#maybe it just pulls results entirely from wikipedia too or something so you can search anything on there and review it

[cheddar-baby]

My mockup for a website that i think has a lot of potential. Track your yummy score and log what you find tasty. Its the letterboxd of treats.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

writing request for whenever: Laken and Chris go to a dinosaur museum/exhibit

CW: Referenced past pet whump, mentioned negative stimming resulting in self-injury, pet whump (different character) with intimate whumper, grief, referenced parental death, trauma response, brief reference to true crime

Timeline: Chris is 25 years old in this piece

Rafael (Raf) first appears, unnamed, in this drabble from Chris’s early college days

Laken’s hand is warm in his, their fingers intertwined, as they stand underneath the hanging bones of an enormous ancient thing like a whale but entirely unlike it, too. Chris closes his eyes, swaying lightly side to side, humming softly as he imagines it, rows of teeth with some as big as his hand, moving through oceans older than anything he can imagine, chasing down prey.

The sun shines in through the all-glass windows that make up the other side of the atrium, warming against his shirt without prickling his skin. The lights are far up and away, and the sunlight is stronger. 

“Wow,” Laken murmurs, and he glances over at them to see their chin tipped back, liquid dark eyes focused on the recreated bones not so far above their head. “I’ve never been here before. Have you?”

Chris feels the hint of pain at the question, and for once it’s not in his head from memories but simply the aftermath of what he knows. “Yeah,” He answers, voice low and soft. “With my, my dad and mom. Long, um, a, a long time ago.”

Laken’s expression shifts, too, and they wince. “Sorry. I didn’t think about-”

“No,” Chris says, insists really, giving their hand a squeeze. They squeeze back, looking him over with the face they make when they’re reading his expression. He knows it’s going to happen for a while - the cut across his forehead is still bright and obvious against pale skin, although the one on his cheek is nearly healed up and gone. They’re searching, now, for signs it’ll happen again - that he’ll pull back into his head again, maybe take longer to come back out this time.

It’s-... it’s funny, now that he has the memories, he can remember his mother worrying over it, too. And his father’s soft reminders that the worry wouldn’t fix him, because fixing wasn’t what needed done.

It’s funny. To have been told no one loved him, and that was why he had to be remade into a pet, a sort of breathing toy, only to have it all break through with the constant reminders of what a fucking lie that had been.

He’s been reading about people who were kidnapped, lately. Staying up with Wikipedia open on his phone finding names and faces. The girl in Utah, the ones in Ohio, the boy in Nevada, that guy from the famous billionaire logging family who disappeared in California... all of them say, they told us we weren’t wanted by anyone else, for anything else. After a while, we believed them. What else could we do?

It’s... soothing, almost. They weren’t drugged to make it happen, but it did, anyway. It wasn’t Chris’s fault - there was no way he could have kept himself. 

But getting all of it back came at the cost of scaring everyone who loves him now, leaving them all worried he’ll hurt himself again.

He doesn’t think there’s anything else in there that can hurt any more than what’s already come out from behind the flat, cold white light in his mind. But they’re not certain.

“Don’t worry,” Chris says, tilting his head and giving them a smile. “I’m, I’m, I’m okay, Laken. I promise. I, I, I, I-I-I like thinking ab, about them now.”

“Well... good. Okay. Just, let me know if I cross a line, okay?” 

“I, I will.” 

Laken gives his hand another squeeze and steps away to read a freestanding plaque below the bones of the belly of the creature over their heads. Chris picks up the feather necklace he’s always wearing, moving himself over to look outside, at the brilliant green lawn, the landscaping studded with blooming tulips along the walkway. There are plastic sculptures of dinosaurs out there, and Chris watches a little girl in a dinosaur-themed dress and leggings clamber up on one, giggling as she sits on the triceratops like she’s riding it and her father looks on, amused, nearby. 

The world feels strange and thin, for just a moment. He feels like he’s on the other side of a wall, and if he took a hammer to it he could step through and see himself, small and gangly and young, his mother nearby with a giant purse full of all the things he might need, her jaw set and ready to fight a battle on his behalf. One she didn’t always have to fight - but she was ready for it, anyway.

His eyes roam the green area outside, scanning, looking over every child, every parent, every friend. He’s looking for her, he realizes, his hand squeezing tight around the plastic feather, rubbing his thumb hard over the vanes. He’s looking to see if she’ll be there, ten years after she was gone. 

If all he’ll have to do is look hard enough, and she won’t be dead, she’ll be here, ready to load Tristan into the car to get his chicken nugget kids’ meal and go home.

If he only looks hard enough-

“What’s this one, sir?” The voice is soft, sweetly charming, and sends a chill up Chris’s spine with its perfect familiarity. Not that he’s ever heard this voice before - but he knows the tone, the way of rounding your mouth around each syllable, the subtle flirtation built into each word.

His heart stops beating - and then starts again, as he slowly turns to look over his shoulder.

Laken is across the room, now, off to one side. He can see their black hair, the way they stand with one hip slightly out is as familiar to him as his own skin. The soft blue sweater they’re wearing over black jeans and boots is his, they pulled it on this morning with a laugh when he said it looked better on them. He’s wearing one of their shirts over his compression shirt, fair’s fair, sweetheart, you get mine if I get yours. They’d laughed and said he looked so good in t-shirts for bands he never listened to. They’d both laughed.

Between him and his partner, though, is a couple - an older man with a much younger one. It’s the younger man who spoke.

The older man has a hand at the small of the younger man’s back, casually possessive, but it’s the black leather collar worn openly around the young man’s neck that catches Chris’s breath. He can almost feel the constriction around his own throat. Can almost feel the breath against the back of his neck as it’s buckled there, safe and sound, the collar means-

The collar-

The older man frowns, looking up at a large predator skeleton, then down at the plaque in front of it. “ Ac-... Arcanthosaurus,” He says, confidently mispronouncing the name. Chris knows how to say it. He knows exactly what it is. He could say everything on that plaque without looking. Therpopod, Early Cretaceous, fossils found primarily in Oklahoma, Texas, and... somewhere else, Colorado or Wyoming. He could describe its habitat, its likely diet, what its life looked like from birth to death.

The man says the name wrong, and his pretty pet, illiterate and dependent on him for every scrap of knowledge, doesn’t know any better. He only smiles and says, “That’s a pretty name.” He sounds satisfied.

But Chris sees his dark eyes flicker to the plaque and away, the curiosity quickly stifled and shoved down. He’s seen Kauri do the same thing, force himself into safe ignorance to avoid asking too many questions. He’s seen himself do it. He’s seen them all do it, if they weren’t allowed to read, to know, to ask, to think.

The younger man, Chris’s own age, has close-cropped black hair and wears a black shirt and pants clearly tailored to skim, to fit tightly without being indecent. To be a show of wealth without being ostentatious. That’s when it clicks - he’s seen the pet before, in a cafe with his friends. 

The younger man must feel someone looking at him, because for just a moment, his head turns and he looks right at Chris. Their eyes meet, and Chris knows the man recognizes - if not him, then what he was, what he used to be - in a second.

The pet mouths, hi, and tries for a slight smile. He lifts one hand, just a little, and his fingers move in a slight wave.

And Chris had pretended not to see, hunched down in his seat with his heart racing until the two were gone. What were the odds he’d see the same one again? What were the fucking odds, he’d get to be a coward again, to hide from his own life. What were he odds he’d see one here?

Chris had forgotten the museums are all pet-friendly if you call ahead. So many of the places he goes now aren’t. 

Suddenly, he wants to leave, to never come back, not to let the reality of his life intrude on the moment where he’d been so, so close to the memory of his mother, had nearly seen her on the grass. 

“Stay here, Raf, I’m going to step over to the water fountain.” The older man kisses the younger man’s cheek, and they smile at each other, but Chris knows a pet’s smile when he sees one. He’s made the same expression, again and again, felt the snap of white-hot pain on his back or his hands whenever it wasn’t believable enough for the handler staring down at him.

The older man walks away.

For the second time, Chris is faced with the same pet standing alone in a room of people, the two of them know each other in a way no one else here ever could, not really, not without losing it all, too.

He takes a breath.

Raf - the pet - turns to look out the window at the sunlight, and for the second time in his life, Chris meets eyes with a stranger who is, in many ways, exactly like him. 

The pet maybe doesn’t recognize him - without his long hair, and they only saw each other once - but he recognizes something, because his expression changes. Chris isn’t the only one staring - there are children asking soft questions in stage-whispers who are admonished by their parents, older kids staring openly in silence, two adults who see Raf and just as quickly leave the room. 

In a wide, round room full of people, Raf is utterly isolated from all of them, from anyone but the man who keeps him. Chris knows the feeling.

He tells himself to move. All that happens is that he pulls on the feather necklace so hard the cord snaps, comes free, and he stares down at it, before slowly raising his eyes again.

The pet gives him a faint, sad smile.

He mouths, hi.

It’s a circle. 

Somewhere just behind him, he feels the warmth of her, a hand around his shoulder. His eyes blur with tears. She’s so close, here. With the world she brought him out into comes all his memories of her, crowding in on him. Kisses to his forehead, a hand to check for a fever, arms around him to block out the heavy weight and shrieking noise of a hungry world with its jaws open to hurt him.

He can feel her hands on either side of his face, leaning her forehead to his, whispering, you’re okay, Tris, we’re going to get out of here and somewhere quiet, you’re okay. Just hold onto me. 

Just hold on.

She’s so close.

He can hear her, feel her. If he could just move the right way, she wouldn’t be dead at all. If he could just undo everything, if he could fix his mistakes, if he could stay still in the closet and hide just right, if he does it just right nobody has to die and he doesn’t have to lose them and no one has to die-

One step, and then another. His mother’s voice, not forgotten, although blurred by time and loss. That’s how we start, Tris. One step, and then another. You can do this. I’m right here if you need me, but listen - you won’t. You’ve got this, baby. They’re going to love you, all those kids in there.

How, how, how, how, how can you, what if they, they don’t-

They will. 

But-

One step, Tris, and then another. We’ve done it all that way, and we’ll do this that way, too.

He looks back at the green grass outside, the courtyard with the playing children and watching parents, the faint sounds of their happiness through the glass. Her hand is at his back, and Chris takes one step, and then another. His heart is in his throat, his hands shaking, his stomach is twisted in knots and a cold brick of ice inside him. 

One step, and then another. 

She’s so close, and if he does this just right, she’ll find him and take him home. 

No.

She’s already here, no matter where he goes. Home is Jake, and Laken, and Antoni, and Kauri, and Nat. Home isn’t a place, it’s people, and he’s his mother’s home, now, the place where she lives after she’s gone.

He closes the distance between them, and stops next to the pet, holding the broken feather necklace in his hand still. The weight of the sun on his back is warm, and not too heavy. 

