#season sixth has just begun for me

[velvet-vox]

The paradoxical nature of Qilby: part 2

Going back to the end of the previous part where I declared Qilby an autism icon, it came to me the realisation that autism is really the only way to justify some of Qilby's actions and odd behaviour; as a big brother and autistic person myself I also would force the people I care about to engage in my interests, I understand on a subconscious level that what I am doing is wrong, but I just care about it so much that I need to share it with them at all costs.

(Even though I would never go as far as starting a war with another species just to force my race to go on a family trip with me).

And like, no offence to Yugo or the Elatrope council but it is my theory that all the Yugo haters have begun popping up due to some people head cannon that him and his family is inadvertently ableist, which (although I might agree considering their dynamic and who their mother is) I don't think it's completely warranted; as someone else pointed out if mental health and psycho analysis existed in the Krosmoz then Nox would have never come to be; if somebody explained what autism is to Yugo then maybe he would be more lenient on Qilby (or maybe not, after all he is his brother), Nora also doesn't know about autism but she is more accepting of Qilby's oddities even if she doesn't like them, and Qilby SURE AS HECK DOESN'T KNOW WHAT AUTISM IS.

Side note: Shinonome is not necessarily autistic, since my sister understands me perfectly and she isn't on the autism spectrum herself, but she clearly has inherited her more passive personality from her mother while Qilby has probably taken more from his father meaning that even if she was she probably wouldn't go about it in the boisterous manner of his twin.

However all of this is just a head canon and not the focus of this post. What I instead want to point out and analyse is the list-like approach of Qilby to anything and how that reflects the way many autistic people approach mostly every conflict in their life. Let me explain:

The way this list-like methodology works is entirely centered around a priority system, so basically Qilby schematizes in his head what he needs to do and say in which order and he has to follow it religiously in order to get anything done, so like on his to do list there is:

First: Confront Adamai and Grougal. Second: Get Rushu's army and alliance. Third: Confront Yugo and Phaeris and take them out. Fourth (interchangeable with third): Get the Dofus. Fifth: Go the Emrumb to get the children. And Sixth: Leave the planet.

And he has to do them in this order because this is the way that he has envisioned them.

This is also reflected in the way that he goes about science and space travel: he reaches a planet, discovers his species, analyses them, classifies them, compartmentalizes them, collects some, rinse and repeat in the next world.

And finally, I want to bring up his two most famous sentences of season 4 to showcase how this priority based thought process carries on to his speech pattern and family view.

"My dear Yugo, we are brothers, before being enemies"

See?

Qilby realises on his relationship list that Yugo is its enemy, but that before that he is its brother, that's what has the biggest priority for him in this moment and in general. But that's not even the most interesting part:

"Farewell Yugo. My brother, my king."

This phrase of course has been plastered all over the fanbase, but like.... did anybody ever think about how weird this sentence is? You would expect Qilby to say brother as his last word, as a final acceptance nod to the fact that deep down he does care about Yugo. But no. Instead he says:

"Good luck"(the situation's dramatic, so he's giving Yugo an encouragement as the first thing)

"My brother,"(Yugo is his demigod brother born from another Dofus)

"My king."(lastly, Yugo is also his king, as sentenced by Chibi in a previous life)

Qilby could have just called Yugo brother as his last word to show that he cares, but instead he decides to call him king, a title that means very little to him on their relationship chart, to show that he values him so much that he is going to use a term that means very little to him just to let Yugo know that he is willing to acknowledge the part of their brotherhood that he doesn't care about as a substitute acceptance nod to the aspect of their dynamic that he values the most.

<<<<Previous part

Nox analysis

Oropo analysis

[asordinaryppl]

A3! Main Story: Part 4 - Act 15: PAINFUL RE:BAKE - Episode 13: Make Blossom

Host: The third season of “Make Blossom” has finally begun!

Host: Eight unique challengers, both pros and amateurs, will be taking on this survival challenge for a month!

Host: One participant will be eliminated each week, and the last three to remain will aim to become the best makeup artist.

Host: Whoever wins the Final Battle will win a prize in cash and the right to work at the forefront of the fashion industry!

-

Host: Last but not least, our youngest participant, a high school student… ZAMI!

Host: Despite his age, he is already an active member of a theater company. He’s a promising rookie in both the makeup and acting worlds!

Host: What kind of sense will he show us!?

Azami: …

Azami: (Filming for TV really is different from being on stage. This ain’t like me, but I’m nervous.)

Host: I will now announce the first task!

[DOON]

Host: The theme is… “vampires”!

Host: You will now be given a photo of the model you will work with and 30 minutes of thinking time.

Host: After you’re done thinking of the makeup, you will have 2 hours to apply it to the model themself.

Azami: …

Azami: (30 minutes thinking time is basically improvisation. I take my time when thinking about the makeup I’ll do for the plays… I’ve got to switch gears.)

Host: And now, Thinking Time Start!

Azami: …

Azami: (Vampires remind me of Nocturnality. I hadn’t joined the troupe then, but I’ve seen videos.)

Azami: (A pale blue base… An overall feel that’s porcelain and non-human…)

Azami: (I wanna show something high level here, rather than just a flashy concept.)

Host: Time’s up!

Challenger A: There’s not enough time…

Challenger B: It passed by in the blink of an eye.

Host: Next, we will take you to the makeup room, where the models are waiting for you!

-

Host: In any event, your fate will be decided in 2 hours! Who will be our first elimination!?

Host: Makeup Start!

Model: … 

Azami: (Their skin tone’s different than it was in the picture… I don’t think this bluish base will suit them…)

Azami: (Nah, I don’t have time to change my plan now. If I carefully prepare the base, it’ll work out somehow…)

-

Host: Time’s up!

Judge A: Oho~ Everyone was fully concentrated.

Judge B: I’m looking forward to seeing the fruit of their efforts.

Host: We can now begin the review period!

-

Host: We will now announce the ranking! In first place is… SAKI!

Judge A: You used the red and purple from the vampire motif impressively, and it caught my eye.

Judge B: The artistic way in which you expressed both aggression and alluring mystery play a big part in your high score.

Azami: (This is makeup that looks great on TV… The others have also made bold looks with good concepts)

Azami: (Compared to them, my makeup’s too plain…)

-

Host: We will now be announcing the sixth place!

Host: The two left for the end are candidates for elimination, so if you want to stay in this race, this is where you want your name to be called!

Host: In sixth place we have– Misaki.

Misaki: Let’s go!!

Host: Which means… That the first elimination for the third season of Make Blossom will be one of these two!

Host: Our youngest competitor, ZAMI, and the goddess of covering up flaws, Miri!

Miri: ——

Azami: …

Judge B: It seems ZAMI didn’t take full advantage of his model. The look he created was too meek and bland

Azami: …

Azami: (Can’t say anything back… That was totally my mistake.)

Host: We will now have you two compete in a makeup skills battle.

Host: We will see just how well you can apply eyeliner in under 5 minutes, and the loser will be eliminated! It’s a full-out battle with no room for cheating!

Azami: (So a one-on-one competition? This suits me just fine.)

Host: Now, both of you, on your marks…

Azami: (I’ve got experience in quick stuff like this. But I can’t let my guard down with the judges looking.)

Azami: (I’ve done this countless times before… I just gotta remember the feeling.)

Azami: (I had to rush the Spring Troupe’s makeup right before their performance, too.)

Azami: (There’s been countless times when I’ve had to apply everyone’s makeup just before the opening buzzer rings out.)

Azami: (I’ve made it this far with the intention of never letting anyone get on stage with sloppy makeup, even with time literally against me.)

Azami: (If I just think of this model in front of me as a member of MANKAI Company…)

Host: Are you ready? … Get set, GO!

-

Host: Now, we’ll have the judges raise their signs all at once!

Host: ZAMI, ZAMI, ZAMI… With a 3-to-0, ZAMI’s survival has been guaranteed!

Judge A: Watching Miri’s hand tremble from nerves made me nervous.

Judge A: On the other hand, our youngest ZAMI here managed to keep his cool through this short period and created something beautiful.

Judge B: I wonder if his experience with stage makeup helped here? This is an amazing feat for a teenager.

Azami: … Crunch time’s the norm where I come from

Host: That’s our rookie for ya! ZAMI, congratulations on keeping your place here!

Judge B: I’ll be waiting for you to break out of your shell with the next challenge, too.

Azami: (If I don’t get my shit together, I’ll definitely be eliminated next week…)

Azami: (I gotta go all out as if next time will be my last.)

-

Ibuki: …

Host: “Please look forward to the next Make Blossom!”

Ibuki: … Kinda peaked here. This is so going viral.

Ibuki: “supporting my classmate sooo hard rn! #MakeBlossom #PassedLast #CrunchTimesTheNorm"

-

Sakoda: AZAMIIIIII!!! WAAAHHHHH, I’M SO GLAD!!! CONGRATS ON PASSING, AZAMIIII!!!

Sakyo: Pipe down, already…

Banri: But you were clenchin’ that fist real tight, Sakyo-san.

Taichi: I was on the edge of my seat!

Sakuya: I’m glad he made it through!

Kazunari: And he’s trending! Look at all these “# Crunch time’s the norm”!

Kazunari: There’s an article titled, “Who’s ZAMI!? I looked into him a little”, and it mentions MANKAI Company!

Omi: He’s already making the rounds.

Juza: Azami’s awesome…

Yuki: He got attention ‘cause he’s the first high schooler to participate, and then he got more because he was on the verge of being eliminated from the first episode.

Kumon: But I wonder if he’s gonna be able to deal with all this attention…

Banri: This is Azami we’re talkin’ about,

Juza: … We gotta keep it up too.

Taichi: You’ve got a meeting tomorrow, right?

Tsumugi: Have they delivered a script?

Banri: Nah, not yet. I don’t even know if they’ll give it to us tomorrow.

Tasuku: Sounds like you’re about to go through something crazy again.

Banri: I’ve seriously got no idea what that leader guy’s thinkin’, man…

previous episode | masterpost | next episode

NOTES:

(1) not really a translation note, but i made ibuki's hashtags look like that mostly for the sake of readability

[aeoki]

Blackjack - Miracles Don't Exist: Chapter 4

Location: Underground Family Residence Characters: Hitsugi & NEGI Season: Winter

TL Note:

1. The name of the sixth of the Seven Mysteries of Yumenosaki, 悪夢ノ咲 / akumu no saki, is a combination of the words “悪夢 / akumu / lit. nightmare” and “夢ノ咲 / Yumenosaki / lit. blooming of dreams”.

I’ve chosen to translate this as “Nightmenosaki”; a portmanteau of “nightmare” and “Yumenosaki”.

2. Both “Kisaragi Station / きさらぎ駅” and “Ura S ku / 裏S区” are ghost stories posted on the Japanese online forum 2channel. I can’t seem to find anything in English for the latter ghost story, but the basic gist of it is that a young boy wanders into a place called “Ura S ku” (“ura / 裏” meaning “behind” or “opposite side” and “ku / 区” meaning “district”), and talks about his odd and strange encounters with the residents there.  The connection here that these two stories share with the sixth Yumenosaki Mystery is that they all talk about someone who wanders into another space/world and encounters odd things.

Hitsugi: The sixth of the Seven Mysteries of Yumenosaki – “Nightmenosaki[1]”.

It starts with an introduction that’s common amongst most ghost stories: Late at night, a student sneaks into a dark Yumenosaki to fetch something he forgot.

Yumenosaki is an idol training school and security is pretty tight, so sneaking in can be a difficult task.

That student snuck in carefully using a route that no one would use.

He headed towards his classroom and tried to find the item he had left behind.

But then, he noticed something was strange.

He couldn’t find his classroom anywhere. In fact, the floors, walls and ceilings were old and crumbling to the ground.

Inside that ruin of a school were creepy “men in black” who were roaming the area.

If you get spotted by those men, then you’re out. You’ll get killed and won’t ever be able to return to your own world.

NEGI: “That’s a common ghost story~ If the people who experience that mysterious stuff are killed, then how did the ghost story come into being?”

“Don’t tell me a ghost rattled on and on about what they experienced and spread those rumours?”

Hitsugi: That’s because those on the mysterious side were the ones who told, of course. They did it to warn the students not to get close to the school at the dead of night.

A school falling to ruins that’s similar to Yumenosaki and only appears at night – that’s “Nightmenosaki”.

There are a surprising amount of ghost stories that talk about how people wander into a scary world. “Kisaragi Station[2]” and “ “Ura S ku[2]” are pretty popular, aren’t they?

The reason why anyone would be scared of those stories is probably because everyone has experienced being lost in an unknown place before.

They don’t know anything about their surroundings and there’s a fear that completely envelops them… That must be the first form of fear we of all humanity felt.

NEGI: “What are you talking about? I know you like the occult and scary stuff but…”

Hitsugi: Hehe. Please don’t panic – today is a new day and it has only just begun.

I’m sure you’ll still make it for “Star Fest” even if we chat for a long time. Slow and steady wins the race, Onee-chan.

NEGI: “You’re the one who tends to get panicked. Hearing that from you kinda irritates me.”

Hitsugi: Hehe. The Seven Mysteries of Yumenosaki are all made-up stories created to hide a repulsive truth.

It’s just foolish talk to erase the line connected to God. A product created from manipulating information.

That’s also precisely what “Nightmenosaki” is.

A calamity befell this land in the past. A flood caused a great landslide and the old Yumenosaki school became buried in the ground.

NEGI: “Ohh, I see…”

Hitsugi: Yes. “Nightmenosaki” is that buried school.

Right now, the building that has disguised itself as a ruin is the underground home of Ayase-senpai and the others.

Judging by the structure and the time period, I think Ayase-senpai and the others lived underground before that, but the landslide brought the school and several other things from the surface…

Ayase-senpai and the others in his family are making convenient use of that.

And in the current era, the connection between the underground and the surface exists – even if it’s miniscule and in the form of ghost stories.

That student used the route to go underground and entered the old and crumbling Yumenosaki school – that is the truth behind “Nightmenosaki”.

NEGI: “I had this thought before but if people spread that sort of ghost story, then wouldn’t idiots set up tests of courage here and storm the place?”

Hitsugi: Those sorts of idiots aren’t suited for being idols. Not for the type of idol God is looking for.

So those idiots are placed on a black list and made so that they can never find success in this industry.

You’ll be deprived of your role if you get near the taboo. That’s one common rule Yumenosaki and the far away Reimei Academy share.

Those who get too close to God – too close to the sun – will have their wax wings melted and they’ll fall to the ground.

NEGI: “We were deprived of our role, too.”

Hitsugi: Yes. It’s frustrating. But we’re still alive.

The Seven Mysteries are a few lines that connect to God. We’ll follow those thin spider threads and we’ll escape from hell.

And we’ll kill the demon that’s sitting in God’s place – “Priest”.

God is at the centre of the world. There are still many believers in the industry who think that way.

First, we’ll make those believers of the former God our allies.

And we’ll reveal the entire truth – accusing “Priest” of being a fake God.

That’s the only way we can live. 

No. That’s the only way we can seek revenge on “Priest”.

NEGI: “Just so you know, I’m not looking for a bloody battle.”

