#suddenly translates only their last posts of 2018

[missmortox]

Translation:

Bill Skarsgärd and Alida Morberg's unusual name choice - the daughter's name

Alida Morberg and Bill Skarsgard have two children together.

After the birth of their second daughter, the name has been a secret for a long time.

What is the daughter's actual name?

Oona's name was secret for two years until Alida posted a photo of that birthday cake. This baby isn't even a year old. What does this publication think is a long time?

Translation:

Alida Morberg and Bill Skarsgard changed the name of their firstborn daughter

Alida and Bill have been a couple for several years and have had two children together since they met.

In the fall of 2018, the couple welcomed their first daughter. She was given a name that was later changed; the couple regretted their choice and subsequently changed their daughter's name to Ona.

More accurately if I recall correctly, Alida said she couldn't stand for the name and she changed it. Bill didn't seem to be a part of the decision the way she phrased it but I'd have to find the article again. You're right, they also didn't spell Oona's name correctly. Unless Alida has changed it again for some reason. Or it's just a typo.

Translation:

The well-known actor couple has chosen to keep their family life private and rarely share about their life together with their children.

More accurately Bill is private. Though in the recent months Alida has been more private she wasn't when Oona was first born. That was for sure. This included not only several secretly filmed videos of Bill but videos and pictures of Oona leaked as well. Maybe she's kinda private now but she's still managed to leak 5-6 pictures of the new baby on social and that leak 5-6 pictures of the bey baby on social and that weird video of her dancing with the baby and you can see her face so...way less private and secretive than they were with Oona. Sorry, she was. Bill has still been pretty private about it. Also actor couple? Bill is the actor. Alida just exists and gets into stuff because she knows Bill. Her career is non existent without him & Alida also is definitely not well known outside of Sweden but I guess since this is a Swedish tabloid maybe it makes sense to say that.

But now, months after the birth of their daughter, it's clear that the couple has given their daughter the name

Minou Xoli Inese Morberg Skarsgärd.

Alida's mother is named Inese Bergs Morberg.

Therefore, it's not impossible that the couple has given Alida's mother is named Inese Bergs Morberg.

Therefore, it's not impossible that the couple has given their second child the name Inese as a middle name after Alida's mother.

How is it clear? Where? From what I understand the public records in Sweden aren't made public until the person is at least 16 years old. However, that doesn't mean there isn't a way to look up a birth certificate that journalists know about and the general public doesn't have access to. However, why would they? Bill isn't nearly as A-list as he was as Pennywise right now. There was no article about this at all when Oona was born (or less than a year after) why is a tabloid suddenly so interested in the second child instead of the first? My theory here is that Alida 100% sent this to them and/or possibly paid someone to publish it. This is barely news and a lot of it is really old like the interview from when Alida said she changed Oona's name and the quote from her Instagram when she said she was "in the baby bubble". I can't believe Alida didn't incentivize someone to publish this just because she wanted to add the last name Skarsgard to the child's name. This is probably some PR attempt to insist the two of them are still together and happy amidst all the breakup rumors. However, since Bill is intent on the privacy of the kids and she has now leaked both names (even though I'm sure she'll claim she had nothing to do with this even though no one would be interested in it if she didn't make it happen) I wonder what will come of it. Part of me wants to say that the article has to be inaccurate or for some reason made up but Alida is such a nobody bimbo idiot why would any reporter dig up this baby's name to put in an article if Alida or her PR people didn't send them the information? Send thoughts on that if you'd like.

[ilhoonftw]

people suddenly liking yąmapi pisses me off bc i am an ex-fan and i have so much to say

his career didn't suffer, he's busy acting (even tho his dead fish eyes make watching him try to emote unbearable) he only had to leave johnny entertaiment but since the nonce founder kicked the bucket it's easier for ex-johnny talents to survive (at least imho). i know his fans defend him by saying 'she lied about her age' but do you really think this was the first time he did something like this

[beihonglin]

[TRANS] 181231 徐圣恩PLanB Xu Shengen Weibo Update

The last package of 2018 has been received! Wearing my new shoes and holding your hand, let’s finish up 2018 and welcome 2019 together! @ my Sundaes, thank you! Rush forward! Thank you for always being by my side! 2019！Remember my name！Rise to fame！Love u all ​​​​

[strmbringer]

Hey! Your post theory about Louis being still alive is super interesting! Although I do feel the need to point out- mostly to know what you think about it, that when Vani had a fever, I actually think he was trying to say "Luna", and the translation just messed up (wouldn't be the first time, though rarer nowadays, not impossible)

Hello hello!! First off, thank you!! I’m happy to hear you and so many others found it worth the read!

I can totally see what you mean about Vanitas actually trying to say Luna’s name instead. And yes you are totally right about translation errors occurring in manga. 

Personally, I don’t fully buy into it being a translation error because the chapter where this occurred, chapter 27, was released a while ago. I only started reading vnc last year so my apologies if the dates are wrong but I’m going according to the author’s wiki. 

So, according to the wiki, chapter 27 was released in 2018. Admittedly, I don’t know much in regards to how translating manga works, and how long it takes for errors to be corrected. However it still seems like a long time for an error to have remain uncorrected all this time. 

Also, when I searched up many different translation versions for vnc they all had it translated as “lou” and from what I’ve seen before when I’ve read a manga on different websites, there will be inconsistencies between the versions. So seeing as each one I found had “lou” as the translation, I personally don’t see it being “lu”. 

The other reason I don’t fully buy into Vanitas actually trying to say “lu” as in Luna is mostly because this author is known for throwing curveballs throughout her mangas. The obvious answer sometimes isn’t the right answer. 

I mean look at Pandora Hearts. It has curveball after curveball and the direction you originally thought it was going in wasn’t the case. (I’m reading it for the first time right now and omg I am a mESS!)

In this case, Luna’s name, for me, would be the obvious answer because of how interwoven Luna and Vanitas’ stories are. There’s really nothing else to it about why I think it’s “lou” as in Louis other than it’s not the obvious answer. Vanitas’ story is connected with Luna’s story. Noe’s story is connected with Louis and Dominique. The part that makes it not obvious would be to suddenly flip it, not completely but just enough. This would be done with Vanitas’ story suddenly being connected with Louis (or Dominique) or Noe’s being suddenly connected with Luna. 

From what we’ve seen so far, there is no connection with Luna for Noe. There may be one revealed for all we know later but for now there is none. So wouldn’t it be interesting if suddenly Vanitas’ does connect with Louis. Wouldn’t it be an interesting curveball if Vanitas’ story not only connects to Louis but through Louis has connected to Noe before they even knew of one another? 

Hopefully this makes sense! And thank you for the question, anon!! It’s been fun explaining my reasoning 💛

[kellyvela]

There was one person who commented on grrm blog about Dany being their most hated character and hoping she would die. Grrm replied 'tsk tsk'. Do you know about that post?

This one?

The comment, now deleted, is from this post: Dany and the Dragons - Jul. 8th, 2013.

What about it? Is this about targies clinging to that "tsk tsk" for their lives?

I remember that the user belomor555 wrote that comment as an answer to another user mentioning them, as you can see here:

I like the conversation under grrm's comment, because those users didn't assume that George was saying he won't kill Dany:

We also know that when someone said to George that he’s not allowed to kill Dany, he answered that "Parris has proclaimed that Arya cannot die!" [Source]

Classic George!

But what is that "tsk tsk" compared to all this:

July 21, 2018

In the earlier published Targaryen family tree as found in The World of Ice & Fire, Princess Daenerys did not exist. In her place was Prince Aeryn Targaryen, Jaehaerys and Alysanne’s sixthborn son who died young. Besides Aeryn having been exchanged for Daenerys, several other children of Jaehaerys and Alysanne were shifted in their order of birth.

Regarding these changes, Elio Garcia has stated the following:

… George had some new ideas for some of the names and the stories of the children who died young, and corrected some issues that came out of his original birth order (we actually got the names of all the kids quite late in the production of TWoIaF—literally a month before we had to finalize the book—so there was not much time to interrogate it). However, the stories of those who live to adulthood, as published in TWoIaF, do remain the same (just, of course, much more detailed).

[Source]

November 20, 2018

Jaehaerys loved all three children fiercely, but from the moment Aemon was born, the king began to speak of him as his heir, to Queen Alysanne’s displeasure. “Daenerys is older,” she would remind His Grace. “She is first in line; she should be queen.” The king would never disagree, except to say, “She shall be queen, when she and Aemon marry. They will rule together, just as we have.” But Benifer could see that the king’s words did not entirely please the queen, as he noted in his letters.

(…)

It was the hour of the owl when Queen Alysanne was awoken by her daughter shaking her gently by the arm. “Mother,” Princess Daenerys said, “I’m cold.”

There is no need to dwell on all that followed. Daenerys Targaryen was the darling of the realm, and all that could be done for any man was done for her. There were prayers and poultices, hot soups and scalding baths, blankets and furs and hot stones, nettle tea. The princess was six, and years past being weaned, but a wet nurse was summoned, for there were some who believed that mother’s milk could cure the Shivers. Maesters came and went, septons and septas prayed, the king commanded that a hundred new ratcatchers be hired at once, and offered a silver stag for every dead rat, grey or black. Daenerys wanted her kitten, and her kitten was brought to her, though as her shivering grew more violent it squirmed from her grasp and scratched her hand. Near dawn, Jaehaerys bolted to his feet shouting that a dragon was needed, that his daughter must have a dragon, and ravens took wing for Dragonstone, instructing the Dragonkeepers there to bring a hatchling to the Red Keep at once.

None of it mattered. A day and a half after she had woken her mother from sleep complaining of feeling cold, the little princess was dead. The queen collapsed in the king’s arms, shaking so violently that some feared she had the Shivers too.”

—Fire & Blood - Volume I

May 19, 2019

Standing before the Iron Throne, Dany steps forward and kisses the man she loves. A perfect kiss, an expression of pure love and passion.

We push in on them until we’re tight on their faces – their eyes closed, his hand behind her head, her hand on his cheek.

Dany’s eyes open suddenly as she draws a sharp breath.

Jon’s eyes open as well, already filling with tears. For a moment, neither moves, as if moving will make this real.

In a wider angle, we see Jon with his hand still on the hilt of the dagger he just lodged in Dany’s heart.

Her strength leaves her and she collapses to the marble; he keeps her in his arms as she falls, kneeling down to the floor beside her.

He looks down at what he’s done. Terrible. And necessary. He hopes for one last moment with her.

But her eyes are already glazing over. Winter has come to the Throne Room. Dany lies dead in his arms, Pieta-style, as the snow drifts down.

—GAME OF THRONES “The Iron Throne” - Written by David Benioff & D.B. Weiss - Based on A Song of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin

January 19, 2020

WELT: Again: We know what will happen to the Mother of Dragons. How do you want to surpass that in a novel – with an alternative literary version?

GRRM: Counter question: How many children did Scarlett O'Hara have? In Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone with the Wind” she had three children. But in the cinema version of the novels she only had one child. Which version is the only one valid - the one with one or the other with three children? The answer is: neither. Because Scarlett O'Hara never existed, she is a fictional character, not a real person, who would have had real children. Or take “The Little Mermaid”. We know her from the fairytale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen and from the Disney movie. Which one is the true mermaid? Well, mermaids do not exist. So you can chose the version that you personally like the best. Changes are inevitable in this process. Even if the adaption is as faithful to the literary source material as it was the case with “Game of Thrones”.

—GEORGE R. R. MARTIN “Die Leute kennen ein Ende – nicht das Ende” - WELT 2020 - (Translation)

April 18, 2021

Q: It is my impression that there are parallels between Westeros history and current events in ASOIAF. so in your opinion to what degree is George martin’s history cyclical? Because we have a lot of parallels. For example with the current history and the dance of the dragons.

Elio: You know George even uses that line from talking about the the arms of house Toland, the dragon eating its tail, but it was from the Archmaester Rigney which is a reference to Robert Jordan the writer of the wheel of time, that history is a wheel or time as a circle. I think George certainly deliberately sees, creates parallels. I mean this is a very obvious example, you know if you read The World of Ice and Fire, you saw the family tree of the Targaryens, and the family tree for Jaehaerys and his offspring changes quite a lot when fire and blood comes out. Because George realized that he wanted to create a kind of parallel by introducing another Daenerys. and he said like, i like the symmetry of it, I like the the sort of the way. You could perhaps read it as reflecting on Daenerys’s story, maybe. I wish it was true. I mean I think fans of Daenerys need to be really worried about what’s going to happen to her. Although I guess Game of Thrones maybe has revealed kind of where things may possibly end. Again the journey is going to be very different. I think you know circumstances, things are going to be very different. So there’s a journey that matters. But in any case, so yes I think George uses cycles and things a bit. He likes setting up parallels of events, he likes paralleling characters, he likes paralleling events, and he likes paralleling the past and the present as well.

