#thank you to everyone i sent this preview to in advance i love all of you

[heart-of-the-morningstar]

Ok, this is the last preview I'm giving y'all for this story! I know this one has taken a while but I very much appreciate your patience! I'm hoping to post the full thing either tomorrow or Saturday! Hope you like it!

Mild warning for ~grinding~

Special thanks to @luc1fersducky @animationmovieshipps @bat-boness and @misfitgirlwrites for letting me send you my process, you guys are amazing <3

"And where do you think you're going?," you asked coyly, stopping him in his tracks entirely.

“I umm, just uhh…giving you privacy?” He tentatively went for the handle again, but your arm shot out, keeping the door in its locked state.

“Oh, we’re way past decency here, Lucifer.” You maneuvered him away from the door and sat him down on the large white bench that was affixed to the wall. You leveraged your foot against the area just below his hip and rested one hand on the top of your thigh, the other on your hip. “Besides, you’re not really in any condition to be in the public view” leaning forward and shooting a quick glance down at his crotch, “now are you?”

Lucifer could only shake his head.

"Glad you agree," you smiled and pecked his lips, an almost inaudible whine leaving Lucifer's throat. "I have some more dresses to try on. You can look, but you cannot touch unless I say, alright?"

"Yes, love," he murmured obediently. You smiled and turned around to pick up the black dress you had let fall to the floor. You bent over slowly to pick it up, giving Lucifer a lovely view of your barely covered ass. You heard a deep inhale behind you followed by a shaky exhale.

You hung up the black dress and moved onto the next dress, a beautiful lavender colored Bardot dress with sleeves that hung off your shoulders. Luckily this one didn't have a zipper, you only needed to step in and shimmy it up your body. You liked this one more than the last, you did as few twirls in front of the mirror checking every single angle.

"What do you think of this one, hon?," you asked, looking at his reflection in the mirror. It seemed as though he was gripping that bench with just a little too much force.

"Ravishing," Lucifer breathed. You had given him permission to look, and he was taking fully advantage of your generosity. He was chopping at the bit, fighting every urge to pounce right then and there. Lucifer's eyes were hungry, his lips curled into a smile to try and hide how badly he needed you at this moment. You admired his will power...but how strong was it truly? You made your way back towards him, chuckling playfully. Without warning, your knees found their way onto the bench, now fully straddling the mess of a man beneath you.

"W-what are you-mmph!" Lucifer tried to ask you but was cut short by your lips suddenly on his. You wrapped your arms around his neck and placed a small peck to his forehead.

"You always say just the right things, Luci," you cooed as you began to shift your hips against him. Hearing the mangled moans coming from Lucifer was nothing short of euphoric. You noticed he had released his grasp on the bench and began to move towards your hips. You gripped the back of his head, his hair firmly between your fingers, and tilted his head back gently. Lucifer grunted softly as you brought your lips to his neck. "Ah, ah, ah, what did I say, love? No touching," you scolded, now sucking and nibbling at his tender skin, desperately needing to mark him.

Lucifer whined and reluctantly brought his hands back to their original position on the frigid bench that paled in comparison to the feeling of your warm body that was pressed against him. "I-I can't do this f-for much longer, darling," he whimpered, "I can only h-handle- hnng, so much, I...ssshhhhhhiiittt-" Lucifer's hot breath became increasingly labored as you continued to rock your hips against his painfully growing bulge.

Just then, you heard the sound of a door closing. Someone had just entered the room next to you. With the threat of being heard now looming, you lifted yourself from his neck to see that Lucifer's eyes had turned an ominous red. It felt as if his slit black irises were staring straight into your soul, attempting to burn you from within. He was losing control fast. But you weren't done with him just yet. With a smirk, you placed a finger over his soft lips. "Shhh," you whispered almost inaudibly, "you may want to keep your voice down from now on."

[starkjoy]

Are you the author of the lovely fic Devil’s Advocates? Just wanted to say I love it very much!!❤️ This is not to put any pressure on you or anything and I understand if you don’t plan on writing more chapters but if you do, I am very excited to read more of it❤️❤️ Have a good day!!

I am indeed the author! I'm writing the next chapter as we speak, and as a thank you for your kindness (and everyone else's who've sent me messages like this), here's a small wip sneak preview.

Read below:

Frowning, Tom cocks his head. “Are you busy with something else?” he questions, suddenly on guard. He can imagine it now, Greg avoiding his eyes as he admits, “So, I actually met with my cousins and we brokered a deal? But um, you’re not part of it?” Or worse: “I’m in love with a girl I met yesterday at the HR mixer, so this narrative won't work for me after all. Good luck.”

“No, no. I’m ready,” the younger brunette quickly recovers, another weird smile on his lips. “Our calendars are blocked and loaded.” He points his index finger like a gun, cocking it and mimicking a kill shot at the Rubik’s Cube on his desk. He shifts again, clears his throat. “Come in.” 

Tom accepts the answer after a moment’s scrutiny. “Good,” he says before reaching out into the hallway and rolling his secret weapon into the office: a large whiteboard he’d snagged from the neighboring conference room. He shuts the door behind him, locks it just in case. 

Greg shifts. “What’s that for?” 

“Did you black out from the wine, Gregory? We have a big day tomorrow.”

“Of course, but why do we uh, need a whiteboard?”

“Need a demonstration, do you?” Tom picks up one marker from the bottom tray and unsnaps its lid. He turns toward the board, back facing Greg, and writes. “See, here we can document our hearts’ desires with gliding ease,” he instructs with a condescending lilt like a professor scratching out an advanced equation for an audience of toddlers. He turns around, gesturing to his finished work: CAN’T MAKE A TOMLETTE WITHOUT BREAKING A FEW GREGGS.

“This again—” 

“But wait!” he interrupts like an infomercial’s worst salesman. “The real magic?” Tom grabs the eraser brick from the tray, replacing it with the marker, and then disappears the text with one long swipe. “Gone into the ether! No paper trail, no email chains. A temporary haven without risk of Congress, the DOJ, or any other governing body finding our receipts.”

“I know how a whiteboard works, Tom.” 

He feigns confusion. “Well, you’re the one who asked what it's for.”

“I didn’t mean—,” Greg stops himself and spreads his lips in a thin line. “You’re razzing me,” he confirms rather than asks.

Tom smirks, satisfied, and stuffs his hands in his slack pockets. He cocks his head. “Yes. But no, actually. I’m going to quiz you on our timeline and write it down on the board for our reference. Then we can run through a few more times until we’re feeling good, yeah?” 

Greg nods, eyes flitting away from Tom’s and zoning out a bit. Social awkwardness is par the course for the leggy brunette, but something about his detached demeanor compared to last night’s casual intimacy sends a chill down Tom’s spine. Perhaps his earlier assessment was all wrong—maybe their little tête-à-tête made Greg like him less. Maybe Greg’s enacting one big long con against Tom, chasing the promise of a fancy promotion and cushy office, dreaming of some vapid heiress to entrap with his old-money heritage and gaudy, newfound riches. Tom’s always loved his protege’s slimy moments, those little testaments to his influence taking hold, evidence that the younger man trusts him enough to reveal his ugliest colors. This time, however? The scenario, even dreamt, makes him sick to his stomach.

Tom swallows. “What is it, Greg?”

His friend blinks, returning his gaze. “Oh, nothing. Sorry. I’m fine and dandy, all’s good in the hood. I don’t know if ‘hood’ is an appropriate term for me to be using, actually, but since my office is a refurbished mailroom, it could be considered the ‘hood’ of Waystar, I guess? Refurbished may be generous, it’s pretty uh, un-furbished, if you will? Never furbished to begin with—” 

“Okay, stop,” Tom interrupts. He steps toward Greg, pulls out the chair facing his desk, and sits down. “Tell me what’s going on.”

Greg stares at him with his big, blue eyes. “Nothing, man.”

“You’re squirming like a virgin hiding his first boner and rambling like a coked up parakeet. Did something happen after last night? Did the siblings reach out to you? Logan?”

“No! No, I haven’t heard anything.” Greg’s dark brows furrow over his down-turned blues, again evading Tom’s stare. “It’s not that.” 

Tom inhales, preparing himself for whatever blow comes next. “So what is it, Greg?”

[the-piece-of-spadille]

Anonymous asked:

“Hiya ! Idk if you’re taking requests still but I was wondering if you’d write for Marco and number 21 of the prompt list (^: if you’re not taking requests rn pls ignore this ! Hope you’re doing well 💕”

Hello! Thank you so much for requesting! Sorry this took a little while to get out. Nevertheless, I hope you like it!

Prompt: “I just feel safe with you, like nothing bad can happen”

It’s been two months since you’d last set foot on the Moby Dick. Since you were last able to be in Marco’s arms, safe and sound where you belong. At first, it was nice getting away by yourself, it wasn’t often you got to spend some time alone. But as time progressed, so did the feeling of longing for your loved one.  

Word was spreading around quickly in the New World about a few new pirates causing trouble on an island that is under Whitebeards protection. The locals had reported that the pirates were stealing, robbing, and threating those who got in their way. Obviously, the problem needed to be taken care of, so Pops sent you out on business to check in on the island and take care of any unwanted pirates.

Once you arrived on the island, the pirates seemed to immediately change their behavior. They left you and the residents alone for the most part after seeing the mark of Whitebeard on your shoulder. You boiled it down to being too fearful of what could happen if they challenged a member of the Whitebeard pirates. Though, after seeing you hang around comfortably for a bit, a few pirates grew bold believing they had a shot at taking down the daughter of Whitebeard.

Honestly, it was more annoying than threatening, so you set the record straight with a few fights here and there. Crushing their dreams before they even had a chance. You sent them fleeing with their tails between their legs. You spent a couple weeks helping the locals recover from the damages and making sure the pirates didn’t return to retaliate with another attack.

It was in that down time when the feeling of being homesick really hit you. You found yourself trying to stay busy, picking up random tasks from the townsfolk to help distract yourself, but there was one thing you couldn’t avoid no matter how much you tried. The long nights alone. The feeling of an empty bed was one you hoped wouldn’t last any longer than it had to. Marco often helped you fall asleep at night, he’d play with your hair, scratch your back, and tell you stories of his younger days on the ship while you rested your head against him as his heart beat lulled you asleep. You missed your birdie dearly.

It was some time around noon when you heard a commotion coming from the sea. Some of the locals started to get wary that an attack would break out. Doing your best to reassure them that everything would be okay, you spotted that dinky boat that belonged to no other  than the infamous Fire Fist, you couldn’t contain your excitement knowing you’d soon be home.

Shortly after you found yourself being brought back on the deck of the Moby Dick. Ace having told you in advance that the crew was going to be throwing a party at your return and he wasn’t kidding. Everyone was on the deck with mugs ready in their hands to welcome you back with. Pops being the first to greet you, asking if everything went smoothly. “Of course it did” you sassed.

Laughing, he pats your shoulder and sends you into the eager crowd of family waiting on you to fill them in on the details of your departure. Marco waits patiently, standing a ways back watching everyone hug you and ask questions while your eyes search the large group of people. You know they all missed you, as did you, so you try to answer all the questions everyone throws at you, but you can’t focus. No matter where you looked, you were simply to short to find the particular man you’ve been missing the most.

Figuring now is a good time to step in and save you, Marco makes his way over. “Oi, Give her some space would you. She’s only just got back” a familiar voice commanded. The men around you apologize and go back to celebrating knowing that the commander wants to spend time with his loved one. Ace, standing behind Marco, mocks the two by making kissing faces then fakes being sick.  

“Marco!” making your way over to the man you with the biggest smile. Already knowing what you’re about to do, he smiles back at you and waits for you to jump into his arms to hold you close to him. Normally, Marco isn’t one for PDA. He’s a private man and knowing that the crew is going to tease him about it later, he opts for keeping it behind closed doors, but he makes an exception this time.

Your arms circle around his neck, burying your face into his jacket while Marco supports your weight. One hand securing your bottom while the other is on your back, pressing you firmly against him. Finally, you’re home.

Looking up into his eyes, you rest one hand against his face, slowly wiping your thumb over his cheek. “I missed you so much” eyes starting to tear up. “I missed you too – yoi” his hand rubbing soothingly against your back. You meet him with a sweet kiss, earning collective awes from the crew.

Pulling away from the kiss, both of your faces are flushed from all the attention. Pops commented something about young love, and that was enough for Marco to whisk you away before anyone else said anything. A loud wolf whistle that can only be done by Thatch, is heard over the crew making you giggle.

Making it into your shared bedroom, Marco lets you down onto the floor. It’s as if all of your emotions from being separated hit you at once. Clutching onto his shirt, you tuck your face back into his chest. It wasn’t easy for Marco either. He was constantly worried that something was going to happen, and he wouldn’t be there to help you.

Marco gently cups your cheek and brings your attention to his face “Everything okay – yoi?” Brushing and loose hairs from your face. Shaking your head, “I Just feel safe with you like nothing bad can happen.”

“Yeah?” he smiles. “Well I like protecting precious baby.” Leaning down, Marco gives you a loving kiss to preview what the rest of the night is going to be like.

[starryfreckles]

Flavie and Ayumi Live (26 mai 2020 on YouTube francetv slash) 

Translation/Summary -

(I apologise in advance for the typos. i didnt really read this over tbh)

Interviewer: Where are you at the moment?

Flav: I’m at home, in my room

Ayumi: I’m at my country house in my room. [Her friend joined her there when deconfinement happen and now they’re living their best life. There’s sun and everything is good]

Flav is chilling “la vida loca” she says

Is it not too frustrating to live this 6th season in confinement and SKAM France has a reputation of having very involved fans and with the screenings?

A: Yes, its very frustrating but then again it’s something that I haven’t really lived the projections with the fans so I dont know what it does. But just the feedback of social media is incredible. Its a good preview at what can happen in a live screening.

F: Yea I agree. It is frustrating but seeing everyone on social media is kind of reassuring and comforting and like Ayumi said, we dont know that [the screenings] so its not that frustrating.

what kind of reactions have you guys had on social media?

[flav and ayumi arguing who goes first. Its the cutest thing ever. Flav always wants ayumi to go first]

A: Just love and positivity. On my end is really incredible. I thank everyone. It’s really just incredible.

F: Its so wonderful. At night, I really try to read all the dms on instagram and even if I cant respond to everyone, know that I read everything and I translate everything that isn’t in French. If I  were to reply to everyone, it would take a long time so that’s not possible. I dont speak all the languages of the world so I copy and paste is translate to understand.

-video cuts out-

I: we were talking about fan reactions so let’s continue. Have you gotten any that made you surprised, laugh, smile, made you emotional, etc?

A: what is beautiful is that ive gotten many messages from girls and boys who said that they had similar a similar relationship to Lola and Maya in the sense that one helps the other more because of addiction problems. And that’s always nice to hear that they just wanted to thank skam for writing and portraying this kind of story. And of course the reaction of la mif. It’s true the character Jo has been loved by fans. She is so funny and so great and she’s [actress who plays jo, louise] really like that in real life. Like literally from A to Z

Flav agrees.

A: “Louise just played Louise” and it’s just so funny. And everyone online says they want to be friends with jo becuase she made this joke pr did that but she’s really like that.

F: she’s always joking

A: and she just comes up with stuff on the spot

I: we really just can’t wait to see La Mif reunite and see how they are in real life because they are just awesome on screen.

Flav and ayumi agree

I: Maya’s arrival to the season that was a little intense, let’s not lie, is like a ray of light. What does that do to you for having that role of the character who brings light and wonder? (This is kinda hard to translate)

A: its incredible to bring that kind of message, like you said, this light. She is totally this kind of girl that I would love to be friend with. It’s hard to explain. It’s just so beautiful. Maybe flav has something to say.

F: it’s true that you and La Mif brought a light for everyone. Even me when I see my family and close ones they say that they are so funny and new and that they felt my pain [as lola] even if its a show and its feels weird to see you like that because you’re close to us but seeing them [lola + la mif] is a good mix. And ayumi you bring so much like when your face lights up when Lola comes up the stairs its incredible.

A: its a chemical reaction. Its incredible. But flav I saw you on screen and everything that you brought, what David saw. And we lived it but for us it seems natural and on screen and rediscovered the characters and the chemistry at the same time as everyone else.

Flav and Ayumi saying that they havent seen the whole thing before hand and are constantly check their phone for new clips. They have the notifications for the YouTube channel.

F: we at least have the hours for the clips AT LEASTT and thankfully

A: which flav sent me because I didnt have them and she left me panicked for 2 weeks and then she finally sent them over.

F: its great. They’re on my fridge and I cross off each day with my parents and we are one it. My dad everyday is like there’s a clip. So funny.

I: Just so we’re on the same page, there’s a clip today right?

I: [fan question] what do you love the most and the least in the character you play?

A: flav please start

F: I love her “who the fuck are you talking to me like that” and her fuck you attitude. I love that she shows off that nothing moves her but deep down not really, like everyone I guess. I love that about her and she’s so natural. I love her, I really love her. Something negative. That’s hard.

I: you are a very happy, bubbly person. Is there not her depressed, dark side that bothers you?

F: well lola is just full of emotions where we’re going to see everything. But really what I dont like is her fashion sense.

A: im dead. But I was going to say the same thing

F: maya’s fashion sense? You are crazy. And also girl it’s your clothes they used as costumes

A: no no but people have made edits with you know the big pink coat or my outfit at the supermarket and its there that I realised how ridiculous even if they not really.

F: well I think theyre great. Love the pink coat

A: ill send it to you with fedex. I dont have it but ill send it to you.

F: when we were doing costume fittings I told the costume designer that it was simple and that I would be stealing all of these looks. Im going to take a suitcase, im going to take ayumi’s clothes, put them in my suitcase and go back to Vance with them. And I took nothing from lola by the way. She just doesn’t have a style. She doesn’t neglect herself but its her I dont care attitude, again.

A; I love maya’s engagement and her will towards everything and everyone. Shes a teenager but that’s beautiful to be engaged in many causes. She just really wants everyone, her friends, to be well and happy. But otherwise things I dont like outside of her clothes I dont know. Clothes is like the best answer

F: you forgot about her makeup. The makeup artist did her eyeliner and dots under the eyes and I was there like do the same thing with me!

A: that is really the best thing in all of humanity. It was so cool.

F: honestly. The makeup artist gave everything on you but on me she went in the morning like poof poof ‘well that’s it honey, there’s nothing else I can do for you’

A: you forgot the drama hair!

F: oh my god. She would pour oils and everything you want on my head. “You could like cook French fries”

A: flavie says that but you know she can wear whatever she wants and still look good

F: awe I love you

I: Did the age difference between you hinder your ability to be friends?

A: no not at all. What do you think flav?

F: not at all. Im just the baby of the group, im the youngest but we all so dumb together that we don’t realise

A: exactly. We all act like we’re 7

F: all of us together is horrible. The whole mif. Intolerable.

I: how was youre guy’s first meet?

F: ok let me tell you from my point of view because its quite funny.

A: she was so annoying. She looked at me all weird. she was not cool No that’s not true at all. She was adorable. Trop cute

F: I arrive to the production offices and im with David signing contracts and he says don’t move I have a surprise. And im like oh no what has he brought me a croissant or something and he brings back ayumi. So we start talking for like 10 minutes and I did not who she was actually. And I was like who tf is this. I did not know. And im one point im like so she’s the one who plays Maya? It was so funny. It was cool. And then he brought Maxence

A: from my point of view, flavie was so shy and locked off. And I knew who she was and I was honoured and thrill. She was so small and closed off. But honestly NOT AT ALL. i quickly understood the next day that flavie is a bomb! You understand ?