Hitsugi: I know. You want someone to listen to your songs, right, Onee-chan?

NEGI: “No. I want someone to acknowledge me – I want someone to know that I exist.”

“‘Star Fest’ is the perfect opportunity to do that.”

“It’s the second biggest idol festival aside from ‘SS’. I’ll wear the best outfit that Anzu made for me and…”

“I’ll sing. I’ll let the whole world know.”

“That we’re right here.”

“Anzu might be in a difficult situation right now, but if I sing, then maybe that will give her some courage.”

“It’ll show her that she’s someone amazing… That she’s the best ‘producer’ who can make someone shine the brightest. Maybe that will get through to her.”

“Those sorts of successful experiences and feelings make people strong.”

“That’s what I will send to her.”

Hitsugi: Can you risk your life for that, Onee-chan?

NEGI: “Who are you speaking to? I’m already dead but I’ve been given the right to risk my life once more.”

“There’s nothing that could make me happier. Thank you, Hitsugi.”

“For giving your sister another chance.”

Hitsugi: No, no. I love your singing so I just wanted to hear it again.

Hehe… Alright. I understand how you feel now.

It’s a “producer’s” job to respect those feelings and support their idol.

Let’s make use of the Seven Mysteries and escape from here.

That ghost story proves that the underground and surface are connected. We’ll find that connection and escape.

NEGI: “Right. I feel bad since it’ll mean Mayoi-sensei’s kindness would have been for naught. He protected us all this time.”

“But if we told him we wanted to leave, he would’ve definitely stopped us. He’s too kind.”

Hitsugi: Yes. It’s unknown how much the Seven Mysteries contain the truth, but it was stated that the student wandered into “Nightmenosaki” at “the dead of night”.

Maybe that’s the only time the connection will open. Come to think of it, that’s also the time when Anzu-senpai came to see us.

NEGI: “I see. I hope we can escape before a new day arrives.”

“Otherwise, we won’t make it in time for ‘Star Fest’.”

Hitsugi: Right. All the idols standing on this year’s “Star Fest” stage will call themselves Santa…

It would be a shame for Santa to be late, saddening the good children, wouldn’t it?

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ← Previous Chapter ᠂ ⚘ ˚⊹˚ ⚘ ᠂  Next Chapter →

[gurukulabotanicalsanctuary]

Monsoon Song

Guest post by Ashwin Lobo. As the monsoon ends, here is a poetic offering from Ashwin, penned during his last visit to Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary. Photographs by Partha Sarathy of Marudam Farm School, who also visited GBS this season.

And just like that, the summer's gone, the monsoon's begun

The mosses awake from the months' long sleep

On every surface, new growth sprouts

Mushrooms thrive on damp dead wood

Frogs hop about on the forest floor

Leeches try to climb up your toes

On every leaf, raindrops glitter

The entire world breaks into a song of joy

*******************************************************

I wrote this poem in July to celebrate the abundance of the monsoon, so starkly obvious in the Sanctuary's rainforest biome. As it is about to be published in September, the mood has shifted to something more sombre. This August has been India's driest and hottest in over a hundred years. El Nino has no doubt contributed to the deficit but one also suspects that anthropogenic climate change played a part in this drought. The Paniya people of this land have memories that stretch back for centuries. They have noticed that rainfall here has been steadily declining over the last few decades. As the sixth mass extinction accelerates in pace, could it be that the existence of the monsoon itself is now threatened?

I look up to the skies, praying for some rain. I fear for the mosses and the frogs and the leeches. I fret for the rivers and the forests and the wetlands. I worry about you and me and the generations to come.

A cool breeze rustles through the canopy. Thunder rumbles in the distance. A single droplet lands on my forehead. Almost as if to tell me, there is still some hope.

[doctornolonger]

Outlander *is* Doctor Who fanfic

It’s relatively well-known that the popular novel and television series Outlander, which has just begun its sixth season on Starz, is inspired by Doctor Who. After all, the story revolves around a dashing Jacobite-era Highlands warrior named Jamie Fraser, who shares his setting, outfit, and sense of honor with the Second Doctor companion Jamie McCrimmon, played by actor Frazer Hines.

Despite this, Diana Gabaldon has downplayed the connection. She readily admits that that her Jamie was loosely inspired by McCrimmon, but really her only takeaway was the kilt, and the rest flowed from there. From her website FAQ:

Well, I happened to see a “Dr. Who�� rerun in a weak-minded moment, and was taken by a minor character—a young Scotsman from 1745, who appeared in his kilt. “Well, that’s fetching,” I said. “Yeah, why not? Scotland, eighteenth century.” So that’s where I began, knowing nothing about Scotland or the eighteenth century, with no plot, no outline, no characters—nothing but the rather vague images conjured up by a man in a kilt (which is, of course, a very powerful and compelling image).

She even says the Fraser/Frazer similarity is a coincidence!

Frazer has nothing to do with Jamie’s last name—owing to the local PBS station cutting off the “Dr. Who” credits in order to run pledge appeals, I didn’t know the actor’s name until some years later, after the first book had been written.

But if you dig into the Outlander stories and Gabaldon’s comments, it’s abundantly clear that Doctor Who’s influence extends far beyond vague notes about the setting and costumes.

In a Facebook post from 2016, Gabaldon elaborates on what drew her to Jamie’s character, and it’s not just the kilt:

A lot of the first shows I watched were understandably a blur, but when the multi-part “War Games” came on, I started to focus. This was in some part because of the presence of a particular character: a young Scotsman named Jamie MacCrimmon, who appeared in his kilt. “Well, that’s fetching,” I thought, and began to pay closer attention. Still, it wasn’t until the young Scot said one word that I felt a sudden jolt.

I won’t go into the rather convoluted plot, but in this particular scene, Jamie MacCrimmon and Lady Jennifer, a WWI ambulance driver (hence demonstrably no one’s delicate blossom) are somewhere with the Tardis, but without the Doctor, who was presumably in considerable danger elsewhere/when. Jamie declares that he must go rescue the Doctor, tells Lady Jennifer to wait there, and heads for the TARDIS—followed closely by Lady Jennifer. When he perceives that she plans to come, too, he insists that she must stay behind, ostensibly because someone needs to tell their other companions what’s going on.

Lady Jennifer greets this piece of feeble persuasion with the scorn it deserves, demanding, “You just want me to stay behind because I’m a woman, isn’t that right?”

To which our courageous young Scotsman (who is considerably shorter than Lady Jennifer) replies, “Well, no, I—that is…you…I…well….YES!”

Now, I found this demonstration of pig-headed male gallantry riveting. The entire philosophical background of the show has always assumed gender equality—much more remarkable thirty or forty years ago than it is now. The Doctor routinely has/had both male and female companions, who care for and rescue each other—and the Doctor—with general disregard for physiology or 20th-century gender roles. And Jamie MacCrimmon, from the 18th century and a culture in which women were respected, but not considered men’s physical equals (for the excellent reason that they aren’t), appears for the most part to accept the notion that the women with whom he has to do on his travels through time are in fact his equals and treats them that way—until now.

When push comes to shove, and it’s a matter of a woman taking on physical risk…he can’t help it; he has to try to protect her, even though he accepts her as his intellectual and social equal.

This is a delightful description and analysis of the following scene from The War Games:

JAMIE: Ah, now, Lady Jennifer, I don’t think you should come. JENNIFER: Because I’m a woman? JAMIE: No – er, well – in a way – yes. JENNIFER: That settles it then. I’m certainly coming. You can’t go alone. RUSSELL: No, you’re right, miss, he can’t. I’m going with him. But you’re staying here. JENNIFER: Oh now, look here! RUSSELL: You’re a nurse, you said? JENNIFER: Yes, but what’s that got to do with it? RUSSELL: I’ve got hundreds of injured men back at my headquarters. They need the help of someone like you. JENNIFER: Yes, I suppose you’re right.

Did you catch that? The same scene explains that Lady Jennifer isn’t just an “ambulance driver”, she’s a nurse. Why is this important? Why would Gabaldon leave this out?

Because the central character of Outlander is Claire Randall, a World War II-era British nurse who falls back through time to Jacobite-era Scotland, where she falls in love with Jamie Fraser after nursing him back to health.

Claire Randall is Lady Jennifer: her mind wiped after The War Games; married to a former military officer, Lieutenant Carstairs, just as confirmed by the Doctor Who novel Players almost ten years after Outlander; transported back in time to meet Jamie before his travels with the Doctor.

Sure, Claire comes from World War II, not I – but otherwise doesn’t it line up just too well, especially knowing that Jennifer’s brief conflict with Jamie became the central relationship dynamic of the Outlander series?

It makes sense why Gabaldon would downplay the connection: Outlander was her first novel, so she wants it to stand on its own; and she wasn’t exactly as thorough as E. L. James in scrubbing her book of possible copyright violations.

But her reasons might not be solely based on self-defense. Because there’s a complicating fact in this analysis:

Diana Gabaldon abhors fanfiction.

OK, my position on fan-fic is pretty clear: I think it’s immoral, I know it’s illegal, and it makes me want to barf whenever I’ve inadvertently encountered some of it involving my characters. […]

I have a lot of sympathy for people who want to write. I used to want to write, and I had no idea how to develop characters. Oddly enough, the notion of using someone else’s characters never occurred to me. I just tried to do it on my own. Surprise! It worked.

Suck it up, guys. If you want to write, write—and write your own stuff. It does take courage, but that’s the only way to learn how, believe me.

She says that she never considered using “someone else’s characters”. But that’s exactly what she did! Even if you don’t believe me about Lady Jennifer, Natty Bumppo – a character invented by James Fenimore Cooper in his Leatherstocking Tales – appears in Gabaldon’s 2014 Written in My Own Heart's Blood, the eighth book of the Outlander series. As if the character being public domain, adhering to the latest edition of our governments’ arbitrary and oppressive intellectual property laws, makes it any more her own!

Gabaldon continues,

While not all fan-fic is pornographic by any means, enough of it is that it constitutes an aesthetic argument against the whole notion.

As I say, I’ve unwillingly read a certain amount of fan-fic involving my characters, and about three-quarters of it is graphic, badly-written […] masturbatory fantasy. I mean….ick. […]

Imagine opening your daily mail and finding a letter detailing an explicit sexual encounter between, say, your twenty-one-year-old daughter and your forty-eight-year-old male neighbor---written by the neighbor. At the bottom it says, “Fiction! Just my imagination. All cool, right?” This would perhaps prevent your calling the police, but I repeat…ick.

I wouldn’t like people writing sex fantasies for public consumption about me or members of my family—why would I be all right with them doing it to the intimate creations of my imagination and personality?

I’m with her in abhoring pornographic fanfiction, but I don’t think that’s a good reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater – and this criticism is hilariously hypocritical coming from her, since towards the end of the first Outlander book (spoiler warning), Jamie is horrifically raped. Suddenly it isn’t so cute that she sent a copy to Frazer Hines, is it? She is the creepy neighbor!

I don’t mean to be too harsh on Gabaldon here. As my lawyer reminds me, whatever Outlander’s influences may be, in no sense legally or aristically is it a “ripoff”: what she does with the characters is totally transformative, no different than how the War King in Faction Paradox used to be the Master, a detail which is obviously true but doesn’t change the fact that they’re different fictional creations with different aesthetics who could have as easily been created separately. And hopefully she’s changed her tune on fanfiction since the TV show began. But this was her very real position in 2010:

Now, I don’t go looking for fan-fiction written about my characters; in fact, I try not to see it. But now and then someone sends me a link to a site displaying it, and because of the danger of precedent and implied consent […] I (or my agent) has to go ask the site-owner to kindly remove pieces dealing with my characters.

Maybe it’s a good thing that she’s consciously distanced her work from Doctor Who. She wouldn’t have fit in with the community at all!

Many thanks to the anon who sent me down this rabbithole – your question appearently disappeared when I tried saving my response to the “Drafts” folder and Tumblr ate it instead.

Entertainingly, Gabaldon isn’t the only one to have written Jennifer Buckingham fanfiction: she also appears in Kim Newman’s franchise-spanning The Bloody Red Baron.

As always, I store my notes on Tardis Wiki: in this case, the new Outlander (series) page which I’ve just created.

[harrydracobang]

Harry/Draco Big Bang Week #1 Round-Up

Below you'll find a round-up of all of our amazing submissions that have posted during our first week of @harrydracobang​! 

We hope you’ve been enjoying all the novel-length Drarry and amazing art so far, and we want to thank everybody who has been following the fest and supporting our participants with comments, kudos and recs! You are amazing and we know for certain our fantastic artists and writers appreciate all your support! <3

The next fic will go up tomorrow, and we still have one more week of amazing fic and art, but for now, check our first week below to make sure you didn’t miss anything. Don’t forget to leave some love for our participants as you make your way through the submissions!

Make Yourself written by @anyaelizabethfic​ with art by @zigster-ao3​ [Explicit, 103k] Summary : Harry just wants to be safe within the freshly painted walls of Grimmauld Place, with his friends around him. But when he hears Draco Malfoy has been spotted at the local soup kitchen, he can't help but encourage a different type of stray to come under his roof. -Zigster's Tumblr Art Post 1 -Zigster’s Tumblr Art Post 2

sweeten to taste written by @bigblackdogfic​ with art by @babooshkart​ [Explicit, 51k] Summary: It starts with Draco's buckwheat crepes with honeyed oranges. Or maybe it starts with his porridge with toasted walnuts and homemade apple butter. Or perhaps it starts with the cinnamon buns Draco made from scratch with mascarpone icing. Harry just knows he's hungry for more. -Babooshkart’s Tumblr Art Post

Graceless Heart written by @orange-peony​ with art by @chuckalart​ and @secretartlair​ [Explicit, 132k] Summary: Harry is lost and broken after the war. He has gone to countless funerals, broken up with Ginny, moved back into Grimmauld Place—which feels darker and dirtier than ever before despite how much he tries to fix it. He feels lonely and desperate, but he won’t ask for help, and he still can’t cry.

When he agreed to help the Aurors at Malfoy Manor over the summer, he thought that he would be breaking dark curses. Harry never thought that he would actually spend his days sorting out dusty books with Draco Malfoy, or teaching him how to cook.

Little by little, as they begin to navigate their life post-war, Harry and Draco become intimate…in more ways than Harry could have ever expected.

See How They Run written by @harryromper​ with art by @inveigler81​ [Mature, 51k] Summary: Harry’s living above the shop in Knockturn Alley, working as a private detective after a failed stint as an Auror, when he gets an invitation from Luna Lovegood to the last place he could have imagined: Malfoy Manor.

As Luna and Draco’s friends gather for the weekend, it isn’t only memories of wartime violence that surface. It seems that a lot of the guests have things they want to hide, including murder.

