#seriously what did that tagline even mean

[moondeathhorror]

saw x good

Spoilers for Saw X, obviously, but also the rest of the franchise.

What people who haven't seen Saw don't get about it is that it's not exactly torture porn—it's basically a soap opera centered around John Kramer, the Jigsaw Killer, that has torture porn elements. In fact, I think this dual identity is essential to any entry in the franchise, and you need to be invested in both halves for a Saw movie to really work.

So far, I can't think of a Saw that has truly failed on the "torture porn" half. Each movie features at least one or two solid traps (even Spiral!), and they manage to be pretty consistently inventive, letting them be memorable even when the characters trapped in them are lame as all hell. No, where Saw more often fails is on the "soap opera" angle, and that's because unfortunately, the series is bad about keeping good characters around.

ah fuck we killed that guy

The shoestring budgets, rapid production schedule, and hot-potato hiring of the Saw movies ensured that at no point would anyone get to sit down and pre-produce much of anything. Films kept getting greenlit and what are you gonna do, not have a Saw movie out in time for Halloween and the annual "Give 'Til it Hurts" blood drive?? Stupid fool. Of course they were gonna rush the first technically cogent thing out the door and onto the screen! And that's what they did—from 2004 (first Saw) until Saw VII in 2010, there was one out every year.

This seat-of-the-pants mode of writing gave rise to a Saw formula that relied on both a constant stream of pivotal deaths and a sensational twist in the last act. Every film needed a big character reveal, and because the only three real categories in the franchise are "Jigsaw apprentice", "trap victim", and "police", you can guess what happened. The identity of the Saw franchise became, not only torture porn, but the breathless story of Kramer and his apprentices outfoxing the police, complete with blackmail, skulduggery, and betrayal.

This caused some issues, but the Saw series got around these by being famously nonlinear. You kill Kramer in Saw III because you need a big-shock ending? That's OK! Let's hide a tape in his stomach and set the next movie at the same time! You need a big twist for the "final" Saw movie that upends everything we knew so far? Fuck it just show that Wesley was an apprentice the whole time!

The garbled wall of Polaroids and string that is Saw's timeline is a direct consequence both of the quick productions and the third-act twist expectation. Maybe it's confusing and stupid, but it's a central part of the franchise. Saw's story would be nothing without the constant twists and knots. And we care about this constant twisting and untwisting because we've gotten invested in the characters, or at least the character of John Kramer and his constellation of apprentices, and by extension the efforts of the cops to catch them.

so why doesn't Jigsaw work?

A few would argue it does! I have one friend in particular who resolutely insists that it is overhated (though even she would say "works" is a strong word).

What I feel about Jigsaw is that it is uncomfortable with being a Saw film and performs Saw unconvincingly. It's got a scene with Kramer because of course it's gotta have a scene with Kramer, but it's more invested in him giving Jigsaw's new villain that apprentice cred. It's got traps, obviously, but Buckethead and the death collars are kinda aped from previous movies. It's got the detective story and silly reveal going on, but many of Logan's actions feel performed specifically for the benefit of the audience (ironically, empty and theatrical), so it falls flat.

Fundamentally, I think Jigsaw is a bit embarrassed about being a Saw movie and thinks the solution to that is insistent self-seriousness rather than leaning in. It also looks higher-budget, like more of a production, than the previous films, but feels less distinctive as a result. To be honest, I'm a bit of a Spiral defender in this regard; even though it's a bad movie, it is at least successful in doing something new with the franchise, adding some comedy to it and creating a different guy, as compared to Jigsaw, which seems interminably indecisive, uncomfortable with what it is.

back to Kramer

The centerpiece of Saw X's engoodening. X seems committed to making Kramer the protagonist, which is hilarious to watch—the scene in which he calculates the position of Cecilia's hideout is shot, graded, and lit almost like a prestige drama. When we see that he's sketching out the Rack, there's no scary sting, it's just another silly wacky thing lovable old Tobin Bell is thinking about! We even see him display real remorse when Carlos gets caught up in his trapping of Cecilia's gang. X does what no Saw film before has yet had the balls to do and goes straight to "John Kramer as sympathetic protagonist". There's no soap opera in the previous two, no Jigsaw je nais sas quoi. They're clean, pretty, open-and-shut, fucking stupid on a level far too simple.

John Kramer's introduction changes all of this. We get the immediate investment that attends the series regular, the entry is instantly building on already-established events (or, as is Saw's way, awkwardly inserting new ones edgewise), and the trap setup feels like a true return to Jigsaw-Killer form. It's not that the trial maze format is a bad one per se, but you don't need it to make a good Saw movie, and so the creators went without.

lean the fuck in

Essentially, Saw X is a good movie because it is a committed and enthusiastic addition to the Saw franchise. It's not trying to reboot or factory-reset everything. it knows that the characters it has created are magnetic and so it brings them back. It's not trying to add new elements to the franchise that aren't really necessary, like wacky comedy hijinks or Logan. It delivers on the "torture porn" and it delivers as an additional episode in the Ballad of John Kramer, giving it the elements that it needs to succeed as a worthy entry in the Book of Saw.

[johnbrand]

Smoking Pays

With @aismoker

What? Can’t you see I’m in a rush?

Oh so you heard about the promotion. Yeah it was no surprise really, anyone could have predicted it.

Sure I have only been here for a year, but I came in with the qualities the boss was looking for. 

Honestly, I am a bit embarrassed for you. You’ve been around since what, when the company started? And after all that time you’re still some boring office drone, while I am quickly ascending the ranks.

What’s my secret? No, I didn't bribe the boss to get this position. And before you say it, I didn’t blackmail him either. I just did my research beforehand, I figured out what would help me and the boss click on a more personal level.

Smoking obviously. Speaking of which, you’ve held me up long enough that I have to light up another one. Yeah, this is my third this morning , and I’ll probably chain my way through a pack tonight. I'll likely have some coughing ahead but there’s no better way to subdue the hacking with many more reds. 

How long have I been smoking? Hmm...I guess a little over a year. When I applied for this company I picked it up, thinking it would give my resume that extra push. And boy was I right! When the boss first met me and noticed my carefully placed pack of Marlboros, he ushered me directly to HR for an immediate hire. Said I was “the type of man the office needs.” And now look at me, making six figures and not even 30!

I don’t know what smear campaign you are referring to, but I have not made any sacrifices since I picked up smoking. In fact, I would say I have only benefited from it. The smoking areas in the office are full of real men, dedicated to becoming the best version of themselves. I’m talking mentally and physically, sculpting their minds into commanding personas and their bodies into perfect shape. It was inspiring, and once you get used to all the smoke, the cravings ignite you even further.

I mean look at me. I’m in the best shape I have been in in my life. Super athletic and toned, eventually the muscle will start piling on. My voice is already lower and grittier than it was a year ago, demanding an actual presence. And sure, my hair is thinning but bald men are the true alphas! Once I’ve gone full cueball like the boss, that’s when I’ll start growing out my beard.

And as I continue this transformation, allowing smoking to shape and define me, the higher-ups will notice. The boss will notice. They may not directly see it, but subconsciously it will register. Who better to take his place than him, or at least, a copy of him? In this day and age, smoking is associated with masculinity and success.

You think I’m joking? Look at the people passing us right now. They aren’t looking at two businessmen having a conversation on the sidewalk. No, they are checking out the successful, suited stud with the Marlboro at his lips. Their eyes are gleaming with awe and wonder at the man radiating achievement and supremacy. And their minds simply disregard you, erase your existence through nicotine-fueled admiration and lust.

Look, I really gotta go. I cannot be late to my first meeting as a project lead. I’m working on that new defamation push against vaping. Our main tagline is that vaping shrinks penises. Is it even true? Well I can’t say that, but I can tell you something: smoking certainly does the opposite. Heheh…that was an improvement I had not expected to happen. So technically, it's not false as long as we compare the two.

Alright, seriously, I’ll talk to you later. Or probably not honestly, unless you decide to be a real man and do something with your life. Here, I’m about halfway through this Marlboro, so you can finish it off and I’ll light up a new one for the rest of my walk. Smoking pays, man, smoking pays.

[writingwhilecaffeinated]

Let me start by saying I am in love with you, your writing has me on chokehold. It has been only two-three months I have gotten the hold of AO3 because of bridgerton s3 and now I am in the rabbit hole of Benelope and Penthony all because of you! Your fictions has me obsessed with Benedict and Penelope, you write them so perfectly. I have read all your work and reread them so often, think about them every other day if not daily. Initially I was waiting for 'unspooled thread' to be finished but I could not, and I'm so glad for that. Just caught up with that yesterday and my god what you and @itakethewords has done!!(I love their writing too so much, you both are a force unmatched).

I mean I have to stop reading so many times to catch my breath because it is so so good!! I could feel every emotion radiating through words. Let me say I have never watched s1 & 2, I just watched s3 because of the 'wallflower' tagline as I'm a wallflower too. So Unspooled Thread IS MY CANON. Idk what anyone says, I am in so much love with Benelope, ahhhh they are so perfect!! You have given such a great gift, I have been struggling a lot mentally and your writings have helped me to keep myself sane, to have something to look forward to. I am not saying this lightly but maaaannnn what you did in 'The Becoming of Baron' and 'Many hearts,' I am in awe! I never thought I could read polyandry and here I am reading every reverse harem with Penelope! I love Pen so much, she has such a rich personality that it is so easy to read her pairing with anyone. But man oh man the benelope is just magnificent. Please never stop writing them, your talent is so powerful, your words make me feel so much, it feels so wholesome. You have become one of my favourite writers, and I am not just saying for AO3! In everything I have ever read. I am in awe how you craft stories and show the depth of characters. I was never willing to watch Bridgerton before s3, Idk why. But Nicola Coughlan had me fall in love with her, and Penelope is one of the most alluring female character with all her flaws. I love how your treat her as such, the depth she deserve. Your stories have kept me afloat, the reread value in them is just phenomenal. I could write so many words more but I think will keep repeating, so I just want you to know that your writing has made a change in world, in my life, it has hold me through toughest of times. And I so wholeheartedly appreciate your every effort is gifting us with such wonders. Thanks a million! I wish you and @itakethewords all the happiness in the world.

Hello!!

Oh my goodness, this is the nicest, highest compliment me and @velvetcovered-brick (itakethewords on AO3) could have! Truly, truly, thank you for your kindness and for reading our stories. It means a lot to us!

We understand how reading fanfic can really help when your mental health is suffering. Fanfic is one of the most amazing forms of escapism and I’m so glad and honored we have been able to help with that, even in a small way. ♥️

Also super glad you gave the poly fics a shot! They’re not everyone’s cup of tea, which is completely valid, but I’m so happy you enjoyed them and still found the characters east to love and connect with.

Also, welcome to the Bridgerton fandom! We are so glad that Nicola Coughlan bring the amazing actress she is, convinced you to give season 3 a try.

It’s a super high compliment that our version of s1 and s2 in unspooled thread is basically your canon. That’s incredibly sweet! We will be so interested to see what you think of our version of s3 is when we get there!! It’s going to be the most ambitious yet!

Seriously, thank you for your kindness. Me and @velvetcovered-brick (itakethewords on ao3) really, really, REALLY appreciate it!!

Also, look out for Halloween season! @velvetcovered-brick and I are planning a special Penelope treat… with a bite 🧛

[matt-lifesage]

Matt’s 2023 Visual Novel Tier List

Another year, another tier list/countdown of all the visual novels I read!

(two-thousand words of inconsistently distributed visual novel rambling below the cut)

Honorable Mentions:

I read a couple mobile game stories via youtube videos that are worth talking about but don't really belong on this list. Anyway, I’m slowly on-again off-again catching up to Arknights (almost halfway through it all the last time I checked), and it's been solid, my personal favorite story being Guide Ahead. But the real honor goes to FGO’s Lostbelt 6. A triumph from Kinoko Nasu and the folks over at Type-Moon. One of the best high fantasy epic novels I've ever read, hidden away three hundred hours into a gacha game for extra emphasis. A genuine highlight of the franchise, and if it was eligible for my own list where I make all the rules (hey, wait a minute...), it would be somewhere in S-Tier.

D-Tier

The Humbling of a Holy Maiden

Kicked off this year with some nukige. I’ve been meaning to check out more of the genre to have proper expectations and to know what I’m actually talking about if the subject ever came up (also checked out more of the genre for the obvious reason, but shush!). Frankly, not a good start.

Our tagline is basically, “What if the degrading corruption arc of the holy maiden archetype was consensual?” Nothing groundbreaking but still potentially enjoyable. Shame this game’s execution couldn’t muster even middling entertainment. Between erotic scenes, the game repeats the same meandering attempt at a philosophical conversation between the flatly written leads, who both never feel like even they can take what they’re saying seriously. It wouldn’t be too bad if it happened once or twice, but it’s *every* conversation. They did this a dozen times. Even in a visual novel as short as this, it was mind-numbing. Unfortunately, the erotic scenes aren’t much of a relief. I didn’t share the priorities/kinks of the creators, and even if I did, I would probably find the sex a samey and dull representation of them. This game was a chore to sit through. I don’t recommend.

Also, the heroine’s ‘slutty’ design looks like two clashing sets of lingerie worn on top of each other, and it’s wildly distracting.

Coffee Talk

I’m noticing an annual trend of me reading VNs that assume I have a far more positive connotation with coffee shops than I actually do.

So… I don’t want to make too many comparisons to a certain cyberpunk bartender simulator, especially when those opinions would be based on six-years-removed, nostalgically-charged fond memories of a game I desperately need to reexperience. I went into this Coffee Talk acknowledging it's a pastiche but willing to accept its own identity and terms so I could give it a fair shot and hopefully enjoy myself.

With that being said, I kinda hated this.

Its characters and drama range from enjoyable to mildly unfortunate, mostly nothing too interesting but nothing too egregious either--with Freya, the most frequently appearing character, being our infuriating exception.

The game touches on some mature themes and topics, but more often than not, Coffee Talk’s hokey one-for-one urban fantastical allegories are weighty in the same way that inflatable dumbbells are *technically* weights. The game is so obsessed with these close metaphors that the setting fails to feel remotely believable. And because real-life identities or struggles are recast with the likes of vampires and orcs, it falls into many of the common and frustrating insensitivities of the genre.

Shout out to the art team, though. The game’s presentation is top-notch.

C-Tier

Cute Demon Crashers [reread]

I read this like eight or so years back when it first came out and wanted to see if it held up, so I slapped it on one random night and went through it all again.

Didn’t really have a good time. I’m not the target audience for this. Comfy vanilla might as well be the name of the game, and it’s very, VERY, targeted to an audience looking specifically for that. Full power to them. I can’t complain because it’s literally free. I just didn’t expect to be so immediately bored by it, even if it’s not really doing anything wrong.

Who is the Red Queen?

