#route 85
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I wish the best of luck for Bill Tretiak on his retirement. He was the greatest bus driver of all time. I will miss seeing him drive the 85 every weekday.
Forty-seven years of driving bus is quite a long time and Dialga was hoping to be part of my birthday or his birthday, but sadly neither had you involved with our birthdays. You were the last Winnipeg Transit driver to be from the 1970s and the last serving driver to attend Jakov Obic's funeral back in 2003. I guess with you now retired, I have to draw stuff for Rick aka Mr. Invisible. He knows Jakov too, but doesn’t know his other siblings besides Ivan.
Thanks again for being the GBDOAT (Great Bus Driver of All Time), Bill. Happy retirement. Dialga will miss you dearly. But hey, he made it to 92. Now let’s hope he can make it to 93 next year.
#winnipegtransit#buses#city of winnipeg#winnipeg#pokemon#primal dialga#dialga’s fight to the finish#dialga#85 henderson#kildonan place#north kildonan#route 85#temporal tower#plushies#bill tretiak
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Twin Runes Epi 84 - 84.1 - 85 [ Deltarune/Undertale Comic Dub ]
Comic By: @akanemnon
#youtube#comic#deltarune#deltarunecomicdub#voice acting#voiceactress#comic dub#dubbed deltarune comic#paramasquerade#hope you enjoy#twin runes#Comic By Akanemon#Akanemon#frisk and chara#Twin Runes#Susie#Ralsei#kris dreemurr#susie deltarune#Frisk#Episode 84 & 85#deltarune comic#Epi 84 & 85#welcome to the underground#undertale#kris and frisk#genocide route#talking about it#mini comic#Flirting
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IM FREEEEEE
#(FROM PROJECTS)#personal#the engineering chronicles#WILL HOPEFULLY NEVER NEED TO SLEEP THREE NIGHTS ON THE FLOOR OF THE ENGINEERING BUILDING AGAIN!!!#one class the final project was to build a karaoke machine which my partner and i had planned on making look like actual speakers and#microphone but we couldn’t find the stuff in time and her mom made a joke abt singing into hairbrushes and we decided to take that and#run lol we used a pink sparkly makeup box to store our circuit and cut out holes for the speakers and decorated it with makeup and put the#hairbrush mics inside and it was very fun actually and our class voted us as one of the groups to go to project day which was pretty cool!!#project day did get canceled bc of. asnow day which was unfortunate especially considering we stayed up until 4am the night before#preparing our documents for it and trying to perfect the karaoke machine when we could have been putting that time toward project number#2 😐 but whatever we still get our extra credit and i can say i qualified for it so im happy enough#then project 2 was for another class but we’re lab partners in both (+ another guy for this project) and it was digital monster pet so we#made a dragon i was mostly on design so i hand CADed the whole thing which was living hell if i never want to lay eyes on solidworks#again but also he came out very cute after MUCH hasle putting him together with all the wires and components bc our wires from the kit are#so bad they’re constantly getting disconnected from each other which we didn’t know would happen bc the labs we usually do we don’t have to#connect them together like that since you’re not routing them thru bodies etc and they’ve worked great until now but anywya.#i did the lcd faces and the light sensor and a couple other things + a lot of the code was copy and paste from past labs and fitting it to#suit the project but for the most part it was a shit ton of hardware on my end while she and the other guy managed the rest of the code#which i really wish i could have been more involved with but oh well. as it is though he’s my baby i birthed him <3 we’re planning on#meeting up over weekends next semester to change some stuff and add other extra features that we missed we got a decent grade 85% but we#all agreed we don’t want to leave him like this we want to add the extra features we had come up with and also i think we should switch out#our motors for servos bc the motors we were required to use#instead suck they’re not strong at all compared to what a servo can do for you. also we want to make it so you can not only pet him which w#already have with light sensors but also wash him with a Hall effect sensor and magnet so like we’d stick the sensor inside and the magnet#inside a little cad brush or sponge is what im envisioning and i have an expression in mind for what we’d do then. also paint him and#redesign the platform he stands on bc it’s rlly cramped and also make a pcb bc we only have him with the microcontroller and breadboards rn#and i might mess with his face piece a bit too im not sure. oh and speakers!!! those were technically a requirement but we didn’t get them#done on time but i want to make him play music sooooo bad so definitely that. anyway want to be more involved in the software when we do#all this. pretty excited actually :]
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I'VE DONE IT!
I AM A MIRACLE WORKER! I HAVE HIM/IT!
#I can now call myself a true Liam enjoyer now that I have his route plushie#also finishing all these chapters for it lined up very nicely with the collection event and lucky time#it's only been 3.5 hours into the event and I already sent 106 hearts#I am currently ranking at 85 which feels surreal#probably won't stay that way#but almost makes me hope I can actually manage to get Elbert's card#but anyway I HAVE THE BIG PLUSHIE MWAHAHAHAHA#ikevil#ikemen villains#liam evans#ikevil liam
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It's probably been mentioned before somewhere by someone, but I feel like you get more out of the Bobby route if they're an ex or ex-friend
Idk it's just that any previous history you may have had with them adds more stuff to the interactions, and as much as I adore Douglas (he is my son, you can pry him from my cold dead hands), imo I feel like I'm missing out on the sweet drama Bobby brings if the Detective has history with them but chooses the Douglas route
---- Signed someone who did this exact thing and is thinking of replaying just to do the Bobby route
#the wayhaven chronicles#wayhaven chronicles#wayhaven bobby#editing tags to add#im 85% convinced the bobby route was the originally intended canon#cause imo it feels likes theres more stuff to them vs the douglas route#especially in book 2
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ChenFengggg 😭😭😭
#This scene is absolutely brutal#ahhh i love him#he's possessed like 85% of his route but this scene is just ooof my heart#he returned to his senses when AhYu was in danger just so that he could save her ❤️#he truly is loyal to the bone#my screencaps#my vow to my liege#spoilers#siva plays mvtml
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Who could have guessed that not many people are trying to catch the bus at midnight on a Monday
#Skipping like 85% of the stops#It's kind of nice. Would probably be more enjoyable if it was a route I don't know this well#Yve's Thoughts.
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do you think the pokemon world does horoscopes based on what type you like/specialise in
#or like the type of your first partner pkmn or smth#i wonder what the stats are. bc surely like 85% of ppl will first get a normal or a bug#like in universe yk. since theres so many pre-journey age kids with caterpies and shit on route 1s
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i finished… 1 route of smt iv
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⋆˙⟡ Lads K-pop boy band HCs ⋆˙⟡
I couldn’t stop thinking about Lads boys in their K-pop ERA after seeing their chibi performance so here it is. I’m brain-rotting I need to get this out I'm sorry if it’s too silly 🧍🏻♂️
── .✦ Xavier
Position: Oldest hyung/ Main visual/ lead vocals
He will be the first member to get introduced
The internet WENT CRAZY after that
Has a nickname “Nation’s first love”
Everyone assumed he’s the maknae because of his baby face and cute image. He always looks so cute without trying.
Is actually the oldest
Usually has really calm personality. Doesn’t talk much but becomes the most chaotic duo when paired with Rafayel.
Zayne has to keep his eyes out for these two every time they are near each other.
Master of ‘aegyo’ can do the cringiest aegyo with absolutely no shame.
In terms of skills, he got a very soft- mellow singing voice. I think he will be the type to do well at what he was told to do. Can sing pretty high note. His dancing is also really good. He usually slays if he had enough practice. But can’t really do free style.
Mostly just being chill on stages. He doesn’t really give it his 100% if it’s not his part. Sometimes he will slack off a little bit when he’s in the back (Caleb is NOT happy about it)
Lowkey a musical genius, Got credits in 85% of the songs.
I think this is where his passion lies. He composes most of the songs for the group.
Xavier is the composer& producer while Rafayel& Sylus will be in charge of the lyrics.
The first one to go on collaboration.
Like one day some big name solo singer will release a song and it’s - Prod. Xavier ???? 😭
And that song will blow-up bc it’s catchy as hell?? 😭😭
Everyone were confused
All the members were confused
Also lowkey a social butterfly.
Has the most friends outside the group and also senior friends in the industry.
One time the group were on variety show with the most famous host and he was like “Yo Xavier, did you eat the pears my mom gave to you yet?” and all the members were like “Huh??”