F: at first maybe you were like “I just want to protect this little thing.”

I: so what was the first scene that you guys filmed together?

Ayumi makes it clear that it’s a scene that hasn’t been released yet. And Flavie can’t remember what it is.

A: flav, you are putting our whole relationship in question!

F: I just dont know!

A: ok but the second scene we did together was the scene of Saturday morning after the first urban party

F: OHHH you right! I remember now!

I: but that’s a great scene that fans loved because of the chemistry and people loved it. How did you create that complexity? Was it the writing or did you try to meet up on your own?

F: honestly, not that much because the problem is that I live in Vance. We really tried to see each other but trains made it difficult to see each other just us two, but it still worked somehow. We worked a lot with David but not so much just us too and yet we still manage to create something really strong and powerful.

A: in between scenes we also just talked all the freaking time. And by the time David said action, it was like we just finishing our conversation in the scene.

F: every morning we were always happy to see each other and we didn’t see each other that much but that honestly wasn’t a problem at all.

I: in the YouTube comments, everyone is slightly making fun of flavie for living so “far”

A: [also starts making fun of flavie] oh yea yea basically 45 minutes.

F: BY TRAIN! By car its like 2 hours and a half, so sorry.

A: you don’t even have a driver license! So you have to take the train!

F: alright I almost have my drivers license! Soon supposedly! And don’t worry ill come pick you up in my ride!

Ayumi makes more fun of Flavie for her hours of driving and her basically driving illegally (in France you can only drive at 18 and flav is 17)

I: what was the most difficult scene to film for you?

F: well im not gonna answer. I can’t answer

A: honestly I dont have any. Oh wait yes yes yes! I just remembered. Flav you do know! It’s the scene where I tell you that ive missed you.

F: oh right! You were sick right!

A: yea I had shrimp for lunch. Bad shrimp and in the scene im in process of dying. I have never been in more pain and discomfort.

F: and I was like why is she angry at me? What did I do?

A: and flav is like are you okay and thank god you were there flav because she was telling me breathe and take it slow. It was the difficult

F: for me the most difficult that we’ve seen is was hard because of weather conditions. It was so cold on the whole set but it was the one where we were around the fire and jo sees eliott for the first time, the first urbex party. We were getting fire embers in our eyes so we were all crying and complaining. It was awful. Louise was actually crying so so hard.

A: it was so funny. Louise was actually crying and was joking at the same time whilst crying. We were laughing so hard.

The say that night was still a lot of fun and then they all went to Quentin’s apartment [actor who plays sekou] and the ambiance on set is better than on screen. It was a lot of fun

A: la mif always has a great time, messing around

F: David would say “FOCUS FOCUS”

I: it was mid November, and we all know skam france shooting is very intense and fast. So David was like a police officers. We cant wait to see the behind the scenes. David in the comments says thank you to all the extras who were there until 4am

F:  oh yea honestly. Thank you– just thank you

A: oh yea flav thanks for that. Its great.

I: we know there’s a clip today with a reunion. And fans are expecting a kiss. Are we getting that moment today?

(Silence)

A: listen if there is a kiss, it will happen at a perfect moment

I: there is a lot of pressure on this kiss becuase there are so many people from the LGBTQ+ community who are saying that this kind of relationship is rarely seen on screen. Do you feel the need to do good?

F: its so well written and directed that we do want to do really well. Ok your turn

A: the want to do good, of crows but its already something we want to do. We are not forcing ourselves, because its already there.

They say that its sad for the time being that they have to continue to fight for rights in the LGBTQ community and Ayumi says that with SKAM its all going to change. They always get lovely messages thanking them.

They talk about the ship name and how fans have decided that is going to be Mayla. Ayumi is happy that its Mayla. Flav wanted Loyla. Ayumi says it was their first “fight” and they weren’t agreeing. Even la mif voted on the ship. It was heavily debated.

I: Are we right to have so much faith in Mayla or are you going to break our hearts?

F: for that you’ll have to keep watching

A: well said flav

F: l’amour gange toujours

I: what is next for you two?

F: not much. Im seeing friends at a distant. Stay safe. I was starting to miss my social life. Not going out too much because I really dont want to get “this vicious/awful thing” so yea “la vida loca”

F: project wise everything is on pause but im on a good path. Crossing my fingers. If it happens it happens. Its destiny

A: its destiny. Same thing. There was a movie that stopped before quarantine and won’t start again but there are castings. Until filming starts again, we are all waiting.

I: it’s funny, everything something is said, it gets translated in the comments in five or six languages. Have you taken something from your character and have you left them something?

A: her joy to live at everything. And give her my body to just exist

F: what I took, well nothing. I gave her 7kg more. Well actually I took from her 7kg. That’s it!

I: who forgets their lines the most?

F: ME! But you too kinda. You just talk SOOO fast you start to stutter

A: I talk too fast and then I stutter and it was so cold that that doesn’t help. So in front of flavie, she really made fun of me.

F: I didnt always forget but sometimes when its really long I forgot.

[tagsecretsanta]

From Soniabigcheese

to @vegetacide

Secret santa doesn’t own this piece, full credit goes to the author above!

Christmas morning on board Thunderbird Five and John is recapping the last 24 hours with his AI unit EOS

“Are you sitting comfortably?”

John, is this really necessary? I mean, seriously, I cannot physically ‘sit’, since I’m on a rail.

John looked askance at the AI unit

“Do you want me to continue?”

Ugh, if you insist, although I think this is pointless. What am I going to learn from a fairytale? They’re not real.

John lifted a finger, opened his mouth to speak, paused then closed it again

“Ah .. good point EOS ... but still ... can I tell it to you anyways?”

Fine

“Ahem  ... now ... where were we? Oh yes, sitting comfortably.”

John ...

“Christmas is a time for magic and wonder and of five Birds made of Thunder where one Christmas day something special did happen ...”

“MERRY CHRISTMAS JOHN!”

He was interrupted by holograms of his brothers all whooping and cheering. He was glad he wasn’t there when they opened their presents, loose wrapping paper on the floor was surely a disaster waiting to happen.

“Do you want to build a snowman???” “Gordon!” “What? It’s my favourite song. You were okay with it yesterday.” “Yeah, that was yesterday.” “We live on an island ... with a beach. We don’t get snow.” “Well ... we can always build sandcastles then?” “On that small strip of land? I don’t think so.” “Hey boys, wanna help me out with Christmas dinner?”

A collective URGH, they bid him farewell and hoped that he would manage to get his butt down from Thunderbird Five to have dinner with them. He said he would try. Besides, there was a lot to talk about, especially after last night’s adventure.

He turned to EOS, her ring of green lights almost waiting expectantly for him to continue. Yes, she was an inanimate object that couldn’t possibly exude any kinds of emotion. But she was his companion, his helper on board the space station.

Yeah, his brothers and sisters often sent holocalls to check on him, see if he was okay(Virgil), being well fed (Scott) when is he coming home (Alan) got a joke for you (Gordon)and Kayo’s standard security check. It was her way of checking up on him, without sounding too much like a smother hen and being girly and mushy.

“Sorry about that.”

That’s fine, but please don’t tell the tale in rhyme. It’s just .... patronizing I am not a child

John was amused at her way of expressing herself. Some days she can be so childlike, others so mature. But she was still relevantly new to International Rescue and the world in general.

“Okay ... well it all started with a call from a kindly old lady.”

Yes, I remember that. 

Which brings me to the rest of the story

John gets a call from a kindly old lady who is the epitome of what a grandma SHOULD look like. He assumes that she’s asking someone to help her to get a cat out of a tree … on Christmas Eve of all things. Rescues were becoming less common than they used to be, thanks to Colonel Casey setting up and training a small unit of rescue support people. Still, despite this, they were still fudging things up and International Rescue had to be called. Often to clean up the GDF’s messy rescues.

It would be their first Christmas without an emergency, although they were still on standby ... you know �� just in case.

It was a typical Christmas Eve family get- together. Scott armed with a fire extinguisher, because Grandma was cooking the turkey.  She was busy chasing MAX out of the kitchen because she wanted to do this on her own. Virgil was on guard duty near the tree, just in case the two youngest brothers tried to sneak a peek at the pile of presents underneath. Gordon was singing ‘Do You Want To Build a Snowman?’ loudly and out of tune whilst scooping ice cream out of the tub … to everybody’s dismay. And Alan was chatting online to Brandon Berrenger, because they’d arranged to have an online gaming challenge.

Being the son of a billionaire had its perks. One of them being, that they could get advanced copies and sneaky previews of stuff before anyone else. And in this case, it was a thank you present for helping to save Brandon … again.

Brains, was fretting because Moffie hadn’t called to thank him for his ‘wonderful gift’ and was seen pacing the hangar floor waiting for her call.

Kayo was off the island, delivering a gift to her father most likely … or doing a security sweep. One minute, she’d be there, the next she was gone. That was Kayo, an enigma unto herself. 

Which left John who was on board Thunderbird Five with EOS. He was trying to explain to the AI unit about Christmas … and wondering just how many packets of TUMS were still available. He was not looking forward to this dinner at all. Since they were living in the Southern Hemisphere, the seasons differed to that of their other grandparents home. Gran Roca Ranch.

He and the rest of his brothers suggested a barbecue and a chill out, but they were soon overruled by the matriarch of the family. She wanted a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings and by heck she WILL have one.

Speaking of … a hologram popped up halfway through John and EOS’s chats. It was a lovely little old lady. Her silver hair was up in a loose bun, she had silver half moon glasses perched on her button nose and if she wasn’t worried right now, John would correctly assume that she had a kindly smile.

“International Rescue? What is your situation?”

He was already scanning her location. Nothing seemed to be amiss – so far. But … he had to deal with this call like any other ones, as if there WAS a proper rescue and people needed saving.

“Oh … oh … hello deary.”

Oh gosh, that voice was soooo sweet. He half expected her to reach through the holovideo, pat him on his shoulder and tell him that he’d been such a good boy this year, and slip a peppermint into his hand. Or offer him a nice mug of hot chocolate.

He shook his head. No … what’s wrong with me? He wondered to himself. Blinking several times, he tried to get rid of the sudden warm and fuzzy feeling he was getting. He really needed to get his head back into this rescue. 

Even EOS picked up on his sudden change of mood.

John? Are you okay? You are acting strangely. Quite unlike yourself. Shall I run some scans?

“No … no, it’s fine … I’m fine EOS.”

He was momentarily distracted by a ring of green lights that appeared in front of him. It was enough to break whatever spell he’d been put under. Flushing brightly, after being caught off guard there, he turned back to the little old lady, who was tugging at a lace handkerchief and muttering …

“Oh dear … oh dear.”

The scans still showed nothing, nothing at all. Which, was very odd indeed.

“How can I help you?”

May as well pull this Band Aid off and see what the problem is.

“I … seem to have lost my … my husband.”

And there it was … the crux of the matter.

“Have you contacted your local authorities? See if they can help?”

It wasn’t really something that they would normally deal with. But he had to go through protocol here, as some local authorities frowned upon someone muscling in on their territory. Her eyes widened with horror. At least she stopped sniffling.

“Oh, heavens no!” she exclaimed, “this is not exactly something that they could deal with.”

John narrowed his eyes suspiciously. What exactly was this old woman up to … and what devious plans was she embroiled in? He wasn’t sure if he should help or not. But … as their motto stated … no matter how good or bad, if they needed rescuing, then that’s their job – or something similar to that.

“Would you care to explain before I dispatch anyone?”

And so she told him the whole story and made him promise to be discreet. He blinked rapidly as he listened, and then patched through to Tracy Island, where everyone gathered … as per the norm.

“Guys?” John said hesitantly, he wasn’t sure himself of how to phrase this but he tried and hoped that they wouldn’t laugh or poke fun, “you’re not going to believe this.”

“Fire away John,” Scott responded, bracing himself for news of their dad. Gordon was still singing ‘Do you want to build a snowman?’ and chasing Alan around the room, threatening to drop ice cream down the back of his tee shirt.

“It seems … that …” oh darn, this sounds so stupid “… that … Mrs Santa Claus is asking for our help. It appears that her husband has disappeared and hasn’t been seen for hours. His … erm … ‘tracker’ had been disabled.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at John. Even Gordon fell silent.

“Say that again John?”

He knew they wouldn’t believe him. But he repeated himself and patched through Mrs Santa Claus herself, just to prove that he wasn’t going space crazy.

When she spotted them all, she beamed brightly and clapped her hands.

“Oh … International Rescue! I am so glad to see you all. I do hope that you can help me. You see…”

“Yeah, we know,” Alan interrupted grabbing the scoop from Gordon and setting it down on the counter top, “your husband…. Santa Claus … has gone missing.”

Her cheery demeanour soon changed and she glared hard at him, folding her arms and scowling.

“Well …” she said scornfully,”… aren’t YOU a rude little boy?”

Virgil stepped forward, hands in front of him in a placating manner.

“Wait … wait …” he said quickly, “let’s not turn this into a personal fight here.”

He turned around to everyone present, raising his eyebrows as a gesture to ‘roll with this, guys’, then looked at Mrs Claus with wonder and sincerity. Maybe there was something in rescuing Father Christmas after all? Unfortunately, the hologram before them did NOT look impressed.

“I’ve seen that look before,” she chided, “so many times, it is getting old.” “What look?” “Oh … the old … ‘if I’m super nice to you, maybe I can get my presents early’ look. Sorry young man, I’m NOT falling for it.”

John watched from space and took note of how feisty this woman was. And wondered if her husband had just wandered off to get away from her? Because now, with her true personality showing through, she was acting more like an old dragon lady. MUCH worse than grandma ... and that was saying something.

But then she changed again and started sobbing into her hankie.

“Christmas is going to be ruined! I know it. If he doesn’t deliver those presents all over the world … millions of children will be so disappointed. And that will mean a huge dip in popularity.”

She sighed heavily, dramatically and blew her nose … loudly.

“Oh well,” she said, smiling weakly, “guess it had to happen sooner or later. With all the climate changes … wars and conflicts and consumerism at its highest peak, people are losing faith in the spirit of Christmas. It’s all about grabbing bargains … and selling stuff in the middle of the year.”

They listened to her rambling.

It was true. Or, at least some of it was anyways.

“And … using us, to traumatize children. Scaring them into being good all the time, or we won’t give them their presents. That’s not what we started out to achieve.”

She sniffled again, wiped some tears from her face and looked up hopefully at them.

“Please … give this elderly couple some help? Even if this could be our last proper Christmas?”

The shriek of the smoke alarms and some unsavoury language coming from the kitchen area, was enough to convince everyone that THIS … whatever it was … was an emergency. They all turned to Mrs Claus, backs straightened and hopeful smiles … 

And unanimously agreed …

“We’ll do it!”

John started delegating everyone to Thunderbird Two and said he’d stay behind to get the coordinates and track their whereabouts.

That’s when Mrs Claus butted in with a wag of her finger.

“Nuh uh uh,” she chided, “I need ALL of you for this one.” “Well … Kayo’s off the island,” Scott explained.

Her response was a death glare and he quickly corrected himself.

“But … maybe we can fill her in as we go along. John? You’ll have to get your bu …. *cough* Come down from Thunderbird Five. Hand everything over to EOS.” “Already on it.”

As they dashed through the living area, Grandma Tracy appeared, a whisk clogged with … some charred food on it.

“Where are you boys going? Dinner’s almost ready.”

Alan wheeled around, his eyes were bright.

“We’re off to save Santa!” he exclaimed.

Grandma just nodded and returned to whisking what was supposed to be mashed potatoes, muttering …

“Hmph, any excuse to get out of dinner. What will they think of next?”

MAX, wheeled around whistling and beeping. It was the only sound in the place. Nothing new really, she was used to them going off for hours. But … it was their first Christmas spent together as a family.

 As soon as the hologram of John vanished,  ‘Mrs Claus’ spun around in her chair and faced  the hologram of her ‘husband’ with a grin.

“That’s stage one complete. Now for stage two.”

She was rewarded with a thumbs up.

“Ready when you are.”

Fingers flashed over a keyboard, the screen scrolled a list of algorithms … and then stopped.

“Alrighty then, co-ordinates are logged in.”

She pressed the button to Thunderbird Five and was greeted by a polite, but suspicious EOS.

“Hello dearie.”

Hello Mrs Claus how can I be of assistance?

“I have managed to find some co-ordinates that may have been the last whereabouts of my husband. Or at least I think they are. This system of mine is so outdated. We are so used to using the stars for navigation.”

EOS paused, trying to pick up some telltale signs in the woman’s voice. But … nothing. She could easily ignore this message, not forward it. But John and the rest were already on their way. Besides, it would be really petty of her. And if she helped in this way, maybe … just maybe she could gain just a little bit more of their trust?

I’m patching you through.

“Why thank you dearie, oh and don’t worry about the Tracy boys … they DO trust you. Why else would they leave you to handle the calls and monitor everything, if they didn’t?”

If EOS could blink, she would. She double checked her systems to see if she’d accidentally taken her thought processors off mute, but nope, there they were, untouched.

Virgil intercepted the co-ordinates and typed them into Thunderbird Four’s navigation system.

“Shouldn’t be too long Mrs Claus.” “Oh … thank you. Thank you so much. You really are such good helpful boys.”

They all chuckled.

“It’s no problem, really.”

Gordon sat forward.

“Hey, wanna singalong whilst we travel? I know a good one.”

He opened his mouth and barely got ‘Do you wanna build a snowman’ …. Before they all shouted ..

NO!

“Aww. I like that one.” “We know. We’ve heard it all morning.”

They were shushed by Virgil, whose dashboard lit up with a green flashing light.

“We’re here … right where she said he’d be.”

The wipers swished across the windows, revealing a small hut. Smoke was coming from the chimney. But no reindeer … or sleigh for that matter … to be seen anywhere.

“Maybe someone found him and taken him in?” “Looks cold out there, maybe we should wrap up warm?”

As the hatch opened, flurries of snow swirled in and despite their uniforms, they shivered. And agreed. 

They made their way tentatively across the knee deep snow towards the cabin and Virgil knocked on the door.

“Hello? Anyone in here?”

The door swung open and banged against the cladded wall. A scruffily dressed man stood there, an antique claymore pipe in his hand, the beard was ragged and scorched. And he was wearing some dirty grey thermals.

He did NOT look anything like the Santa Claus they were used to.

“Bout time you boys showed up,” he grumbled, biting on the stem of the pipe, “I’m bloody freezing in here.”

They exchanged puzzled glances.

“Mister …. Santa .. Claus?” Gordon asked hesitantly

“Pfft … call me Nick, Kris Kringle … or whatever name they’ve given me over the years.”

He wandered back into the little shack, it didn’t look big enough to fit all five Tracy brothers so they hesitated. He stopped and turned to frown at them and grabbed Virgil, the biggest of them all by his green sash and yanked him indoors.

For such a small man, he was surprisingly strong.

“Come in … come in … it’s a lot bigger on the inside. Trust me.”

He gave them a conspiratorial wink.

