely disrespectful and insensitive to those people who literally live for it, who have invested time and money into it: gif makers, artists, meta writers (I may not agree with you guys but even you count). They don't know what to do once the show ends because it has helped them in ways others will never ever be able to fathom.

I saw the video put up by the guys. I saw and I could tell that Jared, Jensen and Misha had probably cried their guts out before the announcement because their eyes were red and puffy. Jared was controlling himself by talking less as Jensen was clearly on the verge as well but yes they said that they should save the angst for next year.

I love the guys; I love Jared being a goofball and Jensen being equally goofy as well and I'll say this too, I used to enjoy some of Misha's crass jokes (not the highlight ) as well which was why I looked forward to the gag reel every summer (because of J2) because it was cathartic after a traumatic season finale. I love the witty banter and the pranks the cast would do and I will miss it tremendously.

I have some issues with my aunt but everything would be okay when we would fawn over the guys and bingewatch the entire season the summer after it finished airing. We'd quote quotes back and forth and even spiritually killed ourselves watching short clips of "Sammy, close your eyes", "I'm proud of us" etc. Hell, she even promised me that when we go visit my uncle in the States we'd attend a con together.

If, and whenever we do go, it'll be different because the show won't be on air anymore and I know for a fact that I won't feel the anticipation of an episode.

So don't say disrespectful and callous things like "fucking finally". You can dislike the cast/plotline/show but don't ridicule and mock those who invested in the show,some of you are most probably speculating and have barely seen it.

I'm not some dumb, blind fan. I can see some stupid mistakes and don't always eat up what the writers show. For example, everyone must have figured that I dislike Destiel because it's based on groundless assumptions. I thought the Bloodlines was a crap idea that had nothing to do with the main plot and knew it was destined to fail.

As for Wayward Daughters/Sisters or whatever the fuck it was supposed to be called, I was not looking forward to it at all because it was one of those "forced diversity" shows, y'know gender bent stuff.

I felt that they were bastardising everything that Supernatural has and will (always) stand for because some people had a hair up their backsides. Yeah, I loathed Claire and that Kaia mourning thing was bullshit. Thank goodness I was sick that day and couldn't keep my eyes open for that episode.

If we were told that there would be a Men of Letters(with Henry Winchester) or even a Bobby-Rufus spinoff I would be okay with that but for now since the show will finish next year let's the wounds heal first, shall we?

I hope that Jared and Jensen get some offers once the show is done and I will pay good money to see movies, TV shows of them etc but for now I will keep quiet since I hope we get an ending we (and the boys) deserve.

Yes, the writer situation scares me and I think they should call Eric Kripke for a last hurrah. I mean, it is his baby and he should get to have a say in the series finale as well as J2.

Will one of the brothers die and the other will live (I'm worried we'll get a reverse Swan Song)? Will they both die leaving Cas behind and Jack as some sort legacy who trains future hunters? That would be a possibility since the sheriff in 14.16 asked the Winchesters why they don't tell people about monsters. What happens to Baby?

I seriously doubt the ending will be happy(maybe not 100%) but the best thing would be if they go driving with Baby into the sunset...

Dean at the steering wheel with Sam riding shotgun, where they should be ---- where they will always be, home. Dean plays his "mullet rock" as Sam would playfully mock his brother's musical choices. No chick flick moments. Just the Winchesters.

The boys need to lay their weary heads to rest, so they can cry no more. Because they are the legendary Winchesters, the hunters who saved the world countless times unbeknownst to many. I don't think their work will ever be done but there will be peace when they are done and how they will reach that point we'll never know till 2020.

Everyone will hear "Carry on wayward son" for the last time ever in Supernatural over a painful montage of "Dad's gone on a hunting trip and he hasn't been home in a few days" and "Saving people, hunting things, the family business". Now who in this fandom wouldn't be wracked with pain?

This is the show we all joked about that made a deal with the devil to never go off air but I did expect this a long time ago. Only thing was that I didn't know how I'd treat the news. I was that person who would go, "pfft, of course Supernatural would get renewed". Then again, this was the show that an ending was imminent and the whole season 4 debacle about Misha and the angel storyline saving the show blah blah blah.

So next year, everyone will flock to see the finale and epic conclusion to the Winchester saga whether they stopped at season 5,6,7 or 10,12. Diss it all you want for the shit show it may have become but wherever you left off, you may still want to know what happens to Sam and Dean Winchester in the end.

Once Supernatural ends, I'll turn 20 next summer and I would like to think of it being poetic that I end my adolescence with a show I have loved when I brave the cold, ruthless world of adulthood. I'm a picky person and can't say what's my favorite xyz is but you know what I'll say about my favorite TV show.

We will have completed 327 episodes which is the highest for a scifi TV show so I do hope the boys get some sort of recognition. It was us crazy bitches and jerks that gave the show the mileage and it was us that gave Jared and Jensen faith that they could carry on so for the remainder of season 14 and for 15,support these guys. Support these annoyingly sexy and ridiculously hilarious dudes for this show. I'm sure Jared and Jensen love the show like it's their kid practically but I wish everyone would just shut up, tinhatters, bronlies, stans, destihellers because we are all fans of the one show so let's ease the time we have left.

But seriously imagine Sam and Dean on a desert highway, the orange and yellow rays of the setting sun make Baby shine in all her splendor which makes Dean swell with pride. He starts the engine with a low rumble and they're off. They might to California to feel the sand beneath their feet or to Disneyland. They're living the "apple pie life" and this is their personal heaven : with each other.