Apparently he and Xavier went out for a drink 3 days ago??
“But you told me you were busy when I ask you to go drink with me that day?” – probably Sylus lol 💀
I think he will go on the production route after the group disbanded. Will become the most respectable producer in the industry and keep a low-profile. He will produces hits after hits for other singers.
── .✦ Zayne
Position: Leader/ Sub-Vocals / Lead Dancer
I think everyone can agreed that he will be the perfect leader of the group
Gives off Dad energy in the group despite being the middle child.
Got Street-casting due to his handsomeness. The staff had to run after him and insists he comes to audition the next day.
Went a bit viral in his trainee days while he’s outside the building. He secretly got photographed and everybody were wonder who’s this super handsome boy was.
So he already has fans even before debut.
I think he will have a pretty low-baritone voice when singing. His singing skills are decent but doesn’t really stand out when first debut. But he will improves significantly later down the line and takes Xavier’s lead vocal spot.
His dance moves are really sharp and clean but sometimes can be a little bit stiff. Doesn’t do much facial expression during performance.
He made it up with his INSANE face card tho
The Unofficial visual. His face card and auras always served.
I HC that him and Caleb will spend their time practice choreographs together a lot and became really close.
Taking good care of everyone, He’s the main cook in the dorm.
Manager’s favorite boy, Also all the staffs love him
The only member who can wakes Xavier up and get him out of bed on time (Xavier is terrified of him but will never admit it)
Has a soft spot for Rafayel. Constantly checking after him and make sure that man doesn’t injured himself doing something silly during promotions
Him and Rafayel ended up having the biggest shippers in the fandom
Half of the female idols have a crush on him.
The first one who got into acting career. He got the male-lead role in a classic romance drama plot and absolutely ATE. Became a new star phenomenon.
Constantly winning ‘The actor you wanted to introduce to your parent on this holiday’ poll
Has perfect chemistry with every co-stars he works with. The video clips about how he treats his female lead like a gentlemen always went viral.
Will have a successful acting career after the group disbanded.
── .✦ Rafayel
Position: Maknae / Main Vocals / lead dancer / Center / Ace of the group
I HC him to be that all- rounder member who can do everything and slayed it all.
A golden maknae. Naturally talented in everything he puts his mind to, Fast learner, only takes him 1-2 times to remember choreographs or lyrics. (kinda like JJK from BTS)
Really passionate member but get bored easily. He will learn new talent skill in every comeback and moves to the new one.
Extremely charming and charismatic while performing. No matter who your bias is, your eyes will always drip to him on stages
Has THE MOST angelic voice. Singing is like breathing for him. Can sing a really, really, really high note.
His voice is also really unique, you can recognize his voice immediately in every songs he’s in.
His dancing skills are excellent too, his movements are really elegant and fluid. Can do free style no problem but sometimes he will unintentionally tweaks the movement and became out of sync with the rest of the team
REFUSED to call Caleb ‘Hyung’
Always insist that Caleb is also the maknae too lol
These two are always bickering or play fighting in the background in every behind the scene videos
HATES doing aegyo but it’s his duty for the Maknae. Easily get embarrassed by it but always trying his best (All the fans think he’s very good at it)
He got the most Anti fans in the group
Like this man will get hate comments in every corners of the internet?
He’s not bothered by it in the slightest tho
And due to that reason he also got the most overprotective& loyal fan base
Most likely be the first member to have a solo career
Everyone thought he will comes out with dance- poppy album but he releases a full on slow-indie sounds???
Surprisingly the album is so chill and easy to listen to plus his insane vocals the album ended up topping no.1 on several charts
I think he will continued his solo career after disbanded and appears as a mentor/ judge in several survival shows.
He will becomes a really good mentor, although he can be a bit scary and cut- throat in his comment sometimes.
── .✦ Sylus
Position: Main Rapper
The second oldest after Xavier, but everyone thought he’s the oldest at first
Kinda broke the internet when he get introduced too.
Has that uncle energy in the group. Always in the background supporting the maknae-line when they’re about to get into trouble.
Has the most male fans
Also has the most Solo stans
Doesn’t do much in the performance. Both his singing and dancing skills are below other members but ALWAYS serves face.
Also HIS VOICE.
Has the opening line in the song when he would say some words and everyone will be like ‘oh my god’ (it’s kinda like that felix guy from Straykids)
70% of his rapping skills came from his voice. He does improves a lot overtime tho
Start writing his own verses in the song due to Xavier encouragement and developed a song-writing talent.
Opposite from Zayne, Half of the male idols have a crush on him.
Surprisingly really good at variety shows.
Every time the group were on red carpet event. He will be in the headline on every reports the next day bc of his insane face card.
Win that “most handsome man in the world” poll every years
Him and Rafayel are the English speakers of the group when promote overseas
Has the BIGGEST international fan base. Goes viral every time the group went overseas
He will dip his toes into acting career a little. Mostly playing the 2nd male-lead or the villain.
One time he play the villain in this movie, they went on promotional activities and everybody is shipping the female- lead with him instead of the male lead?? 💀
He just has this chemistry & sexual tension with everything including the wall pls 👏🏻
The first member who got a brand-deal with this big fashion house, also ended up walking the runway (I’m thinking Prada)
Randomly dropped his solo mixed-tape one day and the fandom went WILD
I think his mix-tape will not be as commercially successful as other members bc it’s not the easiest to listen to, but it will later became a cult classic and got critically acclaimed.
── .✦ Caleb
Position: Main Dancer/ Sub vocals
I HC that this man is born to be a dancer
Probably learned how to dance since like 4
Staged kid. Perform on stage since he can remembered.
Got discovered by the casting staff when he performs at some random festival.
Has the least lines first debut but always got the solo break dance or center part in the performance
Joined the group really young, probably at the same time as Rafayel
He was the smallest in the group at the time up until like 15
Then on one summer when he turns 16 he went from 5’7 to like 6 fts ??? 😭
Rafayel is pissed
He continued to grow and became the tallest member … yeah, the giant maknae
Doesn’t really has much fans like other members when first debut.
But on the 2nd comeback, he has a bit of glow-up and the concept fits him SO WELL. Everybody agreed he owned that era. they gains a lot of new fans from that comeback bc of him.
Has A LOT of Noo-na fans
He used to follow Zayne around everywhere when he was younger. So Zayne still sees him as that lil brother despite him being so big now.
Became insufferable when playing games especially when paired with Rafayel, These 2 get competitive af.
Get along well with every members but prefer to hang around either Zayne or Xavier the most.
Pretty awkward with Sylus at first, but they became gym buddies as times went on
Easy- going boy most of the time but became really scary when practicing. He will catches even the most subtle slacking from the members through the wall mirror.
Will got quiet and silently staring at that member with the most cold-heart eyes.
I think he will developed a passion for teaching and coaching, probably open his own dance studio and work behind the scenes like Xavier after disbanded
That’s all I have babygirls 🫦 . Please give me your own Headcanons if you have any 🙏 waiting for somebody to brain rot together!! 👀
#love and deepspace#rafayel#lads#lads rafayel#love and deepspace rafayel#rafayel love and deepspace#lads headcanons#love and deepspace headcanons#xavier headcanons#zayne#xavier#lads xavier#lads zayne#zayne headcanons#love and deepspace xavier#love and deep space zayne#Sylus#love and deepspace sylus#sylus headcanons#lads sylus#caleb#lads caleb#love and deepspace caleb#caleb headcanons#Duckling: Post
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Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 11: The Innocent Can Never Last]
A/N: Below are your guesses…let’s see how you did!!! 🥰😘 Only 2 chapters left ����
Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍
Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes.
Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.
Chapter title is a lyric from: “Wake Me Up When September Ends” by Green Day.
Word count: 5.3k
💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜
Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰
“You could have gone to California with them,” Rio says as he flips open the fuel cap of a black Nissan Frontier, parked in the driveway of a two-story brick house on National Avenue, not far from where Route 95 branches north of Winnemucca like an artery from a heart.
You squint up at the cumulus clouds to avoid meeting his eyes. You keep thinking you’re going to cry and have to suffocate it, drown it, slit its throat. “I didn’t want to.”