It falls to Harry to solve the mystery, and while he’s at it, to untangle his feelings for Draco Malfoy once and for all. -Inveigler81′s Tumblr Art Post 1 -Inveigler81′s Tumblr Art Post 2

Brave Though The Stars They Make Me written by @dwell-the-brave​ with art by @puncertainty​ [Mature, 108k] Summary: After the events at the end of his Sixth Year, Draco Malfoy has been kept all but prisoner in his childhood home, Malfoy Manor. Alone, terrified, and desperate for some way out, he begins to have strange dreams - dreams of Harry Potter. Are they a trick of his mind? Or are they a way to change his fate, and a chance at redemption? -Puncertainty's AO3 Art Post -Puncertainty's Tumblr Art Post

Nor All That Glisters written by @sweet-s0rr0w​ with art by @deancebra-art​ and @fantalf​ [Explicit, 110k] Summary: Lonely and frustrated on house arrest, with no prospects for the future, Draco begins brewing Felix Felicis in an attempt to improve his lot. Just in the short term, of course. He isn’t a total idiot.

But before long he finds himself with a thriving business, a nice flat, some actual (albeit irritatingly Gryffindor) friends, and a very satisfying sex life. What’s more, no-one is hexing him in the street. And Harry Potter is single, and gorgeous, and giving Draco decidedly interested looks.

Stop taking the Felix? You must be joking… -Fantalf’s Tumblr Art Post

spins madly on written by asofthaven with art by @iaooa​ and Monotremata [Teen, 56k] Summary: As part of his probation, Draco Malfoy returns to Hogwarts to complete his N.E.W.T.s. Gobstones, the political machinations of the Hogwarts student body, and one Harry James Potter captures Draco’s attention instead. -Iaooa’s Tumblr Art Post

Chasing Shadows written by @manixzen with art by @avaeryn [Explicit, 93k] Summary: The murder of Lucius Malfoy seems impossible—no cause of death, no traces of spell-work, no potions in his system. The only leads Harry and his partner have are the trail of missing wizards the deeper they go. That and the help of the victim’s estranged son who now spends his time bartending at a queer-friendly Muggle pub.

A case fic featuring a closeted Harry Potter, an out-and-proud, tattooed Draco Malfoy, and a murder mystery that seems to lead to more questions than answers.

Home Truths written by @skeptiquewrites​ with art by @fantalf​ [Explicit, 67k] Summary: In the off-season Harry decided to fix up Grimmauld Place and found that Draco Malfoy was the only person who could help him. A demanding career and unrelenting press scrutiny were enough to deal with before Harry added a house with a mind of its own, family history, and a tense, flirty, complicated relationship with his childhood nemesis to the mix.

On professional Quidditch, magical houses, hard choices, Life Debts, and inconvenient truths. -Fantalf’s Tumblr Art Post

The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets written by @iero0​ & @ladderofyears​ with art by @egggnoodles​ and @faevorite-main-blog​ [Explicit, 287k] Summary: Hogwarts is the very last place that Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy want to return to after the war. The Castle feels claustrophobic and stifling. Both feel trapped within its walls.

Harry is traumatised by the war, by his sudden breakup from Ginny, and by the knowledge that his friends all know what they want to do with their life.

Meanwhile Draco is reeling. He has narrowly escaped an Azkaban prison sentence and is struggling under the strict rules of his probation. He doesn't know where his mother is, and finds himself a pariah among the other students.

The last thing that either student wants is mandatory Mind Healing. What has happened to them feels so big and devastating, that writing to a stranger feels farcical.

Even so, they are not given a choice.

Harry and Draco are both given a shared magical diary, and soon they begin writing letters to an anonymous fellow student.

Their letters, terse at first, grow longer as the days pass. Before long, each wizard confesses their secrets and their fantasies, their wishes and their dreams.

What will happen when their true identities are exposed? Will their vulnerable new relationship be destroyed before it has even begun? -Egggnoodles Tumblr Art Post

A Sense of Scale written by @fantalf​ with art by @dragontamerdame​  [Mature, 71k] Summary: Potter merely shrugged, as if it was nothing. After all, it wasn’t his life’s work. “You can try to win it over.” Draco snapped, “What?!” “The school. Win it over.” “How the fuck do I win a school over, Potter?! It’s a bloody school, not a person!” And he didn’t win people over that easily, overall. “I don’t know. Use your charms. I know you to be very inventive.” —— In which Draco spends an obscene amount of time thinking of new nicknames for The Living Git, lying to himself and using his charms to seduce an extremely uncooperative sentient school.

Independent Art: Homage by @cambiodipolvere​ [General] Summary: A space between dangling feet, less than a foot.

[ausetkmt]

Oct. 5, 2022

Suzan-Lori Parks is drawn to archways. Early on in her New York life, long before she became one of the nation’s most acclaimed playwrights, she lived above a McDonald’s on Sixth Avenue — the Golden Arches. Then she moved out by Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza, with its triumphal Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Arch. Now she lives in an apartment overlooking the marble monument honoring the nation’s first president at the entrance to Washington Square Park.

“It’s very symbolic,” Parks told me. “I’m always orienting myself to arches.”

Arches, of course, are gateways, portals between one world and another, and Parks is endlessly thinking about other worlds.

This season, audiences will have ample opportunity to join her.

A starry 20th-anniversary revival of “Topdog/Underdog,” her Pulitzer Prize-winning fable about two brothers, three-card monte and one troubling inheritance, is in previews on Broadway. “Sally & Tom,” a new play about Parks’s two favorite subjects, history and theater, but also about Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, has just begun performances at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis. “Plays for the Plague Year,” Parks’s diaristic musings on the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic and a coincident string of deaths, including those of Black Americans killed by police officers, is to be presented next month at Joe’s Pub, with Parks onstage singing and starring. And “The Harder They Come,” her musical adaptation of the 1972 outlaw film with a reggae score, will be staged at the Public Theater early next year.

“I’m like a bard,” she said. “I want to sing the songs for the people, and have them remember who they are.”

At this point in her career, Parks, who in 2002 became the first African American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize in drama, is a revered figure, regularly described as one of the greatest contemporary playwrights.

“She occupies pretty hallowed air: She’s the one who walks among us,” said the playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, who teaches playwriting and performance studies at Yale.

“She’s the reigning empress of the Black and weird in theater,” he said. “And she really is the most successful dramatist of the avant-garde working today.”

PARKS HAS BEEN TELLING STORIES since she was a child. She wrote songs. She tried writing a novel. There was a period when she made her own newspaper, called The Daily Daily, reporting on what she saw through a Vermont attic window. (She was born in Kentucky, and moved frequently because her father was in the military.)

While an undergraduate at Mount Holyoke, she had the good fortune to take a creative-writing class at nearby Hampshire College with James Baldwin, who suggested she try playwriting, and, even though she feared he was just trying to politely steer her away from prose, she did. “That’s what I’m doing still,” she said. “Trying theater.”

Her apartment is filled with evidence of a furiously busy creative life: shelves heaving with plastic crates containing thoughts on pending and possible projects; elements of a second novel marinating on a wallboard cloaked by a blanket; index cards in Ziploc bags; a laptop perched on a crate atop the dining table; lyric revisions in notebooks on a music stand by an ever-at-the-ready guitar. (She is a songwriter who occasionally performs with a band; this season’s four productions all feature music she wrote.)

“Writing, I think, is related to being kind of like a witch,” she said as she showed me around. “Writing is magical. I loved mythology, and folk tales, and I could hear them — old stories — not in a recording of something that somebody living in my presence had told me, but if you listen, you can hear organizational principles of nature, which includes the history of people, which is narrative.”

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So writing is listening? “Not in a passive way,” she said. “I’m on the hunt.” By this point, she was on her feet, pantomiming the stalking stance of a wild cat, preparing to pounce. “You’re being drawn toward it, and you’re reeling it in at the same time, like a fisher.”

As she talked, she kept cutting herself off, reaching for ways to differentiate her craft. “There’s a lot of writers who have ideas, and they have an agenda, and that’s cool,” she said. “I think I’m something else.”

Digging in to the question of why she writes, she became more and more expansive, reflecting on the songlines of Indigenous Australians, which connect geography and mythology.

“We have our songlines too — we just forgot them a long time ago,” she said. “They’re encoded in all the religious texts. They’re in African folk tales. They’re in the stories that your mom or your grandmother taught you. They’re there, and I can’t get them out of my head.”

“If you can hear the world singing,” she added, “it’s your job to write it down, because that’s the calling.”

PARKS IS NOW 59, and her work has been in production for 35 years. In 1989, the first time The New York Times reviewed her work, the critic Mel Gussow declared her “the year’s most promising new playwright.” In 2018, my critic colleagues at The Times declared “Topdog/Underdog” the best American play of the previous quarter century; explaining the choice, Ben Brantley, who was then the paper’s co-chief theater critic, described Parks as “a specialist in the warping weight of American history,” and declared, “Suzan-Lori Parks has emerged as the most consistently inventive, and venturesome, American dramatist working today.”

“She is a genre in and of herself,” said the playwright James Ijames, who won this year’s Pulitzer Prize in drama for “Fat Ham.” And what is that genre? “It is formally really dazzling, in terms of how she structures the play; there is humor underpinned with horror and political satire; there’s this real thread of the blues and folkways and things that are just root Black American signifiers; it’s musical, it’s whimsical, it’s playful, and it’s dangerous — all of the stuff that’s so exciting to see onstage.”

Her early plays were experimental (“opaque,” Brantley once wrote). The recent plays have been more accessible, for which Parks makes no apologies.

“People — not you, but people — when they ask that question, they’re like, ‘Oh, so now you’re selling out! You’re getting more mainstream and you’re not being true to your roots!’” she said. “Oh, no. I’m becoming more and more and more true. Trust me on this one: I’m following the spirit, no doubt. So, yeah, ‘Plays for the Plague Year’ looks like real life, cause it is. So maybe we ought to think about what am I writing about, and if I’m true to what I’m writing about.”

Reflecting her singular stature, Parks has an unusual perch from which to work: She is a writer in residence at the Public Theater, where she receives a full-time salary and benefits. At the Public, she also conducts one of her great ongoing experiments, “Watch Me Work,” a series of events, in-person before the pandemic and online now, at which anyone can work on their own writing while she works on hers, and then they talk about creativity. Early in the pandemic, Parks held such sessions online every day.

“Her great subject,” said the Public’s artistic director, Oskar Eustis, “is freedom. It’s both what she writes about, and how she writes.”

As part of her arrangement with the Public, Parks is also an arts professor at N.Y.U., which is how she wound up across from Washington Square Park, where she lives in faculty housing with her husband, Christian Konopka, and their 11-year-old son. For years, they shared one bedroom; this summer, they finally scored an upgrade, just 70 steps down the hall (their son counted), but now with a bit more space and that archward view.

She has surrounded herself with a striking number of good-luck charms: not only the pink unicorn balance board on which she stands while typing, but also a tray of unicorn plushies; James Baldwin and Frida Kahlo votive candles; a hamsa wall hanging she picked up at a flea market; milagro hearts from Mexico; Buddha, Ganesh, rabbit and turtle figurines; and a deck of tarot cards (yes, she did a basic reading for me; I drew the high priestess card). Also: she has tattooed into one arm, three times, a yoga sutra in Sanskrit that she translated as “submit your will to the will of God.” (She calls herself a “faith-based, spiritual-based person,” and is also a longtime practitioner of Ashtanga yoga, which she does every morning, after meditation and before writing.)

“All the help I can get, baby,” she said.

THE MANY ARTIFACTS on display in her apartment include a shelf set up as a shrine to Baldwin, a dollar bill Parks collected when, feeling the need to perform, she tried busking in a subway station, and a “Black Lives Matter” placard she held at protests during the summer of 2020, when she also signed the “We See You White American Theater” petition, written by an anonymous collective, calling for changes in the industry.

“Hey, I’m angry as the next Black woman,” she said. “And yet, to get through this, we need to also listen — listen to the voice of anger, listen to the voice of love, listen to the voice of wisdom, listen to the voice of history.”

She added, “Let’s not just stand around telling people that they suck. At least where I come from, that’s not a conversation, and, at least where I come from, that’s not good dialogue.”

The tone of some of the conversation around diversity in theater is clearly a concern of hers — that’s obvious in “Plays for the Plague Year,” which, in the most recent draft, contains a playlet called “The Black Police,” in which three “Black Cops” approach a “writer,” played by Parks, and say, “We’re here to talk with you about your blackness/Why you work with who you work with.”

In our interview, Parks said she was troubled by “the policing of Black people by Black people, and not just in the arts,” adding, “we have to wake up to the ways we are policing each other to our detriment.”

“No more trauma-based writing!” she said. “These are rules. And Suzan-Lori Parks does not like to be policed. Any policing cuts me off from hearing the spirit. Sometimes the spirit sings a song of trauma. I’m not supposed to extend my hand to that spirit that is hurting because it’s no longer marketable, or because I should be only extending my hand to the spirits who are singing a song of joy? That’s not how I want to conduct my artistic life.”

She also said she is troubled by how much anger, at the Public Theater and elsewhere, has been directed at white women. “Not to say that Karen doesn’t exist. Yes, yes, yes. But it’s interesting that on our mission to dismantle the patriarchy, we sure did go after a lot of white women. If you talk about it, it’s ‘You’re supporting white supremacy.’ No, I’m not. I’m supporting nuanced conversation. And I think a lot of that got lost, and lot of times we just stayed silent when the loudest voice in the room was talking, and the loudest voice in the room is not always the voice of wisdom.”

THIS SEASON, SHE’S PIVOTING back toward the stage after a stretch of film work in which she wrote the screenplay for “The United States vs. Billie Holiday,” and was a writer, showrunner and executive producer of “Genius: Aretha,” both of which were released last year.

At the start of the pandemic, she assigned herself the project that became “Plays for the Plague Year,” writing one short play each day for 13 months. The discipline was a familiar one: In 2002, after winning the Pulitzer, she began “365 Days/365 Plays,” then she did another daily playwriting exercise during the first 100 days of the Trump presidency. The pandemic play is part personal history — how the coronavirus affected Parks and her family — and part requiem for those who died during that period, from George Floyd to Parks’s first husband. The play, like much of Parks’s work, features songs she wrote. “I was moved into other states, where I wasn’t just documenting what happened that day, but I wanted to sing,” she said.

She’s got plenty still to come — she’s still polishing “The Harder They Come,” which will feature songs by Jimmy Cliff and others, including Parks, who said the story, set in Jamaica, “really captures a beautiful people in their struggle.” She’s then hoping to turn to that second novel (a first, “Getting Mother’s Body,” was published in 2003).

She is planning a screen adaptation of “Topdog,” as well as a new segment of her Civil War drama “Father Comes Home From the Wars” (so far, three parts have been staged; she said she expects to write nine or 12). Also: she’s writing the book, music and lyrics for an Afrofuturist musical, “Jubilee,” that she’s developing with Bard College; “Jubilee,” inspired by “Treemonisha,” a Scott Joplin opera that was staged on Broadway in 1975, is about a woman who establishes a new society on the site of a former plantation.

On a recent afternoon in Minneapolis, Parks settled in behind a folding table to watch a stumble-through of “Sally & Tom,” which is being developed in association with the Public, where it is expected to be staged next fall. The work, directed by Steve H. Broadnax III, is structured as a play-within-a-play — it depicts a contemporary New York theater company in the final days of rehearsing a new play about Jefferson’s relationship with Hemings, an enslaved woman. Parks has had a longtime interest in Jefferson and Hemings, and at one point had worked on a television project about the relationship that never got made; the play, she said, is not a straight historical drama, but “about how the world is made, and how we live in this country.”

