#so i cut my losses and focused on what i could get done instead.

[everi-daze]

Probably not a popular take but I wish my professor would just let me fail. I don't want to talk about why I'm not doing as good as I could be I KNOW WHY I'M NOT DOING AS GOOD AS I COULD BE

[lily-fics-11]

I Can See You: Chapter 1 (Ellie Williams, TLOU)

I Can See You

Fic master post here

*Not beta read

Ellie Williams is a player, on and off the lacrosse field. You begin tutoring her so that she can get her grades up and stay on the team. You try to keep things professional, however, your affection is a great motivator. Ellie wouldn't be caught dead with you so you become her secret mission. 

Chapter 1

You’ve started tutoring Ellie and things don’t go as expected. She’s trying to convince you to kiss her to keep her doing her work. But not to kiss and tell.

Word count: 2.4k

CW: No use of y/n, profanities, *Ellie and reader are both 18*

The first time you kissed Ellie Williams was right in the middle of your 3rd tutoring session during the first week of March. 

She is the star of the girl's lacrosse team and they threatened to bench her if she didn’t improve her grades. 

Truth be told, Ellie has far greater academic aptitude than you expected. However, she spends most of her time in class flirting with the popular girls and cracking jokes instead of paying attention.

All you really have to do is go over the material and make sure she pays attention. Once she actually got to work, she would fly through everything, but keeping her focused was a far greater challenge than you had anticipated

The first meeting Ellie told you all about lacrosse, and you wouldn’t understand what she was talking about even if you wanted to. “You won’t get to play lacrosse if you don’t get any work done,” you reminded her. 

The second meeting you found out that Ellie is secretly a nerd, when she ranted about comic books. You had brought it up and it turns out you like some of the same ones. Ellie couldn't contain herself, but she made you swear not to tell anyone about it. 

Meeting three was when Ellie found out how to keep you distracted. She noticed the little pride pin on your backpack and started using her charm on you. 

You meet 2 times a class cycle because you were helping her with calculus and English on A days and chem and Spanish on C. You both have the same study hall so they assigned you to her. Can’t take away from the superstar’s practice time after school. 

“That rainbow pin on your bag,” Ellie smirks. “Are you…?”

“Rainbow in a women are hot way? Yes, I’ve been out for a while, so I thought everyone knew. I guess it’s only the people who pay attention.”

“I pay attention!” She actually looks offended. 

You sigh. “To cheerleaders, in short skirts. And popular girls in expensive clothes. Any girl with a couple thousand followers on Instagram.” Although you suspect that there is more to Ellie than there seems to be, there is no ignoring her taste in women.

“Not very feminist of you, judging those girls, I see that pin too.” She shakes her head in sarcastic disapproval.

“I would never judge anyone for anything like that. I admire anyone who is brave enough to express themselves in the way they want to. I’m judging you. For having such a narrow gaze.” Your smile is so sickeningly sweet it could rot her teeth. 

Ellie’s jaw drops, she really thought she had you there. “Come on now, I pay attention to all sorts of girls.”

You cover your face with your hands. “All right then, you’ve spent enough time sitting across from me, what color are my eyes, Ellie?”

“I… uh…” she stutters, at a loss for words. 

You uncover your face and comically bulge your eyes. 

Ellie raises her eyebrows and nods. “Now that I see them, that is exactly the color I was going to say.” 

“Bull shit.”

“Fine,” Ellie rolls her eyes, “ask me another question. If I get it wrong you will get 15 minutes of uninterrupted work from me.”

“What’s my last name?”

“That’s easy… you sit next to Carly in calculus, so your last name must start with R or S.”

You cut her off before she can continue, you'd be here all day. “I’ll stop you right there. We are not in the same calculus class.”

She purses her lips and squints her eyes. “Then why are you tutoring me in calculus?”

“Well, I am in honors, so I’m a year ahead. I got an A in it last year.”

Ellie scratches the back of her head. “That does actually make sense.”

You slide a worksheet over to her. “How about we start that uninterrupted work.”

She doesn’t even look down at the pieces of paper. 

“Just one more question? If I get it wrong, I will shut up for the rest of the period.”

She leans forward and gives you a charming smile, which you ignore to the best of your ability. 

“I love watching you bet against yourself,” you admit, leaning back in your chair with a smirk.

“I’m not done. If I get it right…” mischief flickers in those enchanting green eyes. “… I get a kiss.” 

Her smile would melt most girls' hearts, and you are no exception. You’d be lying if you said you’ve never watched her walk down the hallway before. Ellie swaggers through the crowds, that part for her like the red sea, with a shit eating grin and her chin turned up. She’s drop dead gorgeous, and her gravitational field is strong, all eyes are always on her. The girl practically oozes charisma. 

But you know how to play it cool.

“A kiss? Seriously? That’s what you want?” You scoff, though you certainly wouldn't’ mind.

“Yeah.” She says as if it’s obvious. 

“Why?” You are very suspicious. “I don’t fit any of your criteria.”

“I wouldn’t say that.” Ellie leans over and rests her elbows on the table, folds her hands together. “Now that I’m paying attention, your eyes are really pretty.”

“You’re fucking with me, Williams,” you huff, annoyed by her wasting your time. 

She smirks at you. “I’m serious. You’re actually way prettier than half the girls I’ve hooked up with.

“I’m so flattered.” You say sarcastically and start to organize the things spread out on the table. 

“I’m being serious!” She says and playfully slams her hands down on the table. 

“Only half?” You chuckle.

“I just… I… I guess not.” That makes your eyebrows raise and your nose scrunch in disgust. You run your tongue along the inside of your mouth.

“Actually, more than most.,.” Ellie stutters, her eyes darting around. 

You cross your arms over your chest and bite back a smile. “What’s my favorite song?”

“What’s your favorite song?” She echos back. 

“Guess it right and you can have a kiss.”

You’ve never seen Ellie concentrate so hard. You can only assume that this is her game day face.

“Its… it’s…” and she guesses… correctly?

You gasp, totally flabbergasted. “How the hell did you know that?”

She looks like she just won jeopardy. “You requested it in gym the other day.”

You blink rapidly in shock. “And you remembered?”

Ellie sits back and crosses her arms confidently. “Believe it or not we have a similar taste in music”

“You’re right. I don’t believe it.”

“Either way, I still won my prize,” she winks at you.

“Prize? Oh, yeah,” you laugh and roll your eyes. 

You lean over and give her a quick peck on the lips

She looks disgusted.

If looks could kill Ellie Williams would have been slaughtered right there in the school library. 

“Fucking hell, am I really that bad of a kisser?”

She squints her eyes and shakes her head no. “I wouldn’t know, that wasn’t a real kiss.” You run your hand through your hair. “What the hell are you talking about?”

Ellie looks deep into your eyes, like she’s staring right at your soul, and licks her lips. She slowly moves her hand to your face and cups your chin. She tilts your face up and smirks before pulling your lips into hers. Ellie does not hold back. 

Though you’ve never kissed each other before, it feels like you’ve kissed a thousand times. You don’t have to find a rhythm; you just fall in sync. Something about the way she tastes is so familiar. Who were you to deny yourself a good kiss with an attractive girl?

Ellie pulls away but leaves her hand on your chin. “That is a kiss.”

You lightly grab her by the wrist and place her hand on the table. “You still owe me 15 minutes of work.”

Ellie fake pouts. “Is that all you have to say to me? Was that not the best kiss of your life?”

Your palm meets your forehead. “You really are full of yourself. It’s time to get this stuff done.”

“All I’ll say is that maybe this could be a method of keeping me motivated.”

“You’re ridiculous!” 

She’s got a wide grin on her face; she’s waiting to prove you wrong. “You say that now, but I’m sure you’ll find yourself offering up bigger and bigger prizes, and not just to shut me up. But let’s keep this between us.”

It’s your next meeting and you are supposed to work on her chem homework and edit her English essay. 

“How about we work on your essay first?”

She nods and opens her notebook… to an empty page. She looks over at you expectantly and you gesture at it with confusion. 

“That doesn’t look like an essay to me,” you sigh. 

“I just wasn’t feeling motivated. So, I thought maybe, just maybe, you could kiss me after every paragraph. It would help me write.” Ellie licks her lips and tries to seduce you with her alluring eyes. 

“I think it’s best, for the both of us, to keep things professional.”

“Not best for me, it’s a proven method!” She exclaims as if it’s obvious. 

“You’d have to run the experiment more than once to prove something.”

“Fine, you can be the x axis and I can be the y axis.”

You fold your hands together. “I’m proud of you for that even if it doesn’t make sense. Do you know how many people have caught feelings for me while I tutor them?”

“First of all, I don’t catch feelings. Second of all, it can't be that many. 

“Underestimating is a dangerous game, Williams, a star athlete like you know that. 4 of 7 straight guys, 2 of 2 queer girls and 1 of 4 straight girls.

Ellie brings her hand to her chin and nods in approval. “I have to say, I’m impressed. Game recognizes game. That’s why you don’t have to worry about me catching feelings.”

“We can use that as a last resort. Can we please try and be professional?” You are borderline begging her. 

“Ughhhhh,” she groans and pouts her lips, trying to get you to look at them. You can neither confirm nor deny that it worked.

“I don’t care who you are, Ellie, you won’t be getting any special treatment from me.”

“We will see about that.”

Ellie was surprisingly cooperative while you outlined the essay theme. She even stayed focused while writing the intro.

But while working on the outlines for the body paragraphs she would hit you with a pickup line as often as she could. Somehow, she knew exactly where the sweet spot was, enough to satisfy herself, but not too many that you would get fed up with her and tell her to stop. 

“I finished the intro, how about we work on the intro of me and you?”

“I think this paragraph proves I know how to handle a beautiful body.”

Ellie kept holding the eraser side of the pencil to her lips and glancing over to see if it had you looking where she wanted you to. It's painful to admit, but you couldn’t look away.

After mapping out all of the paragraphs you switch over to chemistry. 

“Let’s go over the basics for this topic. What can you tell me about entropy without looking at your notes?” You ask her this very hesitantly, you don’t want to put too much pressure on her.

“Chaos and disorder.” Ellie smiles like an evil villain, as if those are her two favorite things. 

You give her a nod of approval. “That’s a good start, do you remember how the amount of disorder correlates to the amount of entropy?”

Her face scrunches up while she thinks. “More disorder is more entropy.”

“Perfect.” That puts a devilish grin on Ellie’s face. “If you kissed me I would have less entropy.”

You roll your eyes. “Oh, I'm sure you would.” You are completely monotone. “If the reaction is positive do the reactants or the products have higher entropy.”

Ellie straightens up her posture. “The products. So, if kissing was the product there may be a lot of entropy, but it would also be positive.”

“Ellie, if you found some internal motivation you would excel. Not just pass these classes and be able to play lacrosse but do really well. You are smart and I don’t think you give yourself enough credit.” You made sure that your tone was soft and reassuring. You really mean it and don’t want to sound condescending.

If you didn’t know any better, you would say that Ellie was on the verge of tearing up. “Really?”