Linda: I think certainly that when he fleshed out the details of Fire and Blood, even when he first did the sidebars for The World of Ice and Fire, and they just grew. We could see that, okay here he’s looking at foreshadowing or commenting on current events by doing a similar scenario in the past and he definitely likes to play around with those aspects.

[Source]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[nctsjiho]

Lost Boy

warnings: none

era: fall 2018

❀ JiHo and Winwin go on a little mission to find a lost child’s parents

“I don’t know who’s idea it was to leave an 18 year old and an awkward foreigner boy alone in a foreign country, but the idea doesn’t sound the brightest.” JiHo noted while she scanned her surroundings. Winwin took slight offence to the comment and pushed her arm. “Hey! I’m not awkward.” The girl only sent him a smirk before looking around again.

The pair were outside in a less busy area of LA, while their manager went inside a store to grab some essentials. Normally something like that wouldn’t be allowed by the company so the manager had made JiHo and Winwin promise they wouldn’t tell anyone about it. Of course JiHo took advantage of the situation by requesting the manager would buy them some snacks - which also wasn’t allowed during JiHo’s diet, but the manager had to choose between potentially loosing his job, or just getting told of for letting JiHo break her diet. The decision was easily made.

While Winwin and JiHo immersed themselves in a casual conversation, JiHo suddenly felt a tug at her jacket. A little shocked at the unexpected movement, the girl looked down to see a small boy looking up at her. He must have only been around 5 years old, which made JiHo confused about who would let such a young child alone. But by the looks of the boy’s wide and teary eyes, it was definitely a case of a lost child, probably scared out of his mind.

JiHo’s features immediately softened, not wanting her underlying panic and concern for the boy affect the kid. “Hey little guy, what are you doing here alone?” JiHo asked in English and crouched down so she was at eye level with him. The little boy, however, didn’t respond. His lips were slightly trembling and his tears pooled at the corner of his eyes.

Winwin, who felt as shocked to see the lost child, crouched down as well and when the boy faced him he waved. “Hello.” He greeted in Korean, which had JiHo roll her eyes. “You weirdo, he doesn’t understand Korean. We’re in America.” She scolded, hitting her friend’s arm lightly. “You don’t know that.” Winwin retaliated. 

Before JiHo could fire back, the “arguing” friends heard a little giggle from the young boy. They both looked at the boy with smiles growing on their faces. “We sound funny don’t we?” JiHo asked and the young boy nodded, causing JiHo to laugh. She quickly translated to Winwin who found it endearing as well.

“What’s your name?” “Jonas.” The boy started to feel shy and casted his gaze on the floor. “Hi Jonas.” Winwin’s sweet tone completely stole the young boy’s heart as he now confidently smiled at Winwin. “No matter where we are, no matter who it is, everyone always falls in love with you.” JiHo snickered to which the older boy shrugged and then continued to wave at Jonas.

“What happened Jonas? Where are your parents?” The boy looked up at JiHo before explaining that they were with him at the park nearby and then suddenly he couldn’t see them anymore. “Did you cross the street all by yourself?” Jonas nodded as his eyes began to fill with even more tears. “Hey, don’t cry. We’ll go find your parents, but you should never cross the street by yourself okay?” Again the boy nodded and JiHo stood up.

Not really understanding what JiHo had just said, Winwin followed her lead and stood up as well. “What are we doing?” Winwin asked and JiHo’s eyes fell on the store their manager walked into about 5 minutes ago. “We’re going to find Jonas’ parents.” She looked at the small boy who was holding onto her hand and looking around the street, hoping to find his parents.

Winwin felt a bit uneasy, even though he wanted to help the child, their manager had no idea what was happening and had “ordered” them to wait outside and not move until he was back. JiHo noticed her friend’s inner turmoil and groaned. “If I have to I’ll go alone, but I’m not letting a kid go and find his parents alone in the late afternoon.” “But can’t we wait till hyung is back and go together?” Winwin tried to compromise. “We don’t know how long he’s going to be in there, and I don’t know how long his parents have been looking for their son. They must feel devastated.”

JiHo noticed how cold Jonas’ hand was so she took her jacket of and wrapped it around the little boy’s shoulders. “I’ll carry you.” She crouched down and Jonas wrapped his tiny arms around JiHo’s neck as he let her pick him up. “I’m going to look for his parents. You’re free to come or stay here, but I’m going.” JiHo told Winwin and then left in the direction of the park.

Winwin did a double take of the store before running and catching up to JiHo and Jonas. “I’m not letting you go alone.” He mumbled, to which JiHo felt a smile creeping on her lips.

Once they enter the park, JiHo asks Jonas a few questions like, “Where was the last place you saw your parents?” and “Did you see in which direction they left?”. Jonas wasn’t much of a help since he didn’t remember much. Yet JiHo completely understood, the boy lost his parents, he must have been so scared and panicked.

5 minutes went by, but they felt like at least half an hour and still they hadn’t found Jonas’ parents. Noticing how the small boy started to become a bit more restless Winwin came up with an idea. “I’ll carry him and you can run around and ask people if you have seen his parents.” Winwin suggested to which JiHo agreed. She handed over Jonas to Winwin who tried his best to entertain the boy. His English skills were very minimal, but Jonas seemed to prefer him saying things in Korean anyway. Each time he did, it elicited a giggle or a smile.

All Winwin had to do was keep Jonas calm, so JiHo could run around and hopefully find Jonas’ parents as soon as possible. He hated the fact that JiHo was running around alone at 5 pm on a particularly cold day, in nothing but a t-shirt and jeans. Her jacket was still wrapped around Jonas, who seemed to appreciate the warmth it provided.

Winwin’s mind was clouded with so many thoughts, what if they didn’t find Jonas’ parents? What if something happened to JiHo? She was only 18 - technically speaking 17, her birthday was in a few months -  in a foreign country, with no supervision. Speaking of supervision, how was their manger going to react? Had he already left the store? Had he noticed him and JiHo weren’t there yet? How-

“Jonas!” “My baby!” Winwin’s head snapped to the direction of the screams. There he saw JiHo and two adults running towards them. “Mommy! Daddy!” The little boy screamed, happy to see his parents again. Quickly, Jonas was scooped out of Winwin’s grasp by the little boy’s father. “Thank you two so much! Oh my God, I was so scared!” The mother cried and pulled JiHo in a hug.

Once the mother stopped crying and had hugged her child, they turned to the two idols. “Thank you again! Thanks for taking care of my little boy.” The father said, trying to calm down his rapidly beating heart. “No worries, your son is such a nice boy.” JiHo explained while she got her jacket handed back. “How could I ever repay you?” JiHo held up her hands explaining that they were okay and didn’t need anything. “Did they take good care of you?” The father asked Jonas who then excitedly started telling about how nice JiHo was and how funny Winwin and JiHo talked to each other. It melted both their hearts and then they waved the family goodbye after getting a last hug from the boy.

“He was cute.” Winwin smiled to which JiHo agreed. She then poked his shoulder twice. “We should head back, oppa isn’t going to be happy-” “YOU TWO!” As if on cue, their manager appears, sweat was dripping of his temples as he approached them. “I told you to wait in front of the store! I could already see my career- no, my whole life flash in front of my eyes!” JiHo and Winwin look at their manager with a sheepish grin. “Why are you here?” Winwin then explained what happened and their manager’s gaze softened.

“Next time, don’t forget your phones in the hotel okay? I was worried sick, but thank God you’re both fine.” The manager patted both idols’ shoulders. “And you did something amazing. I’m happy you found that little boy’s parents. I think I almost can relate to his parents.” JiHo cooed at their manager and looked up at him with big eyes. “Aw~ You care about us like we’re your own children?” JiHo teased which caused Winwin to laugh. “Never mind. Maybe I shouldn’t have come to find you.” He groaned.

“Me?! Why are you looking at me only? What about Winwin?!” JiHo asked offended. “What do you mean, JiHo? Didn’t you say everyone always falls in love with me?” The boy wiggled his brow as he mocked the girl. She rolled her eyes while looking at the manager. “Yeah, I think I prefer Winwin right now. Here you go buddy.” He hands him the snacks he got for him earlier. “What about mine?” The manager laughed. “I stress binge ate your snack while I was looking for you guys.” JiHo stopped in her tracks, mouth fallen open while the other two continue to walk. “That’s so unfair.” JiHo mumbled but quickly rushed to catch up with the others.

“Be careful what you say oppa. I can tell SM about how you left us alone outside-” “Here!” He shoved a bag of snacks into JiHo’s hands which made her smile sweetly. “Have I ever told you, you are my favourite manager?” JiHo beamed while opening the snack. “Shut up and eat.” He grumbled.

---

Side Note: Long overdue Winwin writing, there’s still a few members that I haven’t written for, so I’m slowly getting there. The member’s I haven’t written for, funnily enough, are some of the ones that I want to write for the most, but I’m having a hard time finding the perfect stories for them. Just letting you know, so you know that I love them as much as the other members. I know Haechan and Doyoung appear on this blog the most, (and I might have another Doyoung angst in my drafts) but that isn’t because I like them more, I love all NCT members equally. <3

Also posting 2 days in a row because I felt inspired and I might have given up on an assignment for this

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

Let’s talk: Film Out - lyric and MV analysis (+ BU theories) - Part 1

by Admin 1

From infinitetab: Hi Admins! Were you able to see the MV for Film Out?

Mostly to Admin 1 (though both can chime in!) who posted the related post and talked about BU theories — how did you feel about the MV? Do you think it ties to the BU picture? Since it was a Japanese song of theirs I didn’t really connect dots just yet, but now I feel like I need to re-watch this with my conspiracy hat on, as well as their other Japanese MVs to see if there is a connection haha — did I miss it or were there some shots from the teaser that weren’t in the final version?

(Admittedly, I don’t know much about the BU and all its theories/plots/interconnectedness — I’ve been interested to look into it but didn’t know where to start haha — do you have any resources/posts you’d direct a newbie to?)

Thank you for all your lovely thoughts via your posts. Have a good day! ☀️😁

We were indeed able to see it, I even watched it a bunch of time to take note of different details and so I’d be able to try and figure out how to even begin writing a proper reply to this since there is a lot to discuss. The funny thing is, I said to myself hey, let’s try to keep this brief, okay? But it’s me so who am I even trying to fool with that one.

I’d like to preface this by saying that, looking at the lyrics and the meaning of Film Out, the MV, which fits it beautifully, doesn’t have to necessarily connect to the BU but there are many parallels and things that fit a little too well to just be a coincidence. So, while it doesn’t have to connect, and therefore I don’t have to be right with literally any of my thoughts, interpretations and theories, there is a chance that both is true at the same time. Unless they’d tell us, we’ll never know, but isn’t this truly the fun of it all? Finding clues and piecing together the BU? After all that’s what we used to do for a long time until BH decided we were too “stupid” to get it, so they helped us with additional content in hopes of it making things clearer. It did, but it also made it all even more complex and hard to grasp.

This analysis will be split up into two posts:

Part 1 – the meaning of the song/lyrics – in short it could be summarized by a sense of longing/yearning for something that once was, or even never really was at all, like a phantom pain or Schrödinger’s memories. It’s the beauty of how ephemeral everything in life is and how memories are sometimes all we have left or can hold on to, even if they aren’t necessarily real at all.

Part 2 – Film Out MV and the BU – a brief explanation of what the BU is, an introduction into the plot and where to start if you want to get into the BU, and how the MV fits in with it and what the different scenes could mean and be interpreted as, as well as a few additional overarching theories for the entire MV instead of particular scenes.

Part 1 – the meaning of the song and a (very) brief analysis of the lyrics:

According to articles and some of our Japanese translators who are able to grasp the deeper nuance of Japanese that does not perfectly translate into English, the song is about this feeling of longing for someone/something that was once there but is no longer, or even the longing for something that was never even there in the first place.

You, in my imagination

Are so vivid

As if you are right there

But I reach out my hand

And you suddenly disappear

(here our translators, specifically kookceptional, noted how disappear, or rather vanished, in this instance describes a sadness from the inability to control the disappearance of someone who was never actually there.)

It’s this idea that you’ve honed in so deeply on your memories that they’ve become vivid, almost real, making it only so much harder to accept that they are just memories, or even just figments of your imagination. The lyrics also talk about projecting those memories across a room, like a movie or pictures, captured memories, two glasses that have been left untouched, these sounds and smells that bring you back to those memories over and over again and make you only cling to them so much more desperately. It causes you bursts of pain, as the lyrics suggest.

There’s also mention of how when you reach out, you/that something disappears, it’s like when you observe something beautiful, like cherry blossom petals falling from a tree and drifting through the wind, but once you decide to take a picture of it, by the time you have your camera/phone in hand, the moment is gone. It can’t be repeated in that exact same way once again, and instead of existing forever in a picture, it’s now only part of your memory. But over time, no matter how hard you’ll try, that memory will fade, too.