I wouldn't mind this playing in the background if the ending is the inevitable and unspeakable you know what :

It's wishful thinking, since I wish they'd actually play some Zeppelin instead of song titles being used as episode titles but I wish they could use some Queen or Guns n Roses and stuff before 1979 because everything sucked ass afterwards according to Dean.

I want the classic rock resurgence in the show as well but I know they'll end up using the cash elsewhere. I wouldn't mind a body swap episode but if wishes were horses, right?

[mitchmarnier]

SEMI CHARMED LIFE

summary: “You guys have kept in contact this whole time?” Bill asked, brow disappearing underneath hair line as he looked like his old friends in amazement. “And you guys are.. what? Room mates?”

Eddie avoided looking at Richie as he answered. “Yeah, uh… room mates. Something like that.”

[or: the adult!losers reunion, done 2000s sit-com style, just like we all deserve.]

chapter count: 1/?

Ben Hanscom kicked at the dirt path alongside the Barrens. It was as just as obviously a foot-made path as it had been twelve years earlier, the last time Ben had walked down here. Back then, he had never been walking alone- always flanked with two or more of his friends from youth.

For safety, Ben remembered bitterly. It had been little Eddie Kaspbrak who had made the first statement, that nobody should go into the Barrens alone, after Ben had been attacked that day. They hadn’t even been my friends, Ben thought to himself. He picked at long, overgrown yellowing grass alongside the path. I’d only known Beverly then, but they’d stood by me. Stole supplies for me. Even though it put them higher on Henry Bowers’ shit list.

Henry Bowers… Ben let out a shaky laugh, pressing his hand against the long faded scar on his stomach. It was barely visible now days, over a decade faded in age and dimmed with the loss of his childhood weight. That day, though undoubtably terrible, had been the last day for many years that Ben Hanscom had been able to say he didn’t have any friends.

Those same friends that Ben hadn’t been spoken to near on a decade, people he’d considered to be his soul mates and thought he’d never separate from. They’d graduated high school, moved across the country, and by the time the summer of 1996 rolled around- they didn’t even speak at all.

Until Derry High School had sent out the e-mails, announcing that in the May of 2005 that they would be holding a 10 year reunion for the graduates of 1995. Mike Hanlon had reached out not long after that. Ben had a Facebook, used it for his work, and had looked up his former friends after hearing from Mike. Most of them had not taken the leap to website, but two had.

Richie Tozier, who seemed to embraced his given name of Richard, seemed to only have work friends on his Facebook as well. He’d gone into work with radio, such a Richie job Ben had thought fondly when he’d realized. There was a slight illusion of some sort of serious relationship on Richie’s Facebook, if just from small comments of his own and that of his friends. He didn’t list a relationship status, nor any name of the radio station he worked for. Ben had scrolled through Richie’s page for his entire lunch break and still hadn’t reached the end.

Beverly Marsh had also gone online with Facebook, but had taken a longer time for Ben to find. At some point in the last ten years, Beverly had gone and tied the knot. Her Facebook name now fell under Bev Rogan and was listed as Married to Thomas Rogan. Her privacy settings were much higher than Richie’s- which had easily been non-existent, so Ben hadn’t been able to see any of her personal posts. He supposed that was for the best, if the uncomfortable feeling in his gut at just the thought of Beverly being married had anything to say about it- he wouldn’t have been able to look at Beverly’s happy life.

Ben moved himself up the steep hill, and walked back to his patiently waiting cab. His overly friendly driver grinned up at in the rearview mirror. “Anything interesting down there?” He asked him happily.

“Yeah, yes,” Ben said, voice croaking. “I was just…” An image of bulky thick rimmed glasses, and burning red hair flashed in Ben’s mind. “Just visiting some old ghosts.”  

→  →  →

“Just not too hot!” Eddie Kaspbrak was calling over his shoulder as his husband was attempting to assure him out the front door. “You know not to make it too hot, it’s really important. If it’s too hot, it’ll-“

“Eddie, sweetheart,” Maggie Tozier laughed happily, patting her starting to winkle hand against Eddie’s soft cheek. “I’ve done this once or twice. You don’t have anything to worry about, sweetie. Go see your friends, have good time.”

“Yes, I-” Eddie nodded, feeling Richie’s arm coming to rest around his waist. “I know, I know. But we have a very particular schedule we’ve been working with and if it’s-“

“Okay,” Richie pressed a quick kiss to Eddie’s cheek then grinned at his mother. “We’re going to get going, before we’re late and Eddie says something rude that he doesn’t mean.” Eddie grumbled, but flushed and leaned into his husband’s gentle touch. “Love you, Ma. Thanks so much for doing this. Tell Dad we’ll go out for a drink before we head home.”

Maggie rolled her eyes. “He’s your father. Tell him yourself.” Richie gave a matching eye roll, ushering Eddie out of the door and shutting it behind them.

→  →  →

“Who’s a good boy?” Mike Hanlon cooed as his six month old golden retriever, Henry, jumped up on him with his paws landing in Mike’s awaiting hands. “You are! You’re the goodest boy!”

Mike’s boyfriend, Alexander, padded into the farm house’s kitchen in his flannel house coat with a steaming cup of what could only be coffee in his hand. He grinned at Mike and shook his head. “Don’t say things like that. You’re going to give the other animals a complex.”

Mike beamed. “They can’t hear me from in here.”

“You don’t know that.”

Mike and Alexander had been together going on two years now. Six months earlier, Mike’s father had been diagnosed with Alzheimer Disease, and when Mike had expected to loose out on the best relationship of his life because of the time he’d be (willingly) giving up to care for his father, Alexander had surprised him for the millionth time since Mike had met him. He’d jumped right into the situation, moving his things into the Hanlon’s farmhouse and taking up what Mike felt might be a little more than his shared of responsibilities.