They stand next to each other, and he looks just to the side of the pet’s eyes, focused on something else, to avoid the way looking right at him would overwhelm, be too much to take. 

“You were one,” Raf says, in a low voice, sounding stunned. “But you’re not... not now.” 

Chris inhales, slowly. His body screams at him to run, to move, and his mind demands he be silent, be still. Instead, he rocks, forward and back, feels the air move around him. Reminds himself he could do - could be - anything with his body that he wants to, now.

And maybe this pet can, too.

“I, I, I named myself, um, Chris,” He whispers, hoarsely. 

“He calls me Rafael,” The pet replies, and his eyes move over Chris’s face. There’s an expression Chris can’t read well there, a subtle desperate want, but expressions are hard for Chris and right now the static crackling in his mind, the trains of his thought careening wildly around each other, make it even harder. “I would have liked to name myself.”

One step, his mother says, urging him into the gym, where some other kids are already doing backflips and tumbling on mats. One step and then another.

“You can... can do that. If you, um, if, if, if you-you... run.”

“I-... I couldn’t do that.” The pet looks off to the side, but his owner is still in the bathroom. There’s fear in his voice - that Chris can read without trying. Fear, he knows so well. “Where would I go?”

Chris manages a faint, thin smile. He wants to shake apart. He settles for holding out the feather. “Home,” He whispers.

Come on, Tris. You can do this. I believe in you.

“Home is-”

“Home is, is, isn’t this. It isn’t-... it, it, it isn’t him. It’s not an, any of, of, of of of them.” 

“But-”

“5-5-5,” Chris says softly. Sweat sticks his compression shirt to his back, cold trickles down the back of his neck. His heart pounds so hard his lungs have no room for air, his voice is breathless, barely even a whisper, now. “7-2-3-3. They’ll, they’ll help you. Call them.”

Rafael looks down at the feather, and slowly takes the soft purple silicone into his hand, rubbing his fingers over the carved plastic, then looks back up. “I love him,” He says, softly. “I was-”

“Made for, for him,” Chris finishes, not wanting to hear it in the other pet’s voice. Hating the idea that they both know every single phrase by heart, forever, and they can’t undo that. “But... I was, was, was, too. And I’m not, now.”

Rafael slides the feather into his back pocket, looking to the side, at the pristine, cloudless blue sky visible above the courtyard through the thick glass. “5-5-5,” He says, softly, “7-2-3-3.”

“Call,” Chris says, his voice failing him as his fear keeps rising. He has to swallow and steady himself to speak again. “Someone... somebody, somebody l-loved you.”

“But-”

“They, they, they lied to us.” It feels so weird to say it out loud, but he does. He can’t stop himself. “They lie to, to, to to-... to-to... to us all. Someone, somebody loved you.”

He has to go, he can’t be still a second longer, and he walks away without waiting for a response. His timing is perfect - he steps up to Laken just as the pet’s owner comes back from the restroom, sweeping past Chris - pretty but scarred, nothing special, please god don’t look at me - and moving back to Rafael, who smiles up at him with the same perfect, pristine affection Chris has seen in himself and in Kauri and in every single one of the ones like them.

Practiced at the edge of a knife, the lash of a whip, the crack of a cane, until they can turn it on and off on command, at will, whenever they need the smile to keep themselves safe.

Laken turns to him as he stops next to them, looking him over, eyebrows furrowing slightly. “You okay? Oh, hey, your feather’s gone. What happened?”

He allows himself a glance over his shoulder, sees the pet and his owner moving to another room, walking together. The hand at the small of Rafael’s back.

The broken cords from the necklace just barely visible sticking out of his pocket before Chris watches him push them further in to hide them.

“I, I, I gave it to, um, to someone,” He says, turning back to them, leaning over to kiss their cheek, barely a brush. “I, I, I need to go outside. The, um, the everything... can, can we, um, can we go-”

“Yeah, sure. No problem. Do we need to, like, go go, or...”

“No.” Chris looks up at the dinosaur Rafael had been looking at. “Oh, I, I, forgot to tell him it’s acrocanthosaurus.”

“What?”

“Um, noth-... nothing. Let’s, um, let’s go outside for for for a while.” 

Laken hand slides back into his and they walk out the opposite door that Rafael went through, Chris’s hand moving to tap on his own hip as he walks, calming himself with each quick rush of sensation. 

“Hey, hey Laken?”

“Yeah?”

“Remind me, um, remind me to, to, to-to-to call Nat later. Okay?”

“Sure. Why?”

They walk down a set of stairs, people moving quickly past or around them. He misses the weight of the feather over his chest, but he has more at home. And now there’s a pet with proof, tangible and real, that there’s a life to be made by leaving. 

A life worth living.

A life worth running without looking back.

“I, I, I want to tell her to, um, to tell the groups to... to see if someone calls them. I want to, to, to... to know if he does.”

“Who?”

“Um, I’ll, I’ll tell you, you... out, out, outside, okay?”

Somewhere inside him, as his pounding heart calms, his mother says, I’m so proud of you when he tells her that he spoke up. 

He knows Nat will say it, too. 

They surprise a bird in a burst of red wings out of a bush as they move outside, and Chris watches it fly across the courtyard and disappear into the canopy of a tree. 

One step, and then another, to build the man he is out of the boy he was before.

---

Tagging: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @astrobly @newandfiguringitout , @doveotions , @pretty-face-breaker , @boxboysandotherwhump  , @oops-its-whump  @cubeswhump ,  @whump-tr0pes  @downriver914 @vickytokio @wildfaewhump

[3mmafr0st]

Remember Me Part 3

Previous Part <-------> Next Part

Bucky Barnes x Reader Summary: Y/N has escaped, but where does she go from here?  Word Count: 1.5k (Sorry this ones a little short)

Warnings: Homelessness, a striking lack of Bucky, but soon my friends, soon, ANGST, reader not understanding computers very well A/N: Im apologizing for the lack of smut in this part, but I really like following the canon

I was woken up abruptly by a quick jab to the ribs, quickly waking up and going into action. I grabbed the object and twisted it away.

“Hey, I’m not looking for a fight here, just wanted to make sure that you didn’t overdose on whatever you were on last night.” I looked up to see the older man that had talked to me the night before. He was in his forties and dirty looking, but had kind eyes, shielded by a pair of small glasses. “Can’t have the cops pokin’ around here, bad for everyone.” I got up from the wet grass, wiping myself off from anything that may have gotten on me. 

“For the record, I wasn’t high.”

“Could have fooled me.” I shook my head, rolling my eyes. He couldn’t have understood the intensity of the situation that I was in. Hydra was probably after me, and I had no idea where to go or what to do about it.

I couldn’t help but think about Bucky, what happened to him and where he was right now. He had to have gotten out, right? He was a better agent than I was, simply in physicality. He had the capability to escape, we would find each other. But how had they found us out? There must have been some sort of suspicion, something that tipped the higher ups off about what we were going to do. How could I have been so careless to allow someone to find out the plan. But that was the past now, I had to focus on what happens next. 

“Where’s the closest library?”

I walked down the sidewalk toward the library, trying my best to blend in, looking inconspicuous against the crowd. I was lucky enough that the closest library was only two blocks away, I was already a little tired from last night with everything that happened. 

I looked to my left, and sure enough, there was a quaint little library that looked cozy. I shook the handle and pushed at the door, thankful that it was open earlier than most places. 

The walls were covered in children’s drawings. I knew I shouldn’t be wasting time, but the entire thing was so uncanny, so unabashedly civilian, something I hadn’t experienced in who knows how long.  At the small front desk sat a woman, maybe in her thirties with a small name tag.

“Hello miss, anything I could help you with today?” She smiled sweetly at me, welcoming me into the library. 

“Actually, do you guys have computers that the public can use?”

“Yes, they’re right over in the corner.”

“Thank you, also, do you happen to have some paper and something to write with?” She turned around, picking some paper and a pen up and handing it to me. I returned her smile and headed over to the out of date computers sitting at the back of the room. 

I turned the old thing on, a sound a little bit like music coming out of the speakers as it booted up. It was then that I remembered that although I’ve shoved a flash drive in one of these and let things happen until it said “COMPLETE,” I wasn’t too familiar with computers .  Sure I had wanted to work with those beautiful machines, simply being left alone with one for an hour with a manual and figuring out all of it’s secrets. I had no idea what in me was pushing me so much towards them, but it was there.

Once the machine turned on, I looked at the display. Luckily, it wasn’t too difficult to figure out, there were only two little icons on the screen, and the one that looked like a little trash can was probably not what I wanted. The other was a little colorful circle called “Chrome.” Personally, I didn't see what was chrome about it but I clicked it, and a screen popped up. The word “Google'' was written across the middle of the screen along with a small bar with a picture of a magnifying glass at the left side. 

It took me a minute, but I figured out what I needed to do. The first thing that I could think of to search for was Bucky. I typed his name into the search bar and pressed enter, and tons of results flooded the screen.

The problem was that I didn’t know any of the concrete facts about him. I knew that his name was Bucky, and how he was sweet and funny even though we’ve both been through so much, but I didn’t know his last name, or when he was born, or even how old he was. 

There was a little tab called images that made the most sense to me. If I could find a picture of him in the pool of “Bucky”s that existed in the world, I could find out who he was, and then hopefully, figure out who I was from there. There were many pictures, at first it was overwhelming, but as I scrolled slightly, I found it, found him. 

He looked younger, more innocent, with a short haircut and a blue leather jacket that made me swoon a little bit. He looked different, but I couldn’t mistake those beautiful blue eyes. I clicked on the picture, which led me to a sight called Wikipedia, with his photo in the corner. 

“James Buchanan Barnes, born on March 10th, 1917, was a member of the Howling commandos and best friend to Steve Rogers (Captain America).”

I continued reading, writing down the important bits , how he was tested on by HYDRA way back in 1943, and how he was supposedly killed after falling from a train. But he couldn’t have died, I didn’t know him back then, I knew him now. 

The name Steve Rogers continuously popped up, so I clicked on it, and was flooded with even more information. Once I had everything I had to know written down after the rabbit hole I had been down, I turned to the librarian to ask her one last question.

“Do you think you could give me directions to Avengers Tower?”

I would have preferred to take a cab but I couldn't without money, so walking 20 blocks was my only option. The tower was huge, and I found it much too easy to walk right in. There were people walking and sitting at tables in the lobby, working at filling out paperwork. I went up to the desk, not allowing them to get a word in before I could say what I needed to. 

“I need to speak with Steve Rogers.”

“Ma’am, if you just give us a moment, we can help you.”

“No, you don’t understand, everyone here is in danger, Bucky is in danger.” A man in the back stood up, walking towards me to get a better look at me. His hair was graying and his glasses filled up most of his face. He looked pale, as if he had just seen a ghost. 