“Yes of course.”

“Nobody ever expects more of me than playing well in lacrosse.” She’s looking anywhere but at you and playing with the pencil in her hand.

“I don’t know you well, but I can tell there is much more to you.”

Ellie looks so lost. “Of course,” she mutters. “I seduce every girl I see.”

That is absolutely not what you meant, even if it had been in the back of your mind. 

You softly give Ellie your opinion on the situation, whether it’s your place or not. This girl obviously doesn’t talk about things like this very much and you want her to know it’s ok to be vulnerable and communicate. 

“If the way you are with me is any indication of the way you are with other girls, and I don’t want to step out of line here- but I feel like you can handle honesty- it’s a defense mechanism. Deflection specifically.”

Ellie’s eyes shoot wide open and her jaw drops. “Fuck! You are smart.” 

You shake your head and smile. “I wouldn’t say that makes me smart, I’m just not shallow like everyone else in this godforsaken town.”

Ellie leans back in her chair so far that it looks like it’s about to tip over. She is staring up at the ceiling when she mumbles. “I think you’re the only one.”

“I don’t think you are either; I think you pretend to be. In order to survive.”

“What are you, some sort of therapist?”

“I’d be lying if I said I haven’t spent hours researching this type of thing because I find it interesting.”

“You can’t tell anyone about this.”

“Under one condition, we keep things professional.”

*if anyone is interested in a tag list lmk!

[lycheedr3ams]

I would cut my hands off just so you could hold them forever (Taming You Part 2)

Summary: part 2 of my Taming You series (if you don't like this, just scroll past, it's that easy) CW: obsessive!konig x fem!reader, depictions of self-harm, bleeding, konig is kinda crazed and lovesick, mentions of stalking, dark content (konig does NOT cut his hands off don't worry), DDDNE *title from a lyric in my favorite song Night Riders by Ja¥en X District & Sinxi

DO NOT DO THIS IRL EVER. THIS IS ONLY FOR FANTASY!

im really nervous posting this, this is seriously just for fiction. if you don't like it just scroll past. this type of fic is for mature people. also minors fuck off

you had finally had enough of konig's toxicity. you told him plainly: that things were done between you two. he tilted his head in confusion, like a dog that doesn't understand what was said. you never thought konig's confusion could be so unnerving as you felt chills run down your spine.

"nein." he replied.

now it was your turn to tilt your head. "what? what do you mean, no?"

konig's voice became guttural, and his eyes became dark and focused, as he uttered that single word: "nein."

you glanced away for a moment, unsure of how to handle his reaction. you thought he would've screamed at you, or threatened to lock you away somewhere, but he just said "no."

"I can't be with you anymore konig, I'm not happy." you explained to him.

konig's throat rumbled as he processed your words, almost as if he were growling. it wasn't the growl that phased you - that was a normal thing for him - it was instead what he said next.

"I would bleed for you, mädchen. I would do anything for you. I would cut my own hands off so you could always hold them, if you wanted me to."

"don't-" you stammered unsure of what you just heard, "don't cut anyone's hands off, including your own. just give me some space for a while."

"nein."

...

despite konig saying he wouldn't give you space, you saw less and less of him as the days went on. after a week, you thought you had finally gotten rid of him, until someone knocked on your door at near midnight one random weekday.

you peered through the little hole in your door to see konig's hunched form, and you swore you saw something red on his shirt. your eyes widened and you opened the door. "what the hell happened to you?"

konig stared at you with wide eyes, blinking slowly for a moment. he then held out his arms, his long-sleeve shirt rolled up to his elbows. your stomach churned when you saw his arms: cuts lined them, dripping with blood, falling onto the floor outside your door.

"I'm bleeding for you, mädchen. please let me in."

you wanted to slam the door right in his face, but with the amount of blood that was falling onto the floor, you couldn't turn him away. you ran to the bathroom to get an old towel and wrapped them around his arms as you ushered him into your apartment. you sat konig down on your couch, and thought in the back of your mind that he had never been so compliant before.

"what is wrong with you?" you asked as you disinfected his wounds with an alcohol wipe. the pile of bloody wipes was building as you cleaned more wounds than you had originally thought.

"needed to see you. show you how much I love you," he stated plainly, not even caring about his blood loss.

you shook your head as you began to bandage his wounds. konig relished the feeling of your soft fingers on his skin, caring for him as he always wanted. "if you wanted to see me that badly, you should've just called."

"nein," he said. "I wanted you to see that I mean it. I will bleed for you. I need you."

you sighed and cleaned up the bloody wipes and bandage wrappers, throwing them away, hoping to forget this ever happened. you sat down next to konig, and he looked at you with wide, soft eyes, and you nearly lost your breath because he had never looked at you like that. you told yourself that your heart would be stone for him, but his eyes melted your heart. and the worst part was, konig was genuine. this was no master-minded manipulative display of vulnerability to get you back.

you sighed again.

"what is it, Süßes Mädchen?" konig asked softly.

your eyes pleaded with him as he called you that. he knew those two words always made you feel weak. "konig, don't do this to me."

"don't do what to you?" he gently lifted your face with his index finger, his thumb gently pressing against your chin.

"this," you muttered.

konig got closer to you, his warm breath gently fanning over your face. "do you want me to stop?"

now it was your turn.

"no."

taglist: @osteawb, @sleepystaarr, @vvampir3s, @simpxinnie, @majocookie, @sharkyyyyyyyyyyyy, @marysdelrey, @kybeth5, @chaos-on-stand-bi, @shannonswizzies, @arcadia509, @bloodstoneruby, @cumikering, @skystreamchan, @junkratssheila-09, @kit-williams, @tangerynsbaby, @dreamdiaries777, @royalbxstxrd, @non-satanic-panic, @theweirdchick, @kiyomisan, @maylif, @mortimoshi, @eneiss, @daughter-ofthe-forest

[procyonloser]

Adamsapple mini ~space~ au that maybe I'll adapt into an actual fic after I'm done with eve of Adam.

Read more below the cut

Klaxons were blaring and the ship was painted in flashes of red and blue. His soldiers were running around like headless fucking chickens, trying to contain the fires and the leaks before they got out of hand, but bodies lay on the ground and they were drifting on no life support.

"Sir!?" His first officer screamed, holding her bleeding arm. Her eyes were wide in fear, fury, and a resolution that was quickly leaving him. But, they still shared a similar need for revenge.

They were outgunned. The traitors and outcasts had won, the scum of the fucking galaxy. Disgusting hybrids and freaks.

And the worst of all of them...

Adam stumbled to the front of his ship, stepping over the body of his navigator. He'd not live much longer, a piece of metal had gone straight through him in the last barrage. Lucifer's lead ship, the Morning Star, stayed locked onto them. He'd gotten a few good hits in on Charlie's ship, she'd not be able to warp out of here.

Adam stared out the window, and decided he had one song left in him.

"Attention, this is your fucking Captain speaking. Abandon ship. Get to your escape pods and get your asses back to Peter's Gate space station." Adam barked out, feeling a sharp pain digging through him with every word. Lute started to protest behind him, but he carried on. "I'm not leaving the ship, I wouldn't survive the trip anyway. Lute is your new acting Captain. Now - fucking go already!"

There was chaos as his soldiers realized all hope was lost and the fight was over for them. Lute had tears running down her face, but Adam just shook his head.

"I gave you an order. Get out of here unless you want to die too." Adam said, without looking back up at her. Instead, he focused on yanking the chuck of metal out of his stomach. His white and gold suit had been stained a deep red. The only spot of human blood on the ship.

"Sir-" Lute moved closer, but Adam just flopped down into what was left of the Captain's chair.

"I'm not going down without one last trick up my sleeve. Get out of here before I bleed out. I'm giving you one minute to get to warp." Adam finally met her gaze with a weary grin. She knew what it meant, and it took her a moment to find the courage to do what she knew she had to.

Leave.

By the time he saw her escape pod launch from the port, and eventually flash away in a beam of light, Adam's vision had grown hazy. His entire body felt cold from blood loss, or maybe it was just the systems of the ship failing in the depths of space.

Either way, he had enough in him to punch in the self destruct codes.

Hopefully, he'd damaged enough of their ships warp cores that one wouldn't be able to flee, maybe even Charlie's ship. He doubted Lucifer's ship was damaged enough, but he could always dream. That's about all he'd be doing soon.

Adam sighed and looked out the window, wondering what Lucifer was thinking right now. It didn't need to be like this, if he hadn't rebelled, hadn't fucked Lilith and made that revolting hybrid. Lucifer could have been King of more than just the trash of the Galaxy. Lucifer had been more than that to Adam, once upon a time.

"I'll see you in hell, Lucifer." Adam said to himself, closing his eyes, as the countdown neared zero.

But explosion followed, none that Adam remembered. Which meant, he thought, that he'd died beforehand. Or maybe the nuclear blast was enough so that he died instantly before his brain or body had the chance to catch up with the feeling.

So, then, why was he thinking?

Adam opened his eyes to a bright white light, which he remembered from ancient human history as the description of an afterlife, before they'd mostly given up on religions. Two pairs of eyes seemed to appear above him, floating there in the brightness.

"God?" Adam mumbled in confusion.

"No, but you can call me that if you'd like, sweetheart." Lucifer said mockingly, and Adam's vision became more clear. "I saved your sorry ass before your ship went kablooey. You're now a prison of my Kingdom and my ring of coalition planets, Adam. We'll be seeing a lot of each other from now on. How's mercy taste?" Lucifer's grin was sharp, pointed, predatory.

Adam remembered that ancient humans used to have another name for the devil.

Maybe he was in hell.

[ticklishraspberries]

Family (Kazuki/Rei)

Summary: Kazuki discovers that Rei is ticklish. (Here is my fic for Squealing Santa 2k23, and I’m writing for *drumroll*...@tiklart!! I really hope you enjoy your fic. And a special thanks to @hypahticklish for running this event and being so lovely. Happy holidays to everyone!! xo)

Working and living together forced a sort of intimacy that both Rei and Kazuki weren’t exactly familiar with. Kazuki had been, once, but ever since that loss, he had closed himself off to forming such bonds, whereas Rei had never been so known to another person, and it sort of freaked him out.

The benefit was, of course, that it was beneficial to know one’s partner in their line of work. They had a basis of trust, of security. They worked well together, and had no reason to jeopardize that.

But there was also the domesticity of it all that was…Well, strange. Kazuki was like a proper housewife, cooking and cleaning and taking care of everything. Rei had grown up with money and maids, never had to care for himself, so that was welcomed. It was a little rude of him to leave it all up to Kazuki, but social skills were also not his strong suit, so he had no idea how to thank him, let alone help him with the chores. 

It was a calm day in their apartment, for once. There were no hits to be completed, nothing to do. Miri was at daycare, giving them some much needed peace and quiet. While Rei saw it as an opportunity to do more of nothing than usual, Kazuki was taking advantage of the day off, cleaning the apartment and prepping some meals to cook throughout the week, in his apron and all.

