#so i have a couple thousand i could use on something bonkers.

[the-one-who-lambs]

I'm making a full comprehensive list of a bunch of imagery/symbolism/motifs I include in the risen lamb and the fallen god so if I hypothetically got a tattoo related to it I have a whole bunch of ideas to go off of

[the-bjd-community-confess]

I just want to say that I’ve bought both recasts and legits and like I don’t plan to sell any of them??? Call me financially irresponsible or something but I literally don’t buy anything with the idea that I plan to or might have to sell them in the future. Like sure there’s a possibility that something could happen and I might need money so bad that I’d have to consider selling my things, but dude I’d rather sell my furniture/clothes or something before selling something I bought for the sake of my happiness. Like I’m not even talking about just dolls, I’m talking about any possession I bought for pleasure because that would depress the fuck out of me. I’d rather sleep on the floor, so no. I don’t consider it “wasting money” when I buy something with little to no resale value.

What kind of life is it that when you make a purchase (any purchase, you could be at Walmart or a dollar store buying a knickknack) you only buy it with the thought that you can sell it for what you paid or more in the future? Do you even like what you bought? If the point was to just buy a thing on a whim with the idea in mind that you can just sell it later, you might as well buy stocks or something with no value other than monetary. I’m not saying you can’t sell something you didn’t enjoy or bond with, but like it’s bonkers to me to think that instead of buying something you really want and intend to keep, you buy something you kinda just want or something that caught your eye and justifying the purchase with, that’s okay I can sell it for markup later when I’m bored or if I don’t like it.

Maybe it’s because my life will probably be short or maybe it’s because I don’t usually have a lot of money so I only buy things I really love and intend to love and care for for a long time, but like I don’t think I’ve ever ever thought about selling an item when I’m purchasing an item, maybe because if I did I just wouldn’t buy the thing because that would mean I don’t really want it as much as I thought. I have bipolar disorder and adhd, so I’ve trained myself over the years not to give in to impulse buying because if I do it can easily spiral into an addiction, so every time I buy something I make sure I’m buying it to love it as long as I can love it. I consider everything I buy as having no worth, but I don’t find that to be “wasting money” I love it and I want it, so how is that a waste?

And I just want to say I’ve bought a doll before for a couple hundred dollars (which at the time was really more than I should have spent but I’d really wanted that doll since I’d joined the hobby) and when it came I did not bond with it at all. I loved seeing other people’s pictures of the doll, but when I had it and had it dressed up I just didn’t like it. At all. But I wouldn’t dare sell it and because I didn’t I learned how to paint faces and wiped the company faceup and repainted it the way I wanted and decided to completely redo the character and now I love it. My moods can make me really hate things one minute and love them the next when it comes to executing a vision, so I’ve hated all my dolls, but I always fell back in love with them when I restyled and repainted and some I don’t play with as much as others, but they’re mine and I love them and selling them would be like grieving a pet or something because I would regret their absence when one day I might’ve thought of a new look or character for them, so when I buy things I only buy things when I’m sure I’m committed to the item.

The only time I’ve felt I’ve wasted money is when I’ve succumbed to the impulse buy and I never fell in love with an item or I didn’t use it, but that’s only ever happened with inexpensive things like clothing or art supplies or something because I don’t allow myself to spend more than a few dollars on something that I haven’t really committed to. Im poor, I live with my parents and I only make a couple thousand a year, but I’d sooner give a doll away then buy it with the idea in mind that I could sell it for profit and I own a handful of fairly expensive legit bjds.

~Anonymous

[drwcn]

maybe after today’s acls training i can finally write that chengqing ER oneshot. 

— “Patient male, mid-twenties, motor vehicle collision, eta 3 mins” 

— “What no vitals? No GCS? ETA 3 mins? Who’s on the paramedic team?!” 

— “No one….Dr. Lu hit someone with her car on her way out of the hospital.” 

【A Midnight Conversation in Your Local ER】- Complete

[1] 

The night hunt had gone to shits.

That much was undeniable.

Jiang Cheng heard the panicked shout of his disciples just as he saw the array that he had stepped on.

Fuck.

The ghost of an once mediocre demonic cultivator wanna-be was going to bring Jiang Cheng, Jiang Wanyin - the Sandu Shengshou - to meet his maker. The irony of the situation would be laughable, if he wasn’t so irrevocably screwed.

That was his last thought before his entire body was engulfed by a blinding light and the world he knew disappeared.

The ground beneath his feet gave away, weightlessness paralyzing his body though he did not fall. He felt…launched, his body warping and squeezing and stretching, the air sucked from his lungs into the endless black vacuum.

But just like that it was over. Jiang Cheng barely had time to make peace with his death before his feet touch solid earth again.

Or at least….he thought it was earth, this black, tarry hard thing striped with yellow and white. He stared at it dumbly, breathless and disoriented, barely able to react when a loud blare assaulted his senses and his world went blindly bright yet again.

This time there was pain.

Jiang Cheng clutched Sandu, ready to fight, but then his head hit the ground and everything went dark. When he woke up again, an indeterminate amount of time later, he was in a small tube and had a distinct feeling he was not wearing pants, socks or shoes.

How the fuck do you ‘scan’ a cat???  

[2]

Method actor. The nurse, from the other side of the curtain, mouthed silently.

“Sir, can you tell me your name.”

“Jiang Cheng, Jiang Wangyin.”

The resident paused, awkwardly contemplating how to continue. “Uh…..which is it? Jiang Cheng or Jiang Wanyin?”

“Jiang Cheng, zi Wanyin.”

“Traditional parents?” The resident tried to crack a joke, but it fell flat. The strange man stared up at him with a blank look in his eyes and a frown that was rapidly deteriorating into a scowl. The resident cleared his throat and cast his eyes back onto his clipboard. “Uh, ahem, just the name on your ID please.”

“My what?" 

"Your personal ID….like a driver’s license?”

“Cultivators of the gentry fly on swords or ride horses. We do not rely on carriage valets.”

“Eh… right. Uhm, can you tell me how old you are and what year it is.”

“I’m 39, and the year is jiachen.”

Lu Qi frowned from where she stood by the door, arms crossed, watching her resident and medical student work. 39? He looks like a college student. But he also thinks he can fly, so I guess age is the least of our worries. 

“Jiachen.…?”

The M3 fished his phone out from his scrub pocket pocket and typed it in. “Sounds like the ganji system, like an old timey way to record year used in the past.” He whispers clandestinely to the resident.

“….Right. And uh, do you where you are?”

The man scowled at him. “Am I supposed to?” 

The resident scribbled something on the chart, and then looked up with a plastered awkward smile. “Well, thank you Mr. Jiang for your patience. Wang Fei here is the medical student on our team. He’s going to stay and ask you a couple more questions if you don’t mind. Afterwards we’ll confer with our attending and the team will be back to see you shortly.”

As he turned away, the R3 grimaced and shared a look with Lu Qi, who was the youngest attending physician in their ER, but was not technically working at the moment and so was not on the case. And technically, as the perpetrator who hit Jiang Cheng with her car, she had a severe conflict of interest.

At least this Jiang Cheng dude didn’t seem keen on pressing personal charges against her for MVA or suing the hospital in general… but that being said…

Yeah, they’re going to need a psych consult. 

Unless he’s on acid. 

Well… okay, psych consult either way. 

[3]

"It’s okay, you can relax.” Jiang Cheng said, waving dismissively at the woman standing by his bedside. “I’m not going to take you to the magistrate for hitting me with your carriage - car. You didn’t mean to, and I just came out of nowhere.” 

“....Thank you.” 

“You’re not Wen Qing. I know that now. Your name is Lu Qi. You can call off those psychia - psych - psychics - head healers - or whatever, I’m not crazy. It’s not my fault, you just… look so much like someone I used to know."

"Wen Qing.” Lu Qi echoed. 

“Yeah. Wen Qing. She was a healer - a doctor - like you, but different.” 

“I see. What happened to her?"

"She died. Almost twenty years ago."

"I'm sorry... that's awful.” Lu Qi’s response rolled off her tongue so well, because she had said those word a thousand times during her residency. So much so that it no longer had much meaning to her. Tonight however, she meant what she said. “Were you two close?"

"No, well…yes, maybe. No we weren’t exactly friends if that’s what you’re asking. She...operated on me. Without my consent or knowledge. Took my brother’s golden core and put it in me and then lied with my brother to my face about it. So no we weren’t “close”, but Wen Qing saved my life - well the purpose of it anyway. Saved me from a life of ordinariness.” 

Lu Qi did allow herself to dwell too much on what the fuck a “golden core” was, because her gut response was almost instantaneous. “That’s shitty of her.”

She clamped down on her tongue. 

God, why did I have to say that? To his face?! He was obviously in love with this Wen Qing person and they were encroaching on some dangerous emotional territories, but Lu Qi swallowed down her caution and plowed on nevertheless. There were things she felt she had to say, and since she’d already hit him with her car, how much worse could this shit get? “What I mean is she shouldn’t have. Not without telling you. Besides...there’s nothing wrong with ordinary.” 

Jiang Cheng chuckled bitterly. “Maybe you’re right. Still...she didn’t deserve to die. What her clan did was not her fault.” 

Now that threw Lu Qi off. Did this guy...kill her? 

Lu Qi half wondered if she stumbled upon a Yakuza-esque member whose psyche finally snapped after years of murder and violence. And yet, he seemed perfectly coherent, no flight of ideas, no tangential thought, no hallucations. Even his delusions seemed...logical. 

I must be the one losing, damnit.  

Jiang Cheng scratched a little at his chest, as if palpating for the “golden core” that he spoke of. "She saved my life, but when she needed help, I couldn't save her. But, if I were to go back… I can't say I'll choose differently. My clan needed me, my clan who was almost cleansed by hers. No, no I wouldn’t choose differently. I don’t regret my choices, but I am sorry. Sorry to her, sorry to my brother. I'll always be sorry that she died, and that I failed her when she needed me." 

Jiang Cheng had no idea why he was telling this stranger any of this, but maybe after twenty years, he was finally ready to address this guilt that he lived with. I mean who else was he supposed to tell? Jin Ling? It was nice, to have that face as an audience, receiving his words of confession. 

"She would forgive you." 

Lu Qi had no idea why she was offering absolution as if she had authority in this matter, but when she said it, the conviction she felt was so real, it was almost as though some external force was acting through her.

Which was ridiculous of course, but... 

"How do you know? You're not her." Jiang Cheng shook his head. “I wouldn’t forgive me.” 

"No, but you said she was a physician. So she should know, more than most, that sometimes there is no choosing who gets to live or die."

Jiang Cheng fell quiet at that, and his gaze grew distant. Lu Qi thought perhaps he was no longer seeing her as she was in front of him - white coat, scrubs, stethoscope -  but someone entirely different. The tension he held in his shoulders slowly eased, and he sighed. In the silence that stretched between them, Lu Qi hoped that this strange man with his strange past could find a sliver of peace. 

[4]

— Did you love her? 

— I thought so, foolishly, but maybe I didn’t. Even if I did, it was not well enough. 

— Do you love her still? 

— No... I don’t know. It’s been too long...but sometimes, late at night when Lotus Pier is quiet, I think I do. 

...

— Are you ashamed of it? 

...

— No. No I’m not. 

[5]

The patient known as Jiang Cheng left AMA, that is, against medical advice. It was the term they used sometimes for people who just up and leave without informing the team. 

Lu Qi had gone out to check on his labs, which came back with bonker numbers (I mean really, a hemoglobin of 455, sodium of 200, and a HCO3 of like...3?), but Jiang Cheng was gone from Bay 6 when she returned. The nurse made the overhead page, a code yellow was called, but four hours later, Lu Qi was ready to admit that she was never going to see this Jiang Cheng ever again. 

Somehow, she was okay with that. She had said what needed to be said.  

Her chief had given her a call on her cell and told her to go home and sleep. The guy didn’t look like he was gonna press charges, let’s count our blessings and move on. But the night had just been too damn strange that Lu Qi was all wired up from it and couldn’t possibly fall asleep. She had handover at 10 anyway. There was a change of clothes and toiletries in her bag. She could always take a shower in the anesthesia staff’s on call room and sleep until then. 

Dr. Sun was the anesthesia staff on-call tonight and was currently stuck in trauma OR. They were buddies since medschool; she’d understand.

Sighing, Lu Qi took a seat on the bench across from the bougie cafe in the lobby of the hospital. At this hour, it was the only one still open in the entire facility. The drinks they sold cost an arm and a leg, but Lu Qi needed the pick-me-up after the night she had. 

As she nursed the last bit of her matcha latte, two bickering voices pulled her attention to the front entrance. 

“Aiyo, A-Liang I already said I’m fine! I don’t need to be here!” 

“Fuck out of here with that bullshit, Chen Zhaoxi. You fell off the fucking roof! If Wu Kun hadn’t called me, you’d have gone on -”

It was him! Lu Qi shot up. It was Jiang Cheng! 

But no...no it wasn’t him. The well-dressed man dragging the second man (dressed in red pajamas) into the hospital was not Jiang Cheng. He had the same face - chiselled, handsome, scowling - but it wasn’t him. For one, his hair was trimmed short and neat, unlike Jiang Cheng who looked like he walked straight out of a BL xianxia tv drama. Secondly, his face was softer, eyes younger, and he couldn’t have been older than Lu Qi herself in her early thirties. 

“I was just trying to get to the litter of kittens trapped -”

“Yes, yes, and it was very heroic and I’m sure it would’ve made Wu Kun very horny, and you morons probably would’ve fucked once he got home had you not made a valiant attempt at breaking your neck -” 

“Excuse me,” the security guard manning the information desk chastised sharply. “It’s 4am. This is a hospital! Lower your voices, sirs.” 

“Sorry.” The men apologized sheepishly. 

Then, A-Liang, Jiang Cheng’s doubleganger asked, “Could you please direct us to the ER? This is my brother, he fell off a roof.” 

Lu Bin had no idea what possessed her to interject. “I can take you there.” 

All eyes fell on her. She walked towards them, heart pounding. 

This can’t be happening, this kind of thing just can’t happen... 

A-Liang’s face broke into a grateful smile. “Thank you, Miss -” Then his gaze trailed to her badge, and he corrected himself, “Dr. Lu. I’m Shen Liang. This is my brother Chen Zhaoxi. I think he fractured...well multiple things, please help him.” 

“Of course, come with me. Let’s get him a wheelchair. If he fractured is leg, he probably shouldn’t be walking.” 

“I didn’t fracture -” 

“You, you shut up.” Shen Liang rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to him. He can lose three out of four limbs and say ‘ t’s but a flesh wound’.” 

Lu Qi couldn’t help but chuckle as she put an arm under the complaining Chen Zhaoxi and helped him towards the wheelchair. 

Shen Liang’s smile widened. 

[Extra]

“Holy shit, took you long enough!” 

When Jin Ling and Lan Sizhui finally dragged Jiang Cheng to their portal site, Jiang Cheng realized that the transportation talisman had created a channel through realities between what looked like two metal garbage dumpsters in a back alley behind a food establishment marked by giant yellow bunny ears.

Standing guard there, Lan Jingyi and Ouyang Zizhen were each munching on a strange layered bread and holding tall drinks contained in...what was it called again? Right. Styrofoam. 

“What is that?” Jin Ling wrinkled is nose at it. Brat. 

“It’s a Big Mac.” Replied Lan Jingyi as if Jin Ling was stupid. “And this is a milk shake.” 

Jin Ling scowled. “I said the bag of gold I gave you was for emergencies.” 