The protagonist is a playwright who, like Parks, is warm but exacting, and is rewriting and restructuring the show as opening night nears. When I asked Joseph Haj, the Guthrie’s artistic director, how much he thought the play was about Parks, he at first shrugged it off, saying artists are always present in their work. After the run-through, he grabbed me to amend his remarks. “I take back everything I said,” he said. “I see her all over this.”

Kristen Ariza, who is playing the playwright as well as Hemings (the fictional playwright stars in her own play) said “the play is full of humor, until it’s not.”

“It feels so meta, because we’re doing the play, within the play, and we’re doing all these things like within the play,” she said. “She’s constantly questioning, ‘Does this fit? Is it working? Is it flowing correctly? She’s hearing our voices and adding things and making things work better as we go.”

A few days later, Parks was in Times Square, watching an invited dress rehearsal for “Topdog/Underdog.” The set is draped in a floor-to-ceiling gold-dipped American flag, meant, the director, Kenny Leon, told me, to reflect the way commerce infuses the culture.

Two actors who have enjoyed success onscreen, Corey Hawkins (“In the Heights”) and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (“Watchmen,” “Aquaman”), play the story’s brothers, mischievously named Lincoln and Booth. They share a shabby apartment; Lincoln, fatefully, works as a Lincoln impersonator at an amusement park where patrons pretend to assassinate him, while Booth makes ends meet by shoplifting. Their relationship to each other, to truth-telling, and to their shared history is at the heart of the story.

Both actors encountered the play as undergraduates; Hawkins was a stagehand on a production at Juilliard, and Abdul-Mateen read a few scenes as Booth while at Berkeley. “It’s the first piece of material that I ever performed on a stage that I felt like was written for someone like me,” Abdul-Mateen said.

Like many people I spoke with, Abdul-Mateen was particularly struck by Parks’s ear for dialogue. “It’s as if she eavesdropped on these two characters,” he said, “and just wrote everything down as she heard it.”

Hawkins called the play “an ode to young Black men who don’t always get to live out loud.” And he is embracing that opportunity — one night, he called Parks at 2 a.m. to discuss a section of the play; she has also helped him learn the guitar, which he had not played before getting this role. “There’s something very grounding about that peace that she carries,” he said. “When she walks in the room, she carries the ancestors, the people we’re trying to honor, with her.”

Shortly after we hung up, my phone rang: Hawkins again, this time with a reverential plea. “Make us proud, man,” he said. “She’s a national treasure for us.”

[dans-exposed-ankle]

get me into f1 please i beg

HARRI

we have fast cars and hot men pls join this fandom agfjdkdjfjd

the next race is tomorrow !!! although it might be at some ungodly hour of the night in your timezone

let me give you a little intro *rubs palms*

so basically there are 10 teams and they all build their own car. every team has 2 drivers and they have to, well, race. finish as high as they can and the top 10 get points. every race their points get added and whoever has the most points at the end of the season wins

now some background on what's going on at the moment

after 2 long and hard seasons in the midfield ferrari is back at the top!!!!!! they're fighting for wins again <333 and their driver charles leclerc (his loves ferrari more than life) is currently leading the championship. if you hadnt guessed he's my favourite driver and theyre my favourite team. anyway, redbull is fighting pretty hard with ferrari and it's only the sixth race of the season. the mind games haven't even begun yet. mercedes and mclaren are occasionally in the mix with the top 2. as for other teams, aston martin is probably the biggest flop of the season :( williams, haas and alfa romeo, which were really bad last year, are doing a Lot better this year. everyone expected great things from alpine but they're just not there i guess. alpha tauri is again a bit of a disappointment. but the thing is that it's too early to say, so anyone could turn it around as the season goes on.

sorry this got a bit long but i could talk about this for hours lmao

ask me if there's anything more you want to know haha or you can always just look it up on their website ^^

ps - the title track SLAPS go listen to it rn

[gabriellamon]

GABRIELA MONTES (SHE/HER) is a CIS-FEMALE, TWENTY-EIGHT year old ACTRESS who has been living in Moorbrooke for MOST OF HER LIFE. They were born on AUGUST 24TH and right now, they are currently residing in MAPLE COURT. It has been said that they look suspiciously like CAMILA MENDES and if they had to choose a song to describe themselves, they would choose ME, MYSELF AND I by BEBE REXHA X G-EAZY

Hello, everybody! My name is Rose and I am really excited to be part of this group. Under read more you could read little about my babe Gabriela (it's going to be updated soon) I made a list with some wanted connections here. Anyway if anybody wants to plot, just like this post and i'll come to you.

Tw: Alochol, Drugs, Health Issues, Pregnancy, Death

- Gabriela was born in Moorbrooke. With her father having been a police officer, and her mother having worked as a court reporter, her family had gotten by reasonably well. They certainly hadn’t been wealthy but they was able to gave their daughter everything she needed. - When she was 4, a friend of her invited her on a birthday party at the Ice and Sport Complex . She didn’t want to go but her mother made her go. She was pretty mad because of it until the moment she went out on that ice and her body just knew what to do. It was love from the first sight . - Unfortunately when she was 10, her mother died and it was the time Gabriela stopped ice skatiing because she associate Ice Complex with her mother. - Looking how his daughter suffered, her father begun to building her acting career when she was 11, a year after Gaby’s mother death. He’d accompanied her to every cattle call, orchestred her first television commercials, and forced her to take the singing and dancing lessons. Unlike so many other parents of child stars, her father had made sure her money was wisely invested. - At age of 17, Gaby and her father moved to Ohaio, because her father’s new assignment. There she met her first real love - Presley Newport. - Gabriela and Presley’s ship - to be added…. - When she was 19 she had been casting for a lead role in a new tv series called “Rose and Damon”. No one expected the show to last more than a season, and even if it was not as popular as everone wanted, the cast had exceptional chemisty, and the show’s writing staff had come up with inventive plots. - On the set Gabriela met her co-star Nathan Williams (wc). His beauty had left her dumbtruck , but he’d dismissed her with bored grunt. Nathan ignored her during those first two seasons unless they were actually filming. She tried everythng to get his attention. Once of Nathan’s loser friends mentioned that Nathan was chartering a yacht for a Saturday-night drinking cruise. Since her boyfriend was out for the weekend, Gabriela decided to crash the party where after a lot of alcohol she spent the night with Nathan but in the morning he acted like it was never happened and this was the day she started to hate him. This also lead to her break up with her boyfriend who she really loved. - During the first two years of “Rose and Damon”, Nathan’d only occasionally misbehaved, but as the years passed, he’d grown more uncontrollable.He cared about nothing but having a good time. The cast didn’t know from one day to the next whether he’d show up on the set drunk or sober, whether he’d show up at all. He totaled cars, trashed dance clubs, and shrugged off any attempts to curb his recklessness. Soon after the sixth season the show was canceled. - Gaby met Lance (wc), a movie director, during the last season of “Rose and Damon”. They had been the fairy-tale couple. She was the adoring wife who’d given him the steadfast love he needed. During their one-year courtship and one-year marriage and even after their struggles to have a child, followed by an unsuccessful in vitro procedure, they seemed to be happy so she hadn’t been prepared when Lance had left her for Eleanor Gentry (wc), the star of his new movie. In private, she lay in bed, barely able to move. In public, Gaby kept a smile plastered on her face. But no matter how high she held her head, the pity stories only grew worse. Even though Lance had a much more successful film career, she was still Rose Brown, America’s sweetheart, and the tide of public sentiment turned against him for abandoning such a beloved television icon. Lance launched his own counterattack. “Unnamed sources say that Lance desperately wanted children, but Gabriela was too busy with her career to take time out for a family.” She’d never forgave him for that lie. - Just few months after the divorce, Gabriela married Ledger Collins - an a-listed film star, she had opportunity to film with and the luck to be her friend. The press went wild about their marriage, but the truth behind closed doors was, she and Ledger was just friends and their marriage

was just for publicity purposes and after almost 2 years they said it quit and announced their divorce. - Things seemed good for Gabriela but when she found out Eleanor was pregnant, a big knockdown came. Eleanor and Lance were going to have a baby. The baby that should have been hers. Trying to get her together, she left the town and went to Vegas for a crazy weekend. After a long night with a lot of alcohol and drugs, she woke up in the morning to find out she next to the person she hated most and who hated her even more - Nathan Williams. Not knowing what to do, Gabriela packed her belongings and left for her hometown trying to stay under the radar.

[yikesharringrove]

So, this began several months ago like this and because I cope by putting my sweet bby through the ringer, it has risen.

Some of that sweet sweet Steve angst. This takes place post-season 3 but they burned the Mind Flayer outta Billy, established relationship.

Read on Ao3

-

It was Will Byers that found him.

Steve had begun hosting DnD night after the second run-in with the Upside Down. He said it was to keep the kids out of the hair of the rest of the Party Moms, but Billy knew it was to keep the house filled with noise, light, life.

He knew Steve had been hanging on by the slimmest, teeniest little thread after this summer, so the kids were over more often than not. They would play for a few hours, watch a movie (deciding which movie usually took at least an hour in and of itself) and all the kids would pass out in the sitting room. Billy and Steve would take that opportunity to sneak up to Steve’s room for the night.

It was a typical game night when Will was startled awake. Almost a year later, he was still getting nightmares of his possession, of the Mind Flayer using him to hurt others, lure people to their deaths. He needed a minute to gather himself, so he went to the bathroom to the left of the upstairs landing, the bathroom almost nobody uses.

When he opens the door, the first thing he notices is the clumps of dark brown hair littering the counter and sink.

He met Steve’s eyes in the mirror and found them red-rimmed, filled with tears. His hair was a fucking mess. Random chunks had been cut at odd angles. Nothing was the same length and overall his hair was shorter than Will has ever seen. 

He didn’t know what the fuck was going on.

He was wearing green shorts Will recognized from the Hawkins High Basketball Team and a ratty old Mötley Crüe shirt Will would have never pictured Steve wearing, let alone owning.

He put the scissors down when he noticed Will behind him and whipped around. His breathing was fast and ragged, he had a white-knuckle grip on the counter behind him.

“Steve?” Will took a step forward as Steve’s knees seemed to buckle. He lowered himself to the ground

“Get Billy. He’s-he’s in my room. Tell him I-” he closed his eyes and took a few shuddering breaths. “Tell him I need him.”

Will booked it the fuck outta the bathroom, opening doors at random as he sped down the hall. He felt like shit leaving Steve alone in the obvious panic he’s in, but if Billy can help, then Will’s helping too.

He knew Steve’s room from the honey smell. Steve had a very particular scent Will recognized immediately, the fresh wheat of a meadow in late summer. The next thing he noticed was the giant lump of very obviously naked Billy draped across the left side of the bed. Will’s mouth was dry as he approached, but this was important. Focus Will, c’mon. He whispered out Billy’s name.

Billy was a light sleeper. He heard the door open and was awake right away. When it wasn’t Steve who was silhouetted against the hall lighting, he knew something was fucking wrong.

The second Will Byers whispered out his name in the darkness, he was up and out of bed, digging through the piles of his and Steve’s clothes strewn about the floor for something, anything, to put on.

“Where is he?”

Will just turned, motioning for Billy to follow him down the hall to the large bathroom just to the left of the landing.

Billy’s heart shattered the second he saw the devastation that was Steve Harrington in a heap on the floor. He approached like he would a scared animal, slowly lowering himself near Steve’s head, carefully keeping his movements slow and deliberate.

“Baby, it’s me. I’m here, I’m right here for you, Honey. I’m not gonna touch you, okay? You come to me when you’re ready just like always. I’m here, Baby, I’m not going anywhere.”

Will’s brain was going a mile a fucking minute. He felt like he was going to throw up. He was too worried about Steve to actually process what Billy was saying, to actually process the fact that Billy and Steve were obviously, together, in a way Will had dreamed of being with another guy. All he could think about were Steve’s uneven breaths and all the fucking hair covering the bathroom.

He began to clean it up, quietly picking up the clumps of dark hair and placing them in the trash he found under the cabinet while Steve slowly came into himself enough to crawl pathetically into Billy’s lap.

“Can you talk to me, Stevie? What’s going on?” Billy was running his fingers up and down Steve’s back, gently making patterns through the shirt Will now figured wass Billy’s.

“I wanted, I wanted it gone,” was Steve’s mumble. Will had abandoned cleaning, dropping himself down the wall adjacent to the one Billy was propped against.

“Okay, okay. Can you tell me why? Take your time, Baby. We’re right here for you.”

“Had another, ‘nother nightmare,” Steve was still taking shaky breathes, spitting out his words on every exhale. “‘Bout the-the Russians.”

“Okay, I know what happened. I understand, Baby. Just focus on your breathing, okay? Try to match mine. We’re not going anywhere.” Billy looked at Will, flashing him a small smile he sheepishly returned. Steve turned his face into Billy’s chest, closing his eyes and checking out, focusing on the steady rise and fall of Billy’s strong chest.

“Is he, is he gonna be okay?” Will was about to have a breakdown of his own. Watching Steve, someone he always saw as strong, the protector, succumb to the same panic and fear Will had felt his whole life. It was jarring.

“Yeah, kid. This happens sometimes. We just gotta give him a little extra love.” He huffed a breath. “Anyone ever fill you in about the Russians?”

“Kind of? Like Dustin told us all about being trapped in that elevator and the underground base while we were getting the Mind Flayer out of you. I don’t think I’ve ever heard Steve say anything about it though.”

“Well, you know how he is. Threw himself of the sword so Dustin and Erica could get outta there. He ended up getting- I mean he and Robin both got, drugged and, and tortured.”

Will felt the tears he’d been holding back this whole time roll down his cheeks.

“I didn’t know that, he-why didn’t he tell us? We can help him. We all l-love him a lot and we’re a family. We’re his family.”

“He knows that. He does, and it means a whole hell of a lot to him, you guys really are his family, but he’s-he’s got it in his head he’s gotta be the strong one. The one to protect all of us, so he pushes his shit down until, well, until this happens. But, kid, you gotta, you gotta promise both of us not to go tellin’ this to the other nerds, okay? You know he would fuckin’ hate it if they all knew about this, and I’m not-I’m not just talking about the attack, I mean, you know, me and him.”

“I promise! I really promise, I know what it’s like, the-the panic and, you know, the, well the other thing.” Billy’s eyes brightened.

“Yeah? You a social deviant too, Baby Byers?”

“I, well, I think so.”

“Hey, welcome to the club! Nice to know there're more queers in Hawkins. I need to give this hick town more fuckin’ credit. Good for you, figurin’ that shit out quick. It’ll save you a lotta confusion. ‘Lotta heartbreak too.”

“I think I’ve always known. Never thought about girls, not when, not when-well. I always knew.”

“Who was your first crush? That guy that just made you go ‘hot damn’?” Billy was grinning at Will. “Mine was Jim Morrison. Saw a poster of him at a record store once, and just, you know. Knew it.”

Will didn’t really know what to say. He knew exactly who it was that awoke the gay beast inside him, but he didn’t really know how to tell Billy.