“Y/N?”

“Get this shit away from me! I told you, I need to talk to Steve Rogers, he’s the only one who will understand.”

“Y/N, I know you don’t remember but we need to do some tests.”

“Please, just get me in touch with him!”

The lab, I’ll admit, was friendlier than most that I had been in. The room was filled with computers and scientific equipment that I really wanted to go and play with for some Rita’s on. There were nodes stuck to my forehead that were oddly gentle, but I still didn’t like the feeling.There was a small TV connected to the ceiling showing the news. A woman’s voice was heard over the mess that was being filmed. 

“In breaking news today, wanted fugitive from S.H.I.E.L.D., Captain America, has been spotted in Washington D.C. battling with a masked stranger in the middle of the highway. “

I  looked to the screen and immediately recognized him, It was Bucky, my Bucky, fighting it out with Steve Rogers. He had taken off his goggles, the two of them fighting with an intensity that I had never seen before. The only person that could match Bucky in a fight like that was me, so this was damn impressive. 

“There! There he is, you need to get me to Washington D.C!”

“Y/N, you need to calm down, we need to help you first.” A second man began to get near me, pulling the leg of my pants up, exposing the metallic nature of my left leg. I panicked and kicked the man away, sending him across the room. 

“I don’t need help, I need to get to Washington D.C., and how the hell do you know my name?” I pushed the man off of me and got up, trying to get out of the lab. I had almost made it out of the door when I felt a sharp pain in my neck. I immediately felt woozy, falling back into the chair closest to me.

“It’s gonna be ok, Stats, I’m gonna take care of you,” The graying man from earlier said, helping me back into the lab chair from earlier with music less resistance than before. My vision got spotty, as his wistful, almost bittersweet facial expression was the last thing I saw before total blackness.

[sugar-petals]

Fic Research 101

A general guideline with various tips and tricks.

What for?

Even if you’re the type who can construct giant fantasy worlds out of thin literary air, research makes the difference and can bring you a lot of enjoyment once the story becomes its own universe. Expanding the horizon is 100% worth it. For beginners, advanced writers, and experts equally. Readers always notice and cherish that level of detail. Even Terry Pratchett preoccupied himself with geography, history, art, or science books. And anything else that would catch his eye, not worrying about whether it was considered cheesy, odd, or stale bread. It was simply for the sake of interest and passion. What I found noteworthy: He actually preferred it over reading stories of his genre (!) as not to reiterate things subconsciously, i.e., what other authors researched and repurposed. We saw the result: He built believable, unique worlds. It doesn’t mean that you have to eschew reading entirely or need to create a groundbreaking universe. It’s just important to be aware how habitual input shapes what knowledge we believe is possible to cover in our stories.

Where/How

Sometimes, it does depend on how you search, not where. The — often grammatical — quality of your search engine request determines the character of what you receive. My favorite trick is to look for “types of [research subject]”. That gives me a wide array of what exists, how it looks like, and also possible substitutions should something not work out. It’s also easy on non-native speakers because definitions will come your way like that. 

Mentality also matters. You can approach it like an academic looking for data or a creator of imaginary worlds curious about what people do. It will reflect in your story, big time. So it’s important to keep your style in mind even when you look up menial things, either can work.

When

It can be fun to figure out what kind of researcher you are. Either the one taking in all information first. As in, watching a documentary and then creating a spin-off in your AU. Or the one researching while writing. The advanced form for those with a lot of time on their hands is doing both. It will boil down to how good your long-term VS short-term memory is.

Alienating VS Involving The Audience

A tricky question remains what readers will understand and how they can ease into stories with extensive research. In my eyes, even if there is something they are unfamiliar with, the appeal of the story is times higher when the author goes some extra miles or has notable immersive details as the cherry on top. 

The real bad guy that you have to watch out for are complex highbrow words for embellishment that a) nobody has ever heard of b) can’t be logically understood by looking at the situation. 

"The family prepared the gallimaufry” will deter readers times more than “Catherine the Great died aged 67″. Because Catherine the Great is self-explanatory and well-known, but nobody has an idea that gallimaufry is a fancy old synonym for ‘stew’. So rather go for Catherine the Great even if the gallimaufry might be period-typical and sounds hilarious. The rule of thumb is: If you give enough context so the reader doesn’t have to research endlessly themselves, you can pull it off, particularly with readers who are native speakers. It’s more difficult with non-native speakers, but I would trust them to look something up if the vocabulary is entirely foreign to them. If you’re in doubt about that, simply provide more background information and describe things viscerally, maybe with a simile or metaphor. 

So, unless you put it in the title (that’s a different topic), peppering your story with super fancy words from 200 AD that only you know can make you come across as a show-off trying to be way above the audience, while appropriate research and context makes you look like an artist who loves making stories and gives their readers an experience. I know, long fancy words are tempting, but try to keep them at a minimum if possible. Particularly when your AU is not historical or doesn’t feature fantasy elements. If you do write fantasy and drop something like say Latin as in Harry Potter (the spells), it helps to have a character who inquires about the word from another person in the fic. You give the reader a self-insert for that situation to learn about it. The same goes for new terms you come up with.

About Learning

This one is a big deal. Definitely figure out what type of learner you are (visual, auditory, etc), and what types of intelligence you are good at (logical, musical, linguistic, etc). Once you know how you retain information best, the world is easier. Many authors see research as an unwanted chore just because they take in useful information the wrong way. We all are curious creatures, it just depends on how things are presented to us. Once we find our forte, research loses much of its exhaustion, fear, and pressure.

Beware of comparison with other writers here. E.g. spatial-logical talents will be good at worldbuilding, while kinesthetic-literary talents will write authentic eroticism and action. We all have our niche and modes of brain function, sometimes it’s good to stick to your gifts instead of competing out of envy — which brings us back to Terry Pratchett and reiteration. Mind you, do experiment, do consider various ways of learning, what I mean is that you can make a story work faster knowing your potential in several areas.

Research Topic Masterposts

Perhaps you’ve seen them, the ones helping you construct a realistic XYZ scene. I know the hype around them, the effort is impressive, definitely keep it on your radar. Still, a word of caution. It’s often something you reblog for reference because you see all the options in one place but never go back to it. It can derail your research process immensely, too. The reason: It appears randomly, not when you need it. Heading out to research via browser in the right moment often yields more fitting results and options. After all, the person making the masterpost linked you guides to topics of their preference, often their stories’ research process, which can be far away from yours. I’ve often run into linked articles that are either too advanced or straightforward, it’s a bit of a Russian roulette to find the right insight. Which the masterpost creator obviously can’t and doesn’t have to anticipate, by all means — the same principle applies to this post, you have to cherrypick what resonates. 

The problem is that you can’t know how useful to you personally the links are at first glance when you just reblog for later reference. Combing through the links and visiting a bunch to see if it is any good takes forever compared to a 10 sec google search. Ironically, you’d think someone else, maybe a more experienced author, doing the work for you spares you effort and it’s convenient, but the opposite can be the case. Sometimes, you have to research from scratch and rely on your own gut. Should you still find a solid masterpost giving you precisely what you’re looking for, and you remember to go back to it — installing XKit helps with that, it has an archive function: Check the timestamp (also via XKit). If the post has been around for longer, many links might be dead so keep an eye on this. 

Wikipedia

Staring at black font against white forever can be frustrating and repetitive. Hyperlinks can distract, it consumes time. In some cases, infographics give you a quicker, more colorful outline with equal amounts of sources. Important: Remember the mentality bit. For some, inspiration comes first. In that regard, infographics can help you out further by providing a visual idea in terms of worldbuilding. If you are the data type and do juggle references, it might be a better idea trying Google scholar to find journals. Tip: Read their abstracts (the summary at the start) to get a quick overview. And then you’re ready to go. 

Handy Shortcuts

Disclaimer: Those are for Mac. For Windows: Use Ctrl instead of Cmd.

Cmd + F (search) finds the needle in a stack of hay. This one is essential. 

Cmd + T (open new tab) saves time.

Cmd + Z (undo) — every writer’s lifesaver, oh my god.

Cmd + A (select all) helps for copy paste. Mind you, don’t plagiarize.

Cmd + N (open new web page) for a blank slate, all other tabs stay open.

Cmd + down arrow brings you to the bottom of the page.

1) Cmd + Shift + 3 gives you a fast screenshot of the whole screen. 2) Cmd + Shift + 4 lets you select a rectangular/square area to screenshot. 

the screenshots will be saved on your desktop.

Windows doesn’t have 2) but uses “Print Screen” for 1).

[sleeplessnightwithphan]

On The Early Morning Train

Summary: Nobody likes having to commute to their job in a packed train in the morning. Dan was no exception to that rule: he hated it with a passion. ( Ok, maybe the gorgeous looking guy who always sat opposite him made it -slightly- more bearable and Dan might even enjoy that bit about his day. But still.)

Genre: Fluff, angst(?)

Word Count: 3.5K

TW: None? Are there actually none? What is happening to me?

A/N: Special thanks to @rosaflagephil and @auroraphilealis for helping me turn this fic into something actually written in the english language. Ily guys <3

This fic is just me cementing my train kink to be honest. I have no idea how that became my branding, but I decided to embrace it, so yeah. This is the result. 

Read on AO3: X

Morning commutes used to be the thing Dan dreaded the most in his life.

Dan worked in a big law firm in central London that was slowly but surely draining his will to live out of him. But with the rental prices in the city centre being an arm and a leg, he couldn't quite afford to live anywhere near the big dark building he was employed in. Because of this, he had to rent an apartment on the outskirts of the city (that was still horribly overpriced if you asked him) and take the train to the centre every morning.

Of course, Dan wasn’t the only commuter who had this idea.

Every morning, when the train arrived in his station, it was awaited by an entire platform filled with men wearing dull suits and women carrying briefcase in their hands.

Dan used to take the train half an hour later, but he would have to spend the entire way trapped between other people. Being slightly agoraphobic, he'd started hating going to work even more than he had before.

But one day, when he was complaining about this to a coworker, she had told him that the earlier train was much less full. Ok, there were still a lot of people on it, but you could actually sit, and it was just a much more relaxing way to begin the day.

That was how Dan found himself at the train station every morning 40 minutes earlier than he would necessarily have to be. The getting up earlier was something he would gladly do in order to get rid of the overly stressful starts to his day.

And he had to say, his coworker had been right. Since he'd started taking the earlier train, he hadn't had to stay upright even once so far. He'd still had to sit next to a stranger, but at least now he could enjoy his cup of coffee (which he really needed in the morning - Dan was a bit of a night owl) without risking it being knocked out of his hands by someone.

Or at least, so he'd thought.

