#the second idea for a title to this series was “Not Insane Just Very Bored”

[inbabylontheywept]

Party Favors: Part 3

I woke up to a darkened visor scant inches away from my face. I screamed, as is my wont, and proceeded to scuttle backwards off the bed. The world spun as I fell, and without any real way to tell my direction I just kept scrambling until my back hit a wall.

The human in front of me was… probably not the ambassador? Humans could swap their visors out if they wanted, but they tried to keep them familiar enough for others to recognize. Kind of a silly thing really - to wear a mask so long it stopped being a mask.

The curly mustache drawn on the front was also hardly the ambassador’s style.

“You grind your teeth in your sleep,” the new human said pleasantly.

“Thank you,” I replied, unsure of what the proper response was. The human made it sound like a compliment, but I couldn’t fathom why.

“I could do that for you,” it said, moving closer. “Grind your teeth.”

“No thank you,” I said. My heart stopped long enough for my vision to darken at the edges. We stared at each other for a moment. It seemed almost as lost as I was. The idea that somehow, I had committed a faux paus made me want to gouge my eyes out. Two weeks ago, my civilization had been fighting an endless war and I missed those times.

“Party favor?”, the new human asked.

“No thank you,” I replied.

“We have nootropic melange, apocalypse juice, columbian cocaine, gym socks - “

I’d tuned out until it said gym socks. At that word I started in confusion.

“Gym socks?,” I questioned.

“Sure thing,” the human said, and placed several dirty gym socks on my lap.

I stared at it, dumbfounded. It gave me a friendly clap on the shoulder in return.

“You live as long as we do, the foot thing just starts to make sense. I can give you a bit of space, if you need a moment. Unless you’d prefer it if I stayed?”

I stared at it silently for several seconds. The pause stretched on, and on, and on, before the human slapped its own visor.

“Oh! The dome! Sorry, you can’t see it, but I am wiggling my eyebrows like crazy under here. Like caterpillars at a disco.”

The need to escape became all consuming. I spun around, put my feet against the wall, and pushed. Through luck I managed to slide through the open doorway, but had failed to account for anything beyond that point. Fortunately, my skull and the far wall of the hallway helped me slow down considerably. I couldn’t tell what the human was up to inside the room I’d been set in, but without better options, I spun around, braced my feet, andd pushed off again.

---

I figured out by my third bounce that the floor wasn’t slippery: I was. I was practically dripping with an unknown yellow-green slime. It was wretched, but the speed of my launches was undeniable, and it had the added element of severely impeding the progress of anyone trying to catch up to me.

I managed to make it to the front of ship with only a few minor contusions. I estimated the size of the group tailing me to be seven humans plus. As predicted, the ambassador was in the cockpit, staring out at the stars.

I’d gotten low enough on slime that I couldn’t move silently anymore. I shot through the final doorway with a sound like an ass made of glass getting wiped with a balloon.

“звуки секса с моей неудачной ловър” the ambassador said cheerily.

“What?” I asked.

“‘Good morning’” it translated.

“Fuck you,” I replied.

It sat there silently, judging me as I struggled to get myself back onto my own feet. The constant friction had worn the slime off everything but the bottom of my feet and I was very bitter about it. As my struggle began to reach a fever pitch, it interrupted with helpful commentary.

“You know,” it said, “if you’d just told me about the foot thing, we could’ve been very accommodating.”

I realized at that exact moment that it wasn’t actually my feet that were slimy: It was my shoes. I peeled one off, lobbed it across the room, and felt a blossom of joy as it bounced off the ambassador’s visor.

It pulled a little marker out of a pocket and drew a small frown on the front of the glass. The second shoe would’ve hit that exact spot like a bullseye, but it had the good sense to duck this time.

I stood on my own two feet now. Looking at it. Hating it. And it looked back at me, as nonplussed as ever.

“Go on,” it said, gesturing to the large screen that acted as a window. “I was just about to grab you anyway. You wouldn’t want to miss the fireworks.”

I looked past it, looked at the screen, and felt as if I’d stepped outside of my own body. My eyes widened, and my chest contracted and all the air left my body in one big, sharp, gasp.

“You’re insane,” I said, for the second time in memory.

“No,” it said happily. Almost nostalgically. “But very bored.”

Standing in the void, carved from an asteroid at least fifty kilos across, stood a perfect model of a human hand. Every crease, every wrinkle, every twist of tendon - it was all perfect. But most especially the middle finger. It was gilded in gold, gleaming and stern. Fully extended in a metaphor that I knew they had thought of long before.

“You'll kill them all. Bachus wouldn't survive impact with this.”

The ambassador looked disgusted at the thought.

“Why the hell would I fly my newest capital ship into their dirtball of a planet?”

Party Favors: Part 1

The ambassador asked me if I wanted a party favor. I was tempted, but human minds were notoriously resilient. What might bend their mind into an amusing shape for an hour or two could break mine altogether.

I declined. The ambassador shrugged in a way that made it very clear that he considered it my loss, before dropping several spoonfuls of the substance into a specialized port on his exosuit. By default, the visor was dark enough one could barely make out the dark outline of the creature's bulbous skull, but as smoke started to trickle up into the dome, even that was lost. Where I should’ve seen an alien face, there was my own dim reflection, twisted by the curvature of the glass and the slow roil of smog.

“It is rare to receive guests,” it said in my voice. As if stealing my face wasn’t enough. It was an unsettling but common convention for humans to borrow the voice of whoever they were talking to. The generous view of this was that they enjoyed being mirrors. Personally, I’d always viewed them as a species afraid of being observed. It is hard, to see the mirror underneath a reflection.