“This is kind of, well it’s kind of embarrassing,” That only made Billy’s smile grow.

“You need to tell me right the fuck now, kid. C’mon, I can tell you Steve’s too!”

Will flushed. So he was doing this.

“So, he probably told you this, but um, Steve used to coach little league. And, he was my coach the summer before sixth grade, and, well...” he trailed off, not making eye contact with Billy until he let out a bark of laughter.

“Are you fucking telling me,” He shifted Steve around on his lap who made a disgruntled noise before settling back into Billy’s chest. He was entirely zoned out, focused on the rhythm of Billy’s breaths and the cadence of his voice, not registering any actual words from the other two.

“Are you fucking telling me, that Steve Harrington, this lump right here, caused your sexual awakening?” Billy was laughing.

“I mean, he was always really nice to us, and like, I hated baseball, but he made it, he made it really fun and he would always be so excited for us when we did well-”

“Plus, he’s hot as fuck.” He cut Will of, shooting him a wink, with his tongue between his teeth. Will went bright fucking red. “I’m just fuckin’ with you kid. I know he’s a sweet one.”

“He made me want to play baseball. I hated baseball. Only did it because my dad made me. He probably thought it would straighten me out.” Billy’s teasing smile dropped from his face.

“Sounds like we had the same kinda dad.” He took a breath, looking down at Steve for a moment. “He ever hit you?”

Will’s blood ran cold.

“No, not me. He used to hit Mom and Jonathan. I think they both thought that if they got hit, at least the rest of us weren’t gettin’ any. She definitely caught him slapping Jonathon around once, though. All his stuff was on the lawn within the hour.”

Billy smiled, but it was kind of, sad. “Your mom is a damn spitfire. I adore that woman.”

“I do too. She’s the best mom in the world.” Will could talk about his mom all day and all fucking night.

Steve was shifting around again, moving between Billy’s legs and sitting up more on his own.

“Hey, Baby. Welcome back to us. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” He looked at Will. “I’m really sorry. I’m really sorry you had to see all that.”

“It’s okay. I understand. I get anxiety like that too.” Steve smiled at him blearily before turning to Billy. “Okay, be straight up with me. How bad’s the damage?” He swept his fingers over his hair, wincing when he felt the different lengths and random chunks.

“I’m not gonna lie, it’s not good. But I think Robin could fix it. She seems like the type that can cut hair. It’s gonna have to be short though. Real short.”

Steve whined, pushing his bottom lip out at Billy. “You gonna dump me? I’m not pretty enough for you anymore?”

Will’s heart nearly stopped when Billy leaned in to bite at Steve’s pouty bottom lip. He had never seen moments like this between two men, just sweet moments that showed how much they love each other.

“You’ll always be my Pretty Boy, you fuckin’ know that.” They were smiling at one another so softly. “You know Will and I got some nice bonding time in while you were working on your breathing.” Steve leaned sideways against Billy’s chest, slipping one hand into the big front pocket of his sweatshirt.

“Yeah? What’d you all talk about?”

“Oh, you know. Shitty dads, first crushes, normal stuff.”

“Oooh, I already know yours is Jim Morrison, you’re old news around here, Bill. Care to share, Will the Wise?” No, Steve, he does not care to share.

“Oh, umm it was actually uh,” He reached around for a name, absolutely not ready to admit to Steve his first crush. “Marlon Brando?”

Steve’s tired eyes lit up a little. “Brando? Honestly, he was one a’ mine too. And Harrison Ford. I saw Star Wars four times in theatres. Couldn’t tell you a single plot detail. So you’re playin’ for our team?” Billy rolled his eyes and mumbled something that sounded vaguely like fucking jock under his breath. Steve elbowed him.

 “Um, yeah. Although, I haven’t really, told anyone, so if you guys could, you know.”

“Oh, yeah, discretion is key.” Steve nodded. “We’re not too bad at keeping secrets, you don’t gotta worry about us.”

“So none of your friends know? That’s rough, Byers. I mean, even here I’ve found a few people I can tell, Steve, obviously. But California, all ‘a my friends knew.”

“Well, I mean, I told Mike. Last year. And he was really cool about it, but then this summer we got into a fight, and he kinda, threw it back in my face.”

Billy and Steve both looked shocked and appalled on Will’s behalf.

“What did the little fucker say? I’ll kick his ass if he called you a fa-”

“No! Nothing like that, it’s cool, Billy. He just, well we got into it about how he and Lucas didn’t really have time to play DnD, or hang out with me in general anymore, and he said ‘it’s not my fault you don’t like girls’. We didn’t really talk about it, I mean, he kinda apologized, but it was right when everything was going down. So, I put it aside.” Steve got his Mom Face on.

“But have you talked about it since everything has blown over? Has he apologized? He shouldn’t have said that. He just wanted to hurt you and that was the one thing that probably came into his head, but that isn’t okay, especially if he was the only one you trusted enough to tell.”

“I know. I keep meaning to talk to him, but we’ve been really good lately and I don’t want to, want to,  fuck anything up.”

“All the more reason to do it now. If you two are really tight right now, he’ll probably listen to how shitty he made you feel, and feel really bad about it.” Billy was nodding along to what Steve was saying. “And, you know if you ever need to talk about shit, we’re here for you, and you know, probably understand  you more.”

“Or if you just want someone to teach the little poser a lesson-”

“I think I’ll just talk to him, but, uh, thanks?” Billy grinned. Steve leaned back into him, pulling Billy’s left arm around his chest to pull him in more. “Um, Steve, do you think I could-I mean, would it be okay to ask you what, um, all this is.” Steve’s face fell immediately, and he shrank back more into Billy. “You don’t have to! I just, it kinda freaked me out to see you like that. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s okay. I can’t-I can’t talk about it too much right now, I’m still a little” he looked at Billy “fragile, I guess. But, well. What do you want to know?”

“Nothing you don’t want to talk about, or, or feel okay telling me but, I mean, why go for the hair?”

Steve shifted some more. It looked as though he was trying to disappear into Billy. 

“You know about the Russians? The ones under Starcourt?”

“Yeah, Billy filled me in a little. Just generally what, what happened to you.”

Steve sighed. 

“Well, for some fuckin’ reason, the general that was, in charge of us, he, uh, he really liked pulling at my hair. He would just grab it and move my head around, or-or use it to hold me steadily while they, um, while they hit me and-when I woke up I couldn’t think. I just, I wanted it gone.”

Billy’s face was white as a sheet. He looked like someone had pulled the entire floor out from under him.

“Steve, why the fuck didn’t you tell me? I thought you-you used to love when I played with your hair. I would’ve stopped.” He looked disgusted with himself at the idea of contributing to Steve’s pain in any way. 

“I thought that-I don’t know. Maybe it would go away? That I would like it again?”

Billy looked like he could cry. A level of hurt and remorse and apology Will had never seen him exhibit. 

“Jesus, Stevie. You need to tell me when you feel shit like that. You know all of my shit and triggers and whatever.”

“I know,” Steve buried his face back into Billy’s chest, curling his body inwards again. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, you know me though. You know I don’t like-”

“Having a weakness?” Billy seemed sardonic. Steve’s head shot up to glare at Billy in the eye.

“That is not what I was going to say and you know it. I was going to say that you know I don’t like being vulnerable and I’m sorry and I’m working on it. But this was, I didn’t even realize what I had done until Will walked in.” 

A look of pure horror came over Steve’s face.

“How the fuck am I supposed to hide this from the rest of The Party tomorrow? Dustin is gonna ask so many questions I do not have the answers for.” Billy chuckled lightly, all tension that may have been building between them melting away. They snuggled even closer and Will’s heart turned to a big pile of mush.

“Just stay in bed tomorrow. I’ll tell the nerds you’re sick. Plus, you always ass out for about 18 hours after a panic attack anyway.” Steve rolled his eyes. 

“Will, do you think you could maybe, not tell anyone about this? I’m gonna have to come up with a cover story and everything.”

“I already promised Billy I wouldn’t. But, you know how you said I could always talk to you two? Well, the same goes for you. We all really love you, Steve. And maybe we don’t understand exactly what you’re going through, we just, we want to be here for you. We are here for you.” Steve’s eyes went even bigger and all watery when Will spoke. 

“That, that really means a lot to me. I love you shitbirds. I hope you all know that.”

“We do,” Will said quickly. He doesn’t think he could watch Steve cry anymore tonight. Or maybe ever. “We know that.” Steve gave him a watery smile, looking at Billy’s watch. 

“I think it’s time for sleep. I need a soft bed and a big man. Now.” Billy rolled his eyes, but picked Steve up as if he weighed nothing. 

“Go to bed, Baby Byers.” He knocked Steve’s foot into Will as he went past.

“Thanks, Will.” Steve’s voice was soft as Billy brought them back into the bedroom. 

Will went downstairs as quietly as possible, settling back into his little makeshift bed.

“Hey, you okay?”

And of course it was Mike, whispering to him from his own little spot. 

“Yeah. I’m good. Let’s talk in the morning.” And Mike smiled at him, and gave him a little wave, and flopped back onto his pillow.

[thecrownnet]

More than five months after revealing “The Crown” will end after season five, Netflix has said its hit show about Britain’s Royal Family will, in fact, extend to a sixth season that will take the series into the early 2000s.

The streaming giant announced the change of plans on Twitter on Thursday, highlighting that creator Peter Morgan wants to do justice to the “richness and complexity” of the story.

Netflix has underlined, however, that season six will be the show’s final run.

Writer-creator Morgan said, “As we started to discuss the storylines for Series 5, it soon became clear that in order to do justice to the richness and complexity of the story we should go back to the original plan and do six seasons. To be clear, Series 6 will not bring us any closer to present-day — it will simply enable us to cover the same period in greater detail.”

Produced by Sony-backed Left Bank Pictures, the show wrapped shooting on season four — in which Olivia Colman plays Queen Elizabeth II — in mid-March, just ahead of the U.K. being placed in lockdown. It’s expected that season four will launch later this year, and will be Oscar winner Colman’s final turn as Queen.

Imelda Staunton will take on those honors for season five, and the “Vera Drake” star will now have two seasons playing the monarch as opposed to just one. Last week, Netflix confirmed that Lesley Manville will play Princess Margaret.

Cindy Holland, VP of original content at Netflix said: “‘The Crown’ keeps raising the bar with each new season. We can’t wait for audiences to see the upcoming fourth season, and we’re proud to support Peter’s vision and the phenomenal cast and crew for a sixth and final season.”

The show’s about-face is not altogether unexpected. Netflix bosses have always been enthusiastic about “The Crown” — chief content officer Ted Sarandos boasted in January that 73 million households around the world have made the show part of the “global zeitgeist” — but its future has always rested with Morgan, who has, at times, appeared fatigued by the prospect of continuing the series. It’s unclear whether his multi-year overall deal at the streaming giant for film and TV projects, struck just ahead of “The Crown’s” season three premiere last year, may have had any sway.

On Jan. 31, when Netflix announced Staunton’s casting for a fifth and final season, Morgan said, “Now that we have begun work on the stories for season five, it has become clear to me that this is the perfect time and place to stop.” At the time, the show’s fifth season was set to see the Royal Family entering the 21st century, but it appears producers will now simply add another season’s worth of stories into the timeline, perhaps allowing for more episodes focused on Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor) and Princess Diana (Emma Corrin).

[atxlxs]

Beyond The Veil: Chapter 6

A glance at the time told Eras that Muska was still stuck in the meeting. Unsurprisingly, but also disappointing. She had hoped the meeting would go faster so Muska would get home an hour ago. She really wanted to get food started so she could relax, the nerves of Musa going to a highschool had eaten at her all day.

Great, she was starting to sound like an actual mother.

*sigh*

Pulling out her phone, Eras opened the phone app and pressed call on Muska’s contact. Conveniently titled ‘parasite’. It rang for a total of 3 times before it clicked, suddenly two voices flooded through the phone. One, that was Muska, the other was definitely Nedzu. So the witch put her on speaker phone. Nedzu was probably trying to get her to answer more questions then they agreed to answer.

The chirpy “I wouldn’t want to keep you from your meal but if I may inquire, is your guardian real or not? I know you're older than most of us but as you said you are a minor for your kind. We would like to get you in a safe environment for the time you spend learning here and research revealed nothing but a name, Viridis Eras if I remember correctly.” was surprisingly soft and sounded genuinely sincere.

Maybe, Eras wouldn’t have to worry constantly about her friend.

“I am very much a real person, Nedzu.” She said simply, her voice coming across smooth and melodic. The other side of the line went dead quiet. It almost made her chuckle but she refrained. Intimidation was hard to maintain through giggles.

“Hey Eras, what's up?” Muska asked, a hint of relief in her voice. Ah, Nedzu definitely was trying to pry more details out of her.

“The person that actually needs to eat physical food is not in my house to eat it. Since school ended 2 hours ago and my parasite wasn’t here yet despite me stating it was a pasta night, I got worried.” Eras responded, ignoring the soft “actually need to eat?” from the background of the call.

She wasn’t lying. After school had ‘released’ she had been checking the clock every 10 minutes. Anxiety over what could be happening kept her from focusing so she had sat down on the couch and glared at the fireplace for the entire 2 hours.

So what if she was overly worried, and for nothing it seemed? She has had bad experiences and experience is always the best teacher.

“Awe, was my sugar mommy worried about me?” Muska said, her tone teasing and Eras could pick up the faint sounds of choking from the other side of the line. Of course she would throw that term around in front of others.

“You wish, gremlin child.”

“Old woman.”

“Bitch witch”

“What kind of pasta?”

“Spaghetti, homemade, and with a homemade roasted garlic seasoned meat sauce. As well as a salad but Who knows if you’ll have the appetite for it. It’ll be there though.” Eras had gotten up at this point and was shuffling around the kitchen. “Will you need a ride home?”

“Nah, Nedzu is practically vibrating in his place at the thought of another veil member, which he has correctly hypothesized you are, and would most definitely stalk the gate for you.” Muska returned, amusement bleeding into her tone as Eras caught snorts from around the room she was in.

Suddenly, a cough snapped her attention back to the conversation as said rat cleared his throat.

“As amusing as this is, Before you leave would I be able to ascertain who or what you are? Considering the age of the witch present, for her to address you as ‘old woman’ I assume you must be someone who has lived far longer.” Nedzu stated, interest coating his words.

Before she could respond someone in the back of the room, a gruff voice that was deep as fuck holy shit, spoke up with a warning present in his voice.

“Nedzu, I don’t believe interrogating them will get you any of your answers.” the voice said, agitation and resignation in his tone. He was probably well versed in Nedzu.

“Thanks Aizawa-sensei.” Muska said, a little choppy on the sensei but that was expected honestly. Well, nice to know the name of the voice. However, Eras wanted to make the rat suffer a bit. He spent a few hours interrogating so she might as well dangle an interesting opportunity in his face and not allow him to reach for it.

“Yes thank you Aizawa-san, I don't mind telling you what race I am , Nedzu. I am also much older than the teen witch in front of you at the moment. Yet, alas,” she said with faux disappointment and sorrow, “I seem to be needed somewhere else. The pot that hasn’t even begun to boil yet is very threatening to me so I simply must end the call here. See you at home bestie.”