There he was one morning, just sipping from his coffee and checking his twitter, when all of a sudden the cup was launched from his hands and the contents splashed all over his white shirt.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no, I'm so sorry!" a deep voice exclaimed, but Dan wasn't really looking in front of him to address the person standing there. He was too busy searching for some tissues to try and contain the damage done to his clothes (thank god the coffee had had some time to cool down).

"I'm so sorry, I just wanted to sit down on the seat here, please, oh my god, I'm so sorry, oh no, your shirt, oh god what have I done? " the guy continued to babble, and in his peripheral vision Dan could see him sitting down and reaching out to give him some tissues to clean up.

Dan wasn't exactly angry with this guy though, a coffee stain on his shirt wasn't the end of the world. Besides, there was no point in holding a grudge against the guy, knowing this was something that Dan could've done to someone too - and honestly, Dan was quite surprised it hadn't happened yet.

"Don't worry about it too much, it's alright I suppose, I... " Dan looked up to take the tissues from the other guy, but felt the words getting stuck in his throat when he had a proper look at him.

Sitting in front of him, looking at him with a slight hint of panic in his eyes, was the prettiest guy Dan had ever had the pleasure of laying his eyes on. And Dan had gone home with a lot of beautiful men is his years, so that was saying something.

"Are you sure? Is there anything I can do, anything at all? Once again, I'm so so sorry, and I can't believe this happened. I mean, I know I'm clumsy and all that, but this is a new low, even for me," the guy spoke, smiling a bit, and Dan had to tell himself that no, he couldn't kiss those lips, no Dan, don't, you don't know him, stop.

"Yeah, it's alright, not really something you can do to help me anyway. And it's not like you intended to knock me over anyway. Or did you?" Dan smiled at the man, trying to show him that he really wasn't mad, maybe even trying to flirt a little bit - he wasn’t stupid enough to miss out on a chance like this. 

"Well, ok then I guess, " the man said, oblivious to the flirtatious undertone (or maybe just not addressing it in an attempt to not have to turn Dan down. Of course, knowing Dan’s luck, he should’ve seen that coming). And with that, he had seemingly calmed down enough to look at his phone and relax for the rest of the journey, leaving Dan alone with his daydreaming about the gorgeous man.

***

The next morning, Dan was just sitting on the train again, sipping his coffee once more, when someone sat down opposite him again.

"How much do I owe you?"

Dan was a little bit confused at first, but when he looked up, he saw that the same guy from yesterday was sitting in the seat, holding his wallet open in his hands and looking at him expectantly.

"How much do you owe me? What do you mean?" Dan asked, not exactly sure what he was getting at.

"How much do I owe you?  How much do I have to pay you?" the man stated as if it was the most obvious thing ever.

"Wait, you want to pay me? Why?"

The man sighted. "Because I spilled coffee on you, coffee that you paid for. And I ruined your shirt, which you need to get cleaned somewhere, and I know that that's not cheap. So, because it's my fault you had to spend that money, I should be repaying you."

Dan started laughing at this, making the other guy look at him in confusion.

"Oh please, no, you don't have to pay me. The coffee was almost empty anyway, and I have a washing machine so cleaning the shirt didn't cost me a penny." Dan answered, because how the hell would he be able to take this guys money? He'd only feel bad about it.

But the man seemed to be determined.

"No, no, no. I ruined your morning yesterday and I made you walk around the office all day with a gigantic coffee stain on your shirt. You had every right to scream at me yesterday, but you didn't. Which I appreciate by the way, but still. And now you're over here making excuses as to why I shouldn't be paying you back, but I still should. So please, just tell me how much I owe you, if not for you then just to give me some peace of mind."

He had to say, Dan was impressed with this guy's determination to pay him back. Sensing that he wouldn't give up until he had gotten an answer, he decided to just allow him to pay him back.

"The coffee cost me £4. And as for the cleaning of the shirt, that will cost you to stop apologising and tell me your name, ok?"

It took the other man a few seconds to react to what Dan had said, but it was long enough to allow Dan to start overanalyzing the entire situation. Had he just made things really awkward? Was this something that he wasn't expected to say? Had he messed this up?

But then the guy started laughing, and pulled the money out of his wallet.

"Here you go, that'll be the coffee. And my repayment for the shirt; my name is Phil."

***

After that day, Dan and Phil became fast friends.

Every morning, Dan would sit down on one of the seats in the second-to-last wagon, and every day Phil would come sit opposite him when he got on the train as well.

Dan learned that Phil got on the train a stop later than he did, and that he worked as a technician for the BBC radio 1 Breakfast Show. He learned that Phil had a brother called Martyn, a dog called Buffy, that he was lactose intolerant, that he loved horror films but also had a soft spot for real estate shows, and a bunch more random facts that he honestly didn't know how ended up in their conversations.

In exchange, Dan told Phil all about his boring job as a lawyer and his wishes to change his profession and actually do something he enjoyed, his latest Netflix obsessions, the things he had read about on his 2AM wikipedia odysseys, and anything he felt passionate about really.

They didn't speak anywhere besides their morning commutes though. The moment the train stopped and Dan and Phil had to get off, they went their separate ways; no texting, calling, social media messaging. No contact.

Until the following morning, when they would start over again.

Dan had thought about giving Phil his number, because he was feeling things for Phil that might not have been strictly platonic anymore.

He started to want to text Phil about the things he saw in his day-to-day life that reminded Dan of him (which happened a lot nowadays). Send him a link to a funny video, a picture of a dog he saw on his walk to the office, anything really.

But then one day, Phil brought up how he and his girlfriend watched a certain Netflix show together, and Dan had to try his best to not let the disappointment and hurt show on his face.

After that, he decided that it would be easier not to get too attached and just keep his friendship with Phil contained within the walls of the train, where he would be able to control them better.

***

It had been 4 months since Dan and Phil had met on the train, and they had sat together every day since without ever skipping a trip.

Which is why it took Dan a minute to realise that Phil hadn't come in today.

Instead, there was a young woman sitting in his seat. Dan was about to tell the girl the seat was taken, when he saw that the station they were currently in was already the third one on their way to London, and Phil should've already gotten on.

Maybe he was sick? Maybe he overslept, and missed the train? Or maybe he had a day off?

Although Dan wasn't really all that happy about it, he had to remind himself about the fact that he couldn't possibly be mad at Phil about this. The guy had no way of contacting Dan, in the end. It had been his idea to keep their "thing" bound to the train and their morning commute.

Besides, Phil would probably be back on the train tomorrow.

Except he wasn't.

The next day, the seat in front of him was taken by a random person as well. And the day after that.

It had been 2 weeks since Dan had last seen Phil. And every day, he lost a bit more hope over seeing him again.

And even though he wouldn't admit it to himself at first, he really started to regret never giving Phil any way of contacting him.

***

Like every morning, Dan was sat down in the wagon he always took place in. He had toyed with the idea of moving into a different wagon a few times, but somehow he always ended up right here, where he used to see Phil every day.

The train had left the station a few minutes ago, and Dan was busy scrolling through Twitter, when out of the corner of his eyes he saw that someone sat down on the empty seat in front of him.

He looked up from his phone, out of curiosity more than anything, wanting to see who had taken so long to get from the door of the train to a seat - there were more than enough empty ones still, so it wasn’t like they had to roam down the entire train.

Dan was fully expecting a middle aged, grumpy looking man sitting opposite him, so he was extra surprised when he looked into two beautiful blue eyes, staring straight at him.

"Phil? Err, what, err... hi?" Dan stammered, not really sure what to say. This was the last thing he had been expecting when he had woken up this morning.

"Hi Dan, how are you?" Phil said, voice sounding apologetic, giving him a half smile.

But Dan wasn't in the mood for small talk. Honestly, he was trying his best to contain the urge to start shouting at Phil like he wanted to.

"What... what are you doing here? I haven't seen you in weeks!" Dan eventually managed to say, still feeling very mixed emotions over seeing Phil sitting there again.

Letting out a sigh, Phil looked down at his hands, which were toying with a loose thread on his jeans.

"I know I just disappeared, but I had no way to contact you and tell you what had happened. It's kind of a long story to be honest, and I don't think it's something we can talk about on the train either." Phil looked back up at Dan, giving him a half smile.

"Is there any possibility that we could meet up some time, so that I can explain everything to you?"

And of course, Dan agreed to that.

***

Which is how Dan found himself going from not having seen Phil in weeks to being invited to his apartment for dinner the next day.

They had in fact exchanged numbers this time, but Dan still felt like he shouldn't text Phil, however much he wanted to. He wanted to hear the reason why Phil had disappeared first.

Dan arrived at Phil's front door 15 minutes too early, but he was still in the process of knocking when the door swung open to reveal Phil standing there.

"Hi there Dan, did you manage to find it well? I'm cooking lasagna, but I still have to put it in the oven so it's gonna be another half an hour before we can eat. You can just go sit down in the lounge and I'll come join you in a bit," he said, stepping aside as to invite Dan in, before disappearing to go to what Dan assumed to be the kitchen.

Phil's apartment was, in a way, exactly how Dan had imagined the place would look, but also  completely different. There were pops of colours everywhere, nerdy trinkets scattered all around the lounge, a complete mismatch of patterns and materials that somehow still worked together. Basically, the place was Phil translated into furniture.

But what Dan hadn't been expecting was the sense of being at home that he immediately got when he walked through the door. The feeling of being safe and secure, the sense of not wanting to leave. A feeling he never got with his own place, even though he had been living there for 2 years already.

Dan had been sitting in the lounge on his own for about 5 minutes when Phil walked back in, carrying 2 cups of tea. He handed Dan a mug in the shape of Hello Kitty before sitting down on the couch next to him.

"So, how have you been?" Phil asked, attempting to make small talk, but his voice was laced with nervousness.

Not really in the mood to delay any longer, Dan decided to just get to the point immediately.

"Well, i've been alright really, except for the fact that you disappeared on me, but otherwise I've been doing fine." Dan said, being the sarcastic little shit he always was. But he did regret saying that a little when he saw Phil's facial expression fall, and he could see the guilt and hurt on his face. Maybe he had overdone it a little bit.

"I guess I owe you an apology for that, right? Oh well, might as well get to it." Phil said before putting his tea down and turning to face Dan.

"Long story short, I have had a few changes in my life recently. Things that I really didn't see coming, and which have made me have to switch a few things up. The first thing that happened is that me and my girlfriend broke up."

Phil paused for a moment, and Dan didn't know if he should be happy with this news or feel sad, because it meant that he might have a small chance of getting Phil, but it was clearly something that was hurting Phil.

"We hadn't really been together for that long, only a few months," Phil continued, "but the problem was that she was a coworker on the breakfast show. She was kind of my boss. And we didn't really end things... amicably, so to speak. She had been cheating on me pretty much the entire time we were together"

Dan, sensing that Phil was having troubles speaking about this, reached out and took Phil's hand in his, softly stroking his knuckles. He smiled up at Phil encouragingly, which caused Phil to smile a little bit back.