“Yeah but we were hungry.” Ouyang Zizhen defended. He neglected to tell them that the cashier had refused to accept the gold and instead asked for “cash” or “card”, neither of which they had, so Zizhen used a liiiiil confounding talisman he learned from Wei Wuxian. They did leave more than enough gold though...and that ought to cover the restaurant’s cost for their “burger”lary . Reaching into the brown paper bag he held under one arm, Zizhen pulled out a little box that opened to show pieces of... something. “These are chicken nuggets. They’re delicious! Try one! They’re really good with this sauce....hold on...” 

Lan Sizhui sighed. “We don’t have time for this. The portal will close soon. Let’s get Jiang-zongzhu home and we can sample these exotic food later.” 

The boys agreed. 

Jiang Cheng shook his head and huffed. 

[geshertzarmeod]

Favorite Books of 2020

I wanted to put together a list! I read 74 new books this year, and I keep track of that on Goodreads - feel free to add or follow me if you want to see everything! I’m going to focus on the highlights, and the books that stuck with me personally in one way or another, in approximate order. Also, all but two of them (#5 and #7 on the honorable mention list) are queer/trans in some way. Links are to Goodreads, but if you’re looking to get the books, I suggest your library, the Libby app using your library, your local bookstore, or Bookshop.

The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell, illus. by Ned Asta (originally published 1977). I had a hard beginning of the year and was in a work environment where my queerness was just not welcomed or wanted. I read this in the middle of all of that, and it helped me so much. I took this book with me everywhere. I read it on planes. I read it on the bus, and on trains, and at shul. I showed it to friends... sometimes at shul, or professional development conferences. It healed my soul. Now I can’t find it and might get a new copy. When I reviewed it, in February, I wrote: “I think we all need this book right now, but I really needed this book right now. Wow. This book is magic, and brings back a sense of magic and beauty to my relationship with the world.” Also I bought my copy last July, in a gay bookstore on Castro St. in SF, and that in itself is just beautiful to me. (Here’s a post I made with some excerpts)

Once & Future duology, especially the sequel, Sword in the Stars, by A.R. Capetta and Cory McCarthy. Cis pansexual female King Arthur Ari Helix (she's the 42nd reincarnation and the first female one) in futuristic space with Arab ancestry (but like, from a planet where people from that area of earth migrated to because, futuristic space) works to end Future Evil Amazon.com Space Empire with her found family with a token straight cis man and token white person. Merlin is backwards-aging so he's a gay teenager with a crush and thousands of years of baggage. The book’s entire basis is found family, and it's got King Arthur in space. And the sequel hijacks the original myth and says “fuck you pop culture, it was whitewashed and straightwashed, there were queer and trans people of color and strong women there the whole time.” Which is like, my favorite thing to find in media, and a big part of why I love Xena so much. It’s like revisionist history to make it better except it’s actually probably true in ways. Anyway please read these books but also be prepared for an absolutely absurd and wild ride. Full disclosure though, I didn’t love the first book so much, it’s worth it for the sequel!

The Wicker King by K. Ancrum. This book hurt. It still hurts. But it was so good. It took me on a whole journey, and brought me to my destination just like it intended the whole time. The author’s note at the end made me cry! The sheer NEED from this book, the way the main relationship develops and shifts, and how you PERCEIVE the main relationship develops and shifts. I’m in awe of Ancrum’s writing. If you like your ships feral and needy and desperate and wanting and D/S vibes and lowkey super unhealthy but with the potential, with work, to become healthy and beautiful and right, read this book. This might be another one to check trigger warnings for though.

The Entirety of The Daevabad Trilogy by S.A. Chakraborty. I hadn’t heard of this series until this year, when a good friend recommended it to me. It filled the black hole in me left by Harry Potter. The political and mystical/fantasy world building is just *chef’s kiss* - the complexity! The morally grey, everyone’s-done-awful-things-but-some-people-are-still-trying-to-do-good tapestry! The ROMANCE oh my GOD the romance. If I’m absolutely fully invested in a heterosexual romance you know a book is good, but also this book had background (and then later less background) queer characters! And the DRAMA!!! The third book went in a direction that felt a little out of nowhere but honestly I loved the ride. I stayed up until 6am multiple times reading this series and I’d do it again.

An Unkindness of Ghosts by Rivers Solomon. I loved this book so much that it’s the only book I reviewed on my basically abandoned attempt at a book blog. This book is haunting, horrifying, disturbing, dark, but so, so good. The character's voices were so specific and clear, the relationships so clearly affected by circumstance and yet loving in the ways they could be. This is my favorite portrayal of gender maybe ever, it’s just... I don’t even have the words but I saw a post @audible-smiles​ made about it that’s been rattling in my head since. And, “you gender-malcontent. You otherling,” as tender pillow talk??? Be still my heart. Be ready, though, this book has all the triggers.. it’s a .

Felix Ever After by Kacen Callender. This book called me out on my perspective on love. Also, it made me cry a lot. And it has two different interesting well-written romance storylines. And a realistic coming-into-identity narrative about a Black trans demiboy. And a nuanced discussion of college plans and what one might do after college. And some big beautiful romcom moments. I wish I had it in high school. I’m so glad I have it now! (trigger warning for transphobia & outing, but the people responsible are held accountable by the end, always treated as not okay by the narrative, and the MC’s friends, and like... this is ownvoices and it’s GOOD.)

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern. My Goodreads review says, “I have no idea what happened, and I loved it.” That’s not wrong, but to delve deeper, this book has an ethereal feeling that you get wrapped up in while reading. Nothing makes sense but that’s just as it should be. You’re hooked. It is so atmospheric, so meta, so fascinating. I’ve seen so many people say they interpreted this character or that part or the ending in all different ways and it all makes sense. And it’s all of this with a gay main character and romance and the central theme, the central pillar being a love of and devotion to stories. Of course I was going to love it.

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars: A Dangerous Trans Girl’s Confabulous Memoir by Kai Cheng Thom. “Because maybe what really matters isn’t whether something is true, or false. Maybe what matters is the story itself; what kinds of doors it opens, what kinds of dreams it brings.” This book was so good and paradigm shifting. It reminded me of #1 on this list in the way it turns real life experience and hard, tragic ones at that (in this case, of being a trans girl of color who leaves home and tries to make a life for herself in the city, with its violence), into a beautiful, haunting fable. Once upon a time.

I Wish You All the Best by Mason Deaver. I need to reread this book, as I read it during my most tranceful time of 2020 and didn’t write a review, so I forgot a lot. What I do remember is beautiful and important nonbinary representation, a really cute romance, an interesting parental and familial/sibling dynamic that was both heartbreaking and hopeful, and an on-page therapy storyline. Also Mason Deaver just left twitter but was an absolutely hilarious troll on it before leaving and I appreciate that (and they just published a Christmas novella that I have but haven’t read yet!)

The Truth Is by NoNieqa Ramos. It took a long time to trust this book but I’m so glad I did. It’s raw and real and full of grief and trauma (trigger warnings, that I remember, for grief, death (before beginning of book), and gun violence). The protagonist is flawed and gets to grow over the course of the book, and find her own place, and learn from the people around her, while they also learn to understand her and where she’s coming from. It’s got a gritty, harsh, and important portrayal of found family, messy queerness, and some breathtaking quotes. When I was 82% through this book I posted this update: “This book has addressed almost all of my initial hesitations, and managed to complicate itself beautifully.”

Anger is a Gift by Mark Oshiro.  I wasn’t actually in the best mental health place to read this book when I did (didn’t quite understand what it was) but it definitely reminded me of what there is to fight against and to fight for, and broke my heart, and nudged me a bit closer to hope. The naturally diverse cast of characters was one of the best parts of this book. The romance is so sweet and tender and then so painful. This book is important and well-written but read it with caution and trigger warnings - it’s about grief and trauma and racism and police brutality, but also about love and community.

The Prey of Gods by Nicky Drayden.  This is a sci-fi/fantasy/specfic mashup that takes place in near-future South Africa and has world-building myths with gods and demigoddesses and a trip to the world of the dead but also a genetically altered hallucinogenic drug that turns people into giant animals and a robot uprising and a political campaign and a transgender pop star and a m/m couple and all of them are connected. It’s bonkers. Like, so, so absolutely mind-breaking weird. And I loved it.

Crier’s War and Iron Heart by Nina Varela.  I absolutely LOVE LOVE LOVED the amount of folktales they told each other with queer romances as integral to those stories, especially in Iron Heart. A conversation between the two leads where Crier says she wants to read Ayla like a book, and Ayla says she’s not a book, and Crier explains all the different ways she wants to know Ayla, like a person, and wants to deserve to know her like a person, made me weak. It lives in my head rent-free.

Queen’s Shadow by E.K. Johnston @ekjohnston . I listened to this book on Libby and then immediately listened to it at least one more time, maybe twice, before my borrow time ran out. I love Padmé, and just always wish that female Star Wars characters got more focus and attention and this book gave me that!! And queer handmaidens! And the implication that Sabé is in love with Padmé and that’s just something that will always be true and she will always be devoted and also will make her own life anyway. And the Star Wars audiobooks being recorded the way they are with background sounds and music means it feels like watching a really long detailed beautiful Star Wars movie just about Padmé and her handmaidens.

Sissy: A Coming of Gender Story by Jacob Tobia. I needed to read this. The way Tobia talks about their experience of gender within the contexts of college, college leadership, and career, hit home. I kept trying to highlight several pages in a row on my kindle so I could go back and read them after it got returned to the library (sadly it didn’t work - it cuts off highlights after a certain number of characters). The way they talk about TOKENISM they way they talk about the responsibilities of the interviewer when an interviewee holds marginalized identities especially when no one else in the room does!!! Ahhhh!!!

Bonds of Brass by Emily Skrutskie. Disclaimer for this one that the author was rightfully criticized for writing a Black main character as a white author (and how the story ended up playing into some fucked up stuff that I can’t really unpack without spoiling). But also, the author has been working to move forward knowing she can’t change the past, has donated her proceeds, and this book is really good? It has all the fanfic tropes, so much delicious tension, a totally unexpected plot twist that had me immediately rereading the book. This book was super fun and also kind of just really really good Star Wars fanfiction.

How To Be a Normal Person by T.J. Klune. This book was so sweet, and cute, and hopeful, and both ridiculous and so real. I had some trouble getting used to Gus’ voice and internal monologue, but I got into it and then loved every bit after. The ace rep is something I’ve never seen like this before (and have barely read any ace books but still this was so fleshed out and well rounded and not just like, ‘they’re obsessed with swords not sex’ - looking at you, Once & Future - and leaving it there.) This all felt like a slice of life and I feel like I learned about people while reading it. Some of the moments are so, so funny, some are vaguely devastating. I have been personally victimized by TJ Klune for how he ends this book (a joke, you will know once you read it) but it also reminds me of the end of the “You Are There” episode of Xena and we all know what the answer to that question was.... and I choose to believe the answer here was similar.

You Should See Me in a Crown by Leah Johnson. I wish I had this book when I was in high school. I honestly have complicated feelings about prom and haven’t really been seeking out contemporary YA so I was hesitant to read this but it was so good and so well-written, and had a lot of depth to it. The movie (and Broadway show) “The Prom” wants what this book has.

Plain Bad Heroines by Emily M. Danforth. I never read horror books, so this was a new thing for me. I loved the feeling of this book, the way I felt fully immersed. I loved how entirely queer it was. I was interested in the characters and the relationships, even though we didn’t have a full chance to go super deep into any one person but rather saw the connections between everyone and the way the stories matched up with each other. I just wanted a bit of a more satisfying ending.

Honorable Mention: reread in 2020 but read for the first time pre-2020

Red White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. I couldn’t make this post without mentioning this book. It got me through this year. I love this book so much; I think of this book all the time. This book made me want to find love for myself. You’ve all heard about it enough but if you haven’t read this book what are you DOING.

In Other Lands by Sarah Rees Brennan @sarahreesbrennan​ . I reread this one over and over too, both as text and as an audiobook. I went for walks when I had lost my earbuds and had Elliott screaming about an elf brothel loudly playing and got weird looks from someone walking their dog. I love this book so much. It’s just so fun, and so healing to read a book reminiscent of all the fantasies I read as a kid, but with a bi main character and a deconstruction of patriarchy and making fun of the genre a bit. Also, idiots to lovers is a great trope and it’s definitely in this book.

Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. This book is forever so important to me. I am always drawn in by how tenderly Sáenz portrays his characters. These boys. These boys and their parents. I love them. I love them so much. This is another one where I don’t even know what to say. I have more than 30 pages in my tag for this book. I have “arda” set as a keyboard shortcut on my phone and laptop to turn into the full title. This book saved my life.

Last Night I Sang to the Monster by Benjamin Alire Sáenz. This book hurts to read - it’s a story about trauma, about working through that trauma, healing enough to be ready to hold the worst memories, healing enough to move through the pain and start to make a life. It’s about found family and love and pain and I love it. It’s cathartic. And it’s a little bit quietly queer in a beautiful way, but that’s not the focus. Look up trigger warnings (they kind of are spoilery so I won’t say them here but if you have the potential to be triggered please look them up or ask me before reading)

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine.  When asked what my all time favorite book is, it’s usually this one. Gail Carson Levine has been doing live readings at 11am since the beginning of the pandemic shut down in the US, and the first book she read was Ella Enchanted. I’ve been slowly reading it to @mssarahpearl and am just so glad still that it has the ability to draw me in and calm me down and feels like home after all this time. This book is about agency. I love it.

Radio Silence by Alice Oseman @chronicintrovert . I’ve had this on my all-time-faves list since I read it a few years ago and ended up rereading it this year before sending a gift copy to a friend, so I could write little notes in it. It felt a little different reading it this time - as I get further away from being a teenager myself, the character voice this book is written in takes a little longer to get used to, but it’s so authentic and earnest and I love it. I absolutely adore this book about platonic love and found family and fandom and mental illness and abuse and ace identity and queerness and self-determination, especially around college and career choices. Ahhh. Thank you Alice Oseman!!!

Leia: Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray @claudiagray​ . I have this one on audible and reread it several times this year. I love the fleshing out of Leia’s story before the original trilogy, I love her having had a relationship before Han, and the way it would have affected her perspective. I also am intrigued by the way it analyses the choices the early rebellion had to make... I just, I love all the female focused new Star Wars content and the complexity being brought to the rebellion.

[scribeofred]

Thanks to @onereyofstarlight for the tag!

 1. What fandoms have you written for?

This is embarrassing but I actually had to look at both FFnet and AO3 because I couldn’t remember all of them. TRON: Legacy, Assassin’s Creed, Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit, Sherlock, Final Fantasy VII and XV and Kingsglaive, Voltron: Legendary Defender, Merlin, Skyrim, and, of course, Thunderbirds. I have a couple other fandoms that crop up in various wips, including a Tom Swift/Thunderbirds crossover that I really should finish.

2. How many works do you have on AO3 &/or FFNet?

FFnet has 45, and AO3 has 41. There’s also a couple stories lurking on tumblr, notably a final chapter for Reflection.

3. What are your top 3 fics by kudos on A03 &/or Favs on FFNet?

AO3 dominates in this area, if I can use a word like “dominates” for stories that have less than 125 kudos each haha. Oh well, the numbers don’t matter!

1.     118 kudos on tell the shades apart (my world is black and white)

2.     94 kudos on Reflection

3.     91 kudos on The 43rd Hour

4. Which 3 fics have the least kudos & Favs?

Again on AO3:

1 kudos on I Am You (And You Are Me)

5 kudos on The Dragonborn Chronicles

6 kudos on cynosure

5. Which Fic has the most comments and which has the least?

Reflection has the most at 29 threads, and I Am You (And You Are Me) has the least at zero.

6. Which complete fic do you wish had gotten more attention?

Lodestar, definitely. Sure, it’s for something of a rarepair, but they aren’t that rare, and I just really really like the way the story came together. On the other hand, of course my unfinished Merlin fic has gotten probably the most attention, because that’s just the way it goes, eh?