Rei often called him a housewife, which made Kazuki scoff and say something like, “So, what does that make you? My lazy husband?” which had once made Rei blush, but he had since gotten used to the banter. In a way, their dynamic had become almost like a marriage. They did everything together. And, well, Rei wasn’t complaining. Kazuki was a good-looking guy, no doubt about it, but they had never done anything to actually be a couple. They were just roommates and co-workers, arguably friends, who had now stumbled upon a little girl that they were raising as their own. As her two dads. Who weren’t married or even dating. It was a weird dynamic, for sure.

After cleaning Miri’s room, doing some laundry, cooking, and cleaning, all before noon, Kazuki plopped down on the couch beside Rei with a sigh.

Rei was, as usual, engrossed in a video game, and ignored his presence entirely.

“You know, you could have offered to help me out,” Kazuki said.

Rei made a noise in response, something between a grunt and a hum. An acknowledgement, but not agreeing or disagreeing. Not even listening.

Kazuki rolled his eyes. “Are you even paying attention?”

Rei repeated the noise, and Kazuki gave an annoyed huff.

“Earth to Rei,” he said, waving a hand next to his face.

Rei ignored him. He was so close to finishing the level, he wasn’t going to stop now! He focused intently, determined to finish with a perfect score.

He had expected Kazuki to just give up, leave him alone, like he usually did. But instead, Kazuki jabbed him in the ribs with two fingers, an unexpected touch that made him yelp and jump, tilting his controller in the process and effectively making him lose the level.

Rei turned with a disgruntled expression. “What do you want?”

“What was that?” Kazuki asked. “I didn’t hurt you, did I? Are you injured from that last hit? Why didn’t you tell me? Let me see!”

“I’m not hurt, you’re just being annoying,” Rei replied with a glare. “You made me lose.”

“Did that guy hit you in the ribs? I swear, if you’ve broken something and didn’t say anything, I’m going to kick your ass.”

Kazuki began experimentally prodding Rei’s side, determined to find the supposed injury and probably cause Rei a little bit of pain as a lesson in getting shit checked out right away, but instead, Rei wriggled away with a level of energy he only showed while on the job.

“Cut it out!” he said.

“But if you’re hurt, I—”

“I’m not hurt, dumbass, just leave me—”

“Wait a second. Are you…Did that tickle?” Kazuki asked, something like realization appearing on his face.

Rei’s face grew hot. “Of course not.”

“Oh, really? So you wouldn’t mind if I did…This?”

Kazuki leapt across the couch at him, fingers finding his belly with surprising ease. Rei, with all his training, had seen it coming but forgotten any practical means of escape, and simply shouted and squirmed, like he wasn’t a fucking assasian from one of the most feared families in Japan.

He bit the inside of his cheek, refusing to laugh, his long limbs flailing and trying to hit Kazuki anywhere that would disarm him, but Kazuki was just as strong and tactical as he was.

When Kazuki’s fingers found his ribs again, Rei couldn’t contain it any longer, a giggle slipping out. He would never describe it as such, but it was definitely a giggle. Slightly high-pitched and hysterical, and kind of adorable, although he would also hate that description.

“Wait until I tell Miri,” Kazuki teased.

“Don’t you dare,” Rei spat, gasping for air between laughter.

“Oh, c’mon! You know how much she likes to see you smile.”

“I’m not smiling!”

“You’re right, you’re actually laughing. My bad. Miri will like that even better! I can just imagine the look on her little face when she finds out Papa Rei is ticklish!”

“I am not ticklish,” Rei said through gritted teeth, fighting the urge to laugh again, as if it would do him any good. Kazuki had a good grip on his torso and was tormenting his sides and ribs with the dexterity of someone who knew their way around a trigger, as well as a sewing needle.

“Oh, you’re not? Then what’s so funny?”

“Fuck off!”

“Language!”

“She’s not even here!”

Rei kicked and swung his arms and even attempted to bite Kazuki a few times, but he was weak with laughter and eventually slumped against the cushions, laughing helplessly.

“Admit it and I’ll stop,” Kazuki said.

“Never!” Rei replied. He had been trained by his family to withstand worse torture than this. He would find a way to get out of this situation…But what then? Kazuki was never going to let this go. And if the kid found out…Ugh, he was totally screwed.

Kazuki’s hands darted upward and underneath Rei’s arms, making his laughter reach a new octave. It didn’t take long for him to crack.

“Fine, fine! I’m fucking ticklish, okay? Now stop!”

Kazuki did, immediately, a smug smile on his face. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

“I hate you,” Rei said.

His normally pale cheeks were flushed and his eyes were watery, his hair even messier than usual, his hoodie and sweatpants rumpled. As he caught his breath, he noticed Kazuki staring.

“What?” he asked, scowling.

“You just…You should laugh more. You look…You look cute,” Kazuki said, stumbling over his words as he also blushed.

Rei’s eyes widened in surprise. “I’m not…Fuck off,” he said, but he was fighting a smile.

“I’m serious though! You just…Miri’s right. It’s nice to see you smile.”

Rei opened his mouth to reply, then his eyes caught the time on the television. “Shit. We have to go pick her up.”

Kazuki looked at the time as well, jumping up from the couch. “Crap, you’re right. Let’s go!”

And in the chaos of grabbing their shoes and coats, their minds were distracted from their previous antics and conversation. It wasn’t until later that evening, when Miri had fallen asleep in his lap, that Rei revisited those words in his mind.

Cute? Really? It wasn’t the most flattering of compliments for a grown man to receive, but coming from Kazuki…Well, it had felt nice.

Maybe roommates and coworkers and co-parents weren't all that they were. Maybe they could be something more. The thought made his cheeks grow warm. As he looked down at Miri, their daughter, he truly felt that they were the perfect little family.

[agendabymooner]

cinema ! max v. x ofc (hearth sister!ofc) — mdni

“it’s you. don’t know why but it feels so right for me.”

summary: a breakup can lead to a loss of a part of one’s identity, and sylvie and max were alright with that. (1)(2)(3)(4)

content warning: use of explicit language, mention of mental health issues and lack of sleeping, light smut/suggestive content (i can’t write for shit), mentions of loss of virginity, mention of past!ofc x the weeknd (toxic breakup, cheating storyline), chatfic + fic, mature content under the cut MINORS DO NOT INTERACT

note: yo girl is going to the 2024 canadian gp 😩 there will also be a charles leclerc piece otw but i just need to put out my cracked out thoughts into it. also, i can’t write smut so there will not be any extremely graphic details in this chapter. this doesn't mean that i am encouraging people to read it at their own risk so MINORS DNI :)

masterlist

september 2016

Everyone in the Red Bull area knew the reason why Sylvie was often found crying in Daniel Ricciardo’s drivers room during her breaks. Well, everyone but Sylvie. She lived to blame herself for the downfall of what she thought was a great relationship.

They were reaching the sixth month and if it hadn’t been for Abel’s cheating, then maybe— MAYBE Sylvie would continue to pursue what she had with him.

Everyone thought Abel was a fool. Sylvie hadn’t done anything but be a good person, a loyal girlfriend. Why did he let another woman warm the bed that they shared?

Because she spent more time with Max than she had with him. That’s what he said. When she found him in his flat and asked what the hell was going on, Abel yelled at her for not going home. He screamed that she was doing it first with her “fucking best friend.” He didn’t even know the rough past between the two; he only knew Max’s name and had seen their childhood photos. So much for someone who had been dating her for five months.

Instead of fighting back, she cried. Her feet stood there as her sobs became a plea to let her inside once he kicked her out. She looked so pathetic.

It didn’t stop her from working, though, and Christian Horner couldn’t be more wrong when he previously said that she wasn’t emotionally prepared for work.

Her work kept her mind occupied throughout the Hungary race. From sending emails back and forth with her model agency to attending sponsor dinners, her mind never stopped running until she was able to get some sleep.

Because truthfully, she really wasn’t able to sleep. She only relied on chamomile tea then pretended that she was refreshed from the night before.

Her family had tried to get some word out of her about the break up, but she refused to say anymore. Toto did say that Abel had a bad aura within him, yet Sylvie knew that her in-law wasn’t about to tell her that ���I told you so.” Stevie definitely called Abel out on his bullshit one night when she came across him at a bar in LA. Tilly merely comforted her without a word. Other than that, Sylvie never said anything about it— her eyes were focused on the racing team and the drivers.

The night before the race, she found Max standing in front of her hotel room. Her bloodshot eyes were evidence of her sadness and exhaustion, but it wasn’t as if she could easily close the door on him to hide it away. He was persistent and would most likely bring Lando here if it means that he would be able to get in.

The Dutchman stood there with a tray of macarons and another tray with cups of tea. “Chamomile,” it said on both tea bags. His accent was laced with concern as he spoke, “I know you haven’t had the greatest weekend yet. I had to beg my PR manager to find me a pastry shop for these.”

And so they sat on the love seat quietly, Easy A playing on the television while they both munched on the last two strawberry macaroons and sipped on their tea.

“He blamed me, you know?” Sylvie chuckled bitterly, her eyes still trained on Emma Stone’s makeover scene as the character continued ripping fabrics off in rage. I should do that, she told herself. She could see in her peripheral vision that Max looked at her, leaving her to say, “Said I spent too much time with you. That I slept with you first.”

“Blue—“ Max tried to speak, but she continued regardless.

“Which is kind of rich of him,” Sylvie shook her head, reaching out on the tray to eat the matcha flavoured macaron next. She bit on it and said, “Considering that I never had slept with anyone I spend my time with. Let alone sleep with anyone.”

“I don’t recall sleeping with anyone, too,” Max made things lighter as he joked, “I would have remembered otherwise.”

“Man,” Sylvie sighed and slumped against the loveseat, “had I known that men would be like that, then I would’ve ditched him immediately.”

Sylvie knew that whatever she did with Max the moment he came inside the hotel room made her realize her worth. What was it about her childhood friend that made her think the other way?

Everyone did say they were connected one way or another. She didn’t know how and he didn’t know either; but everyone insisted they were soulmates. One soul in two different bodies. She knew him as much as he knew her. She always had similar thoughts and feelings shared with him, and not once did he ever go against that idea. He pushed her, in fact.

“Not men,” Max laughed quietly, “boys. Men learn. Boys are still in the process of doing so.”

“Didn’t you just hit puberty two months ago?” She joked.

“Didn’t you?” He bit back with a smile.

She laughed along, shaking her head once more. They fell silent as Sylvie stared at his eyes. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen it up close. But god, they sure looked prettier than they did before Abel had broken up with her.

“Would it be,” she stammered, leaving the man next to him scowling as he goaded her into speaking. She cleared her throat and sighed. “Would it be okay to ask… if I can… ah, shit. Never mind. It sounds bollocks if I continue on.”

“We don’t hide things anymore, Mustang,” he teased her, “remember? We agreed on it.”

“So if I were to ask if you want to… do… it…”

Now he was rendered silent. She wanted the world to swallow her the moment she found him staring at her. He was frozen, and she felt her body burning in embarrassment as she wished to leave the place. This was her bloody room, she couldn’t get out of here.