“I ended up being transferred away to the evening show, because she didn’t want me around anymore.” He continued. “It’s a nice job. My coworkers are much more fun, and I don’t have to come in as early anymore so commuting is a lot easier.”

“What do you mean, those early morning trains weren’t the best bit of your day? Full trains are the best thing there is, aren’t they?” Dan joked, hoping to get Phil to smile a little bit. But Phil only ended up looking at him with more intent, more seriously.

“That’s the problem here, Dan. Those early morning commutes were made a lot more bearable because of your presence. I even maybe looked forward to them a bit. To your fatalistic humour and the little facts you would tell me you only learned yourself the night before on one of your Wikipedia Odysseys.”

Phil took Dan’s hand in his this time, sitting up straighter, and looking Dan directly in the eyes.

“And at first I didn’t really think anything of it, I just thought I liked you as a friend. But then when I wasn’t on the early trains anymore and I couldn’t reach you anymore, I found that I missed you so much. More than I probably should have. More than can be considered strictly platonic missing, if that makes sense.”

Phil’s face had become clouded over by something Dan thought to be fear, so Dan flashed him a big smile, mirroring what he was feeling inside, what was going through his head. Had Dan heard that correctly? More than strictly platonic? Was there any hope for them after all?

The smile apparently helped Phil to continue his story, looking a bit less frightened.

“And when I realised that, I knew i had to find you again and talk to you. I tried looking for you on facebook, but do you have any idea how many people called Dan Howell there are on that site? So then eventually I just decided to get on a train yesterday, to see if you were still there. Because I simply couldn’t deal with not seeing you anymore. I had to talk to you, had to tell you how I feel.”

And Dan, still grinning like an idiot, actually giggled at that. Because he was finding it harder and harder to contain his feelings.

“So, what do you say Dan? Would you maybe consider forgiving me for abandoning you? Perhaps I could pay you back by taking you on a date sometime soon,” Phil asked, a smile slowly spreading on his face too, and Dan couldn’t contain himself anymore.

He launched himself forward, throwing his arms around Phil’s neck, and pulling them close.

“Of course I will, you idiot,” he whispered into Phil’s neck, before pulling back a bit to look into Phil’s eyes. Those beautiful blue eyes that he never wanted to miss looking into again for even a single day. And then those eyes were getting closer, and they eventually closed as Phil pressed a shy kiss to Dan’s lips.

Somehow, that one shy kiss turned into kissing on the couch for half an hour, before they were startled by an alarm on Phil’s phone reminding them to take the lasagna out of the oven.

(It ended up being slightly burned, because it took them another 5 minutes to stop kissing long enough for Phil to get it out of the oven).

Seated at Phil’s table, in Phil’s apartment, eating the lasagne Phil had made, Dan decided he didn’t hate his morning commute as much anymore.

Because if not for that, he wouldn’t have met this wonderful person he was currently holding hands with.

[ddaddsprompts]

I saw a prompt where dads find out dadsona is an actor, and they go through all of his shows/movies. I love that idea soooo much. Could i possibly request something like that, and also that they find a movie/tv show where dadsona dies and they get all freaked out?

You have no ideawho spilled the beans. The topic of your work never came up, so you’d nevertold him you’re an actor, but he must have found out some way or the other,because there’s no other explanation for why you come home to find [Dad]sitting on the couch with one of the latest show you’ve starred in playing onscreen and a small pile with other movies and shows next to him on the table.You strongly suspect Amanda told him, but short of asking, you don’t have anyproof and thus, your case wouldn’t hold in court. You silently sit down next to[Dad] and lean back. Watching yourself on screen still is weird, but youmostly focus on [Dad]’s expressions. You recognised the episodeimmediately and you’re curious about his reaction to your death.

Your screen self isstanding between two other members of the gang, trying to defuse the situation.Suddenly, one of them pulls a gun. Your character jumps forward to pull it outof their hands. In the resulting grapple, a shot goes off. Your character sinksto his knees, then falls to his side, a large red spot on his stomach that’sgetting bigger by the second.

🥃 Robert’sface is blank, like always, but you’ve known him long enough to notice thatlook in his eyes. His gaze is distant, like he’s somewhere entirely differentwith his thoughts. Carefully, you reach out and nudge his shoulder. “Hey, Bobert?���He doesn’t react. You nudge him again, harder this time, and wave a hand infront of his face. “Earth to Bobert, are you—“ He knocks the air out of yourlungs lunging himself at you, wrapping his strong arms around you tightly, asif he’s scared of you vanishing if he doesn’t cling. Confused, you wrap yourarms around him in return. “Babe, what’s wrong? It’s just a TV show and sure,it looked real, but it’s definitely not…” He makes a noise. You don’t recogniseit, at first, but then it dawns on you – he’s crying. You tighten your grip onhim, rubbing his back and murmuring sweet nothings into his ear. “I-I can-can’tlose you,” Robert sobs. “I wouldn’t… I wouldn’t want to… not y-you too…” Youcontinue holding him even after he stops crying again, assuring him that youwouldn’t leave him anytime soon.

🍸 “Oh my. T-that was, well, that was… quite realistic.” Joseph lifts a handto press his palm to his chest, right above the heart. You notice he’s gottenpaler than usual. Is his hand shaking? No, his whole body is shaking, not justthat specific body part. You frown and scoot closer until your thighs arepressed together. The proximity and body contact seems to help him calm down,but only a little. “W-when Damien told me Lucien saw you in a movie I honestlyd-didn’t expect you to s-star in things l-like that but you’re truly a… askilled actor. T-that looked… um… very real. M-maybe a bit too real.”“Are you okay, Joe? You’re really pale…” He laughs nervously and rubs his chestthrough the fabric of his polo shirt. You reach up and put your hand on top ofhis, lacing your fingers together. Joseph lets out a long, shaky breath. “Y-yes,I’m okay… C-could you maybe pick the n-next movie? One where you d-don’t die,preferably. I’ll… make us h-hot chocolate.” He stands up, but you pull him downagain and kiss him. You only draw back once you feel him smile, albeit weakly.

☕ After staring at the screen for what feels like hours, Mat finallyturns to look at you. His eyes are wide, shining in what you belatedly realiseare tears, and his mouth hangs open in shock. Then, suddenly, he’s in your lap,trembling like a leaf and, judging by the wet spot that’s spreading from wherehe has his face buried in your shoulder, crying. “Baby, it’s okay,” you say,patting his back. “I’m fine. That was only fake blood, I’m still here, aliveand breathing and also babbling.” Mat huffs into your shirt. “I know it’s notreal,” he whispers. “But it lookedlike it is, like you really died and…” He doesn’t finish the sentence, but hedoesn’t have to. You coo and press a kiss on his cheek. “I’m okay, baby, I won’tleave you anytime soon, I promise…” Some minutes go by, accompanied by thenoises coming from the TV. Finally, Mat draws back again and wipes his eyes. Helooks at you and you look back. “I sure hope you never starred in a musical,”Mat eventually says, breaking the silence. You blink. Then Mat breaks intolaughter and you join in moments later.

🌹 Damien slowly lowers his hand, with which he’s been covering his mouth immediatelyafter screaming the moment the shot rang through the air. As your characterslowly bleeds out, Damien’s eyes are glued to the screen. You’re still proud ofyour performance that day, the way you, if you could say so yourself, conveyedthe last moments of a man’s life as he’s dying. Damien’s reaction proves to youthat your acting is convincing. White as a sheet, Damien turns to you once thescene changes and cups your face, trailing his thumb along your cheekbone. Youraise your eyebrow questioningly; Damien blushes and drops his hand again. “I’mterribly sorry, it’s just… that looked quite real. All that blood… yourexpression… even the light in your eyes, extinguished, like a flame…” With achuckle you reach out and take his hands in yours, lifting them to your lips.Damien’s blush deepens as you kiss his knuckles. “Don’t worry about it, dear. I’mhappy my acting shook you like that. Means I did my job.” Damien laughs. “That’sone way to see it, indeed. Shall we watch another one?”

🎣 “That was…” Brian rubs the back of his headlooking anywhere but the TV screen, where the last minutes of your character’slife pass. His face is caught between shock and his usual, self-confident andcocky smirk. “Good. You’re a good actor.” By now, you know better than to takehis underplaying your accomplishments personally. You’ve come a long way since yourfirst meeting in the park and you know he isn’t serious. Truth be told, youfind his continuous attempts not to get excited adorable, particularly becausehe is bad at acting. As casually as humanly possible, Brian throws his arm overthe back of the couch and, consequently, your shoulders and pulls you close.There’s the finest of tremors going through his body. “Thanks. Did I make for aconvincing dying person?” Brian laughs, but it’s pathetic, compared to hisusual bellows. “I almost believed it.” You elbow his side. Brian nudges rightback and lifts his arm so you can curl up under it. “What would you suggest wewatch next?” You’re glad he can’t see your evil grin. “Oh, I know just theright one.(Two hours later, he’s bawling his eyes out. Terminal illnessesalways do the trick.)

👟 Craig’s face undergoes a journey ofexpressions. He goes from surprised to shocked, then over to sad before finallysettling on excited. He grasps you by the shoulders; at that moment he remindsyou of a puppy, lacking only the wagging tail and floppy ears. “Dude, that wassick! It looked so real and not just because of the blood! You really sold thatmoment. When you told me you wanted to become an actor in college, I neverwould have thought you’d be in something like that.” His beaming grin andsparkling eyes make you laugh softly. “Thanks bro. But who told you what I dofor a living?” He shrugs. “No one did, bro. I just remembered your career plansand was curious whether you managed to follow your dreams. Searched your nameon the internet. You have your own wikipedia page, isn’t that sick, bro?” Hisexcitement is contagious; you find yourself mirroring his grin. “Want to seethe first movie I starred in?” He offers you his fist and you bump yoursagainst it. “Hell yeah, bro!”

📖 Hugo clears his throat and nervously adjusts his glasses. He, like mostteachers, is an expert at hiding his emotions when need be, but at this moment,his thoughts are written on his face, plain as day. When he notices you lookingat him in amusement, he blushes and averts his eyes. You take the remotecontrol and pause the episode, the screen frozen on your lifeless eyes. Hugo’sshudder once he sees the image is barely noticeable, but your close proximitymeans you can feel it. “That was, well, quite impressive. Seeing you try to liein everyday life, I’d never have expected you could act.” With an indignantgasp, you lightly shove against his chest. He falls on his back, but you knowthat if he hadn’t wanted you to, you would not have been able to move him oneinch. “I’ll have you know I’m an excellent liar.” He raises his eyebrow. Youscoff. “Fine, I reserve my skills for work. Did you know I starred in AMidsummer Night’s Dream?” Hugo’s eyes darken a little. “No, I didn’t. Do youhave a recording?” He replies to your nod with a grin and a wink.