Of course, like with many BTS songs, there are many ways of interpreting the lyrics and meanings, of how you associate them with different feelings and even your own experiences, the fact that the same words resonate with us in different ways.

It’s also worth noting that Film Out is part of an OST for the Japanese remake of Signal, therefore the lyrics might have connection to the movie. Fun fact: Signal is the remake of a K-Drama with the same title from 2014 but there’s also a Japanese TV show that, too, is a remake of that K-Drama from 2018 and its opening theme was BTS’ Don’t Leave Me. The premise of the show/movie is that a walkie talkie allows two detectives, one from 2015 (cold case profiler) and the other from 1989 to solve crimes together and even try to prevent them.

Personally I’ve never seen the K-Drama nor the Japanese version so I can’t really speak on the connection between the plot of the show and the song, but if they truly manage to prevent cases from ever happening, that would mean knowing of something that was never even there, like the memories of someone who was never even there in the first place like in Film Out, though even as I type it, it sounds like quite a stretch.

If some of you have seen either, please do comment if there’s a connection to be made here or not.

A thought I had while thinking about Film Out and its meaning/lyrics was that there could be a connection loosely drawn between Let Go (here though I feel it’s important to know how deeply meaningful and weighted of a song Let Go is, seeing as it was written and released in a time where Bangtan considered disbandment and this song would’ve, in a way, acted as a sort of farewell, so again take these thoughts of mine with a grain of salt since even I’m a little iffy on if they’d connect such a deeply meaningful song to another one written for an OST), the thought that you are ready to let go of that person/thing, to say goodbye and move on, but then in Film Out you realize that you can’t, that you’re still holding on to them and trying to piece together this thing you had, this person, but that is now gone, vanished like smoke never to return again.

Example:

If my fate is to disappear like this, then this is my last letter

Penned words, written then erased (therefore words that never were/never came to be)

Feelings for you, so many to let go

Unpuzzle my lego

At a level where it can’t return to its original shape

(…)

Before we say goodbye, let go

But I’m lost in the maze of my heart (FO: From all the memories stored in my heart)

From stereo to mono

That’s how the path splits

The lyrics for Film Out are translated in the actual MV, but I also thought I’ll add the translation done by kookceptional as well as ttokminnie since they add a lot of valuable language context and nuance:

These concepts are also shown in the MV with Seokjin as the narrator watching the scene inside the room (note how all seven are inside it) but they are frozen, like this picture of how times were once so happy and they were all together but as the MV progresses, the members vanish as Seokjin watches on, the room quite literally explodes as though his memories are obliterated (by the realization that they were never real in the first place? That their time ran out?) and thus can’t be pieced together again, or maybe it was all just an illusion all along. It feels like Seokjin is watching those memories being projected, a film from inside of him being played outward, so seemingly close and real yet he can’t reach it, can’t be part of it again, can only feel the pain these memories have left behind.

[dappersheep]

Food Fantasy: An Analysis on what killed a Golden Goose (2/3)

Welcome back. Before we get started, disclaimers again! I do not own the game or its characters, nor do I claim to know the history and future of the game. What I am entitled to are the thoughts and opinions written within this post. You may or may not agree with the points spoken of here. This post also remains untagged from the main foofan tag. Only my followers will see this.

We are now on the second part, so let's go forward under the cut!

Elex

And here we have our beloved global publisher that most of seem to have Stockholm Syndrome for. Don't lie, at least half of us are still playing this damned game due to sunken cost fallacy, sunken time fallacy and the cute/hot jpegs.

In 2018, everything started out fine. Sure, maybe we had some translation mishaps here and there -coughwe'llgettothatwreckagelatercough- but overall, Elex was running the game fairly well. Rewards were on time, we had active social media and support, and a discord was set up!

Hint: Please note I use quite a bit of sarcasm in most everything I say.

And then somewhere along that road, things got derailed. And I mean it like, we're in the midst of a trainwreck in slow motion and we've only cleared the initial collision and still hurtling forward or backward into a steel wreckage ticking inferno.

Problems started cropping up as early as late 2018, just a few months after the game was launched in July.

⦁ Art contest mishaps. You know when you hold an art contest on Facebook out of all places with its shitty tagging system, you're bound to have entries lost to the void, people forced to register an FB account just to participate (seriously, who even has an FB account that isn't just there to appease family members?) and having to wrestle with figuring out how FB's tagging system works. Add to that the panel of judges happen to be Elex staff who don't have a good eye for good artwork (we actually had a kiddy figure drawing win over a well drawn one during the last contest!) and that they ALSO weren't very good at organizing such contests on FB... well, we had several grievances over that.

⦁ Region blocked FB announcements. Strangely enough, I stopped getting announcements around Father's Day of 2019 while everyone else outside of SEA kept getting updates. Turns out that someone on Elex's staff really didn't like SEA players or was just really bad at fixing the settings for the group and never bothered to revert it back. It didn't matter in the long run though, because...

⦁ Abandoned social media platforms. FooFan Twitter, FooFan Facebook... they all floated slowly into the void and was never heard from again. And this was before the 2020 pandemic.

⦁ Remember what I said about Discord? Yeah, apparently, they opened one up a little too early and the staff in charge of it knew zero about how to setup and mod a discord community, and didn't even have the manpower needed to mod the influx of members that came in! Suffice to say, they had to get help from top players and mods from the FB groups to come in and sort things out because someone kept pinging @ everyone every few seconds other than the usual chaos that comes from a server with no filters and people trying to turn the discord into Global Chat 2.0, minus Russian hours.

⦁ Also in line with the point about abandoned social media platforms, they've also mostly abandoned the discord too and only pop in once in a while to check the bug reports or lost accounts. You have a slightly better chance of response with the in-game support. Only slightly. And there's a running joke with several variations on the main discord that the Owner account of the discord server was manned by an intern-kun who never bothered to pass it on to the next unfortunate soul left to maintain this game.

⦁ Favoritism. Funtoy is also guilty of this but they don't publish the game for Global. If you're a top spender the likes of maxing out your cash rebates within the three months or so and you kept spending even beyond that, Elex could possibly invite you to a funky little club where your voice is more important than say... 99% of the playerbase. On top of that, if you keep spending, you could technically also ask for stuff like getting this frame over that frame, or well.... delay certain features from coming to Global for over a year. Now you can simp AND be heard! (Note: In 2021, it's possible that that club may be dead too, as all things shall be)

⦁ SJW Friendly. I don't know if Funtoy themselves have anything to also do with this particular decision... but it's saying something that after a certain little tiddy tantrum from the community side, Elex decided not to announce anything about a certain event's fate and when asked by it by other parties (not me) they either lie through their teeth, or beat around the bush with a non-answer.

⦁ Partial translations, mistranslations. Now, I understand that a lot of Chinese grammar and semantics are confusing to translate properly into several other languages, but you'd think Elex would have given their translators more context to the character or the mechanic to avoid such mistranslations that later set off gender debates or worded the skill/artifact description a little clearer. That is... unless Elex really is hands-off trying to get to know this IP from the start and only gave it the most bare minimum of English where they can cut costs for it, so people can understand it 'well enough' to throw money at an obviously not beta-read quality game.

⦁ No translations. Yes we do have certain parts of the game that are in Chinese since forever since xx patch. Some characters' voiceline texts are still in chinese, especially during the Pledge scenes. More recent artifacts are also in chinese with no announced translation in sight. And don't get me started on the Food Soul bios, or lack thereof.

⦁ Delayed events. Prime example? We had weeks of minor events/no events and still Elex managed to eff everything up for our second Anniversary in July 2020. We ended up getting the Croissant event in late August with barely any apologies and compensation for the delay... and this likely would have never arrived as 'early' as it did if people hadn't been railing about where our Anniversary event was. As it stands, we are several minor events behind CN, at least a year and a half's worth behind. I know Global had requested heavily for more spaced out events (to save resources, not that it actually worked with all the nerfed rewards we get) compared to CN but this is extremely ridiculous.

⦁ Delayed permanent features. Hm... Guild Wars, Sky Tower, Bar, that Wuchang Fish Showdown... several Quality of Life updates.... that new permanent pool update... Food Souls still missing their JP voice packs... Food Soul Bios... *slowly ticking off more than I have fingers and toes*

⦁ Customer Support is whack. You'd be lucky if you got someone who understood your problem/inquiry right off the bat AND did something about it efficiently. You'd be luckier if they answered you honestly if you were inquiring about event updates or other buggy features or reporting hackers.

⦁ The Great Turkey and Apple Incident of 2020. Well, if you were around for that little SNAFU during the Turkey re-run event, you'd know a percentage of people suddenly got logged out of their accounts and had a baller of a time trying to get their accounts back. You were especially unfortunate if you were playing on an iOS account because even if you did bind it (like a responsible player should be doing), you probably still wouldn't get it back in time to rank properly during Turkey. Some Android players also experienced this, but it wasn't as bad as what the iOS players experienced. And then there was the compensation mishap for that too.

⦁ Hacker-chan and not-so-uwu Hacker-teme. Hacker-chan is a meme. Hacker-chan was a harmless player who regularly topped in Top Showdown every week for a time to send a message to Elex just how easy it is to hack the game in certain rankings and invited Elex to ban them every time, just to test how competent Elex is. In the end, Elex has proven to be incompetent and also glaringly stupid about how their published game works. Hacker-teme is a collective of individuals over time who have cheated the game during important ranking events or in somewhat important permanent battles. If you tried to report a Hacker-teme with evidence to prove it -and trust me, people repeatedly have-, Elex would tell you that they're not cheating and/or lie through their teeth that they're 'investigating the case' and then not do anything about it and let them keep their event ranking and thus get the rewards while someone who actually worked hard/whaled hard to get the spot gets denied. In one case, they believe that if an account has rebate points and the player level is at least around level 80, then the hacker-teme is obviously playing the game fairly. Never mind that their units happened to have low to no artifact nodes opened, and not high in ascension.

And that is the end of the Elex saga. I'm aware there's likely more things about Elex that I've missed, but feel free to add on to this analysis post with your own thoughts.

The last part of this trilogy is probably what many of us are waiting for, for obvious reasons.

[forestwater87]

I'm screaming. I just realized this was the legendary Forest Water from Ao3, the creator of the fandom last names Santos and Greenwood, and I didn't know all this time?! What?! I can't actually believe it. Your stuff is legendary! I really enjoy your fanfiction, and you're a great creator. Any advice for a fanfic writer who starts to write a Gwenvid longfic? Any tips on how to become a sucessful fandom memeber? Sorry this is so long, I just really enjoy your work!

These two happened to dovetail really nicely, so I wanted to respond to them in a single (very long) post. I’ve talked a little about getting started writing in the past, but specifically about writing Gwenvid? That’s a little different, and interesting to explore.

I think, anyway. But I always find Gwenvid interesting.

1. Thank you! 

I don’t consider myself especially famous or special -- certainly not anymore, when my updates to my flagship fic are annual at best -- so it’s a little weird that there are people looking at me like that. However, it’s also really touching and encouraging, so I’m at a loss for words. Not sure how to respond to such kind comments, so . . . you know, thanks.

2. Writing Gwenvid -- especially longfic

Here’s the thing: There isn’t a single fic I’ve written that I expected to become long. The first “Tigger & Eeyore” was supposed to be like 5 chapters and then ballooned into 14 and a sequel (which it’s now looking like is going to explode into its own sequel, so yikes). 

There’s a reason they’re called plotbunnies: they multiply like crazy. So if you have a single-shot idea or shortfic that you’re not sure will have legs, just start writing it. It might end up wrapping up rather quickly and you can move on to the next idea without it hanging over your head, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes something much larger totally organically.

Also, keep your plots kind of . . . vague? At least, in my experience I’ve found that helps. A generic idea of the world you want to build and a couple set pieces (i.e., major conflicts or story beats) gives you room to play around without pressure to make it “add up to” something. I’ve never written a fic that had a story in the first 4-5 chapters, and that’s how I like it. It’ll . . . just sort of materialize, while you’re exploring the world.

I mean, if you want to write a tightly-paced epic with a twisty, intricate plot, then you’re going to want to find an author who does that sort of thing. My stories tend to be a lot more meandering.

OH! Also get really flowery with your language. Eats up word counts like Wheaties.

Okay, but Gwenvid specifically: if you want to be mostly canon-compliant, the big thing is that we only see them in the context of this one improbably long summer. There are years of story before and after that point that we’ll never get to see, and I think it’s really interesting. (Especially the before part; I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone write a “prequel” to Camp Camp, but how fun is that idea???) When it comes to “fill in the blanks” fanfic writing, it’s really nice to have a story, relationship, and world with so many blanks. There’s a lot you can do just by writing about what they’re up to the rest of the year.