“I- I-“ he stuttered, his cheeks heating up as he asked, “You want to do it?”

“I’ve always wondered what it's like,” she murmured quietly. “I tried imagining doing it with him but… he never seemed to have that kind of intention to… I don’t know… pay attention to my wants.”

“Pretty foolish of that dickhead,” Max scoffed. “If he only wants to use you, then it’s a great thing that you knew better than that.”

“But seriously—“ he continued, “Sylvie, look at me in the eyes and tell me you want me to do it with you.”

“I do,” she admitted meekly, staring at him while she said so before she turned away. “I don’t think I can do it with someone else. If they’re the same as him then I don’t know… and you’re not him or anyone. So…”

“Okay,” he nodded understandingly. He backed away for a second before catching his breath and murmured, “Okay… I’ll make sure you and I aren’t hurt. And- and, I’ll make sure you have the best time.”

And the best time, it was. It was the first time Sylvie slept in a few days. It was also the first time she shared an intimate moment with someone. Someone being Max Emilian Verstappen.

Anyone experienced with two eyes would point out that everything that happened was done rather clumsily. It probably didn’t help that Max had to trip and knock on Dan’s door to ask for a condom, but it was better to be embarrassed than sorry, he supposed.

Sylvie could remember herself wiping the smudged mascara off her face and removing her top to put on the black corset top that she had on her suitcase, keeping her black wide legged sweatpants on while he went out to “say hi to Dan for a minute.” She didn’t need to put on a makeup. It wasn’t really that special, was it? No. It certainly was, she just didn’t want to spook Max especially when his eyes widened just as he walked in on her putting on a lip balm with nothing but her bra and sweatpants on.

He couldn’t deny anything that night, especially to himself. The moment his tongue swiped over her lips, he nearly groaned in satisfaction at the minty flavour of her chapstick. A hint of strawberry came with it, finding himself caging her against the marble sink as she desperately held him… by the arms and his mouth.

Both of them were clueless, not knowing how to maneuver around one another the moment Max settled her down to her (upgraded) king-sized bed. For a moment, he wondered how she had managed to get herself a large room — knowing that the hotel room booked for him and Danny were smaller than hers — but her wandering hands sent his thoughts away when her palm landed on his sweatpants, eliciting a sigh from him.

Too many questions of, “Is this okay” and “are you alright” were exchanged— both of them unsure if either of them were comfortable or smart enough to be doing this. But one thing that they knew for sure was they wouldn’t be able to forget that night. It wasn’t the just pleasure that made it too memorable— but rather their experience with one another that made it too… good to forget. Sylvie and Max could care less about reaching the highs and lows when all they could think about was that they’ve done it with one another.

She could remember waking up to him kissing her forehead as he spoke in Dutch, telling her that they would talk sometime during the day before he left the room. She pretended to be asleep, but the whisper of his voice made her heart beat faster as if he hadn’t just called her love.

For someone who “hated” Max, Sylvie trusted him for taking a part of her and allowed him to ruin other men for her. She was sure that Max was her standard now. She couldn’t imagine doing the most intimate things with someone who didn’t have the same values and personality as him.

God, Max ruined her. But it wasn’t as if Sylvie was complaining about it. She embraced that idea, in fact.

[moltensmusings]

Would love your headcannons/thoughts on how you'd do GMG differently if you have them! Sometimes with the later arcs they're so bad it's tricky to think how they could go better I feel because the fundamentals are flawed rather than just a few bits you can ignore. Does your version of Mavis still turn up and strategise? I kinda love that thought because I can see your version of Mavis running things like it's a battle even though its much less of a big deal 🤣

Ah this might be a long one. I do want to note, we're only on episode 171, but I do distinctly remember most of the arc since I liked it so much as a teenager (it does have some good moments in spite of my complaints.)

Gonna put it under the cut!

So first: I actually am torn about how I'd handle the existence of Mavis in the grand magic games. I kind of like the idea of her only appearing to Cana because (in my rewrite) she actually fully passes her magic to Cana on Tenrou leading to her spirit being tied to her directly. She can leave the island because she goes where her essence does.

That said I'm also really liking the idea of Hyper serious Mavis who is otherworldly and militaristic, being incredibly reactive and emotional due to her competitive spirit. Her swapping from being upright and poised to Sports coach in an instant as she wills the guild to win is so incredibly funny to me.

Next: in the lead into the grand magic games we do a training arc. Most focus would be on Lucy and team Natsu would seperate. I mentioned in an earlier post we should've had a mentor figure who is a celestial mage and this would be the arc where they get the most screentime. They'd have been introduced pretimeskip and them training lucy would've been set up as a "once you get back from tenrou we have things to discuss" bit. During this arc Lucy learns about the concept of star dresses (she isn't able to use them for a while), how different spirit combinations can produce new attacks, and also heavily focuses on strengthening how well she can maintain multiple summoned spirits. We could get glimpses of the other characters doing training of their own but part of this mini arc would be to set up anticipation for what everyone else learns in their time away.

Raven tail not being one of the competing guilds would open up the chance for us to have someone else take their place and remove the Lucy vs Flare fight, replacing it with a fair fight instead where we actually see how much Lucy has grown as a mage and build up a high of her winning before we have the Minerva fight where the cruelty of sabertooth is shown. Lucy gets at least 1 win. It would make the Minerva loss hit harder and honestly make Minerva work better as an antagonist in my opinion if we get relatively clean and fair matches up until she arrives. She never outright breaks rules so no one can penalize her, but she does make things hell for fairy tail.

I'd have the audience be less of a hive mind in reacting to what happens in the games. Add In a mix of jeers and cheers for various guilds. Have side characters from magnolia who still love the fairy tail guild be in the audience voicing their support. In general just add some variety to the reactions we get.

Overall I'd probably keep the general plot outline the same outside of this, however I'd make things less one note. None of this "all guilds only stand a chance because the tenrou crew wasn't there" nonsense. Each guild gets highlighted as a strong presence in its own right. Though I will admit, I'd swap out Jura for a different mage in Lamia Scale because them allowing a wizard saint to compete feels like a conflict of interest. He can still be there as a character to interact with, just not competing.

Similarly I'd remove Jellal as Mystogan because i was under the impression people knew mystogan was inactive and the choice to include him was only done to give Jellal more presence in the plot, when him running an almost espionage like mission during the games with Crime Sorciore works fine on its own. We don't need to tie his plot directly into the fairy tail guild, focus instead on how he plays off Ultear and Meledy and the mission they came for. This does mean Cana would be our team B main stay instead of swapping in.

I mentioned in my complaints that someone else should've gone through the time gate Lucy creates and and I stand by that. I think whoever makes it through stating that everyone is gone and Lucy gave her life for the chance of a redo would be way better than her dying randomly trying to protect Natsu. It would also just fit what I know of the lore far better.

I don't even know what to say about the fanservice fight because conceptually it could be a funny cut away moment, but also it's really grossly handled and purely done to cater to the viewers in a way that sours me on it. So I'm ignoring it.

I think my last major note (with my current memory) outside of "1v1 battles need to be better written" is I'd actually consistently show the streets of the city to be very celebratory and excited. I really did enjoy the drinking party where we saw Fairy tail meet Bacchus and just have fun. We need more of that as well as the general idea that during the games the city is constantly alive. It would make the eventual dragon appearances and shift from revelry to terror more poignant. It would also help lean into the idea that most viewers only see the games as a spectical with no real care for the wizards competing when we have guild members get hospitalized while parties still go on.

I do want to note: I may have more to say once we finish the arc. But for now this is it!

[fndmstrugglecomments]

Ramblings under the cut

I can understand being happy about whatever representation one gets, but there's something that gets under my skin about the idea that the Bumbleby formula is ideal. To me the bumbleby formula is corporate representation perfected: It involves two women so it won't turn away a male-focused audience that gets the ick from gay men and can be made to look feminist instead of mlm-phobic, Blake and Yang show just enough affection with each other that anyone is free to interpret it how ever they want be it platonic or romantic, It spent enough time being "developed" that it can be spun as a slow burn and not look like queerbaiting while also drawing in a audience. Lastly, and most importantly, it's completely bereft of any markings of queer culture, no concern over community or identity. I'm trying to think of a time when Blake or Yang even talk to another queer character...I think Blake talked with Terra during their mission in V6 and I think she also said something to May in V8.

I'm gonna deviate from my main point to talk about queer representation and community(idk what to tell you sometimes the ADHD wins)

When media attempts representation it tends to focus solely on the dictionary definition of what their representing. Often times If a piece of media has two gay characters it's because their gay character needs a romantic interest. Beyond that, said gay character will usually spend their time with cishet characters while having few queer friends and being completely separated from the queer community as a whole. It's my personal theory that in optimizing their representation for Maximum Profit™ while minimizing any losses that could come from alienating queer...averse potential customers corporations tend to sanitize their attempts at representation of any facets of queer culture that aren't fit for monetization...which is most of it lol. Another theory is that most popular queer characters are written by cishet creators who view queer identities as similar to their own: a small facet of their identity with no culture or community behind it(this isn't true btw).

(This little spiel actually dovetails into my point quite nicely)

My point is we've come to a point where everything about queerness that can be monetized(i.e white girls kissing) is prioritized and held up as the standard, while anything that can't(i.e literally everything else, but most notably trans and non-binary identities, POC, and men ) is either non-existent or worse. The article(which I'm starting to think is payola) I got the screenshot from note's the V2 episode "Burning The Candle" as important to Blake and Yang's development but fails to mention that the following episode contains a scene in which a male character wears a dress to a dance and is laughed at by an auditorium full of people.

(For reference V2 aired in 2014, the same year as season 6 of Drag Race)

How can RWBY be an example of representation done right while also mocking something that a lot of queer people do?

So why does all of this matter? Well because everything about queerness that I said wasn't monetizable is currently being legislated against in a worrying number of states and all those people with less than monetizable identities are in constant danger. I know that representation of any kind is a good thing, but I hate that the most marketable representation is held up as some kind of standard while the community that's being represented is always in danger.

I'm not good at conclusions so...uh...rant over

[sasquapossum]

"What should Israel do, if not this?"

That seems to be a common reply when anyone criticizes Israel's unwarranted escalation in Gaza. Usually it's accompanied by some kind of insinuation that the critic hates Israel and wants all Jewish people to die. See my well poisoning post about why that's a bullshit coward's tactic (unless it's deliberate disinformation, which that post also covers). I'll get to my answer in a moment, but first...

I do condemn Hamas, and particularly their recent actions. Strongly. Unequivocally. I mourn the loss of innocent life and dignity. I condemn those actions because I mourn those things, which is also why I condemn Israel's actions both before and after. I have always been and always will be less focused on Israel vs. Palestine, which is an enormously complex issue, than on choosing peace and compassion over violence and hate. That's the only side I'm really on, and it cuts across both traditional "sides" in most of these discussions. All I want is to minimize suffering - for the people of Palestine, for the people of Israel (many of whom disagree with their so-called leadership), and for Jewish people worldwide who are already being caught in the backlash.

