#the amoeba boys are silly too

[ponchusjbonchus]

i hate this thing

[hopeless-anti-romantic]

There's a certain intrigue in just observing people.

Every now and then I'm struck by the fact that there are human beings, other than myself, living their own little lives, with their own worries, their own responsibilities, doing their silly little tasks, their weird habits, their own peculiar interests and fascinating hobbies.

Whenever it strikes me, i can't help myself from looking out the window, be it out of a bus, a car or out of my apartment, and just observing.

I might look at the vegetable stall aunty, carefully arranging her vibrant produce. Or the mom of two dragging her toddlers along to the bus stop, carrying their cute water bottles while she wrestles the boy's arm away from his sister's face. Or the cranky taxi driver blaring his horn at the old man parked in front of him, who was only a few seconds slow to shift into gear as the signal lit up green.

It occurs to me that they too are living. I get so caught up with my life that i forget.

Being reminded of this, every time, every single time, I question the basic function of life. Or more specifically consciousness. How do chemicals and electrical signals translate to something intangible and incomprehensible.

The science of the body is mostly understood and well studied. In contrast, the science of the mind although just as well studied, is not always concrete in all its various specificities.

How much of a consciousness does an amoeba have compared to a caterpillar? Is the conscious even measurable? Or what counts as consciousness, is it freedom from being driven purely by biological instincts? I hope to find my own answers to these...

I fear I've strayed a little ways off from my initial thoughts. Thinking more on it, it occurs to me that most of what I've done is for other people, and yet i keep forgetting that they live a life both separate and interwoven with mine. Even this moderately long post, it's for all the silly, the intricate, the stressful, the lonely, and the loveable lives lived by whoever happens to read it.

That's it. Thank you for reading all of... THIS.

[bogkeep]

i wanted to write another blog post about my relationship to Stories again, and this time i'm revisiting the topic of Shipping. it's not the first time i have written about my relationship to it, and it PROBABLY won't be the last, but maybe i say something i haven't said before, hey? and don't worry, this isn't about The Discourse. or not that discourse, anyway. this is more about how i went from a bitter aroace "I HATE SHIPPING" kid to creating elaborate relationship dodecahedrons with my own characters for fun and personal fulfillment. this one was actually pretty hard to write and also pretty personal, so i'm readmore'ing it!

i've changed, the internet's changed, of course my feelings about it have changed over the years. i had a lot of stuff to work out and i still probably have! sometimes it feels like i'm just shoveling shame from one side to the other. why do i have so much shame i'm not even catholic!!!! so back when baby haiz found out he's aroace, it was still very niche. i think awareness about asexuality was juuust starting to pick up on tumblr, aromanticism was still thought of as a subgroup of asexuality rather than an identity in its own right, and the worst discourse going around was people denying its existence and making amoeba jokes. simpler times. i was a fresh fledgling aroace who didn't know i was autistic yet, i was a teen, i found anything sexual DEEPLY uncomfortable and was wrestling with that in a heavily sexualized society and also high school where everyone is making dumb sex jokes and trying to trip you over with stupid innuendos, and i was STARVING for any kind of acknowledgement that i'm Valid. i was so very very lonely about it! i'm still mutuals with the first irl ace person i met, and i think i went several years between picking up that identity and sharing a ticket booth at the convention we volunteered at. shipping culture at that time had a completely different vibe, too. the attitude was like, if you're not shipping anything, why are you even bothering with media? how do you have FUN? (i didn't like drinking or partying either, so i was already pretty familiar with that attitude). people would deliberately put on their shipping goggles and my feed would be full of analysis about THESE TWO CHARACTERS ARE SUPER DEFINITELY IN LOVE LOOK AT THIS 0,2 SECONDS WHERE THEIR EYES MEET. OH MY GOSH THEY HUGGED!! of course that rubbed me the wrong way - i had spent years trying to explain to my classmates that nO, my best friend and i AREN'T A COUPLE, STOP READING INTO IT!!!! and then i would log on and everyone would keep reading romantic intent into every single character interaction. it drove me up a wall. i was already so anxious about saying something that could be taken as innuendo in some way, and then i ALSO had to worry about how anything could be read as romantic? exhausting. and yes, NOW i know that's not the worst thing that can happen. people will assume wrongly all the time and sometimes there's nothing to do but accept that i can't control how other people percieve me. suffice it to say i used to be really really uptight about the whole shipping deal, haha. even worse when i latched on to pretty much any vaguely ace-coded character (yes yes i joined tumblr because of bbc sherlock leave me alone) and had to make peace with the fact that thousands of other people were extremely insistent that these characters were actually super gay and super sexual. which is silly in retrospect - those characters were never confirmed to be canonically ace or gay (or both!), so there would be all that fighting about what headcanon is the best representation. that's not how headcanons work!!!! it sucked when you just, really crave a depiction of a close friendship that never turns romantic - and no, not just the queerbaity bromance ones, at the time i would've killed for a girl/boy friendship that got to stay that way. it really pains me to admit to just how much i relate to all the "why can't they just stay friends" guys. i don't have that attitude anymore, but it was never because i didn't want canon queer relationships on tv, it was never because i thought there was already lots of gay representation, i knew there wasn't. but it was so lonely and disheartening that every single time i could relate to anyone on a screen, every other watcher would go "oh yeah those guys are totally fucking". i know!! we were fighting over the same breadcrumbs!!! we all wanted different things from the same show and NONE of us got what we wanted! it was such a stupid thing to clash over!!! it was so hard to explain the othering and the loneliness and the absolute dismissal i felt as an aroace person in a world that put romance on a

pedestal above everything else - even before the acecourse took a turn for the worse. i don't really want to go into details about it, as it was frankly traumatizing to me. but there was something about the way people would act as if real people's actual identities were good or bad representaiton in some way, as if we were all characters in a tv show - and being ace was bad representation. somehow. it was cringy and reflected badly upon the rest of the "community". i hate hate hate how ashamed i became of my own identity and myself. i hate how much i would just accept my own friends trashing a core part of my identity right in front of me, and felt too wounded and vulnerable to take a proper stance. i can't say i handled everything perfectly or even gracefully - that i've never had stances or said things i now regret - but i was a teen still trying to figure out how to be myself. i suppose the same goes for everyone i knew at the time. i think something about being 19 sets you on fire and you're just burning a lot of anger out before you lay back in a bed of ashes. or maybe that's just me. i don't think i've ever stopped being aroace. there is no point in my life where i woke up and thought, i'm a different person now. yes, i'm different than who i used to be, but what's turned the wheels inside me is the experienced i've had that i didn't have before. even stubbornly aromantic and asexual i still craved companionship, or at least, to try it, figure out what the big deal is. i'm still very happy i got to try it out with my first girlfriend (and now my close friend). it was a lovely time, and i don't think either of us did any of it 'wrong' - but i really did pressure myself into being someone i'm not capable of being. i got crushed under the weight i piled on top of myself. even with all the acceptance i was given for my identity, even with all the ground rules figured out on day one, i was still so ashamed of not feeling things the 'right way'. and with the horrible acecourse dangling the carrot in front of me, that i was only allowed to Belong as long as i was a REAL gay, it wasn't helping, you know? (sidenote that isn't really relevant to the topic, but one thing i DO regret is how public i was about my relationship. i mean it's no wonder, it was very exciting and it was fun, but it very quickly became less fun when people would comment things like "omg u two are relationship goals" or "i'm going to live vicariously through you". it's already so incredibly hard to break up with someone you do actually love and care about, and even harder when other people take it as some kind of personal offense or make all kinds of wild assumptions about it. sometimes things just aren't working as they are! it's nobody's business but ours either way!) i'm still in relationships. i've had brushes with crushes. i don't really care to put a word on what my exact identity is anymore, it just is what it is. i'm definitely somewhere on the aromantic spectrum. i'm non-monogamous. i'm definitely asexual - i've had to reclaim my own identity from the claws of shame and discourse, all the while i've reclaimed my own personal sexuality from years of being turned into 'sweet innocent cinnamon roll, too pure for this earth' by my peers in the past. do you know how humiliating it is to be in your mid-twenties and still struggle with this stuff?? so often i have to remind myself i'm an adult, it's NORMAL and OKAY. and like, it's nobody's fault that i'm Like This. i'm not gonna blame high schoolers for my weird brain prison. for all my bitterness, i don't hold anything against people in my past. we were all messy. that's just what being a teen was like. what i have really really done is this. for one, i accepted that the way i'm going to do relationships is never going to be the "normal" way, and there's no point in trying to, or forcing myself through motions that goes against my grain. for second, in doing so i've just... dismantled and deconstructed what a 'relationship' is. you take all the pieces apart, keep the ones that make sense to

you, and reassemble it to a new structure. it might not even be that different from what you started with! maybe you just delete all the bloatware. here's the big thing. at the very core of it, all interpersonal relationships are the same. it's a Connection To Another Person. so many mechanics are the same. circumstances differ - family member, coworker, friend, acquaintance, romantic partner, sexual partner - of course these aren't the same, but also, no familial relationships are the same, all of your friends will mean different things to you.. i don't know, we all exist in this huge world and there's so many people, and we create so many bonds. there is so much overlap. maybe a marriage doesn't depend entirely on whatever tingly feeling you get from being in love. a sexual partner can be a stranger or a friend, not just your One True Love. where does the line between really really loving your best friend and being in love with your best friend go? for all the attention the concept of a 'romantic partner' is given in our society, i think it's a thinner slice on the pie chart than what 'friend' might be. do you know how MANY different kinds of friendship that one category has to make room for? i don't know, either. and i think there's a huge slice that exists between 'friend' and 'romantic/sexual partner' that just... there is no language for it (or when people do try to find language for it, there is so much backlash), most of the time, or gets placed in a category that's easy to explain to others. it's like... the expected structure buckles under all the variety of love and connection we actually experience in our life. am i making any sense? i think my main problem with Shipping was this - the flattening. for the longest time, it seemed to me as if you Shipped two characters, you had to put them in the same mold as every other Couple. it didn't matter what their dynamic was in canon, if you shipped them you'd just slap them onto the pre-made relationship dynamic you already had lying around. i KNOW that's not universal. nor do i have anything against the vocabulary of shipping - it's very useful and it's important fandom culture. but as that culture has evolved, i do think there's this kind of dissonance, where Shipping A Thing might mean A LOT OF DIFFERENT THINGS FOR A LOT OF DIFFERENT PEOPLE. everything from "to me these two are soulmates and they love and respect eachother so much across every timeline" to "yeah they tried to kill eachother several times and they're both awful wrecks but it's hot" to "these two are extremely divorced" to "person A pines for person B endlessly and they never end up together" and a million other dynamics and outcomes. between you and me, i think a lot of shipping wank happens because the term 'shipping', like a lot of other terms, can have such broad meaning. hard to be on the same page when you're reading different books! there are SO MANY STORIES TO TELL!!!! and i LIKE stories. interpersonal relationships are incredibly fun to explore. and yes, i have over the years finally managed to make peace with Ships - it was difficult because i never wanted to be a hypocrite (sometimes you are a hypocrite!! it happens when you change your opinion about something! it's fine!), but i finally accepted that i Did in fact ship some things. it was also a lot easier when it didn't feel so mandatory, when i could ship things out of my own volition rather than "how else are you having fun". when i can delight in a specific dynamic rather than Standard Relationship. but for me it's also like, the Story. now that i'm focusing so much on my own characters i am having a Fantastic Time exploring rejections and pining and weird friendships and awkward family. i don't care if it's Good or Bad representation, because that was never the point. people experience things, people change, people grow close and grow apart, the boundaries one draws, the reclaiming of the self, the holding of a hand, the holding of a heart. you know? i used to groan at the Mandatory Romantic Relationship in every story, but

now it's like, yeah okay, sell me on it. give me something interesting. tell me how it happens. because i think a lot of these feelings, a lot of these experiences, they aren't exclusive to any one identity, or any one type of relationship. if you ship for the sake of shipping because that's how you have fun, by all means! have fun. here's a fibre cloth for your glasses. my way of reading things isn't Better or More Sophisticated. it's just how i prefer to read my stories and watch my shows. i'm having a much better time now that i've grown up a fair bit, relaxed a whole lot. i don't even entirely know what "my way" is. i just deconstructed a whole lot of words and concepts and im poking at the debris. as you do.

[jeonqquk]

racket | jjk

↳pairing: jungkook x reader ↳genre/tags: badmintonplayer!jungkook and badmintonplayer!reader, barely any badminton related stuff, rushed asf, accidental confession-?, they dont even kiss wtf ↳rating: everyone <3 ↳wc: 6k

Jeon Jungkook was capable of being the eighth wonder of the world. He may not have come into existence in the 1700s but his ability to do almost everything perfectly was bewildering. Whether it be eating an entire cake in the span of a half-hour or defeating even the coaches at badminton. 

Everybody loved Jungkook, his sweet and caring nature paired with those godly features attracted everyone to him- in many ways. Unfortunately, you weren’t part of the everybody lot. 

You hated Jungkook. Absolutely despised his abhorrent ass. So much so that if he were the last person alive, you’d even kill yourself just to stay away from him. But that was highly unlikely, so you weren’t going to kill yourself. 

The hatred had just always been there, his competitive side seeming fucking atrocious to you. The feeling was mutual, though, so you didn’t feel as guilty as you would’ve if you just detested him while he behaved politely with you.

Jungkook was petty, even you knew that by now. His competitiveness always getting the better of him and turning him into someone with a completely different persona. Losing was not something he was used to. Maybe that’s why he had only a handful of friends, he would do anything to win. It could be a silly bet or even a tournament- Jungkook just had to win.

All the people he was friends with though, their relationship was beautiful. There were only 4 or 5 boys he actually got along with and their adoration for each other could be seen by anybody. 

This wouldn’t have been a problem if you weren’t also as competitive as him. You’re technically in no position to say that Jungkook’s hatred towards losing was unhealthy because you hated it too. You thought it made you seem weak, incapable- and you supposed that it was the same reason as to why the youngest Jeon son hated losing as well but you never tried understanding him. Let alone let him speak for a minute if he was in a 10-foot-radius of you. 

It was better this way, you thought. It was better to hate him than actually trying to befriend him and catching those unwanted feelings. Hating Jungkook was simpler, easier. Or so you thought for the 10 years of the two of you attending the same badminton academy. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the two of you were in the same class at college as well. So you had to deal with his annoying self for the larger part of the day. 

It was around a month before the annual badminton tournament of your state and obviously, you and Jungkook were taking part in it, more intent on defeating each other rather than the opposing teams. This wouldn’t work though, your coach had called the two of you after practice one day and had said “Listen, Jungkook, Y/n. I know that you’re both really good players and also hate each other.” he sighs, “I’m not asking you to befriend each other, no. I just want the two of you to get along for the tournament. For the sake of our school.” The coach makes a pleading face and you just nod, looking over at Jungkook to see his reaction. He hums and looks down. 

After the coach has walked away, you look at Jungkook again, getting ready to tell him that this wasn’t really going to affect the way you behaved with him but he beats you to it, his voice reaching your ears as your lips stay parted midway.

“So, I guess...no more arguing?” Jungkook finally looks at you with a slightly questioning face and you’re left momentarily blank, his proposition seeming so out of character that you’re at a loss for words. This wasn’t expected out of Jungkook. What was expected was that he would just scoff before glaring at you for no reason and stalking away. Him asking you if you wanted to stop the childish arguments the two of you had was not expected. 

It takes you a minute to comprehend that Jeon Jungkook was actually trying to put an end to those mini-wars of yours. Your reply is dumb “Uh- okay.” You’re still in a daze from what he said and it’s only when he snaps his fingers in front of your face that you immediately want to spit out a sassy remark but bite your tongue on it, not wanting to disregard Jungkook’s suggestion just after seconds of it having come out of those pink lips of his.

Not knowing what to do, you nod and turn around to get into the locker rooms before heading home. You’re oblivious to the fact that Jungkook almost called your name, wanting to talk to you more, he didn’t know why, but decided against it. You wouldn’t accept the offer anyway.

The walk back to your house is quiet, you’re humming a random tune and there aren’t many vehicles on the road, except for school buses dropping kids home. Unlocking the door, you step into your house and close it behind you before keeping your bag in your room and changing out of your clothes. After all that is done, you check the time and see that it’s 3:18 pm, you have around 2 hours before badminton coaching and suddenly feeling motivated, you heat up some leftover pizza and walk into your room to paint something. 