- Mod Mare

[hannahindie]

In Which Han and Sandee Get Distracted

Disclaimer: @escabell and I have no clue about what we’re talking about. What I will tell you is that when we looked up A/B/O stuff, we got even more confused and left with more questions than we had answers. Those of you that understand and write about it, I commend you and hope that you aren’t offended by our goofing, but it was too good not to write something involving us grandmas knowing nothing. Anyway, this is just ridiculousness. I pretty much just took our conversation and flipped it into what would happen if the Winchesters walked in on you looking for fanfiction. But then we got distracted. I’m not even going to bother tagging anyone in this because it’s just silliness, but I hope you get a chuckle out of our shenanigans. Also, it’s not beta’d, so any spelling/grammar mistakes are alllllllll me. (P.S. We have nothing against A/B/O at all. We literally just didn’t know what it was and decided to Google it. It wasn’t our best plan. You guys could probably educate us better than what we found. lol)

“They’re gonna kill us if they find out we are looking up fanfiction about them, you know that right?”

I shrugged, “Yea, well...maybe they shouldn’t leave us alone in the bunker. I’m bored, you’re bored, and we have the internet. I can’t be held responsible for what happens next.” Sandee raised an eyebrow, then slowly smiled and nodded. “Also, if we get caught, we’re equally to blame. I’m not going down alone.” I opened my laptop, “Tumblr or….what else is there? Google?”

“Just go to Tumblr, grandma.”

I pulled up the website and signed in using my old account, “I haven’t been on here in years. Let’s see what we can find…” My eyes were immediately assaulted by very naked genitalia and I scrolled down incredibly fast, “Who the hell did I follow that that was an option? Geeze.”

Sandee laughed, “Yea. Like you don’t remember.”

“Shut up,” I mumbled. “I guess I’m just going to look up Sam and Dean Winchester fanfiction. That should do it.” It immediately pulled up page upon page of fanfiction. “Anything in particular we want to look for?”

Sandee shrugged, “I don’t know. I recall this being your idea.” She squinted at the screen as I scrolled, “What’s a ….reader insert?”

I clicked on it and quickly skimmed the page, “Looks like you just add your name as you read it. Not gonna lie, I just tried to pronounce the y and n together. That’s going to be a thing now. A girl has no name. Only Y/N.” I went back to the top of the fic and began reading out loud, ‘I woke up to the feeling of warm leather pressed against my cheek and the smell of gunpowder and whiskey flooded my senses. My vision was blurry as I rubbed the sleep from them as flashes of last night came back to me. Suddenly, I felt a muscular arm tighten around my waist and I suddenly remembered who I was with. Dean Winchester, the man who’d been raised from hell. I was going to have some explaining to do.’ Huh, I should try my hand at this. We both have pretty good experience with the Winchesters, don’t you think?” I wiggled my eyebrows and Sandee smacked my arm.

“You aren’t writing that down. No one needs to know about that.”

I looked at her wide eyed, “I meant hunting, what did you think I meant? What kind of person do you think I am?” I looked at her for a moment then gasped, “You sly dog, you! I was just kidding! How...when...you know what, I’m just….let’s look for more fanfiction, shall we?” I continued to scroll then stopped when something unfamiliar caught my eye. “What...is…this?”

“What?” Sandee leaned forward to look at what I was pointing at.

“A/B/O. What does that mean?” I scrolled through the fic, and though there was some description, still didn’t answer my question. “It looks...complicated. I think I’m going to google it.” I pulled up a second tab and opened Google: what is A/B/O? “Oh, cool. There’s a wiki page for it. Let’s see…” I could feel my eyebrows furrow together as I read and Sandee waited patiently for me to explain. “Sandee, I’m not entirely sure what to tell you. I mean, I get it, but then...I don’t.”

“Just tell me.”

I grabbed my glasses and put them on so that I could continue reading. “Let me just make sure I read that right...okay. So apparently it’s Alpha, Beta, Omega. Like wolves, I’m assuming. So there’s that pecking order. Although it appears that the Omegas can be replaced by Betas, since they are the lowest on the food chain, if you will. Or they can be super valuable because they’re rare. I’ve read it both ways.”

Sandee shrugged, “That’s not that hard to understand. Why are you confused?”

I took my glasses off and tossed them on the table a little harder than necessary, “Are they people? Or are they werewolves? Or neither? Just wolves with human qualities? All three? What are they?”

“It’s fiction, Han. It can be whatever the writer wants, probably.”

I waved my hand, “Like HELL. I need to know.” I scrolled back up to the top, “Oooo, related pages. What the balls is knotting?”

“I don’t know that you should click on that, Han. We can just read it and appreciate it for the wonderful writing. Do you really need to know all the terminology?”

I raised an eyebrow, “Are you telling me that you are not the least bit curious? If we are going to read this, after the writer clearly put in a lot of time researching these things, don’t you think we should understand the subject matter? C’mon, Sandee, join me. Follow me down this wikipedia trail of information we never thought we’d need to know.”

“Okay, fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.” I clicked the link and we both leaned in to read what Wikipedia had to say. Sandee looked over at me and grinned as I frowned at the information I was reading, “I told you.”

“Listen, I have nothing against it, this just doesn’t have a ton of information and for some reason all I can think about is a human shaped wolf. I’m having trouble picturing it. Wikipedia is not super helpful here, and then it just gives me more links to vague information.” I sighed, “I just wanna know what knotting means, man. These writers have put a lot of work into these, I want to know what they’re talking about. The internet is hard.” I backtracked to the original page we’d found and skimmed over it again. “Now, hold the phone.”

Sandee looked back at the computer screen, “What?”

I pointed at what I had just read, “Read that. You read that and tell me how that would work?”

I watched as Sandee’s mouth moved silently as she read the paragraph I’d pointed to, then scrunched her nose, “Well...I mean...I don’t know. They’d probably just do it like you would normally do it.”

“That says that Omega males give birth. How in the hell does that work? Do they...where….how? HOW?”

“Why don’t you just ask Siri?” She pulled her phone out of her pocket, “Siri, can an omega poop a baby?”

“OK, I found this on the web for ‘can an omega poop a baby?’ “

“First of all, that British voice is condescending. I feel like he is judging us. Also, those search results are not helpful. I don’t care about babies pooping, I care about Omega males pooping out babies.”

Sandee grabbed the computer and began typing, “The answers are there, you just know have to know where to look.”

I crossed my arms, “So you know where to find information on males giving birth to what may or may not be wolf babies?”

Sandee shrugged, “I have a particular set of skills.”

Meanwhile…

“I wonder what the girls have been up to today. It’s been awhile since they’ve been left on their own. I hope they didn’t get too bored.”

Dean shrugged, “Sammy, they’re grown women. They can entertain themselves. They’ve got Netflix, and who knows, maybe they even decided to do some research. Hannah and Sandee both like to look stuff up, I’m sure they found something interesting.” Dean put the Impala in park and both Winchesters made their way from the garage and up through the kitchen. Dean put a hand out to stop Sam.

“What?”

“Do you hear that?”

“It sounds like Sandee and Han talking, why?”

“I wanna know what they’re talking about. If we’re quiet enough, we can probably eavesdrop a little.”

Sam frowned, “Why would you want to do that?”

Dean smirked, “I wanna know if Sandee is talking about me.”

Sam crossed his arms, “And why would she be….oh. Oh. Dammit, Dean. Seriously?”

“I’m not gonna mess it up, Sam. It just happened, and it’s awesome. Got anything else to say about it?”

Sam smiled, “Nah. Let’s see what they’re talking about.” They crept into the library and stopped just outside the door.

“Why don’t you just ask Siri? Siri, can an omega poop a baby?”

“OK, I found this on the web for ‘can an omega poop a baby?’ “

“First of all, that British voice is condescending. I feel like he is judging us. Also, those search results are not helpful. I don’t care about babies pooping, I care about Omega males pooping out babies.”

“The answers are there, you just know have to know where to look.”

“So you know where to find information on males giving birth to what may or may not be wolf babies?”

“I have a particular set of skills.”

“What the hell?” Dean couldn’t help but exclaim as he and Sam walked into the library. Both girls paused, then slowly turned to face Sam and Dean. “What are you guys doing? What’s this about men pooping babies?”

Hannah grabbed her laptop and closed it, stood, and slowly backed towards the other doorway as she threw a quick glance at Sandee, “We will never speak of this again.” She bolted, leaving Sandee to deal with the two very confused Winchesters.

“Well, you see...there’s this….we were looking at...you know, there’s not a good explanation for this.”

Sam laughed, “Yep, you’re meant for each other.” He shook his head and walked out of the room.

“Seriously, what were you guys talking about?”

Sandee laughed, “It’s probably best that you didn’t know. Although it’s become very apparent that Han is literally a grumpy old grandma when it comes to using technology.”

[allthecreepylittlethings]

Mein Teil: How an Internet Cannibal Inspired a Song

When it comes to controversy, Rammstein is no stranger. The German industrial metal band, who is actually more popular in the US than in Germany, has had a wide variety of songs that often cover dark subject matter as well as equally controversial videos to go along with them. From accusations of supporting Germany's dark history of Hitler's regime (they don't, by the way), to just general offense for the amount of nudity and sexual content they sometimes include in their videos, they tend to be an easy target for moral outrage. One of the difficult things about Rammstein is even if you get past the language barrier (assuming you're like me and are not fluent in German), there are times when, even translated, their songs can be interpreted in a number of ways leaving behind more questions than answers. And maybe that's the point, to force you to think, analyze, and draw your own conclusions. A lot of talented artists use this technique and forcing listeners to have to think is, in my opinion, one of the best contributions an artist can give to their audience.

There is, however, one particular song that is far more obvious in its subject matter and has a creepy story to go along with it. This is the true story behind "Mein Teil," which translates in English to, "My Part."

If you haven't heard this song, here's a link to the audio if you'd like to give it a listen first.

The lyrics of the song are through the eyes of a man who is willingly offering his body to a cannibal to be eaten:

"Heute treff' ich einen Herrn- Today I will meet a gentleman, Der hat mich zum Fressen gern- He likes me so much he could eat me up Weiche Teile und auch harte- Soft parts and even hard ones stehen auf der Speisekarte- Are on the menu..."

The song goes on with the willing victim describing the pride he's taking in the act and how happy he is just to be a part of it. There's also a line suggesting that he's being allowed a taste of himself and that he's enjoying it. As messed up as the scenario sounds, the idea wasn't just pulled out of thin air with the intention to shock for the sake of shock. This was actually a true story that did take place in Germany, and it all started with a disturbing ad posted on the internet.