As for AUs: go nuts. Fucking go wild, you funky lil person. Groundhog Day. Ghostbusters. Lost in Translation. Movies that don’t star Bill Murray, probably. Find a straight couple and make them Gwenvid, and go goddamn bonkers with the possibilities. Find a world with Gwenvid-like characters and make them Gwenvid. The possibilities are literally endless. 

3. Fandom engagement and being a BNF

Huh. Not sure where to go with this one.

Like I said, I don’t consider myself much of a BNF (that’s “big-name fan,” for those of you who might have a life outside of tumblr) -- certainly not anymore. And honestly, becoming “popular” in this economy fandom isn’t . . . necessarily going to be super easy.

I mean, don’t get me wrong! The fandom isn’t dead by any means; people are still writing, and still being read. But if you look at the track record over time:

Average kudos counts of Forestwater’s fics by year:

2016: 574

2017: 277

2018: 79

2019: 60

2020: 50

(if you ever wondered why I had a serious emotional crisis about the quality of my writing and general popularity in 2018 and 2019, that drop should tell you a lot)

Now, some of this is certainly my fault. The most important thing when it comes to fandom success is engagement: the more you write, the more attention you’re going to get. If you can stick to a regular update schedule, you’re going to be on the front page and in the top of the tags, and people will see your stuff and be more likely to read it. And attention is self-generating, because the more kudos and hits you have, the more people are going to check out your work just to see what the big deal is. So getting laid off and deeply depressed, then not updating at a time when the fandom was already beginning a pretty steady downward trajectory anyway . . . was not my best move in terms of relevance.

And engagement doesn’t necessarily have to mean updates, by the way! (Though you should update regularly if you want the attention.) Sharing headcanons, answering asks, starting fandom drama and ship wars . . . that’s all the kind of thing that establishes you as an authority; even if people think you’re wrong, they’ll think you’re someone whose opinion is worth disagreeing with, if they see you mouthing off in the tags enough. 

I’m not confident this is a good call, but Snowqueens Icedragon didn’t get massive fandom success by not starting flame wars, is all I’m saying. 

If you have the spoons to answer questions, people will want to ask them. No one wants to talk to someone who won’t reply to them. The most popular artists and authors are always going to be the ones who interact with the fandom the most. Higher output, more attention, more praise. I’m not saying it’s fair -- in fact, it very well might not be -- but that’s the nature of the beast.

Also, play to the fandom. Camp Camp fans want to see dadvid. They want to see dan/vid. They want to see Max-centric content, and they probably want it to be angsty. They want to see self-inserts dating David. If you can give them some of that stuff (none of which is inherently bad, to be clear, nor is it inherently good; it’s just what’s popular, and tbh if you can cram it all in one fic that’d be amazing), you have the benefit of giving people exactly what they want. 

To be clear, don’t write about things that don’t inspire you; aside from it being a soul-crushing endeavor, it’s noticeable when someone’s heart just isn’t in it, and it’s even harder to keep those regular updates. But if the things you’re passionate about happen to be the things the fandom really wants to see at the moment, then you’re much closer to riding the kudos train, my friendo.

But here’s the thing: even if you do everything right, you might still get screwed.

Some of this is just due to the fact that Camp Camp is always a dead fandom in the off-seasons, and we don’t know how long this current off-season is going to last. Hell, we don’t have to look at me for this:

This is “How to Foster an Asshole” by emiartse. It’s one of the fandom’s most popular fics, with a whopping 962 kudos. Hot damn, look at that engagement. That’s a fucking fic right there!

This is the sequel, which has 122 kudos. Nothing to sneeze at, to be sure -- I think we’d all be delighted to have 122 kudos -- but even the general tendency of sequels to have less attention than a series debut doesn’t entirely explain such a precipitous drop. And emiartse is doing everything right! This is dadvid! And momgwen! It’s just as well-written as the first; it’s not like we suddenly experience a decrease in quality or anything. It came right on the heels of the first one ending, and the updates have been more or less like clockwork, in keeping with the previous story.

So what changed?

Well, HTFAA was first published in 2019, right on the heels of Season 4′s finale and when fandom hype was pretty high. HTAAA was published in September 2020, during this whole “world pandemic and every political disaster all at once” thing that’s got us all fucked up -- and especially, during a period where we all knew Camp Camp wasn’t coming back for the year, and maybe not ever.

It’s . . . not a great time to be a writer for Camp Camp if your goal is popularity. I mean, it’s never a great time to be a writer if your goal is popularity -- consider the tragic difference in notes between ellohcee’s gorgeous art and their equally-excellent writing just for comparison -- but it’s especially tough now. If you really want to be a huge name in the fandom, my suggestion is to travel back in time to 2016 and establish yourself as the pioneer of something (seriously, it can be anything; there was basically nothing in the fandom at that time. Every idea was a new one). 

So . . . what do we do when we can’t be popular? Maybe you don’t want to chain yourself to a strict update schedule, or write the twelve-thousandth iteration of the most popular fandom tropes, or you exist in 2021 when everything is terrible and no one cares about a web cartoon series. What happens then?

4. Do it anyway.

I know, I know -- that sounds hella cheesy. “Write because you love it, not for attention” is one of those statements that everyone rolls their eyes at, because seriously? Please. What’s even the point of sharing something you write if no one reads it?

Well . . . because you made it. Because it’s something that wouldn’t exist without you, and because even though there are such a tiny number of readers in a very small, very dead fandom -- those people still exist. And seeing what you wrote will make them happy. And if they have the spoons, they’ll let you know that you made them happy, which will make you happy.

I haven’t updated my major fic in a year -- haven’t updated any writing in several months. But what keeps me going is the excitement that my ideas bring me, and the pride I feel in watching them come to life. It’s like giving a gift to someone; I get really nervous and giddy whenever I post a sentence.

And does it suck when it feels like your present goes unappreciated? Yeah. If you write the first chapter of your awesome long-form Gwenvid fic and it gets like 5 or 3 or even zero notes, that’s a huge bummer. That hurts a lot, and it can crush your self-esteem worse than even the most vicious hate. But your fic isn’t going to just be around for the few hours or days that you’re watching the engagement. It’s going to be there, growing as you update it or just sitting happily in its tags, and someone is going to find it.

Your story is going to be someone’s favorite fic. I promise. 

And hell, let’s make it my favorite fic! 

If you post something -- you know what, even if you post something in a trope or ship I hate, or a fandom I’m not in, doesn’t even have to just be Camp Camp; times are hard right now and we gotta support each other -- send me the link in a personal message. (Don’t tag me, I won’t see it. I never see anything on this terrible, terrible site.) I’ll like it; I’ll give it kudos. I’ll probably even share it*, because we’re going through the lean times in this fandom. And we’re writers, so the lean times are extra lean; it’s the bone-and-dust times. 

*Okay, but I reserve the right to not support someone’s work that makes me very uncomfortable. I’ll share things I don’t personally stan, but I’m not gonna platform your “why Hitler was good, actually” essay disguised as a fanfic or anything. My 6 followers deserve better.

Write something that excites you, and then tell me about it. If you need help brainstorming, tell me about that too. 

I might not have the spoons to keep this up for a prolonged period of time, but I’ll do what I can and you’ll do what you can and together we’ll . . . idk, do something. I’m losing the thread of my great inspirational speech here.

Uhhhh TL;DR let’s just do the dang thing. If we fail we all fail together. Yay team!

[sirtadcooper]

Javier Peña and the Brown-Nosed Bear

Fandom: Narcos Category: Gen, Humour, Crack Relationships: Javier Peña & Steve Murphy Characters: Javier Peña, Steve Murphy Word Count: 1,900+ For: @djarsdin and @javierian.

Warnings: Swearing, drug mentions, crack (as in a silly idea) treated far too seriously, period inaccuracies, food, McDonald’s.

Summary: Javier Peña is not having a good day so Steve Murphy brings him a McDonald’s Happy Meal to cheer him up.

Notes: This makes no sense. The Happy Meal menu is from the UK in 2021, the toys are from 2018 and the boys are in the 1980s. But just go with it, for me, pretty please?

This, all of this, was inspired by @djarsdin’s tag “someone get this man a happy meal” under this already dryly funny post by @javierian. This is for both of you. :)

Any Spanish is from Google Translate so please forgive me if it’s wrong.

(One-shot.)

Javier Peña and the Brown-Nosed Bear

Javier is staring blankly down at a page, cigarette hanging loosely from one hand as he cups his chin with the other. The typewritten words are blurring and he’s read the same paragraph countless times now, in limbo, unable to get any further.

A small red box, having evidently just been thrown in his direction, lands with a soft thud right under his nose. Javi jerks back with a start, blurry black and white suddenly replaced with bright red and… yellow? Javi blinks, his tired eyes finally focus — it’s a McDonald’s Happy Meal.

“There,” says Steve, “now cheer the fuck up.”

He sets two soda cups down safely on the desk and throws himself down onto his chair with enough force to send it rolling backwards a few feet. Identical Happy Meal box cradled lovingly on his lap, he rolls the chair forwards with his feet until he’s close enough to his desk again to put his boots up on it.

Looking over, Steve nods meaningfully at Javi’s paperwork.

Javi follows his gaze. “Shit.”

Javi’s half cigarette has been dropping flakes of ash onto his page. He swipes the tiny flakes away with the side of his hand — when only faint grey stains remain on the crisp white paper, he rests the still lit cigarette on the rim of the ashtray and leaves it sitting there, hazy wisps of smoke rising into the air.

“You look like shit,” Steve comments needlessly around a huge bite of a chicken burger.

Javi grimaces, rubbing at his tired eyes. He feels like shit, he doesn’t need to be told, thank you, he wants to say. Instead, he says aloud, “How’d things go with your C.I.?”

Chewing noisily, Steve shrugs. “No shop talk over dinner. I’ll tell you later. Eat up.”

With a pointed look, Javi sets the paperwork aside. Perhaps he will try to finish it again later, perhaps tomorrow, or even better still it may find itself in Steve’s annoyingly sparse inbox.

Opening the red and yellow box, Javi finds a bag of fries and a box of chicken nuggets. He hadn’t realised how hungry he was — as soon as the scent of fried fast food hits his nostrils his mouth starts to water. He glances at the clock — well after four in the afternoon. Last time he had checked it was just before one.

“Oh — almost forgot.” Steve plunges his hand into his jacket pocket. First he places a tiny tub of ketchup on Javi’s side of their desk, then a wad of napkins an inch thick.

“Your kid joining us?” Javi asks, meaning the excessive collection of napkins, but concentrating on pulling the lid off the ketchup dip.

Steve, halfway through his chicken burger already, adopts an enigmatic expression. “I’ve learned to be prepared.”

Javi is absolutely ravenous — the chicken nuggets and fries after almost a day’s unintended fasting are heavenly.

They both eat in companionable silence until—

Crunch!

Javi looks up from his food, takes a moment to register what’s in front of his eyes. “What the fuck is that?”

“It’s a carrot stick.”

“What’s it doing in a kid’s meal?” Javi asks, and then, more to himself, “Why am I eating a kid’s meal?”

“One — it’s healthy. Connie and I are watching what we eat right now and trying to keep in shape.” Javi can think of other ways two married people could keep in shape, but hasn’t the chance to voice his opinion as Steve carries on, “Two — shut up, it’s tasty, ain’t it? And three — I thought it might cheer you up, you’ve been a real downer today.” He doesn’t use a finger to emphasise each point, rather a wiggle of a carrot stick with the end bitten off. Javi decides instantly that he doesn’t like that.

“I’m touched,” he says dryly, dipping a fry in his sauce. He really is touched by the kind thought from his partner, but the kind thought is wrapped in so many layers of hillbilly bullshit that it’s hard to find the words to express that. He leaves his gratitude unsaid, veers the conversation away. “How did you order all this, anyways? Your Spanish isn’t that good.”

Steve appears offended, which Javi knows to mean that he isn’t offended at all. “Hey, I know the words for ‘drug dealer’ and ‘cocaine’ and ‘gun’.”

Javi peers into his red and yellow box — only a plastic bag with something black inside remains. “I don’t see any cocaine in here,” Javi mutters under his breath, deliberately loud enough to be heard.

“These carrot sticks are better than coke, believe me,” Steve says, shoving another piece of carrot into his mouth with a triumphant grin as if that proved it.

Javi shakes his head, sips on his soda. “Lying bastard.”

Steve’s expression gives nothing away.

“I just pointed at what I wanted. Took me a few attempts but I got there in the end. How do you say carrot sticks in Spanish? Just, you know, for future reference.”

“Palo de mierda,” Javi tells him with a straight face, without hesitation.

“What?”

“Palo de mierda,” Javi says again, unrepentant — he holds in a breath, hoping that Steve doesn’t catch on. He needn’t have worried.