A quick read with some good stuff, but it didn’t stick around in my head for long after reading it. It feels weird to complain about a free indie game created by people more skilled than myself, but a chunk of the art didn’t sell the Wonderland aesthetic for me. It was fine, but I might have preferred it if it was just a text game so my imagination would interpret the world as even more ethereal and dreamlike in a way generic fantasy backgrounds didn't reflect.

If you're specifically looking for a free-to-play Alice in Wonderland-themed Yuri visual novel, it's a good one. Maybe give it a try.

Coffee Talk Episode 2

Ever read the sequel just to be a more informed hater?

In all fairness, this was a big improvement on the first game. The sequel starts with some basic world-building. There's still obvious parallels in play, but there is a little work to paint this as a separate world this time where similar issues arose, something the first game barely even tried. It doesn’t always work, but it does try, which makes it less open for me to interpret uncharitably.

A second improvement is new mechanics. I don’t think the first game fully earned its last-minute twist, but Episode 2's additional gameplay verbs, plus more significant story deviations to incentivize replay and trial-and-error, does a better job at selling the fiction that the barista has an actual effect in the characters' lives.

Finally, the characters and drama were overall improvements. It's more interesting, less cliche, and there’s a stronger thematic core to tie the desperate arcs together. The highs are higher, and the lows aren’t as low.

That said, while the execution was improved, it never escaped the same foundational approaches as the first game. The urban fantasy allegories are better, but it's still hit or miss. There's still the ever-prevalent issue of halfway through a lovely scene with likable characters discussing their interesting drama, all characters involved will turn to the camera and start speaking in the unnatural cadence of a monologue in an afterschool special. Today's very important topic: Social media harassment! Garth Marenghi would be proud. However, even that element is much better handled than the first game which literally had a character smugly declaring all of this was a one-for-one allegory to our world, JUST IN CASE YOU DIDN'T GET IT.

After my distaste for the first game, I was pleasantly surprised by the sequel. It avoids the grating mistakes of Episode 1, but it's still too sanctimonious and I'll never vibe with its brand of gentrified twee.

Sweet Home ~H na Onee-san wa Suki Desu ka?~

Our final nukige of the list is Sweet Home. No, not the 1989 video game. No, not the movie that was based on. Not the webcomic either. (Gosh, there’s a lot of media sharing this title, huh?) 

If bland 'self-insert'-kun moving back in with his stepmom and having braindead sexy times with her roommates (plus some stepcest thrown in for spice) sounds like something you’d enjoy, then this one’s pretty a’ight. Mileage will vary if smut intended for the heterosexual male audience is even palatable to you. The game’s a quantity-over-quality situation, so you'll get plenty of it in this package for better or for worse. It got on my radar 'cause I dig how its artist, Kiriyama Taichi, drew ladies. I like their product. Probably wouldn’t have liked the game if a worse artist had been in charge--just to give you a taste of how shallow my enjoyment was lol. Consider any other game they were the artist for somewhere down in my TBR somewhere.

Ironically, for a game that’s whole fantasy is fucking (slightly) older ladies, my favorite route was the same-aged tsundere, probably because ‘childhood friend who's been repressing feels’ has more angst to it than 'new roommate wanted to see my dick.' After three of those routes, a crumb of drama might as well be a whole cake.

I couldn’t recommend paying full price. I think the asking price is too steep for this. Wait for a sale like I did.

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog

I’m not a Sonic fan, so despite this being incredibly charming and well done, it didn't have any staying power in my mind. Still good fun, though. It’s rare for "joke" games to be quality, and even if I'm not the target audience, the passion was infectious enough to still enjoy it.

B-Tier

You and Me and Her

This was a solid and fun metafiction experience. Faux fourth wall breaking isn’t my preference (besides, it was already perfected in the 1971 seminal literary classic The Monster at the End of This Book), I respond better to the flavor of metafiction you’ll find in Umineko or Alan Wake, but for what You and Me and Her was going for, it's pretty well-executed. Spoilers, but having a spiteful rivalry with a fictional character is a blast.

While I had a good time, I thought You and Me and Her missed an opportunity to expand its commentary outside the scope of a fourth-wall-breaking “what-if.” Several times through my playthrough, the game felt like it was on the verge of using its premise to explore amatonormativity and heteronormatity, but it never really did, and I was left twiddling my thumbs, feeling like I was unfairly expecting too much.

On that note, however, about a month after playing this game, I read the manhwa Surviving Romance--a very different exploration of the romance genre via different mediums. But it gave me that subtle yet poignant commentary I felt was lacking from You and Me and Her, so I’m using this spot to recommend that comic. It’s super solid. Go track down and read it. It’d be up in A-Tier if I kept track of and ranked the comics I read.

It gets so lonely here

A really well-done yandere horror experience. It has pretty art, tightly written, and does some fun things with its narrative structure. If you want a solid, free-to-play, and spooky yuri VN, I highly recommend this one. Go download it.

I think this game might have ranked higher during a different year, but the cut-off between A-Tier and B-Tier had to go somewhere.

A-Tier

The Radio Wave Bureau

A short, super cool interactive fiction about fixing your computer. We’re at the point with some of these where I don’t have much to say other than “go read it,” but this game is short enough it’s hard to talk about in a way that doesn’t speak for itself. It's like twenty minutes long. I really dug it. Go play it.

Milk outside a bag of milk outside a bag of milk

A beautiful and melancholic expansion for the first game. A character piece that elevates Milk and Milk 2 to 'must read' status. It’s difficult to rank which one I prefer since both enhance each other via contrast. While I adore this game’s detailed introspection, if I had to pick a favorite, it would have to be the simplicity of--

Milk inside a bag of milk inside a bag of milk

It's another read that's only around twenty minutes long, but no other VNs have ever grabbed me by the throat with their premise alone. Both these games are incredible and vulnerable slice-of-life works. Put them on your TBR.

S-Tier

Tsukihime -A piece of blue glass moon-

I made like a hundred posts about it. What else can I say?

Arcueid’s route on its own was the best VN experience I had this year. List over. That goes at the top beyond the next two entries. Sorry, not sorry. It was a beautiful, perfected reboot of the story. I loved everything about it. It made me fall in love with Shiki and Arcueid all over again. If we count the false start back in college when I didn’t get halfway through the original VN, the two times I’ve read Tsukihime all the way through, plus the twice I’ve read the manga adaptation, this was the SIXTH time I experienced this particular story. And I cried at the end. It’s that good.

Now, if I love that route as much as I do, why, you may ask, is this entry only third place? ‘Cause Remake is only half of a remake, and it really does feel like it. Not only do we not have Far Side yet, but there’s also a whole Tsukihime-worth of new stuff, half of which hasn’t been paid off yet either, so there’s a pervasive incompleteness that isn’t really a flaw with the game, but will bug me until we get the next part. Also, I wasn’t as blown away by Ciel’s route as other fans were. It turns out it becomes more obvious that I don't relate to Shiki in Ciel’s route nearly as much as I did to him in Arcueid's once you take what was basically the last four hours of the original and expand it to an almost forty-hour new story. Still love it, btw, but it’s only a 'Really really good OMG go read it' story, instead of a modern magnum opus from Nasu (what a disappointment, am I right? lol)

Anyway, this game is a triumph that met my overhyped expectations. I can’t wait to see what Nasu and the gang have planned for in -The other side of red garden-.

The House in Fata Morgana

Welp, that’s just special, innit. Michel and Giselle have planted themselves among some of my favorite leads of all time. The entire cast is strong across all the incarnations of the house. While the first act is still good, once the narrative behind the anthology format is revealed and the whole context comes into play, it becomes a fantastic tragic romance and a beautiful rumination on evil. It almost gets a bit sanctimonious near the end, but it doesn't fall into obvious narrative pitfalls. Considering the premise of the final act, it's appropriate, so I'll give it a pass.

Yet another classic that meets the hype.

WE KNOW THE DEVIL [reread]

On a technicality, this was the best magical girl VN I read all year too.

The top three VNs were neck-and-neck for the ranking, but I gotta give it to this one. It's short, but I think on every level of intent and execution, this game's incredible. A beautiful aesthetic. A creative and haunting choice/route system. Vibes for days. There are no caveats to be found here. I can't think of anyone I wouldn't recommend this to. Read it. I'm not asking.

And that’s 2023! I’m going to try rereading Va-11 Hall-A in January now that Coffee Talk is fresh in my mind. Sometime after that, I’ll get back to 428--I feel really bad I left it hanging after the tutorial. As always, I hope to get through my downloaded backlog but I also plan on reading a few more Nitro+ games and my first AliceSoft title. Stay tuned!

[hungrydolphin91]

[Insert some kind of Xillia 2 catchy tagline here about how my sister and I are playing this game]. I don't even remember what chapter we're on at this point, but we did all the fun Victor stuff

Victor only took as three tries: we got very close the first time, the second one doesn't count because he confused the whole party and we all murdered each other, but by the third we had grinded a little and bought some better weapons and armor

Since we had to rewatch the cutscenes she picked different dialogue choices just to see what changed, except for the one about Ludger's cooking vs. Victor's. Sis: "I won't concede, mine's still better."

Sorry I don't have much to report about the reactions, since my sister pretty much already knew what was about to happen. She wasn't thrilled about being Elle's father, but she did feel bad for Elle finding out her father was using her, and watching him get killed, too. It's a lot for a kid to go through 😭

There's a bonus scene with Jude helping Ludger make a new pot of soup after Elle spills the first, but he mostly just stands there. Me: "YOU SHOULD BE HELPING, NOT HURTING."

My sister slapped a pair of goofy glasses on Alvin right before his character chapter so we got to enjoy all the emotional close ups with his 😏 expression. I'm surprised Presa didn't return the ring just from that 😂

Leia: "Agria, watch over me." Me: "Agria is probably flipping you off from Hell."

Why is it that Alvin's chapters are much more interesting to me than the others. I mean I'm probably super biased cause I like him but still I like how they explore more of his struggles at improving himself and what could have been based on his past, compared to, I don't know, buying a bunny doll or reading Muzet's thoughts. Maybe I'm just an angst fan.

We started prime Milla's chapter in a new session, and the second the cutscene started my sister left to go get snacks. We have a fundamentally different way of playing these games 😅

Hilariously, the cutscene was halted so Ludger can make a dialogue choice, one of them being "Sounds like I missed something." 😂

I forgot this was a Milla chapter and not a Jude one, with the iconic gay bird spirit that's acting like a clingy ex 😂

While hunting elite monsters, Milla died right at the end of a battle and didn't get the exp, but characters who weren't in the party still did. Sis: "Alvin's probably waking up from a nap like 'Guess who just got stronger?'"

We made paid the bank 150,000 with Ludger's reward money, and all we got was kitty krisps and a skill for Alvin, who again, wasn't there. Cue both of us saying "Guess who just got stronger?" and laughing.

I forgot proceeding with the plot in Marksburg triggers a boss battle with Chronos. Oops, we weren't fully healed.

Julius shows up and defends Ludger, aww. Sis: "When do we tell him he's technically an uncle now?"

I couldn't remember how many times the Chronos fight looped but it wasn't too bad really, the game's going easy on you at this point since it's scripted.

Bisley shows up to interrupt the fight. Sis: "Who are you?" Me, with utter exasperation: "...Do you seriously not know who he is?" 😩 (She did, she just didn't know why he was helping)

My sister was a lot more worried about Julius taking Ludger's place to fight Chronos one on one over the appearance of Bisley or the disappearance of Elle. I can't blame her, Julius's love for his brother is so sweet and he's frankly more compelling than most of the other original characters

Elle runs away because she suddenly doesn't want to go to Canaan anymore (it IS pretty creepy I'll give her that), and the rest of the party is somehow fine with letting this child run around unsupervised except by Spirius agents?? Even my sister who hates Elle pointed out that Ludger is kinda her closest living relative in this dimension so he should probably not let her wander off??

The SECOND that cutscene ended, Nova called. "Ludger, I know you just fought the god of time, but he gave you money, didn't he? You can't pull a fast one over the bank!"

Next time is... whatever happens next. My memories are a little fuzzy but I think we're gonna do that stuff in Spirius's basement soon, and then... oof. Hoping for a bad end, ngl 😅

[Masterpost link here, eventually.]

[weyrwolfen]

Welp, I have some thoughts and feelings on this subject. Might as well post them on the internet and get myself in trouble.

George Lucas has made it very clear what he was aiming for, with the whole concept of attachment, and I really enjoyed reading all of the context gathered together in this post. I guess my thoughts are (and here’s where I’m about to poke the hornet’s nest) that intent doesn't matter if the story can't stand on its own. And I would argue that the various writers in the Star Wars universe haven't always done a very good job of clearly communicating their themes within their stories.

“Attachment = greed, possession, fear, the inability to accept the nature of life, full stop,” definitely comes across in the movies and shows, but as is already pointed out in the comments, Attack of the Clones was also advertised with the tagline, “A Jedi shall not know anger. Nor hatred. Nor love.” And that leads to the arguments I see in a lot of fandom discussions on the topic, because if the Jedi say attachment = greed, possession, and fear, but they also say that attachment = love, then love (according to the Jedi code) must = greed, possession, and fear. And whoa, that’s a load of red flags right there. The Jedi seemingly espousing that love will make you go evil is what sends up some people's hackles. (Does that mean any kind of love, or just romantic love? What about parental love? Platonic love? Cue the screaming.) To be very clear, I don’t think that was what Lucas meant to communicate. However, it’s also not an unreasonable reading of the text, given what was presented.

(Should a marketing tagline be considered canon? Maybe not, but for us fandom olds, that was how AotC was framed and presented to the audience back when it was first released. It's going to color our take on the plot.)

I actually think the Clone Wars arc with Rush Clovis did a little bit better job of exploring this topic. Maybe love in general, and romantic love in particular, weren't inherently problematic, but Anakin and Padme's relationship definitely was. Anakin came across as controlling, possessive, and to just say it flat out, abusive. Even so, the treatment of those issues was pretty superficial, and the writers seriously glossed over a complex, mature topic (presumably because the show was being marketed to kids). So, are we supposed to understand that this relationship is going to lead to Anakin's fall 1) because he's being controlling and possessive and that's bad or 2) because romantic love is always controlling and possessive, so love is bad? Once again, I think the intention was option #1, but the execution was so wishy washy, it didn't do much to counter option #2.

Which could segue over into a whole discussion about Hera and Kanan, who had a romantic relationship, but who didn’t build it on a foundation of trying to possess or control one another, and who could and did put the greater good ahead of their own wants and desires. So, is Kanan breaking the Jedi code in Rebels? Heck if I know. I mean, I do have an opinion, and that opinion is shaped by things like Lucas's quotes above, but it’s just my opinion. The answer isn’t, to the best of my knowledge, explicitly laid out in the text. (Is it? Maybe it is, but I’m not 100% up on all the tie-in books and comics. Yeah, I know. I’m a bad fan.)

So basically, my hot take is that the whole attachment debate in Star Wars is the direct result of not-so-great writing/editing choices made whenever the subject comes up in-universe. (Sorry George et al., I still love your universe and characters!)