You may not be good at art, you admitted that without any shame because there were a lot of other things you could perform flawlessly. Playing badminton, whining and being able to smell any fried food from miles away to name a few. But you didn’t want to do art because you’d get good at it or something, it was something you genuinely enjoyed and the comments from other people didn’t matter as long as you were satisfied with yourself. And that meant your circles not looking  like amoeba.

You take out a drawing book that had been laying in the third drawer of your desk for months and dig up some paintbrushes and watercolour tubes you had left before sitting at your desk to finally start your work. You let your fingers guide you, not thinking much about what you were doing and what the outcome would be. Occasionally dusting your hands from the pizza crumbs, you were quite focused on your work.

30 minutes later, you’re leaning back in your chair and surveying your painting. Woah, it looks pretty-

Wait is that fucking Jungkook you see? “Huh?” your forehead is creased in perplexity, did you just paint a goddamn Jungkook? It looks like Jungkook, though...the bambi eyes and that tiny pout on his lips. How did you-

You were so confused right now. What were you thinking? Well, you obviously weren’t thinking.

Wow. Apparently, you had drawn Jungkook, your sworn enemy, without knowing. Not knowing what to do with the average portrait that didn’t do any justice to his actual features, you quickly clean up your stuff and keep it all back in its respective drawers. 

It’s now 4 and you get out your books to get some homework done before leaving for coaching. Ugh. You’d have to see Jungkook there too. You wonder how he’ll behave with you, hopefully, he won’t come anywhere near you. 

Sighing as you finish the assignments before stretching back in your chair, you get up to change into your sports clothes before grabbing your bag and water bottle, looking at yourself once in the mirror before walking out towards the pleasantly close by badminton academy you had grown way too accustomed to. 

Upon reaching the building, you walk through the reception and smile at the elderly lady who sits there every day. You push the door that leads to the courts and walk on the side, greeting your friends that were warming up. You don’t see Jungkook anywhere right now so that’s a good sign and you bow slightly at your coach in respect although the many years of being taught by the man have obviously gotten the two of you very close. Your bag is kept near a bench in its usual place and you put on the shoes you could wear only on the badminton courts before picking a corner on the side of the court and begin stretching. 

You’re walking to get your racquet when you see Jungkook jogging up to your coach, saying something to him with an apologetic look before getting a  playful shove from sir as he nods towards the benches where Jungkook would most probably keep his stuff and do some quick exercises before joining the rest of you. 

Said boy’s gaze meets yours and he smiles. You don’t reciprocate the gesture, scoffing and moving over to Jihye who’s already looking at you with a cheeky smile adorning her face. “What?” you question, not understanding why she was acting so weird “Don’t pretend you don’t know.” she gives you a playful shove to which you reply by tch-ing and rolling your eyes, done with her childish behaviour. “Seriously Jihye what th-”

“I saw Jungkook smile at you.” 

The look on your face is an accurate representation of what you were thinking right now. So what? That smile was nothing, he was just acting upon what he had said earlier. “Yeah, so?” you reply boredly, watching as Jihye’s mouth open wide- wide enough for her to fit her entire fist inside.

“Yeah, so? Are you shitting me Y/n? Jeon Jungkook just smiled at you and you didn’t even do anything in response?” you’re still watching her blankly. Although you admit that it’s not her fault entirely, even you were shocked, very shocked when he first told you about the no-more-fighting pact. 

“He just said that we shouldn’t argue now, because the coach at school said that it was going to be bad for our team. You know, in the tournament.” you simply shrug, trying not to make a big deal out of the fact and Jihye is about to reply before the coach is calling all of you for a shadow drill. 

Shit.

You are given one side of a court and by some way or the other, Jungkook is opposite to you, his black pants sticking to those fleshy thighs so deliciously and hi-

What?

What is wrong with you? You’ve been thinking about Jungkook unconsciously- first drawing him and now this. Get a grip Y/n.

The whistle of your coach sounds throughout the entire room and your chain of thoughts is broken as your run towards the left side of the net from your position in the centre of the court before picking up one of the shuttles and running back to the centre, moving to the right side of the net now and doing the same as you continue the drill. Jungkook is swift, his feet are balanced and he still manages to look so graceful as he runs around his side of the court. 

You’re finally done with all the corners of the court twice as you move to sit in the space between the two different courts as you pant. The two people who were waiting now go to your and Jungkook’s positions as they begin the shadows drill now. You’re surprised to see that Jungkook has opted to sit next to you, you with your bright pink skirt sticking to your skin in all its glory.  

“Hi.” he smiles and turns towards you with his hand outstretched in front of your form. With a questioning look on your face, you shake his hand. How far was he planning on going when he said that the two of you wouldn’t be having those silly arguments anymore? To you, it meant that the pair of you would just stick to your own places and not interact with each other or do anything that would result in the bickering to resume. 

“Hey..?” Jungkook retracts his hand, leaving yours in mid-air. “So you uh wanna like hang out..um..like somewhere?” This boy had been taking you by surprise too much lately, why would he randomly ask you to hang out?

Sure he had said that he didn’t want the two of you having those little fights anymore but this? This was unexpected- really fucking unexpected.

“Uh...so suddenly?” he slightly frowns “Why?  Are you uncomfortable with it? That’s totally fine though!”

Jungkook was being too friendly, a little too friendly, you were confused and shocked at his tactics but tried not to show it on your face. “I mean, yeah, okay.” The words came tumbling out of your mouth before you could even realise it and his face was now bright. His smile so sweet, you feel a cavity forming and he nods. “Cool! After practice then..? He trails off, suddenly hesitant and you’re still dumbfounded by how quickly things had taken a turn, for the better you supposed. 

Not even a day ago, the two of you were ready to claw the other’s eyes out and now, you were agreeing to go out with him. This is not a date though. Jungkook and you are just going out to bond as friends. Nothing more, nothing less. Nodding, you smile lightly, trying to reduce some of the awkwardness from your face as you suggest a cafe to meet up at. 

Practice is over and you are walking out of the academy with Jihye chattering beside you. “Oh! I almost forgot, so about that  Jungkook thing. I saw the two of you talking also.” she wiggles her eyebrows suggestively, or that’s what she thinks it looks like. Turning to face her, you sigh at her usual habit of sticking her nose into others’ business and tell her simply that he had just asked you to meet up at the cafe so you could just chill. 

“Holy shit, it’s a date!” Jihye seems more excited about the meet-up, not date, her hands coming up to join in front of her chest as she looks at you in bewilderment. “Why are you so passive?” your friend is way too excited for something so normal but then again, this was you and Jungkook. The two of you could never go a day without insulting the other before. Now you were meeting up with the same guy at a cafe in another hour or so. When you tell Jihye this, she stops walking, putting her hand on the left side of her chest- where her heart was. Her dramatic behaviour was now normal now and you knew the reason for her overreaction. 

Your love life was drier than the Sahara Desert in a fucking draught. You had been on just a handful of dates in your entire existence, only 5 or 6 of them ending up with you fucking the guy. The others had just been awkward, mainly because of your edgy self. 

It wasn’t that big of a problem though, you were too occupied by your college work and badminton tournament preparations that anything else just seemed like a waste of time. For instance, instead of going out with some guy, you could stay home and binge-watch Stranger Things. There were a lot more practical things that could be done without the company of males. 

The only reason you agreed to go out with Jungkook was that you wanted to see how it would end up. There was a very slim chance that your meeting would go very well but if Jungkook kept behaving as sweet as he was now, you wouldn’t even have a solid reason to be rude to the poor fellow. Nevertheless, you were not going to completely relax because one never knows. 

“I’m coming over to pick out your outfit!” Jihye is excited, jumpy because this is new- you going out with someone of the opposite gender. And although it was completely normal for someone else, you just looked at your friend judgmentally, feigning annoyance and earning a light shove from her that has you stumbling on the sidewalk. 

“‘Kay'” she squeals when you agree and invites herself to your house, saying that you should take a shower while she picks out your outfit. You trusted her though, Jihye’s fashion sense was really good and you knew for a fact that whatever she would pick out would be trendy. 

Unlocking your house with the bronze key, you walk in and keep your bag in its place before walking to get a glass of water for Jihye and yourself. She accepts and plops down on your couch before you pull her up by the arm, a disgusted look on your face. “Go wash up first.” she pouts but heads into the bathroom near the hallway nonetheless to wash up. You shout to her from your room that you’re heading to shower and she shouts back an “Alright.” from downstairs as you open the door, heading in for a steamy shower. 

40 minutes later, you’re getting out of your bathroom, content, to Jihye’s shrieking. Something along the lines of missing the date and you roll your eyes when you hear the last word. It was not a date for God’s sake!

You nonchalantly nod at no one in particular and apply your cream before heading out in a bathrobe. She’s sitting on your bed with some outfits placed on your bed. At first glance, they all look colour-coordinated with some accessories here and there but upon closer inspection, you see that every piece of clothing on your mattress was one of the shortest you had in every category. 

“Do you want me to look like a slut?” you ask with your arms folding in front of your chest, and Jihye looks at you with wide eyes, offended that you even had the nerve to comment on her outfit-picking skills. 

“No! These are all fine for a meet-up.” She uses finger quotes for the last word and you smile to yourself, “Uh, let me just stop you there. I don’t really know what people mean when they use this.” you make the finger quotes and she gasps “Did you just-” your shoulders raise and as the laughter dies down, you walk closer to the bed, mentally evaluating each outfit she had oh so carefully picked. They’re all really stylish, you gotta admit that but you’d never say it to her face. The one closest to the headboard consists of a full-sleeved plain white turtleneck that had a greyish-brown dress that reached your mid-thigh laid on top of it. It was something you could wear, maybe with some electric pink leggings. You see that Jihye, who is now rummaging in your collection of shoes, has also laid some black boots in front of the bed that matched the first dress. 

Your gaze travels to the one on the middle one and you immediately furrow your eyebrows, already ruling the strapless crop top and ripped shorts out. Too much skin. 

The one to the far left is also decided to not be inappropriate for the occasion as you didn’t think Jungkook would want to see you in a burgundy top with spaghetti straps. The jeans that had too many huge holes in them didn’t even look cool at this point. What were you thinking when you bought this.

Jihye comes out with some heels for one of the outfits “Why are you even putting so much effort into this? I can just wear a shirt and sweats.” She huffs out, unamused, as you giggle at her annoyed face. “Kidding. So, I really like this one.” you point at the dress and she smiles slyly “Showing off your long legs I see.” Punching her shoulder, you make some place to sit on the bed, glad that you shaved today. “Now, get out of my room. I need to change and apply make-up.” She nods and you watch her close the door behind her, getting up to lock it for extra safety measures. 

Not like she was gonna barge in and catch you in your star printed underwear anyways. Changing into the turtle neck and then the dress, you look at yourself in the mirror and if it wasn’t your frizzy hair, you would even think you looked cute. You brush your hair and settle for a high ponytail. Putting on your shoes, you apply a little bit of make-up, not wanting to seem overly eager but the excessive amount of perfume may or may not give you away. 

As you open the door and walk down to where Jihye has changed into some sweats she had kept in your house for times like these, she gasps upon seeing you, chip almost falling out her mouth and chews it before widening her eyes comically “Babe! You look so good.” you smile at her compliment, giving her a twirl as she gets up to probably to hug you before deciding against it, shaking her head. 

“So, is my make-up looking fine?” she nods furiously and you pick up your purse that was on the dining chair before looking at the clock to see that you only have ten minutes before Jungkook arrives. You bid Jihye goodbye, not worried in the slightest bit about her being alone at your house. 

As you’re walking, the cafe comes into view and you spot a familiar figure walking into the shop as well and you increase your speed to enter at the same time as Jungkook to make it seem as if you weren’t even slightly late. He doesn’t notice you even when you’re right behind him and walks to a table to sit down as you sit opposite him immediately, realising that he had walked to a two-people table in the corner of the shop. 

His eyes widen and he stutters out in shock, “O-Oh, you’re here,” Nodding, you hide a smile and greet him back, trying not to get into an argument with him. It’s silent for a while, you think of anything to say to break the awkward atmosphere but just as you’re looking up from the ground to speak to Jungkook, his voice is filling your ears. “Do you want to order?” He waits and you simply nod, “Okay, I’ll come to get my coffee.” 

Just as you’re getting up, Jungkook keeps his hand on you without warning, head shaking frantically. “No! I mean, I can get it for you.” Looking up in surprise, you’re unable to speak for a moment. Did Jeon Jungkook just say that he would buy you coffee?

You shake your head and snap out of your trance. Or at least you try to. “No, it’s alright. I can get it myself.” Jungkook rushes to quieten you again and looks like he won’t let you win, so you sigh and back down. “Fine.” He giggles and walks off to the counter while you take your phone out to kill time. Getting bored when you see that there are not any notifications, you switch the device off and look out of the window, watching as people get out of their cars for a pitstop at the cafe before driving away again. 

“Here are the coffees.” You turn your head and see Jungkook setting two cups of coffee on the table before sitting himself. Looking at what he got you, you thank him for bringing the correct order and he just sends a light smile in your direction, rubs his hands together and picks up the cup with both hands. You almost coo, but hold yourself together. This was your enemy. 

That reminds you, “So, why are you suddenly being so kind to me? It’s really weird to experience you treating me nicely.” You hadn’t meant for your tone to come off as accusing, but it does, and you have to watch Jungkook’s eyes flash with hurt for a second before shaking his head lightly. He places his cup back in the small saucer and his hands on either side of it. 

“I knew you would ask me this.” egging him on with a raise of your eyebrows, you take a sip of your coffee “Remember how Coach said that we should stop arguing?” At your nod, he licks his lips and continues on with his explanation, “Well, I thought about it-” “You told me to stop arguing right after he left.” “I thought about it and I decided that we really shouldn’t be having these fights. Like, what’s the point? I’m not getting anything out of it. You’re not getting anything out of it.” He ignores your words and when you hear his, ask yourself why you hadn’t tried to put a stop to the childish arguments you had with Jungkook. 

You don’t know why you ever fought back. Well, you did hate losing and Jungkook did everything to rile you up- so he was at fault too- but there was no specific reason as to why you hated Jungkook so much. “I don’t know, you were the one who started them. I don’t have a problem with becoming friends.” 

Jungkook looks at you, looking as if he’s trying to figure something out, pouty lips looking kissable but you quickly brush those thoughts off. “So..” his hands come closer to yours and you’re shocked to feel your heart starting to beat faster, its pace picking up as Jungkook’s hand comes closer to yours. “..friends?” his pinky intertwines with yours and you feel your face turn red, the action igniting something in you. 

Looking down at your fingers intertwined seems to be a big mistake as you gasp, the sight just overwhelming you. His hand fit in yours perfectly, and even if he meant it just as friends, you couldn’t help but imagine how it would be to be loved by Jungkook.

No! You two just started behaving normally around each other and you’re already thinking about loving him?

A voice in your head sounds as Jungkook retrieves his hand to pick up the call that had distracted you. You take your hand back and keep it in your lap, tingling sensations till lingering. 

Jungkook looks at you apologetically for a second, and you reassure him that he could take the call but he tells whoever was on the other side of the line that he was busy, cutting the call after he told the person that he would call them back later. 

“Sorry about that.” you barely catch his mumble and shake your head, “Don’t worry.” As you finish your coffee and make small talk with Jungkook about random things, you start growing more comfortable around him, cracking jokes and laughing at his lame ones. You’re discussing some things about the upcoming tournament when Jungkook suddenly leans in closer. 

You move back out of shock and he stills, eyes suddenly going wide as his breathing halts. Your own starts getting heavy, his sudden action having caught you terribly off guard. After partially having gained your composure back, you see that Jungkook is still in the same position, “J-Jungkook?” He takes a moment to snap out of whatever trance he was put in and blinks once, twice before gasping loudly and jerking backwards. His back hits the chair and his mouth is still open in shock at what he did. 

“S-Sorry..” he trails off, chewing his lip and your eyes follow the motion carefully before darting them back to his face quickly. He furrows his brows and starters ahead of you before shaking his head, murmuring something to himself. “You ok there?” you try to keep your voice soft, soothing as Jungkook shifts his gaze to you, wide eyes looking absolutely adorable. 

You question him again, worried, “What wa-” “I like you.” 

Silence. 

You sputter, his words having caught you off guard and if Jungkook’s eyes could go any wider, they do, his hand instantly coming to slap over his face and he curses, “I-fuck.” You’re still shocked by his confession and your brain takes time to process what he said, the three simple words not registering in your mind until suddenly,  Jungkook’s voice brings you back to the present. 

“Y-Y/n?” He sounds hesitant, and your face must be an accurate representation of what you’re feeling right now because Jungkook begins speaking again, his eyes filled with worry as he tries to fix his mistake. “No. I mean, yes, I like you-” Your face portrays horror at his words again and he rushes to correct himself, hitting himself on the head once. 