“Do you want more?” I asked.

I couldn’t see its face, but I could tell it was exhaling by the way vortices formed in the smoke.

“Yes,” it replied. “But I know my limits.”

It then carefully pushed the remaining pouch of powder towards the center of the table. The question of whether it had been talking about guests, or its recreation, suddenly grew fuzzy.

I decided to assume the best and plowed forward.

“Our colony by outpost Battan. It’s-”

“Struggling,” it finished. There was a glint of white inside the smoke, a hint of exposed wet bone. Weeks of study informed me this was intended to set me at ease.

“Yes.”

“Bad neighbors?”

The question was posed innocently enough, but it gave away the entire story. Twenty years of guerilla strikes, of blood and coin andlost life summed up in two words. A pathetically small conflict, and yet, large enough that the humans knew of it.

I did not answer. I stood still and watched my own face stare back. Humans loved games. I did not want to play.

It matched me again. Always the mirror. Coy when I was coy. Serious when I was serious.

“Any requests for how they are handled?”

“No unnecessary bloodshed.”

It inhaled deep enough to clear the smoke from the dome. My reflection was interrupted, replaced with the form of the thing in the suit. The lines of the face were murky enough but what shone brightest through the glass were its eyes - perfect paper white spheres, slick and shining. It seemed wrong for something to look so earnest and so hungry.

“That is not what humans are for.”

I could not decide if it was agreeing to or denying my request. I looked into its eyes as long as I could, as long as I could still make them out through the haze drifting up through the neck slot. Only when they were well and truly gone did I take my glove off, and reach across the table. It gripped my hand, clenched around it hard, and then let it go suddenly. I’d been told this meant the deal was sealed.

I should have just left. But I was always too curious, so I asked my final question.

“Why us? Why not them?”

“Because you came to me first,” it replied, as if the answer was obvious. “And I was very bored.”

It showed me the door very soon after that. I had the presence of mind to avoid running until I made it out of the building.

[saraiisstanky]

More pirates!!!

Slight backstory 👇

Some old designs of my sort of first ever pirate ocs? I made them first in elementary school as an idea and then proceeded to try and make a book about them start of 6th grade but since I wasn’t into writing I just planned out most of the story in my head and made a title and named a few characters

Looking back I was so bad at story writing and even worse at drawing pirates. It was so out of my comfort zone but little me had fun so no harm no foul 🤷‍♀️

The book is called Sailing Crown and was meant to be a 12 book series (I planned 12 books of adventures and these two being besties until eventually they fall in love) it was meant to start off as a children’s book for the first five and then from there it’d be a young adult series

Little me thought it made sense and that by the time I was writing book 5, I would be in high school and be able to finish it off as an adult (she’s insane)

The series even had book titles (B1 Sailing Crown, B2 Missing Crown, B3 Heavy Crown, B4 Stolen Crown, B5 Rising Crown, B6 Falling Crown etc)

It was about these two boys, (James 12 and Julien 13) who are the youngest pirates in existence. James is a prince who loves the sea and wants to be a pirate because of story books. Julien is a pirate with a angsty backstory and basically when Julien steals a magic compass from James’ father, it leads to them being stuck with each other to find this magic treasure and save James’ kingdom.

Julien doesn’t want James there but being that he’s unable to read the compass (James can, he studied navigation tools his dad collects) and James is excited about going on an adventure

The first book is just a simple and childlike adventure story for kids and ends with James getting to stay with the Silver Siren crew

The second book becomes more risky, more serious with actual threats and a sprinkle of adult issues like war, slavery, kidnapping, and just the tiniest of murder but it’s mostly overshadowed with comedic relief and James’ innocent views of the world

The series just slowly integrates more and more of gorey story telling that gets played off as a running gag of James being kidnapped and his childish nature

Then when they’re old enough as seen in the drawings, I would reveal James and Julien’s romantic tension growing and get even more gruesome with the story (pirates aren’t nice, the world is changing, they can’t be kids forever)

Spoiler alert: It ends with James and Julien getting married on the sea, then James responsibility as king is calling and he is forced to leave the adventures behind and answer. James becomes king, marries a woman so he can create an heir, basically lives stuck in his royal cage for a few years until eventually Julien comes back for him and James runs away with him (his kingdom assumes James killed himself by throwing himself into the sea since he was last seen walking into the ocean alone)

The ending was meant to be up to interpretation. You can decide whether James was imagining Julien and did die, or you can picture Julien came back for him and they had many more adventures together :)

To be honest, I wasn’t very creative as a 6th grader. I never thought outside the box for my character designs and most of them looked the same. James and Julien are generic in every way and I only drew these designs because my sister wanted to see what they looked like (she’s the only reason I still think about this series)

I plan to completely tear apart the whole story and designs and start from scratch. I’ve already changed the characters names but stayed as close as I could to the original because it’s nostalgic

One thing I definitely will change: James being white. When I made that decision as a kid, it was because I wanted to make James such a boring and generic almost background kind of character. A white guy with aVera he looks, brown hair and eyes, average height, no interesting traits. He only becomes interesting because of his adventures

Now that I’m older, I think I want James to be Hispanic or at least a person of color. He won’t be a normy kinda guy and I want him to have more hobbies, habits, tastes, and talents.