This is every time I have ever seen George Lucas talk about attachment in Star Wars and every time he has consistently, repeatedly tied attachment to possession, fear, greed, the desire to control people, the dark side, and the inability to accept that life is transitory, that you can’t hold on to people, you can’t keep them, you can’t possess them.  That if you refuse to let go, which is one of the central themes of the movies, it directly leads to the dark side. That, when the Jedi say attachment is forbidden, they are saying that you can’t want to hold onto things so badly that you’ll slide to the dark side and be willign to do anything just to stop yourself from feeling that fear of losing them (which wouldn’t even work anyway). This isn’t only part of the definition of attachment, this is every time attachment is talked about, it’s synonymous with the dark side.  This is the full context of what attachment means in Star Wars and to the Jedi.  Attachment = greed, possession, fear, the inability to accept the nature of life, full stop.  That’s it, that’s the definition in the galaxy far, far away. : (Bolding is mine for drawing the connections between everything said here.) THE PHANTOM MENACE COMMENTARY: George Lucas, The Mythology of Star Wars, 1999:

BILL MOYERS: “The Phantom Menace is about letting go?” GEORGE LUCAS: “It’s about letting go.”

George Lucas to CNN, May 8, 2002:

��   “In this film, [The Phantom Menace] you begin to see that he has a fear of losing things, a fear of losing his mother, and as a result, he wants to begin to control things, he wants to become powerful, and these are not Jedi traits. And part of these are because he was starting to be trained so late in life, that he’d already formed these attachments. And for a Jedi, attachment is forbidden.”

ATTACK OF THE CLONES COMMENTARY: George Lucas, BBC News, 2002:

     "Jedi Knights aren’t celibate - the thing that is forbidden is attachments - and possessive relationships.”

George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary:

     “The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that he can’t hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn’t willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he’d have been taken in his first year and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them.    “But he has become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he’s been prepping for this, but that’s the one where he’s sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate.“

George Lucas, CNN.com 2002:

“The message [of Attack of the Clones] is you can’t possess things. You can’t hold on to them. You have to accept change. You have to accept the fact that things transition. And so, as you try to hold on to things or you become afraid of – that you’re going to lose things, then you begin to crave the power to control those things. And then, you start to become greedy and then you turn into a bad person.”

George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary:

    “The scene in the garage here, we begin to see that what [Anakin]’s really upset about is the fact that he’s not powerful enough. That if he had more power, he could’ve kept his mother. He could’ve saved her and she could’ve been in his life. That relationship could’ve stayed there if he’d have been just powerful enough. He’s greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he’s greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There’s a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the dark side.    “And it also shows his jealousy and anger at Obi-Wan and blaming everyone else for his inability to be as powerful as he wants to be, which he hears that he will be, so here he sort of lays out his ambition and you’ll see later on his ambition and his dialogue here is the same as Dooku’s. He says ‘I will become more powerful than every Jedi.’ And you’ll hear later on Dooku will say ‘I have become more powerful than any Jedi.’ So you’re going start to see everybody saying the same thing. And Dooku is kind of the fallen Jedi who was converted to the dark side because the other Sith Lord didn’t have time to start from scratch, and so we can see that that’s where this is going to lead which is that it is possible for a Jedi to be converted. It is possible for a Jedi to want to become more powerful, and control things. Because of that, and because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the Tusken Raiders.“

George Lucas, Attack of the Clones commentary:

      “The fact that everything must change and that things come and go through his life and that [Anakin] cannot hold onto things, which is a basic Jedi philosophy that he isn’t willing to accept emotionally and the reason that is because he was raised by his mother rather than the Jedi. If he’d have been taken in his first years and started to study to be a Jedi, he wouldn’t have this particular connection as strong as it is and he’d have been trained to love people but not to become attached to them.    “But he become attached to his mother and he will become attached to Padme and these things are, for a Jedi, who needs to have a clear mind and not be influenced by threats to their attachments, a dangerous situation. And it feeds into fear of losing things, which feeds into greed, wanting to keep things, wanting to keep his possessions and things that he should be letting go of. His fear of losing her turns to anger at losing her, which ultimately turns to revenge in wiping out the village. The scene with the Tusken Raiders is the first scene that ultimately takes him on the road to the dark side. I mean he’s been prepping for this, but that’s the one where he’s sort of doing something that is completely inappropriate.    “He’s greedy in that he wants to keep his mother around, he’s greedy in that he wants to become more powerful in order to control things in order to keep the things around that he wants. There’s a lot of connections here with the beginning of him sliding into the dark side.  [….]    “Because of that, and because he was unwilling to let go of his mother, because he was so attached to her, he committed this terrible revenge on the Tusken Raiders.”

George Lucas, Time Magazine, 2002:

    “[Anakin] turns into Darth Vader because he gets attached to things. He can’t let go of his mother; he can’t let go of his girlfriend. He can’t let go of things. It makes you greedy. And when you’re greedy, you are on the path to the dark side, because you fear you’re going to lose things, that you’re not going to have the power you need.”

REVENGE OF THE SITH COMMENTARY: George Lucas, The Making of Revenge of the Sith:

    “The Jedi are trained to let go. They’re trained from birth,” he continues, “They’re not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can’t form attachments.”

George Lucas, The Making of Revenge of the Sith, 2005:

     “The core issue, ultimately, is greed, possessiveness - the inability to let go. Not only to hold on to material things, which is greed, but to hold on to life, to the people you love - to not accept the reality of life’s passages and changes, which is to say things come, things go. Everything changes. Anakin becomes emotionally attached to things, his mother, his wife. That’s why he falls - because he does not have the ability to let go.     “No human can let go. It’s very hard. Ultimately, we do let go because it’s inevitable; you do die, and you do lose your loved ones. But while you’re alive, you can’t be obsessed with holding on. As Yoda says in this one, [The scene in which Anakin seeks Yoda’s counsel] You must learn to let go of everything you’re afraid to let go of.’ Because holding on is in the same category and the precursor to greed. And that’s what a Sith is. A Sith is somebody that is absolutely obsessed with gaining more and more power - but for what? Nothing, except that it becomes an obsession to get more.      “The Jedi are trained to let go. They’re trained from birth, they’re not supposed to form attachments. They can love people- in fact, they should love everybody. They should love their enemies; they should love the Sith. But they can’t form attachments. So, what all these movies are about is: greed. Greed is a source of pain and suffering for everybody. And the ultimate state of greed is the desire to cheat death.”

OVERALL COMMENTARY: George Lucas, Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005:

     “The core of Anakin’s problem is that the Jedi are raised from birth so they learn to let go of everything. They’re trained more than anything else to understand the transitional nature of life, that things are constantly changing and you can’t hold on to anything. You can love things but you can’t be attached to them, You must be willing to let the flow of life and the flow of the Force move through your life, move through you. So that you can be compassionate and loving and caring, but not be possessive and grabbing and holding on to things and trying to keep things the way they are. Letting go is the central theme of the film.“

George Lucas, The Star Wars Archives: 1999-2005:

     “[Jedi Knights] do not grow attachments, because attachment is a path to the dark side. You can love people, but you can’t want to possess them. They’re not yours. Accept that they have a fate. Even those you love most are going to die. You can’t do anything about that. Protect them with your lightsaber, but if they die they were going to die. there’s nothing you can do. All you can do is accept that fact.    “In mythology, if you go to Hades to get them back you’re not doing it for them, you’re doing it for yourself. You’re doing it because you don’t want to give them up. You’re afraid to be without them. The key to the dark side is fear. You must be clean of fear, and fear of loss is the greatest fear. If you’re set up for fear of loss, you will do anything to keep that loss from happening, and you’re going to end up in the dark side. That’s the basic premise of Star Wars and the Jedi, and how it works.    “That’s why they’re taken at a young age to be trained. They cannot get themselves killed trying to save their best buddy when it’s a hopeless exercise.” 

George Lucas, Mellody Hobson George Lucas - Virtual Speaker Interview, 2021

   “The thing with Anakin is that he started out a great kid he was very compassionate, so the issue was how did he turn bad. How did he go to the dark side? He went to the dark side, Jedi aren’t supposed to have attachments. They can love people, they can do that, but they can’t attach, that’s the problem in the world of fear. Once you are attached to something then you become afraid of losing it. And when you become afraid of losing it, then you turn to the dark side, and you want to hold onto it, and that was Anakin’s issue.  Ultimately, that he wanted to hold onto his wife who he knew, he had a premonition that she was going to die, he didn’t know how to stop it, so he went to the dark side.  In mythology you go to Hades, and you talk to the devil, and the devil says ‘this is what you do’ and basically you sell your soul to the devil. When you do that, and you’re afraid and you’re on the dark side and you fall off the golden path of compassion because you are greedy, you want to hold on to something that you love and he didn’t do the right thing and as a result he turned bad.”

[billconrad]

Was Fast X Good?

    Movies have been a part of our entertainment spectrum since 1903 when The Great Train Robbery was released. It was a silent action movie about (spoiler alert) a train robbery.

    Since that humble beginning, there has been a broad range of films, from epic blockbusters to minor projects that got canceled before filming. The genres include action, western, horror, animated, fantasy, thriller, crime, etc.

    Movies are a popular pastime for most people, and I watch at least five per week. As proof of my obsession, I have rated (put stars on) 3,706 Netflix DVD titles. Side note: Netflix is discontinuing its DVD service. Bummer!

    Since 1998, I regularly visit the same movie theater with my friends on Thursday nights. We have a simple routine. Eat dinner at one of five regular restaurants and then pick a film to watch.

    On May eleventh, we watched the movie Fast X. It was the tenth in the Fast and The Furious franchise. Like most action movies, there were epic car chases, guns, beautiful girls, over-the-top effects, epic locations, and dramatic confrontations. I had a so-so reaction to the previous films and watched this one with modest expectations.

    We have a moviegoing tradition of applying a letter grade at the film’s end. Usually, we all agree, but sometimes there are radical differences. That evening, our rating ranged from C to a D+.

    Why did this film receive such low grades? I don’t appreciate trashing artistic creations that many people worked hard on, so I will tread lightly with my answer. The big problem was that they modeled the villain after the Joker from the 1966 Batman television show, so he was impossible to take seriously. The plot was confusing, unrealistic, and there were many holes.

    I can sum the problems up with the tagline (equivalent to when Arnold Schwarzenegger says, “I’ll be back”) “You made one mistake. You never took my car.” What does that mean? All four of us did not know. After the movie, I searched the internet and learned that many other viewers were also confused. A super-fan translated, “If you had tried to steal my car, that would have upset me, and I would have come after you harder.” Wow, that was a leap that even Evel Knievel could not jump. Why didn’t he say, “I’m a better driver.” “I’m so furious right now.” “Nobody can beat me.” 

    Not every film is perfect, but I did not want to explore that topic. When we saw the film, the theater was packed. The audience’s reaction (except us) was universal. BEST MOVIE EVER! Many people clapped at the end. Were we watching the same screen?

    Most audience members talked through the credits about the fantastic plot and how much they looked forward to the next. As we were leaving, five people said they would see the movie in the theater again.

    My adverse reaction should be a simple “not my cup of tea.” Meaning that people like what they like and hate what they do not. For example, I enjoyed the movie Super Troopers, and most viewers hated it. On the other side of that coin, I was not too fond of The Da Vinci Code, and many viewers felt it was a powerful movie with an epic plot that spanned the globe.

    It is perfectly fine not to like a movie that other people enjoy. Creators take risks, and sometimes they fail. And I concede that Fast X had several wonderful scenes.

    However, I think something else was going on with me. Why didn’t the audience say, “Wow, great special effects! But there were a few issues.” Nobody in the audience (except for my friends) was discussing the glaring issues. This disconnection made me think the problem was with me (us). Perhaps in my old age, I expect more or analyze better. Perhaps I hold plots to a higher standard because of my modest writing ability. I recall loving The Dukes of Hazzard television show as a child and now see it as a poor program. Could being an adult be the issue?

    How should I solve my dilemma? I could read reviews to understand why people liked or disliked the film. No, that would be a mistake because all negative reviews point out flaws, no matter how small. My favorite movies also have plot flaws, awful scenes, and errors. Was the audience aware of the issues, and they ignored them? Was this a case of enjoying the previous film, and momentum carried the audience along?

    Here is my theory. This movie was too big to fail. Why? The other films in the franchise also had issues because they were supposed to. Fast X is a big action movie about fast driving, as were the prior films. The creators made a summer blockbuster, not a film meant to convey a deep message, such as Schindler’s List.

    The problem with me is that I completely missed the film’s point. This was akin to watching a nature documentary and getting disappointed because Arnold Schwarzenegger was not shooting aliens.

    I now understand that I went into the theater with the wrong expectations. I should have sat back, enjoyed the kooky dialog and fantastic car chases while ignoring the problems.

    So, I have learned that I need to better set my expectations before watching a movie. Fast X was a funny, unrealistic, entertaining action movie and nothing more. That’s probably a good thing.

    You’re the best -Bill

    June 14, 2023

    Hey book lovers, I published three. Please check them out!

    Interviewing Immortality is a psychological thriller about a 500-year-old woman who forces a disgraced author to interview her.

    Pushed to the Edge of Survival is a drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

    Cable Ties is a classic spy novel about two hunters discovering that government communications are being recorded and the ensuing FBI investigation.

    These books are available in soft-cover on Amazon and eBook format everywhere.

[kjack89]

Let the Light In

For @themiserablesmonth Day 10: Light.

E/R, Modern AU, established relationship. Absolute morons.

Read on AO3.

“Are you planning on coming to dinner anytime soon?” Enjolras asked mildly, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

Grantaire didn’t look up from his laptop. “Uh-huh, sure,” he said vaguely, not shifting from his position coccooned in a blanket on the couch..

Enjolras frowned. “Look, I love a good role reversal as much as anyone, but I have at least gotten to the point where I tell you when I’m going to be too absorbed in my work to eat.” He paused, considering it, before amending, “Most of the time at least.”

Grantaire finally glanced up, blinking at Enjolras as if just noticing him for the first time. “Sorry, did you say something?”

“Nothing,” Enjolras said through gritted teeth, knowing damn well that he had no real leg to stand on after the number of times he’d done the same exact thing. “What are you working on?”

“Oh, you’ll like this,” Grantaire said, brightening as he sat up. “This is right up your alley. We’re talking corruption, greed, scandal, potential conspiracy and cover-up—”

Enjolras raised both eyebrows in surprise. “Well color me intrigued,” he said. “Who’s involved?”

“Dunkin’ Donuts.”

Enjolras blinked. “Beg pardon?”

“Dunkin’ Donuts,” Grantaire repeated. “They completely revamped their rewards system and are cheating people out of their rightfully earned free coffee.” 

Enjolras took a long moment to reply, and when he did, all he managed to do was repeat, incredulously, “Dunkin’ Donuts.”

Grantaire nodded, his tone turning conspiratorial. “Yeah. It used to be 200 points to get a free coffee, now it’s between 500-900 points. Not to mention, they completely dropped a free birthday drink! Even Starbucks, cursed be its name, does a free drink on your birthday!” He shook his head. “The people will not stand for it. There are gonna be riots in the streets of Boston, just you wait.”