“You what?” Your voice is hushed for unknown reasons and Jungkook looks around, trying to calm himself down by breathing in and out and you use the time to do the same, the initial shock having worn off as you exhale loudly and take a bite out of the cookie from the small plate he had gotten. 

“I like you, Y/n.” Jungkook’s tone is more serious this time, and you try maintaining  a straight face, his words finally sinking and you choke on your saliva. “Like like me?” you question dumbly and he nods desperately, licking his lips and drumming his fingers on the table, a nervous habit of his. 

“Oh,” Jeongguk tilts his head at your response and you muster the courage to ask him a question that had been lingering on your mind ever since he confessed. “Since..?”

He coughs loudly into his mouth, trying to hide the blush that creeps up his cheeks and looks at you with a suddenly brave gaze, “I’ve liked you for a long time, Y/n. The reason I started annoying was because I wanted you to notice me, not because I disliked you...And better confess now instead of regretting not doing anything before right?” Your mouth is left hanging at his confession now, the real reason for his pestering finally coming out into the light. 

“Why would you annoy me, though? You could've just come up and talked to me, it would've been way easier for us.” At this, Jeongguk blushes, trying to cover his burning cheeks from you and cups his face in  his hands. “I don’t know..you were really annoying, to be honest.”

“I was annoying- you asshole!” You lean over and hit his arm, much to his chagrin and he frowns before swatting your arm away. Silence falls over the two of you, but it's not the awkward kind, you just sit quietly, drowning yourself in thoughts about Jungkook. 

“So…” Beside you, Jungkook shifts shyly and lowers his head when you look at him, the sight igniting something warm inside you. “Can I ask to ask you out?” His hair sits prettily atop his forehead, hands on his lap and his lips are scrunched into the cutest pout. 

“Why don’t you ask me and find out?” You aim for a teasing tone, but miss by a mille, instead sounding breathless and at this, Jungkook smiles before leaning in closer. “Will you go on a date with me?”

Even though you knew he was going to ask you, the words still send tingles throughout your entire body, heart racing and you nod before you can even think.  

It has you suddenly thinking about the drastic turn of events. The guy who was once (not even a few hours ago) your biggest enemy had just confessed to you and was asking you out. You’re thinking if it was a bad decision, but with Jungkook looking so innocent and just, like a child, it’s hard to think straight. Your heart beats erratically as Jungkook gives you one last soft smile before getting up and walking to pay, and you try chasing him and stopping him from paying for both your and his drinks but as much as you want to, you’re still stuck in place, everything that happened recently replaying in your head. He comes back in a few minutes and holds out his hand for you to take, and as you’re getting up with his help, your heart can’t help but flutter, the feeling of his warm hand encompassing yours turning you mushy like dough. 

“Seriously?” You can’t help but scoff, and beside you Jungkook lets go of your hand to feign an offended face. “What! You said you liked Call of Duty!” Jungkook defends himself and you stare blankly at the venue of your first official date with Jeon Jungkook. 

The baby pink blankets that adore his couch look inviting, so do the various snacks on the coffee table but still, this was your first date. You had really expected him to go all out and take you to dinner at a classy restaurant. And then maybe have ended with a drumline playing on a bridge. Ok, maybe that was too much. 

This doesn’t mean that you’re disappointed, though. Nope. This- a date on Jungkook’s couch with Call of Duty and snacks- was perfectly fine. Great, even. You finally crack a smile, nudging his shoulder and muttering a ‘Just kidding.’ under your breath when his face turns sad. 

You grab his arm and sit on the couch, patting the space beside you for him to occupy as you shuffle through the unhealthy packs of chips and nachos to find your favorite one. Jungkook grabs a drink and you shuffle under the soft blanket, curling up and look at Jungkook, trying to act cute as you prepare to embarrass yourself. 

“Cuddle with me?” Jungkook almost spits his drink out, surging forward as his head turns towards your direction you’re positive he gets whiplash. “W-What-Did you..” Nodding, you try pouting but know for a fact that it looks more awkward than cute and huff out, “Just-” Jungkook nods suddenly, “Ok.” and gets under the covers. Your face heats up when you finally realise that you just asked The Jeon Jungkook™ to cuddle with you, and as he ever so slowly crawls towards you, your body turns stiff. 

“I-Is this okay?” Jungkook hovers his hand over your waist and as you look at him with wide eyes, you nod lightly, indicating the green signal, his body heat not helping at all. Jungkook’s soft voice filters through your ears, and you swear you could listen to him forever. Even if he was making fun of your obsession with hard peaches. Yes. 

“We can watch a movie if you want..and then play COD?” he suggests and you mumble out a “Sure” and watch as he picks up the remote to scroll through the various apps whose subscriptions he had. 

He pauses at Netflix. “Can we watch Full House?” his voice is timid, and you turn to furrow your eyebrows at him, wondering why he would seem hesitant while asking that. Everyone loved Michelle. 

“Why not?” At your words, Jungkook’s eyes light up and he smiles widely, turning towards the TV to play the show. 

You rip open a packet of Cheetos and Jungkook tries (keyword: tries) to slyly wrap his arm around you from behind but doesn’t go unnoticed, and you move forward for him to easily slide his arm around you, not even bothering to look at his red face because there’s a really high chance that you’ll combust. 

2 episodes into the new season, you turn to Jungkook and he notices, eyebrows raised as you gulp, 

“I think I like you too.” 

“That would’ve been really romantic if your Cheetos breath wasn’t hitting my face.”

epilogue 

“Yesss, get it Kook!” Jungkook comes running up to you and you slap his arm in enthusiasm. He hugs you, tight, and your arms wrap around his body as well, congratulating him in his victory. His last hit had been a smash, one his opponent hadn’t  been able to defend and the match had indeed with your school winning, the trophy yours for the third time in a row.  

“We won.” The words coming out of Jungkook’s mouth urge you to hug him tighter, and you do, nodding although he probably can't see you. “We did.” Your boyfriend lets go of you to embrace his teammates and you laugh with all of them, and when your eyes meet Jungkook’s, realise that he may not be as bad as you first thought him to be.

tysm for reading whatever the fuck this is <3 send in feedback, if you want!

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[liketheletter-l]

Ohhh my god dude i h. holy shit. hang on a second

i def agree with @macaronichild saying "the main character" by will wood for leo, it's a little more evil than he actually is but i think he'd listen to it so there's that

speaking of leo songs, "wobbly" by ezra furman, "the guitar" by they might be giants (this is more vibes since 90% of TMBG lyrics are complete nonsense), "king of swords (reversed)" by dear hunter (u have to read the lyrics as a little sarcastic), "i'm gonna win" by rob cantor (leo bein a little mentally ill in this one), "avenues" by drive45 (this one too), "good old-fashioned lover boy" by queen (duh)

"philosophy" by ben folds five is SOOO mikey. so sillay so goofy. "experimental film" by TMBG (again, vibes), "FANCY FOOTWORK" BY CHROMEO (ESP THE LIVE VERSION!! VIBES), "man it's so loud in here" by TMBG (vibes), "talkin' bout" by thumpasaurus (just bc of the silliness)

"sticking it to myself" by jonathan coulton is Very Very donnie (also leo at his more turbulent), "science is fun" by jonathan coulton/from portal 2 (it's instrumental but donnie would SO listen to it also the name?? come on. pretty much any of joco's portal 2 songs are donnie tbh), "epoch" by the living tombstone (lot of tlt to be honest), "robots" by flight of the conchords (sillay)

"i'm fine" by daisy the great is SOOOO RAPHAEL!! (he works both as the singer AND the person the song is directed towards, which is great), "AMOEBA" BY CLAIRO 1 MILLION TIMES, "buckets of fun" by sidney gish (this one is more loose), "all time what" by TMBG (just vibes. this is one of my favorite songs ever), "fly in my room" by kerrin connolly

I’m slowly but surely trying to make some character playlists for Teenage Mutant What Now? just for funsies but lowkey I’m pretty bad at it lmao so if anyone has any idea/suggestions for any of them, lemme know 🥺

[olivenight17]

Can i request a durarara scenario? Study date with aoba mayhaps?

Hello anon! Lmao, so I kinda self indulged a bit with this one because guess who’s struggling in chemistry with factor label conversion? Yeah, me. I tried to stay true to Aoba’s cocky personality, but it has been curbed a bit. I just feel like that would be the case if he was dating someone. Also, I’m sorry, I’m not sure if this is a study date so much as it is just Aoba barging in and helping in a time of need. I’m sorry if it’s not what you had in mind. But, I hope you enjoy anyways!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Aoba x Reader “The Torture of Studying”

You groaned as you face planted into all of your school papers.

You were more than happy to stay like that for the rest of your life. No need to do anything else, just wallow with your face on the desk.

But, trying to ignore the chuckles of your boyfriend across from you was harder to do. “What an interesting way to study chemistry, (Y/N).” He commented, poking your head.

Still refusing to get up, you swatted his hand away. “Yes, it’s a new tactic I’m trying out. I just absorb the information like an amoeba. Far more effective. Leave me to absorb in peace.” You grumbled, shifting your head to escape the assault of the boy’s pokes.

Aoba wouldn’t be so easily ignored as his fingers ran from your head to your neck, lightly brushing against the skin. “Well, that doesn’t sound like any fun. How am I supposed to help you if you absorb it by yourself?” He asked you, fingers continuing to tickle your neck.

You let giggles slip out of your mouth as you sat up and tried to back away from him. “Hey, stop that! And, I thought I told you I didn’t need your help for studying!”

“But I knew it was a cry for help and came over anyways! You know, like the good, handsome, amazing boyfriend I am.” He grinned, grabbing and pulling you into his chest.

While you appreciated the warmth and the positivity Aoba was trying to give you, it wasn’t working as your eyes landed on the multitude of papers on your desk. “That’s all well and good, but are you a smart boyfriend too? Because I need a smart boyfriend right now.” You quipped, leaning your head back to look him in the eyes.

He smirked down at you. “Babe, who do you think you’re talking to? I’m the smartest around. Now, what’s got you confused?” He asked, picking up a stack of papers and sifting through them. His narcissistic attitude diminished as he focused on the words.

Picking up some papers yourself, you explained your troubles. “Factor label conversion. I’ve gone over it a hundred times, done a thousand more problems and barely any of them are correct! I just don’t understand how it works and at this point I don’t think I want to.” You let out a dejected sigh as you stared at all the work you had done, defeated. “I’ve been at this for hours before I texted you to take a break. I don’t think I can keep this up. I just wanna give up and fail.” Dropping the papers back down, you turned and buried your head in his chest.

Aoba was silent for a moment before gently wrapping an arm around you and rubbing your back. “Hey, it’s alright. There’s no need to get so worked up over this. From what I’m seeing, your work is good, you’re just getting tripped up on the small stuff. That’s okay, it happens to everyone. Well, everyone except me because I don’t make mistakes.” He joked before leaning back and tilting your head up. “Come on babe, give me that smile I love so much.” He prodded you, pinching your cheeks. When you finally complied to his wishes, he smiled back and gave you a quick peck on the lips. “Now head up! We have some factor conversion to do.”

You groaned at his cheery attitude as you turned back to your papers. They still felt like a gigantic burden, and your head was still beating like a drum from your last battle with it, but you figured it wouldn’t hurt to at least try with Aoba by your side. “Fine, have it your way.” You mumbled, picking your pencil back up.

“You’re so silly, (Y/N). I always have it my way.”

“Aoba, I love you, but if you keep up all this cocky shit I’m kicking you out of my room. Regardless of whether or not I need your help.”

“Alright, alright, let’s not do anything rash. Let’s just start with this problem here.”

[evangeline-perry]

Dead Poets Society: Neil x OC: part 7

masterlist

complete series

‘A man is not very tired, he is exhausted. And don't use very sad, use-’ my dad says as he walks to the front of the classroom and points to the back of it, ‘Come on, Mr. Overstreet, you twerp.’

‘Morose?’

‘Exactly! Morose. Now, language was developed for one endeavor, and that is? Mr. Anderson? Come on! Are you a man or an amoeba?’

My father stands before Todd's desk. Todd looks up nervously but says nothing. My dad pauses for a moment before looking away. ‘Mr. Perry?’

‘Uh, to communicate’, he opts.

‘No! To woo women’, he says, causing the boys to chuckle, ‘Today we're going to be talking about William Shakespeare.’

The class lets out a collective sigh, ‘Oh God’, except for me, since I’ve grown to love the author. ‘I know. A lot of you looked forward to this about as much as you look forward to root canal work. We're gonna talk about Shakespeare as someone who writes something very interesting. Now, many of you have seen Shakespeare done very much like this:’ my dad holds out his right arm dramatically and begins to speak in an exaggerated British accent. ‘"O Titus, bring your friend hither." But if any of you have seen Mr. Marlon Brando, you know, Shakespeare can be different. "Friend, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears." You can also imagine, maybe, John Wayne as Macbeth going, "Well, is this a dagger I see before me?"’

All of us are seated together near the front of the room as my father reads from a book.

‘"Dogs, sir? Oh, not just now. I do enjoy a good dog once in a while, sir. You can have yourself a three-course meal from one dog. Start with your canine crudites, go to your Fido flambe for main course and for dessert, a Pekingese parfait. And you can pick your teeth with a little paw."’ As we all listen to the story, and laugh at my dads impressions, I lean against Neil who’s leaning against a desk. As I lean against his chest, his arm lays around my waist, though it is out of side of my dad.

When we all sat back in their normal seats and dad leaps up onto his desk. ‘Why do I stand up here? Anybody?’

‘To feel taller.’ Charlie calls from the back of the class.

‘No!’ my dad rings the bell on his desk with his foot, ‘Thank you for playing, Mr. Dalton. I stand upon my desk to remind yourself that we must constantly look at things in a different way.’ He glances around the classroom from atop the desk. ‘You see, the world looks very different from up here. You don't believe me? Come see for yourself. Come on. Come on!’

Charlie and Neil quickly rise from their seats to go to the front of the classroom, and I follow suite. The rest of the class follows us. While my dad continues speaking, Neil and Charlie join him on the desk and then he jumps down.

‘Just when you think you know something, you have to look at it in another way. Even though it may seem silly or wrong, you must try! Now, when you read, don't just consider what the author thinks. Consider what you think.’ with that the two boys jump down too. Neil stands by the side of the desk and reaches his hand out to me to help me off the desk.

Boys, you must strive to find your own voice. Because the longer you wait to begin, the less likely you are to find it at all. Thoreau said, "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation." Don't be resigned to that. Break out!’ he pauses for a second then continues. ‘Don't just walk off the edge like lemmings. Look around you.’

The school bell rings as the boys continue to climb onto the desk. My father begins to gather up his stuff. The clock begins to toll as he walks to the back of the class. ‘There! There you go, Mr. Priske. Thank you! Yes! Dare to strike out and find new ground. Now, in addition to your essays, I would like you to compose a poem of your own, an original work.’ The students begin to groan and he begins flickering the lights off and on while chanting ominously, ‘That's right! You have to deliver it aloud in front of the class on Monday. Bonne chance, gentlemen and lady.’ He steps out into the hall before quickly peeking back in once again. I see that Todd is the last one to stand on the desk and is about to jump off.

‘Mr. Anderson?’ my dad says causing him to stop, ‘Don't think that I don't know that this assignment scares the hell out of you, you mole.’ He flicks the light off again, leaving Todd to jump down in the darkness as the students laugh.

I sat alone in my room, reading while laying on my bed in some comfy clothes, when Neil comes in. ‘Ow hey Neil’, I smile, looking up. But then I see him flexing and unflexing his hand, ‘hey what’s up.’ I must’ve looked concerned, cause he smiles sheepishly at me: ‘I was on my way here from my room but Mr. Nolan called me to his office and uh, ‘he pauses, holding up his knuckles to show me his bruised up hands, ‘gave me a beating with a ruler.’

‘What?! Why?!’ I say, jumping up and taking hold op his hands to examen the bruising.

‘For “making inappropriate advances at Mr. Keatings daughter”.’ he quotes.

‘What?’ I say looking up at him, an expression of disbelief on my face, ‘But Nolan didn’t even come here to confirm if anything happened, it doesn’t make any sense’

‘Well, that’s the way they rule this school’, he simply states.

I fall silent for a moment, before asking: ‘Does it hurt?’

‘Meh, just a little bit, don’t worry about it’, he tries to reassure me.

‘Come on, let’s go to the infirmary, those kind of bruises hurt, they don’t need to hurt any more.’ I take a gentle hold of his hand as we walk to the infirmary.