With a response of “You got it bestie.” the line clicked and went dead. Snickering to herself as she finally started the stove.

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

Aizawa Shouta has had several revelations as the day passed. First of all, the broken bone boy was very determined to keep his place in the heroics class. He’s going to be a problem child, he has a sixth sense for them at this point. Secondly, one of his students is an enigma. She looks to be a bit older than 16, maybe 17, yet is over 2 and a half fucking centuries old. When he had first come across the term ‘beyond the veil’ he knew there were probably things that far surpassed humans in different areas but that old? That counts as a teen?

With a heavy sigh, Shouta sat through one of the wildest faculty meetings he had the displeasure of being forced to attend. That was saying something considering his employer was Nedzu. Granted, he wouldn’t have skipped this one anyways when knowing answers to the veil would be given. Understandably, not all of the answers, but now they had a firm idea about what actually lived beyond it. Also understandably, the new information was perplexing. Shouta wouldn’t touch any more information with a ten foot pole until whatever he was just given was processed.

As Viridis left the room, thankfully less chaotic than when she had entered, Shouta let out a sigh of relief. He rubbed his hands down his face and contemplated what he just heard. Finally, they had an overall summary of the types of races present in the veil and a somewhat structured hierarchy that would have to be explained further at some point in case they stumbled into the veil now but that could wait.

Shouta shivered as he remembered how oppressing the air had gotten in the room during Viridis’s talk about the forgotten. He had met hardened villains that had less presence and conviction then she did during her rant. They would need to hear about the taboos as well, he really didn’t want to be branded thank you very much.

Luckily, the goblin of a teen did actually have a guardian that existed. (No ‘Zashi, his jaw was firmly in place and had not dropped when the person spoke, even if it did that was warranted because he's sure he saw even nemuri marvel at how smooth it was, and no he did not snicker when they obviously baited Nedzu.) They wouldn’t have to worry about finding a place for them to stay safely while attending their school. This brought up some new considerations though. Groaning he slammed his head onto the table dramatically, the other teachers swiveling their heads to snap their gaze to him.

“Nedzu, she’s probably already done with the general education curriculum. If we don’t find a way to occupy her, we’ll have to deal with whatever chaos she makes to entertain herself while bored in class.”

All the teachers nodded in agreement. Fear flashing through their eyes at the idea. The flashy pro’s were unusually subdued after that showing. Whether from the presence of something completely unknown to them that was downright terrifying, or just the way Viridis acted and spoke to Nedzu, Shouta wasn’t sure.

Honestly though? Rat-man was his new favorite nickname to call the chimera in his head, it was stuck and was hilarious.

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

The morning of the second day of Muska's highschool life, Eras felt off, like something bad was going to happen kind of off.

When she had ‘woken’ from her vegetative state that morning everything just felt wrong. Then as she got up to start the day things just kept happening. None of them were good.

First, she found out that Tibbles had knocked over her higher end coffee grounds. (Accidentally of course, Tibbles may see them as servants but he was smarter than most and knew better than to ruin something a vampire enjoys. Eras could hold a grudge and it isn’t pretty) Next, she was informed that she had 4 business meetings, back to back, since there was a supply disruption and her pseudo-bosses that she pays to handle shit like this were out of their depth and had never experienced this before. Great.

Rushing, Eras made the coffees out of the cheaper brand and it hurt her soul to do it, coffee was sacred, and ran back to the observatory where her closet was to get dressed.

Grabbing out one of her many business related outfits, she threw on the first one she saw and paced over to her full length mirror to adjust it. A forest-pine green silk button down, the top three buttons were left open and a mesh underbust corset tied it together and tucked it into black dress pants. She tugged on black platform heels that came to a stop above her ankles. A charcoal black coat that stopped at ankle length hung off her shoulders. Since fall was starting to approach, the days have gotten cooler so it was there just in case.

Not that she actually felt the cold, she was technically undead, but the aesthetic was important.

A few extra accessories to tie it together, a silver chain necklace and several statement rings that were scattered on both hands along with earring sets, and after fixing her middle part she was done. Black circle sunglasses were grabbed absentmindedly through habit as she left the room. The sun was bright and Eras’s eyes were made for the night.

When she walked back into the kitchen to grab her thermos filled with a caramel macchiato she heard a wolf whistle from the dining table. Spinning around, she noticed Muska staring at her with surprise.

That was warranted, Eras dressed like a gym obsessed hobo most of the time.

“Holy shit, Lookin hot as fuck, Damn bestie. where are you heading to?” Muska said as she idly sipped her coffee while the phone she was scrolling through laid on the table, opened up to some kind of story based on the paragraphs of text she was seeing.

“Thanks, I have 4 business meetings that are emergencies because apparently a food supplier that I relied on had to recall everything, so I have to go down and explain what to do and listen to suggestions all day. I should be done by the time your school gets out so I’ll swing by and pick you up if time favors me.” Eras rambled a bit towards the end while fidgeting with her cup.

She was never able to gracefully accept a compliment outside of a text message, no matter how many years Muska’s been with her and hyping her up. Grabbing her keys, this time to her car and not the motorcycle (no matter how much she loves that bike she doesn’t want her hair ruined before she gets to the meeting, she's about to rip into some people.) She turned to Muska.

“Want a ride there?” She asked with a raised eyebrow.

A total of 3 minutes passed as Muska’s sleep-addled brain caught up and she nodded, downing the rest of her coffee like a shot and slipping into her room to change into the uniform.

That was also a new weird thing, Eras was definitely not used to seeing Muska in anything but various black outfits with the occasional color. She missed seeing the edgy outfits and platform heels that were always an unneeded height since Muska was fucking taller than her. (she could change that but she was comfortable with 163cm)

Once Muska came back out, a quick pet to Tibbles given on the way which gave them a meow (Muska immediately glared at the cat. Sadly, Eras was at a loss as to what the cat was saying. Again.) and they both walked out of the door. Despite living on a mountain, they had a stone path that led to a fairly sleek building that blended in with the surrounding trees and mountain terrain. Once inside, parked along the furthest wall and facing the exit were three vehicles. The motorcycle that Eras had driven Muska with on the exam day, a military grade jeep that was blacked out and decked out, and finally, a 1970 volvo. It was a pastel mustard color and belonged to Muska.

Swinging open the door to the Jeep, Eras climbed in and started the car. Opening the garage door with the touch of a button and left the moment Muska was strapped in.

The ride to UA was easy and calm, except for the blaring of Muska’s playlist that Eras didn’t dare tell her to turn down because it was one of her favorite songs and she was loudly singing along. Pulling up a block away from the highschool, Nedzu precaution, Eras waved Muska out of her car and yelled another “KICK ASS WITCH BITCH!” before cackling as she drove away from a very aggressive middle finger from her friend.

Time to go deal with meetings that could have been a conference call.

“I AM-” A loud voice sounded from the hallway, startling Muska from her glare down with PomPom, “COMING THROUGH THE DOORWAY LIKE A NORMAL PERSON!”

That is, not how normal people enter a room what the fuck?

The newest blond in the class stood at around 200 fucking centimeters tall and wore spandex like a second skin. In american colors. Muska had never paid attention to the #1 Pro hero before but the more she looks at this walking american flag the more she’s grateful for not paying attention. Then something caught her attention.

The man had the same leaking weird energy as the twink from the faculty room.

How the hell did the solid brick wall of meat turn into the skeleton of a man she had seen literally yesterday????? Not only that but the leaking energy seemed to travel through the classroom, as if closer to the source of what's gathering it. As she followed the line of energy she noticed it stopped in front of her, going right into greenie….

What did she just stumble upon?

This feels like national secret type shit.

She tuned back in to hear the hero describe the battle trails they would be facing. 2 on 2 battles with full quirk use and indoors with a fucking bomb to locate. Paper mache but still, this was kinda advanced. She did, however, perk up when he mentioned costumes.

That, she was extra excited about.

Despite not really coming to UA for the hero aspect but more of the quirk training aspect, Muska still felt pretty excited about the costume. Also, she would legally be allowed to beat people up as a hero as long as they were classified as criminals or villains. That sounds like a good stress reliever within reason. She wasn’t going to just maul them. That’d be an abuse of power.

After being dismissed to change, Muska ran up to snatch her costume and bolted to the locker room. She had some say in the weapons but Eras had actually taken the time to design the costumes basics in order to cover everything that might be flung after her. It was also a way to help placate her. For some reason Eras had been extra fidgety ever since she started going to school. There were some things she didn’t know about Eras’s past, but she definitely knew that there was some kind of trauma there, and whatever caused it happened in a school setting.

Opening the case, the first thing Muska noticed were the knee high steel reinforced combat boots that had armor built into it to act as knee braces as well. Next to them was a pair of mirror sunglasses that were purple, placed on top of a letter.

[You’re probably wondering about the glasses. I sent them into a support company for a little upgrade to help you out on the field. They're not necessary so if you want to skip wearing them that's fine but at least check out the surprise I’ve added ok?

Kick ass witch bitch

-E.V ]

Placing the sunglasses on her face Muska almost jerked them off in surprise as a cat mascot character appeared on the right side and waved before jumping across the glasses and they powered up, showing an HUD layout. Something said ‘put on suit to connect’ but that was ignored in favor of the other abilities. The right side had facial recognition software and a tracker for things that are marked in view. There was also a marker that she could activate to aim weapons, like a video game. The left had the ‘connect to suit’ warning at the top but underneath that was a mini map of the surrounding area using a fucking satellite. How the fuck?

Taking them off for now, Muska went and picked up her suit to throw on. There were Two layers. First was a black body suit with colored accents that glowed when wanted, right now they were purple but they could change colors. It was Kevlar and another special type of alloy to make it shock resistant, fireproof, frost proof, and immune to knives and bullets. Next, was a cropped hoodie and shorts which stopped at the upper thigh. The cropped hoodie was purple and the hood part of it looked like a witch hat, the long point fashioned after the stereotypical black witch hat.

There was a tactical belt that wrapped around her waist and connected to two belts that wrapped around her thighs below the shorts. The belts that went vertically on the side of her thighs held pockets of medical supplies and smoke bombs. The previous on the left and latter on the right. The belts that were wrapped around her thighs carried the pockets that held her brass knuckles. The belt around her waist held the whip so it dangled while coiled up off her right hip. Slipping on the boots and lacing them up surprisingly quick, the full outfit was on.

Putting on the glasses once more Muska discovered why it said to put on the full suit. At the top left of the sunglasses was a full body scan that continuously displayed her vitals. It was green for now but if she retained injuries it would slowly move between green to yellow to red. Red being critically or fatally injured.

Holy SHIT Eras! This is some Tony Stark shit?!?

Tags:

@baguettehead

[twdmusicboxmystery]

The Divine Comedy Theory, Part 1

All right, here’s my Divine Comedy theory that I’ve been working on the past few weeks. First, let’s remember that tptb said the golf club in Still represented the 9 circles of Hell. The 9 Circles of Hell come from Dante’s books, including Divine Comedy and The Inferno. So they’re obviously using those books as symbol templates.

But the point is, that much of it isn’t a theory. It’s fact. Tptb CONFIRMED this. It’s now just up to us to try and figure out the interpretation, HOW they’re using it. And that’s what I’m attempting to do here.

We also saw a sign reading, “Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here” near Rick and Negan in S8. That is also a Dante thing. In the Divine Comedy (TDC) that sign is seen when one is entering hell. More on that later.

I decided to divide this into 2 parts because it’s very long. Today, I’ll summarize the Divine Comedy itself and talk about how seasons of TWD might correspond to the different circles of hell. Tomorrow, I’ll talk about Still and the “Abandon all Hope” sign. Here we go:

THE DIVINE COMEDY: A BREAKDOWN

The story starts on Good Friday and ends on Easter. Obviously, that's a good sign.

We start with Dante who is lost in the dark wood. Above him, the sun shines on a mountain peak and he attempts to climb it to get to where the sun is, but his path is blocked by a leopard, a lion, and a shewolf. (Yes, I'm side eyeing the she-wolf thing as well.)

Discouraged that he can't get to where the sun is, Dante returns to the dark wood. He sees the ghost of the poet Virgil, who says Dante's path must take him through Hell but Virgil will guide him and eventually he will reach his beloved, Beatrice. He also tells Dante that Beatrice, who is deceased, and two other holy women are the ones who sent Virgil to him. They knew of his plight and took pity on him. (I really think this is probably the tie to the three Marys.)

So, they head into Hell. This is where we get the sign, "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here." 

The first region that Dante enters is actually the anti-inferno. It's what you might call the antechamber or waiting room of hell. There are still people there, though. Those who couldn't commit to good or evil, fence-sitters who wouldn’t make a choice. They chase a blank banner while hornets bite them and worms lap up their blood.

To actually get to the gate of hell, Dante and Virgil have to go across the river. They do and then they reach the first circle of hell, which is called Limbo. Here, there are pagans. Those who never knew Christ.

The second circle is for those who committed the sin of lust. They swirl about in a terrible storm. The third circle is for the gluttonous. They lie in the mud and endure a rain of excrement.

The Fourth Circuit is for the avaricious and the prodigal. They charge at one another with giant boulders. I was a little confused by why the prodigal would be here. In the Bible, the prodigal isn't generally regarded as a crime or sin. But reading further, the prodigal son did waste the resources that his father gave him before returning to his father and asking for forgiveness. So, these are people who are wasteful in a really bad way. Apparently, they charge at one another around a semi-circle, smack into each other, turn around to go the other way, and repeat it all again.

In the fifth circle are the wrathful. The struggle with each other in the river Styx which is a swampy and fetid cesspool. The Sullen are also there, and they lie beneath the water, choking on the mud.

The sixth circle is for the heretics. The circle is populated by tombs which are surrounded by flames.

The seventh circle has three rings and houses the violent. The first ring is for people who are violent toward others. They spend eternity in a river of boiling blood. The second ring is for those violent toward themselves (suicides). This is kinda interesting. They endure eternity in the form of trees. (I don’t think TWD uses the trees as suicides, necessarily, but maybe more for people who inadvertently caused their own deaths through their actions. I was thinking about Deanna saying of Pete, “Let the trees have him.” Which suggests she’s consigning him to hell. Just a thought.) The third ring is for those violent toward God (blasphemers) violent toward nature (sodomites) and violent toward art (usurers).

The eighth circle is full of evil pockets of people. There are 10 pockets. I opted not to go through them all here because, at least for now, I don’t think they’re relevant. Just ten types of sinners such as flatterers, thieves, people who took bribes, etc.

Finally, the Ninth Circle. In order to reach it, they descend into a well that leads to a frozen lake. In the first ring are those who betrayed their kin and they are standing up to their necks in the frozen lake. The second ring holds those who betrayed their country, and they are standing up to their heads in a frozen lake. In the third ring are those who have betrayed their guests. They lie on their backs with only their faces sticking out of the water. The fourth week ring is for those who have betrayed their benefactors and they are completely submerged.

At the center of this ring is a shrouded, gigantic form which is Lucifer. He has three mouths that are chewing on three sinners: Judas Iscariot, Cassius and Brutus. Those who famously betrayed their masters.