7. Have you written any crossovers?

None that I’ve published! I have various crossovers lurking in mostly unfinished states, including the aforementioned Tom Swift/Thunderbirds crossover, and an Assassin’s Creed/Thundeerbirds crossover that is very good and I should also finish. There’s an Expanse/Thunderbirds fic lurking in my brain that I may or may not ever commit to paper, who knows. I’ve also very vaguely toyed with a Batman/Thunderbirds crossover, in the sense that “nebulous” is too strong a word for the kind of toying I’ve been doing.

8. What is the craziest fic you’ve written?

I don’t really write crazy or crack or humor in general, so probably the closest thing to “crazy” is On the Lam, which was the result of wanting to throw Scott and Penelope toward an Egyptian stud farm. It ended up being the host for a bad joke about that, courtesy of one @thebaconsandwichofregret, who consistently gives some of the best dialogue advice I’ve ever encountered.

Actually, the true answer is probably a chapter in Glimpses into a Supernova, maybe the one about blood? It seems bonkers when I think back on it now, but I admittedly haven’t read it in many years. Possibly I am misremembering. Glimpses has some weird ones, though.

9. What’s the fic you’ve written with the saddest ending?

It’s a tossup between The Painting and a place where the water touches the sky. The former deals with a prior off-screen death; the latter is (maybe??) an on-screen death. People seemed upset by it, at any rate. I said it was ambiguous!

10. What’s the fic you’ve written with the happiest ending?

“Happy” is probably a matter of perspective? Depends on the overall reading experience and the ending within that context. Either septet or Three Towels and a Tracy, they’re both pretty fluffy overall.

11. What is your smuttiest fic?

protoinstincts, which I completely forgot I wrote and then rediscovered like a year later and realized “hey, this is actually pretty good” and you know what, despite it not being overly spicy, it is pretty good.

12. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not hate, per se, but someone left a review on Less Than Nothing saying they “didn’t like” that I “wrote the story as a series of drabbles.” Cool, I didn’t write the story for you, random guest reader, and the back button exists, friend 😂 It didn’t bother me on a personal level because I wrote the fic for an audience of one (incidentally, not myself and rather the recipient of a secret santa event), but I was mad because the reviewer had no way of knowing where I was at as a writer, and I know from longtime observation how that kind of comment can crush less experienced or confident writers.

Don’t leave flames, kids, you don’t understand the power your words have. Don’t like, don’t read.

13. What is the nicest comment you’ve received?

The nicest? Goodness. Hmm. I’d have to go hunting to find the nicest, but in recent memory, @ayzrules sent me a couple passages from Spanish texts she’s been studying that reminded her of my writing, and I was honestly so touched by the fact that she even thought to make such comparisons, much less mention them to me. Taking the time to familiarize yourself with someone’s style until you can make comparisons between it and someone else’s work is so much more meaningful to me personally than a basic “Nice story!” or “Loved this!” type of comment ever could be. <3 Ayz <3

14. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not that I’m aware of, but I’ve never gone looking on any sort of copycat site or whatever either.

15. How many fics do you have marked as incomplete?

Two. First is The Dragonborn Chronicles, which is a retelling of Skyrim from Lydia’s perspective via her journal, to complement the in-game journal. It’s a slog of a style to write, though, even for someone who loves writing first person and doesn’t really want to write a lot of dialogue, and the outline is huge, and the story will be many times more huge, and just. Some day. Some day.

Second is tell the shades apart (my world is black and white), which has always been unfinished because the outline itself is over seven thousand words and the fully written story would undoubtedly land between 100,000 and 200,000 words, and there’s no way I’m writing that. I’ve always meant to upload the outline, but I got kind of self-conscious about the way I formatted it, and ugh I just haven’t bothered. One day, one day, right?

Moral of the story is I’m intensely a short story writer, and I’ve really found myself settling into that role over the last couple years. Better a clipped, punchy short story than a bloated slog of an epic.

16. Which of the WIPS will most likely be finished first?

Literally no one knows that. I wrote 95% of the observable entropy of a closed system over five years ago, and then I proceeded to pull it out roughly once a year and write and rewrite various endings until last month, which was when I finally figured out how I wanted to end the story. septet, too, languished for about five years before I finally remembered it existed and managed to wrangle an ending. Endings are hard, man. So are those third plot points. Terrible creatures, those, bog me down every time.

17. Which WIP are you looking forward to finishing?

Uh... mm. See. If I were looking forward to finishing any of them, I’d be actively working on them. At this moment, writing fic isn’t exactly high on my list of priorities, but I am also coming off a four-day idle game bender, so I still feel like I haven’t quite reengaged with myself as a living person. Give me another few days and I might have an answer.

(I am always most looking forward to finishing this ridiculous Ignis-drives-the-Audi-R8 fic that’s been languishing in my wips for literal years. As mentioned above, third plot points. Killer, man.)

(oh and also the working-titled the art of murder. Scott and Penny attend a private art auction. Things don’t go to plan. It, too, is stuck at the third plot point. I know, I know I have a problem, shush.)

18. Is there a WIP that you’re considering abandoning?

Any wip has the potential to be revived—this year and the old wips I’ve unearthed, dusted off, finished, and posted have been proof of that. I don’t intentionally permanently abandon anything for that reason, some stories just probably will remain dusty old wips forever because I didn’t actually need or want to write the full story for one reason or another.

19. Which complete fic would you consider rewriting?

Now that’s an interesting question. Hmm! Honestly? None of them. Once I finish a story, I’m not inclined toward rereading it again any time soon, to the point of years in some cases, and I feel like I’ve moved on from the stories I wrote one, two, five, eight years ago in the actual writing sense. They’re finished stories, and on top of that are relics of their time, which doesn’t mean the stories don’t have any ongoing significance on a reading level—I just don’t have any interest in rewriting those particular stories. I’ve gotten them out of my head, to the point of not remembering at least a third of them on demand anymore, and I don’t have any desire to “retell” those exact stories. I do tend to tighten the wording and fix perceived errors/weaknesses whenever I do end up rereading an old story, and I usually silently update the AO3 version if I make any significant changes because AO3 makes it a breeze to update a posted fic. I might do FFnet too if I’m feeling up to it or have the time.

20. Which complete fic is your favourite?

Once upon a time I would’ve said Holding On, but I honestly find it kind of unbearably melodramatic now. the observable entropy of a closed system is equally melodramatic, as it was written in the same era, but at least it has the excuse of being told in second person and via a style that is a half step away from being poetry. Possibly I will reread it in a few years and find it equally obnoxious and overly dramatic, but it received some shockingly positive comments, which I wasn’t expecting at ALL, and I’ve been honestly blown away by the amount of praise it’s received. <3 to everyone who’s said anything about it!

21. What’s your total published word count?

141,000 on AO3, 160,000 on FFnet, but technically the light of my life SS wrote fifty thousand words of each. It’s too late for math.

 I tag @velkynkarma, @lurkinglurkerwholurks, @writtenbyrain, @thebaconsandwichofregret, and anyone else who wants to play!

[englandsgray]

Sherlolly Self-Interviews 2020

Well hi 👋

Ignoring the internal image of Gilderoy Lockheart smiling smugly while flashbulbs pop and saying ‘In my autobiography, Magical Me...’ 🙈😆 I shall take the opportunity of this lovely event to introduce myself as a writer of Sherlolly fanfiction on AO3...

I am English and somewhere over 30.  I watched the show as it aired, and lost my heart as quickly to Molly Hooper as to Sherlock Holmes.  The kiss is British television history.  Series 4 is my favourite.  Moriarty on the beach is life.  The Holmes brothers break my heart every time.

I am extremely lucky to have been provided some questions to answer here by @ohaine and @mybrainrots - huge, huge love and thanks to these two lovelies, and not just for this.  I admire you both so much as writers, and your support means the world to me ❤️ Thanks too, to @sherlollyappreciationweek!

Where did you begin to write, and have you written for other fandoms?  I wrote my first fanfic when I was eleven years old - a 100 page ramble about The Monkees.  Oh yes.  Then in 2018, I fell for the characters of the Disney Pixar film Cars and began writing and publishing.  So far so random!  Writing in this fandom sprang from binge-watching all four series of Sherlock during lockdown.  I remembered reading Louise Brealey talking about being disappointed Molly didn’t get chance to ‘roundly kick Sherlock’s arse’ and agreeing with her wholeheartedly.  That, over a few weeks, turned into my first fic - Who You Really Are.  

You’re a recent (and welcome!) arrival to the Sherlolly ship, and I was wondering if writing in an established, less active than it used to be fandom has been a challenge?   Thank you, firstly.  My experience of this fandom has been incredibly positive - the sense of welcome has been wonderful.  I will admit I was terrified posting the first fic - there are hundreds of times more stories posted daily in the Sherlock fandom as in the one I had some experience of.  But I needn’t have worried, it’s been a blast.  I will also admit, that it’s no small thing to be surrounded by such brilliant writing and the long-standing passion which goes with it.  But I find that inspiring in itself, and I’m very glad to be here - how supportive the fandom are makes me feel like I always have been!       

What’s your favourite place and way to write?  My aesthetic is Lin-Manuel Miranda in his in-law’s laundry room 🤣 I wrote my first ten-thousand words on the notes app on my phone before my other half told me to stop being ridiculous!  I switch between the laptop, my phone and longhand (I’m a sucker for a nice notepad and a Uni-Ball Eye) and, more often than not, not sat up properly at a table.   

Since you’ve (done something I’ve never managed successfully and) written a novella length fic... how did you organise/keep track of all the details and where you wanted the story to go?  Did you outline/plot in advance?  First of all - I would love to see a novella length fic from you @mybrainrots!  The final scene of Who You Really Are came to me very early on and I knew I wanted the fic to fit within TFP - a lot of it takes place in the timeframe of the final montage.  At first, it was going to be much more about Sherlock’s relationship with the ideas of sentiment and love (the phrase ‘I’m not sentimental about you, I love you,’ haunted me for a while) and I spent some time researching the psychology and playing with scenes from throughout the series - one of my favourites I didn’t go on to use was inspired by the final scene of THoB.  Using scenes from the canon gave an automatic structure, and I was always aiming for the final one I wrote early on - the two of them on the beach (everything is about the beach, with me!)  As I went along and started, inevitably, to slow down, I mapped out the chapters with a short note of what I wanted to be in each, then would add notes or phrases as they came to me - often emailed from my phone!  I had to force myself through a tricky section set in Baker Street at one point, but it came together in the end.  I did plot The Pathologist’s Skeletons on paper first, as I found with a casefic which remains a WIP, that I can get confused and lose focus when it comes to details and how to reveal them in a way which stays paced and interesting.  I’ll certainly do that from now on with longer stories and cases.  How did you keep up enthusiasm for the work?  I want to write an original novel, so I am forcing myself to work through the knotty bits and blocks as a learning experience.  Not everything is destined to be finished or finessed, of course, but I’m finding this process is building my confidence that I can overcome problems and slow periods.  I also find I know when I need some external inspiration - some of my favourite scenes have come to me while out walking the dog or sitting on the beach.  I’ve also been inspired by books or other series or things going on in the world, as we all are, and sometimes that’s pushed me on.  Plus, of course, I’m a newbie - I’m very much in the honeymoon period of my writing, even though I’ve loved Sherlock for ten years! (Ten years! Bonkers.) 

You’ve got a knack for writing Sherlock’s thoughts and capturing his voice.  That said, which character do you find easiest to write?  Which is the hardest?  Thank you so much.  I absolutely love writing Sherlock and Mycroft, and I’m sure that’s because they suit my somewhat over-the-top writing style!  I find Molly and her POV really difficult.  I want the scenes I write from her perspective to sound completely different to Sherlock, but that means writing in a style which doesn’t come as naturally to me.  I’m a long way off happy with that at the moment, but I’m enjoying the challenge.

Is there a scene or character that specifically inspired you to start writing Sherlolly?  The whole of TFP, but especially from the moment Sherlock arrives at Musgrave onwards.  I am desperate to see what a Sherlock Holmes who has been reacquainted with his own heart would look like.  I find his emotionality in those final scenes hugely compelling (Mycroft’s office is one of my favourite moments from across all four series) and, as I have always believed in him and Molly, I practically jumped up back in May after watching it and said ‘right, where’s my notebook?!’.

There’s a lovely peaceful, quiet feeling to your fic ‘We’re All Right At The Moment’.  Can you tell us what inspired it and if you’ve thought of doing the backstory that goes with it?  Thank you!  Like everyone, I would go back to January of this year and start again in a heartbeat, but I am hugely fortunate to be able to say that I have a lot to be grateful to the UK lockdowns for.  I might never have begun writing in this fandom otherwise, for one, and I have had a brilliant time so far and met some lovely people. Honestly, I don’t feel able to do any sort of justice in my writing to what has happened in the world in any broader sense than drawing on my own experiences of staying at home and enjoying my family.  This particular super-short fic sees Molly cutting Sherlock’s hair at home in Baker Street.  I wrote it in the evening after I had cut my other half’s hair and had been reminding myself that despite how horribly worried I was - and still am - about everything, we were all right in that moment, and to focus on that as much as possible.  I wanted to try to capture that, if for no reason other than to look back on this entire experience and remember something lovely, so I am so pleased to hear you felt the fic did that.  It was only after I finished it and reread it, that I realised it is ambiguous as to whether Molly is worried about Sherlock contracting the virus, or whether she is remembering him being treated for it... As I say, I don’t think I could write more about these extraordinary circumstances - perhaps it’s just too close at the moment - so I don’t plan on extending it.  But you know how it is, the plot bunnies hop where they will... 

Do you have a Sherlolly music playlist?  What are your top five favs from the list? Here’s a run down of (6 🙊) songs I have been getting emotional over in the last little while, leading my brain to assign their significance to my favourite couple...

Kissing You - Des’Ree - It’s so 90′s, it’s a bit cheesy, it’s oddly disturbing.  It helped me write A Request, Made Properly, and that gave me an excuse to have Sherlock kiss Molly in the snow.

How Long Will I Love You? - Ellie Goulding - part of the playlist, but also in remembrance of a friend who passed away recently.  Life is very short, love is forever.

High and Dry - Jamie Cullum - It’s made me emotional for a very long time.  The original is my partner’s version of choice, this is mine.  

Think About You - Delta Goodrem - Okay, this one isn’t emotional, and it’s not my usual vibe!  Blame the zoom exercise class I do!  But oh my goodness, it’s Molly.  Bless her.

Blinded By Your Grace (P.T.2. F.T. MNEK) - Stormzy - One of the best ever, I reckon.  Spent an awful lot of time thinking about angels and demons, grace and what it takes to save someone, while writing my latest - The Pathologist’s Skeletons.  This has been in my head most of the (blimmin’) time!

Love Me Like You Do - Ellie Goulding - I didn’t know I was a fan of Ellie until I wrote this list... I don’t subscribe to the theory that the love Molly wants or that which Sherlock has to offer is any lesser because it isn’t ‘normal’ or expected. I don’t think romantic entanglement would come easy to either of them. But it’s still love and it would be beautiful.

Thank you so much for reading.  Thanks and love to @ohaine and @mybrainrots. And thank you @sherlollyappreciationweek for the event and for everything you do ❤️

Feel like I should sign off with a quote from the show...

“You’re not a puzzle-solver, you never have been. You’re a drama queen!” Dr John Watson (Moffat & Gatiss) 2014 😜

X

A fav fic of mine by @mybrainrots

https://archiveofourown.org/works/7563193

A fav fic of mine by @ohaine

https://archiveofourown.org/works/10562904

My stuff:

https://archiveofourown.org/users/EnglandsGray/works

[prairiedust]

More Last Holiday Musings...