Once we’re there I make him down on one of those beds, I take the first aid kit out of the cupboard. I take a hold of one of his hand as I patch it up. Though I’m aware of Neils gaze on me, I don’t look up, even if it causes my cheeks to burn bright red. As I finish up his 2nd hand, I feel his other hand gently caress my cheek and jaw. Though I have to admit I enjoy it, I don’t look up yet.

Only when I’m done I look up. And when I do, I get chills from the look in his eyes. Such pure passion. I feel him wrap his other hand around and pull me close to him. To prevent myself from falling, I catch myself by putting my hand on Neils shoulder and upper arm. We are so close now, our noses touch, and before I can even comprehend what’s going on, Neil kisses me. It an extremely passionate kiss that takes my breath away. Even though it catches me off guard, it doesn’t take me long to start kissing him back. We pull each other even closer, so that I now stand between his legs as he’s still seated on the infirmary bed. The kiss deepens, and my hands find their way into his hair. As I slightly pull on the ends, I can hear him groan, which I like. Unfortunately, we eventually run out of air and have to pull apart. The kiss leaves both of panting in a short moment of shock as to what’d just happened.

‘I’m sorry I got a little carries away,’ he apologizes, though I can clearly see the smirk on his face.

‘Don’t worry, I didn’t mind’, I blush, smiles sheepishly up at him.

‘Can I kiss you again?’ he asks, looking down at my lips. And so he does.

After a while longer, Neil walks me back to my room. As we reach it, I lean up to kiss his cheek, but he turns his head and smirks. As I feel my cheeks heat up again, I kiss him on the lips. His arm reach around my waist, as mine wrap around his neck.

‘OW I almost forgot’, he smiles as we pull apart, ‘I came to tell you something, before the whole thing with Mr Nolan.’ He leads me to sit on the bed, holding my hand. There he talks about the play, and the auditions, and about him participating. He bounces on the bed excitedly as he does.

‘That’s great!’ I exclaim, smiling at him. We talk for a while longer, occasionally stealing kisses every now and again. Eventually he has to leave to go do some homework, so he gets up and kisses me goodbye one more time. ‘I realize I haven’t really asked. Evangeline, will you be my girlfriend.’

‘And here I thought I’d be obvious by now’, I say, while still wrapped in his arms, ‘yes.’

He leans down to kiss me again, but at that moment the door opens to reveal the Dead Poets at the door: ‘My my, how the tables have tabled.’ Charlie states smirking.

<-PREVIOUS/ NEXT ->

[artificialqueens]

They Don't Love You Like I Love You 3/? (katlaska) - kamylove

AN - New chapters are always uploaded to AO3 sooner than they are here, if you want to read ahead. On AO3 it’s up to chapter 10.

“There is absolutely no factual or metaphorical fucking going on.” Not yet, anyway. Or, Katya and Alaska take the slow train.

They text a lot over the next few weeks, facetime a couple times, even manage to meet for a quick lunch when their schedules coincide for one day in LA. Then Alaska’s off to Brazil, and Katya’s off to Miami. Then there’s Mexico City, and San Diego; and Tallahassee, and Nashville, and Atlanta.

Katya sends Alaska selfies in front of dumpsters, and long strings of emojis that probably make perfect sense to Katya.

Alaska sends pictures of every hotel room she stays in, PDFs of hideous crochet patterns she finds online, menus whenever she comes across a new vegetarian restaurant.

Katya texts things in Russian that Alaska has to look up on Google Translate, things like, “Ma'am, your car is fully automatic,” and “This box is full of squirrels, please exchange it immediately,” and “The darker the night, the brighter the stars,” which Alaska thinks is much less ridiculous and also vaguely familiar.

Alaska texts back, “I can see the sun, but even if I can’t see the sun, I know that it exists. And to know that the sun is there–that is living,” which, Katya thinks, is very much taken out of context, but perfect anyway.

Katya sends a wall of Cyrillic text that turns out to be an operator’s manual for a tractor from the 1940’s. Alaska retaliates with the longest, dullest article she can find on the chemical composition of various shades of house paint, google translated into Greek. She follows it up with every single vegetable, fruit, and livestock emoji on her phone.

There are traffic updates from whatever city they’re in and from cities they’ve never been to: Minsk, Cairo, Montevideo; Kyoto when they’re sharing sushi on facetime and Zurich when they’re sharing chocolate. There are video game sessions from across oceans. There are updates on their friends’ lives. <i>(“Not to be called gossip,” Alaska says.)</i> There are frantic text discussions about new songs to use on stage, facetimes about clothes and wigs and makeup, conversations after almost every show.

There’s brainstorming about new material, despair over politics and joy over good days and commiseration over bad ones. There are frank conversations about being sober in an industry that almost requires the opposite.

There are wakeup calls and reminder texts and inspiration when genius is on the tip of a tongue. Katya gets used to going to sleep with a smile on her face after phone conversations. Alaska gets used to finding dozens of increasingly silly texts sent while she was asleep.

There are words, and the words are endless.

<><><>

This, Alaska thinks, must just be what happens when you’re friends with Katya. It’ll be a long time before she starts to suspect otherwise.

<i>(“Hell, no,” Trixie will say. “If she texted me every other second I’d lose my entire damn mind.”)</i>

Through it all, Alaska’s careful to keep it off social media; she never mentions Katya on Instagram or Twitter, only likes a judicious number of her tweets, and she’s not sure why. But she figures out soon enough that Katya’s doing the same.

It’s delicate, Alaska thinks, whatever it is that they have. It’s too delicate to be exposed to the light.

<><><>

Katya sends entire scenes of Moliere in French; Alaska tells her to fuck off and texts the entire last act of Timon of Athens.

Alaska quotes The Boys in the Band; Katya quotes The Normal Heart.

Katya quotes Tennessee Williams; Alaska quotes Eugene O'Neill.

Alaska quotes Twelfth Night; Katya says that’s just too easy and quotes Tamburlaine the Great.

<><><>

“Trixie says you’re a positive influence on me,” Katya says one night on facetime.

Alaska is actually at home, for a whole 36 hours. She was re-packing until Katya called, and now she’s sprawled on her couch. She raises an eyebrow, because she suspects there’s a punchline coming. “Trixie said that?”

“Yes, because you’re keeping me out of her hair. Which she thanks you for, by the way.”

“My pleasure. I think,” Alaska says.

“Also,” Katya says, “she doesn’t know how crazy you are.”

“All part of my evil plan,” Alaska says. “Mwahahaha.”

“See?” Katya says. “Crazy.” She’s in Edmonton, finishing dinner and winding down after a show. She tilts her head thoughtfully. “You do have that miraculous gift for looking effortless and unbothered and unsweaty. Nobody has any idea what goes on in that pretty, horse shaped head.”

“That’s because I don’t tell them,” Alaska says. “Also part of my evil plan.

"Yes, because you, unlike me, have common sense,” Katya says. “But here’s the thing.”

“Yes, Katya, please tell me about the thing,” Alaska says, grinning.

Katya tosses a wadded-up napkin at her phone screen. “The thing is,” she says, “it’s a little known scientific fact that you and I have the exact same number of brain squirrels.”

This is not news to Alaska, and she doubts Katya’s just figured it out, either. “Please continue with your theory, Dr. Zamolodchikova,” Alaska says.

“See, they’re just different breeds of brain squirrel,” Katya says. “Mine are those New York squirrels that will steal a sandwich and your Honda, and yours are the cute, polite, red ones they have in England. Scientific fact!”

“Absolute scientific truth,” Alaska says.

“Also, you keep yours penned in the basement and trained to use kitty litter, while mine run loose and shit everywhere and attack passing motorists. Free range brain squirrels.”

“Free range, Honda driving brain squirrels,” Alaska says very seriously. “It all makes sense now.”

“Doesn’t it?”

<><><>

The second night they share a hotel room is an accident.

They haven’t seen each other in a while; Katya’s flight is late and she gets into town just in time for the show. Afterwards they start talking, and laughing, and Katya doesn’t even notice she’s following Alaska up to her room until they’ve already been there for twenty minutes.

It’s four in the morning and Alaska shrugs and says, “My flight’s at eight, you might as well stay. You want half of this sandwich?”

Katya says yes, and they still have so much to say that she doesn’t even think about leaving.

<><><>

After that, it’s weeks before they’re in the same place at the same time, and that place is Key West, the weekend of the Great Conch Republic Drag Race.

They’re not judging this time, just performing down the street with a few other girls. The organizers invite them all to attend in drag, but Katya says, “It’s their day,” and Alaska says, “Not ours.” So they go as boys, wearing baseball caps and the most cis straight t-shirts they can buy for each other.

<i>(Katya’s t-shirt says “God’s gift to women;” Alaska’s says “No gay man would wear a shirt this ugly.” “Those are the straightest things you could find?” Roxxxy says.)</i>

They stay on the edge of the crowd, cheering gamely, speaking sotto voce when they need to speak. In Key West, gay famous is bigger than regular famous, but they’re only recognized once.

After their show is over, they slip out to the beach with their makeup still on and write Alaska catchphrases in the sand, by the light of Katya’s phone.

<><><>

<b>Text from Katya:</b> starfish

<b>Text from Alaska:</b> long division

<b>Alaska:</b> amoeba

<b>Katya:</b> shovel

<b>Alaska:</b> rogue

<b>Katya:</b> chickens

<b>Katya:</b> eclipse

<b>Alaska:</b> chickens

<b>Katya:</b> No. There are rules.

<><><>

Katya sends mp3s of lip sync songs she knows Alaska hates; Alaska sends mp3s of the two lip syncs she won against Katya.

“Fuck you and your lip sync licking ways,” Katya texts. “I’m not talking to you for at least 10 minutes.”

So Alaska sends “Roar” and “Step It Up,” too, and Katya ups it to twenty minutes.

She only makes it to fifteen.

<><><>

“Tell me another ghost story,” Alaska says over over, late at night, on facetime. She likes the way Katya’s eyes light up when she asks.

<><><>

“You up?” Katya’s text says. “Can I call?”

Alaska’s had her phone set to accept all calls from Katya at all hours for weeks, and she’s pretty sure Katya knows that. “Of course you can,” she texts back. “You don’t have to ask.”

The phone rings almost immediately.

“Hey,” Alaska says. “You okay?”

She can hear Katya sucking on a cigarette. “Squirrels, treadmill, brain,” Katya says.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” Alaska says, her heart racing with scary what ifs. “Do you want to use?”

“A little. But I’m not going to. It’s the effect, not the cause.”

“Okay, that’s good. Do you,” and she’s not sure where to go, so she asks. “I don’t know what works for you. Should I try to distract you, or do you want to tell me about the squirrels?”

“Just talk,” Katya says on an exhale. “You. Just talk.”

So Alaska does, for hours. She thinks about what she wants to hear, on days when the anxiety takes over. She tells Katya about her day, about the books she’s been reading, about the weather, about every single thing in her luggage on this trip. She tells her the dumbest jokes she knows. She recites scenes from Golden Girls and the words to songs she knows Katya hates.

At some point, Katya starts interjecting dumb jokes of her own. And then the jokes get better, which is when Alaska starts to think it might be okay.

Before she knows it, the sun is coming up between the curtains she never pulled the night before, and Katya is yawning.

“Do you think you can sleep now?” Alaska asks quietly. Her heart feels very full.

“I think so,” Katya says.

“Then sleep. I’m here. Call me if you need me.”

Alaska thinks she hears “I always need you,” muttered under Katya’s breath, but she’s probably imagining it.

“I wish I was there,” Alaska says. She hears a long sigh in response.

“Me too,” Katya says.

“Do you want me to stay on the phone until you drift off?” Alaska asks.

Katya makes a low noise in the back of her throat. “That would be lovely.”

“Sleep,” Alaska says, and it’s not long before she hears Katya’s breaths start to slow and even out. Still, she waits another ten minutes before whispering, “Katya?”

When she gets no answer, she sighs in relief. But she turns off the microphone on her phone and leaves the call connected, for a long, long time.

[fly-pow-bye]

Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Mojo The Great”

Written by: Jake Goldman

Written & Storyboarded by: John West, Angela Zhang

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

No, he isn’t!

I was just talking about how I didn't think one character's portrayal in a reboot was as good as the originals, and this one is a far better example of that! I make it no secret that I am not a big fan of the reboot’s interpretation of Mojo Jojo. I mean, I get it; his manner of speaking was probably considered to be too close to broken English, but they could have found something else other than "silly monkey with a silly hat."

Well, aside from him dressing up in women's clothing, of course. Thankfully, this aspect was toned down in Season 2, and doesn't appear to exist in Season 3 outside of one tiny scene in Not So Secret Service. Season 3 is also going to try to improve his character, with a whole episode about him trying to be great.

He gets a good start, as the episode opens with Discount Jojo wrecking a city with his giant robot, calling himself the greatest villain ever. A tour bus drives on by, the tour guide talking about how he's one of the average villains of Townsville.

I can see this episode as a response to people who criticized Jojo's character in the reboot; throughout the entire episode, Discount Jojo is called "not so great", and I do not disagree with that. I mean, he's supposed to be the arch-nemesis.

Angered by this accusation of being average, Discount Jojo grabs the bus and throws it, only for it to be caught by the Powerpuff Girls, with Buttercup even threatening to break two of his legs if he doesn't surrender. Discount Jojo says he doesn't even know the meaning of the word, leading to a running gag about a word-a-day calendar so good, they used it for the title sequence.

After Buttercup crushes him with a torn-off top end of a skyscraper while Bubbles distracts him with cute pictures of hedgehogs, all planned by Blossom, we cut to a Breaking News segment hosted by Bob and Nick, the sportscasters from Derby Dollies who are totally not named after anyone in particular.

This is another episode where each of the Powerpuff Girls' distinct personalities come into play. Blossom’s excellent planning skills, which was mocked in the last episode, Buttercup’s incredible strength, as this show’s "interest" for beefy arms continues, and Bubbles’ undeniable charm, which, okay, I guess. Don't they all have super-strength? Don't tell this episode!

Discount Jojo is completely insecure about being not-so-great, so he decides to enact a plan, using his...

Voice-Change-A-Ma-Jig...♫♬By Mojo♬♫

That's one of the big running gags in this episode: Discount Jojo has his own jingle for his inventions now, which he will only use in this episode. He has three different settings on that thing: Professor, Mayor, and...Mrs. Keane? Okay, I can understand that Discount Jojo probably didn't look up if she's married or not. For the record, this show has her still being single in the episode after the next.

He puts it on Mayor and attempts to call Bubbles. I will be honest: I am surprised they did not just make Discount Jojo use a very unconvincing falsetto that Bubbles believes in to fit in with those "oh, that silly Blonde" jokes they do with her.

Instead, they do something a little bit different: Jojo, in a very unconvincing way of talking that isn't exactly the Mayor, an improvement to Jojo's character, tells Bubbles that his greatest foe is at it again. Bubbles starts naming villains that are not what Discount Jojo is expecting, as apparently there are far worse and/or notable villains than him. Who, exactly?

"Morbucks?" Of course Princess gets the first mention; the crew loves her for some reason! Nonetheless, she doesn't appear in this episode.

"Fuzzy Lumpkins?" Wait, he still exists in this reboot? This episode doesn't prove it.

"The Fashionistas?" Not them, it's not a good episode.

"Pack Rat?" Oh, that one villain that only appeared twice in Season 1 and never again, even though his last appearance has a still unresolved cliffhanger? Not him.

"Manboy?" No, not him. Three appearances is enough, really, and only one of them was anywhere close to good.

"The Gangreen Gang?" No, their leader is too busy with the best thing to happen to the Powerpuff Girls since McCracken left Cartoon Network.

"The Amoeba Boys?" Yes, the Amoeba Boys are considered bigger threats in this reboot than Discount Jojo. Sadly, we will probably never find out who they think is a good replacement for the late Chuck McCann. And if you think that's bad...

"Him?" Yes, it took this long for her to say Him. One would think the series' equivalent to the devil should be #1, but he's put below the Amoeba Boys somehow.

"Silico?" I wish; that cliffhanger with the virus robots really needs an actual conclusion that doesn't make him a complete joke.

"Allegro?" Oh, don't remind me.

Discount Jojo decides not to let this gag continue forever, because it sure feels like it, but Bubbles has only a slightly higher opinion of him than everyone else in this episode: he's good, but not great. Using the Mayor voice, Discount Jojo leads the Powerpuff Girls to a dark alley and zaps them with a ray gun.