OK, so am I allowed to have an opinion now? If you still insist the answer is no, GTFO or get blocked. Fallacies, disinformation, and gatekeeping are not welcome here. (OK, maybe some gatekeeping, but only by me because it's the gate to my room.) Warmongers are even less welcome. Are we down to just the sane people now? Good. Here's my answer to what Israel should do.

Not what the fucking US did after fucking 9/11

Invading Afghanistan, and particularly Iraq, was a mistake (which many of us pointed out at the time BTW). The latter was, of course, based on lies. Both cost trillions of dollars and - more importantly - millions of lives, to little lasting positive effect. Maybe we could have done some good in either place, independently of 9/11, with application of similar resources in different ways, but that is really a different discussion. For now, I'll just say what we actually did in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 represents a colossal failure to achieve any of our stated goals. Those people, "ours" or "theirs" or anyone, died for nothing.

What did eventually make al Qaeda less of a threat to peace? The term of art here is decapitation. We took out the leaders, one by one. That effort involved intelligence, often derived from cooperation with other countries including those we don't particularly like, and precision weapons or strike teams. We didn't have to "flatten" Abbottabad to eliminate bin Laden, or Kabul to eliminate al Zawahiri, and so on. One could argue that we were still in the wrong, but those actions were far less injurious and thus far less wrong than what we had been doing previously.

That brings us back to the present day. Israel has a highly capable intelligence apparatus, widely considered to be among the best in the world. It has precision weapons, ditto. Their ability to deliver precise violence to specific targets might be unparalleled, and has in fact been demonstrated many times. It was even demonstrated (though inconsistently used) the last time this particular conflict flared up. Anyone who wants to comment on Israel's actions needs to do so based on an understanding that these capabilities exist, and that their use was deliberately foregone. They weren't used to prevent this tragedy, and they're not being used to avoid the next one (or the inevitable next one after that, and so on ad nauseam) either.

I have many more thoughts about who in Israel or elsewhere has done what, and why, to produce a worse-than-necessary situation here. I'll set those aside for now, out of respect to people who are still suffering or grieving. I'll just leave this one thought: if someone can take actions which minimize suffering, and instead takes actions which increase it, then that's a choice. It's the warmonger's choice, regardless of culture or religion or circumstances leading up to it. That applies to Hamas, but not to Hamas alone. It's a universal principle.

What Israel should do is learn from the US's mistakes, not repeat them. For their own sake.

[royalbilliards]

Now that you’re done, what are your thoughts on our fav failking Maruki?

So I’ve been sitting on this question a while. I didn’t know how to really express my opinions properly that weren’t in the usual comedic tone I pick up when I talk about the things I love, but I really wanted to answer this question wholeheartedly, so here we are!

Firstly, I need to get my actual thoughts about Persona 5 Royal out of the way, because I love this game. I truly and completely love this game, and it’s knocked BOTW out of the number one placement spot for my favourite game of all time. Everything from the characters, story, music, even the UI design have me absolutely floored, and I genuinely cannot think of a game I could say tops it for me. I listen to the soundtrack daily, and constantly think about the game when I can. I have so many complex thoughts about the game I could talk about here, but since this is just about my opinions on Maruki, I’ll keep those to myself.

Moving on, Maruki is, I feel, one of my favourite characters of all time. He’s so interesting and well-written, his motives make sense, and for the audience it’s sympathetic. We understand why he’s doing what he does, even if it’s wrong. He cares a lot about people, but he cares too much, and it’s his downfall. He wants to make everyone happy, and it’s just impossible. He can’t live knowing someone would be slightly upset. He worked for multiple years to create his perfect reality, presumably trying to figure out a way to help everyone he could, when the opportunity to help everyone landed right in his lap. This was the most important thing to him, and it’s admirable as it is stupid. The loss of that desire, the loss of that ability to help everyone he could, his failed reality and the fact that no matter how hard he tried, he still couldn’t succeed did a massive number on his mental state. Though, I feel as though he mostly survived on his need to help people rather than any positive mental state for a while. I mean, the second he loses that desire, loses years of work and watches as it crumbles and shatters around him, he fully gives up and tries to kill himself (something which Ren was in no way shape or form going to allow). His love for people is what drove him, and his love for people almost drove him to his death.

I feel like a lot of people misunderstand Maruki and what he was meant to represent, He's not one of those “rotten adults.'' He's a broken and hurt man who hadn’t been allowed to express his emotions, and suffered hit after hit (his studies being cut short, his lab being turned into a stadium, his fiancé having a mental breakdown and going catatonic) and tried to fight his emotions by helping other people instead of focusing oh himself. Hence him becoming a therapist and trying to help other people out with their problems as opposed to focusing on his own.

I’ve realised people tend to get angry at Maruki because he was a twist villain. They trusted him and he turned out to be the last boss of the game, and whilst this is understandable, it’s also fucking stupid to stay mad. Characters like this tend to get a lot of shit treatment and I’ve seen people complain multiple times about games having obvious villains, only to complain and get genuinely angry when a twist villain is revealed to be a character they got attached to or trusted. (An example of this is Volo from Legends: Arceus.) Maruki is very much one of these. People are allowed to feel how they want, however these communities of people are so loud, and it makes it hard to find accurate and earnest portrayals of the characters. Instead, what's more prevalent is an insane twisting of the truth people do to justify their anger, or portrayals present in order to have a “villain” for fan content. They do this without realising that the point is that anyone can mess up, and Maruki isn’t a villain for what he did.

To me, Maruki represents guilt and trying to catch an elusive “happy ending." The story of the game is riddled with tragedy and it mostly sticks to its guns about keeping these tragedies permanent. The characters wouldn’t be who they were without the sadness that’s befallen them. The reality Maruki tried to make (and what a lot of people who try to “fix” the canon of a story) made no sense for the characterisation of the characters or who they became as a person because the reasons were erased. There is no happy ending to Persona 5, there is no way to fix everything, and I feel a lot of people may have seen Maruki as an attack on this. It’s okay to feel sad about how something ended, but sometimes you just gotta accept it.

This has gotten pretty wordy, and it’s just a long winded way to say that my opinions on Maruki haven’t changed all that much, other than those 4 hours I spent on merciless trying to beat his fucking fight and getting more and more wound up each time I fucking failed. Anyways, the point is I love him, I love the game, and if anyone is meanies to him again I’ll fucking kill them all with my autism laser beams.

[blue-ish-sky]

If anyone has the energy and time to spare, I could use some help.

I, like many others, emailed my MP about the genocide currently happening in Palastine. Today I recived a response. I'm trying to formulate my own response, but I'm struggling to sort through sources and find ones that couldn't simply be brushed away as baised. Any and all info would be really appreciated. I'm also going to put the mp's response under the cut incase anyone has any thoughts.

Trigger warning for incredibly infuriating, upsetting and callous things being said regarding the Palestinian genocide by Israel.

"The situation in the Middle East is extremely difficult, heartbreaking and we all wish it wasn’t happening. We all want a resolution as swiftly as possible and all wish that we were not in the place that we are. Whilst I think it is going to be extremely challenging, I hope that a way can be found as soon as is practical to calm the situation.

The challenge I’m afraid, though, is in when that happens. What is happening in Gaza is a war situation and, regrettably and very terribly, that means we have seen difficult days and that there will be further ones ahead. That war was created by Hamas, a terrorist organisation, indiscriminately killing 1,200 people and dragging another 200 back into Gaza to use as pawns in a political game. It is absolutely, utterly outrageous what they have done and they have caused the events which have ended in the place they are.

Whilst I understand the point you are making, the challenge I have is that Israel must, in my view, have the ability to defend itself. They must be able to look their citizens in the eye and confirm that they are not going to be murdered in cold blood by a terrorist organisation that is willing to execute grandmothers and then upload footage of that execution to her own Facebook page so her family can see. Israel has been very clear that it seeks to minimise casualties and it has made clear attempts to do so (including having been criticised for elements of that policy); it drops leaflets in advance of its operations, it has been clear that it would be safer for civilians to temporarily move out of the northern part of Gaza and it has people embedded into its frontline army operations, who do not report into the military chain of command but instead the Israeli attorney general separately, to assess the proportionality of what it is doing. Whilst war situations are always very difficult, it is trying to minimise casualties whilst focusing on the ultimate objective – to remove the terrorist organisation that is Hamas. That ceasefire and the suffering could be ended, right now, if Hamas laid down their weapons, stopped using hospitals as command centres, stopped firing rockets (badly) so they end up killing their own people and stop using the Gazan people as human shields.

You ask for a ceasefire. I would love to see hostilities end but, practically and logically, I don’t understand how that is possible. Hamas are bad faith actors. They behead people. They throw their own people off buildings. Is that who we should encourage the Israelis to seek a permanent ceasefire with? And, if a ceasefire is agreed, what conditions should Hamas be given? Because, if the past is to go by, all Hamas do is regroup and get ready to create the next terrorist attack to start another cycle of violence. They have literally said that they would repeat 7th October time and time again, given the chance to do so.

If you, like I, want peace in the Middle East, work night and day to get rid of Hamas. If you want to ensure that we are not back here every time Hamas find a way to commit new atrocities, support the removal of that barbaric organisation which kills its own people. If you believe in the long-term prospects of peace in the Middle East, start with the right of Israel not to have 1,300 of its defenceless citizens executed. I deplore the loss of a single human life and badly want the situation in the Middle East to be resolved – but the first and only way to do that is for Hamas to be removed.

I am sorry that we are unable to agree on this matter but I hope the above is helpful in some way. I want this situation resolved as quickly as possible and for peace to come to the whole of the Middle East. Yet, I cannot and will not support actions which simply will embolden terrorists in the long-run. None of this had to happen. It only did because Hamas chose to come into Israel, execute, maim, burn, behead, rape and kill. That is the reason for what is happening. If you are concerned, angry, frustrated and despairing of what is happening in the Middle East, blame Hamas. And demand with every sinew of your being that the action to remove them is quick, successful and allows a new chapter to open for everyone – and lays the foundation for peace in the long-term."

[neptoons1998]

But I love her

A/N: This fic is based off of this TikTok/I wanted to write some slight angst with the pair.

Ilanga could only stand watching the pair for so long. Ilanga should feel sorry for the poor American, after all, she was just a means to an end. A plaything. As a future head Shaman, it was Ilanga's duty to guide the crown spiritually. Which was hard for someone not spiritual like Shuri to help guide. Always rely on science instead of faith. There was a small problem though, how can Ilanga do her duty if Shuri would spend all her time with Riri? Ever since the woman arrived here, Shuri has pushed, canceled, and outright not refused to come to Ilanga in mediation. Here Ilanga was standing in the lab, patiently waiting to talk to the royal. 

Griot announced, “The meeting with the council is about to start.”

Ilanga had to stop herself from sucking her teeth in frustration about this new meeting. Shuri gave a groan as she laid her head on top of Riri, “I don’t want to.”

“Who knew you could be such a big baby,” Riri laughed as she tried to look up at Shuri. The royal rolled her eyes,” I’m not a big baby. I just prefer not having a headache and people underestimating my judgment.”