“Sure you didn’t.” Sweat runs in rivulets down his face as he slides in the semitransparent siphoning hose, the one with the little pump on it that Jace had when you found him in Iowa. Aemond gave this to Cregan; he kept the hose without the pump for himself. A small, curious sacrifice. You are fanning Rio with a magazine, Bow International. You had grabbed it thinking of Daeron, then remembered he wasn’t here to give it to. “Jesus Christ, it’s so fucking hot…”
“Djibouti was hotter.”
“Djibouti had a beach. And an air conditioning unit in every window.”
Cregan is waiting by the Tahoe and leafing through a guidebook he found at the Maverik gas station. Ice is lying on the ground and panting beside him, her shaggy grey coat filthy with dust and sand. “The town was named for Chief Winnemucca, who was born in the 1820s in what would later become the Oregon Territory. It either means ‘the giver of spiritual gifts’ or ‘one moccasin,’ depending on the interpretation.”
Rio says: “Damn Cregan, you can read?”
Cregan frowns down at the guidebook with feigned regret. “I really wish Trump had built that wall.”
Rio guffaws. “Cregan, man, I told you. I was born here!”
He continues: “Winnemucca was a stop on the transcontinental railroad.”
“Great. Let’s get that up and running again.” Rio groans as he squeezes the pump on the siphoning hose with increasing frustration. “Absolutely nothing. Not a drop.”
“We probably have enough to get to Denio Junction,” you say gingerly, knowing he’s suffering. It has to be over 100 degrees.
“Yeah, and what if there’s no gas there? How the hell are we going to get to Adel, Oregon?”
“We could walk if we have to.”
“85 miles? In heat like this?”
“In basic training we had to run—”
“We had water in basic training, Chips!” he snaps; and Rio never snaps. “And real food, and corpsmen for if we passed out, and also there were no fucking zombies running around eating people, remember that part?!”
You stare down at the dirt. You can’t cry; you can’t waste the liquid.
“Wait, no, no, no, I’m sorry.” Rio lifts your chin so you aren’t able to hide from him. “I’m…you know…I should already be there. I could be in Odessa in six hours, I could be with Sophie and the baby before sundown, and instead we’re stuck here in the desert and I’m thinking…what if what should take hours ends up taking weeks? What if when I get there, I’m too late?”
You nod, you understand. Out on the road, Cregan keeps his face buried in his guidebook, trying to be polite and pretend he can’t hear you.
“And, I’m also thinking…” Rio says, soft and low. “That I don’t want to be the reason why you miss out on a chance at happiness when the world could literally be ending.”
You gaze up at him, dejected, pathetic. “I can’t handle any virgin jokes right now.”
“I know. I wasn’t going to make one.”
“I didn’t want to go with them to California,” you lie. And then a truth: “And I would never leave you. I promised.”
Rio smiles. “You promised not to let me die alone, and I don’t plan on dying. You’ve gotten me most of the way already.” He glances towards the Tahoe. “I think Axe Boy would have rather stayed with them too. When he was asleep last night I heard him mumbling something about Helaena.”
Cregan? Helaena? Interesting. “Aemond doesn’t want me.”
“Oh, come on. You know he and his one eye are sobbing into a can of SpaghettiOs right now.”
“Be nice,” you murmur morosely.
“Why? He can’t hear me,” Rio says. “Look, Aemond’s fucked up. And of course he is. He went from learning how to save lives and deliver babies to watching his friends die horrible, preventable, completely meaningless deaths. That’s gotta suck. It sucked for me, and I barely even knew them, and no one expected me to be able to do anything about it. Aemond’s the one people trusted to protect them, and he couldn’t. So why would he be able to protect you?”
I never wanted Aemond to protect me. I just wanted him to take me away from here, even for a minute, even for seconds, one hushed stolen moment at a time. “I wish I had said something different back in Battle Mountain.” I wish I had told him I love him. But I didn’t, and now it’s too late.
“You deserve to have the whole wholesome normal family thing, the husband and the kids and the warm fuzzy holiday traditions. I know you’ve always wanted that.”
“If I choose the wrong person, I’m going to end up alone and miserable. And I’ll turn into a monster like my mother.”
“Hey,” Rio says, like he’s ready to fight you. And then he uses your real name, something he’s done maybe five times since you met him, just like you almost never call him Bryan. “You will never be like your mother. Okay? It’s not possible. You don’t have it in you. You’re not a parasite, you’re not mean.”
You want to believe him. “Okay.”
Then Rio chuckles. “Actually, you’re going to end up like my mom. Living in the middle of the woods, making your own soap out of goat milk, growing weed and knitting sweaters.”
You smile wistfully. “I have no idea how to knit. I want to build things.” Then you remember something from when you were fishing on Lake McConaughy in Nebraska. “Aegon said I look like someone who knits. Whatever that means.”
“It means you’re from Kentucky.” Then Rio asks, tentative: “So…what do you think about Aegon?”
This seems random. “He’s cool. I like him, obviously. He’s, um…I don’t know how to describe it. He’s so sad but so warm. It’s impossible to feel nervous around him, which is nice.”
Rio nods, giving you a teasing smirk. “Alright then.”
“Why?”
“Well I was just thinking that if he grows up a little more, he might be good for you.”
“Rio, he’s thirty.”
He bursts out laughing. “So give it another decade and he’ll finally be baby daddy material.”
“I’m sure he’ll be preoccupied with his drug dealing and brothel empire by then.”
“You aren’t even the tiniest bit intrigued?”
“I’ve never really thought about him that way.” And there’s another dimension to it that wouldn’t occur to Rio: Aegon is an addict. You know what it’s like to have to depend on somebody like that. You would never allow yourself to fall in love with him, not the way he is now.
Rio sighs and pivots. “You want me to give you a baby?”
Now you’re giggling. Of course, he’s not serious, just like he wasn’t serious when you were trapped on that transmission tower together back in Pennsylvania. “Stop.”
“I’m super tall and charming, and I was a great electrician back when electricity existed, and I have luscious curly hair that you can readily observe since the U.S. Navy isn’t around to make me shave it off anymore.”
“Sorry, I don’t reproduce with Enrique Iglesias fans.”
“You are so racist, and yet I’d still be willing to help you out with a sperm donation. I’d blindfold myself and struggle through it somehow.” He’s grinning, but his dark eyes are kind. “As long as I’m alive, you will always have a family. And Sophie gets that. Her parents were fuckups too. That’s why she’s so close with mine even though they’re insane.”
“They’re exactly the right kind of insane for the way the world is now.”
“Remember when my dad went through his ‘wifi gives you cancer’ phase and would only communicate with me via Republican-president-themed postcards?”
“The Ronald Reagan one was neat. So many eagles.”
“Truly an excessive amount of eagles.” Rio goes for the porch. “I guess we’ll scrounge whatever we can inside and check the rest of the cars on the street before we head north.”
“I ain’t seen any others without the fuel cap already open,” Cregan says from the Tahoe, dispirited but trying not to show it.
“If we end up having to walk, we’re going to need water or Hawaiian Punch or something. A lot of it. Maybe we can find some of that Pedialyte stuff Aemond got for Jace when he was sick.” Rio pounds one closed fist against the front door. “Hey! Anybody home? We’re looking for supplies. Not trying to cause any problems. If somebody’s in there, just give a shout and we’d be happy to keep moving.”
You’ve followed Rio up onto the porch. “If there’s no water inside, canned fruit will work. You can drink the syrup for hydration, and all the sugar gives you calories.”
Back by the Tahoe, Cregan is leaning down to pet Ice. She’s still panting hard, foamy saliva dripping from her muzzle. “Y’all, we gotta get moving,” Cregan says. “Princess needs to be back in the truck with the AC, and I don’t want to waste gas by letting it idle.”
“Yeah, yeah, we’re working on it.” Rio kicks the door once, hard enough that you hear the wood split near the hinges, dry and cracking. He backs up to prepare to give the door another blow, which is all it will take. Then there is a muffled voice from inside the house.
“Get the hell off my property!”
Immediately, you are stunned by the boom of an explosion, shards of wood flying like shrapnel, the steel barrel of a shotgun jutting from the fresh hole in the center of the door. Rio is scrambling off the porch and dragging you with him. With your free hand, you grab your M9 from its holster and begin shooting before the man inside can fire again, before he can kill Rio or Cregan or you. Your bullets pierce through the blackness of the gaping wound in the front door. You hear shrieks of agony; you see flecks of blood painting the wood. Now there are people shooting from the second-story windows, and you feel the wind of bullets clip by as Rio pulls you towards the Tahoe. The engine starts; Cregan is already in the driver’s seat. You return fire until your M9 makes only small, hollow clicks when you pull the trigger. And by then Rio is shoving you into the truck.