Buttercup wakes up in a glass chamber, only to find that her sisters have become grossly out of their character, and far more than usual this time! Blossom is now a stupid girl that only talks about her love for corn dogs. Bubbles introduces herself by burping and talking in a stereotypical Italian mobster accent.

Discount Jojo shows up outside of the glass, and Buttercup can't wait to break through it and give him those two broken legs she's been talking about.

Unfortunately, Buttercup can’t get through the glass; she can't even lift a stool to break it! See, this is to show the one thing that makes Buttercup Buttercup is her super-strength, which nobody else in the show has! If anyone else in that glass had super-strength, this plot would have been over far too soon!

He reveals that he managed to steal all of the things that made the Powerpuff Girls great with his Trait-A-Ma-Jig ♫♬By Mojo♬♫, all one of them each. Discount Jojo can do plans now, even though he was able to do those just fine before. He has Buttercup's incredible strength, which, again, features gratuitous muscles. And, he has Bubbles' cute charm, which he barely uses outside of a montage.

With a montage, of course. He sings a song about how great he is, while using his traits of super-strength to break an armored car, enough charm to steal candy from a baby without anyone hating him for it, and ability to play chess very well. If this was going to lead to a message where the only way for him to be great is to be himself, I would appreciate this a lot more, but they never get there. That might be because there isn't a lot of "himself" in this reboot.

Despite all of this strutting, Buttercup calls him great...in a sarcastic way. He decides the next step is to destroy Townsville, because that would make him a great villain. It's definitely more Mojo than wanting diamond tiaras and stealing lipstick.

Rain-A-Ma-Jig...♫♬By Mojo♬♫

One of three times this jingle joke pops up. I wouldn't say there's any real payoff to this joke, it's just there. This Rain-A-Ma-Jig fires a laser at the clouds, causing it to rain hard enough to cause Townsville to flood. He is so obssessed with wanting to be great, he doesn't even think of a way to save himself, but he never figures that one out even with Blossom's planning.

It even interrupts what looks like the usual newscaster, who was trying to sing "Singin’ In The Rain". He gets interrupted by the flood as soon as the crew realized they would have to pay royalties to MGM if he sang one more syllable.

Buttercup has to find a way out to stop this rain from happening, and she has the bright idea. Oh, so they do know the other girls have super-strength; it's just that being stupid and having no charm makes you forget that! She convinces Bubbles that Blossom said that she couldn't break through the wall, and this leads to a long scene where Blossom repeatedly gets bashed into a glass wall, saying that she's okay. See, it's funny because Blossom is getting hurt.

While that's happening, Discount Jojo’s plot turns into a Noah's Ark plot, where Jojo tries to save two of each animal and puts them on a boat. No, the context doesn't make this any less out of place. There's only one joke here: he cruelly disallows another rabbit from entering his boat because he already has two of them.

The Powerpuff Girls show up and immediately get hit by the anchor. At least here, it's not just stand still for ten seconds, even if that would fit Blossom's character at that point. Buttercup then tells him that he's not great because he can only beat them because of the power-stealing, and Jojo responds by giving back their traits. Even with Blossom's ability to make plans/brains, Jojo was able to make a critical error. At least that's consistent!

To be fair, that's actually a good way to tie into the episode's themes: Buttercup ends up using Jojo's desperate need to be great as a way to get him to give back their traits. I try to find the positive in everything, and this ending kind of counts. It only took them until the end of the episode.

The newscasters give the show a break from actually animating anything by slideshowing everything else that happened. They drained the water with a comically large drain, and destroyed the Rain-A-Ma-Jig.

In the end, Jojo looks at that all-important calendar to see that the word of the day is "doofus". Huh, Doofus Jojo. It has a nice ring to it; it certainly fits someone who doesn't even know how to use a word-a-day calendar. The episode ends with nothing changing, nothing satisfying, and nothing that makes me want to call him Mojo. I am not surprised.

Does the title fit?

He never proves himself to be great, even with the one trait he steals from each Powerpuff Girl.

How does it stack up?

This episode can only work based on a severe misunderstanding of the characters, and while that's normal for the reboot, this episode loves to remind me of that. Mojo the Great, more like Episode the Terrible.

Next, Princess raps, and the Puffs sing. No beatbox solo this time.

← Blossom³ ☆ Trouble Clef →

[gch1995]

I think it’s going to flop. You can’t give The PowerPuff Girls “the Riverdale treatment,” and expect it to be good. This was a brightly colored cartoon about three cute little girls with superpowers, who were essentially goodhearted, but still normal children who had flaws, insecurities, and made mistakes. While their bad choices were dealt with negative consequences and learned from in the narrative of the classic cartoon, they were still essentially forgivable because Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup were still little girls who were still learning. Also, the whole point was that there was a balance between light and dark in the original cartoon. The point was that they were normal little girls with relatively normal lives, aside from having superpowers that they chose to use to defend their dad and their city from crime before bedtime.

In the 2016 reboot it was too silly, and in this CW live action spin off, they are going for “dark, nitty, and gritty.”

How are you going to make the animation of characters like MoJo Jojo, Him, the Amoeba Boys, the Gangreen Gang, and the monsters look good in live action CGI? Also, the PowerPuff Girls were given the different round, fingerless, noseless, earless, and bright designs they were in the animated cartoon in order to stick out in the cartoon from the other characters on purpose. In the live action they are going to look just like normal people because you can’t translate that cartoon design to live action?

No, I’m not watching the CW live action PPG show of the girls as being disillusioned twentysomethings who have given up crime fighting. I’m tired of seeing Hollywood constantly stereotyping those of us who are in our mid-twenties to early thirties (young millennials and older Gen Zers) as being cynical, jaded, disillusioned, lazy, narcissistic, selfish, and spoiled brats who waste their privilege and opportunities to lay around and whine all day about how supposedly “terrible” their lives are because of shit everyone else did to them in their lives, rather than actually putting in any sort of effort to take ownership of their bad choices and mistakes, and commit to self-improving in order to get what they want from life.

I’m not going to watch one of my favorite classic cartoons from childhood most likely get ruined with “the Riverdale treatment,” but I am going to tune in on Tumblr and watch reviews of it on YouTube to see how it turns out. I’m almost certain that none of it will be any good.

What's everyone's thoughts on the new CW Adaptation of Powerpuff Girls? Is anyone excited or do you think it'll flop? Do you think it'll have some Riverdale or Nancy Drew vibes?

[ttstranscripts]

Transcript of The Talk Show Episode 2

Title: iPhone Initial Impressions

Hosts: John Gruber, Dan Benjamin

Release date: 3 July 2007

Description: We share our initial thoughts and impressions about our just-purchased iPhones.

Dan Benjamin: So this is a supplemental podcast to our regular weekly podcast just because we have to talk about our iPhones. So John, you got an iPhone, I guess.

John Gruber: Yeah, I did, I got one about 6:20 on Friday.

Benjamin: Yeah, I think you had a little bit of a shorter line than I did. How long did you wait?

Gruber: I got there around 11:30, and the line was about 50 or 60 deep, but I had a friend there and sort of [?] in line around space 45.

Benjamin: Nice. We had about — I heard the news say we had 300 people here in Orlando, in the Millenia Mall in Orlando. I think we had more like 400 or 500, I’m not sure. I got there at about 10:30 AM and probably got 70ish in line. How did the activation go for you?

Gruber: It went great for us, really. My wife and I, we each got an iPhone, we already had AT&T phones, but we were out of contract, we were month-to-month from a contract we had like 2.5 years ago. We have a family plan with plenty of minutes. No data plans because our phones were totally old, non-data phones. We upgraded, we just added two $20 iPhone data plans to our current account. It adds up to about — seems like no matter what you do, it adds up to about $60 a month per iPhone. I think we’re going to actually come out a little bit ahead of that. But AT&T’s family pricing seems like it’s fairly consistent, like, everybody with a reasonably recent family plan, it’s about $40 per phone per plan and $20 per iPhone.

Benjamin: Not outrageous, not too much more expensive.

Gruber: No. I don’t think so.

Benjamin: See, I have a family talk plan, I had a phone on this plan, AT&T customer, and activated it around when I got home sometime around 7:30–8 o’clock, and I was one of the people that saw the message that said, “You’ll get an email when you’re activated”, and I thought, what’s that? And just about midnight, when I had pretty much given up and said, all right, I’ll just let this thing sit here overnight, I got the email, clicked the link and it activated, but there are some other people I know who were not so lucky, and actually it took them even till the next day, and they had to take action and diligently call AT&T and Apple —

Gruber: Yes. It seems like the one and only really serious complaint about the iPhone is people whose activation was left in limbo, and it does seem like there are some people whose activations require — you have to call AT&T customer support and get them to fix it; otherwise, it’s never going to be activated.

Benjamin: Yeah, if you don’t take any action, you’re just not going to have an activation period, and how do you know if you’re the person who’s in that situation, you need to intervene vs. the person who’s really in a legitimate queue and you will get activated.

Gruber: Right, and it seems like a big problem because they’re selling so many iPhones that their customer service is just swamped. I mean, Paul Kafasis of Rogue Amoeba wrote a thing on their weblog about his and — when he called them and spent like 45 minutes on hold and talked to them — more or less the problem was, for some people activation requires manual processing on AT&T’s end and whoever handled his just didn’t do the last step. There was like a final button, “Activate”, and they just never clicked it —

Benjamin: Wouldn’t it just kill you if you found out that literally a guy just forgot to click an OK button?

Gruber: I especially feel bad for the people who waited all day Friday because obviously if you’re that hepped up — I mean, even you, even you having to wait till midnight, that would’ve killed me. One of the big reasons that I did it, waited in line Friday, number one, I was afraid that they were going to sell out right away.

Benjamin: Totally.

Gruber: Well, that proved not to be the case. But I wanted to write something for Daring Fireball for the first day, just use it for a couple hours, drop a list of first impressions and notes and stuff like that and publish it, which I got to do. I probably wouldn’t have been able to do that if I had to wait till midnight to activate.

Benjamin: No, because all you could’ve done would’ve been to slide the slider and dial 911.

Gruber: Right. And that’s also the other thing that sort of stinks, is that I don’t know if it was Apple or AT&T, but somebody led people to believe that even before activation is complete, at least if you go through the iTunes part of registering your phone and waiting for activation, everything else would be active, and that’s not the case. Until the AT&T sends the signal to the SIM card, the iPhone is literally a brick, the only thing you can do is call 911.

Benjamin: Right. So what do you think, you’ve got the iPhone, is it not the coolest thing that Apple’s ever made? Is it safe to just say that, to say it’s the best Apple product maybe all around?

Gruber: I don’t know, it’s got to be close. I really do think — I mean comparisons to original Macintosh are completely legitimate. Really, just in terms of moving the state of the art forward in terms of what people can expect. And I think it’s funny because I think The New York Times had a story today about the Korean and Japanese electronics companies’ reactions to the iPhone, and that when they first announced it back in January, they were like, “Ahh, big deal, that’s just silly Americans getting excited about this, we’ve had these advanced cell phones that do cool stuff for years.” I think what they were doing was looking at it in terms of like a checklist: email, web, video on the phone, music playback on the phone, check, check, check, check, check — our phones already do all this stuff. Whereas it’s not really what the iPhone does, it’s just the way that it works, the way that it’s just so seamless.

Benjamin: 100 percent of the success of the iPhone, I think, maybe not 100, but 90 percent is going to be not the features, but the implementation.

Gruber: Exactly.

Benjamin: The way that people interact with the thing.

Gruber: And I mean, for example, if you call web browsing a feature and you just say, “Well, my phone does it too”, you’re totally missing the point. By far and away, the best app on the iPhone is Safari. I probably would’ve paid just as much money and waited in line for an iPhone that only had the phone and Safari.

Benjamin: [laughs] I think that’s key to it, but I’ll tell you what, that’s more important I think to people like us, but what’s funny is — and I had told you this but I think it’s worth mentioning here — I had an eye doctor appointment today, and while I was in the waiting room waiting, brought the phone out to check email. Interestingly enough, it found their wireless network, and I jumped right on that, which is just the coolest thing in the world, and so one of the people came up to me who worked there, and she’s like, “Oh, is that the new phone?” “Yeah, yeah.” Immediately I had a crowd of about 10 people who wanted me to just demo it, and the thing that I saw, they had the biggest reaction to, the thing they thought was the coolest — they loved the virtual keyboard, which really surprised me because that’s something that I would’ve thought people would’ve right away said, “Oh, that won’t work”, but when they saw me two-thumb typing on it really fast, they all just kind of looked at each other, like, oh wow, that’s cool. But the thing that got the biggest reaction wasn’t the webpage, it was flicking the photos back and forth and zooming in on them and rotating. That is like — people, they loved that, that was like the coolest thing they’ve ever seen.

Gruber: Right. My son, a 3.5-year-old boy, he’s totally picked up on the phone, and that Photos interface is just so — the flicking, he loves it. I have a couple vacation trips, folders from iPhoto synced to it, I’ll just bring one up and he’ll just be, “Let me see Christmas pictures”, and I’ll just bring up Christmas pictures and I’ll hold the phone and he’ll flick through — because that’s really all you do, you just flick, it really is nice. And it’s so fast.

Benjamin: It’s so fast.

Gruber: I just can’t express how you never have to wait for anything on the iPhone.

Benjamin: There’s no waiting and I think that is something that Apple has really gotten right. Every single feature on that last phone that I had that ran the miniature version of Windows, everything was waiting. I think it’s the instantaneous responsiveness of the iPhone — everything that you want to do, whether it’s — yeah, if you’re on the EDGE network, which, by the way, is much faster than people were saying, not as fast as broadband, of course, but not slow, I don’t think — with that as an exception, everything is pretty much instantaneous.

Gruber: Yeah, exactly. And for example, comparing it to iPhoto on the Mac, I mean, iPhoto has gotten a lot faster over the years, but if you’re just going through pictures, just like, hey, bring up this one group in iPhoto and just go through the slideshow, it’s usually pretty fast, and it caches the next one, but if you go fast enough, a lot of times you’ll get the beach ball, and you’ll have to wait because you’ve gone ahead of where it goes. Of course, the iPhone doesn’t have to show the full — it’s only a 480-pixel wide screen, but whatever they’re doing to cache them, to make them smaller, whatever they’re doing, it just works, instantly. It never looks like a low-res version is loading and then it’s high-res — you just immediately flick and you get the version of the picture that’s as good as it can possibly look on this screen.

Benjamin: Right, it’s just there. And it makes you feel like you’re actually manipulating the picture itself or whatever it is you’re doing on the phone, you feel like when you touch it, you’re actually moving the thing around. And I think some people have some legitimate complaints about things that are missing, one of them — and we’ve talked about this and James Duncan Davidson has a great list, a lot of people have really good lists of things they like and things they feel are missing. People talk about copy and paste, but I think your point earlier today was like, you can see why it’s not there because how do you actually implement that with this type of user interface? It’s a hard problem.

Gruber: Here’s my thinking about that, the more I think about the lack of copy and paste and selectable text, is that maybe they have an idea of how they’ll do it, maybe they had it in previous — while they were developing it, you know, versions — I think Craig Hockenberry had a good point on his weblog post where he said, you’re probably wrong if you think that they didn’t build a bunch of different UIs for this and threw them away before they settled on this, even though it’s a 1.0 product. The thinking behind the whole UI, the metaphors — I think they probably experimented a lot, and I think with the cut, copy and paste and the lack of text selection and that they agreed upon this simple interface that doesn’t have it — it reminds me of the fact that the original Mac in 1984 didn’t have arrow keys on the keyboard, and the reason for that if you read Andy Hertzfeld’s book or his website folklore.org with a bunch of stories from the original Mac, the idea was that they didn’t — whether it was Jobs personally or the overall team agreed — but more or less the people who were pushing for the radical GUI interface — which was totally radical at the time — didn’t want arrow keys, because they wanted to force people to use the mouse, and they wanted to force application designers to design applications they made you use the mouse.

Benjamin: It was almost forcing a new kind of mentality.

Gruber: Right, so if they don’t have cut, copy and paste, it’s like an enforced — there’s a limitation in place that forces them to create an interface that lets you work without it. And of course, we’re running into the fact that they haven’t covered all the cases, and there’s so many little places where you’d like to be able to like, ah, if I could just cut that, copy that URL, and go to the other page in Safari, so I could paste it into this Twitter field, so I could paste a URL in there, it would be so nice. But overall, the fact that we miss cut, copy and paste — we miss it but you still get so much done without it, and the fact that it’s not there is like, it’s just a way to force them to make it as good as they can without it.