“When are you meeting your friends?” Alexander asked, jumping to sit up on the countertop with his legs dangling.

Mike sighed, scooping his pup into his arms and pressing his face into his fur. “Soon. Really soon. I should get going if I’m going to make into town in time.”

Alexander raised his eyebrows. “Wasn’t this whole get up your idea? Why do you seem so reluctant to actually go?”

Mike walked forward and dropped Henry into his boyfriend’s ready open arms. “I’m not reluctant… I’m definitely excited to see them. It’s just… it’s been a long time, you know? I guess I’m nervous.”

Alexander nodded, scratching behind Henry’s floppy ear. “I don’t think you need to be worried. If even half the things you told me about your old friends are true, you’re going to click back to who you were immediately.”

→  →  →

Beverly Rogan had stepped off the train in Derry and had absolutely no idea what the hell she was doing. The town of Derry hadn’t changed in the decade since she’d turned her away from it and never looked back. Same stores that looked like they hadn’t been renovated since the 1960s, same people on the streets giving her dirty looks- just a little bit older. She hadn’t even come back to this place when her father had died six years earlier, and could barely explain to herself why she was coming back now. It certainly wasn’t to celebrate her days at Derry High School.

She hadn’t been able to explain it to her husband, either. Tom didn’t like surprises, and he very much did not like surprises that including his wife packing up half her belongings and getting on a train. Belongings she was still carrying on with her, which was only drawing more eyes to her. Tom Rogan was a good guy, but as Beverly had learned slowly- not the best husband. He was neglectful and didn’t’ seem to have any idea of how to make a person truly happy. She’d walked out to return to her high school reunion, and didn’t know she if she’d been walking out on her marriage overall.

Beverly stood outside the old Dancing Clown diner, knowing that she was early, knowing that she’d never given Mike a straight answer on whether or not she was coming. Inhaling deeply, she started up to the building and went inside.

→  →  →

Bill Denbrough tripped and nearly fell down the flight of stairs at parents house. He bounced into the living room, trying to stuff his foot into a sock. His twenty-one year old brother barely even looked up from video game and let out a laugh. “Ha. Fucking loser.”

“You’re one to talk,” Bill shot back, licking his lips and frowning to try to keep himself from stuttering. It was never as bad as when he was back in Derry, there were times when he could years without stuttering if he didn’t make a home visit. “When’s the last time you got off that cuh-couch?”

George held up a half eaten Pizza Pocket and shook it in display. Bill made a disgusted noise and looked over at his father, who’d yet to glance up from his book since breakfast that morning. Turning away, Bill grabbed a jacket from rack by the front door and shrugged it on. The air was still crisp in Maine this early in May, he was lucky Audra had thought to bring them. Despite being the native Maine-r, Bill often forgot what life was like living in Maine. It sometimes felt almost like a repression, and everything was burning into his mind that second he crossed into the state like. Never mind once they’d ridden into Derry.

Bill and Audra had spent the better part of the last year in England, sending their belongings to their unlived in New York apartment while themselves and enough things for the weekend made their way to Derry.

“You’re leaving now?” Audra asked, appearing by Bill’s side as he started putting his boots on. He looked up at his girlfriend of three years and smiled at her. “Have fun, I hope your friends are as awesome as you remember them being. When you get back, there’s something I’ve got to talk to you about.”

“No, no no, hey no,” Bill stood up straight and took Audra’s hands into his own. “You can’t pull that on me, baby. You know I’ll be able to do is worry about what you’re going to tell me the whole time. Just tell me now.”

Audra smiled. “You don’t need to worry about it right now.”

“But I will, if you don’t tell me what it is?” Bill said, rubbing his thumbs against the backs of Audra’s hands. “Please just tell me.”

“I’m pregnant.”

→  →  →

“Are you going to go inside?” Patty Blum asked, taping the steering wheel and making her engagement ring flash in the sunlight that cast through the car window.

“Maybe.” Stanley Uris replied, picking at his peeling bottom and staring out at the Dancing Clown diner. “Definitely maybe.”

Patty sighed, part annoyed, part fond and turned off the car. She twisted in her seat and gave her fiancée the stare down. ‘If you didn’t want to come here, why didn’t you say so?”

Stan made a loud and offended noise. “I did say so! I said so very many times actually! You just ignored me, packs our backs for us and told me to stop being dramatic.” Stan crossed his arms and goodness nearly pouted.

Patty rolled her eyes. “You were being dramatic. I’m still not sure what your issue is… why are you so afraid of seeing your old friends?”

Stan pressed his head against the head rest of the seat. “I did some shit that I’m not proud of. My best friend… I… I was so desperate to get away from this place, and I kind of betrayed him.”

“So, you’re not going to go in there because you’re afraid of your high school best friend that you stabbed in the back ten years ago?” Patty chuckled. “If it’s eating you up this badly, I can promise he’s moved on. You’re going to go in there, and you’re talk to him, and you’re going find out all the amazing things he’s done since this stupid betrayal that probably means nothing now. And you’ll tell him yours, and he’ll be happy for you and if he’s not- then fuck him.”

Stan cupped Patty’s cheek and kissed her lightly. “Have I told you yet today that I love you?”

“Mmm once or twice,” Patty said lightly. “But it’s always nice to hear it. Now go get em, baby. Call me if you need somebody to pick you up.”

Stan nodded, slipped out of the car and walked into the old diner. His eyes moved through until it fell onto what had once been the Losers Table and saw an all too familiar looking red head seated. Grinning to himself, he tucked his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and stepped up beside the table. Beverly looked like she walked straight to the diner from however she’d gotten into town, her bags all jammed underneath the table.