“Go, go, go!” Rio yells at Cregan the second he crawls in behind you and slams the door shut. Cregan swerves away from the curb and barrels down the street, tires squealing, gunshots still ringing out from the house. Ice is barking franticly.
“Rio, I’m out,” you say, terrified.
“What?”
“Bullets. I’m out of bullets.”
“We gotta go,” Rio concedes. There are scratches on his cheeks from splinters of wood, sweat turning from clear to blood-tinged pink as it drips down onto his shirt. “We gotta get out of Winnemucca. If we have to walk, we’ll walk. At least there’s no one north of here to worry about for a hundred miles. Not living and not dead either.”
From the backseat, you glance over at Cregan. “Oh my God, Cregan, you’re hurt.”
“I know.” His right forearm is covered in blood. It’s a graze wound, but deep; when he turns the steering wheel, you can glimpse the white of bone as his shredded muscles open like a mouth.
“You need stitches!”
“Oh yeah?” Cregan replies as the Tahoe bumps over corpses in the street, bodies mummified by the wind and the sun. “And which of you two would be better at that, you think?”
“We’ll get supplies to patch you up,” Rio says, peering out the window, searching for someplace to stop. “And enough food and water to last us through the desert. Right there, hop on Route 95, and we’ll find a store at the edge of town before we’re in No Man’s Land.” Cregan jerks the wheel; the Tahoe veers onto Route 95 heading north. Boarded-up houses and graffitied overpasses and gnarled bristlecone pine trees and lifeless traffic lights and looted storefronts pass by in a blur.
You turn to Rio. “What if those people try to follow us?”
“It’ll only take five minutes.”
“Rio…”
“We don’t have enough to drink. If we get stranded in the desert, we’ll die. I’m not dying out there. I didn’t cross 3,000 miles to drop dead just a few hundred away from Sophie.”
He’s right. There’s no other option. North of Winnemucca is a wasteland, a boneyard. “Okay,” you surrender, helping him look for stores. “But we have to be quick.”
“I can be real quick, baby. You’d know that if you took me up on my very selfless sperm donation offer.”
Cregan raises his eyebrows; you can see his reflection in the rearview mirror. “Y’all have a mighty strange relationship.”
Rio is pointing. “Right there, Riverside Grocery & Liquor. Let’s give that a try. Cregan? You see it? By the Taco Bell.”
“Of course you’d be attracted to Taco Bells,” Cregan says as the Tahoe zigzags across the parking lot, but his voice is woozy. Blood pours from the gash in his arm. What if the bullet severed a major artery? What if he’s bleeding to death?
You ask: “Cregan, do you feel okay?”
“I’m alright. Don’t you worry about me, Miss Chips. You got enough worries already.”
“You don’t look alright.”
His eyes meet yours in the rearview mirror; they are fearful. “I think I need to get pressure on it.”
“We’ll take care of you, buddy,” Rio says. And as soon as Cregan shifts the Tahoe into park, Rio is out the door and striding into the small grocery store, his Remington 12 gauge in his hands. It’s unloaded, but still good for blunt force trauma. The glass of one of the front doors has been shattered. Rio steps inside, his boots crunching on broken glass. You are right behind him; Cregan lifts Ice with his uninjured arm so she can get inside without cutting her paws.
Harsh desert sunlight streams in bright enough that you can see reasonably well, dusk or dawn instead of midday. The air tastes like dirt and decay. The shelves of alcohol have been picked clean, but cans and bottles and cardboard boxes have been left strewn haphazardly around the rest of the store. There are several circular racks of souvenir t-shirts: horses, mountains, pine trees, I was a buckaroo on the Cowboy Corridor, #DesertLife, Straight Outta Winnemucca. You yank a white shirt with a rattlesnake on it off its hanger and tie it tightly around Cregan’s bleeding forearm, closing the ragged ends of his wound.
Ice is whining and nudging at Cregan. “There’s one in here,” he warns.
“Yeah, I got it,” Rio says. She staggers out of the stockroom hissing and growling, the flesh on her face almost completely gone, her exposed skull stained with clotted blood, her teeth chattering. Long strands of blonde hair hang in patches from the back of her head. She is wearing a red vest with a nametag on it. Once upon a time, her parents called her Jasmine. Rio strikes the zombie with his Remington so hard it is decapitated, and the corpse crumples to the filthy tile floor as its head rolls over towards the cash register. Then he slings the shotgun over one of his shoulders and begins shopping.
Cregan is tall enough to see the tops of shelves where items have been missed; he pulls down bottles of Snapple, Gatorade, Yoohoo, Jarritos soda and stuffs them into his backpack. You are on your hands and knees sorting through the debris on the floor, everything coated with a layer of dust and sand. You find cans of mandarin oranges, boxes of graham crackers, tuna pouches, and packets of Tylenol. Cregan will need them. He needs more than that, but you can’t give it to him. You’ve never been to medical school. You grab more souvenir shirts to use as bandages later.
Maybe there are doctors in Odessa.
Rio says excitedly from the other side of the store: “Chips, they got Cheddar Whales!”
Maybe there’s a life worth living in Odessa.
“Just hurry up so we can go.”
“Yeah, yeah…” He’s filling his arms with boxes and bottles, making a lot of noise. Ice is pacing and whimpering, panting like she can hardly breathe, drooling gluey strings of saliva. The grocery store is an oven. Cregan pops open a can of Arizona iced tea and pours it into her mouth to be gulped greedily down. Still, Ice’s yellow wolfish eyes dart around the room, vigilant, rattled.
“I think there’s another zombie,” you say, watching her. You reach for your M9 before remembering it’s unloaded.
Cregan replies: “Sure she ain’t just overheated?”
Somewhere close, less than a mile away: gunshots out on the streets of Winnemucca.
“Ready, kids?” Rio says, his arms overflowing, half a Slim Jim hanging out of his mouth like a cigarette.
“Yes sir,” Cregan agrees. The t-shirt you knotted around his forearm is splotched with crimson, but the bleeding appears to have slowed. Fragments of glass shatter as he crosses through the doorway and out into the parking lot, carrying Ice as she struggles and barks.
Rio pauses as he passes one of the other t-shirt racks, circles of metal that gleam like halos. He’s rearranging his supplies so he has a free hand to grab a shirt he likes. There are more distant gunshots outside, and the squealing of tires. In the parking lot, Cregan is starting the Tahoe.
You say distractedly, noticing an empty Twizzlers wrapper on the floor and thinking of Jace: “Rio, let’s go.”
“Hold up, this one has an elephant on it—”
The hand juts out from below the rack and seizes his ankle, claws up his legs, rips and tears at him, grey flayed flesh and screeches from rotting vocal chords, something that used to be a man or a woman and is now only a monster, half a body, nothing from the waist down but shred of black necrotic muscle, skin, intestines, too close for Rio to push away, already clinging to him like graffiti on concrete, like a pair of stainless steel dog tags hanging from his neck. Without thinking, without hesitating, you are across the store and trying to get it off him, screaming as your fingers rake through disintegrating gore, so deep you can feel the zombie’s ribs like rungs of a ladder, trying to get a grip on it, trying to kill it. Now Cregan is back with his axe and he’s hacking at the skull as best he can without hitting Rio, and Ice is barking, and Cregan is yelling for you to get away before you’re bitten, but you don’t listen, you don’t care; all your life you were homesick until you found homes with Rio thousands of miles from where you were born, and if he’s gone then so is the only place you’ve ever belonged. There is a surge of blood, hot and metallic, rot and iron in the air, and you don’t know whose it is.
He can’t be gone. If he’s gone, who am I?
An arm hooks around your waist and drags you backwards, so roughly you lose your breath for a moment and cannot fight them; over your right shoulder, you see a hand holding a Glock. Aemond pulls the trigger and the zombie falls to the floor, a mangle of decomposition and exposed bones, because wherever the others ended up they found bullets and gasoline…and then they came back for you.