So, slowly, one by one, they stepped over the threshold and entered the shack. First impressions, as they glanced around, it looked cosy, and the fire crackled merrily in the hearth.

“You’ll be wondering where my sleigh and reindeers are huh?”

Yeah, they had wondered that. He tapped the side of his nose.

“I, too, have my own secrets you know. Long before Tracy Island and International Rescue were created.”

By now, they were really really curious about this odd little old man. Maybe it was the warmth from the fire … or his jovial nature … but somehow, they felt like little kids once more.

Santa Claus beamed. His magic was working after all. He was so worried that it had gone stale from lack of use over the years. He closed the door behind them and grabbed the red coat from the peg.

“Sit down ... sit down, make yourself comfy. I already have a part of your team here.”

He swept his arm around to reveal Kayo sitting by the fire, a mug of hot chocolate cupped in her hands. She’d been sitting there quietly, so quiet and still that nobody noticed her.

“She sneaked up on me,” Santa chuckled, “that girl’s got some talent there. No wonder Brains gave her Shadow.”

He waited until everyone found a seat and then he explained. 

“You see ... once in a while, whilst checking my lists,” he began, “there comes along a time where there is a very special award to be given to those most deserving of people. Those who are brave and heroic.”

Gordon puffed up his chest with a grin.

“That’s us!”

He was silenced with a load of shushes and sat quietly, poking at the marshmallow on the top of his chocolate drink.

“It is usually awarded to one person. But ... you all came along and that put me into quite a quandary. Since you obviously have everything you want ....”

“Except dad.”

“Ah yes ... I’ll get to that ....”

He coughed a little, and fished into his pocket, bringing out a small bottle. The contents sparkled and swirled.

“See this? This is magical dust. It usually lasts for a whole day, but since there’s a group of you. It will only last for a couple of hours at least. This ... is your reward. It gives you something that you all missed.”

“Can you bring back dad?”

“Unfortunately no ... but you are all doing a great job in looking for him. Keep up the good work.”

All their faces fell. It was their greatest desire to have their father back. But Santa was wise, if he’d given them that wish, it would have only lasted a couple of hours and it would have just been like losing him again. He wasn’t able to see into the future, but he had an inkling that they would be able to find their father ... under their own steam.

He opened the vial, tipped the contents into his hand and blew. It spread all over the room, sparkling and glittering. Everyone expected to sneeze, because ... after all ... it was just dust. And like all dust, it gets up your nose and makes you sneeze.

It took a couple of minutes before the effects began. They all started giggling and pointing. Why? Because they’d all been turned into children. Instead of their uniforms, they all wore thick clothing with hats, gloves and scarfs.

Santa smiled at them.

“You don’t have to worry about rescues. I’ve managed to put them all on hold, or diverted them to other sources. Or they’ve all resolved one another. Now ... go outside and play.”

Which they all did, with barely concealed glee.

It had been a long time since they had proper fun. And they had never experienced snow together as an almost whole unit. They’d dreamed of tobogganing and found some sleds nearby. With shouts and yells ... and poor John falling over several times ... they thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

But ... as time went on, the magic soon disappeared and they had to go back to their real lives. It was the best present Santa had ever given to them.

They thanked him profusely for the well deserved time off and gave him an updated tracking system to help him on his way before returning to Tracy Island. They were too tired to talk about it and immediately went to bed. John, however, was still buzzing when he took the space elevator up to Thunderbird Five.

He so wanted to share this experience with EOS

Yes, he was a practical man. He only looked at things in a scientific and sometimes abstract way ...

... but deep down, his inner child – like the rest of his brothers – still clung to the belief that Santa was real.

And for one moment. He was

The End

[moonlightreal]

Winx Club season 8/7

In which I see many shipping possibilities.

7 Trapped on Prometia

When we left our heroines, only Stella and Flora hadn’t been grabbed by the robot arms.  They Cosmix up and leap into action to rescue their friends!

Orion watches the action from his ship, where he explains his evil plan (to himself, apparently).  The grabby arms are a gizmo he built to dig up rubies but once it has captured the Winx he can trade them to Valtor for the magic to reignite the planet’s star.  Orion is feeling some guilt though; he wishes he didn’t have to save the planet this way.  

More fairies versus grabbers action!

Then we go to Valtor’s asteroid.  The sorcerer laughs heartily as he watches the fight.  Obscurum cheerleads.  Valtor says once the Winx are out of the way no on will be left to stop him stealing all the light in the magic dimension. Uh, I’m pretty sure SOME other adventurer would step up… Obscurum gloats about his future as king of Lumenia.  

Valtor sends Obscurum falling through a portal onto bunnies.  Spike bunnies.  Spherical bunnies with spikes. First it was just a cave, then into an alligator’s mouth, now spike bunnies.  Valtor knows about some strange places.

Obscurum is assigned a mission: to go to Irridia and transform the rest of the lumens.  Valtor hands over his “darkener” which is that staff with the purple stone that Obscurum has had in previous episodes.  The jewel in the staff shows a shadowy monster face that roars at Obscurum.  Huh.  The minion starts to gloat again and Valtor just portals him to Irridia.

Irridia!  The lighthouse-tower-lumen-city!  Purple lumens float happily around. There’s Twinkle and Lumilla talking about how nobody trusts the Winx and it’s a shame.   Twinkle gives Lumilla a hair bow as a gift and they flutter around happily together.  I so ship these two.

Until… Lumilla gets turned into a staryummy!  Purple lumens are being transformed right and left!

Orion sees the lumen carnage from his ship.  He realizes Valtor has betrayed him!  Yeah, Valtor’s a villain…

Orion leaps into action!

Twinkle tries to save Lumilla, but the bow-wearing staryum is drawn into a portal with all the other newly transformed staryums.  Twinkle seems to be immune to the spell and hides while Obscurum pops into the scene.  Obscurum starts a gloat when Orion runs up to call him on breaking their deal.

They yell at each other then Obscurum summons a giant black hole to suck everything in.  Orion is left hanging on for dear life!

Back with the Winx Flora tries to awaken the local plants to help them, but it’s no good.  The rest of the poor Winx have been being waved around by this machine this whole time, but now it gets worse-- the machine is retracting underground, pulling its captives with it!  We’re in real trouble now!

Really great shot of Flora standing between two plants trying to revive them with her magic.  It still doesn’t work.

Stella comes over with a good idea. They can’t beat the machine separately, but maybe they can together.

Stella creates an orb of light and sends her magic into it, making a mini sun to shine on the plants. Flora adds her green magic to the mini sun and the plants wake up and blossom.  Exciting music plays as the plants grow bigger and reach out vines to grab the machine, finally freeing the Winx.  The girls are none the worse for wear and congratulate Stella and Flora on their teamwork.

But the machine is mad!  It comes rolling at the Winx!  Everybody else transform!

The girls mock the grabby arms as they fly around, getting the arms to hit each other.  Bloom and Aisha do a cool thing where they hold hands and spin around, and more cool music plays.  The machine is broken.

Then we meet to discuss.  The girls realize Orion sent them into a trap.  Musa says Riven was right about him.  But why would he do such a thing?

Poor Flora realizes the plants are suffering again without Stella’s mini-sun.  The girls decide to do a bigger version of the spell, using all their power.  “Supernova!” (is that their convergence spell?  Guess so.)  they make a bigger mini-sun and the plants blossom.  Flora is delight.  Musa is more interested in shaking some answers out of Orion…

...who we left hanging off a building as he tries to resist being dragged into a black hole!

The Winx came flying towards the lighthouse and the giant black hole parked over it… and stop to ask Twinkle what’s up!  She flew out to met them and at least gives the important data that lumens were transformed into staryummies.  And she points out the very visible giant black hole.  Musa’s first thought is that Orion did it-- despite the girls knowing obscurum uses black holes.  Boy, when Musa decides you’re a baddie she’ll believe anything bad about you!

Anyway Obscurum steps up (into midair) to take credit.  He tries to toss Twinkle into the portal but Musa flies up to save her.  Musa almost gets dragged in herself but Tecna tosses a “particle net” that blocks it until Bloom and Aisha shut down the portal.

Then the two of them grab Orion .

Stella and Flora go after Obscurum, but he portals away.

Cut to Orion’s ship, where he explains.  He regrets setting the Winx up, but he thought it was his only option to save Irridia.  Bloom snaps at him, “Betraying friends is never the right choice!”  And Orion sighs.

Tecna tries to soften things by saying the excavator was ingenious, and Orion is a good inventor.  He must be, because he’s invented a soda can that turns into a chair when you open it!  That’s pretty cute.  Twinkle is delight.

Orion says the excavator was for finding underground rubies, and Stella snaps that he also used it to trap them.  Orion apologizes again.

More Tec and Twinkle byplay as the chair turns back into a can, and Twinkle lands on a tray that wraps her up in wrapping paper with a bow.  I love this.

Orion says he’s on the Winx’s side for ultra-sure now, and “my lab is at your service.”  I want Tecna to do a happysquee here, but she doesn’t.  Winx are still skeptical.  Musa says, ‘and why should we trust you again?”

Orion stands up and does a friendship speech about how they need to work together to save not just Irridia but all the stars in the universe!  Go Orion!  

Tecna seems to accept this, she say they’re going to need all the help they can get.  Tec has a point. Twinkle plays with the inventions a little more then reminds everyone that they have to save Lumilla and the other lumens who were turned into staryums.  Bloom does a little hopeful speech.

It’s Tecna who puts it out there that they should give Orion another chance.  Musa and Aisha are still uncertain.  Stella says it’s fine by her.  Aisha decides Orion has finally learned his lesson, and Orion confirms that he has.  And then we go to…

...school?!  You’ve just been speechifying about saving all the stars in the universe, and whole populations of stars being turned into staryummies, and the planet Prometia is on a timer before its ecosystem conks out without any sunlight and you’re going back to school?!

Ok, then.

They’re late again, too.  The girls once again explain where they were in one sentence soundbites each.

Professor Wizgiz Scottishly says they’re “going over complex combination spells.”  “each fairy has an essential magical energy.  When yours is combined with another’s it can grow in powerful ways...’  just what the Winx were doing this episode!

Out the window, Stella notices that Knut and Kiko are painting the courtyard pink.  The ground, the benches, the hedges, pink.  Kiko complains.  Knut says, ��How am I to know that ‘paint everything’ doesn’t mean paint everything?”

Stella and Flora walk over, after apparently the shortest class ever, to help.  They do a complex combination spell to turn the courtyard back to normal.  I’m not sure what this “painting the courtyard pink” was all about. Maybe we lost a line from the Italian that would’ve explained it.

Up in their room Stella says to Flora that they were good together today.  Flora suggests making a friendship flower to remind them of how much they care about each other.  They both use their magic on a flowerpot and two flowers come up, one pink and one yellow, twined around each other.  Stella suggests they name the flower Irridia to remind them of what happened there.  The flowers bloom bigger and they each have mixed pink and yellow petals.

This is super sweet.  And my brain immediately goes to, if you plucked that scene out of the episode it could be the heart of the most adorable Stella/Flora ship ever.  

But before we go, let’s check in with Valtor!  He’s tuned his magic TV to the “submarine star” which is called… Gorgo?  Gorgol?  Something that sounds like a giant monster or eldritch evil.  “It lights the oceans of Andros… and it’s our next target.’

Thanks for the preview, Valtor!

Ok, this episode… loved the friendship flower.  Loved the revelation that the staryummies are transformed lumens.  I hadn’t expected that, kudos to Rainbow for not telling us everything instantly.  Liked the spikebunnies.  Liked Orion’s inventions.

Kind of wish that Tecna and Orion had some interaction since they’re both inventors.  It seems like the writers didn’t even think of how much they’d have to talk about, how Tecna should be all over that gorgeous space-galleon, trying to learn everything she could about how rubies work with star cores… there could even be a semi-reasonable “Timmy gets jealous because Tec’s spending so much time with the space pirate” plot.  Not that I should be encouraging relationship drama plots, but we all know we’re gonna get them anyway!

The whiplash of cutting from adventure to school is… well, it’s nonsense, anyone advanced enough to be the only enemy Valtor is worried about should be advanced beyond school.  In previous seasons I assumed the Winx were just using Alfea as their base of operations, but now it’s clear that they are once again students… I think I can only explain this with time travel.  One of their jaunts with the stone of memories last season wrinkled time a little so everyone’s younger but the Winx still have all the skills and memories from their first time through.  Or something.

[opsecretsanta2019]

FAQs (mobile-friendly)

This is a mobile-friendly copy of the FAQs page for easy reference, accurate as of 24 October 2019. For the most updated version, please check the FAQs page in browser or on desktop.

FAQs below the cut! Mobile-friendly rules here.

Where is the application form?

It’s linked in the rules page. Please read the rules before applying, thanks!

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What is this?

It’s a one piece holiday gift exchange on tumblr!

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When are the deadlines?

15 Nov – Applications close. 22 Nov – Santas assigned. 27 Nov – Santas confirm assignments. 25 Dec to 31 Dec – Post the gifts! 5 Jan 2020 – Tell me if you didn’t get your gift. 9 Jan 2020 – Backup santas notified. 31 Jan 2020 – Backup santa gifts posted!

The close of each day is 11:59pm HKT (GMT + 8h). Please note that my timezone is ahead of most countries.

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How do I join?

To enter, you must read the rules and complete the application form linked on the rules page.

You must send in the application form before 15th NOVEMBER 2019 at 11:59pm HKT (GMT+8h).

If you apply, please commit to creating and giving a gift.

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What’s this password thing you have in the application? What password?

If you don’t know the password, please read the entire rules page carefully from top to bottom. For easy reference, here’s a link to the rules and the mobile-friendly rules.

Applications with an incorrect password will be rejected during santa/ giftee assignments, even if applicants received the response email.

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Oh no! I made a mistake in my application form/ I got the password wrong/ I left out something. What do I do?

You can edit your application anytime before applications close on 15 November 2019 (2359h HKT). You should have received a response email with the edit link.

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I made a typo on my password. Will I be rejected/ do I need to edit my application?

Nah, that’s fine, I’m willing to accept typos. Your application will get denied if the answer clearly shows that you don’t know the password.

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Who sees the information I put in my application?

The middle section with your preferences will be copy-pasted and sent word-for-word to your santa. Your santa will also get your tumblr URL/ username. If you addressed any comments to your santa in your miscellaneous comment section, I’ll pass those along too.

Only the mods will see your email and other details. For now, that’s only me (@codedredalert) and @narramin. Since the volume of work got overwhelming, I got her on board as a mod.

She’s a close friend I trust, and while I don’t think we’ll have anyone else joining us as a moderator, If you’re very concerned about other people finding out about your email address and other application details, maybe give this event a miss.

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What do I have to do when I post my gift?

Mention the name of your giftee in the post (like this: @url). Also mention @opsecretsanta2019 in the post.

Tag #opsecretsanta2019 and any appropriate compulsory warning tags (#n/sfw, #graphic violence, #major character death, #noncon or dubcon, #underage , #chose not to use warnings , #no warnings apply).

Consider writing a nice message to the giftee to go along with the gift, if you like. 

If it is Not Safe For Work, please put it in a read-more and tag it appropriately.

Send me a link to your post! I will be re-blogging all gifts under #finished gifts.

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How do you select Secret Santas?

I sort participants by naughty and nice into a SFW group and a NSFW group. After that, both groups are separately put through a random generator. Once giftees are drawn from the generator, I will manually check to make sure santas/ giftees share at least one mutual interest.

You should not be giving to the same person you’re receiving from.

What does it mean if I’m in the NSFW group?

If you choose NSFW, it means you are okay with making or receiving NSFW content AND are at least 21 years of age.

You do not have to create a NSFW gift if you don’t feel like it. You may or may not receive a NSFW gift.

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Can I make/ receive NSFW?

To potentially receive or send NSFW material, you must be 21 years or older when applications close on 15 November 2019 2359h.

If you make something NSFW for your giftee, please put it under a read more and tag it appropriately. If your NSFW gift is/ could be flagged, please post it on another site and provide a link in a tumblr post.

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Why must I be 21+ to receive/ give NSFW? I’m an adult in my country.

I don’t want drama/ legal issues about adults sending NSFW to minors. 21 is the highest age of majority as far as I’m aware, so that’s what I set it as to cover everyone. Sorry, kiddo.

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I’m not 21+ yet but I will be by the time applications close. Can I still say I’m 21+?

Happy early birthday, I hope you have a great time! Please go ahead and put yourself on the NSFW list if you want. I’ll take the cut-off for age limit at the point where applications close aka 15 November 2019 2359h HKT.

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What is considered NSFW?

NSFW components for the purposes of this event (loosely based on the R rating guidelines of the Motion Picture Association of America):

      (1) Violence: Canon-typical depictions of violence are generally SFW (eg. brawls, blood, stabbing). However, violence that is detailed, realistic, extreme or persistent would make a work NSFW.

       (2) Language/ Profanity / Swearing: Generally, swearing is SFW, but you’re encouraged to keep it mild. You have a maximum of one (1) singular “fuck” to give in a SFW work. Use it wisely. Excessive or extremely graphic swearing would make a work NSFW.

       (3) Drugs/ Substance Abuse:

       Canon-typical depiction of smoking is SFW (eg. chain smoking or smoking several cigarettes/cigars at once is SFW). However, smoking/ nicotine addiction that is detailed, realistic, extreme or persistent would make a work NSFW.

       Canon-typical drinking of large amounts of alcohol is SFW. However, alcoholism/ alcohol addiction that is detailed, realistic, extreme or persistent would make a work NSFW.

       Mention of drugs used in a medical context is SFW. Otherwise, any drug use or mention of drug use would make a work NSFW.

      (4) Nudity and sexual content:

       Nudity that is depicted visually (eg. art) is NSFW, regardless of whether it is sexual or not. Please post a censored/ partial preview of the art and link the full piece on another site. (Tumblr might flag it otherwise lol.)

       Non-visual nudity (eg. writing) is NSFW if it is sexually-oriented. Please ensure that it is under a read-more.

       All sexual content is NSFW regardless of medium.

       Hugs, kisses and cuddling are SFW.

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Can I opt to be in the NSFW list, but still say I don’t want to receive/ create a certain type of NSFW (eg. specifically not sexual content, or drug abuse)?

Yup! Generally, giving more information in your application is better. It’s good to be clear and upfront about your likes and dislikes. It helps me a lot in deciding if I need to re-roll when I double-check your random match. It helps your santa know what not to give you too.

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Is ____ pairing/ content/ gen allowed?

As long as they’re canon One Piece characters, yes. This event aims to be as inclusive as possible. Just make sure you tag appropriately.

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Are OCs/ self-insert/ Y/N fic allowed?

Sorry, nope. I’m sure you and your OCs are lovely, however, this is a One Piece event, so please only feature canon One Piece characters.

You CAN sneak in a little extra cameo if you really want. Eg. a random person in the background/ a random shopkeeper in your fic. But the focus must be on canon One Piece characters.

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I personally consider ____ content problematic. Will you allow it?

The compulsory warning tags (following those on Ao3) generally cover a wide range of potentially offensive content. Please be responsible for your own content regulation by blacklisting the necessary tags. I cannot be responsible for everyone’s content consumption.

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I’m personally triggered by _____. Can you tag it?