I want to poke at that interdimensional geoscope a little more, because upon reading it over again, I think I splashed it up a little fast and there are a couple of points I’d like to be clearer about. I meant to queue this up to post last night but also want it to be up before Gimme Shelter so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

This is more blue curtains lit crit with a dash of folklore and an honorable mention for post-structuralism. And we’re talking about Supernatural after all, so this is sort of... well, it’s about endings.

Last Holiday was not a typical “filler” or even a typical MOTW episode. It felt extremely insular, possibly more so than any other episode I can think at any other point in the series. As opposed to the usual crowd of “locals,” a spate of victims, and a couple of red herring suspects, the only other people in this ep besides the Winchesters (including Jack) and Mrs. Butters were the two vampires and Cuthbert Sinclair. There was no “case” as in a usual MOTW-- there was no Chuck Struggle, either, and the lack of mytharc was strange against the lack of “filler” schema. That lack of “MOTW investigation” marked this episode also as being about “curiosity”-- the Winchesters all-too-quickly took Mrs. Butters for granted-- Dean even dismissed her as a “Magic Roomba” and that seemed to settle the matter. Furthermore, the moment that Dean spotted Mrs. B in his room, the stage was set for Antics ™ when she held up his goofy Scooby boxers, and indeed a zaniness, an almost manic energy drove the action forward at a breakneck pace. [Spoiler alert, we do get “investigation” in the next episode, 15x15 Gimme Shelter, as stills and the preview show that Castiel and Jack will be teaming up together, in yet another shake-up of the usual “MOTW” template, almost like we can expect the other side of a coin when Sam and Dean switch places with Cas...] These features set Last Holiday apart as not so much “filler” as “between,” as in there was struggle before, and there will be struggle after, but for a while there was cake. (Contrast this to the usual “peril of the threshold” that usually shrouds liminality if you’d like.)

At the end of Last Holiday, however, we finally get to find out what that old blue telescope really is, and with that name we get confirmation that there are no more alternate universes-- Chuck has burned them all. Viewers are left to come to the conclusion that in retrospect the telescope-thing could have changed the course of season 13 completely. The reveal is played off as darkly funny, but it’s also kind of a gut-wrenching moment, too. All the heartbreak of the last two and a half years, reviewed now through the lens of “if only.” If only they’d known about Mrs. Butters from the time they found the bunker, “none of this would have happened”… they’d have had monster radar, they’d have had the geoscope, they would have had supernatural help of a completely different level.

The temptation to read Last Holiday as a Chuck-free episode is strong, but fraught-- the threat of Chuck’s involvement has been established by a pattern this season (well the pattern is woven throughout the whole series really but Dabb has deliberately structured these last three seasons with an exponentially increasing frequency.) I feel like we’ve been conditioned this season in particular to hold ourselves in a perpetual flinch, to be afraid of what we’ll learn “in retrospect.” That geoscope was really_good_subtext, and it is entirely possible, even encouraged, at this point in the plot to take information we’ve learned from the naming of the object, examine our own conditioned response to this episode, and apply both things to the structure of the season so far and make a prediction as to what might happen in the main plot. That’s what I mean about subtext getting loud. We’ve been given the green-light to make a prediction about The Struggle and march forward with it, and see if we will be correct by extrapolating the pattern, or if that expectation will be subverted (the twist is set up to run either way, so either outcome is satisfying.) It is Melville-esque architecture of the highest degree;I could write another thousand words just about that. So I have a prediction that I’m hanging on to, because of what we’ve learned from the geoscope, and what kinds of clues were hung up in Last Holiday, and I’m super excited to either have my hunch confirmed or be frightfully and delightedly surprised. I mean, where the fuck did Jeremy Adams even come from? He’s like our own Mrs. Butters, showing up in the last quarter to run a couple game-changing balls into the end zone, it’s bonkers. I mean, I know writing mysteries is hard and requires still AND cunning, but damn, son.

But anyway, back to the geoscope… 

I’m perplexed, from a very “lit crit” perspective, but this is where I’m at and why I referenced blue curtains-- if you shine too bright a light on subtext, does it evaporate-- like looking through an interdimensional geoscope and not seeing anything-- or is “subtext” sometimes not some ephemeral fever-dream that we as viewers conjure up through our experiential interlocution with the text but something a writer has steeped into the narrative as part of their craft? Or when you’re talking about an evolving iteration of writers, is it possible that one picks up a thread that another wove in for something else, repurposing or amplifying it? And, when perhaps is something deliberately instilled in the text in order to become “text” at just the right time? In Moby Dick, [spoiler alert lol] Quequeg’s coffin-- formerly one of many symbolic vehicles used to foreshadow the doom of the Pequod-- is repurposed as a life buoy and becomes the actual object that saves Ishmael’s life, transforming it from a portent of disaster to a symbol of salvation and then to one of Ishmael’s guilt for surviving Ahab’s madness-- the guilt that had been made text by the very opening line of the book, “Call me Ishmael.” In retrospect, the connotations of wandering, exile and salvation behind the name that the narrator gives himself become crystal clear. The problem that the post-structuralist model of “reading” as simultaneously “creating the text” has manufactured is that the idea that “subtext” can often be discounted as something dreamed up wholecloth by the reader, and thus inferior, imaginary, even delusional (and I use that last word knowing what a loaded term that is in the spn fandom, but this is not about a ship, even) where once it was considered to be a valid and measurable part of the text itself, like that dang coffin. It was the basement, the underpinnings, the catacombs below the opera house sure, but it helped to hold up the structure. And for some reason, putting subtext into a piece of media has become passe, or cringe? Anyway, not to be bitter on main but it didn’t used to be this way, at least not in the heady early days of postmodernism. So that green light? Critical hit against blue curtains. And while yes, some readings are going to be better supported than others, and the wild variety of checklists in this fandom mean that some conclusions have been drawn which can’t pan out, if you’re paying attention to the structure, the subtexts, the alchemical/psychoanalytical/postmodern themata, the ending will be very satisfying. 

So. What was once speculated to be a symbol for emotional lows or turning points (among other things) in the bunker was textually hit with a bright green light, then Dean got curious about it in text, and we were told-- in text-- that oh it’s just a fancy spyglass, and now that the other worlds are gone, it has no purpose…. that’s what I mean about the geoscope now being “pure”-- it wasn’t clear whether the telescope ever had any function, subtetxtual or not, and now that it’s certain what it’s “function” was, it’s now freed up as a “symbol”-- unless like in Moby Dick it’s new “purpose” is revealed later, but right now it’s caught in this liminal place of not-quite-clue and not-quite-metaphor... 

However, and I didn’t put this in my first post because I was trying to be fast and not a wet blanket, but I felt like finally naming the geoscope was an ending. 

This is literally Singer, Dabb, and Co tidying up the house before locking it behind them.

I think when Dean said he didn’t see anything through the “telescope thing,” that we’re to understand that maybe this was the last hurrah of the cute, zany, campy “subtext” or even “metatext” if you’d rather that so many of us have been parsing and which has gotten so weird and bright since season 12/13. I think I said in one of the folklore posts that writing about some of the things I write about feels like making daisy chains in the endzone during the big game. Which is fun, that’s how I personally got through having to be in AYSO soccer for four years, by looking for four leafed clovers and eating orange quarters. And we got a wood nymph in this episode, textually even, so I could easily check the “folklore” box on this one. But the sheer euphoria of Last Holiday and all the sparkles it brought into the story aren’t meant to last. When you look back on fifteen years of text, a lot of it is bleak, miserable stuff. That’s not to say that episodes like Yellow Fever and Hunteri Heroici and Fan Fiction et al shouldn’t be celebrated. But I think from here on out, things are going to be less “golly gee, three birthdays!” and more “There she blows! --there she blows! A hump like a snowhill!”

This episode was a gift in many ways, not just for the sense of glee it transmitted-- it also did so much work and there are things I want to yell about in the way language was hit, the red versus green lighting, the way the backwards holidays worked, the projector as a metaphor for Mrs. B projecting her regrets and fears onto Jack, the amount of food that was created and consumed, how that smoothie was also an echo of “fairy food” or an underworld pact if you squint-- but the stakes are so high now. We haven’t been shown the next valley-- there was no final scene of Chuck rubbing his hands together like the villain from a melodrama, for example-- but the last image we got was Jack blowing out a candle. After the candle is blown out, the cake is dismantled and consumed. Once the story is over, all the themes that are so hard to grapple in a text like a television show can be gathered up and analyzed. (IS that all, though? After all, Dean made his own cake later, which, like, echoes of the “oh two cakes” comic lol...)

Since I really never want to leave anything I toss out on this blog on a last note of doom and gloom, however, I do want to say that I too understand what that last image meant. It meant, as Sam said, make a wish. Think of the future, think of free will, and hope for something wonderful to happen. (or do like me and wonder what the hell Jack wished for with dread and anticipation ha ha ha.)

[sushiandstarlight]

Cookies: Chapter 17

This chapter contains today’s prompt “wish.”

Previous story: Of All The Beds In All The Hotels In All The World

Chapters 1-3 / Chapter 4 / Chapters 5 & 6 / Chapter 7 / Chapter 8 / Chapter 9 / Chapter 10 / Chapter 11 / Chapter 12 / Chapter 13 / Chapter 14 / Chapter 15 / Chapter 16

Read this chapter on AO3

Rating G-Light Teen for suggestions, nothing explicit

Personal Note: I’ve officially crossed the 50k finish line with this chapter!  I’ll still be writing as this story isn’t finished yet and I’m curious to see what my end-of-the-month word count will be.  This story was meant to be a couple thousand words to get me through one or two days of prompt fics.  Now, it’s over twice as long as the previous story and it’s 2/5 of what I wrote on for the month and growing!

Okay, enough of my blathering... let’s get back to the fluff:

Crowley thought that the night before he proposed would be fitful, sleepless. That, perhaps, he would sleep in bits and pieces and have stressful dreams. It wasn't like that at all. Aziraphale had loved him to a drowsy state of peaceful exhaustion before, astoundingly, falling asleep before him. He lay as long as he could, gazing at the angel- watching his slow and even breathing and listening for his little snores. Admiring that he allowed him this vulnerability and so many others. He was still nervous, to be sure, because that's who he was. But a part of him had settled into place tonight: tomorrow he would offer the rest of his days to the best friend he had ever had and there was a certain surety that Aziraphale would say yes. He drifted off and dreamt of soft, white twinkling lights and cocoa and an angel's smile lighting up the darkness.

“Crowley,” the voice was soft and very close to his face. He grumbled at it.

“Crooooowley,” it was a little louder now, a smile curling the end of his name.

“Neh.”

“There you are.”

“m'not.”

Aziraphale laughed quietly and touched his face. Crowley cracked one eye, it was still dark.

“s'not Christmas yet.”

“It is, though.”

“Nope, still dark,” Crowley closed his eye and nuzzled down into his pillow, “Santa might not have come yet.”

“Is this what I have to look forward to when we get home?”

“You could let me sleep.”

There was a little shuffling and then Aziraphale's voice was closer.

“But I want to start the day with you.”

Crowley groaned softly and blinked open both eyes to find the angel's face close to his.

“There are those beautiful eyes,” he sighed and kissed him, snuggling in close. Crowley wouldn't say, but wake-ups like this would be more than worth the loss of sleeping in. He kissed him back, pulling him along as he rolled on to his back.

“I want to give you your first present,” Aziraphale smiled down at him.

“First? There's more than one?”

“Oh, yes. This one I can't give you downstairs, only up here,” the angel's hand trailed suggestively down Crowley's stomach and now he was fully awake.

“But what if Santa's still watching?”

“We get a reprieve between Christmas day and New Years.”

“Are these rules written down somewhere or...” Aziraphale's hand had found it's destination and Crowley shivered.

“Would you like your present now?”

“Uh, uh huh.”

“That's what I thought,” Aziraphale grinned mischievously- and didn't that do things for Crowley- and disappeared under the blanket.

-

There was a pile of pastries fit for royalty sitting on the table in the lobby when they finally made it downstairs. Aziraphale went for them immediately, cooing about the beautiful lamination of the dough.

Crowley sauntered into the sun room. The tree was lit in front of the wall of windows, showing off the crisp snow all over everything outside. It hadn't snowed overnight and it wasn't now. The sun was obscured by clouds, but the snow still twinkled. It was a picturesque scene and it should have made him want to hurl... But, what could be better than this, really? What better backdrop could he hope for?

He turned to the tree and now noticed that there were presents piled under it, wrapped in garishly cliché wrapping paper and done up with curly ribbon. There was a little pile for Gladys and one for Edie and another with Gladys' grandson's name on it.

And then two more little piles... for him and Aziraphale. Crowley squatted and blinked at them in confusion. In Aziraphale's were a large lumpy package and a large tin. In his own were another large lumpy package, a smaller rectangle- maybe a box?, and a tiny little box. The tiny box was wrapped in black paper and had red ribbon tied around it. Crowley suspected that one might be from Aziraphale. He wondered what could be in such a small box.

He meandered back to through the foyer and into the lobby where Edie and Aziraphale were now sitting at the table, discussing the ins and outs of good pastry.

“It's the lamination, if you don't get good lamination- keep that butter cold- it's a lost cause.” Aziraphale said as he munched on flaky little bite-sized fruit-filled pastries.

“There's another secret ingredient, you know. It's in all home made baked goods.”

“All of them?”

“Well, sure.”

“What is it then?”

“Love, you goose. You can taste the love that goes in to something that's made from scratch!” She turned her smile from Aziraphale to acknowledge Crowley standing there and he nodded like he understood.

“I can feel love, you know. I can sense it.” Aziraphale was still munching away as he talked, little flakes falling from his fingers and onto the table in front of him. He must not have noticed yet or he'd be fussing.

“Well, then you ought to know it's in there.”

“I think I can feel it, now that you mentioned it,” Aziraphale winked at her and reached for an apple turnover that sparkled with sugar all across the top.

“Gladys in the kitchen?” Crowley pointed that way.

“Yep,” Edie waved him off and he went to the kitchen, but paused in the door way when he heard his name.

“Your poor senses must go haywire around Crowley, then.”

“How do you mean?”

“He's bonkers-crazy head over heels for you, dear.”

“I don't really get any sense from him, actually. I mean I get a feel for him, but nothing specific I would call love,” Aziraphale cleared his throat, there was the sound of something being put down on a plate before and went on, “I'm not sure if that's because he's always felt a certain way and so I just chalk it up to being who he is or if I'm just too close to see. Either way, for a time I was convinced that he couldn't love.”

“That's just crazy talk,” Edie sounded incredulous. Crowley silently thanked her. He could damn sure love. He loved his Bentley and he loved stirring up mischief. But the love he felt for Aziraphale eclipsed both. It made him a little sad that the angel couldn't feel it, although it was probably best that he couldn't for most of their friendship. He wished he could change himself, even just a little, so he could show him the depths of what he felt.

“Oh, I know that now. It seems rather silly in hindsight. No one loves like he does. It's a safe, giving, selfless kind of love. I might not be able to sense it, but I can see it in his actions and hear it in his words.”

“He orbits you, dear, like you're the sun.”

“I suppose he does.”

“And you love nothing more than shining on him, don't you?”

“He..,” Crowley could hear him swallow hard, apparently choked up, and the desire to go to him was almost unbearable but he held still, “He believed in me when no one else did- including me- and he was there when my family abandoned me for their own selfish causes. If I can spend my life shining on him, Edie, it's something he deserves.”

“Now, don't you get me blubbering on Christmas morning. Eat another pastry,” Edie sniffed pointedly and Aziraphale went back to munching.

Crowley carried on in to kitchen and found Gladys struggling to get a turkey that was nearly as big as she was into the oven. He rushed over and held the other side, the two of them sliding it in together.

“Thanks- oh goodness, but you sure have a dopey look on you this morning!” Gladys wiped her hands on a tea towel and threw it over her shoulder.

“Neh, I don't.”