“Who knew rockin’ the crown comes with responsibility,” Riri joked as she successfully got out of Shuri’s grasp. Shuri could only pout at the loss, “Fine I’ll go, but I won't like it,” Shuri announced as she took her to leave. Ilanga couldn’t help but feel angry, the royal didn’t say a word to her as she left to go to the meeting. 

“Umm.. can I help you?” Riri asked seeing how the woman was staring her down. Ilanga gave scoffed, As if this small woman could help me, she thought, “Oh I’m just wondering when well you realized that you’re just a plaything.”

Riri quirked up one of her eyebrows, “I’m sorry?”

 Ilanga’s eyes narrowed as she placed her hands around Riri’s shoulder, “Let me break it down for you to understand. Shuri is a queen and you’re - well American college student,” the woman went on circling around the small woman like a predator. Why can’t this outsider understand she has done enough for Wakanda and her people? They need their queen to be focused on the uncertain future, not galavanting around with some American woman who has little to no idea about their culture. Best to cut the problem at the root, “That’s something that no amount of working on gadgets together will ever change it.”

Riri’s hands gripped her upper arms. Shuri did know about her feeling for her right?  “But- but I love her.”

Ilanga shook her head like she was talking to a child. A child that needs to learn the hard truth about being a grown-up, “What’s that American saying.”

“Oh yes!” Ilanga snapped her fingers, “ If you love someone, set them free. You Americans do like that.”

“Hey,” The woman said as she walked towards the door, “That’s just me talking out loud.”

And with that, the woman left leaving uncertain Riri with her thoughts. Ilanga can’t be right, Riri thought as she walked back to her room. She knew what her relationship with Shuri is. And it wasn’t some type of friends-with-benefits type, it tender and gentle than that. Riri couldn’t quite explain it. Shuri was the only person she could see herself with for a very long time. 

“Does Shuri feel the same way?” Riri mumbled to herself.

If you truly love her, let her go, Riri growled in frustration she didn’t want to let go of Shuri… but what if Shuri needs that.

Riri’s eyes were getting mist, she won’t care about a relationship that wasn’t even a relationship. Maybe Ilanga was right. Shuri was needed by other people, while Riri wasn’t needed by so many. With that thought Riri made up her mind, she was going home. She may transfer to a different university so the royal wouldn’t find her. Riri would have to plan that out once she gets back to the states, but it was for the best. 

Shuri wasn’t sure what she was expecting when she went into Riri’s room, but she wasn’t expecting the woman, who she was deeply in love with to be packing up her suitcase.

“Already missing your precious Starbucks?” Shuri joked. 

“Hmm, something like that,” Riri supplied not looking up at the royal. Shuri closed the door behind her as she came closer to being her beloved. 

“What is this all about?” Shuri asked slowly getting cornered over Riri’s reaction. Before Shuri left the meeting she was cracking jokes and smiling, not her beloved was cold and standoffish.  

“Do you love me?” Riri asked before she could stop herself. Thanks to Ilanga being all in Riri’s head, she needs to know the answer to that question. Whatever tension she and Shuri have can’t possibly be more than affection on Shuri’s side. Like Ilanga said if she truly love Shuri like she said she did, she would let her be gone. Cause all I do is stress her out, Riri shook her head forcing more clothes into her suitcase. It was better this way, right

"My darling, you know the answer to your own question,” Shuri said to her placing her hand on top of Riri’s. Riri couldn’t help but look at the love of her life while biting her lip, “Do I ?”

Shuri was confused as she pulled Riri closer to her, “Yes, you do. Tell me what’s wrong?”

Riri couldn’t help when some of her tears fell sliding down her cheeks, Shuri wiped them away as she caress her darling’s cheeks,” Please.”

“I-I just want to make sure. I’m not some plaything you can just pick up when you want to,” Riri expressed. 

“Plaything? Who said that to you?” Shuri demanded, who dare say something like that to her Riri?

Riri shook her head, “I want to know the answer.”

“No, you’re not a plaything to me, Riri. You are my heart and I love you,” Shuri announced to the woman. Riri couldn’t look away from the royal, Riri’s heart fluttered from Shuri’s confession, “Good because I love you too.”

The next day, Ilanga was meditating in the royal garden, and Shuri once again canceled their appointment. There’s always tomorrow the shaman hopefully thought. The woman continued meditating as she felts the sun on her face suddenly became cold. Ilanga opened her eyes. There stood Riri in front of the woman, “What do you want?”

“I wanted to say thank you for yesterday,” Riri said, Ilanga couldn’t help but puff out her chest, at least someone was taking my advice Ilanga thought, “Yes?”

“ I love Shuri, and I am too selfish to find out if letting go is the right answer,” Riri explained. 

Bast, this must be my punishment, Ilanga thought as Riri looked at her, “So?”

“So let’s compromise,  I’ll be Shuri’s stand-in for mediation with you,” Riri said not giving the shaman a moment to argue with her. Yes this was punishment, the woman thought as she breathe through her nose, “I’ll give you this Riri Williams, you never back down on a fight.”

[lurkinglurkerwholurks]

Look for the Helpers

First posted: November 13, 2018

Focuses on: BatKids (Dick POV, Jason focused)

Favorite bookmark: "I am bawling."

Tier: Decidedly mid.

This is my "behind the scenes" series where I indulge myself horribly by annotating my fics. Link to the fic itself above. Thoughts below the cut.

I'd been chewing for awhile on the idea of Mr. Rogers and how much he meant to people. The Won't You Be My Neighbor documentary had released in January of this same year, and I'd sat in a theater and quietly bawled with a dark room full of strangers. Because his show was on PBS and geared, like Sesame Street, toward low income kids, making him have an outsized impact on Jason made the most sense.

Dick wondered if he would ever be used to the feeling of disconnect that came after a disaster. It felt like… He stabbed at a macaroni noodle and considered the radiant numbness spreading out from his chest.

This first bit, Dick mulling on the weirdness after a disaster that you manage to survive, was pulled from personal experience, but with the last half decade being what it's been, I can't even tell you which one I was pulling from. Hurricane wakes, most likely, though who really knows.

The never-ending white noise of sirens rushing to and fro weren’t real. The loss. The devastation. The chaos. 

That said, wow, what a weirdly prescient thing to read back through on this side of 2020.

“I don’t think human eyes are supposed to be that big,” he remarked solemnly, which prompted a snort of laughter from the others and placid disregard from Tim. “It’s anime, Dickie, don’t be so uncool.” Jason’s faux-whine made it clear that he was not, in fact, defending Tim’s artwork. “It’s a legitimate art form, and you both are snobs,” Tim said, his tone unruffled as he reached for his sandwich with his right hand, his left never slowing as he traced the warrior girl’s floating hair in purple crayon. “It is,” Damian agreed, which surprised Dick until he added, “when done correctly.” “Oh, bite me,” Tim retorted, but without any heat.

Of course Tim is a weeb. Tim and Damian.

“Is that Steph?” Jason asked, head now tilted to get a better look at Tim’s drawing. Intrigued, Dick craned his neck as well. “What? No!” Now Tim’s head snapped up, and he glared at Jason as one arm curled protectively around the crayon drawing. Dick would have been inclined to argue that the drawing could have been of anyone, as Tim wasn’t quite good enough to render a clear likeness. But the tips of Tim’s ears were pink.

Nowadays I'm awfully ambivalent on Tim/Steph and trend toward apathetic neutral. CECverse is an exception.

“Jason, if you lean over any farther, you’re going to knock over your soup,” Dick pointed out instead. Jason scowled, but settled back in his chair. “I’d make a joke, but one, we don’t make gags about Nazis anymore, and two, that show is old as dirt.”

I could not have predicted the Seinfeld renaissance among the youth.

Beneath the table, Dick tapped his fingertips together, one after the other. The numbness was still there, but if he didn’t think about it, it receded from the foreground. Not lessened or disappeared, just backed away to hover like a thin blanket over everything except what he was focusing on, which in turn made what he was focusing on seem harshly bright and loud. That was okay, though, if what he was focusing on was his brothers. Dick popped another forkful of cheesy noodles into his mouth and studied them, careful to keep a slight smile on his face as he did.

Oh. I remember what I was pulling from now. Not the numbness but the way you can chat and laugh and joke and seem normal when the world is upended and nothing is normal at all. Loss is weird.

They all tended to huddle a little closer together when Bruce was away.

I like this, the idea of them all gravitating, deliberately or subconsciously, so they're a team huddled, facing outward, without Bruce to hold their center.

Only Cass had been allowed to stay at the Manor. She and Alfred were planning a Masterpiece Theater Poirot mystery binge, with some Miss Marple and Jeeves and Wooster thrown in for flavoring. Dick wasn’t sure how much of the dialogue Cass could follow, but she seemed to find it a fun challenge to identify the murderer by body language alone. And anyone could enjoy the comedy of old J&W.

This took me a second to figure out, what Alfred and Cass might bond over and why, especially since Alfred is verbally cerebral and Cass finds words less useful. I think I made it work.

Jason was picking at Tim, who pretended to be grumpy and ignored his aggravating older brother in favor of tackling his roast beef sandwich with both hands.

Why roast beef, I don't know.

Dick took a few texts himself, mostly to coordinate the efforts and to relay the continued lack of news. Jason received none, though Dick caught him peeking at the screen once or twice.

I had a whole secondary storyline worked out with Bizarro that wasn't necessary or important at all but that would include a line about Jason taking care of Biz's plant. Something about it was supposed to be absolutely gutting, but I couldn't fit it in and now I don't remember what I had in mind.

Dick ducked his head as a familiar face filled the screen—Superman, a lone curl tumbling charmingly down his forehead, his chin turned to stare bravely into the distance. It was a stupid photo, boldly heroic in none of the ways that made Clark truly brave. That was the point, he knew, of a secret identity—no strong points of connection—but it rankled him to see the man portrayed as a stoic bastion of strength instead of the smiling, gentle man who used to pick Dick up by his ankles and swing him upside down.

Dick's point of view was a deliberate pick, as the eldest brother minding the wellbeing of the youngers, but also for how this specific worry would pick at him. Clark is a bigger part of his life than for the others.

But that was how these things went. Those that left were free to be reshaped into whatever was needed by those who were left behind. A beloved friend. A solemn warrior. A good soldier.

Yes, that was a jab.

The other members of the superhero community did their best to fill the power void, especially in Metropolis, which had been hardest hit and was now missing its white knight, though the Kent boys and Kara did their best.

I think this is the only time I ever acknowledge Kara in my fics. I don't know her. She will not appear.

Dick clamped a firm hand onto Damian’s shoulder and shoved the boy back into his seat before he could crawl over the table to stab Tim with his fork.

I make too many Damian stabbing jokes in these early fics. Or rather, I the writer mean them as funny moments but in-world they wouldn't be funny or in character, really. He's got a temper but he's not an impetuous hothead. I think I've gotten better (I hope) about, when I do joke, they're in-world jokes as well.