Steve repeats it a few times, committing the phrase to memory. Javi stuffs a whole chicken nugget in his mouth before he can laugh.

They lapse into silence again — or as silent as it can be when one of them is crunching on raw carrots.

Chicken burger and carrot sticks finished, Steve wipes mayo off of his moustache with a napkin. A few minutes later when Javi reaches for a napkin from the pile as well, Steve looks very pleased with himself.

Javi starts tidying up, collecting the leftover rubbish from his desk and putting it inside his red box. Only his soda remains to be finished.

“Nice,” Steve says and Javi looks up — he’s got a little stuffed penguin toy in a plastic bag. “My little girl’s gonna love this.”

Javi reaches into his box and pulls out a bag too — it’s a black thing with a brown nose and tummy, some kind of stuffed animal he doesn’t recognise. He turns it over — there’s a card inside.

SLOTH BEAR, it reads.

“Here you go,” Javi says, lifting himself out of his chair to reach across their desk made out of two desks. He holds out the sloth bear in its plastic bag for Steve to take — but Steve doesn’t make a move, just stares at Javi like he’s sprouted an extra head that’s just told him the sky isn’t blue. Catching his look, Javi asks, “What? It’s for your kid.”

“No, no, man, that’s yours,” Steve says, shaking his head along with every ‘no’.

Javi doesn't retreat, just shakes his outstretched hand as if to tempt him — the little bear in the bag jumps up and down and the plastic crinkles noisily with the movement. (Javi hasn’t thought of the Serpent tempting Eve in the Garden of Eden for a long time.)

After a few moments of them staring stubbornly at each other, bear in a bag suspended between them, Javi falls back into his chair with a huff. He looks down at the bear in his hands. “What am I going to do with this?”

Steve rolls his eyes and lifts up his hand, fingers wiggling to beckon Javi — or the bear — to him.

He gets the bear — it flies across the desk and slaps him on the cheek with some force, bouncing off of him and to the ground. Steve bends over in his chair and it rolls back slightly as he strains to reach the bear where it has landed. He straightens, the bear clenched securely in his fist, and fixes Javi with an outraged look. “What the hell?”

Javi takes a drag of his half-finished cigarette, blows out the smoke. “It’s a tiny stuffed animal, Steve, it can’t feel a thing.”

“He’s got a brown nose.”

“He?” Javi mutters to himself, but is talked over.

“He’s got a brown nose, d’you know what that means?” Steve points at the bear’s pale brown muzzle, just in case Javi hasn’t noticed — he has noticed, he just doesn’t see why the hell he should care.

Steve’s expecting an answer — Javi rolls his eyes, feebly attempts, “He — it — has been using a sun bed wrong?”

“No, it means he’s your mascot,” Steve declares with childlike glee.

Javi blinks in the face of Steve’s unaccountable delight. “You’re losing it, Murphy.”

“He is. Think about it — how much brown-nosing do you and me have to do on a weekly basis? It’s a fuckton. I can handle it fine because I am calm and collected and an excellent people person — but you? You look like you’re constipated the whole time — quit flipping me the bird, man, I’m serious here — and the big cheeses know it, Javi, they’ll start taking a real dislike to you. But this bear is an expert, look at him, it’s all over his face. You take inspiration from him and he’ll show you how to brown-nose like the best of them.”

Steve holds out the bear in the bag for Javi to take. The three of them stare at each other — Steve with a look of ridiculous seriousness, Javi with straight-up disbelief, and the bear with the blank expression of the fucking inanimate.

“Kiss my ass,” Javi says, and in one swift and graceful movement he’s out of his chair and heading for the restroom. His knees protest after sitting for most of the day but he’s not fucking stopping. He has to get away from this maniac. “I’m going for a piss,” he throws over his shoulder as he disappears into the corridor.

When he returns several minutes later Steve is gone — but the brown-nosed bear is unwrapped from its plastic bag and nestled in between his outbox and his pen pot.

Javi sighs, but the bear stays.

TWO DAYS LATER

“Ambassador Noonan wants to see us about my C.I.,” Steve tells Javi, almost apologetic, as he puts the phone back on the hook.

“Both of us? Great,” Javi says, the final word sounding chipper but dripping with sarcasm.

They both head for their desks, collecting I.D. badges from drawers and putting their coats on. Steve fiddles with his hair — which makes very little difference, Javi thinks — and picks up his car keys. “I’ll drive,” he says, and goes on ahead.

The brown-nosed bear catches Javi’s eye as he turns to leave. He pauses despite himself, mutters, “Fuck it.”

He puts the bear in his pocket and follows Steve out of the building.

In the meeting, every time Noonan says something that will needlessly halt their progress in catching Escobar, Javi squeezes the bear hidden in his pocket and tries to look less ‘constipated’, as Steve succinctly put it.

Steve’s C.I. will get them a small step closer to Escobar but a small step is better than none at all. Noonan is pleased, grants them some extra funds and manpower to follow the C.I.’s lead. In all, the meeting goes much better than usual — they leave with more than they arrived with.

Javi and Steve are descending the stairs to the underground parking lot together when Javi says, “Palo de zanahoria.”

“Huh? What’s that?”

“Palo de zanahoria. Carrot sticks. In Spanish.”

[narastories]

2020 Creator Wrap: Favourite Works

I’ve been tagged by @kholran weeks ago. Thanks for the tag, and I’m terribly sorry for putting it off so long.

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 (or so) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. Tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works.

For all The Shit that happened in 2020 from a fanfic-writing perspective this has been an amazing year for me. I’ve added 19 (!) works to my AO3 page, which I’m actually pretty proud of. At this point, I want to give a HUGE thanks and shout-out to @outlanderbingo and the two wonderful admins @levisqueaks and @mistresspandorawritesthings. You’ve made my year! <3 Thank you!

I’m actually struggling to articulate how much this means to me. Most of you are aware that English is not my first language (not even the second in terms of order lol). The 3 works from 2017 and 2018 on my AO3 all have been translations - as in I’ve written them first in my native language, posted it on my old LJ blog, and then later translated them and published them on AO3.

I found the process very slow and tedious (even though I have not regretted it - A bed and a penny had gotten so much love over these two years, it makes me tear up). When I found the Outlander Bingo Challenge I knew I would struggle to keep up and get even 5 stories out if I wrote them in two languages. Besides, OL was never big in the fanfic-writing community I was part of in my native language (that was part of the reason why I stopped writing in this fandom, and also probably why I still have so much to discuss and write about ^^” I never had people to talk about these characters in-depth okay??? :P)

1. So, as number one I will name whatever this may be simply because this was the first ever completed piece of prose I’ve written fully in English (not translated from my own writing). Again, I don’t think I can fully articulate how much this means to me.

I’m not living in my country of origin anymore and when we made the move (before shit hit the fan in March thank goodness) it was very much with a permanent intention. I wasn’t happy in that place, I’ve found a lot of things toxic in general and even in the writing community. This kind of made me confront the idea that I may never publish my writing again even online, because even though I could with the marvels of the internet, I simply needed a relatively clean cut and lots of time away. I’m just not in the headspace where I can keep engaging with that community.

All this to say, that I’ve made my peace with this prospect and would have been kind of fine writing only for myself. But then you all came along and inspired me to try... and the knowledge that I get to do this, that even though my grammar is crap and I mix up words and probably write bs half the time, I have a voice, that my writing voice translates into English, that’s pretty huge for me. That knowledge is the biggest gift you could have given me. Okay, back to the list, Nara, don’t make yourself cry...

2. rum, spices and river water - oh Lord John and wee Byrd... they have been my new-found love in 2020. I’m not nearly done with writing about them :P I like this one because it’s just tooth-rotting fluff in Jamaica, and they deserve to be happy.

3. two years without, one with (you) - this broke me in the best way possible. John/Percy fix-it during BotB. I didn’t even like Percy that much but then I started listening to the audiobooks and Jeff Woodman narrated him in such a way that I suddenly saw the potential.

4. wasting wine - come on, I can’t make a list without having something exceptionally explicit on it :P You could say this is the best of both worlds a John/Percy/Tom threesome. This was when I still thought I wouldn’t write anything else with Percy btw.

Okay, last one and I’m going to be terribly selfish, but this is my list, deal with it :P

5. his brother’s coat - I feel like the holiday blues pushed me off the deep end, but this was just such fun to write. After a brief dilemma of can I? and am I allowed to? I’ve written this little piece of Alex/Jack Randall fic, and I’m not going to lie, I’ve enjoyed every second of meticulously polishing the words on this terrible little idea :P As much as I love fluff and fix-it, I do want to get better at writing some darker and/or bittersweet flavours. Just because those are the stories that stay with me the longest, and I genuinely like reading those.

That’s my wrap-up for the year. Thank you all so much for your support, for your kindness, for the fun we shared this year <3

I have lost track of who has done this, so consider yourself tagged if you haven’t!

[mcrmadness]

Madness draws: Behind the Scenes of the Bela/Farin: “Widumihei” comic.

A few months ago I posted here this comic:

CLICK HERE for the original post about that comic where you can see it in better and bigger size, and also reblog it ;)

And this post is just a deep dive into how I plan, do and draw my comics.

Let’s start with sketchbook things...

So every comic needs a story, right? My comics usually are born from either some dialogue I imagine in my head or by an impulsive inspiration that happens when I see something or talk with people and a random idea is triggered. I’m very good at coming up with new ideas solely based on just one word or so which is why I often ask people if they have anything they would want to see/read because I suck at coming up ideas on my own. Or I do get ideas, but not as often as I’d want to.

This particular idea was very old and I have tried but I cannot find the piece that was my inspiration but it was in some of my old German books because I remember laughing at it with either my brother or even with the German teacher in 2011 or 2012. I was only able to find my first “sketch” of the story:

This is in the notebook I used for writing down some comic ideas and even had one comic in it, plus it’s also my fanfiction writing notebook. It has no date but I know for sure it was either 2011 or 2012 because that’s when I did my last Bela/Farin comic and pretty much started my (unintentional) 6 year pause from drawing altogether.

I have always been trilingual when I do these plans for my comics, often writing the “narration” in Finnish and the dialog either in English or German because I just cannot imagine them to speaking Finnish. The translation of that text goes as:

COMIC (sarjis = sarjakuva = comic book in Finnish)

1. The phone is ringing. 2. F: “Widumihei?!” B: ? 3. B: “Farin wtf?” 4. Farin walks from another room. 5. B: “Widumihei?” 6. F: “It means, “will you marry me?”“ 7. B: *wtf* REPLAY:

1. Bela is sitting/laying somewhere. 2. The phone is ringing. Reached with his hand? 3. Looks at the phone, “wtf?”, a thought: “von Jan: Widumihei?!” 4. Bela: “Farin?” / “Jan?” 5. F comes from another room, looks in from behind the door frame or something. B: “Widumihei?” 6. F: “Widumihei: “WIllst DU MIch HEiraten”“ 7. B: “WTF”

So when I then started to draw these comics again in 2018, I kept thinking about this one too and still wanted to draw it one day. If you have read the finished comic, you may notice something different in the old plot versus new: I switched Bela’s and Farin’s roles. Back then I didn’t know too much yet but over the years I have learnt much much more about them and I just figured that asking to marry him even as a joke would be too much for Farin and that it would fit Bela’s persona much much better.

***

I had a bit of problems with getting started with this one, mainly because the last times I drew a dä comic was in June 2020, in April 2020 and before those in October 2019. Because of so long time between the comics, I just always forgot about my methods and in which order I do things and what works for me the best. So every time I started to work on a comic, I had to start completely over because all I had was blank paper and I somehow needed to get my thoughts in order and out of my head, into a physical form aka as text and images on the paper, and it’s easier said than done.

So pardon me but from this on the text is going to get a little bit confusing for a little while from now on - but it’s also a very good look over how the life with my suspected ADHD be like sometimes...

I started working on the plot once again to my sketchbook... I think it was somewhere in the beginning of 2020. Because the next idea there is from the summer. This is what the plot looked like at that point - here I had already switched their roles:

Shortly, the texts go: 1. Farin is reading a book. 2. A phone makes a noise. 3. (Farin) looks at it/read the message. / 6. B appears into the doorway. / 11. F spits out the tea.

And underneath it you can see one of the stick figure storyboards I often do in order to kinda see the text in pictures better, and I will write down or draw important aspects like expressions (Farin’s eyebrows) or things like *facepalm’* or *eyeroll* so that I remember to add them.

Next I was struggling with the era. It needed to be an era with the old mobile phones with SMS options but still not too early because I feel that Farin would have not been the first in line to buy a brand new technology object, especially not when it’s a phone. I was even googling when did Germany get their first mobile phone - I remember I got my first phone aka Nokia 5510 in 2000 or 2001 after my mom got a new one and gave her old one to me, so the story shouldn’t happen too many years before the Millenium.