Benjamin: Right. Well, jumping ahead a little bit, I was talking to Mike Davidson, who a lot of people would know from Newsvine, and he and I, we were talking, and he was going through and saying, “Here’s some things that I miss, here’s some things that I really need”, and one of them that he was saying was, “A friend of mine took a picture of a person that was good that I wanted to use as a contact picture, and there was no easy way for him to get that to me. He could email it to me, but then how could I use that, the [photo] which I just received in the email on my phone, how can I use that as the contact picture for the person here?” And I said, “Well, that’s easy, when you get the email, you just drag it on your Mac, drag it into your contact in Address Book.” And he said, “Well, I don’t use Address Book, I don’t want to do that on my Mac. What I want to do is to be able to do that on the phone, and what I really want is a file system so that I can browse the file system, I can save things out of Safari or that people send me.” And I realized that in a way, the last thing — and I’m an old-school UNIX guy, so if anybody should want a file system, it should be me, right — but I actually don’t want a file system on my iPhone, or the fact is, I want there to be one, I just don’t want to know about it. And in a way cut, copy and paste would have solved that problem for him if he had been able to copy that image and paste it into his contact right there, that would’ve solved that. But in a way it’s like, I think one of the big arguments about Macs way back in the day, especially with, like, system 7 time period or even 8, was that some people felt they didn’t have enough control over the operating system of the computer. And on Windows you could tweak every single little thing, and on the Mac you couldn’t, and I think with OS X that’s kind of gone away because you can now do even more on a Mac than you can do on a PC from a technical level behind the scenes — people are going to flame me for saying that — but in any case, the last thing I want on my phone is a file system, or even access to it. What do you think about that, is that nuts?

Gruber: I think that everything that you think of, from a computer science perspective, what makes a computer computer, the file system, the idea of processes, it’s all sort of abstracted away on the iPhone and that’s clearly part of the overall design, and I don’t think that’s ever going to change. So you never, as the user of the phone, never actually get to see the file system. You don’t quit or launch or close applications, you just go back to Home, click them. It’s still not clear to me using it, when they quit and when —

Benjamin: Do they quit? Do they ever quit?

Gruber: I don’t know, it seems like Safari sometimes quits, because when I go back to Safari and I click — say, I have three or four pages open in Safari, and I click the little button to let me list them, instead of showing me previews, they’re all blank. It remembers the URLs.

Benjamin: It’ll reload them, you’ll see them kind of coming back.

Gruber: But if you switch to one of them, you have to wait for it to refresh. Whereas if you do it right away, if you switch out of Safari and come back, they are all there and you just click on them and they’re already loaded. Whereas eventually it seems like Safari quits and when you switch back to it, relaunches, but it’s all abstracted away, you as the user never have to worry about that.

Benjamin: I’ll tell you what I think the philosophy — it’s one of those things where if you come into the iPhone looking for a small portable computer, you will not find that. But if you come to the iPhone looking for essentially — and I’ve heard somebody, I forget who it was, but somebody was calling it almost like it’s a satellite of the computer, or a portal to the computer. That’s a much better way to think of it. It allows you to sort of extend your computer, extend your desktop to this sort of portable device. I never really looked at my iPod as being like, that’s where my music lives. My music lives on my computer, and now I can take that music with me. And I think this is the same way you might think of it: my contacts, my calendar, my email, my browsing — that lives on the computer, but this is a way for me to take a lot of that and maybe even most of it with me wherever I go and be able to use it anytime. Is that fair?

Gruber: I think so, and I think it’s the single biggest philosophical difference from the Newton. I mean, to me the big problem, the core problem with the Newton back in the day was that the Newton was — and obviously some Newton people might disagree with me, this is obviously subjective — but my opinion is that the Newton was designed as a big new thing that completely replaced, ultimately would completely replace the need for a Mac. And whether it was egos, like, the Newton was developed after Jobs had left the company, and Sculley was running it, and the Mac was still seen as Jobs’s baby, and Sculley wanted something that was his Macintosh, his stamp on the industry. But anybody who actually used a Newton back in the day — Newton syncing was really bad, I forget the name of the app you used to sync, but it was like, almost nothing synced, the Mac didn’t even have standard address book and calendar apps at the time, so when you put events in the Newton, where did they go on your Mac? It was how you did downloads, if you wanted to add a new app to your Newton, you’d download it to your Mac and you’d fire up the Newton sync thingy and connect it with a serial cable and drag it over or whatever. It was really sort of a different universe, it was not really a satellite to your Mac, it was like something that, I think, ultimately if it had succeeded, would’ve replaced the Mac in Apple’s product line. And it was brilliant in so many ways, and so far ahead of its time. In so many ways it was just as far ahead of its time as the iPhone is. But the problem is that, it was so ambitious because it was meant to be a complete stand-alone all-by-itself thing whereas the iPhone is clearly meant as the satellite to your PC. And I think it’s more like the Palm Pilot, the original Palm Pilot, which was such a sensation in terms of its ambition in that regard. I think that’s why the Palm Pilot was so much more successful than the Newton because it was clearly a PC peripheral, not a PC replacement. That’s what I think.

Benjamin: I think you’re right. So we should probably take a second to say why, if there’s all kind of sound artifacts that people are hearing, why is that, John?

Gruber: Oh, I’m down at the shore. I’m on vacation for a couple days, and somebody forgot to pack my USB microphone.

Benjamin: So you’re talking into your MacBook.

Gruber: Yeah, this is just me talking — I don’t even have a MacBook, I’ve got an old, uh —

Benjamin: That’s right, a PowerBook.

Gruber: No, it’s an old Mac Portable from 1993.

Benjamin: Right. [laughs]

Gruber: It’s the size — I pack a suitcase and then I pack my Mac Portable, it’s about the same size.

Benjamin: I just have to say one more cool thing about the iPhone that happened today. My friend Ryan Irelan had called me, and he wanted to try out the conference call feature. So he conference-called, added in, which was so easy to do — I barely know how to use three-way calling on my regular home phone line, I’m almost sure how I use that. But on the iPhone it’s even easier and — so Ryan conferenced in Dan Cederholm, but Dan wasn’t there. So then Dan called back on Ryan’s other line, and Ryan then merged the two calls. And then you called me on my iPhone, and I said, “Hold on a minute, John”, only because I looked at the phone and there was this little “Merge calls” button that just showed up, and I clicked that, and now we were having a call with you, me, Ryan, and Dan, none of whom we had intentionally conference-called, just clicking this little “Merge calls” button.

Gruber: I didn’t even know that it would work that way where you and Ryan started the call, then Ryan conferenced in Dan, and you conferenced in me, so it’s not like one person has to be the person who does all of the adding new people.

Benjamin: And the sound quality, I thought, was great!

Gruber: It was phenomenal, I have to say. To me, the audio quality on the call so far ranges from amazing to at worse — ah, pretty good. But that call in particular, I thought the quality was outstanding.

Benjamin: Kind of amazing what they’ve been able to do. Even just the basic calling features, the way that things work — I didn’t even know if my old phone had a flash button or if I could use three-way calling. The other thing that’s certainly cool is visual voice mail and I think you said to me earlier today, the visual voice mail is so good that you don’t ever want anybody to call your regular home line again.

Gruber: No, I don’t, because to me the biggest pain is when you go somewhere and you come back and you’ve got five-six messages on your phone or whatever. Half of them are from people who then went ahead and emailed you or contacted you on AIM or called your cell phone or whatever, and they’re already out of date. Or if you go away for a couple of days and some of the calls aren’t even relevant anymore, and you still have to sit down and listen to them all and hit delete, blah blah blah, it’s awful. Half the time I just delete them all and assume that if any of them were important, they’ll just call me back.

Benjamin: This one — pick the call that you want to hear or the message you want to hear, tap it, listen to it, stop it, pause it, delete it — whatever you want to, right then. It was great.

Gruber: The two great apps on the iPhone are the phone app, which includes the call management, merging calls, that type of stuff and the voice mail — because the other cool thing about the voice mail is the way that when you want to set your greeting, you do it all on your iPhone, you don’t have to call into your account on AT&T and listen to a bunch of voice menus and click and record. You just click, there’s a big “Greeting” button at the top, you click “Greeting” and you can either choose between the default, which is to have the AT&T lady say, “This person you’ve called is not available, blah blah blah” or you say “Custom”. And when you say “Custom” then there’s a “Record” button. You hit “Record”, if you like it, you hit “Save” and that’s it. That’s your voice mail.

Benjamin: You can re-record it 10–20 times right there on your iPhone before it ever actually processes and uploads because you’re in control of that. Very, very cool stuff. And we were all talking earlier using the little headphones.

Gruber: Oh, I was actually on the phone itself. I’ve used the headphones, they’re great.

Benjamin: And the microphone is built right into the little plastic piece that you squeeze to control stopping or whatever and the funniest thing — Dan Cederholm said to me, he said, “Now people are going to think we’re all really crazy because now we’ll be just walking around with headphones on, white iPod headphones, talking.” And people are going to think we’re totally crazy because at least with the headsets that stick out of your ear, have the big flashing light on them —

Gruber: People are used to thinking that is somebody on the phone. Whereas this, you just look like an idiot with an iPod, talking to yourself. I should go back and say that iPod app is also a phenomenal app. The three apps — I should go back and say, there’s three absolutely, insanely good apps — the iPod app, the phone app, and Safari. I won’t list Mail in there yet, I think Mail needs a lot of help. You mentioned it, Duncan Davidson mentioned it, but to me the one thing that’s glaringly missing is a master inbox view where you get to see all new messages from all of your inboxes. Like on Apple Mail on Mac OS X, all of your inboxes, if you want to look at them one by one, they’re all within that one master inbox, but if you just click on that inbox, it shows you all of your incoming mail.

Benjamin: The fact that that’s missing, that kills me. It’s the one —

Gruber: We can fill up an hour with my complaints about the Mail app, and maybe we will later this week, I don’t really have time now.

Benjamin: Because this is just the supplementary podcast right now, this is not the podcast. My analogy was, if there was some kind of really big news item, we’d have to talk about it, and this is it, this isn’t our weekly podcast, this is a supplement.

Gruber: This is just a special edition. Hey, Jonas, you want to say hi to our podcast?

Jonas Gruber: [makes an indecipherable noise]

Gruber: This is our podcast, we’re talking to about 10 million people right now.

Benjamin: [laughs]

Gruber: You know, we’ve got so much good feedback from last week’s show, but there were a bunch of people griping about, and some people saying, “Hey, it’s great, sounded great, blah blah blah”, and then you get, I guess, the audiophiles who’ve complained about the audio quality, they’re really going to love my recorded in the PowerBook built-in microphone episode here.

Benjamin: I didn’t hear any complaints about the quality as much as the — some people would write in to say, maybe the pacing wasn’t good or whatever. So screw those people, I guess.

Gruber: Exactly. Lot of people complimenting us on the elaborate website design, too.

Benjamin: The website is actually — that is 100 percent me, that’s a really — I think we would make Tufte proud looking at that site because it’s only what’s actually needed.

Gruber: Right. No, I mean, you know — I think we’re probably going to have a nicer website at some point in the future. But I like the idea, and it’s very different from my typical way of working — we agreed to do this show more or less two weeks ago at WWDC. Craig Hockenberry, we were out having drinks after the Thursday night beer bash and Craig Hockenberry —

Benjamin: Incredibly tall.

Gruber: — more or less said what you’ve been saying to me for a while, which is, you and I should just do a little show every week. And I thought, you know, if it’s good enough for Craig Hockenberry, that’s good enough for me. And pretty much all we did, we said, okay, we’ll do it, we need a name, we took the most generic name we could think of, we spent an hour looking at domain names that were available. We clicked record, we recorded for 30 minutes, we needed a place to put it, we did the least we could possibly do and we put it up. Now, my typical way of working would’ve been to spend the next six months selecting a name and then, I don’t know, another eight or nine months going through about four or five different designs for the website and —

Benjamin: Each of which, the only noticeable difference in what you call the design is that the logo has shifted five pixels to the left or right.

Gruber: Right, right.

Benjamin: That’s a full redesign of Daring Fireball is that the logo is now five pixels to the right.

Gruber: Do you remember that time, the one time I redesigned daringfireball.net, I bugged you on AIM pretty much every 15 minutes for about two weeks.

Benjamin: Yeah, you’d say, “What will the ramifications of this redesign be?” and I would say, “How is this different from the other day?” You said, “I have a new Daring Fireball logo.” And I went to the site, and I thought, oh, maybe this is the bearskin rug t-shirt design up there, like, I don’t see anything different. “Dan, how can you not see it, there’s the whole new logo!” And I said, “What are you talking about?” Turns out, you had changed — instead of, like, “Mac nerd” it said “iPhone” or something, that was your redesign, under the logo, the logo text, the little 3-point text.

Gruber: But admittedly, that only took me about 30 seconds. But, you know. I’m kind of digging this “just click record for 30 minutes at a time and go”.

Benjamin: Well, hopefully the listeners will appreciate it too. We have a theme, we’re sticking to a theme.

Gruber: Yeah, definitely.

Benjamin: But you said you only had five — you gave me such a hard time, you said you only had five minutes, and now we’ve been talking for 30 minutes. This time we’re going to end it, because last time I had to try to figure out how to cut 10 minutes off. We’re trying to keep it to a 30-minute show, once a week. We did two times a week, that’s okay. But once a week, 30 minutes and I say we just end it. It’s almost 30 minutes, let’s just end it.

Gruber: All right, let’s do it again later this week.

Benjamin: We’re going to definitely do — and it will be a different topic though, it has to be something different. Maybe not even — because people are going to be sick of iPhones.

Gruber: That’s going to be old news by the end of the week.

Benjamin: Yeah, we’ll have to talk about something completely different. And so when do you come back from the shore, are you spending the 4th there?

Gruber: I don’t even know, nobody tells me. I’ll know it’s time to go when I wake up and my wife has our bags packed. I think later this week.

Benjamin: Well, good, have a great holiday.

Gruber: Yeah, you too.

[chris-kaiju]

Rampage Review

So I saw Rampage last night and after years of failed attempts, we finally get a video game movie that as very enjoyable! And it was a video game from the 1980s that had no plot whatsoever.

One of the biggest advantages of adapting a game with no plot is that it's nearly impossible to fail when making a new plot. And the plot for Rampage, while silly and kinda dumb, was still simple and very efficient for the film. It's basically Mighty Joe Young meets The Space Amoeba. Not to mention the film's pacing was really good and it wasn't too slow to be boring, nor too fast to make it feel rushed. It legitimately feels like a classic 50s monster movie brought to modern day with a Hollywood blockbuster budget.

Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson pretty much carried this film when it came to the human element as his charisma and acting pretty much sold me his character and his relationship with George. Honestly Dwayne Johnson is this generation's Arnold Schwarzenegger as he can be in any B-movie or action schlock and he can elevate it with his charisma alone. Jeffery Dean Morgan was actually a surprise for me as in all the trailers I thought he would've been an unlikable government stooge, but it turns out his character was very likable and he his overall acting was pretty good. Everyone served their purpose just fine though Malin Åkerman's role as the villian was pretty weak though.

But the monsters are the real stars of the movie. George himself is a very sympathetic character in the same vein of King Kong and Mighty Joe Young. The film really help sell the idea of a albino gorilla being friends with Dwayne Johnson's character and while it's not Planet of the Apes level of believability, it's definitely up there. Ralph was pretty cool himself as his introduction scene with the mercenaries was very suspenseful and effective and man o man it was so cool when ever he was flying. And finally we have Lizzie, hoo boy we sure do have Lizzie. While she doesn't really appear until the third act, when she does the movie becomes her's as he was a marvel of cinematic monsters. Her design was awesome and she was spectacle every time she was on screen. And what's surprising about this film as we get a very healthy amount of monster scenes throughout the film and not once they become irrelevant to the film. And the actual rampsge (no pun intended) was just awesome.

So while this isn't high art, this is definitely a popcorn flick in the best ways possible. And it's ironic that Rampage of all video game properties would give us one of the best video game movies ever. And if you're a kaiju nut like me, then what the hell are you doing?! Go watch this movie!

7 Out of 10

[tcarlointernship-blog]

Week 1

January 19th. 2017 3:30pm-6:30pm-- 3 hours--Total Hours: 3

Today was my first day at my internship and so far I’ve learned a lot. I helped assist three classes; on class was Miss. Cassie’s class, which has two girls. So this was a small class, but it allows you to work with the kids one on one more. We taught them an art history lesson and talked about analogous colors, what they are. Then as a project, we drew patterns that covered the whole page and we and in the patterns we put different analogous colors. We gave the girls different acrylic paints to use, so they can learn and mix colors.