“Okay, if you say so,” she chuckled, “but you look like one lovesick fool to me. You do know you've already won him, right?”

“Just... sometimes I wish I could meld our minds so he could feel what I feel for him.”

“Oh, he knows,” she waved him off and started unloading the dishwasher. Crowley automatically started taking things from her and putting them away. Funny how quickly this kitchen had become home base for him here at the inn, “but I understand. I feel like that with Edie sometimes. Then sometimes she gives me this knowing smile and... I know she knows.”

Crowley hummed.

“Are you nervous?”

“Not as nervous as I thought I would be.”

“When are you going to do it?”

“When are we opening gifts? I see there are presents for all of us, you crazy woman.”

“After dinner,” Gladys said laughing when he pulled a face, “the anticipation is the best part! Kids, you let them run down on Christmas morning and tear into things. They're too keyed up to wait. But, we're adults now... We can savor the magic a little longer.”

“Savor the magic, okay.”

“Now, be a good lad and wash the potatoes for me.”

Chapter 18 is now up!

[minghellafine]

Full article below.

Max Minghella never expected to be an actor.

The son of “The English Patient” director Anthony Minghella and dancer-choreographer Carolyn Jane Choa, Minghella says, “I one-thousand-percent anticipated working in movies, but acting was probably the last thing I thought I’d end up doing.” That all changed when he was 16 and caught a production of Kenneth Lonergan’s “This Is Our Youth” and, he says, “sort of got obsessed with the idea of saying those words.”

That obsession has resulted in a very busy dance card. This month, Minghella is co-starring in “Spiral” — a new chapter in the “Saw” franchise — and appearing in the fourth season of the Emmy-winning Hulu series “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

Minghella is also busy behind the camera: His feature film debut as writer-director, 2018’s “Teen Spirit,” was well-received, and he’s attached to direct the HBO Max movie “Shell,” which he calls “a completely bonkers script” by Jack Stanley. He’s also writing several things for his production company, Blank Tape, which he co-runs with Jamie Bell. Up next for the company is “Fred & Ginger,” a biopic that will star Bell as Fred Astaire and Margaret Qualley as Ginger Rogers.

Growing up on his father’s sets and making his own independent film has given Minghella a front-row seat to the gravitational forces that are reshaping the business. In some ways, however, he remains loyal to certain totems of the past. During the Zoom conversation, he angles his camera to spotlight a shelf in his home full of VHS tapes and notes: “I’m a person of a different era.” With so many platforms and outlets — and with a worldwide pandemic shutting down theaters for the past year — he says he misses the ceremony around movie releases. “It’s very difficult for me to sort of wrap my head around because I’m used to it being an event, a cultural event, and I think movies now, for better or worse, have become so much less active in daily conversation. But I’m optimistic, maybe naively, that, you know, film culture will return in a meaningful way.”

His new film could help spark that return to theaters. “Spiral: From the Book of Saw” opens May 14 and serves as a reboot of sorts to the long-running franchise. It stars Minghella as the new partner to Chris Rock’s seasoned detective, following the pair as they investigate a copycat killer who was inspired by Jigsaw. Minghella met Rock at a party shortly before being cast. “He said to me, ‘You know, we’re going to work together on something,’” recalls Minghella. “And I was convinced he thought I was someone else.” A couple weeks later, he received the “Spiral” script and was thrilled. He had recently been watching “Beverly Hills Cop” and “Lethal Weapon” and longing for something in the buddy-cop genre. “There was something so serendipitous about it,” he says. “I’ve never experienced that before in my career where something I was so craving was available to me at the same time.”

Director Darren Lynn Bousman says casting Minghella was an easy call: “Max is such an amazing talent. He was so passionate about the material and ensuring that everything felt real and organic.”

You can also catch Minghella on the small screen as “The Handmaid’s Tale” rolls out its fourth season. “None of us take it for granted,” he says of the series. “We’re all extremely conscious of how unique this experience is. There’s such a sense of gratitude that’s been there from the beginning. We know this is special while it’s happening.”

[nickcifonie]

In 2021, Anyone Can Make $ Playing Video Games!

I grew up playing games like Risk, Monopoly, a little Chess... and still remember buying my first computer somewhere around 1986 solely to play a computer game on. It was an Apple IIc, and that first game was some type of Pirate Adventure. I wish I remembered the name. It wasn’t all that good, but still, I was hooked!

Since that first adventure, I’ve spent thousands of hours as well as dollars playing just about every type of digital game that has followed! PC games, Atari, Wii, mobile games... you name it, I play it! I’d always generalize the cost (to myself at least) thinking “some guys play golf 3 days a week at $100 a round... I play computer games”.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it! However, the story has changed...

“Pay to Play” has become “Play to Earn”!

If you would be to search terms like “crypto games”, “blockchain games”, “make money playing video games”, and others, you’d find some really incredible statements. Today, quotes like the ones below are becoming more and more common!

“I made $400 last week playing a computer game” “I just sold my RPG character for $200 profit”

“I was offered $1k for a skin for my laser rifle of doom” (I made up the “laser rifle of doom” part)

“I bred my pet thingamajig yesterday and sold the baby!” (it’s digital, for those of you wincing)

In 2021, thanks to the blockchain, there’s a growing community of gamers who are making real dollars daily, mining, fighting, shooting, jumping... all while playing the same type of mobile and PC games that you had to PAY to play just a short while ago...

...but let’s start at the beginning.

You paid $172,000 for a what!?

Yes... all the way back in 2018 a CryptoKitty named “Dragon” was sold for an incredible $172,000. (300 ETH) Don’t be too surprised, it’s justified! It’s an adorable digital image, or “NFT” of a cat, after all.

It’s a lot of money, but for NFTs and blockchain gaming, flipping a Kitty today may as well be considered the stone ages. It’s still a record, but while you can still get started collecting these digital felines for as low as a couple of dollars, big-dollar trades still happen daily.

On the flip side of mortgaging your home to buy a digital picture of a CryptoKitty, Bored Ape, or CryptoPunk, you may feel better if you begin your adventure into making crypto (it’s real money, dear!) by playing a video game where you can “make money” instead of spending it.

I’m not saying owning a CryptoKitty or any of a plethora of “Avatar NFTs” we see popping up on various exchanges isn’t one way to do it... I’m saying to me at least, as a life-long gamer I’d much prefer playing a mobile, console, or PC game to collecting pictures in a digital wallet.

So what the heck is an NFT?

I could go into a long explanation... but since this article is about gaming and not cryptocurrency, I’ll tell you an NFT is a “non-fungible token”, and leave you google it if you really want to dig in deep. I do want to share more, so I’ll ‘splain it as simple as I can for you Lucy!

A CryptoKitty, as stated above, is a type of image called an NFT. (the collection is called “CryptoKitties) It’s a digital picture of a cartoon cat. There are thousands of different ones that have different shapes, colors, expressions and traits. (kind of like a real cat, but eats less)

The difference, is only one of each design is actually a legitimate “CryptoKitty”. (or a legitimate whatever type of image it happens to be) To be clearer... each NFT is a “one of a kind”, so if you’re thinking “but can’t I just make a copy?”, nope you can’t.

I mean... you “can” make a copy of it if you really dig the design and want it on your desktop, but it would only be a copy of that particular NFT, not the real McCoy! Ok... so what makes one real, and the rest fakes? The blockchain.

Now, I’m going to be true to my word and keep my promise of not making this an article about crypto or the blockchain, so just know this: the difference between an image that is an actual NFT, and a copy of one, is there is an underlying digital code that designates the real thing.

So real in fact, that artists are creating or importing their paintings and creations to the web as NFTs, numbering them as they would a lithograph, and selling their entire collections. So if you are an art fan, check with your favorite creators... you may be surprised to find all of their “works of art” on an online marketplace!

NFTs are viewed on certain marketplace websites and digital wallets where the copies cannot be displayed, so that is how we know one is real, and the others are not! Having said that, sure, there’s more to it, but just know that there’s a 100% secure way of knowing an image is a real NFT.

In addition, there can be more than one NFT with the same identical image. However, each has a unique underlying code, so even if they look exactly the same, they are not! Look at it like the playing cards or comic books of old... there may be 1,000 created (or “minted” as it’s called in NFT land) but they will each be numbered 1 to 1,000.

And guess which is more valuable.....? I knew you’d get it!

And these NFT’s make money how?

You’re getting warmer! There are a lot of different types of games coming out these days where you can make money playing. There are RPG’s, MOBA’s, Shooters, games in first person and in third, dungeon crawls... you name it!

If you’re thinking “how did I not know this!”, I was the same until recently! I have been gaming almost daily since I stepped into Ultima Online back in 1997, and I can’t even begin to tally how many hours and/or dollars I’ve invested into gaming.

Now, our hobby pays!

After 30-something years, my wife still thinks I’m bonkers... but I got a totally different look from her a few days ago when I told her I sold my game character for well over $200. Legit. I sold two more yesterday, and another this afternoon.

Some of these only cost me $10 or $15, some much more. Some are free. I sold another NFT character last week for $1,950, and it was sold on the game’s website, not on the black market.

So not only can an NFT be a picture of an Ape, Vegetable, Duck, or Stripper on a pole (we’ll leave it at that) but it can be a character in a game, a weapon, a mount, armor, or more.

One game is giving away free pet turtles with each character. For the uneducated on “pets” in computer games, it’s not the kind you keep in a bowl in your bedroom. It’s a companion that fights with you in an online game and may shoot fire from its eyes, heal you, or similar.

Soon after being handed out for free, they’re now selling for around $60 each.

So an NFT can be an image, a video, music, a meme... or even a shirt or shoes! But we’ll leave the NFT clothing explanation to another article. ;)

Remember that rare skin you paid out the nose for a year ago in Apex? Or the L33T character you built up in Fortnite or Warcraft? If you’re no longer playing that game, it’s money under the bridge. And you don’t own the bridge!

In this new breed of blockchain games, you could have LEGALLY sold that character, skin, weapon, land, house, mount, or whatever it was when you tired of the game. For a profit. Maybe for a LARGE profit.

Yes, in the past we were able to find ways to get around the system and dump our pixels from time to time. We’d sell the account on the black market, or cut a deal with someone like a drug dealer on a Chicago Street corner. Then we’d over who went first...

“You give me the account and weapon first!” “No you give me the money first”.  Sometimes the deals even went through. Others well... let’s just say half of the parties walked away happy.

I made good money when after 4 years of daily playing I sold my Ultima Online account for somewhere around $2,000, but I needed to find a trustworthy “go-between” to broker the deal. Even then, I was sweating it!

With today’s crypto games, not only do the games provide the platform to buy, sell, or trade your character and items, but it’s encouraged, and done with good old U.S dollars! I’ve made $ playing 4 or 5 different games already this week, as well as flipping (buying low and selling higher) NFT characters!

How else can I make money playing games?

The way you earn varies from game to game, but each week seems to reveal another new strategy, platform, or idea. Many are new strategies, and while some have “triple A” 3D animation and graphics, others are simpler and use basic one-dimensional graphics for the gameplay.

Some of these games are actually tied to a token on the blockchain. The game developer creates their own token, not too unlike Bitcoin or Ethereum, and it can be bought or sold on the open market as well as used in the game as currency.

Could you imagine if back in League of Legends, Guild Wars or Final Fantasy, when you were ready to move to a new game, you could sell or easily convert your gold to cash? Some of today’s blockchain games encourage it!

Not only can you now buy and sell characters and weapons, the gold in the game can be traded, bought, sold, or saved like real currency, stocks, crypto, or collectables. Never have I been as excited about PC and mobile gaming as I am today!

As an example, I am doing some work for a new game that will launch soon called Pepper Attack. Pepper Attack has its own token or coin... called MYTE. It can be used in the game as currency, but also be traded like Bitcoin. A lot of today’s blockchain games offer this same benefit.

Hi ho, hi ho, it’s off to mine I go!

Just by owning an NFT from the game, you can login on a daily basis and click “mine” earning real-value tokens passively. Your Pepper goes to work like one of the 7 Dwarves mining MYTE, and later on you can convert it to other tokens or cold, hard cash.

There's more to do in this particular game as well. Like any good RPG or MMORPG, each pepper has a unique combination or skills like attack, defense, evade, hit points, and more. As an example of the possibilities, if you have a high attack score, other characters will be able to pay you in MYTE to “train” them, raising their score as well.

In addition, these NFTs have unique physical traits, some are common and some are very rare. This game in particular have toons that look more like anime-ish elves with weapons and a stem... I have to admit the artwork is really spicey! (see what I did there?) Other games are of course totally different.

Some people will simply collect these NFTs/characters as an investment, like playing cards or comics. Others will use them in the game, and still others will do both. Either way, they can be held, or sold for a profit!

Unlike the games of the past, when you’re ready to move on you don’t walk away and lose all the $ you have spent for characters, skins, weapons, potions, and other items. When you’re done, you’ll be able to sell your character and items... possibly for a profit... maybe a lot of profit... and move on.

These are not your father’s computer games!

As we move ahead in the genre, we are seeing AAA studios coming out with big-dollar productions, like Blankos, Mist, Illuvium, Ember Sword and others. Some of these games actually let you buy the land you build on!

Did you have your own house in Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies, or Archeage? What if you could have used It as a shop and been paid in dollars for your wares, rented it to another player, or sold it for cold hard cash at a huge profit down the road?

In many of today’s games, not only is it common, but extremely hard to come by, and quite expensive. Not only are people paying thousands of dollars for a plot in some of the games that have land, but they’re paying it many months before the game is even released.

They do it, because in many cases they know that they can easily 2X, 10X, or even 50X their investment a short piece down the road. Seriously? Seriously... and the early bird catches the worm!

Other games with lesser budgets are more graphic-based, but have super earnings potential as well, and are just as fun to play. These include Splinterlands, (a card game like Magic!) Crypto Blades, Axie Infinity and more.

Regardless of if the new blockchain game of your choice is a RPG, MOBA, a card game or racing game... the fact that you can put some coin into your pocket playing adds a whole new element. It’s heckafun making money playing a game!

The early nerd catches the worm!

In many cases, if you can catch a game before it releases, the land, characters, weapons, and other items... in most cases all NFTs... can be grabbed at a tiny fraction of the future value.

Of course, always check out the game details and team first, and be confident it’s a good place to put your money. Not all games are made the same.

If you’re lucky enough to find out about and partake in an early sale, for example, like grabbing a character NFT or two in   “Pepper Attack”  before the late September launch date, you may be in for a real treat!

There are plenty of new titles coming down the pipe that look to be fun, have great communities, and offer earning opportunities. A web search will find services and websites that will keep you on your toes and alert you of upcoming blockchain game releases, marketplace opening, and more.

As we look forward, the future of gaming on the blockchain is really, really exciting! Not only are the games getting better and more fun, but they’re getting better at making the economics work more smoothly as well.

The games are not without challenges, as they need to be made to sustain themselves economically over the long haul. In addition, they need to have higher levels of security (thanks blockchain!) and of course, work without becoming “pay to win”. Thankfully, the new breed of developers have risen to the challenge!

The next time you look for a new game to add to your phone or desktop, or just want a change of pace, look to a game that pays to play! Your wallet might thank you.

Another perk, is your husband or wife will appreciate it as well! Instead of hearing “are you going to play that stupid game all night again?”, you may start to hear things like “I’ll put the kids to bed tonight sweetheart, so you can get online and play”.

One can only hope...

Author - Nick Cifonie

Nick is a lifelong gamer, who cut his teeth at the local Chicago arcade playing Tetris as a teen. Better known as Znick or Deacon Z, Nick became a Game Master in Ultima Online in 1997, ran a large multi-game guild for 15 years, and now spends his time in the “play to earn” arena. Professionally, Nick is a writer and 4-decade marketer working with the  Pepper Attack team, as well as others. Nick is also a Catholic Deacon.