I already started off by expanding on his old nickname “Little Bird” which the crew calls him when James demands to be given a pirate name. It was a small joke at the time but I’ve decided to make it something bigger, use it to define James a little more and the kind of person he is

Julien has always been complex so I’ve decided to only tweak him ever so slightly because my guy is a bit too powerful for a teenager (chill out my dude)

Honestly I think I may keep his backstory because it’s so wild that it could just be crazy enough to be writable (I’m telling you it blew my mind to look back at all my notes about his backstory) (Little me had favorites for sure)

Little me writing James: generic white man. Boring. Brown hair and eyes. Just there. Lukewarm water in a plastic cup. Bread personality

Little me writing Julien: his father was forced to abandon Julien’s pregnant mother on an island to die. Julien was raised listening to sirens as they hoped he would crawl in the ocean and drown. Julien escaped on a slave ship. Julien murdered his dad and took his ship. “Julien was like the ocean: mysterious, dangerous, going from harsh rapids to a cool and calm horizon…”

[shinygoku]

Let it Be (1970)

Oh god, here we go. This album [and the Docu-film of the same name] is one big magical mess, with multiple different versions, the "main" one being coated in the musical version of Glitter Glue by a strange disgusting weirdo, so I guess I gotta check my expectations. This album and the larger ideas for the project were heavily affected by the rampant discord in the group due to many factors, too complex and quite frankly depressing to get into here. These reasons, and the songs themselves being another mixed bag, are why I'm adamant to get it outta the way before the Actual Last Album, the release date can suck it up.

The concept behind this, of the four in their own little photos, is fine (if unintentionally symbolism for the division among 'em...) but oh my god, the execution here sucks. John looks like a wet dog, Paul is getting blocked by his mic, something else is in front of Ringo and George.... well George seems to be having a funky good time! But why the hell were these snapshots chosen over the thousands of other photoshoots, or even nicer individual frames from the Documentary? Insane but in a banal, boring way. Worst cover of their whole set of Albums, easy.

SIDE ONE

Two of Us: After an unrelated introduction by John, a more folksy ballad starts up. Describing comfy mundanities between a pair, and intercut with solo Paul sections, mentioning a road that stretches on ahead (foreshadowing?). It's a nice one and so very John and Paul coded its title was used for the RPF movie made by the Fujoshi who was there to watch and film 'em for the Docu.

Dig a Pony: A western style opening leads to a mellow John monologue that seems to be another series of codes with a mostly coherent line having an odd ending, for example the title itself. "Pick a Moondog" might be a reference to the prototype early Group Name, back in the 50's... Overall though this feels like hearing an easy listening song but it's in a language you only know some vocab of. There's hard to hear talking both before and after the track, which I don't object to (Studio chatter can be very charming and/or insightful!) but can't pick out well.

Across the Universe: This is absolutely one of the strongest songs on the album and some beautiful lyric weaving of John's.... so how come it sounds like I'm hearing it through a wall? While some quiet orchestra music is also playing? A song this thoughtful deserves crisp, clean audio!! The metaphors and evocative imagery are complemented with some spiffy guitar work and I easily see why it's a Favourite but the 2021 remix (while still having the chorus overlay ¬¬;; ) is the better option for this one.

I Me Mine: George's vagueblogging about John and Paul and their hyperfocus on each other, coupled with the expense of their true feelings and also other people in general? It sure could be! A nice waltz and then rocking section that calms back down. There's also some hard hitting drums here, so I'm digging it B3

Dig It: I swear I didn't plan my previous words to lead into this lmaooo - Anyway! At less than 1 minute this is an odd one. Seems to be more a warm up exersise and/or larking around rather than a song. I don't really care for this tbh

Let it Be: We're finally at the title track! Another song Paul got from a Dream, though not as powerful and interesting lyric-wise as Yesterday. Still, the piano makes a lovely start, and I really like how the other instruments come on in sequence spaced out along the song. The High Hat(?) and later the blazing guitar work, ooooh that's some good stuff!!

Maggie Mae: For the first time in ages, a cover! Seems this one just like, Existed in Liverpool for many years, though I've only heard the Beatles' take of the whole song. That is, 40 seconds of a jaunty tune. It's fine and has some good R trilling, but kind of just ends. However I like how it has all the lads lean into their Scouse Roots so I rate it higher for that <3

SIDE TWO

I've Got a Feeling: Paul and John do their wombo combo thing. I can't understand some of Paul's yelling but overall I like it! But not love. Cheeky moments and surging energy helps make it a funky experience. Another moment where there's talking after the song itself wraps... are these takes from the Rooftop Concert? o3o;;

One After 909: I think this counts as Rockabilly. Again I like it but I'm not wild, though that may be a genre thing as the wordplay is still clever and fun. Splendid instruments keep a great energy to go with the lyrics about rushing here and there. And then a smidge of Danny Boy? .....ok.......

The Long and Winding Road: Hello, operator? I'd like to report a crime! This song has been absolutely butchered!!

One of Paul's most raw, emotional, very thinly veiled messages to John. But under Spector's editing, absurdly overdone. Flippin' heavenly choirs getting slapped on top. Stupid soaring instruments that overinflate the whole experience. It pisses me off that this is the "main" version, making it on compilations like #1s and The Blue Album, when Paul's redone it himself in the Naked edition and it's actually clean and lovely.

Still, one of the strongest on the album if you can get past the orchestral bullshit. Its beautiful if sombre words make the Naked version one of my favourites of Paul's of all time, and this way I can actually hear the band's subdued instrumentation and the range of emotion in Paul's voice.

For You Blue: After more murmuring, George's second song of the album kicks in, with an odd Sproing-y tune and I guess bluesy ditty. Even includes George making a spoken word comment in the midst. It's fine but I know George can do better, like the aforementioned I Me Mine.