In Mr. Travis’s class we taught 5 little kids, whose ages were around 4-6. The topic of the class was movements, the first thing we did was trace movements of animals, to see that animals move differently than people. after that we had an art history lesson on Keith Haring and how his images of people are moving. So the kids did a project based on Keith Haring’s people. Some chose their own colors, some made it the same as Keith Haring’s work.

Then the last class that day was Mr. Travis’s S.T.E.A.M. class, which consisted of 3 boys between 7 and 9. The lesson was to create single cell organisms, which are amoebas, then we gave them personalities. To me they ended up looking like potatoes.

My first day was really great and getting used to the new environment is different, I felt like I did as a lot of questions, but that’s just because I wanted to make sure I did everything right!

January 20th. 2017 3pm-6:30pm--3.5hours--Total Hours: 6.5

Today I helped work a workshop of 16 kids, which was based on the new movie Sing. A workshop is almost the same as running a class, except with a lot more kids of all ages, which was really fun. Mr. Travis, Miss Monica and I taught this workshop. The first thing I had to do was help prep for the workshop. My duty was to cut out 60 stars for the projects. Cassie taught me a trick for cutting multiple pages at a time, she told me to staple the four pages together, so that all the stars I cut out were the same.Cutting the paper was killer on my hands because I am used to cutting with exacto knives and not scissors. Another job that I had was as the children walked in I had to put an Abrakadoodle artist apron on each one and tie it, and tell them to sit wherever they wanted. We let the kids do free draw before we start the project. 

The project was based on the new movie sing, which involves a group of animals that enter a singing competition, hosted by a koala hoping to save his theater. The other teachers and I have not seen the movie, but every child there had seen it. We had and example of the project on the easel, and we did a quick demo, because the kids were really excited to start the project. They colored in their characters, and painted the stage on canvas panel, and then they glued on all their characters and then they painted their stars and glued them on last. This was a really fun project, and teaching the kids how to make grey with a black colored pencil, because they didn’t have a grey one was really fun too. The fact that I can help kids learn different or new art techniques, is really exciting. When the kids were finished and left, it was clean up time. To clean up we had to take the white paper off the table, which made clean up really easy. The white paper serves as doodle paper for everyone and paper to prevent the tables from getting messy. After that we had to was the glue brushes ( they said that painting the glue on with a paint brush is the easiest way for the kids to glue things). Then we had to put new paper on the tables ( which I noticed that each teacher puts the paper on the table differently).  

I enjoyed helping out this workshop and I can’t wait to do another!

January 25th. 2017 12pm-4pm--4hours--Total Hours: 10.5

Today was my first off site class. This means we are hired by different schools and places to teach art classes. Our site for Wednesdays is at Temple Sinai. I love teaching here! I had 3 classes, 2 year olds class with Mr. Travis, 3 year olds class with Mr. Travis, and 4 year old class with Miss Gabbie. The lesson that was taught to the kids, was about boats. Each time we taught the lesson we added more for the certain age groups, such as the 2′s made one boat, the 3′s made 3 boats and the 4′s made 5 or more boats, that way it was the same lesson, yet changed for different age groups. For me it was great to learn the different ways that the 2 teachers that I work with do the projects differently. Here at Abrakadoodle, the lessons are already made, but you have to do the prep work and modify the project based on the age group that you are working with. It was also great to learn how to prep materials, and how to save supplies by doing the demo on the same paper by turning it around. I also loved how the teachers have to bring their own materials, and how they clean their materials so they can be used again, since materials are not cheap. 

In the 2′s class we let them play while we set up since, at the age of 2, they can get super antsy. Then while we did the demo for all the classes, we asked the kids silly questions, like “ Do boats go in the sky?”, and the kids go “NO!!! in the water!!”, which made them laugh, and made me laugh as well. But keeps them engaged in the project. Learning the different ways that Mr. Travis and Miss. Gabbie do this is great techniques, that I can take with me , when I teach my own classes in the future.

The projects used watercolor, crayons glue and different cut outs of paper. I had to cut out curves which served as waves for the 3 year old class. Mr. Travis had these great scissors that cut through 5 sheets of watercolor paper like nothing, i wish I knew about these scissors when prepping the stars for the workshop, it makes cutting take half the time.

In Miss Gabbie and Mr. Travis class we used white crayons on the water color paper to make secret swirls( I came up with that term) so then when you put the blue watercolor on the paper the swirls come up like magic, which made the kids eyes go wide and say, “ Wow it is magical, how is it magical?”  and it makes me excited to explain how the wax of white crayon doesn’t mix with the watercolor. Just the fact that I can use my knowledge of art to help kids learn, which is why I want to be an art teacher.

So far I love working at temple sinai, it is a great school, and I am excited to go back!

January 27th. 2017 3pm-9:30pm--6.5hours--Total Hours: 17

Today I worked at the Buckley Country Day School which is an independent, coeducational day school providing elementary and middle education to 330 students in grades toddler through eight in Roslyn, New York. When I got to the school it looked like Hogwarts. The inside was dark like an old castle, yet the classroom was super modern, with smartboards and all. Travis and I had 2 students that signed up for the class, and we drew turtles by tracing the shell and putting 3 shells on top of each other, we took white crayons to make patterns on the shells, and painted with watercolors so the white would appear. I felt this class went really fast but then I went back to the studio to do a paper mache snowman. Miss Monica and I led this workshop, and there were only 3 kids, Sam, Covina and Henrietta. We got them pizza and they ate first then we got messy and took news paper crumpled it up into balls and taped it, we made 3 different sizes. After that we dipped white construction paper into the glue and wrapped it around the newspaper. Then while it dried we drew pictures of penguins, but Henrietta and Sam wanted to make more snowmen, so they made 3 each. It is a great feeling to see kids really enjoying the art they made. This was a long workshop, but in the end the kids made amazing snowmen and I was happy to see how happy they were. Then Monica and me finally got to eat our pizza at the end, after the workshop was over, and after we cleaned up the studio.

[operationrainfall]

Title Vitamin Connection Developer WayForward Technologies Publisher WayForward Release Date February 20th, 2020 Genre Experimental, Multiplayer Platform Nintendo Switch Age Rating E for Everyone – Comic Mischief, Mild Cartoon Violence Official Website

In a weird way, I’m kind of glad I only recently found the time to play through Vitamin Connection. Because what better time to play a game all about fighting infectious diseases than during a worldwide pandemic? Dark humor aside, Vitamin Connection is a very hard to explain game. It’s incredibly unique and experimental. I recognized plot elements that reminded me of Powerpuff Girls or Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi, mini games that would have fit right into WarioWare, and controls that reminded me somehow of Yoshi’s Island. That’s a diverse mix right off the bat, and I applaud WayForward for their ambition. The question then was did this heady mixture of disparate elements come together in a cohesive elixir? Or did it erupt in an alchemical misfire?

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The entire plot of Vitamin Connection revolves around the Sable family. They’re an idyllic bunch – scientist father, bad-ass housewife mother, energetic young boy, psychotic baby and lovable dog. Something has caused bacteria to infest the entire family, and one by one, they come down with mysterious symptoms. Before you discount this as happenstance, I can tell you there’s actually something sinister afoot. I didn’t realize that until late in the game, but suffice to say the experience is as much about healing the family as it is discovering the source of their infection. You do so as the heroes of the game – Vita-Boy and Mina-Girl. They pilot the minuscule Capsule Ship, which enters bodies, finds bacteria and blasts them to smithereens. Each of the game’s levels has you wandering through veins and sailing towards major organs. Once you find a source of infection, your job is to beat them in a mini game. These can involve dancing, grabbing items, obstacle courses and much more. Oh and did I mention all of the viruses can talk (which is voice acted) and they love to trash talk you? Yea, this is a strange experience, but not without its charms.

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When I compared Vitamin Connection to Yoshi’s Island, it was mostly due to the very unique controls found in both games. You can play this game either single player or with a friend. I have a feeling the latter is the way it was meant to be played, but in the spirit of self isolation, I played this solo. In single player, you control all the aspects of the gameplay, whereas you split duties when playing with a friend. Or so I understand, I didn’t actually try multiplayer. In any case, there’s a lot of really cool features to the gameplay. As you wander through bodies, you can rotate your Capsule Ship with the right and left triggers, clockwise or counter clockwise. This is important, since touching any structure harms your ship, and if you take too much damage, you’ll die and have to restart from your last save. You use the joystick to control your beam, which can be shot in any direction you aim, making it very versatile. To make up for that, you have a limited charge to use it with. If you use the beam too long, the power of it is vastly diminished until it has a chance to reboot. You also later get a claw module that can grab and move things. It’s nifty in theory, but in execution it was very different. Mostly cause it was mapped to the same joystick used for firing your beam. So it’s very easy to accidentally arm the claw when you’re trying to blast, or vice versa. And since the claw’s controls are very, very finicky, I grew to dislike its inclusion in short order. You can also speed up how fast the level speeds past you by holding any two buttons on the right Joy-Con, which is handy. Especially since you otherwise can only maneuver your ship around with the left Joy-Con.

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In case it’s not already evident, the controls in Vitamin Connection take some getting used to. And even then, they can be a handful. As you navigate about, you’ll come across colored blue and red cords that block your path. You have to rotate your ship around so the proper colored edge is facing the cord, and then by ramming them at the proper angle, you’ll cut your way through. This was fun at first, but the game starts to go crazy with how many cords you come across. It’s also exacerbated by the tunnels you drift through often being very narrow, meaning that if you’re facing the wrong direction, you’ll sometimes have to rotate through the stage, harming yourself, just to be properly oriented. It wouldn’t be an issue if the game previewed that a cord was coming up, but it doesn’t. It’s also nerve wracking since if you get too far behind the stage as it scrolls, you’ll constantly take damage every few seconds. This didn’t happen often, mind you, but when it did I got very frustrated. And keep in mind that you’re not just wandering through harmless areas. There’s lots of bacterial enemies, and they love to get in your way, blast you from a distance or otherwise harass you.

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I mentioned mini games earlier, and there’s plenty of them in Vitamin Connection. One of the most iconic ones has you bust a move in dance battles against bacteria. That’s really cool in theory, but actually doing it can be very tough. Reason being, when playing in single player, you have to watch prompts for dance moves as they scroll on the periphery of both sides of the screen simultaneously. I started to feel like a chameleon playing this game, with my eyes trying to focus on two things at once. I did sort of get the hang of it, but it’s just an example of how mechanics in the game aren’t always well-implemented. The worst example was actually a mini game that involves extending a mitt to grab a certain amount of items. The first few times you encounter this, you’ll have to navigate around moving bacteria, since touching them hurts you. The last iteration of the game has bacteria that don’t move. I was totally flummoxed, until I figured out that you’re supposed to extend your mitt upward inch by inch, with minute flickers of your joystick, while simultaneously maneuvering your ship around, and then do the same thing in reverse to bring the items towards you safely. Suffice to say, this mini game was so irritating I nearly gave up on reviewing Vitamin Connection. Thankfully, I found some deep reserve of patience and pushed through. Maybe it’s not so bad with a friend, but if not, then something needs to be done to streamline it for solo gamers.

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I don’t mean to make it sound like everything in Vitamin Connection was a slog, cause it wasn’t. Oftentimes this is a very charming and funny game. Even though your heroes Vita-Boy and Mina-Girl are totally unvoiced, the other characters are bursting at the seams with personality. The game almost plays out like an old Saturday morning cartoon, full of humor and silliness. I especially liked the design of the various bacteria, such as giant cyclops bats, happy amoebas, candy colored rhinos and more. This is only boosted by the tremendous voice acting, which even minor characters like bacteria get. Visually, it’s a really attractive experience as well. Though it mostly plays off bright, crayola colored areas, the use of bold colors and cartoon style really makes it stand out. Musically the game is even better, and features tracks that would fit in perfectly in JPOP or KPOP, full of funky beats and mellifluous singing. Honestly, if I were just scoring the game on aesthetic or even creativity, it would probably have gotten a perfect score.

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Although I estimate I got through the main game in about 6 hours, there’s actually pretty decent replay value here. Each mini game you play is unlocked for free play later on. Additionally, by collecting all 5 hidden Ion Stars in a stage, you’ll unlock an accompanying bonus stage. These are fun and short affairs that play more like a SHMUP than the rest of the experience. Also, you unlock New Game Plus after you beat the final stage, which apparently lets you play as a different character. I say apparently since I haven’t tried it myself yet. Either way, I always appreciate reasons to come back to a game, and find it laudable Vitamin Connection is trying to put its best foot forward. Having said that, I probably would have preferred a longer main adventure with more story and hijinks to enjoy, since there’s only 6 main levels.

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Before I close things out, I need to touch upon some areas that really hurt the overall experience. Earlier I mentioned cutting cords in stages, and how it can get tricky when you’re navigating tight tunnels. This was problematic in one long stretch that leads to a stage’s last Ion Star, and I simply couldn’t manage it. I wish the game offered the ability to switch the color orientation of your ship, instead of just rotating it around and around. Another area of contention is with the save system. It autosaves whenever you are at a junction or after beating a mini game. My issue is that one time I was playing a mini game, about to win, when Vitamin Connection had an error that forced me back to the Home Screen. When I booted it up again, I wasn’t placed right at the start of the mini game, but instead at the tunnel branch which led to it. I also can’t express enough how much I wish the claw controls were separate from the laser controls. I had so many times where not only did I have trouble using the right tool at the right time, but even had tons of times where the claw was ready, I tried to grab something, and instead the claw retracted back into my ship. There’s actually a final boss in the game, in a fight that plays a lot like a battle in Mischief Makers. Problem was, it forces you to use the claw to fight back, which made things far more difficult. Oh and the Love Test game that plays after you beat stages really should have clarified that you don’t actually play it, but instead that it rates you on your overall performance. And lastly, while this is a minor quibble, it seemed odd to me that in a game so full of personality, the main characters are totally unvoiced, and don’t even get dialogue.

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Ultimately, I feel there were tons of cool ideas on display here and tons of charm, but that it wasn’t fully realized. Vitamin Connection is still a fun experience, and I appreciate the creativity. I just feel that perhaps some features required more time in the oven, so to speak. Honestly though, for only $19.99, it’s hard to take too much fault with the experience. I’d say if you want to support a cool indie company, you should give it a go. Just be ready for a steeper challenge than you might expect.

[easyreview cat1title=”Overall” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”3″]

Review Copy Provided by Publisher

REVIEW: Vitamin Connection Title Vitamin Connection

[fly-pow-bye]

Powerpuff Girls 2016 - “Power of Four” (Parts 3-5)

Written by: Jake Goldman, Haley Mancini

Written & Storyboarded by: Kyle Neswald, Benjamin P. Carow, Julia Vickerman, Cheyenne Curtis, Alicia Chan, Grace Craft (sic), Jaydeep Hasrajani, Leticia Abreu Silva

Directed by: Nick Jennings, Bob Boyle

Sorry for the wait, everyone!

Part 3 - Blisster Sister

Written & Storyboarded by: Julia Vickerman, Cheyenne Curtis

Despite having superpowers, she doesn't even know if she can be a Powerpuff Girl, but the Powerpuff Girls insist that it's "in her blood". Their first priority is not seeing if she could stop a crime, but some "new superhero threads". Because that's what the reboot Puffs are all about, putting on new costumes for the toyline to show how fashionable they are!

She first comes out in a business suit, much to the joy of Blossom, but the other two don't really care for it. She tries on a cutesy costume and a slasher villain costume, appealing to Bubbles and Buttercup respectively, but they still say no. She also picks up a costume that's clearly meant to be a Wonder Woman reference, but the Powerpuff Girls immediately shoot it down because, in Buttercup's words:

Buttercup: Where's the rest of it?

Blossom: PASS!

Not that I would want Bliss in Wonder Woman's costume, but it's really telling that the first joke the writers think about with Wonder Woman is how skimpy her clothing is. It just feels wrong, especially after that amazing movie that inspired girls far more than this show did. Not to mention that whole scene in Equal Fights. She tries on a few other costumes, some of them parodies of other superheroes, one of them a pear because random, and most of them unseen because they ran out of ideas.

They eventually decide on a costume that looked just like what she wore before. "Always a classic", says Blossom, unintentionally telling people that they really were afraid to stray too far from the original when it comes to the looks. Blossom does add one thing to the costume: her old headband she lost when she was a kid, which still fits her because, as said previously, she didn't age from the waist up.

This gets interrupted by the Gnat, a reboot villain I particularly liked in his first episode, mostly because of how mediocre at best everything else in that episode was. We even get to hear his origin story, and the Powerpuff Girls lost the ability to fast forward through origin stories in this part. The Powerpuff Girls can't skip the Gnat's origin story, but Reboot Jojo is fair game! At least we get an explanation on why he doesn’t look like an ordinary gnat: he was bit by a radioactive middle-aged man, gaining his strength! Not even Marvel is safe.