[reachexceedinggrasp]

Fated to Love You here reaffirming my long held conviction that no pure romance drama should be 20+ episodes.

This show is... really something. It is, in the fullest possible sense, A Lot. It starts out as an all-out screwball comedy wrapped around a troperiffic romance fluff plot. Wall to wall clichés, but not in a bad way; in a meta, self-aware, peak performance, finest Velveeta way. And if you’re not familiar with screwball comedy, think ‘light-hearted crack fic with slapstick and farce’. There is nothing believable or grounded about any aspect of it, it starts at Bonkers Level: Platinum and it only climbs higher as it goes on.

(On a side note, this results in the leading man being possibly the most memorable love interest in romcom history. His introduction scene is nothing short of batshit insane and you can't reliably predict how he will respond to anything. I have never seen a main character like this, he is all over the shop and utterly singular. Your first reaction to him is ‘wtf?’, your second and third reactions are ‘really?! this guy??’, your fourth reaction is ‘okay he do be mad hot tho’, your fifth and final reaction is ‘I cannot believe this performance exists, I have no idea what he is doing, but it is amazing.’

Appropriately(?) the actor who plays him is an uncanny Korean doppelgänger of Johnny Depp and- between the resemblance, the mannerisms, and the fearless total commitment to a bold as fuck acting choice with the very serious chops to back it up- I’m not convinced they aren’t half brothers separated at birth.

They do sabotage my happiness several times by starting to randomly style his (long, beautiful) hair very weird, fixing it right when the plot is rapidly circling the drain so he looks his hottest just as the show becomes briefly unwatchable, and then ruining him for the entire second half of the series by shearing it all off. WHY, my anguished cry goes up. Why do you do this?! Why does he have like seven hairstyles over the course of the show? Much later they even briefly give him that ubiquitous Kdrama Second Lead haircut with weirdly forward combed fringe in a solid straight line across the brow all the way back from the crown. It looks terrible on everyone and I hate it so much. This version was less bad than most but it is still bad. Anyway.)

So it’s an incredibly fun time to start but there are some problems with the tone and plot even in the first 9 episodes, including when the lovers start getting along really well right away and they’re both thoroughly decent people so there’s nothing keeping them from having a lovely time together making the best of the circumstances (forced/fake marriage). And, instead of introducing new conflict or advancing one of the dozen conflicts previously established and actually moving forward, there is a painfully contrived rehash of something they already dealt with which is then just never resolved. They make the hero leap to a conclusion his wife is nefarious after he’d already decided once that she isn’t (though it was completely reasonable for him to think she was- the fact that he decided to trust her so quickly just speaks to what kind of person he is), never try to find out more or talk to anyone about it, start pushing her away because of it, and have all this come to absolutely nothing. It only exists so he’ll stop being so incredibly nice to her and they won’t fall in love too fast.

You’d think they would have to eventually clear the air before the romance advances right? No. It wasn’t a real plot point, it was just a reset button to get them estranged and hostile again after they connect over their kindred spirits and we’ve spent a bunch of time showing how profoundly supportive and honourable our hero is. He’s being beautifully mature and selfless because he’s a really good dude (unusual for a romcom drama, right? for the main guy to be nice and considerate? to accept responsibility even if he doesn’t have to? Gun’s weird but he’s wonderful), but the writers need him to be cold and standoffish, so they just make him act like an unreasonable idiot for a while. He’s been thus far hugely proactive and direct and honest about everything, it’s one of his most prominent character traits, but suddenly he’s going to avoid confrontation in favour of being super passive aggressive?? Then the writers never solve it. Never! It just goes away. He got over it, I guess? He decided he doesn’t care if she’s a gold digger who deliberately trapped him? God forbid we have motivations that make sense and organic character drama, right? It's not like he didn't have totally valid reasons to be suspicious that could have led to legitimate conflict our heroine would struggle to vindicate herself from.

But anyway, apart from that kind of lazy bullshit, it’s a fine romance plot with extremely endearing characters who have great chemistry. They are fun and well-rounded and incredibly human despite all the silliness and OTT antics. Their relationship is hugely, hugely engaging and the dynamic is perfect, they really complement each other as characters and organically drive each other's arcs. There's the genuine depth and warmth and quiet pathos so often lacking from this kind of show. Things progress at a semi-reasonable pace. They work up to confessing their mutual feelings and get into some cute shenanigans before making out. It happens soon enough that you are not frustrated, but there's still plenty of build-up. Then- uh oh! We’re only 9 eps in and we have another 11 hours to fill with this fluffy plot!

Time for a bunch of absolute fucking nonsense. Time for our show, which has been so goofy and removed from reality it occasionally resembles a Monty Python skit, which has been so light it asks you to ignore the frankly incredibly fucked up implications of its premise for the sake of comedy (they were both drugged and proxy raped resulting in a pregnancy- the FL was a virgin prior to this and Gun had a girlfriend he wanted to propose to- and it was the FL’s family who did this to them: SUPER FUCKED UP), so farcical that it makes Some Like it Hot look like a gritty crime drama, that show to cover a bunch of serious heavy shit.

First, the rankest of melodrama. The families and the world all turn on our couple, but their love is true and will conquer all- UNTIL, he randomly collapses and gets convenient Soap Opera Amnesia. He’s forgotten their entire relationship and a series of coincidental pieces of misconstrued evidence, the machinations of his scheming ex girlfriend, the Soap Opera Doctor’s advice, and his closest confidants all going along with this conspire to make him believe (AGAIN) that his wife just wants his money.

This whole terrible episode is mercifully brief, but it just gets worse after his memory returns. This is where we get into the Noble Idiocy. The ‘pretend you don’t love them to “save them” from getting hurt by hurting them and making their important life decisions for them as if they don’t have a basic fucking right to decide that themselves’ kind. Which goes on for three FUCK years in the show. He wastes three years of their lives they could have spent together because he’s worried he might die young (in a terrible way) and doesn’t want to put her through that. And, of course, they inevitably get together later, so all he did was make it infinitely worse for her either way. To say nothing of how he thus couldn’t be there for her through the loss of their child. Possibly my most hated fucking trope of all time when done this way.

And, yep, you read that right. This show that has the single most batshit bonkers over the top slapstick I have ever seen in a kdrama, this show has a storyline where the fluffy romcom trope accidental pregnancy ends in massive trauma. Because she was standing around in the street after realising he does remember her (he continued to pretend he had amnesia after his memories came back, it’s all part of the stupid noble idiocy so I glossed over it) and gets hit by a car in the middle of their angst staring.

It is nearly Meet Joe Black levels of hilariously abrupt and incongruous.

so, blah blah, they lose their baby (there’s a very stupid whole thing about her telling everyone to save the baby instead of her- the baby is not far enough along for this to have been remotely viable. She is like 3 months pregnant. They all act like there’s a choice to be made between them and she’s mad at her husband for choosing to save her, but there was NO CHOICE. Either she lives or they both die! ffs I’m so irritated about this) and then he dumps her ~for her own good~~ because he loves her too much to make her go through losing him? So she loses him sooner?? right after their baby died???

Why do people in these stories always think being betrayed and abandoned for no reason and being incredibly angry at someone you love while also not getting to be with them is somehow less painful than making the best of your life together and then losing them against their will? ‘I will make her hate me and then she won’t be sad we broke up/I died!!!!’ is such a fucking galaxy brain take and I despise it with the heat of ten thousand suns. Fuck you, Spider-Man. You aren’t protecting anyone, the villains still know you love MJ and will still use her against you, you clod. Emotionally torturing the person you love is not going to make them not a target because the villains are not as fucking stupid as you two. Anyway.

Amnesia was right where I started fast-forwarding and skipping around (because I couldn’t bear it), but it only goes downhill from there. Maybe I would have toughed out more of the wretched middle part plot twist if they hadn’t cut all the hot guy’s hair off. If I’m going to watch total nonsense tedious melodrama, I need it to at least be pretty. I understand it was a Symbolic Haircut but damnit! Let me have this!

And it ultimately does the thing that kdramas seem obsessed with and which makes me want to claw out my own eyeballs with frustration. There’s a giant time skip, the female lead gets a personality transplant, all narrative momentum is lost, and the characters who eventually (at ENORMOUS length) get together permanently are essentially completely different characters with a completely different dynamic than the couple you were shipping for 90% of the story. It is so FUCKING unsatisfying and it is EVERYWHERE.

Not so much with this one because this one still had a lot of very romantic scenes late in the game, but most that do this, it’s also like all the romance is sucked out of the post-time skip episodes and the ending is a consolation prize instead of a triumphant culmination. Inevitably, the heroine abruptly cools off and is suddenly wary of the hero and wants this Important New Career she never mentioned until the penultimate episode but is now her one true life’s dream. What the apparently irresistible appeal is of these contrived separations and demure conclusions is I CANNOT FATHOM. I’m here for the fucking romance guys, you have not made Citizen Kane, please just indulge me with a big schmoopy finale.

And if not that, it’s frequently that there’s been so many random mood swings and so much shitty behaviour by the end that the relationship doesn’t make sense and you don’t know why they even bother to get back together.

I’m not inherently against all misunderstandings (they are the bread and butter of low stakes romance let’s be real) or attempts at noble idiocy from misguided characters, but the duration and seriousness of the drama these generate needs to be in proportion to how ridiculous they are. If your entire plot can be solved by a thirty second conversation there is NO REASON not to have and the continuation of the misunderstanding is a result of someone just NOT SPEAKING UP when any functional human being would have spoken up seven times by now IT’S BAD.

Do little cliff-hangers, whatever, but don’t draaaaagg out silly misconceptions into Shakespearean tragedy, it’s just wearying. It makes me hate the characters for acting like emotionally constipated toddlers with terminal stupidity. If there is so little trust, so little understanding, and so little basic patience between these people, they probably shouldn’t be dating, so try fucking harder, writers. And noble idiocy that is more than an impulse they fairly quickly see the error of is just insulting. You are not helping the other person, you are being domineering and selfish. I have a whole complex about wasting time and seeing endless parades of characters flushing years down the toilet for literally no reason gives me hives. Especially when the whole issue is about time!

(And, btw, so much of the plot is about how desperately the family needs an heir and everyone still wanting them to have kids the second time they get together- while the ~dilemma used to keep them apart is a GENETIC DISEASE which could STRIKE AT ANY TIME. Do you SEE THE PROBLEM WITH THIS WRITERS????? NO, I KNOW YOU DON’T. ommmmmmmmggggg that’s awful! So they’re just dooming more kids to Soap Opera Brain Disease? And maybe growing up without a father just as Gun did? And no one even considers suggesting adoption??? He never considers that he shouldn’t have biological children despite thinking he shouldn’t have a wife?)

ANYWAY. Please do watch the first nine episodes and the last three, it’s bananas. They are cute as fuck, Gun is The Best, and the tropey romance scenes are top quality. You don't get those things executed so well, it doesn't happen, so you need this in your life. The acting is of a calibre you never usually see in modern romcoms; these are people at the top of their game committing utterly and taking these characters completely seriously. In that way it is pure wish fulfilment for me as someone who loves romance and is almost always disappointed by popular romance media, and thus the show is incalculably special. But skip the middle. Just skip it. It's not worth the suffering. I find the tone whiplash honestly just this side of crass.

I’ve been thinking about it for over a week and I truly love the main characters so it did plenty right, but I just cannot with wedding the two things this show is trying to be together, especially when it goes so hard in two mutually exclusive directions. but also the Meet Joe Black sudden car accident device is not redeemable under any circumstances. Can we never do that again, please.

[gold-rush-into-things]

I Knew You, Tried to Change the Ending (and everything in between)

So what DOES QAnon believe? So glad you asked! They believe that Trump has been planning a “day of reckoning” known as the "Storm," when thousands of members of the cabal will be arrested  (they thought this was going to happen on Biden’s inauguration lmao). They also think most Hollywood actors, Democratic politicians, and high-ranking government officials are also members of the cabal. You could almost say… It’s all part of the fucking story. (Sidenote: Cabal is a very cool word, I think I would like to be in one someday maybe, one that does not involve cannibalism though). 

The "Storm" became QAnon-speak for an “imminent” event in which thousands of those alleged suspects will be arrested, imprisoned, and executed for being child-eating pedophiles. Perfectly logical, makes total sense. Again, Q’s followers also developed a name for when Q would come to spill, these “Q Drops.”

I put “imminent” in quotes for this reason, here are some of the Q predictions and dates: 

The "Storm" would take place on November 3, 2017. Last I checked Tom Cruise and Hillary Clinton were not publicly executed

That people targeted by the Trump would commit mass suicide on February 10, 2018. No prominent people committed suicide that day, but also like…. wut.

Multiple failed predictions that Mark Zuckerberg would leave Facebook and flee the US. Zuck is still CEO, unfortunately, as of writing this post.

Multiple failed predictions that Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey would be forced to resign. Jack, unfortunately, remains CEO of Twitter, and remains having the ugliest beard I’ve seen.

Ect, ect ect, you get the point.

Finally, like I mentioned earlier, that the "Storm" would take place on January 20, 2021, the day of Biden's inauguration. While I cried a lot that day, none of it was because there were public executions of my queens Kamala, Michelle, Jill, or Hillary. 

BUT, Q soooooooorta got Jeffery Epstien getting arrested for child trafficking right. Even if they were off by a couple of days. But the tiniest victory can give followers a lot of confidence. 

Which leads right into Spade. The first Spade riddle, “♠️ Aug 2018: Karlie will be at the reputation tour in Nashville” was right! I’ve heard TTB didn’t post it until after, which, kinda sketch, but I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt (undeservedly). This was also very specific, was allowed to be proven true or false, and BAM people are hooked. Again, understandably! 

And, like Q, most Spade riddles just simply did not come true. Such as:

 “♠️ 10.12.2018: However, Karlie will be single and will have rekindled her friendship with Taylor to a suggestive degree.” 

I’m sorry, but it’s been two years, if it was going to happen, it probably would have by now.

There are then a few that Spade followers retrofit into being correct, like about the golden globes and the cloud imagery of Lover. 

But as Spade continued to stop by, it becomes very, very similar to the “Q Drops.” The clues become more and more vague, and people were / are twisting themselves more and more to make them have meaning. A few of personal favorites: 

♠️ 06.25.2019: Why worry, she blooms in June. (This is funny because obvi nothing happened in June, but also, as a gay man, I know all of icon Troye Sivan’s music and he has a song about gay sex called Bloom and that’s all I can ever think about when I read this lol)

♠️ 09.27.2019: The candle flickered, your eyes darted, my heart pounded. (So dramatic, I love it. And can mean anything you want!)

♠️ 07.24.2019: Without judgement or question, she bent to the ground and picked up the pieces. Blood ran from her hands as she cut herself so I could be whole. (This is just bonkers, but it’s also more CAMP than anything Karlie wore to the Met Gala)

My quips aside, all of these literally mean nothing. And so many of them, especially ones that people retrofit to claim were a hint, were things the general fandom already knew. Such as, “Darling, in the midst of this cruel summer I re-read your love letters…” People lost their mind after the tracklist came out, thinking that Cruel Summer had been revealed by Spade weeks earlier. But at that point the tracklist had already been leaked by Secret Sessioners, AND Taylor hinted at it in the YNTCD video and that weird Amazon commercial. 

But, much like Q followers, and the appeal of the possibility of being involved in something historic (the world’s biggest popstar is in a secret lesbian relationship!!), people are sucked in and it becomes harder to question things — like that Kaylor could possibly be over. 

Another similarity, and one that is a major red flag, is the consistent moving of the goalposts that TTB, Spade, and TCG all played a part in. 