Aegon is stumbling over the rubble that litters the floor to get to Rio. You can hear Daeron and Rhaena’s voices out in the parking lot, and the blasts of Rhaena’s Ruger, the revolver she once didn’t know how to use. Cregan is trying to help Rio up, but he can’t stand. He is slumped against bare shelves and holding a hand to his throat, where he’s hemorrhaging from a gaping, ragged wound, torn arteries and lacerated veins. He’s been bitten, but his transformation won’t take long. He’s bleeding out. His dark eyes are on you, and beneath the glassy sheen of catastrophic blood loss is disbelief and fury and grief. He will never see Sophie again; he will never meet his child.
Your voice is a whisper, a phantom. “Bryan…”
“It only takes once, right?” he says, weak and guttural, already fading, blood on his lips. Then his eyes drift to Aemond. “Get her out of here.”
“No!” you shriek as Aemond pulls you towards the door, his arms locked around your waist, his lips to your ear as he begs you to come with him, that you have to leave, that it’s not safe here, that Rio doesn’t want you to see what has to happen next. Aegon is sobbing as he touches Rio’s face. Cregan bows his head; but he’s already looking at the Marlin .22 that hangs by its leather strap from Aegon’s shoulder. “No, I promised, I promised! I promised I wouldn’t let him die alone!”
“He’s not alone,” Aemond tells you, and he doesn’t let go when you struggle, when you scream. Burning sunlight floods over you, and you are in the parking lot. Rhaena and Daeron are shooting down zombies as they lurch towards the grocery store, drawn by the commotion, the symphony of the dead and dying. Luke is using a siphoning hose to fill the Tahoe’s tank with the remaining fuel in the Ford Expedition. Helaena is moving their supplies into the Tahoe, weeping softly to herself, her long ghost-pale hair flowing in the desert wind.
The racks, you think, you remember. You can see Helaena shining the flashlight into your eyes like you’re back on a living room floor in Iowa. I forgot to remind Rio to check under the racks. And now he’s gone.
You’re screaming that it’s your fault as Aemond forces you into the Tahoe, and you don’t care what anyone says to you: Luke trying to tell you that’s not true, Rhaena swearing that you’re safe now. There is a gunshot from inside the grocery store. Your heart and lungs have turned to iron like the anchor of a ship, cold and still and heavy, unmovable, unbearable. You cannot breathe through your sobs; you cannot see, cannot speak. You curl up on a seat and wish you were dead. All your life you have been compelled by a blind belief that there are better places even if you cannot imagine them, that sometimes when it feels like the world is ending the only way out is through. For the very first time, you want to give up. You want to let all the poisons of this earth seep into your bloodstream until they stop your pulse and everything goes quiet, quiet, quiet.
Aemond is pouring bottles of water over you so he can wash away the blood and sand and gore. He is searching your skin for bitemarks. People are climbing into the Tahoe and a key turns in the ignition. The wheels are spinning; shadows fall over your face through the windows as you sail beneath overpasses. You hear voices but not words. You feel Aemond’s hands on you and do not flinch away.
Someone is putting pills in your mouth and telling you to swallow. “What is it?” you ask.
“Tramadol,” Aegon says. “It will take you somewhere else.”
And it does, this poison he doesn’t know you are starving for; it erases the future and the past until you don’t exist, you never have, and this is a relief.
~~~~~~~~~~
Glimpses through fogged vision, disjointed flashes like dreams: Aemond cleaning and suturing Cregan’s arm, Helaena’s fingers threading through Ice’s shaggy grey fur, smoke from smoldering Marlboro Golds billowing from Aegon’s lips and out through an open window, coyotes watching the Tahoe pass from the shoulder of the highway, mountains and barbed wire, clouds and useless power lines, land that turns from flat and vast and vacant to steep hills thick with pine trees, so many they block out the sun.
You are dimly aware that the Tahoe is stopping frequently, long lulls to hunt for gasoline in small towns, one gallon here, three gallons there, discussions over which routes to take as Aegon scrutinizes his map. Aemond is always with you, coaxing you to take sips of Gatorade and nibbles of Ritz crackers, feeding you spoonfuls of chicken noodle soup straight from the can, and each night when you fall into numb unconsciousness in a dead stranger’s bed he sleeps on the floor in case you need him, and eventually you do. You jolt awake from a nightmare, not death but cursed immortality, a bite he missed somehow that turned you into a monster, into a murderer, your raw skin and muscles sloughing off your bones.
“You’re fine, you’re fine, look at your hands,” Aemond says, taking your wrists and holding them gently. “No bites. You’re going to be okay, I promise. Hey, hey…” He cradles your face, he pleads for you to believe him. “I swear to God, you’re going to be okay.”
“It should have been me,” you whisper in the red glow of the candlelight. “I don’t have a family that would miss me if I was gone.”
“Yes you do,” Aemond says fiercely; and it takes your drugged, horrorstruck mind a moment to realize who he means.
The next day the Tahoe runs out of gas, and you know this because Aemond wakes you with a palm resting lightly on your forehead and an apology sighed through your hair. “What’s wrong?” you murmur.
“We have to get out and walk for a while. Can you do that?”
You force yourself to sit up, blinking at him. “Where are we?”
“Kingvale, California. In the Sierra Nevada Mountains.”
“We’re going to the beach house,” you realize.
“Yeah,” Aemond says, smiling a little. “Yeah, we are. We’re going home.”
On Donner Pass Road, following in the centuries-old footsteps of doomed westward migrants, someone always walks with you as you shuffle along in a daze. Aemond tells you about California, Rhaena reads aloud from Mockingjay, Ice licks your knuckles, Aegon talks endlessly about golf and yachting even when you can’t respond. His burned leg is still bandaged, but healing, and he’s found a Converse sneaker a few sizes too big to wear on his left foot; Aemond treats and wraps his wounds each morning and night, and Rhaena observes and takes notes so she can learn how to do it.
One afternoon just north of Beale Air Force Base, Daeron sneaks a Marlboro Gold out of Aegon’s backpack when no one is watching and lights it as he lingers in the back of the group. Aegon smells the smoke immediately and whirls, runs to him, snatches the cigarette from between Daeron’s lips and stomps it into the pavement.
“You’re not going to be like me!” Aegon shouts at him in the middle of the road. “Goddammit, you’re going to be safe, and you’re going to be happy, and you’re going to know that people care about you because I’ll break your fucking arm if I ever see you smoking again. You don’t get to poison yourself. You’re going to live to be a hundred years old. Got it?”
“Got it,” Daeron echoes, startled, petrified; and then Aegon hugs him, hanging on for a very long time.
~~~~~~~~~~
It is midnight in Meridian, a miniscule town founded in the 1850s on the banks of the Sacramento River, a relic from a time when travel meant ferries and railroads and wagon trains. Here, well outside the state capital, there are no sounds except the breeze through the trees—blue oaks, sycamores, willows, white alders—and the hoots of owls. The house is old, built in the 1950s or 60s, creaking steps and a screened-in front porch where Cregan and Daeron are playing Uno while keeping watch. The moon is new and invisible. The stars are bright.
Aemond appears in the doorway of your room. You are on the edge of the bed and staring at the wallpaper, flickering candlelight and scenes of galloping horses. Aemond is not letting you have any more Tramadol. He’s also not letting anyone load your Beretta, although you saw a box of 9mm bullets in Helaena’s burlap messenger bag. Maybe he’s worried you’ll try to shoot yourself. Maybe he’s not too far off.
He closes the door, crosses the room, and sits down on the bed beside you. In the firelit quiet, Aemond says: “I’m so sorry. I don’t know how to help you.”
“I can’t stay here. Take me somewhere else.”
At first, he doesn’t understand what you mean. Then you reach for him—for a life raft, for something to tether you to the earth—and the lines of your palm press against his scar, flesh he stitched back together himself, proof he can heal people, a reminder of how temporary any of you could be. Aemond lays his hand over yours and closes his eye, holding you there against his face, feeling your warmth and your forgiveness, your need to be close to him in a way that is suddenly so uncomplicated. There is no fear left in you. Perhaps there’s nothing left at all.