There were many things that Enjolras wanted to say to this, but at least half of them would result in him spending the next week sleeping on the couch, so he again took a moment, this time counting to ten in his head and doing some deep breathing before saying, “So, let me just make sure I’ve got this straight. You’ve been holed up in here for close to six hours now because of Dunkin’ Donuts, a corporation, doing the things that corporations do to make more money.”

Grantaire frowned, clearly picking up on Enjolras’s tone. “I mean, I wouldn’t put it like that, but yeah, pretty much.”

“Right,” Enjolras said. “Ok. Well, dinner is ready whenever you are.”

He turned to go, pausing when Grantaire said, his voice calm and extremely pointed, “Huh.”

Enjolras’s eyes narrowed. “What?”

Grantaire shrugged. “Nothing. I’m just a little surprised.”

“At what?”

Grantaire shrugged again, looking at his fingernails as if they were far more interesting than this conversation. “I figured you would be proud that I was finally taking a stand against something.”

Enjolras gaped at him. “Are you seriously—”

“I mean, you’re the one who always says democracy dies in darkness,” Grantaire said blithely.

Enjolras ground his teeth together. “Firstly, I don’t say that,” he snapped. “That’s the Washington Post’s tagline. Secondly, Dunkin Donuts Rewards is not a democracy.”

“Maybe not,” Grantaire said blithely, “but you do always say something about letting light in.”

If Enjolras ground his teeth together any harder, his dentist was going to give him yet another lecture at his next cleaning. “Yes, to the functioning of our government and especially the political donations that spur the machinations of our elected officials!”

Grantaire smirked at him. “Well, that’s exactly what we’re doing here. We are letting the light in on this asinine decision and we are going to expose Big Coffee.”

“That is absolutely not the same thing,” Enjolras said through clenched teeth.

Grantaire ignored him, choosing instead to misquote the Beastie Boys. “You gotta fight! For your right! To coffee!”

Enjolras took a deep breath. “I love you, but you’re fucking ridiculous.”

With that, he really did leave, using every ounce of self-restraint to not stomp out of the room like the petulant child he knew he was being. He knew Grantaire was kidding, he knew that he had meant everything in a lighthearted, fun way, and yet.

He sat down at the kitchen table in a huff, not even bothering to get the takeout containers from the counter, and pulled out his phone, because nothing soothed the soul like a quick doomscroll through Twitter. A minute or two later, Grantaire sat down next to him, trying and failing to keep a straight face. “I’m sorry.”

Enjolras gave him a look. “No you’re not.”

“No I’m not,” Grantaire agreed. “But we’re busting this thing wide open, I’m telling you. There’s an entire network of pissed off New Englanders who are ready to expose the fat cats at the center of this whole scandal. We’re bringing ‘em down. Dunkin’ will be the people’s coffee once again.”

Enjolras rolled his eyes. “I’m sure they will.”

He sighed heavily and Grantaire nudged him gently. “What?”

“Nothing,” Enjolras said, and when Grantaire gave him a look, he sighed again and said, :Just trying very hard not to imagine what it would be like if people devoted the same amount of energy and attention to, y’know, things that mattered.”

Grantaire nodded slowly. “People, or me specifically?”

“Both.”

Grantaire sighed as well, his smile disappearing. “If it makes you feel better, I am taking this exactly as seriously as I take most Les Amis stuff.”

Enjolras barked a dry, humorless laugh. “Yeah, that makes me feel just great.”

For a long moment, Grantaire was quiet, then he reached out to take Enjolras’s hand, lacing their fingers together. “For what little it’s worth, maybe there’s a way to leverage this collective outrage towards something that matters?”

“Like what?” Enjolras asked, a little skeptically.

Grantaire shrugged. “Like, I don’t know, if you’re mad at Dunkin’ now, wait until you learn about their wage theft and union busting efforts. Or maybe an awareness campaign highlighting local, sustainable coffee shops - the real people’s coffee. Or, like, Now do Congress challenge #AmericaRunsOnSunshine.”

Despite himself, Enjolras smiled, just a little. “That’s not half-bad,” he said reluctantly.

Grantaire nudged him again, his own smile returning. “See, now there’s that pride I was hoping for.”

Enjolras leaned in to kiss Grantaire’s temple. “I never needed you to take a stand for anything for me to be proud of you. I’m always proud of you.” He hesitated before adding, “Even if I think your time and energy could be slightly better spent.”

Grantaire kissed him as well. “Pot meet kettle, babe.”

“Fair enough.” 

Enjolras knew better than to keep pursuing an argument after they’d both found something resembling common ground, so instead, he looked back down at his phone and what he had been doing before Grantaire joined him. Grantaire cleared his throat. “So, uh, are we actually going to eat?”

“Yeah, in just a moment,” Enjolras said a little distractedly.

“I’ll assume this is your version of petty revenge?” Grantaire asked dryly. “What are you working on that’s so important?”

“Nothing,” Enjolras said vaguely.

Grantaire rolled his eyes and plucked his phone from his hands, his eyes widening as he saw what was on the screen. “Is that change.org petition to change Dunkin’ Rewards back to Dunkin’ Perks?”

“No!” Enjolras snapped, grabbing his phone back. Grantaire gave him a look and Enjolras laughed. “…Maybe. Look, if it’s important to you and it helps shine the light on corporate practices—”

Grantaire’s expression softened and he leaned in to kiss Enjolras once more. “I love you. Idiot.”

“I know,” Enjolras agreed. “I love you, too.”

[idontblushsrry]

Love Language|| Jujutsu Kaisen

“I wanna be fluent in your love language. Learning your love language.” 

A/N: If you didn’t guess from the tagline this is inspired by the song love language by Kehlani. I’ll probably do more of these with different shows and what not because why not. If I missed anyone lmk and I can make a part 2. Also please tag spoilers appropriately esp for manga readers, that being said spoilers for the prequel? manga on Yuuta’s part.

Characters: Itadori, Fushiguro, Kugisaki, Maki, Inumaki, Okkotsu, Gojo, Nanami, Sukuna

Warnings: said it b4 but spoiler warnings in general but esp on Yuuji, Yuuta, and Maki’s parts

Plot synopsis: The 5 love languages; physical affection, quality time, words of affirmation, gift giving and acts of service, and how each jujutsu kaisen character shows their love and affection for you. Ft. a gender neutral reader!

Word count: 2352

Itadori Yuuji

Love Language: Quality time and physical affection

Ok listen-

So for physical affection, Yuuji’s just that kind of person

He is all about giving to you

He’s holding hands with you if you’re ever walking anywhere, and if you’re not a hand holder pls pls pls let him hold your pinky he likes the reassurance

No but seriously he loves to hold you like yall could be walking in completely opposite directions and he’ll try to find some way to hold onto you until the very last second

And even then he’s all ‘:( babe imy’

‘Yuuji we just talked 2 minutes ago’

Another way he shows his love is through quality time

I think for him this is the biggest thing overall, esp as a jujutsu sorcerer bcus you never know yk but also because you’re important to him

Like remember how he literally went to occult club so that he could get out of school in time to go visit his grandpa...ye :(

He also loves finding dumb touristy things to do with you while in Tokyo or anywhere yall go together on a mission 

If you get together before he died and came back then that time he had to spend away from you literally killed him

Like my mans was goin THROUGH it

He almost considered spoiling Gojo’s secret

When he sees you again, he’s not gonna let go for like a solid day

Fushiguro Megumi

Love Language: acts of service and words of affirmation

This boy loves you so much

He loves to tell you all the things he loves about you when you’re alone

But he’s a little awkward with his words sometimes, hence where acts of service come in

He’ll immediately offer to hold your things, run to help you train or study, and if you’re cold? He’s fully prepared to never see his jacket again

Also he can’t cook but he’s fully prepared to suffer hearing Sukuna and suffering through Yuuji’s antics if it means he can learn how to make your favorite food

He also will surprise you by making you a playlist of all the songs that you’ve had stuck in your head and sends it to you randomly out of the blue one day like ‘thought you might like this’

However the best of both worlds is when he leaves you little notes throughout the day or sends you texts asking if you need anything or just encouraging you to keep going 

Negl he’s lowkey the president of the Y/N support club bcus-

You need anything? It’s yours

Cravings? Sad? Angry? What do you need bby, I’ve got it for you

Also he’s totally the type to be like you need help fuckin this person up? 

Also before yall started dating, Fushiguro was a mess

He was constantly asking to spar with you and go on missions, basically anything he could do to be near you  

End of the day, Fushiguro loves you and makes sure you know it whether it’s through his actions or his words

Kugisaki Nobara

Love Language: physical affection

So, she’s not the best with words, she tries but like someone help her bcus she is LOST

Like when she had a crush on you she was like “c’mere dumbass i wanna give you a hug”

In fact, she still is like “c’mere” but now you are dating :)

She loves you though and at first she doesn’t really know how to show it 

But one day you both come home from training and you just look at each other like ‘yeah today sucks’ and yall both just held each other for the rest of the day 

After that, she decided that she wants to do that with you but like always

She’s holding your hand, kissing your cheek when you go shopping, etc. etc.

She really loves to cling to you because she always has this fear that maybe one day you’ll get killed or just disappear so she figures might as well hold onto you for as long as we’ve got

After missions, she’s running up to you and if you aren’t prepared for the tackle, you’re probably gonna fall

On dates too, like if you guys have to meet up for a date, she’s tackling you

On the subject of dates...

She doesn’t mind PDA, and while she might hold your hand or arm so that you don’t get separated

She also doesn’t mind wiping food off your face and eating it, only to then kiss the spot on your face the food was previously at

She will split her shopping load between the two of you, however she will be slightly pouty if she’s carrying more than you (she then cheers up when she realizes she can do more shopping to “balance” the two of you)

In private she’s very cuddly and kissy which honestly isn’t that bad until it gets hot

At which point she’ll just say turn on the ac or convince you to walk around in a tank top (or something like it) so that she can continue holding you

Tbh she prefers the big spoon, but if she’s ever upset you let her be the little spoon >:(

All in all a very loving girlfriend who tries her best to show how much she loves you by glomping you at any given moment. 

Zenin Maki

Love language: acts of service and quality time

So you’re telling me that Maki wouldn’t immediately go out of her way to make sure her and her s/o can spend as much time together as possible?????

Like she’s super observant (which can cause her to be a bit harsh, see Yuuta) but she can always tell what’s bothering you

So if you’re upset that you haven’t been spending enough time together due to her being out on missions or otherwise busy she’s immediately running to finish her stuff and spend time with you.

((She’s very sorry, but on the bright side she brought your favorites!))

Maki is also an acts of service type

This mostly ties in with her kind of direct action way of thinking

She thinks she’s slick but you can always see her sneaking around to do small things like grabbing your laundry for you and folding it

She’s very much like if you love someone, you gotta prove it

Overall, dates with her are very intimate and personal to the two of you

Like she’ll take you to a frog pond you landed in during a fight once

Or you’ll take her to a street fair that serves this exclusive food that Maki mentioned wanting to try 

However, Maki shows her love through quality time and acts of service and while she does receive love from these to a degree, she is very much a words of affirmation gal

She’s not insecure in her day to day life but she has her moments, everyone does

Sometimes, she’ll feel like shit and a failure and all she wants is for you to say that she’s doing amazing and that she’s a great girlfriend.

Inumaki Toge

Love language: Physical affection

Because of his curse, he can’t exactly express how he feels about you through words

He does text you frequently throughout the day (I’ll have to do a hc abt that someday)

But he’d prefer not to be on his phone to communicate if you’re right in front of him

So he does the next best thing and just smothers you in physical affection

He loves kissing you the most

Like he could spend hours just kissing you if you let him (please let him)

But in public, he gets if you’re not a big fan of pda he’s willing to tone it down as long as he gets kisses later in private

He’d still prefer it if you held his hand or linked pinkies maintaining touch in some way

Also, unrelated, but it means so much to him if you try to understand his sushi language

He knows realistically the foundation of any relationship is communication so already he’s at a disadvantage because of his curse 

But if he sees you like take notes after he says something or start to need him to text you to translate, his heart is swelling

Like ‘omg this person loves me enough to learn a whole new language <333′

Another tangent but before you were together he was struggling so muchhhh

Like how does one express their feelings for someone without words?

If you’re Inumaki, you buy some flowers and text said person to meet you at a cafe

It took an embarrassingly long time for you to realize it was a date, but once you did, you ever so gently linked pinkies with Toge

Okkotsu Yuuta

Love language: words. of. affirmation. 

He’s literally so sensitive please tell him you love him regularly

In return he’ll be sure to tell you how much he loves you too

He knows that he can’t really be there for you as much as he’d like but he likes to let you know that he’s thinking of you

Doesn’t matter the time, if you call, he’s answering

If he doesn’t he’ll cry he’ll immediately call you back and is apologizing for missing your call

You assure him it’s no big deal but the man has his volume turned all the way up and changed your ringtone to one specific for you by the time you’ve even said hey

Aside from that, he really is sensitive

He’s been through a lot especially with Rika as well as growing up alone and bullied 

So for him, it’s everything to hear that you like having him around and don’t think he’s too much or anything like that

Of course, he gets better with time, trusting you and having the confidence in himself to not need constant assurance

That being said, if you ever just whisper in his ear, “I love you, Yuuta.”

That’s not your boyfriend, that’s a puddle of love on the floor

(Maki, Panda, and Inumaki had a field day when they saw him, Fushiguro now questions if Yuuta really is a respectable 2nd year.)