“Well, would you look what the cat dragged in?” Stan said in a happy voice that he hoped didn’t sound too forced. Forced or not, Beverly beamed at his greeting and quickly jumped to her feet. Even in high school, Bev had been shorter than Stan and that had been before Stan had hit that oh so rare growth spurt in his freshman year of college.  

“Stanley!” Beverly said cheerfully, squeezing his hips. “Stan the MAN! Look at you! You’ve got to be as tall as Richie now!”

Stan smiled bashfully- his perfect dimple smile, as Patty always called it- and slid into the booth beside her. They both kicked at the luggage under the table, giggling to each other like children. The diner seemed oddly deserted, a place that had been so important to them growing up, now seemed ready to close with a single moment’s notice. The door jingle open and Mike Hanlon, the man breaking into a deep grin the second he caught sight of his friends.

“Stanley Uris and Beverly Marsh,” Mike said in a laugh as Beverly leapt right back up to her feet and rushed at him. Mike patted at the top of her head, smiling softly at Stan from across the diner. “Why am I not surprised that you two beat me to my own event?”

“Why am I not surprised that you’re the only person who lives in Derry and you couldn’t even be the first person here?” Stan shot back dryly, standing as well and clasping Mike on the shoulder. The words seemed to hang in the air for moment, heavy and tense, before Mike simply smiled and they took their seats back around the diner table.

“You stayed in Derry?” Beverly asked, eyes widening as she slipped in to sit beside Mike. There was the distinct sound of three pairs of feet kicking at Beverly’s aggressive amount of luggage while Mike avoided making eye contact with Stan. “I thought you went to NYU with Eddie?”

“I was going to,” Mike said in light voice. “That was the plan but you know how life can be. Things get a little mixed up and then..”  The bell to the door rang out again, stealing the attention from all three former Losers. Bill Denbrough nearly stumbled into the diner, pale and looked dazed, seeming almost as though they’d came in by accident. He dropped into the booth without so much of a greeting, and dropped his hand onto Stanley’s shoulder. Stan crinkled his nose up in repulsion and forced himself to allow that distantly familiar touch.

“How you doin’ honey?” Beverly asked gently, looking between Mike and Stan’s worried gazes.

Bill groaned deeply, pressing his face harder into the crock of Stanley’s neck. “Life is terrible, nothing good happens to anybody and then we all die.”

Stanley coughed awkwardly. “Listen, Bill… I appreciate your struggle, but if you could please…”

“Sit up, man,” Mike said a little sharply and Bill startled upwards. “Oh, shit, Stan, I’m so sorry, I tuh-tuh-totally forgot!”

“It’s fine,” Stan said mildly, waving Bill’s apology off. “Is it really that bad being back in Derry? I know it’s no back packing trip through Europe but…”

Bill barked out a laugh while Beverly shook her head. “What, Stan? Did you keep tabs on us for the last ten years? Should we be worried?”

Stan shook his head. “Not all of you.”

The ringing silence danced over the table before Mike cleared his throat awkwardly. “You mean Richie, right? Stan, I really don’t think that Richie-“

“Don’t think I what?” Richie’s voice called over from where he was ducking into the entrance with an arm tossed around one Eddie Kaspbrak. The entire group of former Losers jumped, Stan feeling his heart leapt into his throat. “You guys all already talking shit about mem before I’m even here to defend myself?”

“Yup,” Beverly agreed, tears starting to well up into her eyes. “You have to know that somethings never change, don’t ya?”

Richie hummed, dropping his arm from Eddie’s shoulder to catch Beverly as she came running for him. Eddie laughed lightly, as Richie spun Bev around and narrowly avoided knocking over several chairs. He slid into Beverly’s seat, greeting Mike with a tight hug and smiling towards Bill and Stan across the table. As Beverly attempted to sit back beside Eddie, Richie slipped in before in and took the spot. Beverly raised her brow as she moved in beside Bill, muttering something under her breath about somethings really don’t change.

Richie gave a over joyous greeting to Mike, his voice sobering up as he glanced across the table towards Bill and Stan. He gave one simple nod, forced a small smile and pushed out one simple: “Lads.”

“Richard.” Stan said back through a dry throat. Eddie reached out and began fiddling with the sugar dispenser, Mike noting the discolour of paler skin on his ring finger and frowning.

“What are we all talking about?” Eddie asked, speaking fast and voice high. Stan almost smiled at the memories of Eddie’s nervous voice, the kind he only used when desperate to talk about anything else.

“Billy here was about to tell us about his backpacking trip in Europe with his movie star girlfriend,” Beverly jumped in, pinching at Bill’s cheeks.

“No fucking shit, Denbrough?” Richie laughed, fingers twitching as though desperate to return to a muscle memory habit but being unable to. “I always knew you were going to do some high living, but fuck, dude.”

“She’s not really a movie star,” Bill said, swaying slightly like he may be sick. “She’s a had a few roles in some B Lists and guest star roles on main broadcast television. She’s no Winona Ryder or anything.”

“Obviously,” Stan and Richie spoke up in unison, voices dancing in harmony. “Nobody could be Winona Ryder except Winona Ryder.”

Another awkward silence settled over the table, Stan biting his lip and looking down at the diner table while Richie looked up at the ceiling as though pissed with himself. Beverly thought she noticed Eddie’s hand slipping underneath the table, but was quickly pulled away from the moment by the diner’s door opening once more.

Ben Hanscom stumbled into the diner, out of breath and with mud stains on his jeans. He ran his fingers through his curlier-than-she-remembered hair as his danced through the diner until they landed on her. She watched the way the muscles in his neck hitched, as though he’d momentarily forgotten how to breathe, and she felt her lungs follow his inabilities for just a moment.