Get Back: The other title track, if we're thinking about the epically long version of the Documentary. Yet more Chatter opens this one, including a twist on some of the lyrics to come lol. Another US Country kind of flavoured tune, with ambiguous lyrics about being told to ...get back to where they once belonged being easy to misunderstand between being affirmation or shooing (even John suspected that Paul was directing it at Yoko), and also the verse about Loretta being trans as people in the 60's understood it, so it's shaky by today's standards but for the time having someone following their own idea of gender is pretty progressive.

And finally some talking I can hear without replaying it! John's remark about passing the audition, it's pretty famous ;3

CONCLUSION

Best 3: Two Of Us, Across the Universe, The Long and Winding Road (Paul's work)

Blurst 3: Dig It, For You Blue, The Long and Winding Road (With stupid ass Dubbing. Spector out here trying to be Proto-Funimation!)

This album was conceived as an attempt for the band to go back to their roots, with blues and rock and acoustic guitars. Maybe not as far as Hamburg level of raw grit, but still re-finding themselves after their increasing reliance on cutting edge technology and techniques. But it didn't quite work out that way, both seen in the Documentary footage of a group of blokes at a bit of a loss, and in this production with overdubbed orchestral and choirs that muddy the music further. Damn does it ever suck this was the last full album released when the four of 'em were all alive!

With this real world subtext and the general tone of most of the songs, I dub this the Sombre album. Not to say it's completely lacking in va va voom, but it's mostly known for the sad, wistful Road, the Acceptance song, and their final concert on a humble rooftop.

🪲🪲🪲🪲

Fortunately the actual last album the lads made is actually a Grand Finale! For a beautiful silver lining to a rather large cloud, look no further than above the streets of Abbey Road~

[escapewithbts]

Secrets in a Foreign Language - Jungkook (Part One)

So I’m not entirely sure if this is going to be just a couple parts or a small series, I kind of just came up with it randomly! I also couldn’t think of a better title so bear with me please haha nevertheless I hope you enjoy! I loved writing this beginning so far!

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>>next

You fiddled with the keys in your hand, searching for the one you marked for this particular unit. Finally, you found the correct one, pushing it into the lock and opening the front door with a click. It looked like pretty much every other apartment in the building, modern with a large living space, open concept kitchen with stainless steel appliances, large windows that looked over the city of Seoul. Just another multi-million dollar home you could only ever afford in your dreams.

Yet here you were, entering the home of an individual who could afford such a space in their reality... because it was your job to clean it. Yes, you were a housekeeper for the company who owned this apartment building; one of the most expensive places to live in all of South Korea.

You had moved here to Seoul from your home country abroad in search of change. A new adventure? Something to push you out of your comfort zone? Really you were just extremely bored back home; sick of the same routines, the same people, the career you didn’t enjoy. So, before you could talk yourself out of it, you contacted a job agency based in Seoul, South Korea whose mission was to find jobs for foreigners who spoke little to no Korean (aka you). And that is approximately how you landed this gig. Only a few months in and your Korean had significantly improved (requiring basic necessities like, you know, food and toilet paper, forced you to learn how to acquire said items in this new language) and you weren’t hating this job at all. You were alone most of the time, cleaning wasn’t too difficult since you have been doing it your whole life, and because it was for such a wealthy company the pay wasn’t bad either. Was it what you wanted to do for the rest of your life? Probably not. But it paid the bills and still left some income for exploration of your new home country.

And honestly, the most difficult part of it all was the scheduling. Sometimes you had limited time to clean a home based on the person’s day, sometimes you had an excessive number of units to clean in one day and wondered how exactly you were going to finish them all. But once you came into a routine that stuck you quickly found a pace for yourself that worked perfectly.

And since you were entering the homes of some of Korea’s wealthiest and most famous, the contract and background check for the position were quite lengthy. For example, you couldn’t touch anything unnecessary in their homes, couldn’t snoop around (obviously, you wouldn’t do that for a “regular” person anyway?), you weren’t even allowed to use their bathroom if you had to. The company had contacted all your previous employers, colleagues, some friends, even randomly requested internet browsing history a couple times! (I guess they wanted to make sure you weren’t a crazy stalker “fan” some K-pop groups you had heard about having, or a spy for another company’s CEO). The process was rather insane in your opinion, but alas, you passed, and honestly, the fact that you were a foreigner who didn’t speak much Korean probably helped your case. And to be fair, you really didn’t care about whose house you were in, you were just thankful to have acquired a job after your decision to move across the world that happened on a whim.

This particular unit was actually decorated quite nicely. It was more minimal style, with modern furniture that still felt warm and inviting. You figured it must be the home of someone younger, probably mid-twenties like you, but you also got the feeling they didn’t spend much time here. It was already in fairly immaculate shape (thankfully, it was your last job of the day, so you knew it was going to be quick) and didn’t seem very lived in in general. You couldn’t help but notice what looked like speakers and recording equipment shoved into the corner of the room. This place must belong to a musician or producer of some sort, you thought. You shrugged and turned back to where you had entered, lugging your cleaning supplies in through the front door. Then you put in your wireless headphones, pulled on your rubber gloves, and began by dusting around the surfaces of the living room.