Gojo Satoru

Love language: gift giving and quality time

So Gojo doesn’t exactly get to spend a ton of time

Between missions, him beefing with higher ups, and you and him playing parent the baby sorcerers yall don’t exactly get time to go out much

In which case Gojo tends to default to two options:

He’ll either go the extra mile to try and spend time with you 

Whether that be an at home date where he tries and fails to surprise you with a home cooked meal

Or a date out at a restaurant or cafe (which you tend to visit after his home cooking efforts)

OR he’ll bring you various souvenirs from his missions

He loves to spoil you, and if he could he’d probably bring you back a whole store’s worth of stuff

But alas, airport security regulations

Anyways, he loves to spoil you especially if he can spoil you with sweets because it benefits him in two ways 

He treasures all the time you spend together, and he does try to overcompensate for his absence with gifts

Despite your assurances, it’s kind of a guilty pleasure at this point (just let him, trying to argue just goads him on further)

He doesn’t only buy you small things, he enjoys buying you outfits

And he especially likes seeing you in them 

Kento Nanami

Love Language: acts of service

Y’all remember the episode where he killed that curse that was bothering that baker lady?? Yea that

He’s literally such an acts of service boyfriend it’s not even funny

Before you got together, he would memorize your coffee order and bring you a cup pretty much everyday like clockwork

Now that you’re togehter, he wakes up before you so h=that when you wake up there’s the smell of coffee throughout the house

When you come out of you’re shared bedroom and he’s just scrooling through his phone like “mornin’”

Of course you already made the bed and ironed his clothes because relationships are give and take

And then when you leave for your jobs in the morning, he kisses you and holds the door open for you

He’ll draw a bath for you if he gets home before you, if you let him join or not is up to you

Also, if you ever get sick, he’s actually the best

Like he isn’t the best cook but he can heat up soup and tea

He’ll run to the store while you’re asleep and when you wake up, there’s like a whole tray of food in front of you and he’s like ‘it’s important to eat and drink so your body can heal’

And when you inevitably fall asleep after eating and taking medicine at his insistence, he tucks you in and clears away the dishes, exiting with little more than a kiss to your head

Ryoumen Sukuna

Love Language: gift giving and acts of service

So like Sukuna never says he loves you...ever

But he does notice if someone or something’s making you uncomfortable, and if so, said entity’s head will be presented to you later that day

You also just so happen to be the only person he can tolerate being around him for longer than 20 seconds

He also loves to give you jewelry, he likes seeing you adorned in something from him

He also isn’t gonna just handle all your problems for you, he will push you to become stronger by training with you 

He’ll also expect this energy to be reciprocated, as long as you’re pushing yourself to be better, he’s content with that

(He wants to see you grow because he’s scared that if he ever gets caught lackin one day you’ll end up dead)

He’ll never tell you or admit it, but Sukuna truly does care for you and hold you in a regard that he doesn’t have for others

So be grateful jkjk

[redemptioninterlude]

NAH. she wasn't all that and a bag of chips, or whatever it was that fez used to say. people of her past, who haunt her presence - the people she's known, who haunt the hallways of her own ( rare ) moments of self reflection. it feels like a creeping, awful thing, really. dark humour helps. sort of. she grins and fakes it and it makes it easier when she does it on camera. it's like, for once, animating herself and becoming something, someone, that people cared about and wanted to know. the rest of this, it all felt like, kinda overwhelming. or weird to acknowledge. rue doesn't get it still, why when she goes home to east highlight, people freak out... to her, it's just home, with the same people, the same places. even now, not much changes, and sometimes she can't quite tell if that's a good thing, or a bad thing. what she does know is that sometimes she worries that maybe she's changing, more and more out here, that insidiousness of hollywood life that might suck her in and eat her up. bones and all.

but like. honestly? harrison felt different. like, more real in a lot of ways. she always liked their moments together, however fleeting, between takes... sort of like, she had someone who grounded her, who saw her for her during those moments between takes. where she'd deflate, that slow breath taken in its way to light herself back up again. nothing feels real out here. until those rarefied moments where it did. and funny enough, more of those happened with him then he likely even realized, but like, that was part of why he was GOOD COMPANY. the pomp, the ego... none of it had swallowed him up just yet, had it? she hoped it wouldn't. she smiles, for all the things he said because like, that kind of was exactly the nicest thing he could have said in the moment. funny thing, that. he had a good knack for that, too. "i hope so. the tagline is like, so inspiring, right? even you could make it." actually, that was kinda good. she gets it, the appeal, the cool girl it factor of it all. the only thing that felt disconnected about the whole thing was that it was her at the center of it.

it makes her want to reach out and PINCH HIM. see if like, this wasn't the truman show or whatever.

( this delightful moment made possible, with RIZLA PAPERS ! )

the moment makes her laugh to herself before she catches herself under his eye, and flushes, straightening her slumping spine, old bad habits. a grin that breaks through in an instant, her head turning as if chuffed. "really? logan huh? sounds like you're on your way to being a CERTIFIED HOT SHOT if you ask me. don't forget us little people when you're on the way up." the grin never fails, and like, it feels kind of good just like. hanging out. the pressure eases up from her shoulders, something that she hadn't realized was even there before this point, rubbing at her shoulder with a sharp groan. "urgh! okay. but ummm, indian food? totally, i mean it's funny, i feel like, it was one of those things for me growing up that was like a real sort of luxury thing, you know? because holy fuck, ordering it was so expensive! but it kinda meant that like, it was a good news kind of night, you know? so i always like..." her voice trails off, knowing she's over talking, but it's kind of too late. "associate it with really good things. anyways. like. that would seriously be totally into that? i fucking love food and honestly... after all of this? i'm dying for something to look forward to. next weekend, you said?"

- @awalkoflife

for harrison, what sets rue apart, aside from her professionalism, is her unwavering honesty. her ability to remind someone who wasn't part of her world that she wasn't any different. she was still human, with her own flaws and quirks and imperfections. the realm of CELEBRITY had a great way of masking a person's humanness. he'd come to learn that the second he started to work with actors. for the most part, the majority of them were happy to be morphed into whatever creation hollywood expected of them. everyday, they became less and less mortal. he brings his cigarette back to his lips, quietly mulling over her last comment. i'm not really the way people think i am. the sentiment resonates with him on a cellular level, reaching down to the dark corners of himself that he rarely let see the light of day. "you ever think you might be your own worst enemy sometimes?" he didn't know for sure, but if he had to guess, the answer was already looking at him. both silently mirroring the other's pain and trauma.

"for what it's worth though, i think you're pretty heroic. having to stick your tongue down logan paul's throat for five minutes and pretend to like it? guy's a fuckin' walking red flag." the fact he was even making a cameo appearance in the movie was a joke, let alone how he managed to score the opportunity to make-out with rue's character. harrison shook his head in disapproval, blowing smoke out of his mouth and away from her. "YOU'RE REAL, is what i'm trying to say." her performances were captivating, but that's not the only thing that mattered. beyond her work on screen, she had the ability to connect with her fans on a deeper level. "you give people hope, you're relatable to audiences and i'm not trying to sound like a fuckin' shrink here, but i think that's something to be proud of." he meant it, too. flicking cigarette ash into the tray, his eyes lock with hers, holding her gaze for a beat. it's a moment of quiet sincerity and honesty shared between friends. a safe space, which was something he always strived to be for her.

the conversation returns to their regularly scheduled PLAYFUL TEASING and he grins, "yeah, that might be a good shout if i had fuckin' people for you to call. gotta get myself an agent, eh? might ask logan for his." he takes another inhale, before turning to her again, laughing at her self-effaced commentary. "do you uh, do you like indian food?" their talk of sweet treats and baked goods gives him a segway into something he's been wanting to ask her for a couple weeks. "a buddy of mine is opening up his own restaurant over in santa montica next weekend. a few of the guys in the crew are coming; ellie, todd, hudson and kayla so far. i know it's a long shot that you've got a night off, but he makes the best fuckin' tikka masala in the state. he's cooked it in my kitchen before, so i'm not bullshitting you. it's been a long time coming for him." harrison pulls out his phone and sends her a pic of his dining table, kitted out with ceramic dishes filled with delicious indian cuisine. "he's a really talented guitar player too. some guys get all the luck, i guess."

[dreamescapeswriting]

I Hate To Admit ~ Bang Chan [Request]

WORD COUNT:1.6K

PAIRING: Chan x GN!Reader

GENRE: Angst, fluffy

A/N: I made it a fluffy ending I cant help it.

The longer that Chan sat there listening to the rain outside the window the more he began to grow uneasy about everything he had done that day. It was his turn to release an Skz-Record and he'd written something from the heart, something he'd been holding back on for so long that he needed to get out. Now it had been out in the world for almost eight hours and he was already wondering about you, had you seen it yet? What did you think about it? Did you even know that it was about you? Would you even care that he had done something like that?

The clock on his desk began blinking as it reached midnight and he knew he was going to have to head back to the dorms sooner or later but he didn't want to. As much as he loved being around the boys he needed some time alone, time to think about everything he had lost and he didn't want to go back yet. The boys all knew who the song was going to be about which meant they were going to have a million and one questions about you, why you had left in the first place, why he'd written such a sad song and why Chan would never tell the boys what had truly happened to you. Going back to them met admitting that he missed you and he did, he missed you every minute of every day but he could never say that out loud to anyone but himself. There were times where your voice still echoed in the back of his mind and being at the studio was one of the moments he still felt as though he was close to you. Imagining you sat on the chairs behind him waiting for him to finish one of the pieces he was working on. He still pictured you waiting up for him at the dorms, sitting in one of his shirts playing video games or passed out on the sofa so tired from waiting for him but you would always be there.

"Chan? You ready?" He snapped out of his daydream as he glanced over at the door, his manager had been watching him for a few minutes debating about interrupting the young man's thoughts.

"No, I'm...I'm going to work on this a little more," He lied as he turned back to the blank laptop screen, he was already so tired it wouldn't matter if he stayed in the studio that night he just didn't want to go home yet. Not to an empty bed where he couldn't sleep, he couldn't sleep without you by his side which is why he had begged you to stay with him but you didn't.

"You told me you would never leave! You promised!" He yelled out as you stood across from him in the dorms, throwing your clothes into a bag as you tried to leave as quickly as possible. Tears welling up in your eyes as you tried not to look at him, looking at him you would see how much this was hurting him but this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and you couldn't give it up. It was your life's work and someone was finally taking you seriously, your dream was to be a writer and now that was finally able to come true he wasn't willing to let you go?

"I'll be back Channie, I need this." You breathed as you placed your bag over your shoulder, heading towards the exit when he took hold of your hand. The familiar spark you always felt jolted through your body only making you cry harder at the thought of leaving him. The two of you had spoken about it before, you'd managed a long-distance relationship when he was away on tour, it would be no different. You would be back sooner than he could think about it but he was set on never letting you leave.

"I'll be back...I need this, you know how much this means to me." You tried to let him know gently that this was your dream but he was blind to everything, all he could think about was the promises you had made that you were now breaking.

"You lied to me. You promised that you would never leave and now you're leaving." His voice cracked and you turned to look at him, tears rushing down your face as you reached your hand up to touch him. You hadn't seen Chan this upset since the survival show and it broke you to see him with his eyes so red and tears staining his cheeks.

"You said you would support my dreams." You reminded him but he stepped back from you, shaking his head as he let you walk out of the door, leaving everything behind without trying to fix it.

Chan never should have let you leave the way you did, it was one of the biggest mistakes in his life. He should have made up with you before you got on the plane and left the country to be far away from him, he didn't have to be as selfish as he was but he couldn't see a world without you in it and to this day he still couldn't. How could he ever forget the way you were, how could he not remember all of the little things you did that made him smile and even things that would annoy him but that he still loved about you? He always regretted never responding to the texts and calls you left him when you landed for your new job, he ignored you, ghosting you and telling the boys to do the same.

"Fuck," He mumbled as he looked down at the photo of you he had on his desk, he'd never moved it from the moment that he put it there. It was a photo of you and him together after the boy's first award win, you were holding onto him tightly as tears rushed down both of your faces. You had the photo framed so that you could prove to Chan every day how much you supported his dream and how much of an amazing achievement he had won in the past to keep him motivated but now? Now it felt like a person torture device sitting on his desk, painfully reminding him that although you had supported him he hadn't done the same for you.

Staggering into the dorms that night he stripped out of the drenching wet coat he was wearing and hung it up on the coat rack to dry for the next day. He scratched the back of his neck as he walked through the hallway and into the living room, glancing over at the sofa as he saw you sitting there. 

"I'm too tired," He mumbled as he began rubbing his eyes thinking that the image of you sitting there, in his shirt was just all in his head but as he glanced back over you were staring at him. Two cups of hot chocolate on the coffee table as you waited for him to come and sit down. 

"You wouldn't be so tired if you got some decent sleep," You quipped as you moved over on the sofa, Chan's mind raced as he stared at you. He must have fallen asleep in the studio it was the only explanation for you to be sitting there so calmly as if nothing had happened. 

"Channie, please...We need to talk." You whispered as you waited for him to go and sit beside you, he hesitantly walked over and took the drink from the table, sitting down expecting everything to fade away as he woke up. 

"The song." You whispered again placing your hand over his and that was when he knew it was real, that you were truly sitting across from him and touching him. That you were back. 

"The song," He repeated, placing his hand on top of yours as he waited for you to say something else but no words could express what you were feeling. You had been on the plane flying home to see him when the song dropped, making you rethink everything in your relationship if there was even one to go back to. 

"How did you know I was coming back?" He questioned as he looked at you and then to the time, it was almost 2 in the morning and he never would have expected to find you here. 

"I came as soon as I landed...Felix let me in and I slept in your bed for a while...Then I figured you'd probably come home at some ungodly hour like you used to," You laughed softly remembering all the times he would come home late like this, it never once bothered you because you knew how much he adored his word and you would always make sure he slept when he came in.

"But...Why are you back? I thought the job was what you wanted," It had been everything you wanted but it was awful, you were completely miserable the whole time because it wasn't as fun as they had made it out to be, promising you all these amazing opportunities only to make you an errand-runner. Not having Chan in your life made it all the worse, with Chan by your side you felt like anything was possible.

"I didn't want the job if it meant I never got to see you again...Plus...They kind of sucked, I became an errand-runner." You mumbled as you laid your head on his shoulder and just like that it was as if nothing had changed. The four months you spent apart never happened and Chan was just glad to have you back in his life and in his arms where he was never going to let you go without telling you how much he supported you. 

"We'll find you something good, something better...I will support you...I promise." He whispered as he laid a small kiss on your forehead, you hummed tiredly as you relaxed against him just happy to be back in his arms once again.

Tagline: @taestannie​ @kneel-begyourpardon​ @sw33tnight​ @mwitsmejk​ @acciocriativity​ @minholuvs​ @anxiousbobatea​ @justbangtanthingz​

[power-chords]

An idea I have entertained is that Vincent is the guy you call when you’re out of options. When he says to Max, “Take comfort in knowing you never had a choice,” one wonders if this is part of Vincent’s whole marketing scheme, a slight alteration on pre-existing advertising copy. That’s his tagline. Maybe you go to him if somebody else botched the job the first time around, or the timeline is too demanding, the circumstances unusually extreme. Nobody else is up to the task, or would dare to assume that level of risk. He’s your Plan B. (Another eerie echo, the spiel almost rehearsed: “El Gordo got in front of a window, did his high dive… we’re on to Plan B.”)

He comes at a premium. You don’t get to meet him. You don’t get to talk to him. You’ll never know his real name, and even the fake ones are just mononyms, a rotating selection of ominous calling cards. His reputation, or the reputation of the enterprise or the fence who employs him, speaks for itself — he’s the guy who gets it done, and there might be some collateral damage, but there definitely won’t be any loose ends. He’s creative, brilliant, resourceful, and utterly ruthless.

I ran a tally last year on one of the evenings I watched it: Vincent kills 14 people over the course of the movie. (And he’d have gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for that meddling cab driver!!!) He even killed the one LAPD detective who had clued in on his cute little disappearing act: enlist an unsuspecting cabbie, waste him afterward, and those hapless dimwit cops will just assume the guy went Travis Bickle postal.