Our story begins in 2001, when an ad was posted to a website called the Cannibal Cafe. The website, now defunct, was dedicated to those with a fetish for cannibalism and its users would either discuss their desire to indulge in eating another human, or share their stories of doing so and what their experiences were like. While there are many sites like this that are completely fake and intended to frighten anyone who happens to stumble upon them, the Cannibal Cafe was not one of those sites. It was all too real. The site has been shut down but is readily available on the Wayback Machine for the morbidly curious.

It goes without saying the warning on this page is warranted.

One of the most surprising aspects of the sites was this was not a community hidden in the deep web. This was a surface web page and easily accessible to anyone who wanted to find it.

The ad that began it all was posted by a user named "Franky," and was titled, "Search for Young Boys." In broken English and various typos, the ad stated, "If you are between 18 and 30 y/o and have you a normal build body, than come to me, i will butchering and eating your fine flesh. Please mail me your age, High and Wigth, and if you can with a pic." As disturbing as the ad is, probably worse is the fact that several men responded to it, all of them offering up their bodies for Franky to fulfill their own fantasies of being devoured. After screening through several candidates (upwards of 200), Franky found what he was looking for and invited the willing victim into his home.

"Franky," turned out to be a 42-year-old man from Germany named Armin Meiwes, and the man who would ultimately become his meal was a 36-year-old man named Bernd Brandes. Brandes, who was also from Germany, suffered from depression and, upon finding Meiwes' ad, felt he would be the right fit for the job. They exchanged emails for over a month, discussing the arrangements before finally setting a date.

(Left: Armin Meiwes. Right: Bernd Brandes.)

On March 9th of 2001, the pair met up at Meiwes' farmhouse where Brandes was fed sleeping pills and liquid cold medicine. Meiwes then set up a camera to record everything that followed. The act began with Meiwes cutting off Brandes' penis and broiling it. Brandes, who was still conscious, asked if he could try some for himself and Meiwes served him a piece, only for Brandes to complain that the consistency was too chewy to eat.

After this, Meiwes placed Brandes in a warm bath to bleed out while he read for over three hours and waited. Eventually, Brandes attempted to get up multiple times but collapsed from the amount of blood loss, ultimately leading Meiwes to stab him in the throat. After butchering the body, preparing it, and eating his fill, Meiwes packed away the rest of the meat and stored it away to be consumed later. However, an online friend of his later discovered he was placing new ads for more victims and alerted the authorities.

Inside of Armin Meiwes' house where the act took place.

By the time he was investigated, Meiwes had already consumed over 44lbs of Brandes' flesh and willingly confessed to what he had done, even stating that Brandes had tasted exactly like pork. Authorities uncovered what remained of the body inside a freezer as well as the video that had recorded the entire act. The video itself has never been made public and likely never will be, though some of the jury, as well as the journalists who had to watch it, reported needing therapy after to cope with what they had seen. Screenshots have allegedly popped up online since then, but their validity is questionable to say the least.

On January 30th of 2004, Meiwes was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight years in prison. However the prosecution appealed the conviction, stating that Brandes was not mentally sound, making him incapable to truly consenting to his killing, and that Meiwes should have been convicted of murder, not manslaughter. Meiwes underwent a retrail, this time receiving a murder conviction, and was sentenced to life in prison.

While criminal psychiatrists stated that Meiwes had a "schizoid personality," they found no signs of actual mental illness. Meiwes has since expressed his deep regret for the killing and claims he hopes to write an autobiography in order to encourage people like him to seek out help before it's too late. Reportedly, since his imprisonment, Meiwes has become a vegetarian.

When the members of Rammstein learned of this case and that there was an actual video taken of the crime, they wrote the song, "Mein Teil," and later hoped they could use footage from the tape to incorporate into their music video. Unsurprisingly, they were denied access which left them to their own devices. Ultimately, it led to them shooting a video in a warehouse where they were instructed to do whatever the director wanted, each not knowing what the other was doing, and having all of it eventually compiled into what became the music video. The end result is an even mixture of confusing and creepy:

Something worth noting about the video, the end scene where the band is being walked like a pack of dogs was likely inspired by a scene from the disturbing movie "Salo: The 120 Days of Sodom," in which the imprisoned victims of the film are forced to crawl naked, on all fours like dogs.

If you're wondering if you should see this movie, the answer is no. No you shouldn't.

Despite not being able to create the music video they would have liked, Rammstein has had live performances of the song that depict the subject matter a little more clearly. And, true to their style, it involves Flake doing something weird and Till having an excuse to use a flamethrower. It's definitely worth watching sheerly for the entertainment value and a way to lighten up this topic in general:

To add an extra layer of crazy to this story, Armin Meiwes attempted to sue the band, claiming they had no right to make a song about his story without his permission. As of writing this, there are no available details on the lawsuit, but given that the song and the music video have never been pulled, it's probably safe to assume it was either dropped or never made it to court.

For those interested, Rammstein has written other songs inspired by true stories that are well worth researching and I may cover another one in a future post. They are far from the only band out there to have done this, but this just happened to be one of my personal favorites.

Sources:

Profile: Cannibal Armin Meiwes: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3443803.stm

German Cannibal Armin Meiwes: https://www.bizarrepedia.com/cannibal-armin-meiwes/

Armin Meiwes on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armin_Meiwes

Manslaughter Verdict for Cannibal: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3443293.stm

Rammstein Sued by German Cannibal: http://www.blabbermouth.net/news/rammstein-sued-by-german-cannibal/

Mein Teil (from the Rammstein Wiki): https://rammstein.fandom.com/wiki/Mein_Teil

[recentanimenews]

THE GREAT CRUNCHYROLL NARUTO REWATCH: The Fall of a Legend In Episodes 48-84

It's time once again for the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! I'm Cayla Coats, Editor in Chief of Crunchyroll News, and I'll be your host this week as we travel ever further into the hallowed halls of shonen legend in our quest to watch all of Naruto. Last week, we covered episodes 71-77, and we pick up today with episodes 78-84. Let's get into it.

This week we got a kaiju fight between Naruto and Gaara that ends in a particularly impactful moment of empathy between the two young ninja. Sadly, we lost Hiruzen, the Third Hokage, during the battle back at Konoha. But things never stay still for long in Naruto, and the search is on for the next Hokage!

Let's find out what the Crunchyroll Features team thought of this week's episodes!

Shukaku is a pretty terrifying enemy for Naruto, but the way that ”A Thousand Years of Death” injects some levity into the fight while simultaneously functioning as solid battle strategy really gets to the heart of what’s so special about this show. How did you all feel about the interplay in episode 79 between Naruto fighting Gaara and the ninja fending against invaders back in Konoha?

Kevin: For me, a lot of the war between the Leaf and Sand ended up being “oh yeah, that’s happening, too.” It’s not handled poorly by any means, but going from seeing Gaara turn into a giant monster to the third or fourth scene of the Third Hokage and Orochimaru standing still and having a battle of wills doesn’t do much to help the tension or emotion of either scene.

Danni: I loved the way it kept cutting between the one-on-one battles between Naruto/Gaara and the Third Hokage/Orochimaru. Pulling back to show the entire village resisting against the invasion really helped set this arc’s climax apart from previous ones. It wasn’t just Naruto defeating Gaara that saved the day, it was the Third Hokage’s sacrifice and everyone keeping the invaders at bay that kept the village from crumbling.

Paul: I was happy to see the Leaf Village pull together and beat the stuffing out of the invading forces from the Sand and Sound Villages. I liked the strong sense of community displayed by Leaf Village, and I was surprised with the amount of screen time that the animators dedicated to showing people helping out with repairs. It really drove home the size and scale of the crisis.

Joseph: I also loved the scenes of everyone banding together outside of the two main battles. Cutting back to the Old Man Who Wouldn't Die definitely got a little comical, especially when watching the episodes back to back, but I liked how it was handled overall. There are finally some killer Naruto moments, too, from his expert-level kancho to the transformation while fighting Gaara.

Jared: It’s one of the things that I was impressed with in the last set of episodes as well. Considering all that was happening, it’s hard to keep all of that in check and give each situation the right amount of time. With all the fights happening, it also gave it the feeling of chaos, which it definitely needed.

David: Still really can’t take the kaiju stuff very seriously, but I am a fan of showing how everyone in the village was fighting back in their own ways. That, and the level of detail in the aftermath, made it feel like a ‘war’ in a way a lot of similar stories fail to.

Carolyn: I have to agree with Kevin, I kept forgetting the Hokage and Orochimaru were fighting in the middle of all the Gaara stuff.

Kara: It was actually kind of neat. I forgot about the Hokage fighting Orochimaru as others said. But when they’d cut back it was like “Oh, hey, this is going on!” and it was more a pleasant surprise/reminder than anything else.

Noelle: I thought it was handled pretty alright, all things considering. Of course, I’m more invested in some fights than others (Gaara vs Naruto) but reminders that there’s a fight going on that’s more than just those two was fairly helpful. Still funny at parts though.

I really admire Naruto’s ability to turn his own trauma and past pain into empathy. Even after everything he’s done, Naruto still reaches out to Gaara to tell him he understands how he feels. And yet his determination to protect his friends is unyielding.

Now we’re getting into the really sad stuff. Hiruzen’s final act of sealing Orochimaru’s arms was pretty amazing, especially with the disarmingly kind parting words he left his former pupil. How effective did you all find this scene?

Kevin: It is legitimately difficult to explain how impactful the Third Hokage’s death is, both in terms of the show’s narrative and audience expectations. For most viewers, I suspect that they thought Sarutobi was going to be a minor authoritative character for the entire show. Instead, he got a deeply emotional fight against both his predecessors and pupil ending in a minor victory that cost him his life in exchange for crippling but not killing the main villain.

Danni: Extremely effective. I can easily see this being the big turning point in the show with the Hidden Leaf Village’s peaceful age ending at the assassination of their leader. I imagine it also puts into perspective for Naruto the kind of responsibility he needs to accomplish his goal of becoming Hokage.

Paul: I'm a sucker for martial arts stories where the kind-hearted master can't bring themselves to go full-force against their evil pupil, so the bit with the Third Hokage picturing Orochimaru as he used to be when they were both younger and more innocent really hit me in the feels. Unfortunately, I accidentally spoiled the reveal about Orochimaru's arms getting sealed and the Third Hokage dying when I was looking for some unrelated info on Wikipedia, and I'm afraid that knowledge lessened the impact…

Joseph: Even though I kind of joked on their struggle in the previous answer, the ending really tied it up with some emotional impact. I also appreciated the flashback to his past training Orochimaru that came into play after the fact.