Not long after you had started, you were in the bathroom off the guestroom wiping down the sink. A sudden sound of what you thought was the loud slam of a door shutting startled you. Your head shot up and you stopped what you were doing to remove an earphone from one of your ears. Immediately you heard the raised voice of a young woman coming from down the hall, followed by a quieter one from a man. Your heart started racing. Were you in the wrong unit? Had you read the schedule incorrectly? Did you get the address mixed up? You frantically pulled your phone from your back pocket to check the schedule that came directly from management. Yes, the date matched, it was Tuesday. Yes, the time matched, 2 in the afternoon. And the address was correct, too. So why were there people suddenly in the home? Did they know you were here? This had never happened before in the short time you had been doing this job, so you had no idea what to do. Continue working like you didn’t realize they were here? Make your presence known so you don’t seem like you’re being suspicious? Were you going to get in trouble with the company? Certainly not if you were just following the schedule, right? Your mind was going a mile a minute.

Then before you could quite make up your mind, the voices sounded even closer, and you could only make out a little bit of what they were saying, especially since your Korean wasn’t great yet.

“Why didn’t you go with me?... What were you thinking?” you heard the woman’s voice say (or something like that so you thought?) She sounded angry.

“I don’t know…” the man replied, followed by something else you couldn’t comprehend. He was still a lot quieter than her.

She spoke again.

“What are people going to say, Jungkook?”

You froze.

Jungkook.

Jungkook? Of BTS?

Okay, so you weren’t a crazy stalker fan or anything, but it was impossible to avoid knowing about the K-pop group BTS. They were literally everywhere around Seoul. Commercials on tv, billboards all over the city, posters on the subway trains… their faces even appeared on the coffee drink you had every morning for goodness sake! Since you kept seeing them, after you had gotten the job, you researched them a little bit. Their music was good, they seemed like genuine people, but never did you think you would be in one of their houses. There were hundreds of Korean businessmen, executives, celebrities, and only 7 members of BTS. Honestly, what were the chances?

Pretty good apparently. Fuck.

“I’m your girlfriend, Jungkook,” she continued annoyingly.

Ah, that’s right. In your brief research you had read he was seeing another idol. What was her name again?

“No, Cho-hee,” Jungkook replied.

Oh right. Kim Cho-hee. You remember now.

“You’re my pretend girlfriend.”

Your heart stopped.

Oh fuck! You definitely weren’t supposed to hear that. You had to show yourself now. That’s it, your decision was made for the sake of your career.

You quietly walked out of the room and found the two of them in the hallway with their backs turned to you. Just as Cho-hee was opening her mouth to respond you cleared your throat.

They both whipped around at your sudden sound. Yep, it was them alright. You recognized them immediately. They stared at you stunned for a second before Cho-hee spoke up.

“Who are you?!” she practically barked in Korean, taking a few steps towards you with her long slim legs, her large brown eyes wide, her dark hair whipping around her shoulders, her pale skin painted with a red hue.

“I, uh, I’m…” you stuttered, attempting to find the correct Korean words but failing miserably from being put on the spot.

Jungkook calmly put his hand around Cho-hee’s arm and pulled her back slightly.

“She the housekeeper,” he answered in Korean for you. Yes, that was the word you were looking for. “I don’t think she speaks Korean.”

Not well, anyway, thanks Jungkook.

He turned toward you, his dark brown eyes finding yours. Your stomach flipped from nervousness.

“You speak English?” he asked timidly in your native tongue.

All you could do was nod.

He let out a sigh of relief and said something you didn’t understand to Cho-hee, causing her to step back and a look of relief to wash over her face, too.

It was then that you realized they probably thought you didn’t understand their conversation. That you didn’t know the meaning of any of it. Should you come clean and tell them you understood? Particularly the “pretend girlfriend” stuff?

Cho-hee turned back toward the main room and beckoned at Jungkook.

“Come on, let the help continue working.”

Oof. ‘The help’. You definitely understood that. You knew cleaning the homes of rich people meant you may run into some entitlement, but dang, you didn’t think someone would make it so obvious, language barrier or not.

You winced.

Jungkook cocked his head, a confused look on his face. But then he shook it off.

“I think…” he said hesitantly in English, then shook his head to correct himself, “Ah um no, I thought you were here on Wednesday?”

You shook your head.

“No, um, my schedule says Tuesday. So, unless it’s wrong then…”

Jungkook put two fingers to the bridge of his nose in thought.

“Aiishh, no you are right, I’m sorry. I’m not here very often so I never can remember which day.”

You began taking off your gloves.

“It’s-it’s okay, I can go, come back at a better time…”

He waved his hands in front of him in protest.

“No, no, stay, continue, please. I don’t want to be an... interrupt... interruption? That’s the right word?” a blush formed on his face as he chuckled at himself.

You smiled. Cute.

“Yes, that’s right. Thank you. I’m almost done, I promise.”

He smiled at you again and nodded.

“Jungkook-ah!” Cho-hee yelled from the kitchen.

Jungkook then bowed to you and whispered a quick “thank you” before disappearing into the other room.

You hadn’t realized how tense your body had become until you they were out of your sight and you released your muscles with a deep breath.

You quickly decided to keep their conversation to yourself; no point in letting them know you accidentally heard every word and understood, right? You wouldn’t tell anyone, after all it wasn’t your business. Still, there was that thing you felt for not speaking up right away. What was this feeling again? Oh yeah. Guilt. You tried to shake it off and just continued scrubbing.

There were, thankfully, no more loud conversations between the two of them while you cleaned, but just as you were finishing up in the last room of the home you heard the front door open and close. Were you by yourself again? You listened for noises. Silence. You couldn’t help but feel a bit of relief.

However, upon stumbling back into the kitchen with all your cleaning supplies you noticed Jungkook sitting on a stool at the kitchen island. He was scrolling through his phone and eating a bowl of cereal. He jumped when he saw you, clutching his tattoo covered hand to his chest.