A phrase that Michael Mann repeats consistently when describing the antagonists (antiheroes?) in Heat, or the real criminals they were modeled after, is selectively sociopathic. Neil McCauley, for example. The way he refers to Vincent, on the other hand, is distinct: I wanted to present a character whose sociopathy was total. (This is the initial impression we are given, but as the film unfolds, we realize that not even Vincent is 100% of the way there — he’s very close, but there’s a missing piece, a hairline fracture, and it’s what makes him such an interesting and tragic figure.) By Mann’s own account, he would be uniquely suited to such a brutal sub-specialty: murderous fixer-upper who makes your problems go away by any means necessary.

And he and Max are vocational counterparts as much as they are moral and existential foils. Thematically, it fits. If Max is the best (the greatest, the most) at what he does, which is driving a cab in LA… what does that make Vincent? What does the best contract killer do — what kind of skill, expertise, and intestinal fortitude does that job demand? What would make Jason Statham’s eyes linger a beat too long, with curiosity and skepticism, maybe even amusement? (“Really? This is the guy? But he’s so little.” lmao)

But seriously: Mann’s concept of the profession, especially as it pertains to criminality, is one of misdirected or co-opted ingenuity, discipline, and drive. It’s a parallel prison, a cage made of glass and steel; either you can’t see the panes that are boxing you in or you can’t pry open the bars to squirm free. For Max, the cage is his cab, and he doesn’t even know it’s there until Vincent jimmies the lock and slinks in beside him for a night. He says he’ll start a limousine company someday. He’s been saying that for 12 years.

Vincent doesn’t see what his cage is, either. Until one dent materializes in the steel facade. And then another. And another. Max prying around with his conversational crowbar, looking for a way in, insisting there is one; or the kickback from the rounds fired into Daniel at the jazz club, close range, a little too close.

What are you, one of those institutionalized raised guys…? Anybody home…?

To me this is all a trail of breadcrumbs leading to a bigger picture, and it suggests a much grimmer, grislier depth to the backstory we know exists for Vincent, that probably sits in some drawer somewhere in the Michael Mann estate. Don’t talk to me about it, I’m fucking Kermit the Frog over here, screaming internally.

Of course, if my theory holds water, I have to wonder: what happens to a guy like Vincent if he can’t make good on his guarantee? If he doesn’t fulfill his end of the contract, who collects? What collateral has he pledged? Yikes.

[robbyrobinson]

WILLIAM AFTON RANT

So, I do like most of the Five Nights at Freddy's series. The series had its highs and lows, and has really evolved from being the point-and-click survival horror game in 2014. The first game is pretty solid; the second is good; third, kind of a drop in quality. The fourth one was the one I legitimately did not like because it through a monkey wrench towards speculating on the timeline. Sister Location was the tipping point where we get more bits of the lore to chew on. Pizzeria Simulator, to me, was the perfect way to wrap up the mainline games by burning it all in a blaze of glory with heavy drops on the lore with character revelations and the finality of it all. VR...not much of a fan on because it brought back a recurring element that I felt the games knew when to cut ties with. It being the main antagonist of the series William "Purple Guy" Afton. I should probably state that the first problem with the Afton story line had to be the fact FNAF didn't start off with an overarching story. Scott Cawthon developed the first game as a last hoorah when he felt that his dream of becoming a game developer was through. But, luck would have it, the game blew up in popularity namely because of let's players like Markiplier playing the game and the rest is history. The first FNAF game was relatively simple: survive five nights at a pizzeria where you'd have to conserve your power and check the screens all while trying to keep homicidal animatronics from stuffing you into a suit. A very, very simple plot where you did not have to think too much on. That is not to say that there weren't any hidden secrets in the first game: there are occasional newspaper clippings of reports on five children being led into the back rooms by a man dressed up in a mascot costume. They were never seen again, and the animatronics started to reek from mucus and other fluids suggesting that the kids were killed and stuffed into animatronic bodies and possessed them. Beyond that, there was not much to chew on or speculate about. Which would become an issue with Afton himself. To say that he really evolved over the course of the series is an understatement. From the games he goes from: a nameless serial killer; the CEO of Afton Robotics; an undead rabbit animatronic who was burned; an even more horrid-looking rabbit who gets burned (again); and eventually becomes a computer virus. The dude is seriously a supervillain at this point. Not helping that we then are given information on remnant which is at best a glue trapping souls. I hated that remnant was introduced to the series largely due to over-complexity. Simply saying that the Puppet brought the animatronics to life by having them possess the animatronics is simple enough: explaining remnant is as bad as when midchlorians were introduced to explain how the Force worked. Which goes into... Afton. Keeps. Fucking. Coming. Back. I get that it was a nod to the "He will come back. He always does. We have a place for him" tagline from the third game, but this is getting ridiculous. I'll be frank when I say that Afton is not a good villain. For starters, even when we get more insight to him being the CEO of a robotics company and arguably the worst father in gaming, we have no clue what his motivations actually are. Sure, you could claim that he wanted to achieve immortality as revealed in the Silver Eyes and its two sequel books, but ignoring them entirely, virtually nothing is there to pin in the games. Or is it that he wanted to resurrect the Crying Child from FNAF 4 on the assumption that the CC is his son? So it would mean that all of his actions were the results of him experimenting around with technology and remnant? It looks like he was already a psycho killer as evidenced by him describing the designs of Circus Baby to his interviewers. Even with that idea, it was always weird that if the Crying Child was in fact an Afton then why is it so explicit unlike with Michael and Elizabeth who are both confirmed as his children. With me, I did actually think the Crying Child was likely

Henry Emily's child going off the SN books with Cassidy; as in, William, for whatever reason, liked Henry's boy (and gave him the purple phone to conduct experiments on him with the Nightmare Animatronics), and secretly created replacements each stage representing a point in the CC's life. But then that would only complicate things like explaining the whole "I will put you back together" line and if Michael knew about the sudden appearance of a robot in his life, but that is straying from the main topic. So, yeah. Afton is a total enigma whose motivation for what he does is unclear. At most, you could say he kills kids because he's evil. Okay. Not a satisfactory answer, but from the sprites in the game, he always has a smile on his face. It wouldn't be that much of an issue if he was at the least interesting. But he is not. Afton is no Freddy Krueger or Chucky; even Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees have better characteristics and the latter two don't even talk. If anything, Afton's main flaw is that whatever his motivation was gradually changed as the games continued to evolve, but it came at the cost of making him an OP villain who keeps reappearing making him shoe-horned into the plot of the game when he does not belong. Makes me really wish that Vincent was made canon. You remember Vincent, right? He was an interpretation of Afton made years before the name drop. He was a homicidal maniac who was laidback and evil. Yet, he was a hilarious character and was full of personality. Like take Security Breach. Taking Glitchtrap (who may be his virtual ghost or something relating to him), the game's focus should have been entirely on Vanny. But even then, Vanny is not her own antagonist due to her basically being implied as a "reluctant follower" of Afton's which by itself makes Afton hijack the game instead of making good with a new threat. And then Afton of course comes back this time as Burntrap which pisses on the ending of Pizzeria Simulator which causes Cassette Man's goal of putting an end to the horror all for nothing. But even then, the bastard had survived burning alive at least twice leading me to think that remnant being destroyed by heat is total BS. Afton had no reason to be in Security Breach making his appearance shoe-horned. He of course has to have wrangle the plot of the game over and make it all about himself yet again. And he doesn't even do anything eventful there because the Blob just catches him and takes him away. I sure hope that finally, finally this means that Afton is dead for real and we could move on to making a new main antagonist unrelated to the Afton family, but I doubt it. Don't get me wrong: the Afton family story line plays a crucial role in the lore of the franchise and I feel that just having a basic game about surviving animatronics would not make the series last for as long as it did. But, besides theories and speculation, really what more can we expect to get from the story? We have threads of a story there, but the series prefers to leave some details vague. It is JJ Abram's mystery box all over again further showing that there were no long-lasting plans for the franchise. The series itself also took on a more science fiction aesthetic which further compounds a bloated story. It was already a willing suspension of disbelief that the animatronics were advanced enough to walk around in the 1980s, but now, we have remnant as a concept and the alternate continuity books where they take nosedives with how high-tech the animatronics are and overcomplicating a simple story of kids possessing animatronics to get revenge on their killer. Are those moments still scary? Yes, but I feel trying to explain the mechanics behind it lessens the intended effect. Ultimately, my problem with Afton lays solely on how he was written as a nameless killer in the first game with no foreseeable larger goal beyond that. As the series continued, Afton was forced to evolve, but as a consequence, Afton's motivations behind his actions are underdeveloped being reliant on the books and fan

theories. He lacks interesting traits and characteristics besides "I kill kids because I am evil." But worse, Afton continuing to return to the games despite constant burn attempts makes him an invincible villain which lessens the stakes and makes any actions to put a stop to him meaningless.

[myhockeyworld87]

What Happens in Vegas...Doesn’t Always Stay There - Jacob Markstrom - Part 1

Word Count: 4,885

POV: Reader

Warnings: NSFW, Language, Smut, Drinking (all the good stuff)

Notes: Well here it is the new fic that’s been in my head. I tossed around a couple different guys for this, but some of you suggested Marky and well looks like it stuck. Trying to do this a little different and keep this in an all read POV, so we shall see how that works. I don’t see this being super long maybe between 5 or 6 parts. Hope you guys enjoy. As always feedback is welcome. Happy Reading!

They say that New York is the city that never sleeps but whoever 'they' is, well, they got it wrong. It has to be Vegas. Lights are always flashing whether you were indoors or out, the jangly sound of slot machines can be heard at all hours and the seven deadly sins seem to be on full display twenty-four hours a day. It's no wonder their tagline for years was 'What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.' If only that were true.

You wish you could blame someone else but you can't. Vegas was all your idea. As maid of honor, it fell to you to plan your best friend's bachelorette party, and in your mind, there was only one spot, Vegas. Now, you were second-guessing your choice as your head was pounding like there were a thousand drummers who decided to perform at the Super Bowl halftime show, only in your brain. There was only one thought that made it through the marching band playing in your head. What the hell happened last night?

 Maybe you should start off small, like where were you first, considering that the little drummer boy was now doing backflips in your head. You were definitely in bed, which was evident as you could feel the mattress underneath you. You could also feel the duvet comforter covering your body, but there was something else. Something a bit heavier, almost as if a weighted blanket was covering your stomach and your breast, but it wasn't that. It was an arm slung across your midsection and a very large hand cupping your one boob. God, you hoped it was still attached to a body. You should really take a peek. It would be the only decent thing to do.

 As you gradually lifted one eyelid open, the first thing you noticed was that you were not in your hotel room, as the wall looked completely different. No reason to panic, you told yourself. Everything would come back to you as soon as this god blessed pounding ceased. Peering the other eye open, you got back to business at seeing if there was a body attached to the arm currently trapping you to the bed. Carefully, you turned your head to the side to see a very large and very naked man firmly attached to the aforementioned arm. He was gorgeous as he lay there sleeping ever so peacefully. You drank in his features, kind of like you downed drink after drink last night. His brown hair had this golden hue to it that made your fingers want to reach out and touch it, though you refrained. Then there was the beard covering his face, not too much and not too little, and now that you were thinking about it; you definitely felt some of that beard burn on your thighs. If you could only remember last night. The only logical thing to do was to go back to the start of this, back to a time when you were sober.

 It started months ago when your best friend Kennedy got engaged. You honestly didn't see it coming that fast. She'd only been dating Ryan for a little less than a year, but he asked and she said yes, and when she asked you to be her maid of honor you screamed and laughed and cried, and told her you couldn't wait to plan her bachelorette party. Everyone knew the bridal shower was only for boring stuffy old aunts so that they could buy her the latest air fryer or new dish pattern. The bachelorette party was where all the fun was, and what better place to have it than Las Vegas.

 Of course, everyone agreed with you. The only wrench in the plan was that Kennedy decided to up her wedding date and make it a nine-month engagement. That barely left time to find a dress let alone plan the most outrageous bachelorette party of the century. You would've said decade but twenty-twenty was fastly approaching. Thankfully, you had connections. Night one was more sedate since you all were just arriving at the MGM hotel at different times; eleven of you in total when Ryan's sister decided to join at the last minute. You booked a private room at Lago in the Bellagio for all of you to enjoy.

 It was the second night, that was the piece de resistance. A limo picked you all up and took you over to Excalibur to see the legendary Australian group, Thunder from Down Under. I mean what was Vegas without seeing a male stripper or two. The next day, a private bungalow was waiting for you at Wet Republic in the MGM Hotel. One would've thought the night watching men strip naked would've been your undoing but apparently, it all started poolside.

 "I seriously can't believe he pulled you up on stage and proceeded to dry hump you up there," Kelsey rehashed.

 "Really, Kels?" Kennedy said downing another mimosa. "How could you not see that happening? (Y/N) has known Nate for a couple years. I mean he did get us front row tickets." This was all true. Nate, the emcee for Thunder from Down Under and you were friends, had been since your firm had done their calendar shoot two years ago. He had generously given you prime seating to the show that night and also set you up with a few other perks for the trip. "The only thing I'm surprised at, is that this one," she bumped you with her hip, spilling both hers and your mimosas. "Didn't end up going home with him last night."

 "Oh my god, Kenny you did not just say that." She may be the bride and your best friend but really, she was pushing the line.

 "Come on, it's not like it hasn't happened before."

 At least four pairs of eyes turned towards you, Ryan's sister Gretchen being one of them. "Ok, admittedly, I slept with him, once." Both Kennedy and Kelsey gave you that look. "Ok, maybe it was twice, but he has a girlfriend now, and we are just friends."

 "I'll give you that," Jade spoke up in your defense and suddenly she was going to earn the title of new best friend, not that the lines weren't blurred in your little group as you were all sort of best friends. "But what about Edward, the one with the turtle tattoo on his hip."

 "You were so looking at more than his hip." Eva teased while Jade simply hid behind her champagne glass. "But yeah (Y/N), he was totally hitting on you."

 "He was not."

 "Oh, he was," Kennedy added her two cents. "And as the bride I take offense, they should've been hitting on me."

 "Wait, why would they hit on you?" Jade sputtered. "You're taken bitch." Of course, bitch was said in the most loving way.

 "I'm not dead."

 "No, but I'm sure my brother wouldn't appreciate it." Leave it to Gretchen to be the mood killer. "I think I'm going to go take a nap. I'll meet you at the pool later."

 She headed out the door, and honestly, you were ecstatic about it, for she was too judgmental for your liking.  "Wait, Gretch, that's not what I meant."

 "Leave her go, maybe a nap would do her good." They were Jade's words but your sentiments. "Now back to why (Y/N) did not take that beautiful man up on his offer last night."

 "There was no offer," you insisted.

 "Come on (Y/N), there was an offer. There's always an offer. Remember when you were doing promo for that Batman flick." You tried to shut Kennedy up with a death glare, but she continued to prattle on. "We all know you ended up doing the nasty with Superman."

 "WHAT?!?!" Yeah, that definitely came out of the other nine people's mouths in the room.

 "Thanks, Ken. No one knew that but you."