Your personal triggers will already be accounted for in the application form and the information sent to your santa. So, this shouldn’t be a problem for your gift. Also, there are the compulsory warning tags for you to blacklist if necessary.

If you think there is still a very high chance that other people’s gifts will have your trigger, send me an ask off-anon proposing (1) a feasible identification system and (2) a tag name. We’ll see if we can work something out.

I promise to hear you out. However, I will exercise my discretion as to whether it is feasible for me to impose your request on every post on this blog. If your request requires a moral judgment or a lot of work on my part, I am less likely to impose your request.

It’s not possible for me to please everyone. I’ve done my best to cover the generally-accepted warnings. Thanks in advance for your understanding.

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What kinds of gifts are allowed?

Anything digital as long as you personally created it for your giftee!

SUGGESTED minimum guidelines for different types of content are below (feel free to go above and beyond if your heart desires):

  –  Art – 1 artwork, sketches are okay as long as characters are recognisable

  – AMVs – 30 seconds. Please use only official art/ anime/ movies as your base.

  – Animations – 3 seconds, sketches are okay as long as characters are recognisable

  –  Animatics – 30 seconds, sketches are okay as long as characters are recognisable

  – Edits – 2 edits of good image quality. Please use only official art as your base.

  –  Fanfiction – 100 words (prose), 20 words (poetry)

  –  GIFsets – 2 gifs of good image quality. Please use only official art/ anime/ movies as your base.

  –  Music cover – 1 minute. Please cover only official One Piece songs/ motifs.

 –   Playlist –   10 songs. Please try to find out about your giftee’s music taste and cater to that if possible.

  –   Podfic/ audio reading –   You MUST get permission in writing from the fic author before making the recording. In your recording, you MUST clearly state the original author, the title of the original fic, and the website where the original fic can be found. In your post, you MUST give LINKED credit to both the original author AND the original fic.

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Do I need to meet a minimum for my gift?

There are suggested minimum guidelines for different types of content, but there are no strict minimums. The gift creation for this event is intended to be very achievable, stress-free, and accessible even to first-time creators.

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Do I have to follow a winter theme in the gift?

Nope. Anything goes! Just try to do something you think your giftee would like according to the information you were given.

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Can I send something in the mail?

Sorry, please don’t. This exchange is digital-only.

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Hey I'm a writer who uses Ao3. Is there an Ao3 collection for this event which I can add my gift to?

Yup, here’s the link to the opsecretsanta2019 Ao3 collection. Please feel free to add your fic(s) to the Ao3 collection during the posting period (aka 25 December 2019 to 31 December 2019). It would be good if you could drop me a message on tumblr when you do.

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I don’t know what an Ao3 collection is/ how to submit works to an Ao3 collection/ how to specify gift recipients etc?

Here are the Ao3 Collections FAQs.

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I’m not very good at art/ writing/ etc.

That’s okay! As long as you put your heart into it, you’re welcome aboard! 

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I want to join but I’m shy/ intimidated generally/ by my giftee/ by everyone’s expectations.

Hey, it’s alright, we’re all nakama in the same anime pirate boat here to enjoy some holiday time. Just try your best and have fun!

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I didn't receive my response email?

Ah, the automated emails have a daily limit, sorry. You can send me a message and I'll send you a copy manually. Thanks!

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When and how will I get my Secret Santa assignment?

On or before 22 November, I will contact you via your tumblr blog. Please keep your askbox/ submit box open between 14 November 2019 and 23 November 2019.

If I can’t reach you on tumblr, I will use the email you provide in the application.

If you applied on time, but did not receive a giftee assignment, please contact me.

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When should I send my gift to my Secret Santa?

Any time on or between 25 December 2019 and 31 December 2019.

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Can I let my giftee know who I am?

Only once you post your gift. In other words, yes but not earlier than 25 December 2019.

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Can I contact my giftee to clarify things about the gift?

Yes but you cannot reveal your identity before you post your gift (eg. use anon asks). If you can’t contact your giftee via tumblr, just do your best with the information you have.

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What if my giftee doesn’t have anon asks on/ doesn’t respond?

If you can’t contact your giftee anonymously via tumblr, just do your best with the information you have. Most people wrote detailed applications, so this should be workable.

If giftees are feeling up to it, consider keeping anon asks open for the duration of this event so santas can make clarifications if they need to. It might mean that the gift turns out more to your personal taste.

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Can the mods contact my giftee to ask things for me?

We’d love to but we can’t afford to take on the extra workload of being the go-between for everyone’s giftee questions.

You will get your giftee’s tumblr URL. Feel free to check out your giftee’s tumblr and see if they accept anon asks. Please respect their personal rules on interacting if you send asks.

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Oops! Something has come up and I can’t participate!

If you have to drop out, please do it before 15 November 2019 if possible. I want to make sure every participant receives a gift.

If you have to drop out after 15 November 2019, please send me an ask. I will assign backup santas.

Please note that if you drop out or are deemed to have dropped out, you may or may not receive any gift.

Please note that if you don’t confirm participation by 27 November 2019, you are deemed to have dropped out.

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Oh no, I missed the confirmation deadline (27 November 2019)! But I can confirm now though I’m late! Please please please will you still make sure I get a gift?

If you confirm late but before 15 December 2019, maybe, but at my discretion. If a replacement/ backup santa has already been assigned, likely no.

If you confirm on or after 15 December 2019, no. It’s up to luck whether you get one or not. May the odds be ever in your favour.

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I don’t use tumblr much/ my tumblr is dead, but I will be contactable and post on tumblr for this event. Is that okay?

Yup! As long as you communicate and post according to the timelines, it’s okay.

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How many mods are there?

Two. The older posts like this one use mostly “I”, since I started this event alone, but beacuse of the number of participants and the workload I got another person on board.

My art/ writing/ main is @codedredalert, and the second mod’s writing/ cursed/ main is @narramin.

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Have you, the mods, ever run an event like this before?

Nope. I, Red, have participated in maybe two. Take that as you will.

Suggestions and advice from experienced people are welcome! I may not be able to use/ implement them in this event, but the learning is appreciated.

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Are you, the mods, going to be participating as a giftee/ santa? I want a chance to get content from you/ give you things.

Awww thank you, that’s so sweet. Alas, I am just your humble mod. I’ll have my work cut out for me running the event and some major IRL things. Anyways, I'll be doing the matchups so I feel like I ought not to participate.

I’ll step in as a backup santa/ pinch hitter if necessary.

Since narramin leveled up from being a humble participant/ backup santa to moderator, she will be still participating, but due to her own request she won’t know her own santa. Needless to say, her santa will be randomised too. 

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Will you read/ comment on all the gift works?

I would like to, but I don’t want to make promises unless I’m sure I can keep them. I,,,,, will try.

Currently, I’m considering reblogging with functional tags first and slowly going through to add the fun comment tags later. I think I could make that work.

I would be in a better position to talk about this after applications close and the matchups and drop-outs are finalised. Thanks for your understanding.

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Is this event affiliated with _____?

Nope, it’s just us, alone, in this coffin-boat built from our own hubris.

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I don’t like your bad jokes and your weird western pirate talk. Can you stop?

Does Zoro have a sense of direction?

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The question I wanted to ask isn’t answered here?

Thank you so much for reading the questions before asking. Please feel free to send an ask to this blog or an email to opsecretsanta2019@gmail.com .

[antihero-writings]

His Butler, and the Problem with Magic, Chapter 1—Black Butler/Harry Potter Crossover for the Multi Fandom Valentine’s Exchange 2018

Fic Title: His Butler, and the Problem with Magic 

Fic Synopsis: Life at Hogwarts isn’t all bad…usually. But when Valentine’s Day rolls around, and Lockhart throws an extravagant ball, the number of couples at school the next day skyrockets, and Sebastian finds himself a new object of devotion…Can Ciel save his butler from the spell on his own?

Character Focus:  Ciel

Notes:

Ah, remember when I created that event for Valentines day? Good times, huh? Well here I am, the creator of the event, finally posting…aaand it’s almost July.

Dear @elegantkittycat needless to say I’m SOOOO sorry I took SOOOO long to finish this. I am ultimately super glad I participated, as this was a great fic and experience for me, but I really should have realized, with all the stuff going on in my life during March I wouldn’t have much time, and that I should have just manned the event, not participated. Ah well, live and learn I guess.

I hope you, and anyone else who decides to read it, enjoys it!! It’s been a long time coming!!

Chapter 1 Preview:

The great hall, quite frankly, looked like Valentine’s day threw up on it. Those lurid pink flowers from lunch still lined the walls, but now bright streamers glided across the ceiling, big, shiny hearts fluttered in the air, reflecting mood lighting, and bubble hearts popped out of bouquets of roses, (each flower cut into hearts). The ceiling itself not only continued to drop confetti, but was blighted by puffy clouds that read the same banalities you could find in every Sweethearts box; Be Mine, and True Love, and XOXO. (The clouds may have actually read that outside too, but Ciel didn’t want to check.) The burly cupids from earlier in the week lumbered about the room, continuing to pelt people with off-key music, and cards that only the most hopeless and idiotic of romantics would provide, filled with the same empty statements the clouds read—(every once and a while a howler burst forth, and the actual band would come to a shrieking halt at “YOU’RE REALLY CUTE”).

Lockhart had insisted a Valentine’s day ball was in order—(a lurid end to a lurid day)—and remarked with a toss of his his perfect hair and a blinding smile that it would be ‘just the thing’ to brighten everyone’s moods.

The fact that Lizzie had been the first (of many, mind you) to offer her decorative expertise and assistance may or may not have contributed to the overall… valentines-day-puked- and-so-will-I vibe of the room.

Currently, said mission to lift the general spirit was failing; aside from the few school lovebirds, (who were already widely despised and avoided, without school-sanctioned and overly sugary displays of affection) most people took this as the perfect opportunity for your daily dose of sulking at the sidelines, and contemplating if magic was quite worth this amount of suffering. Not least of all Ciel, who was currently propped against the wall behind the food table. (Lizzie had pried him away from his brooding earlier to dance, but now he happily returned to the indent he’d made in the wall). He had made many attempts throughout the evening to sneak a piece of chocolate cake, but Sebastian always magically appeared to slap his hands away whenever he got too close.

Most people would have stayed in their dorms, given the chance. Lockhart, however, had sent everyone cards with his kissy face on them, telling them flirtatiously not to dawdle, and his commands got more sugary, and insistent, (not to mention awkward) the longer they stayed indoors, and floated over their heads until they dragged their butts to the ball. This was particularly affective at making sure everyone was there, because the girls melted for his voice, and the boys wanted to shut him up as soon as possible.

“Isn’t this wonderful, Ciel!” A certain Indian prince put his arm around the earl’s neck and noogied him.

“Wha—No!” Ciel struggled like a fish out of water. Upon release he wiped his hands on his dress robes (the robes Sebastian had thrown together for the event—his ‘thrown together,’ of course, looked like others ‘spent-months-laboring-over-this’)—as if he didn’t want to catch Soma’s contagious happiness. “And I’d thank you to not touch me so casually!”

“I’m sorry Ciel, it’s just seeing all this love in the air makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside!” he spun around, “Doesn’t it do the same for you?”

“That’s called acid reflux.”

Soma pouted.

“Ciieel!” Lizzie’s hug was a torpedo. She snared his hands and spun him around, “Come dance with me!”

“Ack…I just danced with you ten minutes ago! How many times do I have to dance with you before you’re satisfied?!”

“Don’t you want your fiancé to be happy?” Her green eyes, (which were already big), became the puppy dog eyes of a little girl who wants an expensive toy.

“Don’t you?” he grumbled.

“I’ll dance with you, Elizabeth!” Soma came to the rescue. “It would be an honor to dance with such a lovely young lady!”

She blushed—“Oh please! It would be more than an honor to dance with a Prince!”—and curtsied, shooting Ciel an icy look, before joining the dance.

The young earl folded his arms over his chest and rolled his eyes.

As if that wasn’t enough sappiness for a lifetime, cloying words floated to his ears:

“Oh Professor Michaelis~!”

Ciel’s brow twitched.

“Come now Lavender, that wouldn’t be fair, would it?”

“Ahh, he’s so noble!” came a not-so-whispered consensus.

Ciel jerked his head to see the group of girls crowding around his butler, like birds to sunflower seeds in the park.

Rather than sharing his annoyance, and refusing their advances, Sebastian shimmered with flattery and flirtation. A few of them offered him boxes of chocolates and other sweets, which he took with flowery compliments, but surely had no intention of eating—it didn’t take a love expert to know they were all laced with love potions. (Or maybe he could eat them anyways; the jury was still out if love potions had any affect on the demon…some magical methods worked on him and others didn’t).

Ciel’s hands clenched into fists at his sides, “Don’t you have better things to do?!” he shouted over the throng.

Sebastian chuckled. “Mr. Phantomhive, don’t you know it’s rude to question a teacher?”

Ciel growled.

“These lovely ladies took time out of their day to offer me gifts,” the butler’s calm voice carried across the room. “It would be rude to refuse them.”

There was a syrupy sigh from the group.

“Ugh,” Ciel gave the opposite kind of sigh, and turned away before he gave into the urge to murder.

A familiar laugh at his side made him turn.

“What’s so funny?” he asked the Undertaker.

****

You can read the full fic here on Ao3, here on ff.net, or here on this blog!!

[1wngdngl]

Pokemon Shield playthrough - Part 5

Back again with another post! This one covers Route 5 and the Water Gym.

Just as I start down the route, I encounter the Cameraman/Reporter duo, who are a classic trainer pair from past games. Given that all the Gym Challenge stuff is a big spectacle in the Galar region, it makes perfect sense that Gym Challengers would get interviewed along the way.

This horde of Minccino chased after me. It was adorable.

I discovered the Pokemon breeding-grounds - or at least, the artificial version of it. This is not the same as the old “Day-Care” that could also level up Pokemon. The Nursery is solely for eggs, while Levelling up can be done with PokeJobs and the experience candies.

The people here are really nice - they gave me a free rare Pokemon!

It’s like a baby dinosaur! I believe this is also the first Poison-Electric combo we’ve had.

Since I don’t want to have duplicate types, I remove Yamper from the team. I prefer dual-types, plus this purple dinosaur looks cooler. Okay, so he starts at Level 1, and he’s pretty frail, but I can be patient.

Leaving the Nursery behind, I encounter another traditional trainer class - the Chef. He sends out food to attack me.

I also find a wild Wobbuffet - and promptly realize just how horrible its catch rate is.

I wasted every last Poke Ball on this fiend. At least he gave decent experience when I knocked his lights out.

I consoled myself by catching the weird apple creature for myself. Here’s another unique type combo - Grass and Dragon (wait, does Mega Sceptile have that typing?) It only knows a defense-raising move and the incredibly-weak Astonish, and has horrible stats all around. I’m sure it will evolve into something great, if I can figure it out. (btw, is it weird that Galar has both apples /and/ “Leppa” berries?)

I decided that my psychic-bug-cocoon wasn’t doing enough for me, so it got booted off the team.

I also got a second try at Wobbuffet ;)

This guy has a nice camping spot for himself. He never leaves. Maybe he ran away from home?

Seeing a pink puffball and an apple fight over a toy is too cute for words.

My coworker also has this game, and was kind enough to trade over this incredibly-high level Wingull. Not that I really plan to use it, but it /does/ have Pokerus. You’d think by now the nurses and professors of the Pokemon world would have learned to harness the power of Pokerus and turn it into a mandatory booster shot.

Back on track, these silly Team Yell people are blocking the bridge forward.

I get to see what my Dark-type fox /could/ have evolved into, if it were still on my team :( It looks like a proper gentleman-thief.

I love Pokemon - you save someone from getting their precious possession stolen, and as thanks, they give you their precious possession.

Too bad the outfit for it is so garish.

The blue color is a little better though.

Now that I have a bike, I can go into the Wild Area and try the Rotom Rally mini-game. It’s basically a time trial as you travel between different regions of the Wild Area. It looks like you can’t get attacked by wild Pokemon while in this Rally mode, so it’s probably the quickest way to get around (minus the flying taxi, of course).

These guys can also upgrade your bike a bit, but it’s expensive. And they don’t have the ride-on-water option either.

You know, Serebii.net says that Bunnelby doesn’t evolve until Level 20. This is an illegal Diggersby here!

Okay. Back on the bridge. Riding is so much faster than walking, but I keep stopping anyway to grab hidden items and look at the scenery. You can see the Dragon city in the background.

Another fight with my rival on the bridge. His Scorbunny has evolved, but it’s still not too tough.

In this place, Eldegoss literally float by on the wind. 

Here’s the tunnel that ducks under the train tracks. What could be on the other side?

That can wait! First, I gotta get my Pokemon sent out on more jobs. I love this logo that’s a blatant KFC rip-off.

Oh, I also discovered that you can, in fact, change the wallpaper of PC boxes. All of the choices are pretty boring, though.

Also, my coworker invited me on a raid battle with a 5-star Ditto. I have a bad feeling about this...

Scorbunny’s final form is so majestic.

None of the previous raid battles I fought had “barriers”! Is that something that only shows up in multiplayer raids?

This is it. We’ve weakened it, and now I have the chance to obtain this rare, useful, iconic Pokemon for myself...

Yeah, I failed the capture. I didn’t know they could fail. At least I got some good loot.

FINALLY, I make it to the seaside town of Hulbury. I wonder which British coastal town this is based on? For being the main port of the region, it’s not really all that big.

We encounter Chairman Rose and some of his “admirers”.

We also learn a little more about the relationship between Rose and Bede. Apparently Bede really wants to impress the Chairman, so maybe he’s not so much “working for him” as trying to gain his favor.

You know, I really don’t think he pulls off that outfit. What is it even - a mix of baseball uniform and swim trunks?

Oleana thinks she can boss me around.

I don’t owe you anything, silly person! This is /my/ Pokemon journey. And I’ll take as long as I want. ^.^

Sigh...Why can’t I just throw my coal monster at these goons to get past? My character is way too nice.

Oh, here’s another look at that elephant Pokemon that the Chairman had. It looks like it’s wearing a little hat.

Also, please be more creative when naming locations.

Here’s the “bustling market” I was told about? Must be a slow day.

We’ve got the stock “bitter medicine” booth (I never use these)...

Ah! Here’s something useful. You can bet I will use this item to maximize my earnings from every battle. I haven't seen an option to re-battle trainers yet, and those cool outfits won’t buy themselves.

I trade away for a Cottonee. You know, why don’t people in real life just trade pets with each other whenever they feel like it?

Pokemon, Pokemon...People already say your recent games are too easy, and now you’re giving me a free held item that’s super-effective against the current Gym? (Yet another sign that you should ignore Oleana and /not/ go straight to the Gym upon arrival.)

If nothing else, Hulbury is scenic. I bet the dock is covered with Wingull droppings though.

These people obviously don’t get the point of Pokemon.

With the hills overlooking the sea, I’m reminded of Los Angeles - or was it San Francisco? It’s probably a lot colder in Hulbury though.

Here’s the train station at the top of the town. Of course it can’t take me anywhere new. What if my dying grandmother lived in the next town over - would you let me get on /then/?

I never got into Pokemon’s post-game battle facilities much. I wonder what Galar will have in that department.

I go fishing in the pier, and find a few new Pokemon. That seems to confirm that what you catch is based on where you are, so there’s no rod upgrades.