“Holy shit, I forgot you were here,” he stated breathlessly.

Your face turned hot.

“Sorry, I’m... sorry for startling you. And again, for being here while you’re here; the, um, schedule mix up, I’m, uh, not sure what happened…” you stumbled over your words. Real smooth.

He waved his hand while shoving another spoonful of cereal and milk into his mouth.

“No, no, really, it’s my fault. I forget the schedule sometimes.”

You shrugged and nodded.

“Yes, well, I imagine you’re pretty busy most of the time.”

Shit. The words fell out of your mouth before you could stop them. Weren’t you not supposed to know who he was? You mentally smacked yourself in the forehead.

He didn’t seem bothered though, he just replied with a nod and a small “mhmm”, as if to say, ‘you’re not wrong’.

You started walking towards the front door to leave (before you could get yourself in even more trouble), but right as you did so Jungkook lifted the cereal box up from its place on the counter, looked at you and asked, “Want some?”

You stopped in your tracks and hesitated.

“Umm… I’m not sure… I’m allowed?”

You felt silly for saying this as you were a grown ass adult, but you knew it was true. There were so many rules put in place with this job, and they hadn’t quite gotten to the clause about eating the client’s cereal.

Jungkook stood up and walked around to the cupboard, pulling a bowl down from the shelf and grabbing a spoon from the drawer.

He placed them at the spot across from him and gave you a small smile before sitting back down.

“It’s okay. I’m okay. Your secret is safe with me.”

He ran his fingers along his lips like a zipper which made you both laugh.

“That is my favorite cereal…” you admitted, putting your things on the floor and walking over to the stool.

As you were sitting down, Jungkook began pouring the milk into your bowl. You stared at it confusingly, caught off guard for a second. Not cereal first? He read your expression immediately.

“I know, I am weird, I put milk first, okay?”

You put your hands up and laughed, a blush on both your faces.

“I didn’t say anything,” you retaliated.

Jungkook jokingly narrowed his eyes at you as he poured in the cereal, a grin still across his lips.

“I saw it in your face.”

You chuckled nervously and looked down at your now full bowl, taking a spoonful up to your mouth.

“What’s your name?” Jungkook suddenly asked.

You swallowed before answering.

“(y/n).”

There was a pause.

“What’s… yours?” you asked coyly, wondering if you could get away with pretend naivety.

Jungkook cocked his head and let a breathy giggle out his nose as he chewed, it scrunching and creating wrinkles.

“Hmm... my name is… Park Jimin.”

You snorted, thankful that no milk shot out your nose.

He laughed at that, his perfect teeth on display.

Clearly, he was testing you. Two could play at that game.

“Oh yeah? Well then it’s nice to meet you, Jimin.”

He didn’t break eye contact with you as he took another bite.

“You too, (y/n).”

You smiled and shook your head, looking down to fill your spoon once more.

The two of you continued eating, just causally chatting, mostly about you and your move to Korea and your life back in your home country. Jungkook seemed so shy and sweet, the complete counterpart to his “pretend” girlfriend.

Your stomach flipped at the memory of the conversation you had overheard. You had almost forgot about it by now, wrapped up in the random moment of eating cereal with Jungkook. The guilty feeling returned. You knew you had to let him know, especially after how kind he has been to you. He could hate you, that was okay, it’s not like you had anything to lose.

Oh, except your job.

You dropped your spoon into the now empty bowl and took a deep breath.

“Umm... I have to tell you something…” you began before you could chicken out from this awkward conversation you were about to have with basically a stranger.

He put his bowl to his lips and slurped the milk while simultaneously looking up at you, waiting for you to continue.

“I speak some Korean. And I heard your conversation earlier… with, um, Cho-hee, and I understood… well, most of it,” he slowly placed his bowl back on the counter in front of him and stared at you with wide eyes, his lips slightly parted open, “But I-I didn’t mean to, I’m sorry, I just wasn’t sure what to do, and I-I swear I will keep it to myself and never mention it ever again; I’ll just pretend I didn’t hear anything, okay? Seriously. I promise.”

He didn’t say anything, and you couldn’t read the expression on his face. He stared off into space for a minute, then stood up and grabbed the empty bowls, walking them over to the sink and placing them inside. His back was to you as he hunched over, his hands supporting him on either side. Your heart was beating a mile a minute, your hands getting sweaty as you fiddled with your fingers.

“I really am sorry,” you whimpered softly, “Please, please don’t have me fired.”

He turned back to you, a surprised look on his face, his doe eyes wide.

“What? Why would I do that?”

You looked down.

“I don’t know… for not telling you I heard right away. For listening. For… being here while you’re here.”

Jungkook sighed and ran a hand through his long black hair, then shut his eyes tightly.

“I’m not worried you tell anyone, it’s okay. I have been thinking about… trying to end it anyway.”

He opened his eyes again and suddenly looked tired and worried. But you didn’t want to pry. It really wasn’t your place.

“Okay.”

Was all you could come up with to respond.

He glanced at you briefly and gave you a shy side smile.

“So, I don’t tell anyone you ate with me, you don’t tell I have a fake girlfriend?” he said jokingly, knowing he was the one who persuaded you to eat with him in the first place.

You chuckled and stuck out your hand.

“Yeah. Deal?”

He put his hand in yours. It was warm and felt so strong against your small one.

“Deal.”