“Here we go,” Richie leaned over and whispered to Eddie, who pursed his lips in an attempt not to laugh. “Haystack! My main man! The biggest dick I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing! Pull up at a chair!”

Ben’s cheeks turned a deep red, and the rest of the table all burst out laughing as Ben followed through with Richie’s request. “Come on, Rich, we all know you haven’t even seen Ben’s dick.” Bill said with the first genuine smile he’d cracked since he’d gotten there.

Richie gave Bill a dark, deadpan expression. “You don’t know what I’m into.”

“Oh… Kay..” Bill said slowly, frowning to himself while Eddie nudged Richie’s shoulder gently.. “Suh-suh-sorry, I guess?”

Richie shook his head, and forced a quick smile. “It tis no problem, misuser! But as we have all arrived now, why don’t we give a quick run down of a decade! Eds and I here are still out in the big apple-“

“You and Eddie live together?” Beverly cut across him, frowning in confusion. Richie opened his mouth, then snapped it shut before looking towards Eddie. Eddie cleared his throat and smiled.

“After what happened with UCLA, Richie came with me to NYU instead of staying in Derry,” Eddie said with a shrug. “Since Mike wasn’t going to go anymore, we moved into the apartment together and I just we just never… stopped living together.”

“So, You guys have kept in contact this whole time?” Bill asked, brow disappearing underneath hair line as he looked like his old friends in amazement. “And you guys are.. what? Room mates?”

Eddie avoided looking at Richie as he answered. “Yeah, uh… room mates. Something like that.”

Richie slammed his hands down onto the table. “Somebody else talk now!!!”

Ben startled, then cleared his throat. “I uh… I actually live in New York, too.” He said slowly. “I work for the Pennywise Architecture firm. I’m just an intern still, might as well be unpaid but it’s a first step to my dream job so I deal with it.”

“Okay, not to make things kind of weird…” Beverly scratched at the side of her face. “But I actually live in New York, too. My husband got a transfer last spring, better pay and all that fun stuff. I don’t work, but I sell commissions on my art and a little bit clothing design. I might do something with that, I haven’t decided just yet. I think Tom wants to start a family so I’m not really sure just now.”

Richie narrowed his eyes, but Eddie quickly caught across him. “A family is so worth it, Beverly. Trust me, you won’t regret it.”

Beverly smiled blandly, and the conversation slowed until the Bill cleared his throat. “Audra and I actually just bought an apartment in New York. She wuh-wants to do some wuh-work on Broadway and I can wruh-write anywhere, so. We haven’t moved in yet, because we were in Euh-Europe but we’re going straight there after the ruh-reuinon.”

“I…” Stan cleared his throat, a look of concern and discomfort on his face. “I’m actually engaged, Patty she’s… the most amazing person I’ve ever met. She’s still in school, trying to be a high school teacher. She’s… finishing her degree at NYU once the new semester starts. We’re moving out there in like a month from Atlanta.”

Every face turned to look at Mike, who sighed and rubbed at his face. “I applied to some museum job in New York on a whim earlier this year, but I actually got it. I’m not going to go, my dad needs me here and my job is fine but… I told my partner that I’ve turned it down but I actually haven’t yet. I don’t know why I didn’t, I guess part of it just felt wrong.”

“What was it we all used to say back then?” Beverly asked, shaking her head slightly. “When all those weird things happened that we couldn’t explain?”

Ben looked at her and smiled. “Soulmates for the centuries.”  

[aiyh]

AUs are a problem I have

I found all the original posts in this series from my deactivated blog and collected them here.

you work the register at a store I frequent and I get super self-conscious that you’re judging my purchases AU

our kids got paired up to do a school project and I meant to just drop mine off at your house but we ended up talking for three hours AU

battle of the bands AU

made small talk while waiting for different flights and assumed we’d never see each other again AU

our grandparents are in the same nursing home and they hate each other AU

arrested at the same protest AU

classic literature professor vs. modern literature professor AU

I injured myself doing something stupid at a holiday party and you’re the doctor at the emergency clinic AU

volunteered to wait tables at your fancy charity fundraising dinner AU

how do you keep getting my name that wrong on my coffee cup AU

adjacent stands at the farmer’s market AU

risked my job by talking you out of buying a crappy product at the store where I work AU

only two people who bought tickets to see this movie AU

don’t really care if I win that giant stuffed animal but keep playing the carnival game you’re running just to see you AU

our dogs are in love with each other and it’s making things awkward at the dog park AU

who’s this asshole who keeps beating my high score on Pac-Man AU

it’s a total coincidence that I happen to water my plants at the same time you jog past my house AU

our manager is making us push this crappy item that no one needs but you thought my sales pitch was funny so you bought it AU

interviewed you for the newspaper AU

I desperately need you to fix my laptop but please don’t judge me for my browser history AU

chef/ restaurant critic AU

my kid’s hamster died while she was at school and I don’t know how to tell her about death so long story short does your pet store have a hamster that looks just like the one in this photo AU

rival local news stations AU

news anchor/ meteorologist AU

I planned a program at the library where I work and you’re the only person who showed up AU

you are definitely drunk-texting the wrong number but I’m bored so I’m gonna keep this going for a while AU

I hate flying but your snarky announcements are a good distraction and you have a nice voice and I might be calling you Captain Cutie in my head AU