Jared: It was really good. After all that had happened in that fight and all the reveals, the Third Hokage still trying to see the good in Orochimaru was real emotional and effective. Plus with this really seeming like a huge tonal shift for what’s to come next, it had to be that effective to push that forward.

David: I’ve seen this show before and I still couldn’t believe he died so early! It definitely hit hard when I realized this was it for him (the realization that ~80 episodes still felt ‘early’ also hit hard for a completely different reason).

Carolyn: Empathy always hits me hard. So, on both counts, Naruto and the Hokage, it was inspiring and hard to watch.

Kara: I think the back-and-forth between the two fights, now that I have that to think about, really shows that… actually, yeah, maybe Naruto does have what it takes to become Hokage. We’re starting to crack open what it means to have that degree of responsibility, which I think a lot of people within the show believe is just a matter of being a Super Good Ninja. But interposing Naruto’s willingness to connect with Gaara with the Hokage’s genuine kindness was very telling. There are some emotional skills you can’t just trin into people.

Noelle: I’ve seen the show before, so knowing that the Third was going to die wasn’t that surprising. Still, he was set up as an overwatching figure that was supposed to stay around for quite some time, so considering how long the series is, that he dies so early on is surprising. Still, it sets into motion that things change, peace isn’t forever. Underneath all that, empathy being the driving factor behind resolve and transformation is something I adore.

How did you all think the funeral was handled? Personally, I was blown away by the restraint shown by the staff in having a few moments of near silence with no music while Naruto gets dressed and goes to meet up with Sakura and Sasuke.

Kevin: Naruto silently sitting on his bed, then getting up and getting dressed to meet up with Sasuke and Sakura to go to the service is one of the images that still sticks in my mind when I think of Naruto.

Danni: It got a little bit heavy handed with the bit about the rain, but I’ll let it slide. It was definitely a lot more restrained than I expected, which I loved. The silence really punctuated the loneliness of someone you love passing on and the resulting triumph that coming from the support of the entire village.

Paul: I understand the symbolism of why funerals are always in the rain, but that particular artistic flourish didn't work for me. What did work was the shell-shocked expressions on the faces of all of the funeral-goers, and the quiet moment you mention where Naruto has to drag himself out of bed and get on with the business of living. That part felt very genuine.

Joseph: The rain is one thing, and is pretty generic on its own, but when the sun comes out and shines on the framed photo. Oh boy. Other than those standard symbolic practices, it was handled with care.

Jared: Having that rain shower happen during the funeral was a bit on the nose, but I think everything else they did with it being this incredibly somber moment in the show worked. It really puts over just how the Third Hokage and everyone else who died in the invasion reverberated throughout the entire village and forced it to a stand still.

David: Cliches aside, I’m mostly glad the show is willing to dedicate basically a whole episode to mourning. A testament to how great the pacing has been thus far. Also, did anyone else notice Kiba brought Akamaru to the funeral? What a well behaved boy.

Carolyn: Silence is always a great addition to scenes like this. We depend on music as an audience to tell us how to feel and react. Silence leaves us feeling whatever we feel and that makes it more uncomfortable, which is what you need for a scene like this. I also appreciate that the characters were even given time to grieve. So many shows where deaths happen left and right tend to have the characters just move on like it’s normal or they are desensitized. “It’s all just part of this ninja gig!” It’s nice to see death acknowledged in an emotional and realistic manner.

Kara: I also noticed Akamaru at the funeral. That was lovely. And yeah, I thought that whole scene was handled nicely. I don’t mind anime funerals being a bit on the nose symbolically, because they sort of are what they are.

Noelle: I could go without seeing another funeral in the rain for the rest of my life. That being said, that the BGM completely cuts out, showing just how hollow everyone feels- that’s really good right there. The entire episode showcases just how important the Third was, and we needed that.

How did you feel about the arguably precarious balancing act of Itachi’s fight with Kakashi and the Jiraiya/Naruto research road trip shenanigans?

Kevin: Much like with the Sand-Leaf War, the two stories work fine on their own, but cutting from one to the other stops either from building up drama or comedy. I would’ve preferred if Naruto left the village, then follow Sasuke’s story to the jonin and then to the fight with Itachi and Kisame, then cut back to Naruto and Jiraiya, showing the Akatsuki following them, with both stories meeting up again when Sasuke confronts Itachi.

Danni: I honestly didn’t feel like the cuts between the two were particularly jarring. Maybe I’ve been watching anime long enough to not really notice the dissonance between super serious fights intercut with someone being a creep.

Paul: Just like I wasn't sold on Orochimaru before, I'm not quite sold on Itachi yet. He seems way too powerful and way too arch, and his official introduction front-loads too much info with too little time to digest it. They'd have been better served with more foreshadowing and a slower reveal, since through Sasuke's memories we only see Itachi as a homicidal psychopath that murders his entire family for no real reason. Meanwhile, Jiraiya continues to be the worst, although that bit where his giant frog summon had a pair of huge swords strapped to its back was pretty keen.

Joseph: Like Danni, I didn’t really find it jarring at all. Both stories are different, but I’ve come to expect those tonal changes. With that said, the introduction to Itachi and the Akatsuki is huge. I really dug the fight between Itachi and Kakashi, even if they could have depicted the hellish world in a cooler and less garish way. Some people would pay good money to be stabbed with swords for 72 hours straight.

Jared: I think with just watching this show so far, it’s not surprising they were able to juxtapose these two stories with each other. For me, what was surprising coming out of this part was just how fast the show gets right back into it after the funeral scene and everything. Pretty much immediately we have a new villain group set up and Itachi making his grand return which they certainly put over big with how he wrecks Kakashi.

David: The juxtaposition between Naruto’s normal antics and Itachi causing chaos by simply existing didn’t feel off in itself. However, it made Sasuke’s concern for Naruto’s safety feel really silly until Itachi finally got to him. Sasuke fearing the worst immediately cuts to Naruto and Jiraiya being silly enough times that I never actually felt like Naruto was in danger, but maybe on some level that was the point.

Carolyn: I guess I kind of saw it as a foreshadowing or “calm before the storm” type thing. Look at these two goons who don’t even know what dangers lie ahead.

Kara: It’s kind of wild, but it’s kind of what I’ve come to expect from Naruto. Over here, people are straight up killing each other with their minds; over there, people are being dweebs. I do think it’s interesting that we’re now getting two completely rounds of back story in very different ways: Sasuke’s very sobering childhood vs. Jiraiya being the one who got tied to the post during training.

Noelle: It’s a bit of mood whiplash, I won’t lie. Mostly because Itachi’s been built up as an extremely ominous character, and cutting that in with joke moments… well, that sure is a choice alright.

And, finally, what were your highs and lows for this stretch of episodes?

Kevin:

High - This week had some great moments (Gamabunta transforming into the Nine-Tailed Fox, Naruto headbutting Gaara, the conclusion of Sarutobi and Orochimaru’s fight), yet somehow still easily the best moment of the week was the near-silent scene of Naruto getting ready for the Hokage’s funeral service.

Low - Itachi murdering the Uchiha clan. I won’t say much for fear of spoilers, I’ll just tell first time watchers that basically everything involving the Uchihas and Sharingan will be fleshed out later with a lot more detail.

Honorable Mention: We are Fighting Dreamers! Da da da, dat-da, da da da. Fighting Dreamers…

Danni: The technically correct answer is the leadup to the Hokage’s funeral, but I have to go with the funniest out of context scene in the entirety of Naruto where Sasuke finds out the man who murdered his entire clan is back in town because some idiot barged in the room shouting about it. Low point is Fighting Dreamers. I miss Asian Kung-fu Generation.

Paul: My high point was the pay-off for all of the mirror imagery in the fight between Naruto and Gaara, culminating in the insert shot of the leaf on top of the sand. I really dug that. My low point was the ham-handed way that they try to promote Itachi as the new top villain. The bit with Orochimaru talking about how scary and bad-ass Itachi is didn't work for me, especially since he'd just lost the use of his arms and his Chakra, so I'd think he'd have other stuff on his mind than how Itachi fills him with diaper-wetting terror.

Joseph: My high was Naruto being an EXTREMELY GOOD BOY in these episodes. For the low, there wasn’t much, but it did stick out to me that Naruto counts Sasuke among the people who have befriended him and whisked him away from the type of path Gaara went down. Did Sasuke ever really accept Naruto for who he is? I guess to a certain degree he tolerated him, but I don't know that I'd lump in with all the positive influences in his life.

Jared: I think my high point that’s outside of what happens at the funeral, is the end of Naruto/Gaara when they face off in-between the big blade in the ground and there are two shots that you see their faces meet in the middle which I absolutely loved. Low point, which isn’t really low, was the poor dude who barged in yelling HEY Y'ALL DID YOU HEAR ITACHI IS BACK and somehow didn’t see Sasuke standing there. Buddy, you’ve got to read the room.

David: High point for me was Jiraiya’s memories of training with Orochimaru and Tsunade. I’m a sucker for cyclical storytelling like that. Low point was Jiraiya’s usual antics. Guess it evens out in the end?

Carolyn: My favorite moment was actually Big Daddy Toad’s reaction to learning Naruto helped out Baby Toad. Low point, yeah, I guess just Jiraiya again.

Kara: High point is literally any flashback to younger Third Hokage (except for the line about him sneaking around being invisible with Jiraiya, eesh) because I’m enjoying learning more about him. Close second was Exposition-maru coming in and telling Sasuke everything.

Low point was the show not letting my enjoy Jiraiya by reminding me he actually is the perv Naruto claims he is.

Noelle: High point, the Naruto-Gaara fight and their mirror imagery, I still love that dearly to this day. There’s some genuinely good imagery going on right there! Low point would be, sadly, Itachi’s intro, because it feels kind of clumsy, with them building him up too much. It’s a shame, because Itachi is my favorite character in this whole series, but his intro isn’t that strong.

COUNTERS:

"I'm gonna be Hokage!" count: 3 (26 total) Bowls of ramen consumed: 3 bowls (33 bowls, 3 cups total) Shadow Clones created: 23 + 1 uncountable scene (297 total)

  And that's it for this week! You are welcome to join us for this rewatch, anytime, especially if you haven't already watched the original Naruto!

  Here's our upcoming schedule:

-Next week, on APRIL 12th NOELLE OGAWA will take a turn at the wheel for EPISODES 85-91.

-On APRIL 19th NICOLE MEJIAS will walk us through the legendary Sannin battle in EPISODES 92-98.

-April 26th will see DAVID LYNN guiding us through the Land of Waves arc in episodes 99-105.

  Thank you for joining us for the Great Crunchyroll Naruto Rewatch! Have a great weekend, and we'll see you all next time!

  Have a question for next week's batch of Episodes 85-92 Drop it in the comments and you might find your answer in next week's installment!

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