Originally I planned 1997 for that - I needed to think about that based on their styles because shorter hair is harder to draw. Here’s me trying out some hairs and how they’re to draw and which era would suit my needs the best. I actually find the text hilarious altho it’s mine but this is what it’s in English:

Time period -> 1996-1997? 1998 I’ve never drawn 1999 is not that much fun to draw 2000 is already a bit too late? Bela not that much fun to draw. -2001 moustaches are not fun to draw?

I think I was struggling with my thoughts because the next thing in that sketchbook is yet another storyboard:

Or actually I think this was just to see how many sheets I’d need and how many panels I could fit on one sheet.

Anyhow, I then did other things for some time before I got back to this project this year. Including finishing with the sketchbook I had been using since 2010 (and the half of it since 2018!) and I had to get myself a new one. So when I started to think about this comic again, one night I was just thinking about some Bela/Farin scenarios as usual and suddenly I just felt that I NEED to do the comic in the 1998 style!!! So suddenly we jump from the original 1997 idea to the new era, only because of the colors. 

So asap I grabbed my sketchbook and started to look for the proper colors for the hairs:

This one I posted here before too as I was struggling a lot and just felt that I didn’t know how to draw, again. Sometimes when I feel like that, I start drawing with my non-dominant aka left hand because it doesn’t have all that in muscle memory so drawing and writing with it feels more free and it feels almost like pressing a refresh button in my brain. Suddenly the right one know again how to draw because left isn’t too well in control. The below part of the image is done completely with the left hand, including the coloring.

And because I had now a new sketchbook, I somehow couldn’t... deal with the plot and plans being in a different sketchbook than everything else so I had write the plot/dialog AGAIN, into this new sketchbook, along with the storyboards and everything:

Translations: kirja = book, puhelin = phone, oviaukossa = in the doorway, teet suusta = tea(s) out of a/the mouth. “Puhelin zoom” just means “close up to the phone screen” in Madness.

You can also see that I found out that I don’t need to do the stick figure storyboards to imitate a sheet when I can just draw this rectangle and smaller rectangles inside of it and write there numbers to match the things in the dialog to make it much easier for me to plan the pages. And here’s also a small easter egg: there’s 13 panels overall in this comic :D I almost did 12 but then felt that no, I really need to do 13 because, you know, the hairs, the era, the album title. And also because I like the number so much lmao.

So from there we get to the second storyboard which is not just stick figures anymore but just me planning how I want the panels to look like. To get the imagery of the rooms and facial expressions etc. out onto the paper so that I can see them in real life instead of my shady imagination that sometimes isn’t as vivid as what I could be.

Also have you ever tried to draw a beach chair? It’s more difficult than you’d think:

I tried to draw the same thing from the same reference photos so many times and still I always felt like I was trying to draw that impossible triangle or some other illusion image. And it just went on and on here:

Originally I also had planned the second panel to be a close up of the phone so that Farin’s face would be left at the background from the frog perspective. That’s what I was trying to with that weird-ass face on the left but turned out that I have never drawn these characters from such angle and I just... couldn’t see it in my head clearly enough to be able to draw it. So I dismissed that idea and that’s why the angle changed from a phone close-up to a side view to the room and at Farin.

As I was in the middle of planning the second page, I suddenly wasn’t happy with my original plot anymore. I wasn’t sure if it would work and needed to think about it one more time. So I wrote two other dialogs here, along with a storyboards for them both. I ended up choosing B from those two options eventually.

I don’t remember anymore if I had already done the first sketch of the comics or not but at some point I just felt that I no longer knew how to draw in my style. Sometimes you just draw and learn wrong things and wrong methods that you get used to and then you have to take a break and actually do a little bit of studying over your own style to find again the way how you want to draw, and get rid of the bad habits and find the good ones again. In my case it was to draw the eyes way way too big when they originally never were THAT big, so I had to learn how to draw them small and normal again. That’s why I did these, as I really needed to pay attention to the faces and remember how to draw them again:

The front-side views were another big readong for this “study” because I have drawn that perspective only once or twice before and I needed to figure out how I want to draw that. Also, I don’t know if it’s just me but for some reason the front-side Farin reminds me of one of the parent characters from this cartoon called The Rugrats which I watched as a kid. It was totally unintentional, but you can google The Rugrats if you don’t know how the charatcers looked like in the cartoon.

The things below are just me testing something. The red Farins were just to test how the colored pencils work on each other and how the fineliners work with the colored pencils, and which way is the better way to do the shading. And the red colored pencil was the only one available at the time so that had to do.

A little bit about the heads btw: You might notice some difference between the left and right faces. It’s because I have always, always struggled with drawing anything that is looking at right. Most of the animal portraits and all I have drawn so that they look at left because I just find it so much easier to draw. I think with comics it’s because I always start with the eye (and the eyebrows if I don’t forget it) and then do the forehead, nose, mouth and chin, and after that I either continue from the hair (from the front) or do the ear first. But when I am drawing them to look at right, I have to basically draw the mirror image and starting from the hair is not the key because it can easily mess up with the perspectives. I still usually draw everything in the same order but it really is difficult because I’m doing a mirror image and my own hand is on the way, too. Basically I’m drawing from right to left instead of left to right! (I think I should try drawing those with my left hand, then...)

And from here we get to the first sketch of the comic. From here on the images are from my phone’s camera so they are sometimes illegally bad but no can do, I again didn’t think I’d post these to anywhere:

Here you can see I was mainly just focusing on the shapes and the space inside those panels. Just trying to see the perspective and how everything is. The only thing that I drew more precisely was the third panel, with the hand and phone. I had quite a nice memory of old phones in my head but I still googled for some reference photos of Nokia 5110 phones as that was my first phone (as I mentioned earlier), and I also happened to have some of my other old phones on the table nearby so I took my own hand reference photos too:

They always say there’s a little bit of the artist in their art and this one literally has that - “Farin’s” hand is actually my hand! :D And I think the size is kinda on point too because this phone was like 2-3 times smaller than Nokia 5110 and I have small hands, and I believe Farin must have much bigger hands, so the 5110 probably would have looked about the same size in his hand.

After the first sketch, the next step was then - the second sketch:

I also wanted to add more action to the panels so that it’s interesting to look at and not just basically the same panel over and over again with just different speech bubbles, so I came up with the idea of Farin spitting out his tea not being as cartoony as it could be and that he would have to actually clean it up instead of just leaving it there just because in cartoons/comics everything is possible. That way I got more depth into the panels and it was also interesting for me to draw because I drew lots of new postures I have never drawn before, and I’m surprised how well it went despite me not even looking for any kind of reference photos! The only things I used reference photos for were the beach chair, and the phone in a hand. (I have actually always been quite good at drawing 3D objects and spaces, especially if they are rectangular.)

So yeah, this is the phase where everything is then finished with pencil and what follows next is drawing the lines with fineliners - I use Sakura Pigma Micron fineliners for everything else, and black Promarker for doing the lines for the panels (and also if I need bigger pitch black areas done).

Here are the panel lines done but I only had a photo of this first sheet.

And here are both sheets with the finelining done and all pencil marks etc. erased. I really like this part because it looks so clean when all those sketch marks are gone. It’s also crazy to think I literally spend hours drawing something in pencil only to erase it all away later :D

And here’s one photo of the coloring process, the first one has only the base colors done but none of the shadows yet (apart from the shirts), and the second one has some of the shadows done but not everything yet.

Usually after coloring, I will then go through everything with the fineliners one more time to make sure all the lines are dark enough as it just gives everything the finished yet a bit “sketchy” look that what I really like with my comics. The actual last detail is always adding my signature along with the date or year.

And here’s the finished comic one more time for comparison:

Don’t forget to check and reblog the actual post about this comic if you read this post all the way here. I’d appreaciate that a lot since art and artist on Tumblr are not really that much appreciated.

[fangroyal]

i'm really curious about Dawn of the Conformists!

OH GOD OKAY SO

Fuck.

Somehow I just knew someone was going to ask about this one, and I’d have to find a way to actually explain it.

Which is honestly totally fine because I do love this crazy thing, but...

So this is CuRed (aka Michael/Pete, aka the curly-haired goth kid and the red-haired goth kid, because I’m pretty sure this is one of the rarest rarepairs I ship, and I don’t expect everyone to know who they are. 😂😂😂). Fun fact about me: they are my OTP only second to Dron, SO YEAH.

This one’s obviously way post-canon, when they’re of adult age and all that. It’s got zombies. It’s got roadtrips. It’s got pining and misunderstandings and epic human-on-zombie fights. And, you know, conformist stuff. Or, moreover, zombies that are obsessed with so-called “conformist” things. Because, you know, the goth kids are so annoyed by that kind of thing, haha. Which is fun for me, as a fellow goth, because I actually like some of the things I’d be ragging on myself.

ANYWAY, it’s a problem project for me because...ugh. I’ve just had it lying around for so long at this point - since September 2017? I think??? - and because of that, it’s gone through several transformations from the original idea. Essentially, whenever that was in 2017, I wrote down an outline and a bunch of snippets of scenes, was SO excited about it - and then I got really super sick in summer 2018, and have since not written anywhere near as much as I used to. (An issue that plagues me to this day. *sigh*) And up until a couple months ago, I would only open the folder for this one, like...once or twice a year, read through it and smile and remember how much I loved it and this ship...and then I’d continue to do absolutely nothing with it.

The reason for this is because after what happened to me in 2018, and now that I’m pushing 30, my writing style and my relationship to my writing and the kinds of stories I want to tell have all changed so much. And not that I’m trying to say what I wrote for this story three years ago is bad, but it’s...it’s, uh, not good??? Okay, so, by “not good”, I really mean it’s just...it’s too much like my old writing. And not just the words themselves, but the character development, the plot, my strange need back then to be very, you know, shock for shock’s sake. 🙄 Like, when I was younger, I admittedly didn’t have a great grasp on a lot of the pieces and parts of writing. Not saying that I’m a fucking expert on it now, of course not, but I do prefer the way I write now - my style, my voice - a lot more than what it used to be.

So when I inevitably opened up that folder again a couple months ago, and once again remembered how much I used to love it, I was struck by how much I wanted to change about it, to make it more like how I write now.

And so what was once actually called The Walking Conformists became Dawn of the Conformists. I decided what was once two old friends realizing their small mountain town had all turned into zombie-like “conformists” - that they needed to get away from there, move to another state, another city, where Henrietta was waiting for them, and thus the pining and hijinks sprinkled in between - needed to be more of a gradual “what the fuck”, both cracky and not, zombie’s placated by conformist things experience, a la Shaun of the Dead (i.e. the name change). I wrote up a few lines about this one scene that really stuck in my mind for the new treatment, and THEN...promptly didn’t do anything else. Again. 😂

Because, you see, I’m also having a lot of trouble translating the old outline and snippets to the new version. I don’t like a lot of what it once was, but I do like some of it. And unfortunately, the parts I do really like still relate to that whole roadtrip/moving idea, aaaaannnndddd....I don’t know what the fuck to do about it, haha. If anyone out there is willing to, I don’t know, alpha? or something? and help me out with this transition, I would appreciate you forever.

ANYWAY, I’ve rambled on enough, I think, LMAO. So I’ll give you snippets now. The first is one of the pieces I do still like from the original - a little glimpse of our poor angry boy Pete raging at himself over just how much he wants Michael. The second is part of that scene that gave me the desire to start crafting the new version. (Both are very rough, I’m so, so sorry.)

Old Version:

Pete had tried his best to make himself look like he hadn't gotten dressed in the back of a car, nor brushed his teeth in the woods with a water bottle, but he feared he hadn't succeeded. Michael looked immaculate in that way that drove Pete absolutely insane. Normally, his hair would be gelled down on the sides, top swept forward in a delicate wave down one side of his face. He was, of course, lacking in such style today, his hair mussed instead, curls tousled all about his head ― and yet he still made it look like the goth fashion statement of the century. He was even sitting there wearing that stupid fucking dangly raven's skull earring Pete had gotten him for his birthday at least four years ago, and it made Pete want to gouge out his own eyes.

He took out his frustrations on his last piece of sausage instead, spearing it violently before shoving it in his mouth.

New Version:

Pete jumped back, knocking into the counter and sending an empty mug crashing to the floor. His hands scrambled behind him, his breath coming in short pants. The man swayed on his feet, a hanging piece of skin on his cheek sagging low enough that Pete could see the layer of muscle tissue beneath. He glanced at the bread knife at the far side of the counter, wondering how quickly he could reach it before the intruder came for him again.

Then, the man slowly raised his arm and pointed at the menu above Pete's head.

Pete blinked. A hour seemed to pass as they stared at each other, and then the man gestured emphatically, and Pete ― against his better judgement ― stepped cautiously forward and followed the man's finger to the spot he was pointing at.