Aemond kisses you, and there are blooms of golden light through your darkness like what you call lightning bugs and he says are fireflies. You are entangled on the bed together, and all the sounds still ricocheting in your memory—screams, gunshots, bloodlust, hunger, anarchy—fade until they cease to exist. He is touching you, and you can feel lost pieces of yourself returning to you like rain soaking through parched earth, faith and resolve and desire. And now, and now…
Now Aemond is taking you far, far, far away, to bottomless blue water you can drown in, to where Diego Garcia lies marooned in the middle of the Indian Ocean, to the sun-glinting waves off the coasts of Chinhae, Corpus Christi, Key West, the Horn of Africa. He is between your thighs, and you want him through the pain, a razor-sharp fullness that seems so immaterial and so fleeting; and you lie to him over and over again because if he knows he’s hurting you he’ll stop, and in this world one cannot assume there will be second chances. Aemond stills once he’s inside you, giving you time to adjust but also overwhelmed by the intensity of it, his hands in your hair and trembling all over, kissing your face as the pain bleeds away and leaves a shade of craving you’ve never felt before, something deep and indistinct, something intangible like a spell or a myth. You move first, rolling your hips with a slow, cautious rhythm, and only then does Aemond follow you. It’s in his voice, in the reverence of his hands, in his iris like a clear secretless sky; you have taken him far away too.
“I love you,” Aemond says afterwards as his head rests on your belly, your fingers tangled in his damp hair and your skull hushed like calm seas. “And I can’t pretend I don’t anymore.”
“Good. I wouldn’t want you to.”
And in the morning, there is something different about the world: a hopefulness that makes you want to wake up, a radiance like moonlight on the wave crests of the Indian Ocean.
#aemond targaryen x reader#aemond targaryen#aemond x you#aemond targaryen fanfiction#aemond targaryen x you#aemond x y/n#aemond x reader
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“He acknowledges that the interplay of Lennon and McCartney was 'nothing short of miraculous', describing how they 'wrote with two guitars'. 'The joy of that was that I was left-handed and he was right-handed, so I was looking in a mirror and he was looking in a mirror.'”
—Paul McCartney, The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present
“I think Linda put her finger on it when she said me and John were like mirror images of each other.
"Even down to how we started writing together, facing each other, eyeball to eyeball, exactly like looking in the mirror.''”
—Paul McCartney, Uncut Magazine, July 2004 (x)
“John and Paul would sit opposite each other by the fireplace. As Paul was left-handed their guitars went the same way and each could enjoy the mirror effect of watching the other’s fingers shape the chords as if they were his own.
Paul would later call these ‘eyeball to eyeball sessions’ and he’d be treated to something few witnessed: John put his glasses on. Only rarely did they leave his pocket, even though without them he could barely see a thing. Almost in each other’s face, John and Paul quickly gained an unusual closeness, little or nothing hidden. Paul noticed that ‘John had beautiful hands.’”
— Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years, Vol. 1 by Mark Lewisohn (x)
“(…) most of the time we would sit down opposite each other with our two guitars. And because I was left-handed, when I looked at John I would see almost a mirror image of myself, I’d be playing the guitar as it were upside-down, he’d be reading me; upside-down, so we could clearly see what each other was doing, almost what you were doing yourself.”
— Paul McCartney, Many Years From Now - Barry Miles (x)
“The lights in the studio were turned off to set the mood; the sole source of illumination was a table lamp next to the wall. The two beatles, lifelong friends and collaborators, sat on high stools, facing each other, studying each other’s lips intently for phrasing. Watching them, I remember thinking that John’s and Paul’s voices were so different yet so perfectly complemented each other’s, just like their personalities and approach to music-making.”
—Here, There and Everywhere by Geoff Emerick (On the recording of She’s Leaving Home). (x)
“So I had to learn upside down. It’s funny: John learned upside down, too, because of me-because mine was the only other guitar around for him, if he broke a string or didn’t have his. That’s more unusual; left-handed guys can nearly always play a straight guitar.”
—Paul McCartney, interview w/ Tom Mulhern. (July, 1990) (x)
“On one occasion that still resonates for those involved, the Quarry Men went to a party in Ford, a village on the outskirts of Liverpool, out past the Aintree Racecourse. “John and Paul were inseparable that night, like Siamese twins,” says Charles Roberts, who met them en route on the upper deck of a cherry red Ripple bus. “It was like the rest of us didn’t exist.””
—the beatles: the biography, bob spitz (x)
“I was fortunate enough to see them together many times in the late 60’s, and have always been fascinated by what I saw/heard: they finished each other’s sentences, laughed together, just seemed totally in sync. I was a 15-year-old girl, but I did notice that about the two of them and will never forget it.”
—Lizzie Bravo, apple scruff, on John and Paul (x)
“Years later, Paul told his brother that he loved his photo of the “I Saw Her Standing There” writing session because it captured how it really was—“the Rodgers and Hammerstein of pop at work.” Writing “eyeball to eyeball” as John said, they weren’t just frontmen for a rock group; they were composers working in concert. Having already pledged to co-credit all their work, around this time they made it formal, taking equal shares in a company called Northern Songs that would control their publishing.
“Historically,” writes Mark Lewisohn in The Beatles: All These Years, “joint-songwriter agreements enumerated splits of 90:10, 85:15, 80:20, 75:25, 67:33 and every other fiddly fraction down to 50:50. But John and Paul went halves all the way, closeness and ambition shared and matched.”
Now every lick of music that either one produced (regardless of the other’s actual contribution) would be both literally and metaphorically—both legally and emotionally—co-owned.”
—Joshua Wolf Shenk, Powers of Two: Finding the Essence of Innovation in Creative Pairs (2014) (x)
“It was like a tug of war. Imagine two people pulling on a rope, smiling at each other and pulling all the time with all their might. The tension between the two of them made for the bond.”
—George Martin on Lennon/McCartney (x)
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I apologize for being so absent here!
As usual my job has been very busy 😅 I’ve been working 60-85 hour weeks pretty consistently lately. One of our surgeons is on bad terms with most of our staff (he’s unwilling to work with them & they’re unwilling to work with him), so I’ve had to step up to support his operations.
My goal is to have the next update for my game ready in late February for the yandere game jam. I’ve already been doing this, but my plan is to just focus on making progress on the update, and to not be online much. Then in late February after I release the update I’ll take an art / coding / writing break to get online again! I’ve really missed seeing asks and fanart, but I want to make sure I can put out some new content in February. Focusing on asks and online content can be my reward after that 💕
This year has gone by so fast 😅 I do feel a little disappointed in myself for not having more progress for the next update done yet. I am pretty happy with how the work I’ve done so far is turning out though!!
I’ve been mostly focusing on Nalis’s route, and I think it does a good job of letting you really get closer to him and learn more about him, and showing his downward spiral into getting more desperate to monopolize you + all of your feelings. The original demo focused more on Thaumo, so it’s been really fun getting to focus on Nalis here!
I hope everyone is doing well, and I can’t even put into words how much I appreciate how patient and supportive people have been 💕💕💕💕
#symptoms of deceit#symptoms of deceit vn#Nalis finally getting some spotlight and using it terribly#he is not escaping the loser allegations this time#BEGGING this weekend’s call surgeon to allow me some time to work on this 😭🙏
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2024 BL/GL/QL Round-Up Post
Since I did this last year, I thought for posterity I'd post another reflection on everything I watched that completed in 2024. For me, that means anything that started in 2023 but the last episode was in 2024 is on this list, but anything that was still be airing after 31 December 2024 11:59 my time (EST) is not on this list, even if the bulk of the show did air in 2024.
A few stats:
[The image is TL;DR for what follows lol]
I watched ~150 discrete pieces of new QL content in 2024 (series/films) that I tracked [It gets complicated with specials and split seasons but I did my best to be consistent]; plus 10 things that I would consider "adjacent". For contrast, I listed 110 pieces of discrete content in 2023; that's a 45% increase year over year!
This clocked in at an est. 900 hours of new BL/GL and adjacent content (up from ~600 in 2023--which also tells us that the content I tracked was a little longer overall because that's a full 50% increase in terms of hours spent).
The new content I watched came from 9 different countries [same as 2023]: (Cambodia [1], Philippines [2, down from 3], Hong Kong [1], Japan [32, up from 18 in 2023], Korea [20; was 19], Myanmar [2, up from 1], Taiwan [12, up from 6], Thailand [75; up from 56], Vietnam [4, down from 7]), China [5], and then 3 joint effort productions from Thailand/Korea [2] and Thailand/Taiwan [1]
This means just under ~47% of the content I watched on this list is from Thailand [close to the 50% in 2023]
So many more shows had multiple or varied distributions this year, but like last year ~85% of my content was on 3 platforms: YouTube [38%; down from 40%], GaGaOoLaLa [30%; up from 23%] and iQIYI [17%; down from 21%] Note: I'm in Canada and my access routes are sometimes affected by that.