The diner was nestled between a rising skyscraper and a small neighborhood park, the kind community developers liked to slot into any little niche so that they could advertise nearby green space to prospective renters. It was no more than a small patch of green ringed with trees, bisected by a path with a small, two-tiered fountain in the middle. This neighborhood had been untouched by the extraterrestrial destruction, and the paths were at a midday lull, soft greys and greens and whites unbroken except for a jogger here, a mother and child there, a dogwalker off in the distance.

I plucked this park from real life. I don't remember where I was now, maybe Maryland, visiting friends? But I can still see the real-world park in my head, and how I altered it to make it into a place I could use in Gotham.

From what Dick could remember, even before, Jason had hated to show weakness. Though more expressive than Bruce by far, he hid his fears and sorrows beneath anger and rage. He had, in many ways, been more vulnerable with Bruce than Dick had been, willing to confront and challenge the older man when upset, but he had hated being coddled. The safest thing to do when Jason was in turmoil was to give him space and return when the dust had settled. 

meeeeeeeeeeeeee

“Maybe.” Dick tried to remember everything he had seen Bruce do right and everything he had seen Bruce do wrong. “But it’s still important to you, so it’s important to me. Tell me.”

I firmly love best a Bruce who doesn't always get it right but also doesn't always get it wrong. He's just a guy doing his best.

“I thought…” Jason slumped to the side until his shoulder rested against the tree. “I thought it’d taken everything it could. I lost a year of my life, my family, my home, my sanity.” He barked out a laugh, raspy and rough and dark with bitterness. “What else could I lose, right?”

I also love Jason getting to grieve his missing years, not just raging against Bruce and Gotham. I should do more with that.

“It wasn’t exciting or really funny. It was just this… this old guy. He’d come in to this clean house and hang up his jacket and take off his shoes and sing. He’d tell stories with these stupid puppets, and he never yelled or got mad. And he’d talk right to me. Every time, it was like he was talking right to me.” Jason swiped at his eyes again, fast, hard. “I guess it was because it was public access and they didn’t have a lot of other programming, but it felt like every time I needed him, he was on. Even when I got older, I’d turn him on sometimes, because no matter how scared or angry or sad I was, I knew he’d fix it. He’d tell me he was proud of me, that I was special, that I was okay just the way I was.”

I always hated the puppets, so that bit was more me than Jason. Jason was too young to get the show on first-run, so it makes sense that the reruns would be frequent and seemingly available whenever he needed them to be on. And it makes sense that a calm, gentle, supportive show would be a lifeline to him, a world where big, scary things don't appear or are talked through when they do.

Instead, he had ended up a murder victim and a killer. Dick wanted to pull Jason into a hug and let him know that he could still make a difference, that he had made a difference in Crime Alley, even if they still butted heads over methodology sometimes. He didn’t need to be ashamed of who he was. But then Jason whispered, “I didn’t know he’d died.”

Dick: Oh he's having a crisis about his behavior, oh no.

Jason: actually having an entirely different crisis

Like, imagine if you blipped out of existence for a few years and when you came back, you found out about Robin Williams or Steve Irwin retroactively.

They had never done anything like this, even before. Dick had been too busy being Nightwing to be a big brother, and Jason had had no reason to trust him. But that didn’t mean Dick couldn’t be here now, to make up for all his failures before. He pressed his lips to Jason’s scalp, then rested his cheek atop the man’s head and waited.

I still haven't fully settled in my own head exactly what the Nightwing-Robin transition was like for the three of them. When I started, I leaned on the fanon interpretation of Bruce and Dick fighting a lot and Dick and Jason as emotionally distant strangers. Now I think I've relegated a lot of that to individual interpretation (Dick feeling a lot of guilt that doesn't wholly match reality, for example), but it's still pretty fluid.

Dick could feel a tear or two wash down his own face as he tightened his hold on his brother’s shoulders. “He would be proud of you, you know. He wasn’t the kind of guy to ask for perfection, right? Just that you try. He’d be so proud, Jay.” “Why, because you are?” Jason had tried for sardonic, but the wry jab came out waterlogged and muffled between sniffles. “Yeah. Yeah, I am,” Dick murmured.

Choked myself up a little there.

“Mine was Bob Ross,” Tim offered suddenly. He had sat on the end, furthest from Jason but still close enough to be heard even in a low voice as he hugged his knees. “Not his death so much. He died before I knew who he was. But I liked to watch him paint. He made beautiful things from his mistakes. His happy accidents. It was good to hear, sometimes.” Dick and Jason took that in silently, digesting everything Tim had said and everything he hadn’t.

I knew each kid would have their own person to name, because that's how these conversations go. Mention Steve Irwin and someone else will mention Robin Williams or Chadwick Boseman or Amy Winehouse or whoever. Everyone has a death of a stranger that meant an awful lot to them. Figuring out who to pair to whom was an interesting puzzle, and I think the pairings I picked made sense. (Am realizing now how many shocking celebrity deaths are men.)

One quirk of timing with this fic was I wrote it and happened to post, completely by accident, the day that Stan Lee died. Folks were really feeling it in my comments section.

[thenwethrowitonthefire]

I think been days I am keep thinking about the answer you gave me for "it doesn't have to be that way" when I read answer felt a little spark down my heart. weeks before I ask it, were hard weeks, I had came a cross to shoot a ask multiple times but it didn't happened, nothing could get close enough to what I was feeling and thinking those days, no songs not even my favorite songs. you know that feeling that you keep thinking and feeling on a round and round? and then I came across the song when I was filled with doubt to give on to what society says or what people says instead of my own voice. and I heard the song but i suppose this time was different cause I sing along and tap my feet on the ground murmuring it doesn't have to be THAT WAY! OKAY?? and I remember little by little step by step my feet felt lighter again...carrying me in the walk. I no longer felt I am walking on the shaking thin rope so afraid each step be wrong and cause me to fall. and focused on something beyond right and wrong. something belong to me with my spirit and thoughts on it rather than the little boxes of society and people expectation I could not fit without I cut myself out and that's okay;

 I may be wrong, I'll pay for it, I'll pay for it myself because I was wrong by myself. and I'll pay for the rest!

thanks for time you take to answer them. always appreciate people who take their own time.

Reading this gave me chills ♡ I'm incredibly moved by how this song impacts people and what it's done for you.

What you wrote also again makes me think of Not That Well-Defined:

Things are either black or they are white, things are either wrong or they are right, can a person say that they exist, when so far they've managed to resist, any definition any key, I'm at a loss

Your path doesn't have to make sense to others, it just has to make sense to you. Let them be at a loss if they don't get it. You can just do your thing without it having to be classified as wrong or right. And if you do end up paying for it? Like you said, at least you're paying for something that was your own choice and not someone else's.

There's another thing I'm forever thinking about that also seems to connect to all this. It's something Russell once said in an interview (it was on a tv programme that was broadcast one time in my own country - it's lost now because I don't know what it was called and the harddrive I recorded it on no longer exists):

"You just got to do what you think is really good."

He was likely speaking about art, but it's universally applicable and so powerful. It really is that simple at its core. Ever since hearing that it stuck with me and I live by it to the best of my abilities.

So yeah, keep walking your path ♡ I'm rooting for you!

Have a complimentary gif of Ron showing his snow dome collection:

(It's really wonderful to receive your asks btw, I enjoy answering them so much.)

Edit: I now keep thinking of the song Ride 'Em Cowboy in relation to this ask. So here's a little parting gift: link.

[canmom]

L'Aventur de Canmom à Annecy - Jeudi 4: Short Films (Perspectives 1 + Grad Films 4)

After White Plastic Sky my plan was to see some graduation films and then try and get into a screening of Mars Express by Jeremie Perin, which I missed on Monday for bad reasons. While queuing for the short films, I saw that the queue for Mars Express was already filling up two hours in advance, so I decided to join it, because I really wanted to see Mars Express.

I did not get to see Mars Express. After queuing for two entire hours, a bunch of people in front of me got in, but ultimately I was seven places too far back.

Perspectives 1

Pretty disgruntled by this, my friend and I decided to hop into the line for Short Films: Perspectives 1. I did not have high hopes for this one. Perspectives is essentially where Annecy puts the films with worthy political and social messages, about refugees and miscarriages and so forth.

This format kind of sucks, honestly. These films are generally speaking vehicles for a message - maybe they’re just an interview with someone illustrated by short animations for example. Viewed on their own that might be reasonable expressions of their thing. Viewed back to back in a huge block it's exhausting.

Which isn’t to say they’re all bad: the Bulgarian film Depersonalization had some pretty effective imagery set to music (and it helped that it was kinda vague what it was about lol). Here's the trailer, which won't let me embed for some reason:

So, quickly running down the list:

Lost At Sea depicts a Rohingya man on a boat, along with flashbacks to the violence he faced, with a lone singer singing of the plight of the Rohingya people. It's done in a a rotoscope style of rough paintwork, and I can see what they were going for, but it didn't really come together for me. I feel like it could have stood to put more effort into individual characterisation instead of letting everyone melt into a blur of suffering. It seemed laser focused at evoking pity and not much else.

Nurit features a voiceover by an Israeli woman talking about her miscarriage, and the way she came to terms with it, illustrated in a childrens' book sort of style. This one definitely dragged. The animation was not visually interesting enough to add a lot to the voiceover.

Depersonalization - mentioned already above - describes itself thus:

An interpretation about personality loss. The tree grows and buries its crown back in the earth, the world returns to primal matter, the consumer is consumed.

This involved a legit cool sort of scratchy style of depicting volume, with perspective shifts as a crowd of people were pulling each other with yokes, and was generally pretty neat. I don't quite get what they're getting at with 'personality loss', but the animation put me in mind a bit of The Wall or metal album covers. It's probably something alchemical, right? In any case, this one stood out.

Sjeti se kako sam jahala bijelog konja was just incomprehensible if I'm honest. It cut between various images: a man sitting in a coffee shop that was blurring and chromatically aberrating, a knight riding a horse, another knight chopping wood, the barista at the coffee shop (also the narrator) standing in a room that is gradually filling up with salt. The barista said various things, but they all seemed like non-sequiturs. The blurb said "Time continuously elapses, and apathy can trap consciousness into a loop. Escaping this stagnation one can discover the true beauty of existence." So I guess the looping visuals and distortion were supposed to communicate a sense of dissociation, but the resolution was not clear.

Graduation films 4

After that one, my friend and I decided to duck out of Perspectives and have a go at the late night showing of the graduation films instead. I had pretty high hopes for this one: late night showings have been really energetic, and the last set of student films had some crazy good ones.

Unfortunately this set was a bit lower key; a lot of films were just kind of abstractly setting a vibe without much of a narrative per se, and I was a bit too tired and worn out for that. Still, let's run down the list, I don't want to be too mean, obviously all the students worked tremendously hard on these films, it just wasn't my cup of tea at that time.