Dante and Virgil climb down Satan's clothing to get to the very bottom of the 9th circle of hell. Interestingly, Dante is carried on Virgil's back. So, we have a serious piggyback going on here.

After they climb down Satan, they cross the river Lethe and emerge from hell on Easter morning before sunrise.

HOW IT MAY CORRESPOND TO TWD:

Okay, so that’s a very broad synopsis of TDC.

Let's talk about a few different ways we can possibly interpret this. First off, my very general theory is that (and we’ve said things similar to this before) that the post-apocalyptic world = hell and in a sense all our characters are Dante. Which means the walkers in this analogy represent the souls who are already in hell. Think of it this way. In the story, Dante is a living person that has to pass through hell. In fact, in many of the circles, the gate keepers and such try to keep him from passing because he’s still alive. But he always gets special permission to do so. So, it’s a “being alive among the dead” sort of theme. The dead, of course, being the walkers.

And the reason that’s important is because some of how we can interpret this is based on how walkers are portrayed throughout different seasons. Let me also say that this is a very loose interpretation and I’m by no means positive I’m interpreting this right. Some of this is hard to nail down.

So, I tried to make different seasons and arcs of the TWD story fit the different circles of hell. For example, I would say this analogy really starts in S4, because I think it's purposefully placed and wouldn't have begun heavily until Gimple took over. So, I think all of S4 was the anti-inferno or antechamber before they got to hell. In the same way that S4 foreshadowed many coming arcs, this was just a little bit beforehand.

Crossing into hell would be Beth and Daryl's separation. I was thinking that the first circle, Limbo, which is described as housing those who never knew Christ, might be Terminus. (Beth is the Christ figure and she never made it to Terminus.) The second circle is for those who lust and they walk about in a terrible storm. I thought of 5x10 and the storm they went through there. The third circle is for the gluttonous. This one stumped me a little bit. Its still rain and a storm, but it talked more about mud and people being blown around in the storm. So, it could be part of 5x10, but I also thought of the big storm they had in FTWD S5. I'm not sure about that one.

The fifth circle talks about people running at one another with huge boulders. I thought of the rock quarry in S6. 

Total side note: I was looking for a picture of the rock quarry to put in here, and I came across this pic below. Quint means 5, and then of course it actually says “Gate 5.” I’ve always thought this pointed back to S5, to show that Glenn’s death fake-out is a template of Beth. But this may also point to this being a symbolic representation of the 5th circle of hell. Just saying. ;D

Then there's the sixth circle. It talks about people struggling with each other in the river Styx and it swampy and fetid. The thing that came to mind here is the swamp walkers in S8. This was when Tara was still trying to kill Dwight and Daryl and co took all the kids away from Alexandria and to Hilltop. Remember, they made a big deal about swamp walkers? So I wondered if this could be in line with that in season eight. The walkers show what circle of hell therein.

Another tier of the sixth circle is tombs surrounded by flames. I think the thing that embodies that more than anything else we've seen would be the Whisperers. We saw the burning of Hilltop and the Whispers represent death anyway. I could see Alpha representing a heretic in various ways, not least because they pretend to be walkers when they’re not.

What I’ve said so far is what I discovered and got super excited about a few weeks ago when I first started doing this. Because it told me that by using this template, we might be able to get an idea of when Beth would return.

But you can probably see the first problem I ran into. If we’re only at the sixth circle, we still have three more circles before Beth returns, right? (Assuming that she returns at the end of this and Dante emerging from hell on Easter will signal Beth and Daryl reuniting.) But I don’t think it will be three more seasons or whatever until we see her. Truly.

So, I kinda got stumped because even reading through the seventh, eighth and ninth circles, nothing was jumping out at me that suggests we’ve seen the events corresponding to those circles, yet. I'm sure we could find some way to compare them to events in the story, but just nothing really obvious stood out.

But don't despair yet. I was originally a little unsure about this, but I started looking at the actual events of Still, it made me feel much better. I think I understand now why it's laid out this way.

So once again, come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about Still, and then about Rick, and maybe about the chess theory. Stay tuned!

[sailorshadzter]

Prompt: Ancient! Rome AU: After the Starks were branded as traitors Sansa becomes a political hostage of emperor Joffrey and is expected to marry him, however her hatred for him increases each passing day as he forces her to watch the gory executions of her people in form of gladiator fights. One day a new gladiator enters the coliseum: it's Jon

id like to start out by saying i KNOW NOTHING of this time period LOL

but its always been a time period ive been interested in and someday when im not so obsessed with the tudor era in england, ill read about something else. tbh i kind of want to get some more info because as ive finished writing this piece, im entertaining the idea of continuing it. maybe just a part 2 because i have another idea! 

ANYWAYS. thanks for the request. i hope you enjoy :)  

ps. its set with the backstory of jon being a stark/targ, but rather than being raised among the starks, he’s raised among the night’s watch. 

send me prompts

Another day, another summons to join Joffrey in the stadium.

Sansa sighs but does her best to smile for the man in her doorway, for she knows any sense of displeasure would be told to the emperor without hesitation. The man, seemingly satisfied with her response, bows and backs out from the room, allowing the door to slam closed behind.

When she's alone, all of the fight leaves her and she sinks into the nearest chair, head in hands. Yet another day where she's to be forced to witness the gruesome violence that is the gladiator colosseum. Every drop of blood is a reminder of her father's execution, every hour spent in the crowd only more fuel for her nightmares. "My lady... perhaps you are feeling unwell this morning?" It's Shae, her ever loyal handmaiden, prompting her with an excuse she might use to get out of the day's events. But Sansa smiles for her lady and shakes her head, instead rising up from the chair. She is braver than that, than running away from what frightens her.

She might yet be betrothed to a tyrant, chained to a family that had the rest of her's murdered in cold blood... But she was a Stark, through and through, and though she was so very far from the North, she could feel the strength that her home offered. I am a Stark, she thinks as Shae begins to undress her from her nightgown, I am strong because I am a Stark.

She was a Stark and so she would be brave.

[ x x x ]

He can hear the crowd shouting, screaming, gasping.

The horror of it all, this gladiator colosseum , even for a seasoned soldier such as himself is tough to take. He's heard of it of course, even way up North in the midst of the Night's Watch, they know some of what goes on in the South. He's heard the rumors of the mad ruler Joffrey, who prefers violence to peace, who abuses the lowest of servants and most noble of knights. There is no one who is immune to the emperor's temper- save for maybe his mother, the golden haired Lannister queen who ruled alongside his father for many of the last twenty years.

Suddenly, the crowd is roaring and Jon feels his stomach turn over. A moment later, the door that leads out into the stadium flies open and before anyone can speak, he knows what's happening. "Your turn." A gruff voice says a moment before he's shoved out the door and into the sunlight.

All around him, eyes are staring down at him; they scream and they stomp their feet, eager to see the blood bath continue on. In front of him, Jon meets gazes with his opponent, an undefeated mountain of a man, who's chest is smeared with blood that is most certainly not his own. Jon gulps. He's skilled enough of a fighter, but against this brute seems impossible. And from the state of the battefield, from the rumors of this man's strength... Jon has to wonder if this will be his end. After everything he's seen, after everything that he's done... This is where it all will come to and end.

From where she sits beside Joffrey in the emperor's box, Sansa sees the newest recruit come out into the stadium center. Her breath catches in her throat- she's seen hair like that before and it certainly wasn't there in the South. Beside Joffrey, ser Merryn leans in to speak to him. "From the North," he says, shooting a sidelong glance at the young woman seated beside the emperor. Sure enough, as Sansa had thought, this was a man from the North, from her home. But how, she wonders, watching the man as he squares up in front of Joffrey's champion, the Mountain, how has a Northern man ended up here?

"Ah, one of those black crows, eh?" Joffrey asks, green eyes flashing with danger in the sunlight. "Do you know him, sweet lady?" His eyes are upon her instead and for a moment, she freezes. "He looks like your traitor father." Joffrey goes on, gesturing towards the gladiator that now raises a sword as the battle prepares to begin. "But all your traitor brothers are dead, so I imagine it's just another piss poor criminal from Wintertown." Joffrey turns away from her then, back to facing the fight that's just begun.

[ x x x ]

One more swing, one more!

He's pushing himself, harder and further than he's ever pushed himself before. For the first time in all his life, he's thankful for his short stature, giving him ample opportunity over the beast of a man he's facing. Where the man is slow, Jon is quick. His agile movements are too much for him and Jon knows by the end of the third round that if he gets the right chance, he might actually survive.

Now it's the sixth round and Jon knows the final moment must come.

And so he puts it all into this last swing- a quick upper cut movement that catches the Mountain off guard- and for the several moments after he lands back on his feet, Jon isn't certain he's managed to pull it off. But then he glances at his sword- it's stained crimson and dripping. Behind him, he hears the man stagger and then, the crowd goes silent as he falls to his knees and then to the ground. Dead.

Then... The crowd erupts.

[ x x x ]

It's no more than a few minutes when he's approached by the man in charge of the gladiators and another man, well dressed and fair-haired. "You, boy." The gladiator barks, catching Jon's attention where he stands, mid-wiping the blood from his hands. "Come with us."

"To where?" Jon asks, dark gaze sharper than his voice. "I was told if I won I would have my freedom back." He only longs to return North, to find Ghost and live out his days in a place where no one might ever find him.

"And your freedom you shall have," the second man speaks, his green eyes bright in the sunlight that streams in through the nearby open window. "As winner in the stadium, you have the great honor of meeting our emperor." He continues, gesturing for him to take a left down the corridor and towards a door that leads up a set up stairs, which sure enough as he climbs up them Jon can hear the emperor's harsh laughter.

Stepping through the doorway, Jon is lead across the way to where the emperor sits, but it is not the man that catches Jon's interest first. Rather, it is a young woman with hair a shade of vibrant red that seems quite out of sorts among these blonde and brunette southerners. He's seen that shade of hair color before, a Tully born boy who had once joined the ranks of the Night's Watch had hair of the same shade. But beyond the color of her hair... She was beautiful. So beautiful that when she turns to face him, the breath is stolen from his lungs. Her eyes are clear and blue, but lovely as they might be, he finds their gaze to be sad, the eyes of a woman lost.

"So you've defeated my champion."

The sharp voice belongs to the emperor, who Jon has quite honestly forgotten was there. He turns to face the man instead, though he's hesitant to tear his gaze from the lovely woman at his side. "Aye, so I have." Jon replies, lifting his shoulders in a slight shrug. "It was that or die. I preferred the first option." For a second, there is only silence, until Joffrey lets out a laugh that startles those around them.

"A jester are you, crow?" Joffrey takes a step closer to where Jon stands and it's only then that Jon notices the striking resemblance between him and the man that had led him up to where he stands now. "You would make a far better champion." Now Jon knows where this is going. "I can make you a wealthy man, far wealthier than your meager coins made in the ranks of the crows." He's offering him a choice- to stay and be his new champion of the gladiator colosseum , or... "Or you may go, it is the law of the colosseum and I am a man of my word." Beside him, the young woman flinches, but it is so quick that Jon is certain he's the only one who's noticed. "But be my champion, I will give you all the wealth you could dream of."

For what feels like a lifetime, Jon stands there, silent and still. Only moments ago, his answer had been strong, had been absolute. But now that he stands there in the presence of this young woman, something is nagging at him. Something about her is calling out to him and despite it all, he wants to heed her call. He doesn't even know her name, but with that single glance, she's set fire to his heart and soul.

And so, he nods; he will be the emperor's new champion.

[sanoiro]

Lucifer 5x06 - BluBallz - Spoilers & Speculation

Warning! There is always the possibility that certain scenes might have been mixed up under their non-respective episodes.

Written By: Jen Graham Imada Directed By: Richard Speight Jr.

Jen Graham Imada has written/co-written the episodes:

3x07 - Off The Record

3x15 - High School Poppycock

3x25 - Boo Normal

4x07 - Devil Is as Devil Does

Cast: Tom Ellis as Lucifer, Lauren German as Chloe, DB Woodside as Amenadiel, Lesley-Ann Brandt as Maze, Kevin Alejandro as Dan, Scarlett Estevez as Trixie, Rachael Harris as Linda Martin and Aimee Garcia as Ella.

Season 4 Recurring Characters: None Officially Announced Guest Cast:

Andrew Steven Hernandez...Dax

Alexandra Hoover...Belinda Roberts

Alveraz Ricardez...Raul Blanco

Behind The Scenes Videos:

Locations

LUX

Marina Del Ray (Different scenes day & night)

WB Jungle Backlot & Neighbourhood Area

Precinct

Linda’s House

Penthouse

Imada, as you can tell, knows how to reach us at that point where we believe that everything is up to be resolved and for Deckerstar to begin only to be halted mid-way. What you shouldn’t forget is that in 3x25 - Boo Normal this writer introduced us to Azrael and who knows it might be time for Ray Ray to make an appearance again although that’s an extremely wild speculation so treat it perhaps as a wishful thought than anything else. 

Okay so, the sixth episode of Season 5 is called Bluballz and many may have hinted yet another unsuccessful Deckerstar ‘moment’ yet it is clearly also connected to the case so it is possible to carry a dual meaning. 

First, some had mentioned that it might be a drug and in an episode where a rave happens, it’s true that it would have been a plausible explanation. The other explanation is the crime scene blue led balls. Unfortunately if swallowed they can be toxic but a bts says something about shooting so at the moment no matter of how the title is connected to the episode let’s keep in mind that A) Lucifer & Chloe were not lucky in 5x05 and B) that it’s directly related to the death of this episode’s victim.

As we have several locations to explore I believe for 5x06we need to start from the case and then how the story is progressing through that murder case.

We do know 4 things about the case. 

First, we have the rave at night where the murder happens in the wee hours. 

Second, almost before the sun is up Ella, Lucifer and Chloe are on the scene asking questions. 

^As you can see there is some stiffness in both of their bodies and as we know that Ellis and Lauren can act that in a very good way I would assume that they are keeping their distance or they are perplexed. 

^if you see the video she does not meet and hold his gaze. 

Third, for some reason, LUX is used for a rave party either as a sting operation or most probably because Lucifer decided to step in and help. The other possibility is that the rave at the end happens after the case has been closed but as they were shooting for days and almost 16h per day I would say it most probably be placed in the middle of the episode.

Fourth, the arrest happens back to the Marina Del Ray where everything started so the story of that case comes in a full circle, yet we do not really care about the case itself but how it relates to our main story.

We have to note that in the bts we have Chloe and Lucifer seem a bit distant during their questioning on the murder scene. Chloe is uncomfortable as is Lucifer and Lucifer is almost too afraid to approach her in my opinion while she does not really hold his gaze. Whatever happened in 5x05 didn’t work on the contrary added a slight tension in Deckerstar. Nothing major in my opinion but it is enough for Chloe to need her space and her friends.

^Prencinct scenes in between! 