As unbelievable as it sounds with all that, I did actually drop shows this year! I dropped 9 shows, which is I think more than I've dropped in my entire previous 20+ years watching queer asian media combined (that might be an exaggeration but I do really hate dropping shows); 4 Thai, 3 Filipino, 1 Taiwanese and 1 Japanese (listed at the very bottom of this post if you want to be messy). I didn't track any dropped shows in 2023.
And if you're wondering how many shows there are in the world in total, I am aware of an additional 11 shows I just did not have time to even start (2 from Cambodia, 4 from the Philippines, 3 from Thailand, and 1 each from Korea and Myanmar). That does not include the vertical short reels that I didn't track this year--see @ellsieee 's tracking post for these--as well as several GL shorts from JPC media YouTube channel and Sastra film app YouTube channel that I just have not had time to try or even keep track of, though I do peek in on them to see if there's anything that looks particularly good, and I do always link these folks in my GL round-ups.
All of this doesn't include re-watches or catching up on old shows, or non-QL queer media, or non-queer media (the hets sometimes do deserve rights); but does include films as well as shows.
I hope you all appreciate that with this much content, and with my general brand of being unable to make decisions, I really struggled to narrow down a top 10 list. What follows is the best I could do lol
Top 25 QLs I'd Recommend From This Year:
[Links are self-indulgently to what I thought was the most relevant post I'd made this year relevant to that series/media, mostly spoiler-free pitches]
She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat S2 (Tsukutabe) [GL]
Love in the Big City
Love For Love's Sake
Tadaima Okaeri [anime]
Ossan no pantsu ga nandatte ii janai ka (Oppan)
Marahuyo Project
Knock Knock Boys
Let Free the Curse of Taekwondo
Love is Like a Poison (Doku koi)
Ossan's Love Returns
Twilight out of Focus [anime]
At 25:00 in Akasaka
Cooking Crush
Cherry Magic [anime]
Cherry Magic Thailand
Takara no Vidro
Soul Sisters / Twin Rabbits [GL]
Perfect Propose
Unknown the series
Paradise of Thorns [film]
Blue Canvas of Youthful Days
The Secret of Us [GL]
Mr Mitsuya's Planned Feeding (Mitsuya-Sensei)
The Time of Fever
A Man Who Defies the World of BL S3
I tried to put these in some kind of order but honestly if you asked me to rank them the numbering would change all the time and I would combust. The ones I liked best are closer to the top of this list. I also debated back and forth on whether Paradise of Thorns counts as QL so many times. But in the end I decided the main character was queer and queer romance of a sort was at the heart of the drama, so I've left it in this list even though technically it should probably sit with the 'adjacent's.
Worth noting that though only ~20% of the content I watched was from Japan, ~45% of my favourites were from Japan.
+5 notable pulp offerings worth mentioning:
Bagan Beginning (Myanmar)
City of Stars (Thailand)
Gym Affairs (China)
To the Ex Who Hated Me (Korea, GL)
Under the Oak Tree (Vietnam)
I think I'll do a top 10 GL post separately since we had enough content to warrant a top 10 (yay!) but this is already long enough. I just want to take a second to acknowledge that this year was so much better than in 2023 when I didn't feel like I could recommend any of the new GL shows. Thank you content creators for better and more GL in 2024, please keep that energy for 2025!
Bonus: Not a QL but worth calling out:
How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies (Thai film)
I saw both this and Paradise of Thorns in theatres during the Toronto International Film Festival and they were both so powerful! Extremely different tones but they surprisingly hit on similar themes, and very beautifully filmed. HTMMBGD was a complicated film filled with very rounded and complex characters, and I still think about it all the time. Very excited for more folks to have access to both of these soon.
Sidenote: The fact that I watched 45% more shows in 2024 than I did in 2023 and still managed to keep my rec list to 30 (*cough1cough*) does seem to back up the general feeling that though we had more content, we didn't have a proportional rise in good content. I do want to crunch those numbers in another post.
Double Plus Bonus: Best Older QL Content I watched for the first time in 2024:
Life as a Girl / Joshi-teki Seikatsu (Japan, 2018; I'm so sad I missed out on this one for so long due to misinfo, it is fantastic! Thanks to @so-much-yet-to-learn for helping propel me to this one)
Iron Ladies (Thailand, 2000; thank you for the rec, @happypotato48)
Nacchan's Secret / Himitsu no Nacchan (Japan, 2023; thank you @furritsubs for making this watch possible)
Can I Buy Your Love From a Vending Machine / Sono Koi, Jihanki de Kaemasuka? (Japan, 2023; thanks to @nicks-den for making this watch possible)
I Fell In Love with the Villainness (Japan, 2023; watched because of a convo with @pilanthitasanilaphat)
Doi Boy (Thailand, 2023; this one I had on my list and just had to work up the energy to watch, but it was a beautiful film and I'm glad I did)
BL Metamorphosis (Japan, 2022; another thank you to @furritsubs)
Dear Dad (India, 2016; thanks to @neuroticbookworm for the rec!)
Salty Blue / Kakenuketara, Umi (Japan, 2023, thank you again @nicks-den!)
[I can't believe I forgot this at first] The Miracle of Teddy Bear (Thailand, 2022, thanks for going on that journey and writing great meta with me and for calling me out for forgetting @lurkingshan!)
There is so much good content in the world and despite my best efforts I haven't seen everything! So grateful to the fansubbers and people who write about past shows so that those of us who missed them the first time still get a chance to see them.
In terms of my output based on all this input, I continued not lurking this year, and have enjoyed it very much; see my Top 10 posts from 2024 here as well as the content I linked in my recommended shows above--going through the process of adding those links really highlighted to me how much more I've written this year, and how much more motivated I am to write about shows I love. It's no surprise I had dedicated posts for most of my top shows! To highlight a few specific projects this year that I'm proud of, I participated in the Love in the Big City Book Club read and watch-alongs organized by @lurkingshan, which was such a fun project that I am grateful for, and I started my GL Odds and Ends posts (tagged with #gl recs) that I am still feeling out but am really enjoying seeing the impact whenever someone watches a show because they found out about it through one of my posts. I also made an appearance on several episodes of @the-conversation-pod and had an incredible time trying out different things in a quarterly 'Dispatch' and having some really rich conversations with @bengiyo and @shortpplfedup. I love this corner of tumblr that we've carved out for ourselves as a QL watching community, and I just want to say to everyone I've interacted with in 2024: Thank you, and wish good things for you all in 2025!
Full list of 2024 shows under the cut for anyone curious! [Mostly in order it completed but may be slightly off--if a special aired immediately after the final episode I only list them as one thing and count the airing of the special as the end date, for example].
Bagan Beginning
Love Senior the Series
After SunDown
VIP Only
Twins the Series
Last Twilight
Night Dream the Series
My Universe
Bake Me Please special episode
Sahara Sensei to Tori Kun / Mr Sahara and Toki-kun
Love for Love's Sake
7 Days Before Valentine
Happy Ending
PitBabe the series
For Him the series
Cooking Crush
The Sign
Chaser Game W
Playboyy the series
Perfect Propose
Ossan's Love Returns
Tsukuritai Onna to Tabetai Onna S2 / She Loves to Cook and She Loves to Eat
Cherry Magic Th
Dead Friend Forever
Sukidoya / Although I Love You and You / Sukiyaken kedo dou yaroka?
Healing Thingyan
Love You in Every Multiverse
Cherry Magic (anime)
Please Teach Me
Anti Reset
Jazz for Two
Blank the Series
A Secretly Love
To Be Continued the series
Love is Better the Second time around / Koi wo Surunara Nidome ga Joto
City of Stars
Sea You Soon
Human Too
Man Who Defies the World of BL s3
Gray Shelter / Gray Currents / Grey Current
Gym Affairs
1000 Years Old the Series
Love is Like a Cat
To the Ex Who Hated Me
Lady Boy Friends the series
Deep Night the series + Special Episode
Unknown the series
Memory in the Letter
You are My Star
Lonely Girls
Boys Be Brave / Roommates / I Can't Confess
Blossom Campus
Two Worlds
VIP Only special episode
Pray In Love
I Fell In Love with My Male Best Friend
Friend With Benefit
Stay By My Side special episode
23.5
You Made My Day
Living With Him
City Boy Log pt3
Anti-Reset special episode
The Time of Huan Nan
Xiao Xiang Yi Jiu
Inverse Identity
At 25:00 in Akasaka
Only Boo!