This had to be a fucking joke.

"Y-you want that?" Pete asked. The man gave another insistent growl, and he leaned away from him, his pulse twinging in his neck.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," he huffed. "Fine. H-hold on, just ― just stay there, okay?"

Pete tried his best to remain calm as he waited for the milk to steam. It was difficult to do with a definitely possible living corpse standing menacingly on the other side of the register, boring holes into his back with cold, dead, surprisingly wide-open eyes. Pete struggled to keep his hands from twitching as he poured espresso into a to-go cup.

When all was said and done, he plonked a large pumpkin spice latte onto the counter with a nervous nod of his head.

The man picked up the cup, and ― seeming to suddenly think of it ― flailed his free hand for a moment before dipping it into a tattered pocket of his jeans and fishing out a small pile of something that might've been a muddy piece of trash, might've just been a clump of dirt, but most certainly was not any form of currency Pete recognized, and slapping it onto the counter. Pete eyed it with barely-concealed disgust.

Then the man took a sip of his drink and smiled. Or at least attempted an approximation of a smile. His skin cracked from his lips out and threatened to fall off his face entirely. He grunted something that sounded suspiciously like 'thank you' and shuffled towards the door, cradling the cup lovingly between both hands.

"Sure thing," Pete mumbled, hovering anxiously at the register as the man leaned against the door, swinging it open and disappearing into the night. Before it even shut, Pete was already striding across the room, grabbing and yanking it closed, flipping the lock and switching off the neon 'open' sign, gripping the handle with shaking hands as he sank to a crouch.

"What the actual fuck."

WIP Title Game

[theories-just-for-funzies]

“What’s the very worst thing you can do to your very best friends? Tell them your darkest secret, because if you tell them, and they decide they’d rather not know... You can’t take it back. You can’t unsay it. Once you’ve opened your heart, you can’t close it again.”

This is the second post I’m making about BBC Sherlock S4 (or anything about any fandom, really). You can find the first one here, the topic is almost the same. I’m really slow in writing down my theories in a way that is comprehensible by others, so I’m sorry if i don’t have a lot for the moment. Read this with the knowledge that I firmly believe in TJLC as explained by Rebekah on YouTube, and that S4 is not real as we see it, but is telling us what we need to know before they release S5 (or the special if that’ll come first) through unusual ways, TJLC style.

I think here Culverton smith is mirroring the writers, and his friends are the viewers. During the whole scene we have TONS of mirrored shots in the windows, most of it infact. In all of the previous seasons mirrors and character shots in mirrors were there to signal “hey this character is currently mirroring this other thing”, so idk it might be even this time??

Faith when she’s still drugged and tries to remember something about the conference, the first shot of her that we see, she’s in a mirror, even the desk reflect her image. Wander which part of the audience Faith is mirroring? Yeah, you guessed it. The tjlc fandom. The ones that analyze things. The ones that are questioning.

And the nurses? Idk, I’ve never seen a nurse that’s just putting an IV wearing a mask (unless under special circumstances of course), it never happens even when you’re taking blood samples, it just doesn’t ring right to me. So, who are the nurses? They’re people working for Culverton, they know what’s happening, they know what the solution is and what it does, they know how to administrate it, but they leave the room in the moment of confession. The nurses are mirroring BBC Sherlock’s crew.

If you’ve never worked on a set let me tell you: nobody, apart from the smallest possible amount of selected people, knows the whole picture, they can’t risk it, usually it’s just the writers, the producers, and most f the times the main actor; everyone else just knows the smallest informations to do their single job of adjusting the lights or hair for that single scene just like it’s written in their schedule.

So the crew knows partially what they’re doing, but they can’t speak, because their mouth is covered.

I’m thinking this is exactly the reason of S4. S4 is the memory drug. Everything made sense till now, tjlc was more and more evident, it was extremely obvious to everyone that johnlock was an actual thing, i mean just look at the sign of three, MY MOM THOUGHT THEY WERE CANONICALLY IN LOVE BEFORE I EVEN DID (at the time the fandom wasn’t the greatest so I avoided pretty much anything that wasn’t fan fictions or fan art, and just thought it was queer bait). Everything was super clever and well made. And then S4 came. A cheap Hollywood movie where nothing made sense and with john and sherlock great platonic friendship. And it was the last season so how could you not except what they already gave you and still want more, right?

Wrong. S4 is either complete bullshit or a distortion of what actually happens.

Culverton say that he can’t say his darkest secret because he can’t take it back, yet he does tell, and he does take it back.

The show does say that sherlock and john love each other (and are still pining) but S4 takes that back. You want the distorted version? Ok. Sherlock does explicitly says the words “i love you” in S4 to Molly in a physical mirror, a character’s mirror for John, whose description of the coffin perfectly fits John. The show does say that the writers aren’t stupid and aren’t making a tv show that’s just a blockbuster action movie, with cheap Hollywood effects and made up physic laws. Yet S4 takes that back.

The whole thing they kept saying in earlier seasons about “making history of television” and “making unprecedented things”? What unprecedented things? That was extreamely cheap cinematic, with really poor writings and a rip off of James Bond and classic horror movies. Nothing about S4 was memorable or relevant.

They already said everything they had to say (for the moment) but then they couldn’t leave the public waiting for another 6 years before S5 with all that hope and knowledge. Especially considering the fandom suspected even the phone\heart metaphor before ASiB even aired. Leave those people with the tiniest hope and you’d find your plans stripped naked for everyone to see in less than half of that hiatus. That’s really not Moffat style, he needs to give you hope, rip your heart open, surprise you leaving you gasping, only then he can make another plot twist and make everything super beautiful again and making you crying because it’s too many emotions.

So they said their things before S4, the fans that were still not sold on johnlock or didn’t want it canon were the friends who would rather not know, they went on with the brain washing of S4, and said “ok, we’re done here, nothing else to see, the show is finished, good night”. But just as with Faith’s story you can reconstruct if not all, part of what happened; because i don’t know if you noticed, but S4 doesn’t have a lot of plot holes, it is one single gigantic plot hole.

But what happens if they kill everyone just like Culverton Smith said? What happens if they make S4 so bad and destroy everything they said up until now with the show itself? What happens if the same people that were able to decode everything suddenly lost any faith because they were let down so much they just let the fandom die, and there was no one left to analyze what they were actually saying?

Everyone would forget all about TJLC and about how clever of a show it was. They would erase the whole show from people’s memories, letting it pass by like any other show that’s there to fill your Sunday evening.

Also there’s another thing that doesn’t sit right with me, although i don’t have any proof backing this up and am not sure of what I’m saying, it’s basically just speculation, but still. TD12 package:

obviously this drug doesn’t exist, the only thing i came across with that name is a percussion sound module, you’re welcome to make your own theories with this informations since i know absolutely nothing about music technology and am not the smartest tool in the shed when it comes to music theories or clues.

I presume TD12 it’s something along the line of saline solution, since Sherlock made that replacement himself later in the episde, my research (because i also have no knowledge about medical stuff) told me that saline solution has en expiration time of roughly 2 years. On the package we see that the expiration’s date is October 2018, so counting back, assuming Culverton got the drug shortly before doing his speach, the scene takes place somewhere around October 2016. Wander what happened in October 2016?

On BBC Sherlock official YouTube channel they release just one video: Sherlock Series 4 release date. Now. You might say I’m looking a little to much into it, but if you go check the release dates of the other YouTube videos you would see that they usually don’t post just one video per month, that’s the only one around that time period. Idk if you ask me it’s a lot of strange coincidences.

Anyway, in the scene he then says “these drip feeds will keep the drug in your blood streams at exactly the right levels. Nothing that is happening to you now will stay with you for more than a few minutes. I’m afraid that some of the memories you’ve had up to this point might also be... corrupted.”.

So the victims starting now, will continue to take the drug for the next idk 30 minutes???? But apparently some of the events preceding that moment can be “corrupted”. Translated: everything starting from October 2016 is fucked up because of the drug, not only that, but also some things from before that. I’m guessing the “drips” would be the little occasional posts or news??

Might I add the information that in December 2018 the escape room Sherlock the game is now opened? Like, i know it’s not October, maybe I’m just looking where i want to look, but... I genuinely don’t know, that’s why I’m sharing things, so that people with a more objective point of view can come and say to me “hey you’re not making any sense, what the fuck are you talking about”.

And overall, I’m not native English speaker, but I don’t think you say “corrupted” when talking about human memories. It sounds more something used in the context of digital memories, usually it’s files that gets corrupted, not human brain memories.

[virtchandmoir]

Tessa Virtue: "A magnificent new chapter"

On Saturday, Tessa Virtue was in Vancouver with dozens of athletes to celebrate the 10 th  anniversary of the Olympic Games. The lighting of the cauldron reminded her of the time when 14,000 people accompanied her to sing O Canada after the presentation of her gold medal. She was 20 years old, her partner Scott Moir, 22.

February 26, 2020

PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, LA PRESSE

"We were so naive and so innocent," remembered the figure skater on Wednesday. She was in Montreal to host a chat organized by the Canadian Olympic Committee and Classroom Champions.

“This taste for success really whet our appetite. We spent the next eight years chasing that feeling we had in Vancouver. We finally experienced it again at PyeongChang. "

Double gold medalist in South Korea, in dance and in team, Tessa Virtue experienced a "crash" in the aftermath of her third Olympics in 2018. Nothing exceptional, but she struggled to reconcile her own emotions and triumphant welcome received in the country.

“After the Games, I struggled. I was navigating through this difficult period knowing the expectations of others, who had their idea of ​​how I should feel and act! Suddenly, we were thrown a little more in the spotlight. At least in Canada. We had won, it was a fairy tale. But we had trouble reconciling all of this. I felt that we were caught between the tree and the bark. It takes time."

PHOTO CHARLIE RIEDEL, CANADIAN PRESS ARCHIVE

At the same time, overnight, she had lost her "safety net". The one woven by the fifteen coaches and specialists who surrounded her and guided her towards the sole goal of winning the gold medal.

“It was hard because for a long time, all my decisions were filtered by this single prism: will it help me become an Olympic champion? Now I wear several hats and try new things. I divide my time and my energy between 100 different projects without having this gratification to invest each of the plots of my person on a thing. "

This return to Montreal caused another nip. For the last two years of her career, she lived in the metropolis for training.

“Part of the post-Olympic transition was that I was bored of this city. I felt at home there. This is where we grew the most as athletes and probably as people. We were so lucky. We lived in Little Burgundy, we trained in Saint-Henri [at the Gadbois center]. […] I feel grounded and inspired here in Montreal. Having been able to come back to train in Canada and experience Quebec culture is what made our return so special. "

After PyeongChang, Virtue and Moir took part in shows around the world. They could have monetized their fame for years, even decades. But it was clear from the start that they would stop after two years. Last fall, they organized a farewell tour that took them from one end of Canada to the other, including stops in Laval and Quebec. “We checked all of the skating boxes, at least the ones we deemed essential. "

From the age of eight to 30, with the exception of a break after the Olympics in Sochi, Virtue skated alongside Moir. He whispered to her "I'm with you" before the start of each routine. This professional separation forces reflection, but also arouses "recognition" on the part of the skater.

PHOTO BERNARD BRAULT, PRESS ARCHIVE

"It's different now, but I have to say that when it came to our projects outside the ice, our preferences and passions were so different that it was only natural to pursue our avenues on our own. We both support each other incredibly. It is really the moment to follow each other and to see each other bloom on the sidelines. It's a wonderful new chapter. "

The retiree is not bored. On average, she calculates spending only one day a month in her home in London, her hometown. “I always kept a foot in school [Editor's note: she plans to do an MBA] and I am quite lucky in my partnerships with brands, conferences and engagements with the media. I have several exciting collaborations coming up in the coming months. I also have the chance to lend my support to charities that allow me to use my platform to give back. "

The one who has probably been the most famous Olympic athlete in the country for the past decade is still popular. In 2018, ESPN included it in its list of the 25 most famous female athletes in the world, based on interest on Google, the value of advertising contracts and attractiveness on social networks. Virtue has 380,000 subscribers to her Instagram page where she sometimes poses with a tube of toothpaste from a well-known brand and in the clothes of her sponsors.

She misses the competition, but not the shows. On occasion, she puts on skates to give advice to two British couples of Canadian origin who train in Montreal.

Virtue will also be on site at the World Championships held at the Bell Center from March 16 to 22.

“I can't wait to cheer for the next generation. There is so much depth and talent. I can't wait to see the changing of the guard. The crowd will be electric, no doubt about it. Part of me will want to be on the ice - what an experience for a Canadian - but I will be very happy to sit down and realize that it is time to pass the torch."