Feux by Mohammad Babakoohi from France, depicts a dog slowly dying of thirst on a dry riverbed during a riot. Eventually it seems as if rain has come, but it's actually a dust cloud kicked up by cops on motorbikes, who beat the dog and then shoot it. We end with a shot of the dog's skeleton, at last covered by water. The film is done in a heavily textured, painted style. I'm not entirely sure I got it, but rip that dog :(

Carp Xmass by Anna Heribanová is a stop motion riffing on a Czech tradition of eating carp at Christmas, by switching the roles of humans and carp. It's definitely leaning a bit on shock/grossout humour - the carp kids find a swastika instead of a cross or a star in an arrangement of apple pips, you have 'fingers' instead of fish fingers, the street is covered with human bodies... Overall though, compared to the other 'what if fish were humans' film I saw, this felt a bit heavy handed. I definitely remember the credits, which show a carp being killed and gutted in a Czech marketplace in great detail!

Bedroom People by Vivien Forsans was a sort of creepypasta horror kind of vibe. Presented as a USB stick of found footage, it depicts monsters that manifest in people's rooms at night. It's a neat idea and the clips escalate pretty well but I struggle to remember the ending, if it went anywhere with it.

Saltwater by Declan Mckenna... I struggled to remember this one but the trailer jogged my memory. It depicts memories of a gay relationship with fairly minimal animation, and various filters of e.g. LCD subpixels or dot matrix printing to give it an old media feel I guess. But yeah, didn't ultimately leave an impression. Apparently they used AI a bunch, which I didn't realise at all.

Pas Amoureux by Eugénie Bouquet from Switzerland is an illustrated interview with a sex worker discussing her work in 'sexual assistance' for disabled clients. It's another film of the illustrated monologue type which I generally don't click with, but I did find the interview kind of interesting because I have a disabled family member with progressive MS that leaves him mostly paralysed, and a couple years ago now I remember my family hired a sex worker to come in to see him. I wasn't really involved but from what I was told, it sounds like he was helped a lot; it was cool to hear the other side of that dynamic. The sex worker in this video was generally very positive about the whole thing, and talked about how it's less stigmatised than other forms of SW, so she can for example be good friends with the clients' families as well. She ended by saying she wished it was more normal to have sex with people you don't love, which is an interesting framing lol. The animation didn't really add a lot besides something to keep the eyes busy, but this would have been a neat radio segment even without visuals lol.

Dodo by Yi Luo was an odd one. I was pretty tired by this point so I didn't really follow the story until I read the blurb on the website just now. It's about a kid in a mostly monochrome painted world whose dad is a big blue bird. One day dad flies away; the next day some kind of secret police looking guys show up. Dodo stops growing, although this wasn't clear to me; he goes on some sort of spiritual journey inside his mother's chest or something and eventually sprouts wings himself, at which point his dad returns and Dodo at last takes off himself. An easy reading would be to say it's about like antisemitism or something? But it left it pretty open to interpretation. I think I'd like to see this one with a less tired brain to give it a fairer shot.

Tomoya! by Masataka Kihara from Japan was a welcome dose of energy and levity lol. A group of baseball players are posing for a photograph and horsing around. Tomoha isn't really joining in. As the photo is taken, they all dive forward, crushing Tomoya underneath. At this point Tomoha has a strange encounter with a cicada in a white void in which he learns to dance crazily like the others. It's in this painted style with hypersimplified faces which was definitely unique lol.

Origines d'un monde by Emma Zwickert from France was another vague moody one. Children assemble various bits and pieces into a diorama; allegedly they grow up. I will fully admit I didn't get it, and probably missed the implications. All I can say is not really a film to watch sleepy.

Mano by Toke Ringmann Madsen from Denmark was very solid. It's a CG film depicting a tense moment in the life of two brothers - an protective older brother and his younger sibling who looks up to him. Their mother is neglectful, not buying food; the older brother attempts to steal some money from her boyfriend's jacket to buy food, but he's caught in the act, leading to a tense confrontation. The character animation is very good, and the story arc just the right amount for the runtime. These are some truly moody looking boys lol.

Ispod Maske by Darian Bakliža from Croatia shows the confession of a bully who, in a group of five masked friends, harasses another boy with snowballs and later eggs, while unmasked ends up befriending him at school. Inevitably he is unmasked during one of these attacks, destroying his friendship with the other boy. And that's kind of where it ends. Given the fairly long runtime, I'm not quite sure what to make of it. It feels like it might be going for something similar to the first part of koe no katachi in showing how bullying is rationalised, but the scenario was a bit too farfetched for it to feel like something sharply observed. And the style of it didn't really allow a lot of room for emotion and acting.

Cyclepaths by Anton Cla from Belgium is another oblique one. Various acts of violence take place: someone shoots down a drone, a group of men crash their car into a train and then board it with pistols and shoot some of the passengers - presented in a choppy disjointed style without much of a narrative to tie it together. At this point it was kind of one mood piece too many for me.

All in all, this left both of us pretty disappointed. I think what this collection really underlined is that not everyone wants the same things out of the medium of animation lol. It's a tricky line to walk between being too direct, with the illustrated monologue, and too oblique, with the vague abstract mood piece. You can absolutely do vague and confusing and non-narrative, but you've got to work pretty hard to sell that. You need compelling visuals and strong enough editing to make it flow well and feel satisfying. Music is a huge help.

Anyway, that's the end of Thursday. Of course I saw a bunch more stuff today, including a premiere, so I'll have to write that up tomorrow on the way home lol. Tomorrow I check out of my hotel and hopefully, hopefully, catch Mars Express at last. So goodnight for now!

Also, also, even if I wasn't impressed with these films, the festival is still a blast. This has been the best week I've had in so long, and I cannot wait to come back next year with the experience to play my cards better lol. (I'll soon be making an index of all these writeups and at some point, making a special page on my site where you can filter the comments in various ways.)

[g-kat423]

Pleasantview Shenanigans for tonight:

Mortimer Goth and Dina Caliente had a baby boy, but Dina still has it bad for Don Lothario. She’s just waiting for Mortimer to die since she only married him for his money. She doesn’t want the baby or Mortimer’s son Alexander, but Alex will be off to university soon. As for the baby, I have mods that would allow Dina to give her son up after Mortimer dies, but maybe she’ll have a change of heart?

Don Lothario cheated on Cassandra Goth with several more women after they were married. Cassandra tried to look the other way because she also immediately got pregnant (I have a couple of mods that make all woohoo risky even if they didn’t specifically try for baby and I have autonomous casual romance so sometimes they just boink without me telling them to) and was stressed out with that, but when Don cheated on Cassandra with Bella Goth, her own mother, she was done with both of them. She divorced Don and cut her mother out of her life. Bella is alive in this version of Pleasantview I downloaded so there’s also a chance she could end up back with Mortimer again. The story I’m using is that the aliens dropped her off as a townie so she doesn’t have all of her memories back. Don moved into Nina Caliente’s apartment with her being the mooch that he is. He’s still more interested in Bella Goth over the other ladies, but has his current want of woohooing 10 sims.

Darren Dreamer took the opportunity to scoop up Cassandra since he’s always been in love with her . They aren’t officially together yet, but once Dirk gets settled into college, Cassandra is going to move him into the Goth Manor with her to help raise the baby and maybe they’ll tie the knot and have their own kids together.

Brandi Broke had a baby girl via becoming pregnant before Skip died. For anyone who has played the Broke family in sims 2, Brandi broke is always pregnant when you start the save. Normally, the baby is always a boy and a clone of Brandi since the devs didn’t actually give unborn baby Broke any genetic ties to Skip, but this version of Pleasantview I have downloaded has fixed all of that. Beau is a child and is doing well in school. Dustin has reached the top of his part time career and also improved his grades so he’s just moved out into the college bin until I decide to play all of the Pleasantview teens in uni. I downloaded a mod to make university only last 8 days rather than 24 so the plan is to move all the Pleasantview teens of this generation who want to go to uni, all into one dorm or house together and just get it all over with in one go until the next generation.

The Pleasant Family, my favorite. So the scripted events didn’t occur as normal because of what happened during the play through the night before. Mary Sue and Daniel just couldn’t seem to make up. They’d have a few interactions because of ACR, but Mary Sue remained furious at him. I tried my best to keep Lilith away from the family since they always pick fights with her. She was actually getting wants to do her homework, make friends, and go to uni and since I’m doing wants based gameplay, I was focusing a lot on her. Aside from her boyfriend Dirk, Lilith has become good friends with her cousin Lucy Burb so I have them in a group together that goes and plays games at the arcade I put in Pleasantview. Lilith and Dirk stopped sneaking out after the last time they were busted. In the meantime, Angela and Dustin had some ACR fun and Angela wound up pregnant thanks to inteenimater. Before her parents even found out though, Daniel Pleasant fucking died of starvation. He didn’t eat before work one day and then he got fired due to a chance card so he came home still starving to death instead of fed like sims normally would come home at the end of a work day and he died on the sidewalk. Not much of a loss since I was eventually going to have Mary Sue divorce him and kick him out. Sucks to be Kaylynn though as the original plan was for them to move in together in their own place. Anyway, Angela started showing and Mary Sue wasn’t pleased with that and they started fighting which caused Mary Sue to pick on Lilith more than she already was. Lilith wound up running away for like half a day. After Angela gave birth, I wound up moving Lilith in with her grandparents, Herb and Coral Oldie so she’d stop getting caught in the crossfire and now Angela can use Lilith’s room as a nursery.

My last family of the night in my rotational play through was the Burb family. Lucy ended up shedding her good girl reputation when she started getting wants to sneak out with Lilith and what really surprised me was when she autonomously called her friend over for a bootycall, she hadn’t even had her first kiss yet and then just randomly loses her virginity to her best guy friend like okay girl. Thankfully she did not wind up pregnant because her mother was pregnant with fucking twins. Speaking of, when Jennifer gave birth to the twins, I forgot I had a mod installed that adds a 10% chance for all childbirth’s to result in death so she has the babies and suddenly I see the grim reaper icon in her action queue with the word “expire” and she drops to the floor dead! I had John plead for her life because it would have been insane to have to deal with a teen daughter on a rebellious streak and twin baby boys. Luckily, it worked because it didn’t work when I had Mary Sue try to plead for Daniel. Then after that John finally wanted a job. He has been unemployed this whole time because he never rolled a want to get a job so now he and Jennifer are both employed and can finally start bringing decent money into the house.

I wound up calling it a night shortly after that. I moved almost all of the teens to the uni bin since they had decent grades and all had wants to go to uni except for Angela who is now a teen mom so her want to go to university has disappeared and they’re all replaced with wants related to caring for the baby (meanwhile Dustin hasn’t even met his daughter and just fucked off to college lmao) and surprisingly Lucy Burb hasn’t rolled a want to go to college. Since I’m doing wants based gameplay, sims aren’t getting jobs or going to college unless they want to so if Lucy doesn’t roll the want to go to college before she ages up to an adult, then she’ll just be an adult I guess since young adult is an exclusive life stage to university in sims 2. I hope she has a change of heart before it’s too late, she has always done great in school but ever since she’s aged up to a teen she only wants to hang out with her friends and have random woohoo.