Tadaima Okaeri
Love Bully (Club Friday)
Blank the Series S2
Marahuyo Project
The Two of Us
Blue Boys
OMG Vampire!
My Stand-In
We Are the series
Ossan no pantsu ga nandatte ii janai ka / Oppan
Wandee Goodday
Under the Oak Tree
The Rebound
Love Enemy
Love in the Apocalypse
Bad Guy
My Marvellous Dream is You/ Dream the Series
Century of Love
Knock Knock Boys
Be Your Star
Meet You at the Blossom
BOYTOY
The Secret of Us
Ayaka is in love with Hiroko / Ayaka-chan wa Hiroko-sempai ni koi shiteru
My Love Mix-Up!
This Love Doesn't Have Long Beans
Love Sea the series
Cosmetic Playlover
City Boy Log s4
Sunset Vibes
Mr Mitsuya's Planned Feeding
Takara no Vidro / Takara's Treasure
Paradise of Thorns
I Hear the Sunspot
The Time of Fever / when your temperature reaches my fingertips
4 Minutes The Trainee
Twilight out of Focus
Happy of the End
The On1y One
Live in Love
Heaven'sxCandy
The Two of Us s2
Addicted Heroin
I Saw You In My Dream
Monster Next Door
Our Golden Times
Affair
First Note of Love
Battle of the Writers
Reverse 4 U
Unlock Your Love
Chaser Game W s2
Let free the Curse of Taekwondo
Uncle Unknown
The Hidden Moon the series
Love in the Big City [the series]
Smells Like Green Spirit
Red Whisper
Eccentric Romance/PT is Love
My Damn Business
Apple My Love
Dominant Yakuza and Wimpy Corporate Slave
The Nipple Talk
Kidnap the series
Every You Every Me
Jack & Joker
People Come Later
Blue Canvas of Youthful Days
The Loyal Pin
Let's Eat Together Aki and Haru 2
Love is Like a Poison / doku koi: doku mo sugireba koi to naru
Bad Guy My Boss
Haunted Hearts
Seoul Blues
The Renovation
Love Sick 2024
Love in the Big City [the film]
Spare Me Your Mercy / Euthanasia
Soul Sisters / Twin Rabbits
My Hot Butch Roommate
Whisper Me a Love Song / Sasayaku you ni koi wo utau
Boys' Christmas
Bonus: FuFuKnows bi-weekly shorts [every other week they post a short film, almost always a QL storyline; there were 23 in 2024]
And those QL-adjacent shows I mentioned [these are all adapted from QL media or starred QL actors or were part of a QL franchise but did not have a canon queer romance at the core of its storytelling]:
The Spirealm
Close Friend 3 - Soju Bomb
How to Make a Million Before Grandma Dies
Man Suang
High School Return Of A Gangster / I, a Gangster, Became a High Schooler
Kimi to Yukite Saku: Shinsengumi Seishunroku
Hoshikuzu Telepath
A Balloon's Landing
Peaceful Property
My Strawberry Film
The shows I dropped:
Time the series
Beside You
Sugar Dog Life
The Whisperer
Kiseki in Tokyo
Q18
Sky Valley
The Fate Trap
Dear Miss Becky
And as a shout-out in penance, the shows I had on my list to get to but haven't yet watched:
A Blue Sky (Cambodia)
Ending Friend (Cambodia)
Pretty Boys (Philippines - requires an access fee on VivaMax+)
Oh My Boo (Philippines)
The Perfect Heartbreak (Philippines)
Where I found You (Philippines)
My_ the series (Myanmar)
What's In My Bag (Korean GL - requires an access fee on Vimeo)
Complicated (Thai)
Club Friday: Hot Love Issue (Thai)
2nd Chance (Thai; not to be confused with Second Chance, this was a smaller 3-episode short series from this year)
Thank you for reading!
#ql superlatives 2024#bl meta#gl meta#multi bl#multi ql#typed so that i can stop thinking it#twig talks#superlatives are so hard for me this is the best I could do#if anyone wants to know anything about any of this content feel free to ask!#long post
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All Santas have been in the air for at least 12 hours. Halftime status update!
Google Santa's lead is steadily shrinking, but it's still there with 4.8 billion gifts delivered! As I type this, he is heading to Nuremberg, Germany.
As I mentioned, NORAD Santa is catching up, now at 4.2 billion! He is currently heading to Kiffa, Mauritania
Our favorite(?) Santa, The Santa Tracker, is already visiting the UK, currently going to Scotland. I suspect he did not do a great job covering Africa, but it's harder to track past locations with him. Of the roughly 230 million houses he's visited, at most only 183 million have left him anything to consume (97 million cookies, 85 million milk). I think he deserves this.
Fusible Santa, sure enough, has passed the 1 billion presents mark! And only 27,000 cookies eaten. Currently in Belgium, and his route during this phase baffles me, why does he put off so much of Africa for so long?
Santa Update: last seen over Tunisia. And as always, I feel we should call out his lack of sightings in Africa. If he can stop almost 20 times in Australia, he can spare more than at most one per country here.
#santa tracker showdown 2024#fusible santa tracker#google santa tracker#norad santa tracker#the santa tracker#santa update
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HETALIA ☆ WORLD STARS (521)
Is there a problem/error? Please say so! And thank you for your support!
Spanish version ↓ and T/N.
T/N:
P.1.
"Cazzo", "f*ck!"
"Bastardo", "Bastard"
About Cost. (GDP; millions, aprox.)
Austria -> € 447 - $ 526 182
Netherlands -> € 941* - $ 1,092,748
Hungary -> € 188,443* - $ 203 829
Romania -> € 278,005* - $ 300,691
Bulgaria --> € 83,529 - $ 90,346
*not official, conversion ($ -> €)
P.2.
"Schengen Agreement" Overview, a kind of timeline.
"Conflict Bulgaria & Romania and Austria". Due to the increase in illegal inmigration and corruption in both countries, Austria had refused Bulgaria's entry many times.
"Schengen Area" because it was signed in Schengen, Luxembourg.
Another timeline! (2023)
Extract from Wikipedia: "On 8 December 2022 the Justice and Home Affairs Council voted to admit Croatia to the Schengen Area, but rejected Bulgaria and Romania. Austria and the Netherlands voted against the inclusion of Bulgaria and Romania, with Austria claiming that there had been a rapid increase in the number of migrants using the West Balkan route to enter the EU illegally. 20 On 30 December 2023 the EU agreed to include Bulgaria and Romania in the Schengen Area, with Austria no longer vetoing the enlargement of the area. Air and sea ports no longer conduct border checks from 31 March 2024, while the end of land border checks require further discussions."
"About Hungary & Bulgaria". If the information is correct, there was a "threat" from the Hungarian government to vote against Bulgaria's entry into the agreement if they didn't solve the Russian gas problem, yeah, taxes.
But they did it! Press realese, European Comission.
"Romanian Industry". Talks more about Poland and Romania's future struggles in the industry.
"Bulgaria, and 'rich kid' allegations" Probably talking about the Golden Age of Bulgaria, first Empire in the mid 19-century. Or the Second Golden Age. The Bizantine Empire and the Italian Kingdom had economic relationships with the first Bulgarian Empire.
P.3.
"Netherlands & Bulgaria". The Netherlands government was against Bulgaria and Romania's entry. And then not.
P.4.
"yправител" in Bulgarian. It might mean "general", "manager" or "administrator".
SPANISH VERSION
Italia habla de Bulgaria y Romania como si tuviera 80 años. Me saqué un 85% en mi examen de C2 de Español... no es una parodia por COMPLETO, pero tampoco lo tomen en serio.
¿Hay un problema y/o error? Por favor de comunicar, ¡y gracias por su apoyo!
#hetalia world stars#japanese to english#hidekaz himaruya#hws italy#hws japan#hws germany#hws hungary#hws austria#hws bulgaria#hws romania#hws canada#hws netherlands#hws belgium#japonés a español
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