 "Oops, my bad." She had the grace to at least be embarrassed about the whole thing.

 "You mean you slept with that guy, the British one, tall, all muscular, extremely good looking. Damn it what's his name." You could see Eva wracking her brain for his name and you just didn't want to go there.

 "Hen…"

 "Yes, him," you admitted, stopping Jade before she could finish his name. "Can we please change the subject?"

 "Why, when we are all living vicariously through you," Kelsey added. "Especially poor Kennedy, who is now committed to spending the rest of her life with one man."

 "Geez, you make it sound like a death sentence. I love Ryan and I'm perfectly fine spending the rest of my days with him."

 You had to suppress an eye roll. Not because you didn't think that Ryan and Kennedy weren't in love. If you were being honest, you just thought they were rushing things a bit. The problem was telling your best friend that; you tried in the past and never succeeded. "We know you're in love Kenny." And then because you couldn't stop yourself, you added. "It's just are you sure you want to be tied down so young? We still have our whole life to live."

 "Jesus, (Y/N). We all know you're not ready for marriage and what comes with it, but we can't all be you with your fancy job in LA, meeting celebrities all the time. Some of us have real lives and want to settle down and have a family."

 "Kenny, that's not what I meant." The last thing you wanted to do was argue with her at her bachelorette party. "I only want you to be happy."

 "You have a funny way of showing it." The air in the room took on a chill and not from the air conditioning. If you didn't do something soon this party was going to go downhill.

 "Oh, would you look at the time," Jade chimed in. "We should probably be heading down to the pool." Everyone grabbed their stuff, Kennedy giving you the cold shoulder as you made your way out of the hotel suite. Jade came up and wrapped an arm around you. "She'll be fine. She's just on edge after the whole Gretchen thing. We'll give her a few shots and you two will be good as new."

 "I hope so." Unfortunately, things weren't fine. Kennedy seemed to avoid you and your attempt to make things right, even after a few shots. That didn't stop you from taking a few more. You had a strict one drink to one water rule, that you threw out the door today. Downing shots like it was your job. It was probably an hour later when you were in one of the private pools, with a few of the girls that a large group of very attractive men walked in. They were definitely different from Nate and the guys from Thunder, and at first, you thought it was some fraternity get together with how young some of them looked, but at second glance there were some gentlemen that were your age or older.

 "They've gotta be baseball players," Eva whispered over after they took up residence in the three bungalows next to you.

 "Nah, none of them have a dad bod." Jade was right, they were too fit to be in the MLB. You'd been around enough major leaguers to know while some were incredibly in shape, some were not. That didn't seem to be the case with this group.

 "I'm gonna rule out NFL as well," you told the girls. "None of these guys look like they're an offensive guard. Those guys are huge." You noticed a few of them staring at the six of you that were in the smaller pool reserved only for the bungalows. Grabbing another shot, this had to be your fourth in just sixty minutes, you downed the drink really starting to feel its effects.

 "Looks like we may just find out here," Jade said, nodding to let you know some of the guys were headed your way.

 "Ladies, care if we join you?" One of the men asked, you had to admit he was extremely handsome but also gave off an air that he had more than a few notches in his bedpost.

 A couple of the girls nodded, but when no one said anything, you found yourself saying, "Come on in."

 "So, what brings you to Vegas?" This from a different guy, who had quite a number of tattoos covering his arms, and you had to admit that the ink just made him more attractive, that and his height. He was well over six feet tall and you didn't mind looking up to see his face as he took the seat next to you.

 "Bachelorette party," Jade blurted out and you saw a few eyebrows raise.

 "Tell me you're not the bride?" His breath was warm or maybe it was the sun, either way, you definitely felt a warmth in your belly that wasn't there moments ago.

 "I am definitely not the bride." Shit that sounded desperate. "Though I am the maid of honor, at least I hope I still am." You looked inside the bungalow to see Kennedy in deep conversation with Gretchen.

 "Hmm, sounds like there's a story there. Care to tell me? I'm Jacob by the way, though the guys call me Marky."

 He held out his hand, the one that didn't have a beer in it, and you took it. "(Y/N), and I'll tell you though it's rather dull, on one condition." He quirked a brow at you. "You tell me what sport you play."

 He chuckled. "What makes you think I play a sport? Maybe I'm an investment banker."

 "Well, first there's your accent, though I suppose you could pull off investment banker with that. Second, you are all…how shall I say this…physically fit. A quality most athletes have and considering the number of you; I doubt this is some kind of investment banker convention."

 "Ok, I'll give you that, though we could be bodybuilders or…" the lights on the billboard on the strip changed to a Thunder From Down Under ad and you saw a light bulb in his head go off. "Or male strippers." Shit, you almost spit your drink out on that one. "What, too much a stretch? Maybe it's your lucky day." He started to sway his hips in the pool, one of his friends joining him while you and Jade tried to contain your laughter.

 "Nah, it's already been (Y/N)'s lucky day with them. She knows them all rather intimately."

 "Jade!" you yelled at your friend, or ex-friend, though you weren't in a position to be losing anymore at the moment.

 "Oops." She at least had the decency to look embarrassed. Alcohol made everyone do some crazy things and Jade was no exception to the rule.

 "Intimately huh?" Jacob asked as you splashed water on Jade causing her to shriek and hide behind Jacob's friend who you learned was someone named Erik. "Have I lost the competition before it even starts?"

 "There's no competition."

 "So, you're single then?"

 "Yes, though you still haven't answered my question." As soon as Jacob heard you say yes, he slid a little closer to you.

 "What was that question again?" He said with laughter in his eyes and before you could get annoyed with him, though you doubted that would happen, he added. "I remember, just giving you a hard time. Anyhow, we play hockey."

 "Oh, nice. Like professional level? Or are there minors in that sport?" You really weren't one hundred percent sure. You'd taken in a game here and there but not really paid any particular attention to it.

 "We're in the NHL, playing for Vancouver. Just came out to do a little team bonding before the season starts. So, are we going to talk about this intimate encounter or why you think your maid of honor duties are getting revoked?"

 "I think I need another drink to talk about either of them."

 Jacob flagged down one of the personal waitresses for the area, requesting a couple of shots and drinks for you both, and you had to admit you liked the way he worked. "Now that that's taken care of…"

 You blew out a frustrated breath, more with yourself than anything else. "I said something stupid right before we came down here." He kept silent, his eyes totally focused on you and what you were saying. A refreshing change from some of the men you spoke to. "I just think she's rushing into things. They've only known each other a year and we are too young to get married. She's only twenty-five, we have our whole lives ahead of us. You know?" He simply nodded his agreement before you continued. "I want to see the world, go places, and do things before I'm strapped down to one man forever. Not to mention being tied down with kids. How can Kenny not want that too?"

 "I totally agree. I've gotten to see a lot with hockey but there's no way I want to be tied down just yet."

 "Exactly, you totally get me." Your drinks arrived then and Jacob took one shot and handed it to you before taking the other.

 "Well, I say we toast to being young and free with no commitments."

 "I'll drink to that." He clinked his glass to yours and the two of you downed the drinks. It seemed like the DJ noticed the change in your mood, as the music got louder and the energy seemed to kick up a notch. You got up and started to dance in the pool; the other girls joining in. It wasn't long before you felt Jacob behind you. His hips grinding into your backside, as his large hands encircled your waist.

 Drinks flowed freely the entire day, and if you were being honest, you couldn't remember a time you'd been that drunk before the sun had even set. You were laughing and dancing, and quite literally having the time of your life; your maid of honor duties completely forgotten at this point. Gretchen came up to you at some point and told you that she, Kennedy, and Kelsey were heading up and would catch up with the rest of you later. Everyone else was having too much fun with the Canucks to want to leave.

 A few more drinks and an hour later, the party was winding down. Most of your friends had headed up to their room to pass out, only a few stayed behind. Jacob had somehow maneuvered you into one of the bungalows that was empty. You shared a few kisses here and there out in the pool area, but now that you were out of view of prying eyes things were getting a bit more heated. Jacob's hands were on your ass, as his tongue was down your throat; not that yours wasn't doing the same thing to him. He moaned into your mouth, the sound going straight to your core. Your bikini bottom was no longer wet from the water of the pool, but the press of Jacob's cock against it.

 You both stumbled back, landing down on the large daybed in the bungalow, though somehow Jacob's reflexes softened your fall. His hands went straight to your breasts, kneading the flesh there. He was just about to untie the string of your bikini top when someone walked in. "Jesus, Marky! Take it upstairs would you!" You squinted trying to make out who it was but at this point not remembering anyone's name besides the man that was on top of you.

 "Oh, shit…thought I was in my room." It was funny, you thought the same thing. "Sorry, Jay."

 "His name is Jay? Like the letter?" you mumbled as Jacob helped you off the couch. "What comes after J?" Fuck you were drunk and when you were drunk you tended to ramble. You once actually talked to a damn parking meter because you thought it was a person, and you were pretty sure you could talk to one now if there was one around.

 "Doesn't matter, babe," Jacob said kissing your lips. "Wanna head up to my room?"

 You had to go up on your tiptoes to loop your arms around his neck. "Yes, I do." He planted a kiss on your lips then cupped your ass cheeks causing you to jump a bit.

 "Let's go," he finally said breaking the kiss. You had enough sense to grab your things and tell your friends not to worry that you'd catch up with them tomorrow. They all winked and nodded or at least that's what it looked like in your head because that's when things started to get hazy. You had vague recollections of making your way through the casino, stopping here and there. Part of you thought that the two of you even stopped to play roulette only so you could have another drink.

 You did remember tumbling through the door of Jacob's suite. His lips were on yours and neither of you were paying attention as he unlocked it. Thankfully his quick reflexes caught you; apparently, even when drunk, goalies couldn't lose some of those natural instincts.

 His hands, you remember them being everywhere on your body, and how incredible they made you feel. His calloused touch lit a fire inside you, that had nothing to do with the alcohol. He rid you of your white swim cover-up easily, flinging the garment across the room, and then his lips were all over your body. It was easy to recall the way he made you feel, as he softly bit down on your nipple through the fabric of your bikini. You'd craved this all afternoon. It had been a couple months since you'd been with a man and Jacob was everything you'd been waiting for.

 You ripped off his shirt. Your hands immediately going to his chest and roaming down his tattooed arms. He was all muscle, hard and lean everywhere, but when you slid your hand down inside his swim trunks to his cock; oh, it was hard all right, but lean was not a word you'd used to describe it. You were barely able to wrap your fingers around his girth, and as you stroked him, you realized God had not only blessed him with height but length as well. The man was made to star in a porno, you thought as you shoved his trunks down.

 Somehow, during that time Jacob had managed to get your bikini top off, though you supposed with its simple string ties it wasn't a hard feat to manage. You dropped to your knees, licking your lips before taking your tongue and swirling it around the head of Jacob's cock. "Det kanns sa bra min vackra prinsessa (that feels so good my beautiful princess)." Jacob's mumblings had you pulling back and looking up at him. "Don't stop, baby." This time you knew what he said as you slowly sucked him into your mouth. There was no way that you could take him all in, so you pumped the rest of him with your fist. You hollowed out your cheeks as you sucked him inside, using every trick in the book you knew. Jacob muttered more in Swedish to you, things you had no clue as to what they meant, but judging by his reaction they were things he was enjoying very much. He threaded his hands through your hair, pulling it back so you could look up at him with big doe eyes. "Jesus," he swore, his hips bucking into your mouth at the sight of you with his cock in it, looking like that. After a few more thrusts, he pulled out shouting," Tillrackligt, enough. I think you're trying to kill me, princess."

 There was something about the way he called you princess. It wasn't anything you'd been called before and most times you'd preferred babe or baby, but the way the word rolled off his tongue did things to your insides.

 Jacob helped you off the ground, his lips ghosting over yours before picking you up and tossing you onto the bed. His large form handled you easily, arranging your body just the way he wanted to before slipping off your bikini bottoms. His large hands worked their way from your ankles to your calves, all the way up to your thighs; spreading your legs as he went. "So beautiful." He traced his fingers lightly over your pussy lips and you quivered in anticipation of what was to come. One long finger slid between your folds all the way up to your clit, once, then twice, and then once again. "So wet, prinsessa, and all because of me."

 "Mmm, yes, Jacob." He dipped that same finger inside you then. The digit slipping in easily and so he added another. Then his mouth was there. Tongue flicking over your clit in a way that made you squirm with pleasure. "Oh yes," you moaned, caught up in the pleasure that was coursing through your veins. "Just like that." Your hips lifted up on their own accord, seeking more of what this giant of a man was doing to you. Jacob never let up, making a come-hither motion with his fingers and you found yourself unraveling around him; legs shaking, breath panting as your orgasm overtook you.

 “So pretty when you cum, prinsessa.” He pulled his fingers from your pussy then brought them to your lips. You opened without any thought, licking your juices off of them. Before you could get them clean, Jacob’s mouth joined yours, kissing you while you sucked on his index and middle fingers. Your tongues mingled together, as Jacob positioned himself between your thighs. The head of his cock nudged between your folds and you sighed into his mouth at just that first touch. Slowly, he filled your pussy, until he bottomed out. Only then did he release your lips. “Fuck you feel so good.”

 Jacob loved the feel of you clenching around him. It felt like he was in heaven. Part of him didn’t even want to move that’s how good your body felt, but then you shifted your hips up just a hair bit and he had to suck in a breath at the pleasure that went straight to his groin for fear he would spend inside you right then and there. He willed his body under control and only then started to move.

 With every snap of Jacob’s hips, a wave of pleasure crashed over you. Your nails raked down his back, probably leaving marks, but it seemed to only spur him on. “Yes, Prinsessa,” he moaned out, as you bent your knees allowing him to go deeper. You moaned as he hit that treasured spot that had you seeing stars. “You like that?” Another moan was his answer, as he continued to fuck you.

 That peculiar feeling started to wash over you. Your pussy fluttering around Jacob’s cock as the orgasm finally broke. Back arching, legs trembling, you were moaning out his name as the climax seemed to continue, as Jacob drove wildly into you. As you came down off your high, Jacob found his. With a few erratic thrusts, he was spending deep inside you with a loud groan. He slumped forward, his sweety forehead resting on yours. “Det dar var otroligt.” You looked at him curiously, your brain not working at all but also knowing he was speaking something in Swedish to you. He smiled, a glorious one that you found yourself getting lost in and you found yourself returning it. “I said that was amazing.”

 “Yes, it was,” you breathed out. Jacob rolled you both onto your sides, tucking you into his. It wasn’t long before both of you were passing out.

 Now here you were, finally putting most of the pieces together from last night. You looked back over at the sleeping man, who had given you such pleasure even in your inebriated state. He really was gorgeous. You honestly wouldn’t mind going for round two, after a couple of Tylenol, of course. Speaking of which you needed to get up and see if you had any in your bag. If only you could move him without waking him. You carefully took your right arm and went to move his left which was slung across you, but then something caught your eye. There on his ring finger was a ring. Oh, it wasn’t just any ring, it was a wedding ring! You knew he didn’t have it on when you were in the pool. You were not the type of woman to go hitting on a married man, let alone sleep with him.