Now we do know that the questioning also led Chloe and Lucifer (Lucifer had his Vette there) at a house at the WB lot yet what is more interesting for me is that they were close to the Jungle Backlot. It’s where the show “The Cabin” was shot in 4x02 but the vegetation is so good that it can be used for other projects as well. For example, if you go to the tour they will always mention that it was used for Jurassic Park :)

The reason why I’m so interested in the Jungle is because in a bts I saw some props that made me wonder if they were just there because they didn’t have any other space to put them or they mixed shots from the Jungle backlot and the stages. As the camera is turned to that golden object I would be wary and add it in my “They are still searching” speculation. For what you may ask but all I can tell you is that everything is connected. Unfortunately, their quest may turn an unexpected factor to the mix. If my speculation is correct then the “Our Mojo” also involves Charlie.

Now DB has been very excited with these episodes as I have as well mainly because it seems that Amenadiel is back in the very core of the series as he was in S1 while Charlie is growing and with crawling and teething other things come up as well. Perhaps wings, or powers. Perhaps… both.

^Linda’s house shooting Kevin is probably the one on the left side. 

The scene though showed that it involved Amenadiel, Lucifer, Dan, Linda and Maze. Maze, as you may have noticed as a character, has remained quite elusive in the bts and the role it plays in this season but Charlie’s existence might be the key there or perhaps the 5x04 is. We shall see!

Speaking of Charlie we had him in a wonderful lion top and there have been some scenes at Linda’s house. Now while the girls are busy at LUX which we will talk about in a bit, the boys or more specifically Amenadiel and Dan have some scenes together. Perhaps the reason for the bracelet was not Lucifer’s idea but Amenadiel’s and as such you should be prepared on Dan knowing early on that something is off if not the whole truth.

Now one of the photos that make me wonder is the bts with their director and writer where Kevin has a weird doll on how left shoulder. Somehow it seems that time is running out and that makes sense as like with every other midseason finale or season finale the 3rd episode from the end gives us the route the next will follow. It sets the foundations if you like. Think of 1x11, 2x11, 2x16 or 3x08 & 3x22… The same happens in 4x08. There is always a chain of events that lead to the end and 5x06 will be no different.

We do know we have some Penthouse scenes due to Rafferty and Graham but the content of these is a bit unclear. During a tour the couch was a bit roughed up with the cushions displaced and all that but we simply have no idea why or what will happen there. Also the book we saw in 5x03 during the Clarkson interview it’s still there on the coffee table so I would once again place my money on that one.

^ I bet you didn't know that we have a new closet as it seems or even a bathroom as this may be either a towel hunger and to the left the shower curtain or an outfit hanger. I would bet on the bathroom set as for a hanger it seems a bit tall. ;) So... a shower scene is coming our way? Who knows... 

Edit: I was thinking about this and I now believe it’s an outfit valet it’s just that the wall is drilled on is also a hidden door to the penthouse set... 

Moving on we get to what caught our eye on this episode the Ladies Night Out. It’s the third time we see them getting together and this time they are determined to have fun. The theme seems to be dress as crazy as you can something that is supported by Maze’s choice who perhaps consider Ella a lunatic so she decides to dress like her… I do wonder if they they just went and took everything from Ella’s closet to be honest… Although the net stocking might have been too much for Ella so no idea.

Yet what would drive Chloe and the girls to go out? I expect that Linda needs a break from motherhood even for one night while Maze explores another side of her. As many may suspect I suppose she is growing a soul there somewhere so keep an eye on her. Now Ella was always quirky if you remember the wigs in S3 so do not see anything wrong there but why Chloe?

Episode 5x05 must have left Chloe with a lot to think about herself. Whether she finds out about her miracle status or not she seems to be in her own path of self awareness and as we have seen the only time she takes rush decisions of that kind is because of Lucifer. So whatever happened in 5x05 as been interrupted but I do expect that by the end of 5x06 she will have reached a decision once again but the timing will not be perfect in 5x07 as more problems arise.

I should also mention that the setting of this episode does suggest that whatever Amenadiel, Lucifer and Kevin are up to is probably not known by Chloe and possibly by the rest of the leads aside perhaps Maze and even that is a big if. The reason of perhaps excluding Maze is because of a tangible connection that may aid or disrupt their plans yet that’s once again a speculation, yes based on actual spoilers but still a speculation on how an act will affect the rest of that plot. It is also why I connect in this episode Amenadiel with the Jungle set as well as with that set prop.

And finishing 5x06 it is funny as by the end of it a new set of problems will have begun and that includes of course a new threat. One supernatural in nature and the other as mundane as Earth killers come.

^Last but not least up to 5x06 the Hell set was still standing so they have plans for it... For which episode we simply do not know but always keep it as a Joker card and you never know in which round it will drop... 

^I do love Rafferty! 

[newstfionline]

Thursday, February 25, 2021

COVID-19 cases falling (nearly) everywhere (Foreign Policy) New COVID-19 cases and deaths have dropped worldwide for the sixth consecutive week, according to figures compiled by the World Health Organization. The WHO recorded 2.4 million new cases last week, a drop of 11 percent compared to the previous week. The 66,000 deaths last week represented a 20 percent decline. Five out of the six WHO regions now show a consistent downward trend in new cases, although the trendline in the Eastern Mediterranean region remains flat due to continued case increases in Iran and Iraq.

Not to be sniffed at: Agony of post-COVID-19 loss of smell (AP) The doctor slid a miniature camera into the patient’s right nostril, making her whole nose glow red with its bright miniature light. “Tickles a bit, eh?” he asked as he rummaged around her nasal passages, the discomfort causing tears to well in her eyes and roll down her cheeks. The patient, Gabriella Forgione, wasn’t complaining. The 25-year-old pharmacy worker was happy to be prodded and poked at the hospital in Nice, in southern France, to advance her increasingly pressing quest to recover her sense of smell. Along with her sense of taste, it suddenly vanished when she fell ill with COVID-19 in November, and neither has returned. Being deprived of the pleasures of food and the scents of things that she loves are proving tough on her body and mind. Shorn of odors both good and bad, Forgione is losing weight and self-confidence. “Sometimes I ask myself, ‘Do I stink?’” she confessed. “Normally, I wear perfume and like for things to smell nice. Not being able to smell bothers me greatly.” A year into the coronavirus pandemic, doctors and researchers are still striving to better understand and treat the accompanying epidemic of COVID-19-related anosmia—loss of smell—draining much of the joy of life from an increasing number of sensorially frustrated longer-term sufferers like Forgione.

Biden to order sweeping review of U.S. supply chain weak spots (Washington Post) President Biden on Wednesday will formally order a 100-day government review of potential vulnerabilities in U.S. supply chains for critical items, including computer chips, medical gear, electric-vehicle batteries and specialized minerals. The directive comes as U.S. automakers are grappling with a severe shortage of semiconductors, essential ingredients in the high-tech entertainment and navigation systems that fill modern passenger vehicles. Biden’s executive order, which he is scheduled to sign this afternoon, also is aimed at avoiding a repeat of the shortages of personal protective gear such as masks and gloves experienced last year during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic. The president’s order, which had been anticipated, represents the partial fulfillment of a campaign pledge. But mandating a government study will be the easy part. Extensively modifying U.S. supply lines and reducing the country’s dependence upon foreign suppliers—after decades of globalization—could prove difficult and costly.

U.S. seeks to return to U.N. human rights body (Reuters) The United States will seek election to the U.N. Human Rights Council later this year, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Wednesday, marking the Biden administration’s latest international re-engagement. Blinken, addressing the council by recorded video, said that President Joseph Biden’s administration would work to eliminate what he called the Geneva forum’s “disproportionate focus” on U.S. ally Israel. The council, set up in 2006, has a stand-alone item on the Palestinian territories on its agenda every session, the only issue with such treatment, which both Democratic and Republican administrations have opposed.

Freedom of speech the real issue in Spain (Washington Post) Thousands of protesters have taken to the streets in some of Spain’s largest cities every night for a week, often clashing with police. In Barcelona on Saturday, authorities said they detained 38 people and recorded injuries among 13. The anger of the young protesters is centered on the arrest of a man who until recently was an obscure figure: Pablo Rivadulla, a rapper better known by his stage name, Pablo Hasél. But the demonstrations are about far more than one man’s arrest, speaking to growing concern inside and out of Spain about the effect of the country’s anti-terrorism laws and lèse-majesté statutes circumscribing the freedom of expression.

Covid inspires 1,200 new German words (The Guardian) From coronamüde (tired of Covid-19) to Coronafrisur (corona hairstyle), a German project is documenting the huge number of new words coined in the last year as the language races to keep up with lives radically changed by the pandemic. The list, compiled by the Leibniz Institute for the German Language, an organisation that documents German language in the past and present, already comprises more than 1,200 new German words—many more than the 200 seen in an average year. It includes feelings many can relate to, such as overzoomed (stressed by too many video calls), Coronaangst (when you have anxiety about the virus) and Impfneid (envy of those who have been vaccinated). Other new words reveal the often strange reality of life under restrictions: Kuschelkontakt (cuddle contact) for the specific person you meet for cuddles and Abstandsbier (distance beer) for when you drink with friends at a safe distance. The words also capture specific moments during the pandemic. For example, Balkonsänger (balcony singer) is someone who sings to people from their balcony, which was popular during the spring lockdown. Hamsteritis, referring to the urge to stockpile food, was also commonly used at the start of the crisis.

China uses patriotism test to sweep aside last outlet for Hong Kong democracy (Washington Post) Serving as a district councilor in Hong Kong means addressing everyday concerns such as pest control, traffic issues and helping elderly residents pay bills. One of the few perks of the modest office is having a say, alongside tycoons and Beijing loyalists, in choosing Hong Kong’s leader. On Tuesday, Hong Kong’s government announced that anyone running for these local positions will need to be a “patriot”—meaning they must swear loyalty not to their constituents but to Beijing and the Communist Party—as China moves to quash the territory’s last avenue of democracy. The changes, which are expected to be introduced to the legislature—where there is no viable opposition—next month and become law soon thereafter, will trigger the expulsion of several young pro-democracy councilors, even if they read the oath as instructed. Disqualified candidates will be barred from running in any elections for five years. With Tuesday’s announcement, the councils, the only fully democratic body in Hong Kong, fall in line with China’s broader reshaping of a city once known for its boisterous political culture as democratically chosen representatives are replaced with Beijing loyalists.

The Mekong River (Nikkei Asia) There are 60 million people who live along the lower Mekong River, and they were in for a rough surprise in early January when China drastically cut the discharge from the Jinghong Dam in Yunnan Province. The “tests”—which were slated to end January 24—entailed cutting the flow of the river from 1,900 cubic meters per second to just 1,000 cubic meters per second, but the final day of tests came and went and the volume is still down. That this occurred in the middle of the dry season was particularly rough for Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, countries that depend on the river. China has begun to draw international ire over their management of the river, which it has built 11 large dams on.

A Digital Firewall in Myanmar (NYT) The Myanmar soldiers descended before dawn on Feb. 1, bearing rifles and wire cutters. At gunpoint, they ordered technicians at telecom operators to switch off the internet. For good measure, the soldiers snipped wires without knowing what they were severing, according to an eyewitness and a person briefed on the events. The data center raids in Yangon and other cities in Myanmar were part of a coordinated strike in which the military seized power, locked up the country’s elected leaders and took most of its internet users offline. Since the coup, the military has repeatedly shut off the internet and cut access to major social media sites, isolating a country that had only in the past few years linked to the outside world. The military regime has also floated legislation that could criminalize the mildest opinions expressed online. So far, the Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar military is known, has depended on cruder forms of control to restrict the flow of information. But the army seems serious about setting up a digital fence to more aggressively filter what people see and do online. Such a comprehensive firewall may also exact a heavy price: The internet outages since the coup have paralyzed a struggling economy. Longer disruptions will damage local business interests and foreign investor confidence as well as the military’s own vast business interests.

Iraq’s struggling Christians hope for boost from pope visit (AP) Nasser Banyameen speaks about his hometown of Qaraqosh in the historical heartland of Iraqi Christianity with nostalgia. Before Islamic State group fighters swept through the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq. Before the militants shattered his sense of peace. Before panicked relatives and neighbors fled, some never to return. Iraq’s Christian communities in the area were dealt a severe blow when they were scattered by the IS onslaught in 2014, further shrinking the country’s already dwindling Christian population. Many hope their struggle to endure will get a boost from a historic visit by Pope Francis planned in March. Among the places on his itinerary is Qaraqosh, where this week Vatican and Iraqi flags fluttered from light poles, some adorned with the pope’s image. Francis’ visit, his first foreign trip since the coronavirus pandemic and the first ever by a pope to Iraq, is a sign that “You’re not alone,” said Monsignor Segundo Tejado Muñoz, the undersecretary of the Vatican’s development office. “There’s someone who is thinking of you, who is with you. And these signs are so important. So important.”

Syria’s economic woes (NYT) In a private meeting with pro-government journalists, President Bashar al-Assad was asked about Syria’s economic meltdown: the currency collapse that has gutted salaries, the skyrocketing prices for basic goods and the chronic shortages of fuel and bread. “I know,” he said, according to two people with knowledge of the discussion. “I know.” But he offered no concrete steps to stem the crisis beyond floating this idea: Television channels should cancel cooking shows so as not to taunt Syrians with images of unattainable food. As the 10-year anniversary of Syria’s civil war looms, Mr. al-Assad’s most immediate threats are not the rebel factions and foreign powers that still control large swaths of the country. Instead, it is the crushing economic crisis that has hobbled the reconstruction of destroyed cities, impoverished the population and left a growing number of Syrians struggling to get enough food. Food prices have more than doubled in the last year. The World Food Program warned this month that 60 percent of Syrians, or 12.4 million people, were at risk of going hungry, the highest number ever recorded.

The Deadliest Middle East Construction Project Since The Pyramids (The Guardian) On December 2, 2010, FIFA announced that Qatar would host the 2022 World Cup —- a first for a Middle East nation. Over the next ten years, thousands of migrant laborers from India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka came to Qatar to work on the elaborate preparations for the world’s biggest football tournament. Sadly, during that period at least 6,500 of those workers died, according to an analysis by the Guardian. The findings were compiled from government sources, and mean that an average of 12 migrant workers from the five South Asian nations have died each week since the announcement was made. The total death toll is significantly higher because the figures don’t include deaths from other countries like the Philippines and Kenya that send large numbers of workers to Qatar. Also not included are deaths occurring in the final months of 2020. More deaths have undoubtedly occurred since preparations for the 2022 tournament continue.

The value of housework (Foreign Policy) In a landmark ruling, a Beijing divorce court has ordered a man to pay his wife for five years of unpaid housework during their marriage. The award does not amount to much, roughly $1,100 dollars per year, but marks a new era in Chinese divorce law after the government introduced a new civil code. Under the new code, an aggrieved spouse is entitled to seek compensation if they shouldered more domestic responsibilities—with no prenuptial agreement necessary. The case follows a similar one in Argentina in 2019, when a divorce court ordered a husband to pay his wife of 27 years $179,000 in recognition of her unpaid domestic work. According to Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) figures, Chinese women spend roughly four hours per day on unpaid work—with their U.S. counterparts clocking in nearly the same amount. American men are closer to closing the gap than Chinese men, however. American men spending about 2.5 hours per day on unpaid labor, while Chinese men spend just 1.6 hours.