Good to see that Basculin still comes in two forms. I’m guessing Sword version has the red form?

Another sneaky way to help players - hide a Chinchou in the pier. Its electric attacks would also be useful against the Water Gym.

Aha! Here’s that Pokemon we saw in the trailer, when everyone wasn’t sure if it /was/ a Pokemon or just a generic fish. Well, it is real, though it doesn’t look that useful. It actually looks like a skinnier version of red-striped Basculin.

Nope, not keeping you. I only have six slots!

Some more postcard pictures.

Here’s that weird-looking Pokemon that was also glimpsed in the trailer. Will I be able to find this in the wild?

A hidden Electric-type TM. This is why you explore and do side stuff /before/ continuing the main story.

About ready to face the Gym now. First, now that I’ve entered a new town, I have some new options for my league card.

Here’s a brief look at where I am so far.

And a preview of Nessa. That pose cannot be comfortable.

My team. I’m hoping Avery’s Electric attacks will help, even though he is a bit under-leveled...

First, the Gym puzzle. It’s not really that hard. You could probably do it completely by accident.

In the old days, we had puzzles involving sliding around on icy floors, and using the Strength HM to push boulders into the correct holes. Now /that/ was a puzzle!

I wonder if Nessa ever gets cold, wearing that?

Her Dreadnaw wasn’t a super-high level, but it was incredibly powerful.

It knocked out my Dynamaxed Pokemon, even when the Dreadnaw itself was small!

I had no choice but to pull out my starter, and fight water with water.

Turns out Nessa’s calm demeanor breaks when she faces failure.

And now it’s dusk. I still don’t get how time of day works in this game - is it just an aesthetic thing related to the story?

A change in lighting can make for totally different pictures.

I have access to a new job company. They must be a sponsor for Nessa, since she wore a pin with their logo. Does this mean we can actually encounter Wailord in the game?

I also get the Chairman’s league card. I like the way he writes his signature.

You know the drill - can’t advance with my life until I follow the plotted line into this restaurant. At least it looks fancy inside. I like the Wishi-Washi designs on the floor.

Some story stuff happens. I am completely extraneous to this conversation.

I don’t really know how I feel about the Chairman. I still think he’s probably up to no good, but he’s not the cackling-evil sort that Lusamine was. Maybe it’s actually Oleana who’s evil, and Rose is being manipulated.

This restaurant: Nice location, horrible service. The whole time I sat here - empty glasses, and no food. If I’m gonna be forced to sit and listen to some exposition, I should at least get a meal out of it. 

Okay, that’s all for now! In the next entry, I will enter this tunnel into yet another mine.

[scully-eats-sushi]

2018 - My fandom and non-fandom year recap

(This will be a bit of a mini-essay, so I apologize in advance.) 2018 was the year I really got into the fandom. I have read fanfic for years and years and am one of the OG fans, but until I accidentally found this Tumblr community in summer 2017 and made my own Tumblr in 2018, I didn’t cross over into personal fandom interactions.

I also, for the very first time, decided to attempt my own fanfic, and actually *publish* it, against my initial instincts. You all encouraged me to do that, and to do it again, and for being positive and kind and supportive and constructive, I thank you all.

So thank you, all you dear friends, for making this year exciting, surprising, fun, sad, up, down, and emotional.

I loved sharing Season 11 with all of you, despite the unfortunate ending. Remember how much excitement we felt, over and over, with each new promo video and preview? Remember how great “This” was? And THAT moment in “Plus One”? “TLAOFS”? “Ghouli”? 

On a personal note, many of you, without knowing it, were also responsible for me becoming much less repressed as to sex and sexuality. This in turn led to me understanding my own sexuality better, so that things now make much more sense; having some brand new exciting experiences; and eventually, helping tremendously with my two-year depression, which I feel all but free of right now.

Also without knowing it, many of you allowed me to feel just a bit like a leader, like someone who had some sort of wisdom and empathy to share, and I hope that I was able to help someone.

Some of you, without knowing it, kept me company or sent your good wishes when I was having bad times. 2018 sucked for a long while, but 2019 is gonna be better, for so many of us! I know it.

I was lucky enough to meet several fandom friends in person this year: @scullywolf, @rowan2006, @megdoesart, @poeticsandaliens; and in 2019, I plan and hope to meet several more of you. 

You are truly loved, my friends. I could tag dozens of you, but then I would be afraid to forget some of you, so forgive me for not tagging you. 

Happy New Year, everyone! 2019 is gonna be even better!

[reifromrfa]

Hello <3

Hey guys! Finally, an update! ^^; Haha sorry I’ve been MIA guys ;;; Things have been hectic, with the zine and real life stuff </3 

Here’s what I’ve been busy with:

• @mysmetravelzine - been packaging and shipping the zines to everyone who bought a physical copy! yay!!! I’ve sent the second and final batch today and we will be updating soon! :D Please follow us for more announcements soon! ^^

• @mysmehalloweenzine - it’s been so much fun writing about spooky stuff! I love Halloween (even though I’m a scaredy cat HAHA) and hhhhnnnggg it’s been so much fun writing for this zine TwT Preorders will open soon! Please look forward to it! :D I will be posting my preview soon!!! <3 :D I hope you guys like it! :D We appreciate all your support <3 <3 <3 

• @juminfanzine - i’m honored to be participating in this zine!!! :D I absolutely love Jumin, next to Vanderwood ;) <3 So I’m just crying because fjalkd;alkjfa A ZINE FOR JUMIN ;A; I’m still working on my fic but I’ll post a preview soon too! :D <3 Please support this zine as well :D <3 TwT Thank you so much!!! :D 

More under the cut!

Aaaaand here’s the stuff I have planned rn:

• A VACATION :)) I’ve been so beat haha that I just want to take a step back ^^; Have some me time to recharge haha read some books (I AM READING ALL YOUR PERFECTS HUHU no spoilers please but if anybody here is a Colleen Hoover fan, HELLO ;A;), watch movies, maybe play some video games hahaha (i got back into Moblie Legends huhu send help) but I’m still on Discord ^^ If you need to reach me, message me here and I’ll send you my tag :D

• Replies - I am going to scroll back through all the notifs and reply to all the tags I missed D: I’m so sorry! I will try my best to reply to everyone! Sorry in advance if I spam my blog with replies and old posts ^^; 

• Original writing - I’ve missed creating worlds and characters and I hope you guys don’t mind if I share some original stuff here :) <3 I mostly share them to Patrons but I’ll post a few of them here too! :D 

• MM fics - yessss I will still be writing fanfics for MM ;) I still owe you guys Avenged, Moonlight, On the Line...welp, and a lot more haha! I’m just really pooped rn haha but I’m excited to get back to writing too, especially with Halloween and Christmas coming up!!!! <3 My fave holidays TwT 

• Collabs and Commissions - I’m going to be working on commissions soon! I’m so sorry to have kept people waiting T-T I wanted to deliver the best work, and I felt that if I rushed it, it wouldn’t be the best T-T About collabs! I’m still collabing with these amazing ladies, @rainydayswriter, @rossyele and @aehruh so watch out for the stuff we’ll be rolling out in the near future ;) 

I’m sorry for the long post!!!! I think that’s all...HAHA! I just thought you guys should know...

I’M BACK!

See you guys around <3 

<3 Reifromrfa

[lingthusiasm]

Transcript Lingthusiasm Episode 22: This, that and the other thing - determiners

This is a transcript for Lingthusiasm Episode 22: This, that and the other thing - determiners. It’s been lightly edited for readability. Listen to the episode here or wherever you get your podcasts. Links to studies mentioned and further reading can be found on the Episode 22 shownotes page.

[Music]

Gretchen: Welcome to Lingthusiasm, a podcast that's enthusiastic about linguistics! I'm Gretchen McCulloch.

Lauren: And I'm Lauren Gawne, and today we're talking about this, that, and the other thing! The other thing of course being determiners. But first: We met our recent Patreon goal to do a live show!

Gretchen: Yay, live show! I'm excited! We will have more news for you about where and when that live show is gonna be, but stay tuned!

Lauren: Thanks to everyone who helped us meet this goal, all of our fabulous patrons who make these main episodes happen ad-free and available for everyone, and who, of course, as a thank you from us, get a bonus episode every month as well!

Gretchen: And if you're a patron, you'll also have seen the advance announcement that since we also met our art goal a while back –

Lauren: Yay, art goal!

Gretchen: – we now have preview art up on Patreon which you can see, a sample sketch, and we're announcing here that the theme for this art is space babies!

Lauren: Space babies! We are so excited. Space babies have been with us since Episode 1, where we talked about what would happen on the International Space Station, given that they speak both Russian and English as their daily languages, if we sent a whole bunch of babies to space to grow up.

Gretchen: Yes, if all the astronauts and cosmonauts started having babies together, what would the babies speak? So we have an international array of cute babies floating in space, very unethically, we are not sending any actual babies to space, but they're very cute when they're cartoon versions!

Lauren: We just couldn't get the ethics.

Gretchen: To be honest, we didn't try to get the ethics, we knew we couldn't.

Lauren: We've talked about space babies in a couple of other episodes, and of course we always love to chat about just what great language learners babies are, so we're very happy to have some cute little mascots for the show. And we'll be launching merch for those very soon!

Gretchen: And this has been one of our most popular quotes with you, the listeners, all the way through, so you will get to wear, or have stickers of, small, cute babies very soon! And you can see this preview and listen to two new bonus episodes – one about forensic linguistics, and another about homonyms – by becoming a patron.

[Music]

Lauren: Okay, Gretchen, it's time to determine who knows the most determiners. Are you ready? This is not a competition, but, you know, I love framing things as a competition.

Gretchen: It's a competition! It's on! Okay. I'm gonna start with "the."

Lauren: Oh, damn, you chose the easy one! I'm gonna go with "a."

Gretchen: My.

Lauren: This.

Gretchen: Your?

Lauren: That?

Gretchen: Her.

Lauren: Its.

Gretchen: His.

Lauren: Many?

Gretchen: Their... I did all the possessives, I'm sorry, it's really easy.

Lauren: That's very possessive of you, Gretchen.

Gretchen: Our!

Lauren: Some?

Gretchen: A.

Lauren: Three.

Gretchen: And also "an," because "an" is just kind of the same one.

Lauren: Okay, you get half a point for "an" because I had "a."

Gretchen: Uh, those.

Lauren: Four.

Gretchen: These.

Lauren: Five.

Gretchen: Some.

Lauren: Six.

Gretchen: Okay, if you're gonna do numbers we can be here... all day.

Lauren: Seven.

Gretchen: Like, until eternity.

Lauren: Eight, nine... okay, we have literally an infinite number of determiners ahead of us. It's probably not gonna make for a good episode if it's just me counting to infinity.

Gretchen: I think we need to declare it a tie, because we can't count who knows the most infinity numbers.

Lauren: Yup. And it's a good conclusion. Thanks for playing our game, Determiners Determinered.

Gretchen: Determiner Determiner Game. But determiners are really cool! And there are a lot of them, and I know when I learned about them, it kind of blew my mind that all of these different things that I thought of as different kinds of parts of speech actually had this hidden thing in common.

Lauren: Yeah, so even though that sounded like a grab bag of words that you think of as coming from different categories – like numbers, and possessive pronouns, and articles, and things that you've talked about as different parts of speech – if you've ever done any grammar, are actually part of the same group of things called determiners. And it's like discovering that all of these people that you thought were really cool all have something in common that makes them even cooler?

Gretchen: Like they all have a mutual friend with you, or – in my case, it's like discovering that all your friends are all also left-handed, because this happens to me periodically. It's like, "You're left-handed, too! Great!"

Lauren: Or it's like when I discover that a bunch of my friends are vegetarian and I'm like, "Yes! Dinner parties at my house!"

Gretchen: I will still come to your dinner parties even though I'm not vegetarian.

Lauren: Okay, thank you, tolerant carnivore.

Gretchen: Omnivore!

Lauren: But that's like, you know, there are some omnivores who will turn up to the party, and they might be doing different things at other parties sometimes, but they're very happy to be vegetarians at my parties. And that is kind of like determiners, these parts of speech that might have other jobs, but they have this job as well.

Gretchen: Yeah, and what I really like about determiner is that they're these tiny little words, and they can really drastically change the course of a story you're talking about, just by influencing the perspective or the relationship that you have with the main noun in the sentence. So if you start with a story like, "I was walking home last night and I saw a cat." So far...

Lauren: Great story.

Gretchen: Oh, it's a good story, any story with a cat is a good story. But so far it's a pretty straightforward story. Nothing surprising here.

Lauren: But it's clearly a cat you don't know.

Gretchen: Yeah.

Lauren: Or we think you don't know, at this point in the story.

Gretchen: But if I say, "I was walking home last night and I saw the cat..."

Lauren: Oh my god, your cat got out and then you saw it!

Gretchen: So maybe that's my cat, but maybe that's just, like, The Cat of Doom.

Lauren: Mmm!

Gretchen: Or, like, "I was walking last night and I saw that cat."

Lauren: Aw, has it been scratching up all of your plants again?

Gretchen: That darn cat! Or if I say, "I was walking home last night and I saw your cat..."

Lauren: Oh! I mean, that's surprising given that you live in a different city and I don't have a cat, but, you know...

Gretchen: We live in different continents, like, your cat is a good swimmer! "I was walking home last night and I saw many cats..."

Lauren: Oh, lucky you!

Gretchen: Well, depends on how many. "I was walking home last night and I saw a million cats!"

Lauren: "I was walking home last night and I saw at least ten cats."

Gretchen: Like, I'm scared now. You know that thing about “would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or a thousand duck-sized horses?”?

Lauren: Yes.

Gretchen: Like, a million cats, I don't want to fight them!

Lauren: No.

Gretchen: And I don't even think I want them all to sit in my lap, because I think I'd be crushed.

Lauren: Yes, that is a lot of fluff.

Gretchen: Yeah. So what's interesting about determiners is they can – you know, all of these were the same story, except for the determiner. And it's really having a huge influence in terms of what happened and the relationship between the noun "cat" and the rest of the sentence, the rest of the story. It determines which cat I'm talking about, or – "which" being another determiner – or what kind of relationship that cat has to the sentence as a whole.

Lauren: I always think of determiners as a really important reality check in terms of semantics. We often think about whether it was a cat or a dog, like that part of the meaning is really important. It's like, well, that part is, but the determiner is the part that makes it clear just how real it is, if it's a hypothetical cat, if it's a real dog, if it's my cat or my dog.

Gretchen: And especially it tells us things like whether it's been previously mentioned in conversation. Like if I say, "I saw a cat" or "I saw the cat" – if I say, "I saw the cat," that implies that it's been mentioned somehow before, it's an aforementioned cat, or it's a cat that's been previously relevant. Or if I say, "I saw this cat" versus "I saw that cat," those cats are different distances from me. Or, you know, "Do you want this book or that book?" The "this book" is closer and the "that book" is further away.

Lauren: I like to think about this proximity distinction a lot, because English has squandered the opportunity to have yet another proximity distinction. Because we used to have "yon" or "yonder" as part of the regular vocabulary, which was, like, further away than "that." And so I could say, "Tell me about yon cat," and that would be like, "Tell me about the cat that's all the way over there" in the story that you're telling.

Gretchen: That would be great. I think we should bring back "yon."

Lauren: We should bring back the far distal demonstrative.

Gretchen: I'm into it. I was walking home last night and I saw yon cat!

Lauren: Well, I mean, it was the size of a horse, so it was pretty easy to see.

Gretchen: That's why I could see it from so far away.

Lauren: Yep. And there are some languages that still have these distinctions, I think Portuguese is a language that has it.

Gretchen: Yeah, I know Spanish does. You can have, like, "ese gato" and "aquel gato," I think.

Lauren: Yep. And you can have a distinction between "essa," which is like me/you in Portuguese, but you can have "aquela," which is like over there, away from both of us. Which, in terms of like asking people to fetch cake for you, which is a context I think about a lot, distinguishing between the cake that's near you and the cake that is further away on the table and not near either of us, like, English doesn't do that very elegantly.

Gretchen: I think it's really important, you know, if you're going to a bakery or something and you're looking behind the glass and you're saying, "Yeah, I want three of these, and three of those, and three of yon."

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: The cakes over yonder!

Lauren: So English, even though it has a lot of distinctions, we're still missing out on some good semantics.

Gretchen: Yeah! And some languages don't have this distinction between "a" and "the" at all, really! Like, some languages do just fine without it, and it's clear based on the discourse which one is there. One of the other cool things that I really like about determiners is that they can let us do – like a lot of these little little, tiny parts of speech, these little words that are kind of the glue between the big, important content words that have all this very vivid, drawable or picture-able or pointable meaning – you know, you can draw a picture of a cat, you can't draw a picture of a "the" or of a "this." I mean, maybe you want to try! I'd like to see someone try, but I don't know what's in that picture! And so when you're thinking about the type of things that can be pictured, one of the things that lets us bring in and integrate new words, or nonsense words, or fake words, or be really creative with language, is these little building blocks that tell us, when we're bringing in a new fake word, what we're actually trying to do with that word. So it's not just an entire string of gibberish, it's gibberish that sounds like it could be kind of English-y, which is a really interesting halfway point.

Lauren: And it does this by leveraging things like determiners.

Gretchen: Yeah! And determiners are a huge part of this. So if you have a poem like Jabberwocky, which is a great poem...

Lauren: Good old Jabberwocky! I give this to my students and I say, "Well, how do you know what part of speech 'wabe' is?" Because "wabe" is not a real word.

Gretchen: So this is a poem by Lewis Carroll which begins, "'Twas brillig, and the slithy toves/ Did gyre and gimble in the wabe." So it's English-y! It's got some English in there, there's an "and," and there's a "the," and there's a "did," and there's an "in," but there's also all these words that aren’t English: brillig, and slithy, and toves, and gyre, and gimble, and wabe. And yet we know that if you say, "'Twas brillig," that the "brillig" there is gonna be an adjective, and the "slithy toves" – "slithy" is also gonna be an adjective, but "tove" has got to be a noun.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: And the reason we know that is because of the "the" there.

Lauren: And similar with "the wabe." There's only one wabe in the Jabberwocky, there's not a million wabes.

Gretchen: Yeah! And you know that because of the "the."

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: And it creates – if you said, "'Twas brillig and some some slithy toves did gyre and gimble in a wabe..."

Lauren: You'd be like, "Oh, just one of those common wabes, yeah, we've all got one."

Gretchen: Exactly! So it really kind of creates a different attitude of perspectives and speakers, like, okay, this thing is common knowledge. We don't know what a wabe is, but we know it's a thing that is previously mentioned in the discourse, or that there's only one of, the way you might say "the sea" or "the ocean" rather than "a puddle."

Lauren: Of course Jabberwocky's all well and good, but I like to use snek memes as my diagnostic tool.

Gretchen: So this is the meme with the snakes in it.

Lauren: And snakes, of course, like all animals in picture memes on the internet, talk really funny!

Gretchen: Yes. And they're particularly good at making things nouns that aren't supposed to be nouns?

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: Or that weren't originally nouns. So the classic snek sentence that I always think of when I think of the snek meme is, "Heck off, you're doing me a frighten!"

Lauren: And there are a few others that we have from Snekville here: "I do a flat." "I am much venom." "Snek ned a boopings." "I'm doing a protec."