You were so thankful he didn’t seem upset about the whole thing. In fact, he almost seemed relieved that someone else knew now. In this short time spent with him you knew you were leaving with only high praises and positive thoughts of Jeon Jungkook.

“Well, I better get going,” you said, standing up from the stool. You grabbed all your supplies and looked back up him.

“Thank you, um, for the cereal and being so understanding about everything.”

He nodded at you.

“I will remember your schedule next time and not disturb you by being here, okay?”

You smiled.

“You didn’t disturb me, but okay.”

“Tuesdays at…umm what time do you get here?” he put his fingers between his brows in thought again.

“2pm.”

He grinned at you and gave you a thumbs up.

“Okay! Okay okay! I got it! Let’s get it!”

You laughed and he chuckled embarrassingly.

“Well it was nice to meet you, Jungkook. Take care.”

You gave him a little wave as you went to the front door, opening it and stepping out.

“You too, (y/n),” he called after you, “I’ll see you around.”

*

>>next

Masterlist

[manychocolatefactories]

CatCF Ruby Chocolate: Part 1, Kids and characters

This version is the last of the "four main versions". It is named after the new, fourth type of chocolate discovered in 2004 but only publically released in 2017. It is a modern version, supposed to take place in the 2010s. In this version, there are six Golden Tickets released in the world.

First Winner: Augustus Gloop

(Based on: Augustus Gloop)

This version of Augustus was inspired by the 2013 musical, more specifically by the idea of a cute little boy that eats "pigs limbs from limbs", and also swallows whole little dogs. So, something quite dark.

Augustus has a very cute face. A chubby, angelic face, like the puttis of the Renaissance paintings: blond curls, puppy eyes, a radiant smile. If he wants, he can make your heart melt like the video of a little kitten purring.

But Augustus is hungry. All of the time. He eats and snacks all day long. He dreams of food. He sleep-walks to eat. And while he adores candies and chocolate, there is one thing he loves more than anything else: meat. Meat and blood. He is a true carnivore, for him every meal rhymes with "meat". And if you leave him unattended, he will try to get meat by himself. For exemple, by attacking a living pig and devouring it on the spot. Or by biting off the fingers of a plump woman. But, of course, all of that with a cute smile and while saying sorry in the most adorable way.

Nowadays, if your cute you must be innocent, and thus forgien.

Augustus' body is not as cute as his face. It is said to be a "bloated mass of pink flesh", actually very similar to the body of a pig. His fatness is described as "ill-fitting", as if it was "forced" onto his body. His overweightness is not natural. It is puffy, flabby, bloated, but doesn't feel "natural".

Augustus also always wear ill-fitting clothes and suits.

Mrs. Gloop is a tiny woman, usually wearing a pale pink skirt suit, with her hair arranged in a crown of braids. She might be tiny, but she is bold, energetic, and speaks both clearly and loudly. She has so much presence, she often intimidates people. She keeps reminding others of how cute her son, and how eating makes him grow strong. She insists that she is a good mother who makes sure her son eats of everything (to have a balanced diet), eats well (by giving him only the finest and best-quality products (such as the Wonka bars and not their cheap rivals knock-offs), and of course, she only feeds her son because he "needs nourishment".

And don't dare criticize her, or she will scream so much, so hard and so high your ears will bleed. Just like the "original" Mrs. Gloop, this one keeps pointing out the "hooligans", saying it is better to stay at home eating food than being a violent thug on the street. My iteration sincerely believes that violence and criminality is due to poverty, hunger and lack of food, and if everyone was well-fed the world ould be at peace.

(For her, think of Mrs. Gloop the original, mixed with Bernadette from the Big Bang Theory )

Mr. Gloop (full name, Gordon Gloop, parody of Gordon Ramsey) is the son of a butcher, and the grandson of a slaughterhouse worker. He was always knee-deep in blood, and as a result grew accustomed to killing animals and cooking them (in fact the sight of blood makes him peckish). He is a tall and strong man, but suffers from a bad sleep due to his wife's horribly loud snoring.

He tried to teach his son the refinment of haute cuisine, for Mr. Gloop is a world-renowned cook, but to his disappointment Augustus only cares for raw meat and drinking blood-dipped candies. Mr. Gloop is so obsessed with having good dishes and best-quality ingredients, he keeps at the back of his house a little barnyard full of cattle (if he ever has to serve some steak or ribs to his guests). Trouble is, Augustus keeps sneaking into said barnyard to devour the poor animals.

Second Winner: Elvira Entwhistle

(Based on: Veruca Salt)

Veruca Salt being a pretty solid and complete archetype in herself (the girl who wants it all and has her parents buy her all), it is quite hard to reimagine her. So, I tried thinking about "why" she wants things - given the actions are settled and confirmed, it is the goals that are important, the motivation. And , in our time of modernity, what makes people want things? Trends, fashions, what is "in".

This reinterpretation of Veruca, named Elvira Entwhistle (after one of the old drafts names), is a mix between Chanel Oberlin from Scream Queens and Esmé Squalor from a Series of Unfortunate Events. She is a girl living for trends, for fashions, buying and acquiring all of the latest things "in", only to discard them as soon as they are "out" or not trendy anymore. Spending her time on social media, following models and influencers, she keeps going to luxury shops with her "personal assistant" (a nice name for what is a modern slave) to buy accessories, jewels, clothes, pets and whatever corresponds to the current trend.

Spoiled, impatient, self-centered and short-tempered, she needs to have the latest fashion NOW or she will get insanely angry. She also doesn't hesitate to change her personal appearance to fit all the new trends (for exemple her hair changes color and shape every week). Of course, she got her Golden Ticket because it was the current trend. Everyone was searching for it, so she had to get a Ticket to be the most "in" person around.