 You pulled your other arm out from underneath him, fully intending to grab your stuff and get the hell out of there when you noticed a bright and shiny diamond on your ring finger. There was also a matching wedding band. Then like a tsunami hitting the beach of a small island a memory came flooding back to you of the two of you entering the hotel chapel. This man wasn’t married to just anyone, he was married to you!  

.

[veliseraptor]

Hi, Lise......I can't help but want to ask (if you don't mind), what are your favorite (that you personally like) books or movies/ tv series that contains lesbias and gays? Thanks if you want to answer.....

wow I completely forgot this ask was sitting in my inbox and has been for a long while. and uhhhh the thing is here that I actually...feel like I don't have a separate category in my head, so much, for "media that has queer people in it" and "media that doesn't"? which like. feels weird to say, but when I get questions like this, or requests for recommendations, I always...struggle to parse these things out. and also to parse out, for instance, "books that read as having queer elements" from "books with explicitly queer characters."

but I guess if I'm gonna try...most of these are going to be books, with a few exceptions.

BOOKS

Doctrine of Labyrinths is a four book series that comes stamped with a whole list of content warnings (rape and child abuse chief among them, probably) but is also one of my favorite series of all time, so, you know.

The Masquerade series by Seth Dickinson also comes with a big "IT'S SAD. IT'S SAD AND DARK" warning, along with content warnings for serious societal homophobia, but is another one of my favorite series of all time. it's not that I hate happy queer stories or anything, I just tend to like stories that aren't happy

The Locked Tomb Trilogy by Tasmyn Muir which you've probably heard about by now, but honestly I think the common tagline of "lesbian necromancers in space" really doesn't...cover it? It's funny, it's weird, it's unique in terms of setting, story, and magic system, it's doing some very interesting things and I can't wait to find out where Muir is going with it. it's very much stylistically not something that's going to work for everyone, but I would recommend giving it a go and finding out if it works for you.

I loved the series by Lara Elena Donnelly that starts with Amberlough, but that one's definitely Rise of a Fascist State and therefore might not be everyone's cuppa right at the moment.

Oh, Imperial Radch by Ann Leckie is very queer, not in terms of, like, "these characters are explicitly gay" but more in terms of what she's doing with gender. I don't know that I'd say it's a central part of the book but it's an important enough piece of the worldbuilding at least that I'd put it here. I don't actually remember, textually, but Machineries of Empire also feels very queer to me in a similar sort of way. A queer theory sort of way, maybe? idk.

this one's a sort of...not for me exactly but it was cool rec, but The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon was very classic fantasy in a lot of ways, but gay, and with some fresh twists on old tropes.

COMICS

The Wicked and the Divine by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie. look, it's just really good and not just for the queer. I need to do a reread from the top.

TV

I am really enjoying Motherland: Fort Salem actually, which I feel like people either aren't aware of or watch the first couple episodes and get turned off, but. one of the three main characters is lesbian, and sticks her hand down another girl's pants in like. the second episode? maybe even the first one, I don't remember.

Person of Interest doesn't introduce its gay until later in the series, but if you're anything like me as far as what you want in relationship dynamics you're in for a treat.

Yes, it is an animated children's show, but She-Ra and the Princesses of Power gave me such a gift it still makes me emotional because I'm going like. is this what it feels like to get what I want, canonically, in a piece of media? wow.

look, I'm putting The Untamed on here because (a) it is based on a gay webnovel and is pretty fucking gay considering the limits of censorship, everybody in the cast knows it and is playing it, and (b) some of the secondary relationships come off, I would argue, even gayer in the live action, probably because there are actor people putting them right in front of your face. (because the discourse is what it is: censorship isn't progressive, etc., but this is my list and I'm putting MDZS on here too.)

THOSE CHINESE WEBNOVELS I WON'T SHUT UP ABOUT

like, seriously. I mean, look, they take some work getting into because reading works in translation that come from a culture that you (general Anglophone you) may or may not be familiar with on one level or another actually does come with having to learn some shit and get used to some new things about genre and style, and reading webnovels maybe even more so, but as far as I'm concerned it's worth it.

so far the ones I've read are (titles in English, with common abbreviation, mostly from the Chinese) Heaven Official's Blessing (TGCF), Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS), Scum Villain's Self Saving System (SVSSS), The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (erha or 2HA), and (still finishing but at this point feel pretty comfy recommending) Clear and Muddy Loss of Love (JWQS).

there are several others on my list that I've had recommended and just haven't gotten to yet. my favorites personally are probably TGCF and 2HA, but I'm pending a reread of MDZS with a different translation to do my final assessment there and JWQS is giving me a lot of very good shit.

(I feel like I have to mention, because I'd be remiss if I didn't while I'm talking about ~personal preferences~, that the Coldfire Trilogy is astonishingly queer in my memory for one of the central relationships although it's been years since I read it, admittedly, and the Lymond Chronicles which is a series I love dearly is also incredibly queer, particularly for a series written in the 60s, and is like. juuuuust barely shy of having a canonically bisexual protagonist. and does have an explicitly lesbian secondary character, though fair warning, she, uh, does have it pretty rough.)

there's also some books that didn't make it on here even though they have queer characters because I felt like the queerness of those characters was not really key to the story, for instance the Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin, which is fantastic in its own right and I would recommend to everyone, but didn't quite feel like it fit this post.

I'm almost certainly forgetting stuff, but I did my best.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S5 Ep 19: Yugi and the Only Neck Accessory He Didn’t Really Want to Wear

Been busy! Hopefully stuff will open up soon as I’m taking a hiatus on a different quarantine project and will be finishing painting the entire roof of my car this week? One can hope. Sanding the rust off the whole top of a car takes a long time it turns out?

Also, fun Yugioh fact, I recently painted a book cover for an author who is older so she’s never seen the show, and she looked at my tumblr, saw my Duke Devlin fanart and was like “That’s him. That’s my main character. OMG. You captured him perfectly!” and I was like “Ma’am that is Duke Devlin, hence the single dice earring on his lobes there, but we can work with this.” and now a spiritual Duke Devlin is on the cover of a Wuxia-style fantasy trilogy on the Vella. Had to give him a top knot and delete the eyeliner for Wuxia reasons but uh, that’s just Duke.

So long story short, fanart can get you work, don’t even worry about posting that stuff online because most people don’t even know it’s fanart anyway and older ladies freakin love it.

Back in Yugioh, the team was doing their best to navigate a map through the woods and they do about as well as they normally do.

And inside Tristan lifted up the floorboards and was like “I found the only way out, this is it, this is the only way.”

And they ended up in something that has a color scheme I would actually associate with a jungle. Finally. We have finally left California (in order to go to another Hell.)

Youknow, when we went to California, we visited Hell, and when we went to India, we also took a stop at the nearest death destination. There’s just so much death on this show and sometimes I forget because there’s been a ghost in our party for so freakin long it’s been normalized.

(read more death imagery under the cut)

Joey freaks out at a flock of crows and reveals in this episode something I never realized about him before.

Like I’m not always the perfect observer as I’m sure you’ve noticed, but I love that this is canon for probably only this episode, but I will never forget it for the entirety of this series.

You go on hating birds, Joey.

Bro was like “Maybe it’s a deep cut about Mai Valentine because she’s a harpy lady” but eh...pretty sure we spent like an entire season of Joey telling us that Mai was a good experience? Would be incredibly funny if immediately after all of S4, Joey was like “You know what? Screw Mai, guys.”

So my thoughts...it’s probably just a literal bird experience. Like I had a friend who hated deer because once she went to a petting zoo, got some pellets to feed the deer, but her finger was sticking up, so when the deer came over to nibble on some pellets her finger went up it’s nose by accident. She was so disgusted by this event that was entirely her fault, that she brought up how much she hated deer basically whenever we saw one.

So like...maybe Joey fed a bird wrong at a petting zoo. I can see him getting bit by a parrot because he was too Joey Wheeler.

But now that we’re in a graveyard neighborhood, Pharaoh decides to hop out because there’s a lot of ghosts here and he needs to practice socializing with his peers.

So that’s just a Yugioh monster doing the ostrich dance, right? Like this is a meme from like 2010 but on Yugioh in 2003(4?)

Good to see the Ostrich dance here in the land before Vine.

So they pull out their Pokemon to do some antics, Tea looked like she was about to do something useful, and Yami does a yump across time and space to get her as far away from playing (not)cards as quickly as possible and y’all...sure was a position these animators animated.

Holy crap.

And I was going off about that scene last season where they woke up in the same bed like...

...have these two been together this entire time? Like together together?

They’re like...way more comfortable than you’d figure they’d be considering Yugi nearly passes out every time he gets a hug. But Yami just like....How long has this been going on? As long as Joey’s fear of birds?

Like obviously this show would never cover what the hell Yugi may be thinking about this overreaching move here, because we’re gonna gloss right over that, and just run away up a flight of stairs. No one mentions this ever again. Which is mind blowing for an anime to do. I think in most anime I watch, the kids would be like “ahh ahhhh I bumped into a booooob!” like it does for I want to say every other episode of My Hero Academia. But in Yugioh, they saw that low hanging fruit and they were like “we expect a higher level of maturity out of our audience. Now here’s a fleet of ostrich dancing tree monsters with faces for crotches.”

They decided to sprint up this flight of stairs, and it enough of a slope to deter the monsters who are only unbalanced weird legs.

I want us to take a moment and admire this background painting. I can’t unsee the rocks that are all the same size, just piled on top of eachother. Did Alexander the Great just plop rocks here--or was the mountain made up of tons of similarly shaped boulders?

Like there’s a lot of nice bg’s in this arc, don’t get me wrong, but this one...I’m just trying to wrap my head around the logic of it.

At the top, they meet a pantheon, that is immediately blocked by this wall, because if this arc had a tagline, it’s “Yugi gets inconvenienced every 4 seconds.”

Bro was like “Clearly they would have pushed it over if Tea wasn’t slacking off” and like...she is actually. Look at her. Only used one hand? Slacker.

Joey was disappointed he couldn’t push over a massive wall, and the team decided not to analyze how much Joey Wheeler thinks of his own strength and instead fixate on these statues.

Usually in anthro characters they kinda look birdlike but act human. But what about an anthro that’s just a bird? Like human torso, but can turn his head 180 degrees? Yugioh made me ask this question.

And then Joey was like “wait, there may be a solution that isn’t just to use brute strength!”

Youknow it is a bummer that Kaiba couldn’t witness Joey own a dragon while he himself only has a robot jet dragon. Although, the jet is probably faster, stronger and overall...better than this baby dragon. It would have been great for Kaiba to witness Joey under-utilize this dragon and forget he has it for like huge swatches of the episode.

And then Grandpa pulled some body horror out of nowhere.

Wow.

I mean that is really gross.

I guess Grandpa can’t use Blue eyes, because Kaiba ripped it up, Grandpa can’t use Exodia because Weevil tossed it off a boat, and grandpa can’t use the card that’s just a building because...it’s a building.

So instead Grandpa has a bunch of meat and bones that look like something out of Doom. It’s probably from a more obscure Konami property, but I forget which.

I’ve seen Tristan hold back Joey in this hold, first time it’s been Tea.

So much shipping in this episode, it’s wild.

It’s also wild how low my standards are for what could possibly be shipping when it comes to Yugioh because of how freakin tepid all of these characters are, which as I’ve brought up before, I really don’t mind.

So Yugi decides that because Grandpa was folding his arms like one monster and it made a gem light up or something, to just do the video game thing and use the giant ass statues as clues.

Why was this arc not a video game? Like parts of it really feel like it was meant to be.

So Yugi falls down a hole, where the walls cave in like it’s that dumpster in Star Wars but like...it barely phases him.

Also...Yugi might be able to see in the dark. It’s never been brought up but like...the more I think about it...has Yugi ever struggled to see without the lights on?

After Joey disappoints everyone, he confronts death.

And Pharaoh and Yugi decide to solve the puzzle of “how do I get out of this trap dungeon room” which, honestly, is probably what they’re doing every time they hang out in the brain pyramid.

So they summon their mascot monster, and surprisingly the show decided its ability to fly cannot help them out here.

Kuriboh manages to become enough of a doormat to push Yami up to the stone and they end up in a set of weird cuts that ended in this?

Like seriously it was like flashes of light and then they were just...up here like this.

Hey like...

Alexander the Great, my man...

Were you planning to put that stone in the middle of a exhaust vent hoping someone would touch it? Because there’s no way anyone would rationally have done that. You would need to fly to do it. This is the world’s worst DM.

Like Yugioh pulls a lot of fantasy nonsense but this arc is a lot more like a “it’s a kid’s show, just go with it.” arc than most of them. It’s not a bad vibe, necessarily, it’s just not the vibe I’m used to.

So once I witnessed maybe the most boring conversation I’ve ever witnessed about corn (this was on a twitch stream, by the way, a guy was playing an interesting game, and then a guest came on and started talking about corn and plants for 2 hours) and they would not shut up about how all taxonomy is wrong because there are no such thing as trees and how all animals are labelled incorrectly, and then they started comparing it to like all sorts of mushrooms and phytoplankton as you would if you clearly got a little bit high before dumping your corn knowledge on a twitch stream.

Anyway, after that bizarre experience I suffered so I could learn how to play an obscure video game, I think I can safely say, that while I know everyone here thinks a bird can’t be a dog. If you’re a high biologist: a bird is absolutely a dog. Apparently you can just do that if you’re the most boring biologist alive and no one will argue with you because to do that would involve talking to you. We’ll just say a bird is a dog and no one can fight me or I will talk about the corn book that this guest on this twitch chat was thinking about renting from the library about the different types of corn mutations inherent in freakin Indiana. Therefore, Joey’s fear of birds and dogs is same.

So they use Dark Magician to save them from the statues, and Yugi busts into the pantheon again because they got to open this casket before a time limit that I kind of forgot about, tbh.

And inside the casket, is...this thing!

(enjoy this line on the bottom of the image I don’t feel like fixing it)

And you may say to yourself...it looks like it’s just floating in mid-air, that’s silly, and so I want to introduce you to the next panel where you can see that it is...quite literally...just floating in the air like a video game.

and it just slurps itself onto Yugi before he can be like “nonono.”

Wasn’t there some horror movie where you were stuck in some sort of body brace that slowly tortures you (was that Saw?) This has that vibes. Like man that looks uncomfortable to wear over a jacket and two belts and a collar that is another belt.

That and I...I gotta appreciate that Yugi popped his collar while wearing body armor and chunky necklace. What 00′s fashion appreciation right there.

Bit like...this isn’t breathable, right? Like Yugi’s gonna finally take this thing off and his jacket will just be completely soaked in sweat?

Anyway, that’s it for this post, next week we’ll see if Yugi can walk through a doorway in that thing.

Also, I can’t bring up the ostrich dance without sharing the vines of my generation