Gretchen: And so all of these – you have "a frighten." "Frighten" normally in English is a verb, but here the "a" is what's making it into a noun. And you parse it as a noun, that's what makes it work, but the determiner is really what's telling you. It's kind of the traffic signal for the streets that your noun and verb cars run down, that tell them where to go.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: And the same thing with "much venom," the "much" there, another determiner, is telling you, okay, "venom" here, which would be a noun, is now actually I guess kind of...

Lauren: It's a different kind of noun, yeah. It's changing the flavor of the noun.

Gretchen: Yeah. Or "snek need a boopings," you know, you don't normally put "a" with a plural noun. "Boopings."

Lauren: Because "a" is one specific thing.

Gretchen: Yeah, there's a lot of things there that – like, the thing that makes snek an interesting and creative meme is that it has the determiners telling you here's why these nouns and these adjectives and stuff sound weird.

Lauren: I like that you pointed out, when we were assembling our mini snek corpus for the episode, that snek is really obsessed with the use of "a" rather than "the."

Gretchen: Mm, yeah. So snek doesn't say, "You're doing me the frighten," or "I do the flat," like I do the twist, or "snek need the boopings," "I'm doing the protec." Those don't sound very snek-like to me!

Lauren: No, there's something about the indeterminate. Everything is possible for snek, everything is multitudes.

Gretchen: Yeah, whereas when I think of earlier memes, especially the kind of lolcat memes that often respelled "the" as "teh” –

Lauren: Yeah. Well, I think it's just 'cause the "the" as "teh" was so much more salient, because it was graphically irregular, that it kind of seems much more prominently "cat."

Gretchen: Yeah, I think of "teh" as cats and "a" as snek. So each each animal meme gets its own characteristic determiner. Well, and we can even think of, like, the doge meme, which has like, "wow such meme!"

Lauren: Doge was very obsessed with "such" and "much" and these, like, quantifying...

Gretchen: And "many."

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: Yeah, all these quantifier determiners. So, yeah! They tend to draw on a characteristic set of determiners, which I think is kind of interesting.

Lauren: Yeah. "Do me such frighten" would be more doge-y.

Gretchen: Yeah, and like, "Do me teh frighten" might be more lolcat-y.

Lauren: Yeah. Gosh, imagine if Lewis Carroll was alive in the time of animal memes!

Gretchen: I feel like Jabberwocky is already almost a meme. If you put that on some images, it would kind of look meme-like. And I think you can even see – so we did an episode a little while back about the wug test. So the wug test is, you show people a picture of this cute, little, nonsense animal, and you say, "This is a wug. Now there are two of them. There are two..." And you leave open that space for them to fill in "two wugs," which is how you know people can generalise the plural to words they've never heard before, even little kids.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: But the thing that makes that test possible is that we have certain expectations and certain relationships with determiners. "This is a wug." So here's a new piece of information to you, you haven't necessarily seen one of these before. And then saying, "Now there are two of them. There are two..." You know, numbers are also determiners, so "there are two..." fills in, okay, you want to say this again, you want to say this noun again.

Lauren: I wonder if you could mess up kids doing the test by saying, "This is the wug."

Gretchen: Hmm!

Lauren: Because if you say, "This is the wug", and imply that there's, like, one, saying there are two could potentially confuse them.

Gretchen: Yeah, that's interesting! Because there are some things that... Can you do this? Because I'm thinking of, like, there are some proper names that you can say, like, "The Flash," for a superhero, but I don't think you can say, like, "Now there are two of them, there are two... The Flashes?

Lauren: The Flashes.

Gretchen: Like, what if The Flash was in some sort of, like, clone/evil twin weird movie where there was a second The Flash, are they now called The Flashes? How does that work?

Lauren: The Flashes. It sounds like a really bad band or a spate of petty criminals.

Gretchen: This is my band, The Flashes.

Lauren: Yeah, so the wug test also relies on determiners in a really low-key way, but it's still really important for it.

Gretchen: And this kind of brings us into determiners and how they interact with names of people or names of places and other types of proper nouns that are unique and singular.

Lauren: Yeah. So we've said so far that determiners, you just whack 'em on a noun and it's all good, but there are a bunch of nouns that they don't work too good with! And proper nouns are definitely those, so people names and place names.

Gretchen: Yeah, like I am not "the Gretchen," I don't think anyone can say that. Welcome to Lingthusiasm, I'm the Gretchen McCulloch!

Lauren: But you are the Gretchen of Lingthusiasm. Someone could ask if you're the Gretchen from All Things Linguistic.

Gretchen: That's true, yeah! Like, "Are you the Gretchen that's on Lingthusiasm or are you some other Gretchen?" I think maybe it's easier with your name, Lauren, because "Lauren" is a far more common name.

Lauren: Well, yeah, I am definitely a Lauren. Like I talk about being a linguist Lauren on Twitter, and how much I love all the other linguist Laurens.

Gretchen: I know many linguist Laurens.

Lauren: And saying, you know, in the 2000s that someone was a real Britney...

Gretchen: Mmm!

Lauren: It takes on a kind of adjectival title property of that name being very trendy at that time and having certain connotations and extra meanings.

Gretchen: Yeah, like, a Britney is definitely different from a Karen.

Lauren: Yes.

Gretchen: You have different associations between those. So, I read this really weird short story called "And Then There Were (N-One)" by Sarah Pinkser.

Lauren: Hang on. "And Then There Were N Minus One"?

Gretchen: Yeah, it's a pun on the Agatha Christie story, "And Then There Were None."

Lauren: Okay.

Gretchen: And the premise of the story – I guess this is a spoiler. It's a great story, though, you should read it. I won't spoil the ending.

Lauren: Okay.

Gretchen: I'll just spoil the premise partway through. So the author is Sarah Pinsker, and she kind of involves herself as a character in this story. She gets a mysterious letter that says, "We have discovered the theory of multiple universes such that every decision that anybody has ever made has created a proliferation of universes. And we're inviting you to a convention with all of the other Sarah Pinskers.”

Lauren: Ah, so she's just a Sarah Pinsker.

Gretchen: Right! And so you're gonna meet the Sarah Pinsker that didn't move to Seattle, or you're gonna meet the Sarah Pinsker that didn't end up dating your girlfriend. Like, you're gonna meet all of these different, other Sarah Pinskers.

Lauren: Yeah.

Gretchen: And some of the Sarah Pinskers have changed their last name, but they're still a Sarah. And so the story has a lot of her trying to identify the different Sarahs once she meets them. So she's like, "Okay, so this is the Sarah that was wearing the band t-shirt," or, "This is the Sarah that was wearing the cute dress,” or, "This is the Sarah that had her hair in a long braid."

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: Or she'll go into a room and she'll be like, "Well, there were seven Sarahs in the room." Or like, "One Sarah said, and then another Sarah said..." And so you're doing all of these determiner things to this proper name, because suddenly "Sarah" has become a type rather than just a unique referent.

Lauren: "Sarah" just sounds like any other noun right now.

Gretchen: Yeah! Right? Like, you're totally semantically satiated on "Sarah" because it just doesn't even feel like it's a person's name anymore. And by the time I got to the end of this short story, which was very interesting in terms of what it means – you know, interesting questions of identity – it was like, what do all of these Sarahs mean and what does this mean about your ability to make these types of decisions? But grammatically I also thought it was very interesting because you don't often get to have proper names being pluralised and "the Sarah" and "a Sarah" and "one Sarah," "another Sarah," and these kinds of things.

Lauren: Certainly not sustainedly.

Gretchen: Yeah! So you have this whole short story where it does that. We'll link to it, it's a great short story.

Lauren: I find it interesting – we were talking about this briefly the other day when we were talking about this topic – how superhero names do this, and I couldn't find anything, because this is definitely not my genre of popular entertainment, but if you have any links about the use of "the" or not in front of superhero names. It's kind of interesting, because we have, you know, The Flash and The Phantom, but it would be really weird to have The Superman.

Gretchen: The Batman!

Lauren: The Wonder Woman.

Gretchen: Well, I was actually also thinking of this in terms of other mythical creatures! 'Cause you have, like, Santa Claus, not the Santa Claus. But then you have –

Lauren: But you have the Easter Bunny!

Gretchen: The Easter Bunny! And the Tooth Fairy!

Lauren: Hmm! Santa, special status.

Gretchen: Right? And all the reindeer, too. Like, you have Rudolph, not the Rudolph.

Lauren: The Mrs. Claus.

Gretchen: The Mrs. Claus! I guess you have "the elves," because they don't have unique identities, but that's a little bit less distinctive.

Lauren: Yeah. Poor elves.

Gretchen: Well, and the same thing goes for other types of generic items. So you have, like, the internet, but something people kind of make fun of sometimes is often older people who talk about, like, "the Google" or "the Facebook."

Lauren: Well, the Facebook was The Facebook and they made –

Gretchen: Yeah, it was originally called The Facebook!

Lauren: The mysterious forces of branding and naming were like, "It's not cool, just make it Facebook."

Gretchen: I was trying to think of any other major companies that had "the" in them. I'm sure I'll think of one as soon as I stop trying to go for it. Like, you don't have like "The Amazon," or "The Microsoft," or "The Coca-Cola." You know, like... The Coca- Cola?? The Pepsi??

Lauren: It doesn't really work.

Gretchen: The McDonald's? I don't know if there are any that really do that.

Lauren: English isn't that big on putting determiners in front of proper nouns, unless it's in sci-fi.

Gretchen: And you do have, sometimes, "the" in front of other words that are just kind of generic, like you say, "The power went out."

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: It's the power, it's not a power. Like, the electricity is out. It's a specific thing, but it's also kind of not.

Lauren: Yeah. And this is what makes languages always fun to learn, because what you do by default in one language and use determiners all over the place in one context, you might not in another language.

Gretchen: Yeah, absolutely. Like in countries. Most countries in English you don't say, you know, "the Canada" or "the Australia."

Lauren: Welcome to the Australia! It does not sound natural or native to my English speaker intuition.

Gretchen: No. But a few of them – like, you say "the United States" or "the United Kingdom," partly because those are compound phrases.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: You don't say "the Great Britain."

Lauren: No.

Gretchen: Or "the England." And then you also have some like Ukraine, which used to be known as the Ukraine, and now they're like, "No, please call us just Ukraine, because we want to be like all the other countries." But there are still a few countries like the Vatican or the Hague that go by "the"s.

Lauren: Uhh, The Hague is a city.

Gretchen: Is it a city? Okay. Well, so there we go.

Lauren: So there are a few places like the Vatican and the Hague that are still using determiners in English, but it's definitely not a standard convention.

Gretchen: Yeah, exactly. But in French, for example, you do put determiners in front of all your countries. So you have "le Canada," and "la France," and "l'Australie," and these kinds of things. So these are these, like, weird, little subtle variations that even when a language seems like they have direct equivalents, they get used slightly differently in different contexts. My favourite ridiculously complicated word having to do with determiners...

Lauren: Yep. I've already used the word "proximal" in this episode so you're gonna beat me.

Gretchen: This is a word that you only ever use because you can have it, and I've only ever seen linguists use it to be like, "What a great word!" And I've never actually seen it in a context where someone wasn't sign-posting how great a word it was? So definitely don't think you have to know this word to be a linguist, but also a lot of linguistics really like this word. And this word is "anarthrous." I think I'm pronouncing it right.

Lauren: Anarthrous?

Gretchen: Anarthrous. And this means "not having a 'the.'"

Lauren: Mmm! That's a really obscure word for saying "this word doesn't have a 'the.'"

Gretchen: It's such a complicated word for such a simple concept. And so "arthrous," without the "an-", would be "having a 'the,'" and "anarthrous" would be "not having a 'the.'"

Lauren: Anarthrous also just sounds like a really great roller derby name for a linguist nerd.

Gretchen: Hi, my name is Ann! Ann Arthrous.

Lauren: Yep, done.

Gretchen: So a context where you might use this, and a context where I recently saw this word, was in Lynne Murphy's book, which we talked about in a recent episode, where she talks about how Americans will say, "I'm in the hospital," and Brits will say, "I'm in hospital." And so for Brits, "hospital" is anarthrous. And for Americans, "hospital" is arthrous, as in, you put a "the" there. And you can do it  with similar things, like, you go to school, you don't go to the school.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: But you go to, like, the grocery store, which is the generic grocery store, even if you mean a specific one.

Lauren: That's a good word. Try to use it in a sentence today.

Gretchen: Use it today! No one will understand you. And then you too will get to explain what it means! This is the thing that's always stopped me from getting any active use of the word, 'cause I know no one else would get it either.

Lauren: We'll post a link to that in the show notes, so you also know how to spell it.

Gretchen: Lynne's got this great point in her book where she talks about the "in hospital" thing, and then she's like, "It's anarthrous!" And then she puts in brackets, "A word which I only use because it's so great, and here's what it means." And I'm like, yeah, I see what you did there.

Lauren: Pretty much.

Gretchen: I would have done the same thing.

Lauren: So we mentioned briefly that even English can't agree on when you use articles and determiners and when you don't use them, and that varies even more cross-linguistically. We saw it with English and French, but I also like that different languages have different resources to draw on. And we talked about how determiners are this diverse group of words that can kind of be invited to the same party and hang out together and do a similar thing. And I think it's really interesting, if you've learnt a couple of languages, you might notice that some of the languages you speak have a distinct word that meets the function of "a" or "an," but some languages just co-opt their word for "one" in doing that.

Gretchen: Oh yeah, that's true!

Lauren: Yeah. So, Syuba is a language like that, the Tibeto-Burman language of Nepal that I work with. So if you want to refer to an indeterminate, just any particular one of a thing, you would say "gùri tɕí," "one cat," and that does the same job as "a" without having to invent a whole other word.

Gretchen: I think there are a bunch of European languages that do that too, because I know French and Spanish do, and German does, you have "un chat," or "un gato," or "eine Katze." And those are all the same as the word for "one" in those languages.

Lauren: And there's a there's a really great WALS map – we've talked about the World Atlas of Linguistic Structures before – that shows where there are languages that have a distinct type determiner and languages that use the numeral one for that function.

Gretchen: Oh, that's very cool. So we can click on this link and see a map of different coloured dots where the word for "a" is the same as the word for "one" and where it's different.

Lauren: Yep!

Gretchen: That's really neat!

Lauren: And the definite equivalent, so the "the" equivalent, is "dì," and that's the same as the word for "this."

Gretchen: Oh, okay!

Lauren: So they don't have a separate "the" and "this," they just have this one form, "dì." They have a distal, and they have a "somewhere between far and near" as well, super cool. And what's really cool is that for the "the" equivalent, you say "dì gùri," or "the cat," and in this case the determiner is before the noun, and with the number, it was after, it was "gùri tɕí" so that's "cat one" as a kind of literal translation. And it's really, again, a nice reminder that determiners can have such different functions and they can occur in different parts of the sentence in relation to the noun, but they still all have this same function.

Gretchen: And there's a map of that, too, of which languages have their word for "this" and their word for "the" as the same.

Lauren: Yep. Thanks, WALS!

Gretchen: What I find is kind of the most interesting thing about determiners as a category is the way that they kind of unify a bunch of things that we think of as similar. Latin actually has this thing that's very similar to what's in Syuba, which is their word for "this," which was "ille, illa, illud" in Latin, became the Romance "le, la, les" or "el, los, las."

Lauren: Ahh! I was gonna say, they sound familiar.

Gretchen: Yeah! And so the Latin word for "this" became the word for "the" in the Romance languages.

Lauren: Mmm!

Gretchen: So this is a thing that happens from language to language, even when they have no contact with each other, and they've never heard of each other, and they're nowhere near each other geographically. This is just a trend that languages seem to have. And the same thing for – have you ever wondered why we have two forms, "a" and "an"?

Lauren: Yes? But it's because – I mean, I know the environments that they occur in, that "an" occurs before something vowel-y or something H-y, but that's a complicated historical complication.

Gretchen: Yeah. But "an" is actually older than "a," right?

Lauren: Ahh! Yeah.

Gretchen: And the "an" that's an "an" is because it has the same root as the word "one" in English.

Lauren: Mmmm! I have the Etymonline links, as I always love to do, for "a" and "the" that I'll put in the show notes.

Gretchen: So if you go to Etymonline and you look up the word "one," you can see that it's the same root as "only," or "alone," or "atone," which is like, "at one," "all one."

Lauren: Mmm!

Gretchen: And in the dialect form "good'un" or "young'un," that "un" is a "one" as well. But the "one" pronunciation came up later, and "an" was also a version of that.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: And so if you have "own" and "an," you can hear how those are very similar to each other, and they're from the same root. So English actually has that connection. But the thing that makes me the most excited about thinking about determiners as a group is that it helps explain a few things about how we use determiners. So if you have a word like "the," you don't just go around saying "the" by itself in a sentence. Like, you can't say, "I saw a cat, and then the kept going on," or something like that. Because that does not work.

Lauren: You missed a word, Gretchen!

Gretchen: It needs a noun there, for support. But other determiners like "this" and "that," they can act by themselves without support. So you can say, "I saw this cat, and then this kept going on." Maybe that's not particularly good sentence, but you can say, like, "Give me this book and then I'll move this here," or something like that.

Lauren: Yep.

Gretchen: And so you can, you know, like the title of this episode, "this, that, and the other thing," the "this" and the "that" in that sentence can each refer to specific things without there being a noun there for support. And what's interesting is that the pronoun "they" in English comes into English from Old Norse, and it has the same origins as "this" and "that" and "the." They're all related to each other in terms of, like, "that one" or "those ones" or "these ones." All of those "the" forms are related to each other. So some theories of determiners group all pronouns together with determiners, because a determiner by itself – at least the ones that can appear by themselves, like "this" and "that" and "many" – act a lot like pronouns as well. And other languages also seem to have this set of relationships between what some of the pronouns can be and what some of what we think of as articles or something can be. And so if we group them into this category of determiners, it actually explains why these seem to have these weird similarities with each other.

Lauren: It explains why everyone's at the same party!

Gretchen: Yeah! It's like seeing into the underpinnings, or the behind-the-scenes view of language and saying, actually, these things, if we think about them from a certain perspective, they do have a lot of weird similarities.

Lauren: So like with Syuba, we have "dì" being both "the," which has to be part of a noun phrase for it to make sense as a "the" equivalent, but it also has its own full life as "this" and can occur independently. And so the thing I like about thinking about all of these things as determiners, rather than thinking about pronouns and articles and all of this, is that it makes a lot of sense as something that would otherwise be really confusing and you'd be trying to give it a kind of double identity that's unnecessary.

Gretchen: Yeah, and it's weird to me that "determiner" as a name for this particular category is actually around 100 years old. It's pretty well-established. And it's weird for me that all through school, I never learned about determiners, I just learned about articles, and demonstratives, and pronouns, and possessive nouns, or possessive adjectives, or whatever they called all of these individual things. And I didn't learn that there was a name for the super category? And you can talk about articles separately if you want to, but it wasn't until I started doing linguistics that I learned there was actually a name for this whole category, even though this is something that's not controversial among linguists, and it's something that's generally accepted and, you know, you walk into Ling 101 and they might start talking about determiners. And it's weird to me that this hasn't necessarily trickled all the way down to high school grammar education, or elementary grammar education.

Lauren: It does make me sad you have to wait until you're in a linguistics undergrad class to know that there's even a party going on and the determiners are all there!