The guy is basically the Amoeba Boys, except instead of being an incompetent villain, he's more of a troll. He even kind of looks like one, which makes me wonder if he was meant to be a trollface reference at one point. Blossom tells Bliss this is the perfect opportunity to show off her crime-fighting skills, as the Gnat is easy.

Unfortunately, thanks to conflicting advice from each Powerpuff Girl and her getting stuck on the one-liner, all she does is another emotional explosion, wrecking the clothing store, but not the Gnat. The Gnat gloats until Blossom punches him through a wall. A rare scene of a non-Bliss Powerpuff Girl beating a villain easily in this episode.

Bubbles suggests that this is all due to "stage fright", and recommends relaxing on some swan boats to treat her anxiety. Blossom and Buttercup give their own ideas, a tax book, because that's relatable, and heavy metal, because Buttercup's the rascally little green princess, and they start arguing again. This almost leads to another explosion, but the Gnat shows up just in time for Round 2. This is just the same scene as before, except this time, it's the Gnat's trolling that causes her powers to go haywire.

Buttercup does her own idea to relax Bliss: a demolition derby! Buttercup's reasoning is that she can blow stuff up, and nobody would care. The problem is that Bliss cares and doesn't want to blow stuff up, so Blossom gives her a simple task: divvy up the chili dogs. Unfortunately, they get into another argument over who gets the one with the most chili.

Buttercup: Don't give Bubbles that one! She gets gassy!

Yup, they really are trying to make "Bubbles is the farty one" a thing. Thankfully, there's no Bubbles fart joke this time. This argument causes her to make the chili dogs explode. They're not really that consistent with it. You may notice a pattern, and you'll be right in guessing that the Gnat shows up here, too. This time, in a giant robot suit! The three try to fight the Gnat, while Bliss goes away to get chili dogs and mope about how she'll never be a superhero.

As she's moping, a flaming tire almost goes towards the chili dog stand, and it suddenly stops in its tracks. This gives her an epiphany: all she had to do to control her powers is to not think about it too hard. She's just that powerful; all she needed to do is not try.

Meanwhile, the Powerpuff Girls are, surprise, aren't doing too well against the Gnat's giant robot. He even traps them in a sticky fly trap, a reference to his origin story. This episode has a habit of reminding me of classic episodes involving new superheroes, whether it be Powerprof's 3D movie gag, or Stray Bullet's sticky fly trap!

Before he can use his giant fly swatter to swat the bug eyed freaks, Bliss shows up and saves her sisters by making the Gnat hit himself. So far, she has saved the ultra-super-powerful superheroes twice, once by just the majesty of her appearance, and the other just after she found out how to control her powers.

It's a a very by-the-numbers part, and just wasn't interesting to me. After a part that was shockingly decent, and a part with silly and terrible retcons, we get an episode that’s repetitive and predictable.

Well, okay, maybe not every scene is predictable. The part ends with Mee, as the closed captions spell his name, looking ominously at the camera. He then farts, because even in the special, we have to have needless fart jokes. It’s funny low little this elephant even comes up in the first three parts. Almost like they’re building him up to be the...elephant in the room? Eh? Eh?

Part 4 - Breaking Bliss

Written & Storyboarded by: Jaydeep Hasrajani, Leticia Abreu Silva

We suddenly cut to the result of a Monster Punch Girls Down on the Powerpuff Girls by Tyranosaurus Tex, a cowboy dinosaur. This feels very abrupt if you don't know this was the 4th part; they really needed a fade-out or something. Thankfully for those poor little ultra-super-powerful heroes, Bliss comes in to save the day with her telekinesis and her 60's Batman hit flashes. Glad to say her telekinesis isn't used as an excuse to have her not punch.

This randomness all turns out to be simulation from the simulation room from Bubblevicious, which is proof that they must have watched some of the original. Hey, maybe the Powerpuff Girls were intentionally struggling to test Bliss's abilities. Yeah, that's gotta be it! While her not-overpowered powers not-overpowered every simulation, the Professor still can't trust her to fight crime, and disallows her from participating when the girls get the emergency signal on their phones. Finally, some sort of explanation: it's actually an emergency signal.

While the Powerpuff Girls go out to fight the crime, Bliss stays in the Powerpuff Girls' room. Even Buttercup questions how it became hers. She plays Cattleship with her pet friend Mee. Four parts in, and we finally get to see Mee in a major scene. He starts off by just say "mee mee mee mee mee mee", but Bliss tells him to talk normally. Well, at least it's good to know she can't speak animal. However, much like almost every other animal in the show, Mee can actually talk.

Not just that, he can transform, too, as seen here as he mocks the Professor for not allowing her to fight crime. So, not only does this special newcomer to the series not just have a pet elephant, but have a magical transforming talking pet elephant. I would talk about this more, but there's actually a reason for this. Surprisingly, it will be satisfying.

The Powerpuff Girls come back after successfully beating up someone named Chipmunk Commando. I assumed this was going to be another offscreen random villain like the "plate smashing ninjas" I forgot to mention in Part 1, but we'll see him later. Bliss is still sad that she couldn't join in and make the Powerpuff Girls completely useless, but Buttercup tells Bliss that the Professor usually gets over things like this at dinner time.

He doesn't. In fact, he doesn't even want her to go to school, telling her to learn from a Fischer Price See N Say parody. Such a great father, he only does this so Bliss can have a reason to hate him. This also avoids the question on whether or not she would go to that unnamed school the Powerpuff Girls go to. It is a school without grades, apparently!

As the Powerpuff Girls try to comfort her when she cries in her room about how much she hates that her Dad doesn't trust her, the emergency signal goes off again. Because there's no way the Professor would allow it, they decide to let Bliss sneak out with them, just so they show that she could fight crime. I do like how she makes an extra hole in the house, as if they're saying she's the fourth wheel of the tricycle.

As mentioned before, it's Chipmunk Commando, and we get to see him in action. The name suggests a certain Austrian Death Machine, but he seems to have some sort of Australian gimmick, as if they mixed up the two countries. He references shrimp-on-the-barbies, he calls someone a kookabura, and Bubbles even uses a kangaroo aura to try to attack him. Chipmunks aren't even native to Australia, or even Austria for that matter. Random!

Notice I said "try". Despite being able to defeat him before without Bliss, when Bliss is around, the Powerpuff Girls get destroyed by the chipmunk with his ability to make everything else slow-motion. It's almost like they're forcing a situation where Bliss would have to help them again. Yeah, we can't have any scene where the Powerpuff Girls can defeat anything more than a gnat without a robot suit. That would be too insulting for our marvelous little girl!

Of course, he suddenly forgets that ability when Bliss starts throwing garbage at him with her telekinesis like she's Darth Vader. Defeated easily by the not-overpowered new sister, he tries to tap out, but she continues the carnage. She even throws a barrage of energy balls out of her hands. I'd talk about all these "special powers" she has that the other girls don't have, but she is made of a different chemical. This could be the Chemical W version of the eye lasers. The Powerpuff Girls don't use eye lasers in this episode either, so it's anyone's guess.

While that's unclear, she makes it pretty clear why she's going overkill with this chipmunk.

Bliss: This is everything the Professor wanted, but that's not enough! I'll (blast) show (blast) you (blast) what (blast) I (blast) can't (blast) DO! (readies big fireball)

She has so many of those certain issues, she didn't even call him Dad this time! As she gets ready to vaporize him with a huge fireball, the Powerpuff Girls try to stop her. They fly right into the energy ball, and the Powerpuff Girls get hurt.

The Professor rushes to the scene, just magically knowing the Powerpuff Girls were there, and assumes correctly that it was Bliss's fault. Unfortunately

Professor: You'll never control your powers!

Bliss: Never?

Professor: No, no, not like that...

That loving father figure finally decides to backtrack from his statements, possibly realizing he's doing more harm than good, but it's too late. Not helping is that Mee, who happened to be brought with them, decides now is the time to not be shy and begins to talk to Bliss in front of them. The Powerpuff Girls are shocked that an animal can talk.

Buttercup: Wow! Just like the dog from the baked bean commercials!

Huh, I guess their Bush's Baked Beans endorsement didn't go through. Mee even turns into a butterfly, sort of like what a certain villain turned into in the original's All Chalked Up. It's here that I had a inkling of what this elephant's twist is. Even with that one scene of him looking menacingly in the camera, I didn't really know what was going on.

Among a few other lies, Mee tells her that she really wants to be the only Powerpuff Girl, which is the only time that is even brought up. With the main trio's on-screen record of getting destroyed by trains, gnats, and squirrels, Bliss may as well be the only ultra-super-powerful superheroine here. It gets slightly better for the main three. Slightly.

Mee then turns into a snake, and now it's really obvious what this is going to be. I'm actually really shocked; I didn't think they would outright reference the most well known "deal with the you-know-who" ever. Oh yeah, notice every time I said Mee's name, I said that's what the closed captions say? It turns out, they have been misspelling the transforming stretchy elephant’s name the whole time, because the actual spelling is Mih.

As in Him backwards, as he turns into his usual form. To be fair, you couldn't make a name like Licosi out of a three letter name. By the way, Him sure likes to play the long game, does he? Him has been doing this "act like the elephant friend" thing for at least 10 years. He probably had to do this while he was juggling around being the guitar shop guy and Harvey from school.

Him offers her the chance to get what she wants, all she has to do is take his hand. Bliss finally gets a flaw in her character besides "she's so powerful, but she causes issues": she immediately trusts Him. She decides to shake one of his claws, and they both get covered with red spirals, her headband gets broken in a symbolic way, and they explode into a Him/Bliss fusion.

HimBliss: Now the real fun begins! Hahahahahahaha!

That's a really great way to end the part. Instead of ending it there, they have the Professor telling her, "well, someone's grounded". This takes away a little bit of the weight. Not only is it not necessary, he never follows through with that. She really must be the Professor's favorite.

There was quite a bit of inconsistency for me to give this a Happy, but that last reveal was actually decent. Once that commercial break hit, I had to know what came next. We finally get to see Him terrorize the city rather than be the evil item peddler, though the way he does it is a little odd, to say the least.

Part 5 - Blisstersweet Symphony

Written & Storyboarded by: Kyle Neswald, Benjamin P. Carow

Breaking news from the somehow overly happy news crew: Him and Bliss have fused, and is now causing chaos. This is the only part that really does any kind of recap of the previous episodes events, which is a good idea.

It seems like every character tries to defeat this fusion to no avail. Bubbles tries to talk to Bliss, which leads to a decent scene where Bliss tries to burst through the fusion's chest, Blossom tries to just punch the fusion, Buttercup tries to use a tree, and even the Professor tries to use a ray meant to seperate fusions. None of this works, with the Professor getting turned into a See N Say as some sort of karmic retribution. Reboot Jojo shows up too, but he gets hit while doing an overly long monologue. Wow, that's really close to something Mojo Jojo would do!

And yeah, Him's whole idea of chaos consists of turning people into silly objects. It seems like more of a Discord thing, but it's still far better than the "strange item peddler" he was in previous episodes. It helps that he's doing this while Townsville is on fire, adding to how hopeless everything is. It does make me wonder: couldn't Him do this on his own? I guess he just needed some power from someone who totally isn't super-overpowered.

One Bliss power Him does use for sure is her telekinesis, which, persumably combined with Him’s near infinite power, is used to rev up Saturn and turning its rings into a giant buzzsaw heading towards the Earth. Okay, that's a neat idea.

Their options limited, the girls decide to a plan they haven't done before. Something that was completely out of the question. Something dangerous. They really build this up as this forbidden thing to be only used as a last resort. It must be the Dyna...

...oh, it's just another combined aura called the Mewtilator. Maybe it's for the best it wasn't the Dynamo, because it doesn't even last long. BlissHim smacks down the chipmunk riding a this thing shoots out, and grabs and immobilizes the aura with her hair. The only actions her massive hair did in this entire special was give the devil a place to rest, be used as a weapon, and to make her unrecognizable in silhouette.

Reboot Jojo shows up again, thankfully only getting into a Spongebob mushroom cloud rather than being transformed, with a spiked ball. Initially failing because he's just not as athletic, Bubbles has the idea to use the Mewtilator's tail to throw it at BlissHim's face. In other words, Bubbles saves Bliss with her butt.

No really, all they had to do to free Bliss is to throw a spiked ball at the fusion. Who would have guessed demonic possession had such an easy cure? Unfortunately, this happiness doesn't last, as it turns out Him is still alive. That's only the ordinary bad news.

Him: What you've done is made more powerful than you can ever imagine!

Thanks to absorbing Bliss's power, that is something implied he could do later in the episode, he turned into a huge demon similar to his transformation in Speed Demon. He uses his newfound powers to turn the Mayor's office into a giant crying pickle baby! I guess he couldn't really top the Saturn thing.

Speaking of which, Saturn got close enough that it sawed through the Moon. The tides disappear, the Earth gets rained upon by the Moon's pieces, the seasons start changing rapidly, and the Earth comes to a demise much ahead of schedule. Way to go, Bliss!

Do the titles fit?

Nah, I'm just kidding, it's just a random scene that never comes up again, only to show how little time the girls have left to save the day. Even the Powerpuff Girls must have realized how useless they are at the almighty fourth sister, as they try to get Bliss to save the day herself. However, Bliss doesn't trust herself anymore, as she's just too unstable. Not like that other 4th Puff they forgot about. Again, she never gets mentioned.

The girls, knowing that she's kind of right, decide to do another plan. It's very anime, even one of the onlookers turn anime faced at it.

Combining their auras with Bliss's power, they turn into the Mighty Powerpuff Sisterhood. I'm surprised to say: I have no problems with this fight scene. Him gets some shots in, the Sisterhood gets some shots in, they have a sword fight out of nowhere, it actually feels like an actual two-sided fight rather than the Monster Punch Girls Down that usually happens. It's the best fight scene in the entire reboot so far, though that's not much of an accomplishment.

Eventually, Him gets the upper hand by grabbing them, and threatens to absorb their power and possibly turn into a another fusion. We don't get to see this, as the Powerpuff Girls and Bliss join hands once again and free themselves with the power of sisterly love.

A giant laser beam from the heart works, too. It even makes the ending hearts, referencing something they have not done in a long time. This disintegrates Him, and, consistent with the last time he got disintegrated, he takes it by laughing. and, of course, prove that fusion is just a way to make weak Puffs stronger. I'm sorry, I had to put that line somewhere.

This majesty is so good, that Saturn just stops in its tracks. We can assume the moon just magically reassembled itself, as it never seems to come up.

Oh, of course Bliss has to be written out, as the writers can barely make plots for three Powerpuff Girls, never mind four it is her solemn duty to bring Saturn back to where it belongs. Forget lifting buildings full of people, this girl can move an entire planet nine times bigger than the Earth. A gas giant, but still.

Even Reboot Jojo is sad, with him even repeating the "I'm allergic to sad things" joke from the last episode. Most importantly, she hugs her Dad goodbye, who now accepts her as the fourth Powerpuff Girl...just when she has to leave.

This is the most entertaining part of the five. The best Him appearance yet, and a fight scene that isn't one-sided!

Do the titles fit?

Power of Four - We do get to see the Power of Four at the end, though most of it is just "The Power of One because we decided to make the other three weak for most of the special."

Find Your Bliss - They don't really find Bliss, it's more like Bliss finding them.

Bliss Reminiscence - Most of the episode is a flashback.

Blisster Sister - The episode is all about Bliss's sisters trying to give her an identity.

Breaking Bliss - Bliss is at her lowest point here. Also, they were on something when they thought up the "23 chemicals" gag.

Blisstersweet Symphony - It's supposed to be a bittersweet ending, as Bliss has to disappear.

As a whole, how does it stack up?

Bliss is definitely overpowered and definitely feels like a "DeviantART OC", but they don't do a horrible job of balancing it with her inexperience. What I really didn't like is that the original three Reboot Puffs had very little chance to shine, as if them doing anything cool would take away from how special Bliss is.

It had a great beginning and ending, and a not so great middle. It all kind of balanced itself out into an "eh, I guess I can't say she's Chloe from The Fairly Oddparents." In fact, I actually wouldn't mind seeing Bliss again, as I didn't exactly hate her.

Next, we go from beating up the devil to...something. I honestly wouldn't blame Cartoon Network for wanting an at least two week break between this and the next one.

← Power of Four (Parts 1-2) ☆ I’ll Be Bake & Bliss Unaware (shorts) →