I made a dumb science joke in class and you’re the only one who laughed AU

auditioning for the same part AU

accidentally got drunk at a wine tasting AU

you’re the only other person I’ve ever met who can quote this movie AU

everyone else in our dorm has gone out but I have the flu, and I just heard you coughing pathetically from the next room, wanna share my stash of cough drops and marathon Netflix with me? AU

showed up to a Halloween party in matching costumes AU

will you pretend to be my date to my family’s holiday party so they’ll stop harassing me about being single, there’s food in it for you AU

Christmas lights rivalry AU

I found a bunch of your stuff when I moved into this apartment and I have no idea who you are but I think we might be soulmates AU

I teach in this classroom in the mornings and you teach in the evenings and we communicate entirely through notes left on the board AU

how the hell does your cat keep getting into my house AU

I volunteered for a sex study and you’re the lead researcher and thank god it’s acceptable for me to be turned on in this situation because damn AU

You’re the prosecutor and I’m the defense attorney on the most ridiculous case either of us have ever heard of and I don’t know about you but I’m not sure how much longer I can be serious about this thing AU

Got into an absurdly heated argument in the comments on a mutual friend’s Facebook post AU

Rival street performers AU

You keep bringing your car into my shop with a series of increasingly unlikely problems and my professional opinion is it’d be cheaper for you to just ask me to dinner already AU

Our families are having funeral visitations at the same time and we’re both hanging around outside because we can’t deal AU

I spent a whole subway ride checking you out but didn’t have the nerve to talk to you and thought I’d never see you again but you just showed up on Humans of New York AU

Cheering for opposing teams at a sports bar AU

My kid shoplifted from your store and I marched her back here to apologize to you AU

Why didn’t you tell me this cabin was haunted before I rented it from you AU

Character performers who only see each other at ren faires AU

My band plays at this restaurant every Friday and you always show up and make obscure requests and I know you’re trying to stump me but you’ve severely underestimated how much of a music geek I am AU

I’m the caterer and you’re the florist on a huge expensive wedding and we bond over what an awful person the mother of the bride is AU

We’re chaperoning kids at the same skating rink party and the last couple’s skate was pathetic so what do you say we show these little punks how it’s done AU

We’re both trying to get an apartment in this city at the same time as a million other people and I’m tired of competing for the same ones as you so I think it’s time we joined forces AU

Adjacent shops Christmas decorations war of escalation AU

We work at competing gossip magazines and keep trying to outdo each other’s ridiculous stories AU

Our moms belong to the same garden club and are fiercely competitive about their gardens and keep sending us to pick up supplies for them and would have matching heart attacks if they found out we’re hooking up every trip AU

My kid is in your class and you called me in for a parent-teacher conference and I don’t know what she did but she didn’t learn it from me and wait what do you mean you think she should skip a grade AU

We’re neighbors and I’m telling you this as a friend but if you give out pencils for Halloween again this year I’m going to look the other way when the kids roll your yard AU

I accidentally caught the neighbors’ yard(s) on fire while burning leaves and I didn’t think it could get worse but the volunteer fireman reprimanding me is gorgeous and clearly thinks I’m an idiot AU

I bought this talisman from your occult shop and I know you warned me but I didn’t think this stuff was real but it IS and now I need you to make it go away AU

You just sold a bunch of old books to my secondhand store for cheap and one of them’s worth a fortune and my partner will kill me if he finds out but I think you should have the money AU

I didn’t mean to get you arrested, I thought I was helping AU

I’m planning a heist and I need your very specific skillset to pull it off but when I tracked you down you’d become an alcoholic and spend your days cheating at video poker AU

Your pizza keeps getting delivered to my house by mistake and I need to talk to you about your choice of toppings AU

Prison chaplain/ wrongfully convicted death row inmate AU

You bring my grandmother a basket of homemade candy every Christmas and she keeps dropping hints about how great you are so we should probably go out at least once—you know, just to make grandma happy AU

I was down on my luck and had lost the will to live when I heard you playing the fiddle and long story short I think you saved my life AU

The PTA bake sale is coming up and you’ve outsold me two years in a row so I’m pulling out all the stops AU

I just quit my job and put all my belongings in a U-Haul and started driving, you’re the hitchhiker I picked up on a whim who I’m starting to think is a dangerous fugitive AU

Graffiti artist/ mural painter AU

You’re the only major film critic who hated my movie and I need to talk to you about it because I agree with you AU

[eponymous-rose]

Talks Machina Highlights - Critical Role C2E21 (June 5, 2018)

Buckle up, keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times... and for the love of everything you hold dear, don’t read the chat. Tonight’s guests are Marisha Ray and Liam O’Brien!

The episode starts with Marisha and Liam fighting over a bowl and then hugging. Brian: “Wait, it was that kind of bowl?”

F̩̤̹̹̞̳j̣͓̝o̶̖͍r̙͚̝̹̪͙͔͘d̪̭͎̮̞͜ ͉̤̖͇̦̗̕b̸͈̳̥̻̳̤̼u̺͔̩̻͚͍s̘͞t͎̼̺̜͉̝̞ ̣͉̯̤s҉͖̯͖ee̜͙̤͕͓̺s ͙̳̘͍̪̳́a͓͓͞l̫̻l҉̩̖̬̰͉̬.̝̖̙͔

Announcements: Vox Machina comic is still on sale, including the limited edition! Winners of fanart of the week will now be hosted on critrole.com! New Instagram account!

@critrolestats​ for this episode: This is the first episode of the new campaign to surpass 4 hours of gameplay (4:07:27); Beau got her 30th Nat 20 in this episode and continues to have the most Nat 20s, with Nott in a distant second place with 19; the Mighty Nein rolled their 100th Nat 20 in this episode (Fjord’s concentration save for Hunger of Hadar); Nott and Beau are tied for the most Nat 1s with 18 each, and Caleb ranks third with 14.