Gretchen: Yeah! And, like, I'd studied a bunch of language and I'd learned what I thought were my parts of speech, and then I walk in and I'm like, "What is this determiner thing? And how is it everywhere? And why is it so cool?" So I think people should know about determiners! I also have some determiner haikus to leave us with.

Lauren: Excellent.

Gretchen: Do you want to hear my determiner haikus?

Lauren: Sure, go for it, now that we know all about them.

Gretchen: Okay. So this is a multi-authored set of determiner haikus from Tumblr a couple years ago, and the first one is: 

The best thing about the definite article is that it is the

A good thing about indefinite articles is that they are a 

The best thing about using the demonstratives is when you go, 'This!'

Lauren: That was beautiful.

Gretchen:  All that my best thing re: some those determiners is all the above

Lauren: Thank you for those. I'll link to them on the show notes if you want to reread them and process them.

Gretchen: You should definitely do that in case people want to write their own grammar haiku. If you write a grammar haiku, tag us in it, and we will retweet it.

[Music]

Lauren: For more Lingthusiasm and links to all the things mentioned in this episode, go to lingthusiasm.com. You can listen to us on Apple Podcasts, iTunes, Google Podcasts, Google Play Music, SoundCloud, or wherever else you get your podcasts. And you can follow @Lingthusiasm on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tumblr. You can get IPA scarves and other Lingthusiasm merch at lingthusiasm.com/merch. I tweet and blog as Superlinguo.

Gretchen: And I can be found as @GretchenAMcC on Twitter, and my blog is AllThingsLinguistic.com. To listen to bonus episodes, ask us your linguistic questions, and help keep the show ad-free, go to patreon.com/lingthusiasm, or follow the links from our website. Recent bonus topics include forensic linguistics, homonyms, navigating linguistics grad school, and our second sweary episode, and you could help us pick the next topic by becoming a patron. Can't afford to pledge? That's okay, too. We also really appreciate if you can rate us on iTunes or recommend Lingthusiasm to anyone who needs a little more linguistics in their life.

Lauren: Lingthusiasm is created and produced by Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne. Our audio producer is Claire, our editorial producer is Emily, and our production assistants are Fabianne and Celine. Our music is by The Triangles.

Gretchen: Stay lingthusiastic!

[Music]

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

[mss4msu]

Here We Go Again

Summary: A proudly Swedish girl, you were happy to be paired with Thor on Post-New York appearances. To help de-stress him, you introduced him to Mamma Mia and the music of ABBA. Little did you know, after the Infinity War, Mamma Mia would be the only thing that could calm him down.

Pairing: Thor Odinson x Reader

Words: 2415

Warnings: This includes plot from Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, AND Avengers: Infinity Wars. IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS DO NOT READ THIS. Also there are a lot of tears and emotions. 

A/N: I literally sobbed while watching Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again in theaters today because it was emotional and I’m so proud of my heritage, so here’s a fic about ABBA and crying.

“Hey,” you called, knocking on his hotel room door. Tony had thought a hotel would be more incognito than everyone staying in Avengers’ Tower. “You ready to go?” You heard a small whimper from inside the room. “Thor? Please at least let me in if you aren’t going to come out.”

The door cracked open and half of Thor’s face looked out at you.

“Are you ready for the interview? Tony has us slated to go and say a few words to explain Loki’s actions and the repairs that will be done to New York and then we’re done.”

“As Prince of Asgard, I politely decline.” He closed the door in your face.

“Thor, I’m not leaving. You can either let me in or let me sit in the hallway, and the latter isn’t very polite.”

“Fine, you may enter,” he pulled open the door to allow you to enter his room.

“Thank you, ‘O Mighty Thor,” you curtseyed to him.

“Välkommen, (Y/N).” He sat on the edge of his bed, facing away from you.

You took in the state of the room. A pair of jeans and a sweatshirt were thrown on a chair. Thor’s armor was strewn across the floor, and it seemed as though he had been using his cape as either a blanket or a pillow, as it was crumpled up on the bed.

“Hey, Thor, I can call Tony and have him move the interview.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Or have him cancel it entirely?” He shrugged his shoulders with a bit more effort.

You walked over and took a seat next to him.

“Talk to me, please,” you looked at him, hoping he’d turn and meet your eyes.

“My brother, God of Mischief, just attempted to annihilate Midgard and I am tasked with explaining to the people of Midgard, who would be extinct if he succeeded, that he’s very sorry, which he isn’t. Even if he was, I have no ounce of belief that Midgardians would accept the apology. Even worse, I don’t think that they should. He is my family, I have to forgive him. You and your people d not.”

You just blinked at him. He was right, the apology really meant nothing. The wounds were too fresh and the threat was too recent.

“Give me a sec?” You asked him, he nodded, and you went into the bathroom and closed the door. You took your phone out of your pocket and dialed Tony.

“Hey, boss, it’s (Y/N). I’m so sorry, I’m feeling so nauseous and light headed and all hot and then cold, and it’s either flu or lady troubles. I think we’re should cancel the interview today. There’s no way I’ll get through it without puking on the interviewer. Thor is here to take care of me, so count him out too.” You mock gagged a few times to give added embellishment to your story.

You heard Tony gag a bit too, “Shit, (Y/N), ok, that’s disgusting. I’ll put Clint and Nat on clean-up duty today. Please don’t puke.”

“I’ll,” you fake gagged again with a huge smile on your face, “try.”

“Take care of yourself,” Tony said before hanging up.

You walked out of the bathroom and rejoined Thor on the bed.

“Thank you, (Y/N).”

“Välkommen, Thor. Now tell you what, since we now have a sick day, I’m going to introduce you to one of my favorite movies I watch when I need to express emotions, but regular words just don’t cut it. Plus, it has music of the Swedes!”

His face lit up at this. Though you had only been working together for a short while, Thor had loved getting to know more about a culture that somehow knew about how he and his family were gods.

“Tell you what, the movie’s in my room down the hall and I have bread and a jar of lingonberry jam and container of pickled herring in the fridge. We can have a Swedish meal too!”

“Excellent. Let’s depart!”

You led your way to your room, placed Mamma Mia in the DVD player, and got out the food. Thor awkwardly stood by the door while you did all of this.

“You can sit down, Thor,” you laughed. He did and you sat next to him, handing him the jar of pickled herring.

“Not a lot of people have the stomach for herring, but I think you’ll like it!” You skipped through the previews on the movie.

Thor opened the jar and took a big whiff of the herring. “This smells absolutely delicious! I love the Swedes!” He happily popped one in his mouth and moaned his approval.

“Alright, Thor, here we go, a crash course in one of Sweden’s most popular musical groups,” you told him, hitting play.

“Huzzah!” he happily replied with herring in his mouth.

By the end of the movie, Thor was in tears. He turned to look at you.

“(Y/N). Thank you for this experience. That music understood what I am feeling. I feel that Loki has been ‘slipping through my fingers all the time’ and every time I’m in a fight, it’s like ‘Mamma Mia, here we go again!’ And you were ‘near me, darlin’ and you heard me, ‘S.O.S.’.  (Y/N), ‘thank you for the music’,” he winked at you.

“I hope you’re feeling better,” you hugged him.

“I feel mighty again,” he replied, getting up to leave.

That week you and Thor went through interviews with ease. Anytime a tricky question was asked or Loki’s love for Thor was brought into question, you could hear him humming ABBA to himself to calm down before answering. You set up an old iPod with the Mamma Mia movie soundtrack as well as all of the original ABBA you had and sent it with Thor when he left back for Asgard.

It had been a few years since you had seen Thor when you reconnected at the party at Tony’s.

“(Y/N)!” He bellowed from across the room, scooping you into his arms for a hug.

“Thor! How have you been?” you asked him smiling so hard it hurt.

“Fantastic! Thank you for the small listening device you provided me last time we were together. I use it every day,” he beamed at you, taking it from his pocket to show you.

“I’m so glad! So, how is Jane?” you asked.

“She is great! Off doing research somewhere advancing knowledge. You know, I told her about ABBA and she told me she wasn’t a fan,” he had a horrified look on his face. “I asked her to ‘take a chance, take a chance, take a chance,’ but she said no. What have you been up to since I have been away?”

“You’ll never believe it, but I was dating a guy named Fernando for awhile!”

“Was ‘there something in the air that night?’” He put his arm around you.

“Yes and ‘the stars were bright’!” You began swaying back and forth with him.

“Oh, ‘Fernando!’” He sung out.

You both laughed and continued to catch up. Unfortunately, you had to leave early as you had a secret assignment from Fury.

You were shocked the next morning to hear about what had happened with Ultron. As you were skilled in hand-to-hand combat, but most excelled behind a camera, you were tasked with working behind the scenes. You hoped Thor would be ok against this new threat.

Ultron was dealt with, and Thor made a stop to say goodbye to you before having to leave again.

“(Y/N), that was awful,” he sighed next to you, gulping down a herring. You had made sure to stock your fridge in preparation for his visit.

“I have Mamma Mia in the DVD player, ready to go if you have time to stick around.”

“For Sophie and Donna, I always have time,” he replied, getting comfortable on the couch.

He sang along to every single song, not missing a beat or a lyric. You wondered how often he had had to listen to the iPod to calm down and it made your heart ache. When the movie ended, he hugged you goodbye and disappeared into the Bifrost.  

You had been with Fury when the news of Thanos’ attack on Wakanda was like the shot heard around the world. You were sitting in the car waiting for he and Maria Hill so you could all go to the airport to get to Wakanda to bring the team supplies and help where you could. You had been absorbed in crafting a brand new Spotify playlist filled with ABBA and other Swedish singers on a new phone you had gotten for Thor when you heard the sounds of crashes around you. It seemed as though people were disappearing at the snap of a finger. You turned around to look out the rear window and couldn’t see Fury or Maria anywhere.

Fuck….he did it. You drove in a panic to the airport and boarded the small jet, thanking the Norse gods (you had begun praying to them since your first meetings with Thor) Steve had taught you how to fly years ago. You flew as fast as the jet would take you to Wakanda and landed on a field filled with blood and what looked like ash. You ran out of the jet, yelling the team’s names.

“THOR??? STEVE??? BUCK??? NAT??? TONY??? T’CHALLA??? ANYBODY???”

“(Y/N)??” you heard Steve yell from the distance. You ran to him and found he, Thor, and Bruce sitting on the ground together. All of their eyes were wet and you knew they had just been crying.

“What the fuck happened?” you asked them all, unsure if you were ready to actually confirm what you already suspected.

“Thanos,” Thor spit.

“Fuck,” you muttered under your breath. “Ok, everyone, to the jet. I’m taking you all out of here.”

The M’Baku and Okoye wanted to stay in Wakanda in order to mourn their fallen and rebuild what they could. Nat and Bruce asked to be dropped on a tropical island, hoping that somewhere a bit less populated would help with Bruce trying to reach the Hulk. Rhodey asked you to drop in in New York. He wanted to check in on Pepper and Happy, or at least see if Pepper and Happy had survived. Steve didn’t have a specific place in mind he wanted to go, but knew he didn’t want to be with anyone. You left him in the midwest outside a Harley Davidson with enough money for a bike, gas, and food for months.

“Where shall we go, (Y/N)?” Thor asked you, “The Rabbit comes with us!”

The sad Racoon, whom you’ve heard was named Rocket, had been curled into a ball in the back of the jet and you had heard his stifled cries.

“We are going to my home,” you told them. You flew into the O’Hare International Airport and had never seen it so empty. It sent shivers down your spine. You found the spare car you always kept there for visits and drove into the city, heading north of the skyscrapers.

“Where are we going?” Rocket Racoon asked you.

“We are going to Andersonville, home of the Swedes of Chicago,” you told them. “Thor, I had hoped we would be watching it under better circumstances, but there is a new Mamma Mia movie coming out, it’s called “Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again” and I got an advanced copy after calling in some favors.”

He had tears in his eyes, “Thank you, (Y/N),” he choked out.

You arrived at your small apartment and welcomed the two in. What a sight you must have been, a Swedish woman of short stature, a Norse god, and a racoon. You showed them both to the living room and sat them down. You quickly grabbed food from the kitchen and brought it in to them, turning on the tv and DVD player.

“Rocket, I don’t know if ABBA is a thing in space, but Thor and I have found that it works incredibly well for conveying emotions.”

“It is quite good, Rabbit.”

“Oh! One last thing!” You ran out of the room and grabbed three boxes of tissues from the bathroom. “I watched it once already and cried the entire time, so we will need these, especially after today.”

You watched the movie from start to finish and heard Thor trying to sing along to the songs through tears, eventually giving up and just humming. Rocket’s ears perked up and you thought he enjoyed the movie too. When it had finished, you had to go to the bathroom to grab more tissues, as both Rocket and Thor had used up all of the contents of their boxes.

“(Y/N),” Thor looked at you through tear-filled eyes, “Jane and I broke up, and they’re right ‘breaking up is never easy’.” He began to cry, “And I was trapped on this plant called Sakaar, and it was like Waterloo, ‘I couldn’t leave if I wanted to,’ although I eventually did get help and did leave. And, (Y/N), Thanos he,” Thor began breathing heavily and you moved to rub his back, “Thanos killed Loki. Watching this made me feel like I’m living my life as Sophie and Loki is Donna.” You pulled him in for a hug.

“That’s how I felt about Groot! Groot is Donna!” Rocket cried.

“Come here, Rocket,” you pulled him up and brought him in to a group hug. “Guys, I’m so sorry. What can I do?”

“Can we watch it again, (Y/N)?” Thor asked you, his breathing starting to regulate.

“And can we have more herring while we do?” Rocket asked, wiping a tear from his eye.

“Of course! Let me go get more provisions.” You went to the kitchen and cleared the fridge of herring. You then restarted the movie, and had Thor leaning on one shoulder and Rocket leaning on the other. You had your arms around both of their shoulders.

The second time through Thor sang along more and even Rocket had caught on to some of the words. You spent the night switching between Mamma Mia and Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again. After all the two sitting beside you had been through, you were prepared to watch Mamma Mia every day for the rest of your life, so long as it brought them a small piece of comfort.

[thebachelordiaries]

“Sage Advice And Sage Vaginas:” The Bachelorette Premiere Recap

We are officially back! It feels good to be back. I’ve missed being excited on Mondays. I’ve missed my little Twitter family. I’ve missed the memes and the endless sh*t talking. But most of all, I’ve missed seeing the man who I consider my second father: Chris Harrison.

Now let’s just jump right into it. 

The episode begins with Becca crying while looking at pictures of her and Arie. I don’t know how producers got her to cry, but I’m pretty sure Becca has now realized just how lucky she is to have been dumped by Arie. 

She’s done crying. Now it’s time for Becca to pick her head up and live out her new destiny as The Bachelorette.

As the wise artist Ariana Grande one said.

Ain't got no tears left to cry So I'm pickin' it up, pickin' it up I'm lovin', I'm livin', I'm pickin' it up

She’s now The Bachelorette, and women ledes always have the most success with choosing the right partner. As JoJo said later on in the episode, 

“One hundred percent, women are more intuitive and know what they want.” 

Can I get a hell yeah for the superior gender?

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, can psychologists do a case study on a woman’s intuition? And if it’s already been done, please slide the scholarly article into my DMs. Thank you in advance.

Look at this Minnesotean snow princess. I am shook.

Can you imagine having such a compelling storyline from being dumped by your fiance for someone else that producers just skim over the fact that your father died of a brain tumor and your mother has battled cancer? This girl has been through too much. If she doesn’t find happiness, all of Bachelor Nation will revolt. And I will be leading the way.

Becca wants a man who is as loyal and loving as her dad was to her mom. She deserves this and nothing less. Can we find this woman a man? Let’s do the damn thing.

(That is the first and last time I will ever say that phrase.)

Becca also has a sister and a corgi nephew, who made a very subtle appearance in the premiere episode. However, it must not go unnoticed.

Follow this little loaf of bread on Instagram: max_in_madison

Becca is then magically transported from Minnesota to LA, where she is seen driving a convertible along the coast of the Pacific. 

At the Bachelor Mansion, she gets some sage advice from the last three Bachelorettes: Rachel, JoJo and Kaitlyn. 

Rachel lit up some sage to get rid of the “bad juju” in the mansion.

"I’m going to sage your pu**y.” -Rachel

This was the first time the people giving advice were actually still in Bachelor-related relationships. It’s like The Bachelorette is becoming more successful with time. I approve. 

What I didn’t approve of was that Kaitlyn got no airtime. 

Hello, 911? I’d like to report that Kaitlyn Bristowe was ROBBED of airtime during The Bachelorette premiere. 

Video Intros

Every season ABC selectively chooses which men we should get to know in their video package intros. We met seven men. That seems like a lot, but here’s what I learned.

Clay— He’s not a regular jock. He’s a sensitive jock.

Garrett—He did a Chris Farley impression without explicitly stating he was doing one, which probably confused 95 percent of all viewers, including myself. Garrett likes doing outdoors stuff. The rest of his personality is hot air. This is everything you could ever want or need to know about Garrett.

Jordan— He has a unique (re: dumb) way of describing things, but I’m grateful for him because he’s going to be entertaining us for about 60 percent of the season in his ITMs. 

Lincoln— I take back whatever I said about him being attractive for having an accent. Listening to his voice has made me iron deficient. Brb, going to go chew on some ice now.

Joe— Joe owns a grocery store, a million-watt smile and a heart of gold. I’m in love.

Jean Blanc— He low-key shaded Trump by saying Haiti is not a “sh*t h*le.” He also has an obsession with smelling things and spending lots of money on material items. He seems ok.

Colton— I’m suspicious of Colton. He’s too ready-made for The Bachelorette: he’s handsome, athletic, loves his dog, owns a nonprofit, allegedly a virgin. Where are his flaws?

I spoke too soon. What in Chris Harrison’s name is he wearing?

Top Limo Entrances 

Leo released his beautiful curly mane to Becca with the line of “let’s let our hair down.” First thing Becca said to him were the words every male suitor wants to hear from a woman: “You have hair like my sister!”

She’s not wrong, though.

Nick came out the limo in a racecar driver suit, clearly making an Arie reference. He asked “what kind of a**hole wears something like this?” and ripped off the outfit to reveal his perfectly tailored suit. I know people were saying it’s in poor taste to bring up Becca’s ex, but I found it hilarious. I thought I was going to dislike Nick because he looks like a huge tool, but it turns out I have a giant crush on him BECAUSE he looks like a huge tool. Nick is the kind of guy you date because you secretly want to emotionally punish yourself. I’m ready for you to ruin my life, Nick. You know where you can find me.

Trent energetically (which is ironic in itself) jumped out the back of a hearse with the line of “Oh my god Becca. When I found out you were The Bachelorette, I literally died.” He was possibly the most ��alive” person to ever come out of a hearse.

Garrett pulled up in a minivan with all the equipment necessary for “soccer dad duties.” Producers really are trying to give him an edge. He would be one of the more loved guys this season because of editing if it wasn’t for his giant Instagram fuck up.

Bachelor Mansion Highlights and Lowlights

The Highs

Christon, a former Harlem Globetrotter, jumped over Becca while dunking a basketball. And he did so with all the other guys watching. 

I enjoyed this angle because you get to see the large amount of cameras used during filming. 