You can see this in the aforementioned Spade riddles about them becoming “friends again” in 2018, “She blooms in June,” and their “Ides of March” post — nothing of note has happened in any preceding March. TCG and her posting about “The Gay Agenda” plan for them to come out which kept getting pushed back. And TTB posting every six months or so that the “contract is ending” regarding Karlie and Josh. So, much like “The Storm,” these big, earth shattering events keep getting predicted, but don’t actually happen. 

Whenever I read about Q followers and the depths that they believe that people in Hollywood and politics are involved in this elite cabal, the first thing I think about is Kaylors’ mantra of “it’s all part of the fucking story.”** Much like how Q followers use “Trust the plan” as comfort when things don’t work out as predicted. 

**For reference: Taylor went out with friends in 2016 (including Suki Waterhouse and Cara Delivinge) to a NYC restaurant and someone, assumed to be one of them, wrote “It’s all part of the fucking story” on the paper table cloth. 

This is repeated in the Kaylor fandom as a message that everything Taylor does publicly, is simply that, part of the story. I specifically remember TTB was sharing theories connecting Hayley Williams’ lead single’s music video in 2019 to Taylor, due to a sound at the end of it (which I unfortunately can’t link, since her blog is gone), recently I saw Spade-Riddles sharing Selena Gomez’s recent Insta post because it had oranges in it (implying it’s tied to the YNTCD girl), and these examples could go on and on. While I wish the world DID revolve around Taylor Swift, unfortunately it doesn’t and every person Taylor has ever come in contact with just isn’t droppeing clues about her being queer in THEIR art.

NEXT POST: Shade Never Made Anyone (even Josh Kushner) Gay

[reflectionsofacreator]

This is Rebecca’s portion of the Grand Temple, with the Animus “Chair” (hahahaha god Desmond’s gonna have back problems) and all her equipment,, as well as several computers. I counted at least five here, with another four or so scattered around the Temple. This is also where you check your email! 

You can find her wandering around, and have a few conversations with her. For some reason I had about four or so lined up at the same time, even though I’d been hopping out of the Animus pretty regularly to see if the crew had anything to say. Shruggie, whatever, means I just need to split them up a bit. 

For a couple of them, there’s actually some cross talk to people who aren’t immediately around, and it sounds like their voices are coming through the headsets that William made them all wear. It’s actually kinda cool, and gives a bit of depth to it. I like it. 

These are the conversations that Rebecca can trigger -- I’m going to do different posts for Shaun and William. For the sake of a lot of block quotes, I’m gonna put this under a read more. 

Desmond: What’re you working on?  Rebecca: Lots of different stuff. If you’re going into the field, we need a way to keep tabs on you and stay in touch. Hacking into local security systems won’t cut it.  Desmond: Thanks.  Rebecca: For what?  Desmond: I don’t know... everything. You’ve sacrificed a lot for me. You and Shaun both. You upgraded the Animus, helped train me, pulled me out of that coma... You put all that work into the database. Helped me solve Clay’s puzzles...  Desmond: I know I haven’t been the easiest person to work with... And I’m sorry for that. And I just want you to know that even if I’m shitty at showing it -- I appreciate everything you’ve done. 

Kinda wonder what level of low-self esteem Desmond is on right now because like. He hasn’t been that difficult to them. Any difficulties he had were largely because of shit like Juno, or the fact that he was kidnapped and tortured. At most he’s been a little pissy. There was one time the group did get into a legitimate spat over something stupid in Brotherhood, but like... Man. 

That being said, it’s nice to see him appreciating everything they do, even if Rebecca doesn’t acknowledge it? Granted, I feel that’s more of a gameplay/narrative thing than Rebecca herself not acknowledging what he says, because the narrative wants Desmond to say this as a way of getting his mindset across to the player, rather than having Rebecca respond. 

Next convo you can trigger is a group one that involves William, and like. My subtitles were saying that Desmond was talking, even though it was William’s voice. 

Rebecca: You really think we’ll finally get some answers down here?  Desmond: Maybe. Talking to the first civ has always been a pain in the ass though.  William (through the headset): Imagine what it must be like for them.  Rebecca: What do you mean?  William: They’ve been separated from us by tens of thousands of years -- A completely different language and culture... possessed of an intelligence vastly superior to our own. We’re lucky they’ve communicated as much as they have.  Desmond: I don’t know why they had to make it all so complicated. I mean, if they need something from me, they should just come out and say it.  William: I’ve been wondering about that myself. I get the sense that Juno and Minerva didn’t exactly see eye to eye. I’m studying everything I can get my hands on... But maybe you’ll find something down here that can shed light on the mystery. What happened between them-- and why? 

William brings up a good point. The fact that these people are communicating from 75k years in the past is absolutely fucking bonkers. Seriously, even if they’re coming across as pompous and arrogant (which they are) they’re still able to talk and be understood. That’s no small feat. Anyways, this is likely set up for more Isu Bullshit, so we’ll see how this shakes out. 

The next one has Rebecca’s voice come over the headset, even though you have to click her to actually start the convo. It’s weird. 

Rebecca: What do you think’s behind that door?  Desmond: No idea.  Rebecca: Do you think it can save us?  Desmond: The first civ seemed to think so.  Rebecca: What if it’s dangerous?  Desmond: It’s ... not like we have a lot of alternatives.  Rebecca: Well we could ... I don’t know... warn the President?  Desmond (laughing): And what’s he gonna do? And who’s to say he’s not in bed with Abstergo? Seems everyone is these days...  Rebecca: What if we went to them? To Abstergo, I mean.  Desmond: I thought about it, actually. Showing them what we’ve seen. Trying to work together... They must know so much more than we do. But...  Rebecca: What is it?  Desmond: It’s possible they know exactly what’s going to happen. That they WANT it to happen. For all we know they’re hiding out in bunkers right now, waiting for the world to end. And then, when it’s all over -- out they come-- ready to take control.  Rebecca: God I hope you’re wrong.  Desmond: So do I, Rebecca. So do I... 

Hey let’s talk about horrifying thoughts ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ Fucking. We know that most of the government in the AC world is controlled by Abstergo, which is scarily close to what the US of A is experiencing now with capitalist hellcorperations. Insane how shit that was only supposed to be science fiction is coming true, isn’t it. 

Anyways, to get away from that depressing train of thought -- it interests me how Desmond outright says he thought about possibly going to Abstergo. Can’t help but wonder if it was before or after Lucy was killed, and how that might’ve influenced his decision. Whatever it is, it’s nice to see that Rebecca and Desmond talk things out. 

[its-sixxers]

so my Adderall Brain ™ decided to look into vtm lore and history even tho i know nothing about the game (and still don’t) but like. briar mary methuselah au? what would she be like as an elder vampire?

Mary in later vampire life is something I really love thinking about, as when you can live forever perceptions of morality can start warping and bitterness/nihilism/general jadedness set in HARDCORE.

When it comes to a methuselah AU things for Mary can go a couple ways - if we go with the ‘got turned a thousand years ago and is fourth/fifth gen and knew clan founder personally’ that’d make her either a Niktuku or someone on the run from them.

tl;dr Nosferatu’s clan founder, Abismiliard, was a handsome young hunter who got a scar on his face when he was turned into a vampire, threw a fit of rage and did a lot of murder, so he and his bloodline were cursed to be hideous. Absimiliard and a group of his favored children (the Niktuku) now hunt down all Nosferatu in either vengeance or hopes of redeeming themselves to God. If she was that old and keeping her in character she’d be on the run from them and might pull a Baba Yaga (in WoD, a nosferatu in a similar situation) and just set up in some far flung wilderness and retreat completely from all human society. She’d probably be a little bonkers from the isolation and utterly terrifying to stumble across.

Another fun avenue is one a pal of mine went with for their fledgling, in that in Bloodlines it’s implied big papa vamp Caine himself is chilling in LA and a lot of wild things are going down - there’s theories that the player character’s levelling up is actually them being artificially brought closer in generation to Caine, methuselah style. If Mary had that amount of power but a newborn vampire’s mindset it’d be VERY interesting. She could theoretically just forcefully take over the city herself, but she’d probably just use her strength to get herself free of Camarilla nonsense and go off to explore the world as a very hard to kill (and hard to see!) vampire instead.

If we’re going with it’s the year 3000 thing, normal very old Mary depends on how unlife treats her. In the best course, she’d still be pretty removed from humanity and vampire society as a whole - she might take on a mentorship role and would probably end up having a few childer of her own to influence by that point. Mary’s very curious about vampire history and the state of being so she’d have a pretty beefy knowledge base by that point. Her care would be fixated more on vampires in her circle than humans at that point because she likely wouldn’t remember what it was like to be human.

I hope this makes sense, my brain’s a lil’ fuzzy today! It’s a fun question.

[letterboxd]

The Package.

As the bonkers genre thrill-ride Shadow in the Cloud blasts into the new year, writer and director Roseanne Liang unpacks her love of Terminator 2, watching Chloë Grace Moretz’s face for hours, and the life lesson she learned from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Cheng Pei-Pei.

Roseanne Liang’s TIFF Midnight Madness winner Shadow in the Cloud landed with a blast of fresh genre energy on VOD platforms on New Year’s Day. It’s A-class action in a B-grade body, cramming plenty into its taut 83 minutes, including: a top-secret package, a freakish gremlin, a hostile bunch of Air Force dudes, outrageous stunts, dogfights and a fake wartime PSA that feels remarkably real.

Throughout, the camera is focused mostly on one face—Chloë Grace Moretz’s, playing British flight officer Maude Garrett—as she tackles all of the above from a claustrophobic ball turret hanging under a B-17 Flying Fortress, on a classified mission over the Pacific Ocean during World War II.

While the film’s tonal swings are confusing to some, schlock enthusiasts and genre lovers on Letterboxd have embraced the film’s intentionally outlandish sensibility, which “makes excellent use of its genre mash to create an unpredictable, guilty pleasure,” says Mirza. Fajar writes that “it felt like the people involved in this project knew how ridiculous it is and gave a hundred and ten percent to make it work. Someday, it will become a cult classic.” Mawbey agrees: “It really goes off the rails in all the best ways during the final third, and the last couple of shots are just perfect.”

Chloë Grace Moretz and her top-secret package in ‘Shadow in the Cloud’.

To most of the world, Liang is a so-called “emerging” director, when in fact, the mother-of-two, born in New Zealand to Chinese parents, has been at this game for the past two decades. She has helmed a documentary and a romantic drama, both based on her own marriage; a 2008 short called Take 3, which preceded Hollywood’s current conversation about representation and harassment; and Do No Harm, the splatter-tastic 2017 short in which her technical chops and fluid feel for action were on full display, and, as recorded in multiple Letterboxd reviews, established her as one to watch.

Do No Harm scored Liang valuable Hollywood representation, whereupon producer Brian Kavanaugh-Jones brought Shadow in the Cloud to her, thinking she might connect with the material. “It did connect with me on a level that is very personal,” Liang tells me. “As a woman of color, as a mother who juggles a lot.” She says Kavanaugh-Jones then went through the process of removing original writer Max Landis from the project. “He felt that Max was not a good fit for this project, or for how we like to run things. We like to be respectful and courteous and kind to each other…”

In several interviews, Liang has said she’s comfortable with film lovers choosing not to watch Shadow in the Cloud based on Landis’s early involvement. What she’s not comfortable with is her own contribution—and that of her cast and crew—being erased. While WGA rules have his name attached firmly to the project, the credit belies the reality: his thin script, reportedly stretched out to 70 pages by using a larger-than-usual font, was expanded and deepened by Liang and her collaborators.

Writer-director Roseanne Liang. / Photo by Dean O’Gorman

That team includes editor Tom Eagles, Oscar nominated for Jojo Rabbit, actor Nick Robinson (the titular Simon in Love, Simon) and Beulah Koale, a star of the Hawaii Five-Oh series. The opening newsreel was created by award-winning New Zealand animation studio Mukpuddy, after a small test audience got weirded out by the sight of a gremlin in a war film, despite well-documented WWI and WWII gremlin mythology. It’s an unnecessary but happy addition. The cartoon style was inspired by Private Snafu, a series of WWII educational cartoons scripted by none other than Dr. Seuss and directed by Looney Tunes legend Chuck Jones.

But the film ultimately hangs on Chloë Grace Moretz, who overcame cabin fever to drive home an adrenaline rush of screen craft, in which the very limits of what’s humanly possible in mid-air are tested (in ways, it must be said, that wouldn’t be questioned if it were Tom Cruise in the role). Liang would often send directions to Moretz’s ball turret via text, while her cast members delivered live dialogue from an off-set shipping container rigged with microphones. “I just never got sick of Chloë’s face and I’ve watched her hundreds, if not thousands of times. You feel her, you are her, she just engages you in a way that a huge fighting scene might not, if it’s not designed well. Giant empty spectacle is less interesting than one person in one spot, sometimes.”

Ambitious and nerdy about film in equal measure, it’s clear there’s much more to come from Liang, and I’m interested in what her most valuable lesson has been so far. Turns out, it’s a great story involving Chinese veteran Cheng Pei-Pei (Come Drink With Me’s Golden Swallow, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon’s Jade Fox), whose film training includes a tradition of remaining on set throughout filming.

Roseanne Liang on the set of ‘Shadow in the Cloud’.

That meant that, during filming of Liang’s My Wedding and Other Secrets, Cheng would stay on set when she wasn’t required. “In New Zealand, trailers are a luxury,” Liang explains. “I said ‘Don’t you want to go to the trailer that we arranged for you?’ ‘No, I just want to sit and watch.’ ‘Why do you want to watch it, you’ve seen it hundreds of times!’ And she said ‘I learn something new every time’. To Pei-Pei, the secret of life is constant education and curiosity and learning. Movies are her work and her craft and her life, and she never gets bored. If I can be like her, that’s the life, right?”

Speaking of which, it’s time we put Liang through our Life in Film interrogation.

What’s the film that made you want to become a filmmaker? Terminator 2: Judgment Day is the movie that is at the top of the mountain that I’m climbing. To me it’s the perfect blend of spectacle, action design, smarts and heart. It poses the theory that if a robot can learn the value of humanity then maybe there’s hope for the ships that are us. That’s perennial, and possibly even more pertinent today. It holds a very special place in my heart, along with Aliens, Mad Max: Fury Road, Die Hard, La Femme Nikita and Léon: The Professional.

What’s your earliest memory of watching a film? I have a cassette tape that my dad made for my grandma in 1981 (he’d send tapes back to his mother in Hong Kong). I was three years old and he had just taken us to see The Empire Strikes Back in the cinema. And he can’t talk to my grandma because I’m just going on and on about R2-D2. I will not shut up about R2-D2 and he’s like, “Yes, yes I’m trying to talk to your grandmother,” and I’m like, “But Dad! Dad! R2-D2!” So it’s actually an archive, but it’s become my memory.

What’s the most romantic film you’ve ever seen? Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It’s not the sexiest, but it’s the most romantic. That last scene, those last words where she goes “But you’re gonna be like this forever and I’m gonna be like this forever…” and he just goes “okay”. That to me is one of the most romantic scenes I’ve ever seen. It is a perfect movie.

And the scariest? If it’s a horror movie, the most scared I’ve been is The Ring. I was watching it on a VHS and I was lying on a beanbag on the floor and I was paralyzed with fear. I couldn’t move, because I felt that if I moved she’d see me! Also, American Psycho just came to me this year. I caught the twentieth anniversary of that movie, which is a terrifying film, and again, possibly more relevant now than when it was made. The scariest film that’s not a horror is Joker. It scared me how much I liked it. When I came out of the movie, I was like, “I’m scared because I kind of love it, but it’s horrible. It’s so irresponsible. I don’t wanna like this movie but goddamn, I feel it.” Like, I wanted to go on the streets and rage. In a way we’re all the Joker, we’re all the Batman. That duality, that yin and yang, is inside everyone of us. It’s universal.