Of all the great stuff in the D&D Beyond ad spot, Liam was least surprised by Sam’s singing, because he knew he had the a capella chops to pull it off; he and Marisha got teary-eyed watching it the first time because of animation style nostalgia (it especially reminded them of Thundercats).

Beau is deeply enjoying having a friend in Jester, especially since she doesn’t seem to question Beau for who she is. “For Beau, it’s like appreciating an adorable little flower.”

Everyone was enamored with Mark and Cali. Marisha: “I loved how cute he was, his appreciation for cute things.” They’re going to try to Skype Mark in on Talks next week to see what his side of the experience was. Brian: “Probably horrible.”

Beau isn’t likely to be too dramatically changed by her near-death experience. "I think Beau was unconscious and then Beau was woken up and was like, ‘This is fine. This is normal, right?’” Marisha talks about how it would’ve been a huge bummer as a player to lose Beau before her backstory even came out.

There’s some speculation as to how long this campaign might be. Liam: “Could be shorter, could be 852 episodes like Naruto.”

Caleb’s passing around of Frumpkin is his main outlet for expressing affection; Frumpkin’s deep importance to him and the significance of handing him off to someone else for even a brief period of time will become more clear with future reveals.

Beau doesn’t think she’s immortal, but she still has the youthful perspective that risk-taking will probably work out. “It’s not that she thinks consequences can’t happen to her, it’s that she thinks they won’t.” Marisha points out that Beau wouldn’t really know how close it came since she was unconscious for most of it.

Gif of the week: Jester casting Speak with Dead and everyone freaking out.

Caleb knows Nott’s laying it on way too thick when it comes to his magical abilities, but he doesn’t want to call her out on it, because he’d feel a bit hypocritical pointing out someone else’s irrational behavior. "Caleb hates himself. Nothing gets through that wall.”

Apart from Caleb, Frumpkin is most comfortable with Nott, despite Nott "eating” Frumpkin twice. After Nott, it’s Jester. Liam: “Laura would kill me if I don’t say Jester.” Marisha: “I thought you’d say Yasha.” Liam: “I was going to say that, but Laura would kill me.”

Beau’s still processing how she feels about not getting left behind despite her worldview that everyone’s basically selfish; she wouldn’t have begrudged them leaving her behind (even if she weren’t dead in that scenario). Once again, it’s hard to reconcile because the players all know how close she was to dying, but that’s not really reflected in the game’s universe (she didn’t even have to roll saving throws; she was just out for a few seconds). Beau knows it was Cali who saved her, because she knows Cali has Levitation.

The parallel between Cali and Caleb’s backstories was most influential earlier, when Caleb warmed to her faster than he might’ve otherwise, but didn’t have much time to percolate and didn’t factor into his actions at the end of the episode.

Fanart of the week: a spectacular Mollymauk!

Beau saw Caleb’s actions as him being cautious, and that was fair and warranted and justified, and Beau knows that more than anybody else (along with Nott), considering she has the peek into his backstory. From Beau and the rest of the Mighty Nine’s perspective, they didn’t see the conversation between Nott and Caleb, and when it came down to it, in Beau’s eyes, having this thing that’s this potentially horrific artifact on their person when they already have the dodecahedron was just going to bring trouble down on them. Marisha: “This isn’t our jam, and if Cali is telling the truth and she is going to destroy this, great! Bonus points for us! If she is lying to us and she does want to go out and talk to Tiamat, I think, in Beau’s head, that’s another adventuring party’s problem. That’s above our payscale. That’s not why we’re here.” As a member of the Cobalt Reserve, she knows exactly how bad this kind of stuff can be. “What are we going to do, go around intercepting every potentially dangerous item that doesn’t have anything to do with us?” She emphasizes that Beau’s not a hero yet and doesn’t have that mindset. “I’m not saying it’s the right choice or the wrong choice, but it’s the character choice. (...) What she was trying to tell Caleb is ‘You had no knowledge that this bowl even fucking existed before Cali came along.’ Beyond that, she was going to go along with it until Caleb suggested holding Cali overnight. Due to stuff that Beau has dealt with in her backstory that unfortunately no one knows about yet” she wasn’t going to let that fly.

Brian talks about how much he admires that Marisha is willing to make bold character choices, especially after so many folks have seemed to enjoy attempting to tear her down for it. “That’s fucking awesome. You’re going to own the shit out of that character.”

Liam: “I want to toss out three ideas about all this, because obviously there’s been a lot of discussion about this, a lot of passion and debate. (...) One, I encourage everyone who watches our show to watch Rashomon. Something happens in the woods, and the movie is three different people telling their account of what happened out in the woods, and every story is totally different. Different people are the hero or the villain depending on who’s telling it. The other thing is that I know that VM was more of a family, and this clusterfuck of a-holes is not. This is not a Sunday School Bible parable class, we’re not an afterschool special, this is a character study of a lot of really messed-up people.” They might end up being role models, but it’s an ongoing arc. “And then the last thing is, this is a game of D&D. If Caleb can’t decide to have a moment, if Beau can’t grab the bowl, what’s the point of Dungeons and Dragons? I don’t care what gripe Caleb and Beau had together. I live in Caleb’s skin, so of course I associate and feel passionate about Caleb’s point of view, but it’s not the only point of view. The point is not to be right, the point is to have fun and get into it.”

Marisha: “I think ‘character study’ is the right way of putting it. We’re uppity actor types. We like making complex characters, and we want to explore that and see what these complex characters do, because people are complex, people are complicated. You hear a lot of people complaining about contradictions. I mean, yeah, have you ever had a Facebook post pop up from two years ago like, ‘Remember when you said this two years ago, you dumb shit?’ You’re allowed to be upset at our characters, and you should, and I think that’s why we as actors have jumped into this profession, is because we like making people feel things.”