Jake getting sent home. I CALLED IT in my “first impressions” review, that him and Becca have probably already met, further proving my theory that attractive people in the same city all know each other. Becca said her and Jake were “acquaintances” and met on “several occasions,” but Jake was unsure if she would remember him since they only met once, alluding to the fact that he may live the majority of his life in a blackout drunk state. As a way to convince Becca to change her mind and keep him around, he said he had a “very transformative year,” whatever that means. Becca was having NONE. OF. IT. and sent his ass home back to Minneapolis. The Bachelorette probably wasn’t for him anyway, especially since production has implemented an alcohol limit.

Blake and Becca had a pretty deep conversation for night one. Blake talked about how his last serious relationship ending abruptly. He said, “If I was able to love the wrong person that much, how much would I be able to love the right person?” Every female on Earth, including Becca agreed with this Tumblr-worthy quote. However, Blake was scammed out of a First Impression Rose by Garrett, who drove up in a minivan and taught Becca how to flyfish in the Bachelor Mansion pool. Blake, you got the First Impression Rose in my eyes, you adorable sweetheart, you.

Jordan’s presence was just an entire highlight reel. As Kaitlyn Bristowe said on her podcast, he has “Jordan-isms.” Some of my favorite ones were:

“People are already going home on the first night.”

“If I don’t get a rose tonight, it would be the biggest upset of all time.”

And in general, him just being offended by everyone’s outfits.

Follow me on Twittter, @thebachdiaries 

The Lows

David/ “Chicken Guy.” I just wasn’t a fan. Dressing up in a costume and saying “Be-CAW” isn’t a personality trait. Also, he looks like the real-life version of the Instagram filter that makes your mouth appear too big for your face.

“Wrong Reasons Police” Chris. Speaking of being creeped out. Chris is the new Iggy of this season: unlikeable, doesn’t belong here, won’t go away and loves to snitch. He’s the “wrong reasons” police, but I can’t really picture someone who takes selfies looking like Derek Zoolander being here for the right reasons. Also his recently-changed Instagram name used to be c_dome, which just creeps me out. If you don’t know what “dome” means, Urban Dictionary is your friend.

The newly implemented alcohol limit was a big lowlight for me. Where were the drunk guys jumping into the pools? We’re going to need someone who says and does stupid things without any sort of inhibitor. Oh wait, we have Jordan. I’m pretty certain he was sober on the first night as he briefly mentioned that Chicken Guy almost got “feathers in his coffee.” Oh the ol’ days of drunken contestants will be missed. Forever in our hearts.

Rose Ceremony

All I need to say here is that Grocery Bae Joe from Chicago went home and the internet has never been more upset about a contestant being sent home night one. He already has about 45K followers on Instagram. If ABC doesn’t bring him to paradise, I will immediately sell all the stock I’ve invested into their company. (Except I don’t invest or even know how to do that crap. But I would if I did because It would just be a terrible business decision to not bring Joe to Paradise.)

Some Takeaways

I can tell Garret and Blake are going to go pretty far based on night one. Based on the season preview, it appears Jason and Colton will go far as well. That literally just might be the final four. However, I don’t follow spoilers, so don’t be that person who tells me what happens. 

I also have a feeling Lincoln might be this season’s villain. Only time will tell how that will play out.

Speaking of Colton, he is allegedly a virgin. However, virginity is a social construct, so anyone can be a virgin if they really believe in themselves. I mean, this franchise has created the most famous fake virgin of all time: Sean Lowe. So sure, Colton’s a virgin.

[duongvjp]

SELLING OUT [THE 1st ART E-BOOK OF IchiRuki] fanart by DUONGVJP !!!

HƯỚNG DẪN MUA [ART E-BOOK IchiRuki đầu tiên] fanart của Duongvjp (Tiếng Việt kéo xuống dưới)

[30/7/2017] UPDATE ! I have finished the book and I’m emailing it to everyone that have done pre-order steps below.   Anyone that wish to buy this ebook, please follow the steps below. Thank you in advance. 

[2/7/2017] UPDATE !  

I have been asking everywhere for a good worldwide shipping company from my country, but it seems impossible. So disappointed, i’m so sorry you guys :( 

So to fix this and to prevent the risks that maybe my book would never reach you guys, or the shipping fee would be too damn high,... I DECIDED TO TURN THIS PROJECT INTO EBOOK-SELLING. 

This exclusive book includes many of my IchiRuki-fanart that I haven’t posted anywhere, ever!

The book will be sent to you as PDF file to the email you gave me, for those who purchased sign edition will receive a special IchiRuki drawing - digitally signed with the sentence you chose. 

Everything will be the same, except for literally printing out the book. I will add extra pages to make it up to you guys, I’m actually drawing them right now :(

 So we don’t have to worry about the shipping fee anymore, keep calm and keep supportting me, please! Love all of you guys!

Hi IchiRuki fan community,

Great news about selling out the IchiRuki fanart-book project I talked about months ago, which you guys showed so much interest in, that make me both surprise and appreciate :”) 

Since you guys have been supporting me and this project soooo much, I decided to OFFICIALLY SELLING OUT THIS ARTBOOK for everyone, not just selling out one and only one copy like before!!! 

It will be publish in 2 versions, [$35 - signed edition] and [$30 - normal edition], shipping fee is not included and will be charge when you receive your copy because I don’t know exactly how much for each of you - from my location Hanoi,Vietnam to your location, so I’m sorry I can’t inform you that :(  => no more shipping fee! I will send the book to you as PDF into your email, don’t worry, everything about the book is still the same. 

Both version including [sketch pages] and [colored pages], the signed version will packed with the printing of one of my IchiRuki fanart - handwritten digital-written the sentence you chose and hand-signed digitally-signed !!!

HOW TO PRE ORDER PURCHASE: 

1. For worldwide pre-order, please make the payment through this Paypal account: 

https://www.paypal.me/tothuyminh95

---> Or if you have problem with Paypal, please make the payment through this international bank account using USD currency:

Full name of the bank: Vietcombank - Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam Swift code: BFTVVNVX Account name: To Thuy Minh Account number: 0541371671608 Account belong to which branch: Chuong Duong branch

---> Or if you prefer Western Union, just go to Western Union, fill the forms and then when you finish, send me a exactly message about: your first name, your last name, your address, your phone number, the amount of money you sent, your country, your city, the 10 digits code (MTCN code). When I receive the money, I will sent you my cofirmation, thank you. My receive information: 

First name: Thuy Minh Last name: To Country: Vietnam | City: Hanoi Phone number: +841663548011 Email: tothuyminh1995@gmail.com Address: no P505,house E5B, 4D lane, Dang Van Ngu Street, Dong Da district, Ha Noi, Vietnam 

2. Next, fill this form so I won’t miss out any order, please: https://goo.gl/forms/4HAjZGZpIfkIJGMo2

3. When I collect enough orders and finish with the printing progress, I will public the news and begin to send out your orders, please be patient I will do the best I can to finish it quickly

(For anyone that haven’t heard about this project, click here for the preview and earlier discussions, please)

THANK YOU SO MUCH MY FRIENDS!

[30/7/2017] CẬP NHẬT ! Mình đã hoàn thành và đang email cho những bạn đã đặt mua. Từ giờ thì ai muốn mua cuốn này hãy làm theo các bước ở dưới nha, cảm ơn các bạn rất nhiều ! [2/7/2017] CẬP NHẬT !  

Mình đã đi hỏi khắp nơi để tìm công ty gửi hàng quốc tế uy tín, giá rẻ, nhưng thất bại. Xin lỗi mọi người :(

Thay vào đó thì mình QUYẾT ĐỊNH CHUYỂN DỰ ÁN NÀY SANG BÁN EBOOK.

Cuốn sách độc quyền này có rất nhiều tranh fanart IchiRuki của mình mà trước giờ chưa từng đăng ở bất cứ đâu!

Mình sẽ gửi sách dạng PDF qua địa chỉ email bạn đăng kí khi đặt mua, những ai đặt mua bản đặc biệt có chữ kí sẽ nhận thêm một bức vẽ IchiRuki đặc biệt - viết lời đề tặng và kí trên bức vẽ bằng máy tính. 

Mọi thứ về cuốn sách vẫn y nguyên, trừ việc thực sự in cuốn sách ra giấy. Mình đang vẽ thêm nhiều trang mới để bù đắp cho các bạn rồi đây :(

Không phải lo về phí ship nữa rồi, hãy luôn ủng hộ mình nhé! Cảm ơn tất cả mọi người!

Xin chào cộng đồng fan IchiRuki, 

Tin vui về dự án bán ra cuốn fanart IchiRuki mình đã nhắc tới nhiều tháng trước, thấy các bạn rất rất quan tâm khiến mình vừa ngạc nhiên vừa cảm kích :”)

Vì các bạn ủng hộ mình và dự án này quá nhiều nên mình quyết định CHÍNH THỨC BÁN RA CUỐN ARTBOOK này cho tất cả mọi người, không chỉ bán duy nhất 1 bản như trước nữa!!!

Mình sẽ bán ra 2 phiên bản,  [800.000VND - có chữ ký] and [700.000VND - bản thường], giá trên không bao gồm phí ship, phí ship sẽ do người nhận thanh toán bởi mình không biết rõ phí ship đến từng địa điểm cho các bạn, xin lỗi vì không thể tính toán được khoản này :( 

Cả hai phiên bản sẽ có [các trang sketch chì] và [các trang màu], bản có chữ ký sẽ được gói kèm 1 tranh in IchiRuki fanart - viết tay lời nhắn gửi bạn chọn và ký tay !!!

CÁCH ĐẶT MUA TRƯỚC MUA HÀNG:

1. Với các bạn ở Việt Nam, chuyển khoản qua tài khoản sau:

Tài khoản ngân hàng Vietcombank Tên tk: Tô Thùy Minh Số tk: 0541000180454 Chi nhánh Chương Dương

2. Tiếp theo, vui lòng điền vào mẫu đơn này để tránh sai sót đơn: https://goo.gl/forms/4HAjZGZpIfkIJGMo2

3. Sau khi mình thu thập đủ số đơn và hoàn thành in ấn, mình sẽ đăng thông báo và bắt đầu gửi hàng, xin hãy kiên nhẫn, mình sẽ làm mọi thứ có thể để hoàn thành nhanh

(Cho những ai chưa biết về dự án này thì vui lòng click vào đây để xem demo và những thảo luận trước đó)

[xfilesnews]

FanWorks Wednesdays - Vickie Moseley

Gather round kids, we’re going to tell you a story from the X-Files Fandom days of old. For the “old timers” like me, join in and smile at the remembrances of EMXC, Gossamer, and the old alt.tv newsgroups. This week’s author was there for all of it. Vickie Moseley and her stories were a staple in the fandom for years. Her fantastic body of work will keep you occupied for ages, with 252 credits to her name on Gossamer alone. Vickie also contributed to the “Virtual Seasons” project that spun off to continue the stories of Mulder and Scully in a different direction when Season 8 took to the TV airwaves. If you’ve never explored their seasons, bookmark that page for when you’ve finished reading this interview and then dive in.

If you like family fic, “Flight Into Egypt”  is a long series I revisit frequently when I need to forget that Mulder and Scully didn’t get to raise their son. It soothes that pain quite nicely. Another favorite series is “By Her Side” which is told through Billy Scully Jr.’s eyes. Vickie does a wonderful job looking at Big Brother Bill as something other than a jerk and fandom’s favorite punching bag. In “Joy and Sorrow,” Maggie Scully guides us through the moments of Mulder’s rebirth in “Dead Alive.” It’s touching and sweet and will have you wishing they would have given us more screen time with Mom Scully in Season 8.

I could go on and on with recs but I’ll cut to the chase and get to the interview. We talked with Vickie about writing, inspiration, fandom, and of course The X-Files.

How long have you been a Phile?

I stumbled onto the fandom in March 1995.  I'd been a fan of the show since it first aired (actually, I was a fan once I read the TV Guide Fall Preview issue for Fall 1993 and saw the small blurb about the 'new science fiction show about aliens').  When my husband 'gave' me the internet for my birthday I immediately typed 'X-Files' into the yahoo search engine and after some sites dedicated to the actors and character bios, the old Rutgers Fan Fiction site came up.  From there, I was hooked.

What was your first episode?

The Pilot. I saw every episode as it aired up to Season 8. I watched “Within” and couldn't stand the changes so I resorted to reading about the episodes on Haven until David Duchovny reappeared. I am very much a Mulderist. I have only watched “Trust No 1” and “The Truth” from Season 9.

How long have you been writing fic?

September 1995 was my first posting -- “Aftermath.” You can read it, warts and all. I was attempting to write a fill in the blank for the summer after the season 2 finale “Anasazi.” Within a week of posting the story became 'alt.universe' because Chris Carter went in a totally different direction than I had taken.

What inspired you to start writing?

Guilt. Back then we were a small community. People were always begging for more stories (myself included) and since there weren't that many writers, everyone was encouraged to 'give back' by writing stories of their own. I got a lot of encouragement from the early writers and the brave souls who had fan fic sites. Later, with the Ohio State archives (this archive was the birth of what became Gossamer, check here for more information ) and the .alt.x-files.fanfiction newsgroup and EMXC (E-Mail X Creative) it was almost a requirement that if you wanted more stories, you better write some of them.

Who is your favorite XF character to write?              

My favorite character to write is Scully. I can get in her head. I can hear her voice as clear as a bell as I'm writing her.  She's not my favorite character, however. I think I see too much of myself. All the flaws and dark places that I would like to change in myself, I transpose onto Scully. Sometimes I just want to shake her!

Are there any XF characters you dislike or find too difficult to write?

Krycek was always a problem to write, even in the Virtual Seasons. And I can't write Doggett. I've tried but my annoyance with the character always shines through. Same is true of Diana Fowley. I once vowed to kill her off in a story and damned if she didn't slip the noose and come out alive. I was very happy Carter did the deed for me.

Is there a story you're most proud of or that's a favorite?

“Out of the Cold” is probably my favorite of the stories that I wrote solo. But the most fun was writing with a partner. I've had such wonderful partners and group writing exercises. I am also very proud of the work we did on the Virtual Season.

With so many archives to choose from these days, where is the best place to find your work?

Gossamer has almost all of my stuff and my own website has it too. Many thanks to Mimic for giving me a home: http://vickiemoseley.mimicsmusings.com/

You've been well known in the fandom for a long time, do you still write for XF or have your skills been focused elsewhere?

Lately, I've been involved in politics to the exclusion of other activities. I worked on a local race last fall and I've been advocating for healthcare since January. I'm also doing work on a grant project and I keep an eye on our legislature so all of that keeps me away from fan fiction.

If you do still write XF fic, where does your inspiration come from after many years?  If you're not, is there anything in particular that caused you to stop writing XF fic?

I haven't written much in the past few years. I could chalk it up to writer's block but it feels like more than that. I still love the fandom and I reread a lot of my favorites. I guess I was hoping for a real revival. I was excited by the prospect of a Season 10 with the original cast, but once it aired I found I really only liked two of the episodes and the way the relationship was presented between Mulder and Scully just left so very little room to play. It didn't mimic real life, it was sadder than real life. There seemed no way to 'rescue' them and that's the type of story I prefer to write. I'm not big on 'angst for angst sake' and it almost seemed on overdrive in S10, especially the season opener and finale. So I haven't been able to come up with anything by myself. I did help a little with the last Virtual Season story “Aveum” that was posted recently. Not to spoil too much, the story contains an infant and at the time it was being written I was helping my daughter and her new baby so it was almost too easy to write.

Have you written your own original characters outside of fandom?

Only as far as drawing up a few characters. One day I'll do something with them . . . maybe.

Anything you’d like to share about your writing process?

I tend to write the stories that play out in my mind. Most of the time I just start typing and 'the characters' take over and write the story. There have been times I read what I've written and think “wow, where did that come from?” But I write as therapy. I used to joke that fan fiction is much cheaper than Zoloft or a therapist. It was a way to escape after a particularly painful episode in my life and after it got me over the hump, I just kept going.

What do you find most difficult about writing?

Making it happen when it's not there. When it's there ('it' being the spark, the life force, whatever you want to call it -- the Muse), when the story is inside me sometimes I can't get to the computer fast enough, I can't type it fast enough (as my beta readers will attest). But when I sit and stare at a blank screen, even when I have an idea floating around in my head and it just won't happen -- then it just hurts.

Do you have a favorite author? (fanfic or published!)

My favorite authors published are Ray Bradbury, Issac Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke (hardcore sci-fi -- no dragons, no elves). 

My favorite fan fic writers are too numerous to mention (go to the Authors Index at Gossamer and start with A). I love reading Dawn's “Blood Ties” series -- I read it every year at least once. I read Susan Proto's “Life Cycles” over and over again. I've read all of MalibuSunet's stories a dozen times. Same is true of Suzanne Bickerstaff's “The Magician” (the ONLY fantasy I'll admit to reading). Dee_Ayy's stories are my Mulder fix, especially “Short of Breath.” I'm right now rereading Kronos' “The Abyss Looks Back.” All of her stories just draw me in and won't let go.  I'm still mourning that she never finished “Ascent into Hell.”

Is there any advice you'd give to aspiring writers?

They say “write every day” and I would imagine that's good advice, but I would say simply “write.” Write even if you don't know where the story is going, or if you just have an idea for a character or just the setting or even just an outline of a plot. My youngest son is going to college for game design but all his life he's had ideas for games and stories. He tells me his stories in the car and I try to get him to write them down. My second to the youngest son actually has written a few stories -- now I just want him to finish them and get them published.

Anything else you'd like to share that I missed?

I have met so many dear friends in this fandom, particularly through fan fiction, writers and those who read. I love them all. I would like to thank everyone I partnered with: Susan Proto, Donna Honeycutt, Sally Bahnsen, Summer, Michelle, Starfleetofficer1, Martin, Theresa Jahn, Suzanne Bickerstaff, dtg, all the VS producers -- if I forget anyone chalk it up to my advanced years. Writing with someone is by far the most fun anyone could have.  I used to joke that it was like playing 'Barbie and Ken' in the backyard with my cousins.

Also, I would like to thank all the people over the years who have read my stories and sent me feedback. You have no idea how much those emails brightened my day! It is such a rush to know that someone somewhere (some pretty far away, even) read something I wrote and liked it enough to send me a note. The nearly instant gratification that comes with feedback is one of the reasons I wrote so much. I just loved hearing from people.

I've had other shows I loved, Star Trek (original and Next Gen), Battlestar Gallactica, Probe (if anyone remembers that one) but X-Files was the first time I got so engaged I wanted to be part of it. From that perspective, fanfiction kept the series alive for me and brought me into a wonderful community. Oh, there have been some all out wars (shipper v. noromos, Mulder v. Doggett, original pairings v. next gen, etc) but overall in fan fiction there really is room for everyone. If you like slash stories, or stories that center around Skinner or even stories around Kim, his assistant, fan fiction is the place. When Melissa Scully was killed off in the series, she lived on in fan fiction. When baby William was given up for adoption, he was reunited with his biological parents many times over in fan fiction. Some of the stories are so well done that you will swear you saw the episode (what season did Mulder's brother Grey show up? <wink>) If you have never picked up a fanfic and read it, I encourage you to do so now.  If you haven't read anything for a while, go to Gossamer and find something. It will be like the series never ended.