What is the film that slays you every time, leaving you in a heap of tears? This is a classic one, the opening sequence of Up. The first ten minutes of Up just destroy me every time. I also saw Soul a couple of days ago and I was with the whole family and I, just, if I wasn’t with the whole family I would have been ugly-sobbing. I had a real ache in my throat after the movie because I was trying to stop [myself] from sobbing.

Tell me your favorite coming-of-age film, the film that first gave you ‘teenage feelings’? Pump Up the Volume. Christian Slater! Off the back of Pump Up the Volume, I fancied myself as a prophet and wrote a theater piece called Lemmings. Obviously the main character was a person who could see through the façade, and everyone else was following norms. “No one understands me, I’m a prophet!” So clearly I have this shitty, Joker-style megalomaniac inside of me. It was the worst play, and I don’t know why my teachers agreed for us to do a staging of it!

Christian Slater and Samantha Mathis in ‘Pump Up the Volume’ (1990).

Is there a film that you and your family love to rewatch? We’ve tried to impose our taste on our children, but they’re too young. We showed them The Princess Bride—they didn’t get it. We literally showed our babies Star Wars in their cribs. That’s how obsessive Star Wars fans we were.

Name a director and/or writer that you deeply admire for their use of the artform. I have a slightly weird answer for this. Can I just give love to Every Frame a Painting by Tony Zhou and Taylor Ramos? They are my film school. I was thinking of my love of Edgar Wright, but then I thought of their video essay on Edgar Wright and how to film comedy, and his essay on Jackie Chan and the rhythm of action and then their essay on the Coen Brothers and Shot Reverse Shot. I must have watched that 30 times ahead of the TV show that I’m making now. I started out in editorial and Tony Zhou is an editor and he talks about when to make the cut: it’s an instinct, it’s a feeling, it’s a rhythm. I realized the one thing in common that I could mention about all the films I’ve loved is Every Frame a Painting. It’s their love of movies that comes bubbling out of every single essay that they made that I just wanna shout out at this part of my career.

Were there any crucial films that you turned to in your development for Shadow in the Cloud? Indiana Jones was something that Chloë brought up—she likes the spiffiness and the humor of Indiana Jones. Sarah Connor was our touchstone for the female character. For one-person-in-one-space type stories, I watched Locke quite a lot, to figure out how they shaped tension and story and [kept] us on the edge of our seats when it’s only one person in one space. In terms of superheroes, I came back to Aliens. Not Alien. Aliens. You know, there are two types of people in this world—people who prefer Alien over Aliens, and people who prefer Aliens over Alien. But actually I think I vacillate for different reasons.

Can there be a third type of person, who thinks they’re both great, but Alien³, just, no? Maybe that’s the best group to be in. We don’t need to fight about this, we can love both of them! I was having an argument with James Wan’s company about this, because there’s a rift inside the company of people who prefer Alien over Aliens.

Okay, program a triple feature with your film as one of the three. I don’t know. Ask Ant Timpson!

I’ll ask Ant Timpson. [We did, and he replied: “Well, one has to be the Twilight Zone episode with William Shatner: Nightmare at 20,000 Feet. And then either Life (2017) or Altitude (2010).”]

Thank you Ant! I used to go to his all-nighters as a university student. He is the king of programming things.

Jake Gyllenhaal in ‘Life’ (2017).

It’s strange that we never met at one of his events! Ant would make me dress up in strange outfits and do weird skits between films. (For those who don’t know, Timpson ran the Incredibly Strange Film Festival for many years—now part of the New Zealand International Film Festival—and still runs an annual 24-Hour Movie Marathon.) So what’s a film from those events that sticks in your head as the perfect genre experience with a crowd? It was a movie about a man protecting a woman who was the girlfriend of a mafia boss: A Bittersweet Life. Not only does it have one of the sexiest Korean actors, sorry, not to objectify, but also I actually screenshot a lot of that film for pitch documents. And, do you remember a crazy Japanese movie where someone’s sitting on the floor with a clear umbrella and a woman is lactating milk? Visitor Q by Takashi Miike. I remember just how fucking crazy that was.

Finally, what was the best film you saw in 2020? I haven’t seen Nomadland yet, so keep in mind that I haven’t seen all the films this year. I have three: The Invisible Man, which I thought was just amazing. I thought [writer-director] Leigh Whannell did such a great job. The Half of It by Alice Wu, a quiet movie that I simply just adored. And then the last movie I saw at the cinema was Promising Young Woman. The hype is real.

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‘Shadow in the Cloud’ is available in select theaters and on video on demand now.

[zwei-the-penguin-with-a-pen]

‘Honeybee’

A quick Valentine’s Day fic from your friendly neighborhood Penguin, Zwei!

Fandom: RWBY

One-Shot Fluff

Words: 2115 ish

Ships: Bumbleby with a side of White Rose

Insert Song: ‘Honeybee’ by Steam Powered Giraffe. Listen to it, it jams!

Synopsis: Blake sings Yang a song during a lazy-ish day at the dorm. Bees with suffering Weiss. A hit of White Rose at the end. Was feeling mushy since it’s Heart-Shaped Candy Day. Enjoy?

Blake lay in her bottom bunk, strumming her acoustic guitar with a jazzy rhythm. She plucked and popped the strings in time, the metal vibrating against the wood and projecting the sultry sounds of her mellifluous chords. Her gold eyes gleamed like the beams of a sunset. She swayed to her rhythm, her black hair bouncing as it waved in time. Yang could hardly take her eyes away from the hairpin curve of Blake's grin. She found herself moving to Blake's tunes, her golden mane waving here and there. Yang could see her girlfriend's lips curve further upward at that, almost into a satisfied smirk. "You like my jams, Goldie?" Yang gasped, blushing bright red at Blake's question.

Ah, Blake had the power to turn Yang's face into a tomato. She was pretty good at it, although she didn't have to try. Blake gazed into Yang's eyes, the soft purple irises like lavender flowers. Once she was no longer a tomato, Yang picked her head up and grinned her confident smile back at Blake. The sight of Yang's shimmering teeth and her jawline's sharp curve caused Blake's eyes to turn to stars. She even forgot the chord she was supposed to play next. She cursed under her breath.

"GAY!" Weiss shouted playfully from her desk, where she'd been completing assignment after miserable assignment for hours now. If her hair had not already been whiter than snow, the stress of these classes would have turned it that way. It was almost like every professor at Beacon thought that their class was the only one their students were studying.

It didn't help that Ruby distracted her all the time. The rosy little redhead didn't do it intentionally; she was just too cute for her own good... or Weiss's, for that matter. What with her eyes that shone like precious metal, her perpetually smiling face perfectly framed by her bob of red-tipped brown hair, and her muscles. Good gods, Ruby's arms were shredded. Lugging around a 40 some odd pound gardening tool was no easy task, Weiss figured. Her legs were toned and muscular from ceaseless running, too.

"You would know, wouldn't you, Princess?" Blake nicked. Weiss rolled her icy blues at the remark, continuing her mountain of homework. Blake strummed a new tune, her jangly chords dancing through the room at her command. Yang stood up and danced along, making Blake's face a tomato but failing to break her concentration. Blake's changed tunes abruptly, moving into a softer piece. Yang found it hard to dance to this pattern so she took a seat on the bed next to Blake. The way Blake's fingers moved across the neck of her guitar hypnotized Yang. She almost didn't realize Blake asked her a question.

"So, you want to hear a new jam I'm working on?" Blake had asked. Yang blushed lightly as she came to and nodded.

"I'm always down to hear you, Blakey! What have you got for me?" Yang queried, her lilac eyes shining at the idea. Blake gave a half-smirk as she picked out a few notes and strummed a new beat.

"Well... there's this girl, right?"

"Yeah?" Yang played along. She could hear Weiss making exaggerated gagging noises from her desk, but she paid the Princess no mind. Her Black Cat was talking, and Blake's was the only voice the Golden Dragon cared to hear.

"We've been going kind of steady, and I'm really into her. I think she likes me almost as much, but I know I like her more." Blake's pupils seemed to widen as she looked at Yang again. Yang could get lost in the sunset of Blake's golden eyes. She blushed when one of Blake's cat ears wiggled and twitched.

"Could you two get any gayer?" Weiss casually asked, continuing to throw shade at the two Bees. The couple paid her no attention. Shade was Weiss's second language after all, so everyone in her vicinity hardly noticed it anymore.

"Ooh, did you write a song for your pretty lady friend, Kitty Cat?" Yang asked excitedly. She could feel the stars in her eyes already. Blake smirked her catty smirk again, driving Yang positively bonkers.

"I certainly did. Tell me if you think she'll enjoy it, please?" Blake replied, strumming all the while. She found the beat again once she stopped talking and began her song.

You didn't have to look my way

Your eyes still haunt me to this day

But you did, yes you did

You didn't have to say my name

Ignite my circuits, start a flame

But you DI-I-I-ID

Oh, Turpentine, erase me whole,

Because I don't want to live my life alone.

Well, I was waiting for you all my life

Oh, Why?

Set me free, my Honey-BEE-EE-EE-EE-EE!

Honey BEE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE!

Blake usually didn't look around the room while she was singing or playing the guitar, but this song was just chords so it was simple enough that she had the chance. Yang's eyes were slowly turning into hearts at the lyrics. Blake also swore she saw Weiss lightly bouncing along to her new song. If the resident Snow White enjoyed it, then the song was good. She figured she could sing one more verse and chorus, then.

You didn't have to smile at me

Your grin's the sweetest that I've ever seen

But you did, yes you did

You didn't have to offer your hand

Because since I've kissed it I am at your command

But you DI-I-I-ID

Oh, Turpentine, erase me whole

Because I don't want to live my life alone

Well, I was waiting for you all my life!

Oh, Why?

Set me free, me Honey-BEE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE

Honey-BEE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE

Blake's strumming came to a sudden stop. With her snarkiest grin, she told Yang, "That's all you get for free, Honeybee!" The hearts in Yang's eyes were all the proof Blake needed that her song was perfect.

"Oh, there's more?" Yang pleaded, putting on her best pout for good measure.

"I think I have a bridge that could work with the song... but again, I'll have to charge you to hear that."

"Name your price, my love!" Yang commanded, her voice booming through the dorm room.

"Twenty thousand Lien!" Blake joked. Weiss's face hit the table at that.

"Geez, do you think I'm made of money, Kitty Cat?" Yang replied with more pouting.

"I accept butt rubs, too. You have to match my price, though. One rub equals one Lien. That's my last offer, Honeybee!" Blake replied with a chortle. Yang laughed under her breath but attempted to maintain the conversational shenanigans if only to annoy Weiss Cream. The Princess muttered something about their exchange being 'the gayest thing she had ever heard with her own ears' but neither Blake nor Yang paid that any mind.

"As much as I love rubbing your behind, I think twenty thousand rubs might be a bit excessive..."

"If you use both hands, that would make it only ten thousand." Blake giggled at her girlfriend.

"You drive a hard bargain, Miss Belladonna! I believe I shall accept your terms!" Yang finally replied. She snuggled up close to Blake and ran her hands down Blake's back, resting each one upon one side of Blake's rear end.

"Oh, yeah, there are rules here. Butt only, nowhere lower. At least, not while we still have company..." Blake added. She was certain Weiss would get lost if they kept this up. That way they could be alone together.

"Aww, but what about your thighs? They're so soft! I'm sure Weiss Cream would get jealous, though."

"Oh, thank Gods! Ruby just messaged me! She's done with her extracurriculars, so we're supposed to hang out! I guess that means I'll be going!" Weiss spoke up, standing up from her seat at the desk and grabbing her jacket.

"See? Now she can go touch Ruby's soft thighs so she won't be jealous!" Blake joked as Weiss pulled her jacket over her arms and zipped it halfway up.

"Soft? Lies! Ruby's thighs are rock solid, just like the rest of her body!" Weiss jabbed. Her icy blue eyes widened when she realized what she had just said and to whom she had said it.

"How do you know what my sister's thighs feel like, Weiss Cream?" Yang asked in a fakely interrogating fashion. When she looked to Weiss for an answer, Weiss was no longer there. A dashed white line roughly in the shape of Weiss was all that remained. It blinked three times before disappearing entirely. "Aaaand she's gone!"

"You know those two do stuff, right? They might not do it all, but they definitely mess around a bit," Blake told Yang. She felt a rough squeeze at her left buttock. "OH BABY!" She joked. Yang leaned her head into the nape of Blake's neck and laughed. "Good Gods, don't do that!"

"You're so playful, Kitty Cat!" Yang retorted, lightly nibbling on Blake's shoulder blade and sliding one hand down one of Blake's squishy thighs. "But yes, I know they play around, and I'm good with it. Ruby really likes Weiss, and Weiss really likes her. I trust her to respect Ruby's boundaries, and I'll break her kneecaps if she doesn't. She and I have had this talk already."

"Well, that's good to know." Blake grinned as she strummed some new chords. Yang recognized this tune as a poppy rendition of 'Fly Me To The Moon'.

"Do I seriously have to rub your ass ten thousand times to hear the rest of that song?"

"Absolutely!" Blake smirked, winking one of her golden eyes at Yang. "I'll give you something good afterward, Honeybee!"

"Well, it was a breathtaking song already, Kitty Cat. I can't wait to hear the rest of it." Yang kissed Blake's neck some more, making Blake insane with desire. "I love you!" Yang spoke into Blake's neck.

"I love you too, Honeybee." Blake smiled softly, strumming away as her girlfriend's hands explored her behind.

\/\/\/\/\/

"I swear to the Gods, Ruby, you messaged me at the perfect time!" Weiss bragged to her girlfriend. The little red slayer grinned at the remark as she took a lick from her ice cream cone.

"They must have really been gaying the dorm up, huh?" Ruby replied with a chuckle, earning a laugh from Weiss. Ruby gazed into Weiss's icy blues for a long moment, as it was like staring up at the endless blue sky on a summer day. The curve of Weiss's grin when she laughed sent Ruby on a journey of noticing details about her beautiful girlfriend. There was an eyelash on her cheek, but Ruby was too distracted to say anything.

Weiss's flowing white hair moved in time with her words, waving and bouncing like falling snow in the wind. This led Ruby to Weiss's shoulders, the slim shoulders that had once carried the weight of the world. Her eyes then landed on her chest and midriff. For such a slim girl, Weiss was well put together. The slightest semblance of muscles poked out from her tight arms and washboard abdomen. Ruby loved planting kisses all over those itty bitty abs.

"Remnant to Ruby? Are you still with us?" Weiss asked, snapping Ruby back to reality.

"Sorry, Snowdrop. I was looking at your abs again..." Ruby confessed, her face turning bright red.

"Aww, look at my sweet little tomato..." Weiss teased lightly, making Ruby blush even redder. She was almost the shade she was named for at this point. Ruby's silver eyes glimmered like a piece of precious metal. Weiss caught herself looking down at Ruby's neck, her eyes traveling ever lower to see the red slayer's curves and muscles. Ruby's arms were relentlessly jacked, and her abs just wouldn't quit. She hadn't been completely honest with Yang, though; Ruby's thighs were just soft enough for Weiss to enjoy. "I just got distracted by your muscles, too..." Weiss confessed. It was her turn to become a tomato face now.

"Ha, I've still got it!" Ruby bragged. Weiss scoffed at the remark.

"We've been dating for maybe two months, Flower Pot. You haven't had the time to lose 'it' yet!" The two of them shared a laugh as they finished their ice cream. They stood up, bumping into one another by mistake. They both blushed ten shades of red at that.

"I love you, Snowdrop..." Ruby told her softly, her heart melting at the words like it always did.

"I love you, too, Gemstone..." Weiss replied. Their lips came together in a soft peck, and the two of them held hands as they left the ice cream parlor and began their walk back to the school.

\/\/\/\/\/

\/\/\/\/\/

\/\/\/\/\/