Brian paraphrases Melville: “A great moment is about the opposite of what it appears to be about.” He points out that this wasn’t about a bowl, it was about what was in the rearview mirror for both characters. “Ultimately, it’s the stuff that brings you guys closer together.” He talks about how it’s probably harder for viewers to watch that after Vox Machina, given that they were more in the flawed-but-noble vein as characters.

Liam: “Caleb is trying to make good with the group and (laughs) is not doing a good job of it. He obviously saw the extreme parallel between [his and Cali’s] backgrounds. Because of the things that she was dealing with, he put on a different pair of sunglasses to watch her and make sure everything was fine.” At the end, even Caleb knew it was probably over-the-top, but he’d found out this thing and was awkwardly trying to communicate that to the rest of the group. “Caleb thinks that he’s a broken bag of glass that everybody doesn’t want to touch, and he’s right.” Even in a moment when he thought he was doing what the group wanted, he couldn’t do it right. “He’s been in a fucking asylum for eleven years.” In the moment, in his mind, he didn’t think his trauma had anything to do with his actions, and didn’t understand why that was being brought into it, and just disengaged. “Another thing with Caleb is that he doesn’t need, in this group, to feel like people respect him or think he’s cool; Caleb thinks that he is a piece of shit, so this is just confirming what he unconsciously wants. All he needs to do is learn more and grow, so if he needs to just shut up and deal with it, as long as they’ll keep him around, fine, because he just needs things that he hasn’t had access to for five years.” He’s getting what he wants out of this group: he’s getting that unconscious need to be told he’s a fuck-up.

Liam on Beau: “She is talking from her experience, she has nothing to do with what happened to him, she is not responsible for him, he doesn’t want pity from anyone, he barely knows how to accept what Nott is doing. So everyone get off her back. Caleb is where he wants to be, which is moving towards his goal.”

Caleb’s latest actions were too similar to someone with authority that Beau had trouble with in the past. Beau bringing up Caleb’s trauma was speaking directly to that point, which she and Liam have since talked about offscreen.

Marisha doesn’t think at all that this has destroyed Beau and Caleb’s relationship beyond the point of no return: “I don’t think that’s how conflicts between friends work. Honestly, I was stoked after all this, because I thought this was a breaking point that maybe we were all waiting for.” She also thinks it opens up an organic way to bring Beau’s backstory into the limelight, and she thinks having some of this out in the open will bring the group closer together. It’s tough for her to analyze that episode because nobody has all the information behind Beau’s reasoning yet. Brian points out that it can be really refreshing to be surrounded by people who call you out on your bullshit. “Those moments create respect.” Liam mentions that there is no friendship yet, because they haven’t known each other that long, but that this confrontration could be the beginning of a real friendship between Caleb and Beau. Marisha points out that it’s very much “I wouldn’t get mad at you if I didn’t care.”

Marisha mentions that she’s used to being cautious where she treads on the internet after an episode like this, but “if you’re upset at Caleb or you’re upset at Beau or you’re upset at Fjord for holding the sword to Caleb’s throat, I think art and acting and media and these stories are there to teach us about ourselves, and why we get these emotions towards these certain things. Liam and I have been talking all weekend about how fascinating the Team Beau vs. Team Caleb discussions have been.” Liam: “It can only come from people being deeply invested.” Marisha: “They care. And we’re truly blessed to be a part of something that people feel that passionately about.” 

Brian: “There’s a difference between a conversation and lashing out between the actors.” Liam: “Just know that we’re playing strange people on purpose.”

Talks Machina After Dark (It’s Machine-a)

Oh.

Oh no.

Oh dear.

Marisha talks about how fun it can be to experience DMs who aren’t Matt, because at this point they all fall into the habit of trying to over-analyze his tells. “In my opinion, different DMs are like different teachers. Each one teaches me a different thing, and I love it.”

Marisha does her accent from the Stream of Many Eyes. Liam: “Casting director Liam is listening.” Marisha: “Oh, God! No! I’ll never work again!”

Liam and Marisha talk about how essential it is that they (and the rest of the cast) know each other so well and trust each other so much, so they can play out and explore those conflicts safely. Marisha: “There isn’t necessarily supposed to be comfort in conflict. It’s not going to be comfortable. I think it does take a more experienced roleplayer to make sure they can tread those waters safely, because there is care, and you do have to have personal care and after-care.” The two of them checked in afterwards, and all of them have been doing so since the first campaign to make sure they’re on the same page and feeling okay about what happens on-screen.

Liam talks about how embracing failure goes beyond rolling 1s or having bad things happen to characters. He legitimately was not paying attention when he nearly cast the spell that would’ve killed Beau, and appreciates that there’s enough of a rehearsal feel in the game to allow for those imperfections when they do arise. Marisha: “Yeah, thanks for not killing me, man.” Liam, deadpan: “It’ll happen.”

Swoleregard. Jumbeau. Beaulossus. Beaugantic. Dani: “Beauyasha.” Liam: “That’s a different thing. That’s not my job, to worry about that.” Dani: “It’s my job.”

Caleb is terrible at accents, terrible at impressions, terrible at musical impressions, but okay at singing (because he speaks Celestial). Marisha: “I think Beau would be full-on drumline.”

When they were going into a show for the stream this weekend, the whole audience broke into the D&D Beyond theme song. Marisha: “It was... it was so surreal.” Liam talks about how he keeps starting to sing it without thinking, then inevitably segues into another Sam song that goes “put your finger in my butt”.