Tessa Virtue in brief

• Hometown: London (Ontario) • Age: 30 years • 1m65 50 kg • Specialty: ice dancing • Partner: Scott Moir • 3 Olympic Games: 3 gold medals, 2 silver (most decorated skater of the 'history) • World Championships: 3 gold, 3 silver, 1 bronze • 8 national titles • 1 world junior title*

—La Presse

*Google translation

[gameofdrarry]

Wizards Hearts Recs: Hogwarts Eighth Year

Wizards Hearts was a four-month-long Drarry reading fest. Players were given a playing deck of 52 tropes, and were asked to find 52 different fics to read and comment on to fill their decks. To prevent the same few fics from being read, fics were restricted to only being used for the game three times before being considered ineligible for further points. The tropes and submissions list can be found here.

Check out the masterlist of fics for this trope below the cut!

📜 The Standard You Walk Past by bafflinghaze Rated:  Mature Words:  46202 Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Some Homophobia in the Wizarding World, Romance, Friends to Lovers, Fluff, flangst, Angst, SO MUCH FLUFF, And a bit of sap, Legilimency, Dreams and Nightmares, Slow Build, Prejudice Against Slytherins, Roommates, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Minor Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Minor Lucius Malfoy/Narcissa Malfoy - Freeform Summary:  On returning to Hogwarts for their Eighth Year, Headmistress McGonagall decided to room Draco Malfoy and Harry Potter together. She may have hoped for a leading example of house unity; the other students fully expected insults and fights. But nothing happened. That was, until Harry sleepwalked into Draco’s bed. Translation links available inside for Indonesian, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Thai, Spanish, and Portuguese ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Montaigne Aspirations by countingcr0ws Rated:  Mature Words:  16681 Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Post-War, Head Boy Draco Malfoy, Head Girl Hermione Granger, Good Draco Malfoy, Hufflepuff Common Room, Hufflepuff Draco Malfoy, Draco Malfoy Needs a Hug, Harry Potter Has Long Hair, Discussion of Abortion, discussion about consent, Mutual Pining, Hufflepuff Harry Potter, Hufflepuff Hermione Granger Summary:  Draco’s been trying to be nothing but upstanding since you know what. Between crawling into places every day (oh, the woe) in his new yellow tie, avoiding heterosexual threats to the proper development of his young homosexual self, and being exhausted by how high maintenance Gryffindors are, Draco’s eighth year is still a lot better than he had initially expected. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Only Fools Fall (For You) by welpslytherin Rated:  Explicit Words:  6212 Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, The Great Lake | The Black Lake (Harry Potter), Skinny Dipping, Pining, Fluff and Angst, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, First Time, Mutual Pining Summary:  It’s the summer of '98 and a certain blond Slytherin has amends to make and feelings to get over. Featuring skinny dipping, a bold Harry Potter, and a blushing Draco Malfoy. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Pinned! by whileatwiltshire Rated: General Words:  4193 Tags: Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Pining Harry Potter, Pining Draco Malfoy, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Draco Malfoy, Draco curses a lot in this! Summary:  What's your game, Potter?" he asked calmly as Potter's face floated an inch away from him. After their second proximity incident, Draco had taken special care to note the specky git's whereabouts and behaviour; watching him with the corner of his eye whenever he could. And in his observation, he had noticed that while Potter did fumble around like a blind fool without his glasses, not once, once, did he pull anyone as close to his eye level to confirm their identity. It was only Draco. Only him. And Draco needed to find out why. Or, Five times Draco got pinned to the wall by Potter, who was surely, up to something. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Take All That You See by GallifreyisBurning Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  19666 Tags: Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Mutual Pining, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Bullying, Boys Kissing, First Kiss, Coming Out, Leaked Sex Photographs, Off-Screen Reference to Gore, Redeemed Draco Malfoy, Draco Malfoy Has Panic Attacks, Lucius Malfoy Being an Asshole, Disowned Draco Malfoy, Supportive Harry Potter, Minor Seamus Finnigan/Dean Thomas, Hogwarts Eighth Year, H/D Sex Fair 2020 Summary:  Draco Malfoy has only two goals for his eighth year are Hogwarts: 1) stay as invisible as possible, and 2) get enough NEWTs to be accepted at a university abroad and get the hell out of the UK. Everything is going according to plan until he is unceremoniously outed by the Daily Prophet and subsequently disowned. Finding himself the unexpected focus of unwanted attention and harassment, he is suddenly dependent on the good will and protection of the last people he would have expected — Harry Potter and his gang of do-gooder Gryffindors (plus Luna Lovegood). With his world turned upside down, how will Draco make it through the rest of the year? And worse still, as he grows closer and closer to Harry, how will he get out with his heart intact? ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 For every question why, you were my Because by HugsandButterflyKisses Rated:  Explicit Words:  59924 Tags: Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Coming Out, First Time, Mutual Pining, i'll update as we go on dw, harry is a lil clueless but hes got the spirit, Sharing Clothes, Masturbation, Slow Burn, Shower Sex, Halloween, just a lot of shenanigans by the slytherins Summary:  Harry expects his final year at Hogwarts to be simple. Go to class, hang out with Ron and Hermione, and most importantly, no threats of dying. It seems fate, and the Slytherins, have other plans. or The Eighth Year fic where Harry and Draco can't seem to get rid of one another. But...maybe neither of them mind all that much. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 White Lies by cassisluna Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  171013 Tags: Slash, Homosexuality, EWE, AU, Mutual Pining, Pining Harry, Pining Draco Malfoy, Hurt/Comfort, Potions Accident, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hogwarts Era Summary:  Draco drinks a potion that makes him know if a person is lying, and Harry, apparently at fault that Draco is this way, is forced to 'help' him with the effects of the potion. For the first time, they deal with each other with no lies to hide behind. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 knickers in a twist by technicolourbeat Rated:  Explicit Words:  86461 Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Reconciliation, Smut, Crossdressing, Boys in Skirts, Bottom Draco Malfoy, Top Harry Potter, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Semi-Public Sex, Riding, Topping from the Bottom, Draco Malfoy in a Skirt, Rimming, Lace Panties, Anal Sex, Oral Sex, Public Sex, Harry Potter Epilogue What Epilogue | EWE, Secret Relationship, Fuckbuddies, Shameless Smut, Sexual Roleplay, Fluff and Humor, Porn With Plot Summary:  Draco loses a bet to Pansy and Blaise which leaves him wearing a skirt for a whole week. Harry discovers something about himself. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Blue Roses and Other Impossible Things by Cassiara Rated:  Explicit Words:  40283 Tags: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Homophobic Language, Angst, Fluff, First Time, Bottom Harry, Top Draco Malfoy, Hogwarts Eighth Year, POV Harry Potter, Virgin Harry, Happy Ending, Slow Burn, Bad Flirting, Loss of Virginity, Podfic Welcome, Pining, Getting Together Summary:  After Harry saved Draco from the Room of Requirement there was a moment when Draco gave Harry a look. Harry didn’t know what to make of it, and he had a war to fight so he ignored it. Now though, they’re back at Hogwarts sharing a dorm and Harry is obsessed with seeing that look again. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 In the Midnight Blue by xanthippe74 Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  5508 Tags: Hogwarts Eighth Year, Christmas, Light Angst, Developing Relationship, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Anxiety, Dreams and Nightmares, Flying, Hopeful Ending, Winter, HP Wireless Festive Minifest 2020, Songfic Summary:  On a Christmas Eve broom ride over Hogwarts, Harry shows Draco that he’s braver than he thinks. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Owl Was Well by fencer_x Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  66823 Tags: Post-Second War with Voldemort, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Hogwarts, Animagus, Animagus Draco Malfoy, Owls, Snarky Draco Malfoy, Snarky Harry Potter, Snark, Draco Malfoy & Pansy Parkinson Friendship, Sexually Adventurous Blaise Zabini, Humor, Toilet humor, POV Draco Malfoy, Invasion of Privacy, Brief Mention of Animal Death(s), Fighting, Minor Injuries, H/D Erised 2020, Slow Burn Summary:  Draco Malfoy is not an owl, really he isn’t. He simply assumes the shape of one on occasion when he wants to find a bit of privacy—a goal entirely thwarted because Harry Potter doesn’t understand you can’t just grab any old bird from the Owlery and force it to send your missives and deliver your packages. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 The Nightmare Club by Elle Gray (Elle_Gray) Rated:  Explicit Words:  85072 Tags:  Post-Second War with Voldemort, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Tropes, Banter, Slow Burn, Humor, Trials, Light Angst, Sentient Doors, Male Friendship, Friendship, Misunderstandings, Pining, Jealousy, Jealous Harry Potter, Jealous Draco Malfoy, Accidental Voyeurism, Voyeurism, Forced Proximity, Snarky Draco Malfoy, Sarcastic Harry Potter, Smut, Sexual Fantasy, Masturbation, Blow Jobs, Frottage, Coming Out, Oblivious, Drinking, Drunken Shenanigans, Feelings Realization, Secret Relationship, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Herbology, Herbology Class (Harry Potter), Plants, working together, Veritaserum, Cuddling & Snuggling, Spooning, Pajamas & Sleepwear, Tea, Nightmares, Hurt/Comfort, Panic Attacks, Awkwardness, Minor Harry Potter/Lisa Turpin, H/D Erised 2018, Community: hd_erised, Bisexual Harry Potter, Bisexual Draco Malfoy, Mental Health Issues, supportive friends, wanking, Harry in a towel, Minor slut-shaming?, Feel free to podfic this, Fanart also welcome, remix to your heart's content, tell me about typos you find as well, Gay Mentor Charlie Weasley Summary:  Hermione and Ron are going back to Hogwarts to do N.E.W.T.s, Ginny isn't. Harry hasn't decided, until he has, in front of the Wizengamot and now he's responsible for Malfoy as well. A tale of enemies who learn to get along, get it wrong and get it on. Everything is purple, some things are on fire and no-one is sleeping properly. But don't worry, there's tea! ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Read All About It by Samunderthelights Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  3247 Tags: Drarropoly: Founders Edition - A Drarry Game/Fest, Epistolary, The Owlery (Harry Potter), Secret Relationship, Drarry, Letters, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Boys In Love, Self-Acceptance Summary:  The story of a budding romance between two young men, told through letters found in the Hogwarts Owlery. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Adventures of a Suicidal Gentleman by GallaPlacidia Rated:  Not Rated Words:  47794 Tags: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Grief/Mourning, Suicidal Thoughts, suicidal Draco but he's fun about it, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Draco and his new best friend Misty the house elf, Draco is trying to keep his shit together, Pining Harry, Down and Out Draco Malfoy, It's less harrowing than it initially appears, Veritaserum Summary:  Draco wants to kill himself, but he's trying not to be dramatic about it. Harry wants to sleep with Draco, but he's trying not to be obvious about it. Misunderstandings! Pining! Grief! Self-loathing but in a kind of charming way? Feat. Misty the house elf who takes shit from no one, an Astoria who has her own mysterious aims, a Draco who is determined to use humour to get through things, and a Harry doesn't know what he wants, except maybe to touch Draco's pretty face. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Sincere Gratitude from the (Heart) Mouth by _Melodic_ (Sae) Rated:  Mature Words:  1049 Tags: Blow Jobs, Semi-Public Sex, Public Blow Jobs, Dubiously Consensual Blow Jobs, Smut, Fluff and Smut, Gratuitous Smut, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn, Porn with Feelings, Redemption, Oral Sex, Getting Together, First Time, POV Harry Potter, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Post-War, Hogwarts Express, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Hogwarts Era, Confessions, Romantic Fluff, Humor, Fluff and Humor, Fluff, Fluffy Ending Summary:  Harry Potter knew, of course, that everyone was grateful to him for defeating Voldemort and basically saving the world, but he didn’t quite expect the way some of those would go about expressing their gratitude. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Black Me Out by JBankai89 Rated:  Mature Words:  43928 Tags: Graphic Depictions of Violence, Trans!Harry, FTM Harry, Romance, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Mild OoC, Transphobia, Hate Crime, ron & seamus bashing, EWE, PostWar, Hogwarts Eighth Year, References to Mpreg Summary:  Since his first day at Hogwarts, Harry has had a secret. Not even his best friends knew, and returning after the war for his seventh year, Harry is looking forward to a nice, quiet, Voldemort-free year. What he hadn't expected was Ron and Seamus discovering his secret and reacting violently to the news, nor did he expect his old school rival suddenly showing romantic interest in him. ❤️ Read on AO3

📜 Try to Change by meshtams Rated:  Teen and Up Words:  1567 Tags: Hogwarts Forbidden Forest, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Boys In Love, Love Confessions, Getting Together, Fluff, Musician Draco Malfoy, Song fic??, Gay Draco Malfoy, Bisexual Harry Potter, Tattooed Draco Malfoy, POC Harry Potter, try to change by mother mother Summary:  Harry hears music coming from the forbidden forest, and naturally has to investigate. ❤️ Read on AO3