 Third Winner: Mike Teavee

(Based on: Mike Teavee)

For this version of Mike Teavee, I wanted to get away from the usual hyperactive and hyper-violent kid. I wanted to take back this common idea that television makes you stupid and sluggish, by making Mike the perfect embodiment of a couch potato (even though he was designed to look at the same time like a mushroom and a zombie).

Mr. and Mrs. Teavee are hard-working people, who spend their entire week working and only come back at home for very brief periods of times (usually in the week-end) before going right back at work. As a result, Mike barely knows his parents. He doesn't even know what kind of work they do. To "babysit" their son, the Teavees bought an enormous, high-definition television with a 666 channels pack, and kept telling him to not go outside due to the outside world being "dangerous" and filled with crushing bikes, killing cars, kidnappers and the like. This is how Mike began his life as a shut-in.

Spending his days looking at the television, never going outside, he ended up closing all shutters because light bothered him. Living in the dark, barely lifting his body from the couch, he only survives on candies, snacks, television-plates and microwaved/defrosted food (and the Teavee family can afford to buy a lot of it, because they are really, really rich - Mike has accounts in three different banks).

The result? A chalk-white boy. A bloated ans shapeless body. A full-moon face covered in craters and scars due to a bad case of acne. Two dead, sunken, small eyes. Speakin slowly, and often pronouncing only half of the words, Mike refuses to answer or talk to anyone while television is on : he only speaks during "uninteresting advertisements". The only thing muscular in his body are his fingers, that got a lot of muscle mass due to twitching frenetically all day long on the remote to channel-hop.

Mike is actually a very intelligent boy, but all his cleverness and intellectual gifts are buried and wasted by the brain-washing of his shut-in life and his television obsession. He got his Golden Ticket because his parents often buy him Wonka bars as "television snacks". Even though, in his own words, he prefers food that "tastes like plastic".

Fourth Winner: Violet Beauregarde

(Based on: Volet Beauregarde)

What is Violet, originally? She is a girl that seeks fame and attention, that is snarky, that is nasty towards people, and that does stupid records. What reflects that perfectly in our day and age? Reality television shows!

Violet Beauregarde was strongly inspired by the most brainless and "sassy/nasty" stars of reality television and the Internet. She is a teenage girl wearing clothes of such bright, flashy and clashing colors it often hurts people's eyes. Her face is covered in makeup, her hair is covered in extensions and her hands are covered with fake fingernails.

She thinks she can be as rude and horrible as she wants, as long as she calls it "sassy". But on the other side, she considers "rude" anyone or anything that doesn't please her, or that is too "ugly" or "dirty" for her. She is the kind of girl that keeps screaming loudly "YAAAAAAASSS, bitches!" and "DAAAMMMNNNN", that calls herself "the queen", that chews ferociously on her gum all day long, and that says "Why are you touching me? See, you're touching me again!" while she is the one hitting people. She hates everything "old" and "boring". She keeps publishing musical albums that nobody actually buys, because she sings badly mere words (her singles being titled "Lalalala" and "Heyheyheyhey" - she never understood a song needed to have lyrics). Finally, her biggest dream is to be part of a TV-reality show.

Her father, Mr. Beauregarde, feeds his daughter's "bitchy diva" attitude and her delusions of grandeur by acting as his agent (just like in the 2013 musical). He is also the "ringleader" of Violet's circus (because Violet, with her clothes of ridiculous colors, and her enormous amount of makeup, has a clown subtext). As a result, Mr. Beauregarde is like a ringleader in acircus, a showrunner in a freak show, and also an agent. He "sells" his daughter, he organizes her interviews, he has people pay money for "extra time" with Violet, he shows her around, and finally he uses his whip (yes, he has a whip) to attack all those that try to "touch the product".

He is a short, flabby and balding man, that smokes very long and thick cigars, wears enormous rings and clothes that are garrish and clownish - his over-the-top and ridiculous fashion sense is clearly a compensation for what he lacks in height, hair and health.

 Fifth Winner: Marvin Prune

(Based on: Marvin Prune)

In the original drafts of Roald Dahl, Marvin Prune was a Mr. Know-it-All, a too-perfect schoolboy obsessed with studies, an arrogant bookworm, a haughty teacher's pet, you named it. In this version, i decided to keep the idea of Marvin being a "know-it-all", but instead of using school, books and the like, he rather uses modern technology and the Internet.

Marvin is a tech-obsessed boy. He lives for, with and through technology, to the point of neglecting to live in the real world. He thinks his over-use of technology, and all the knowledge it can provide him, make him an "intelligent" and "superior" boy (when in fact it does not).

He thinks he can claim to have been everywhere in the world because he visited virtually all the most important landmarks of the world. He claims he can speak all the languages in the world, but in fact he uses translation websites. He keeps tracks of all his bodily functions thanks to health monitors (heartbeats, blood pressure, cholesterole...) but not because he is concerned for his health, merely for the sake of knowing more things. For him, Googling something is the best solution to all your troubles, and as a result he is a self-centered and pompous boy.  

Due to his technology dependance, Marvin is actually quite a weak boy. Since he doesn't do any sport or physical activity, and since he rarely leaves his house (due to always ordering things online, having classes online and visiting places virtually), he is a quite thin and frail boy, if not emaciated - at least, a good chunk of his muscle mass has melted away.

The original parents of Marvin Prune were, in Dahl's works, teachers and school principals. I decided here to go with the opposite of a teacher : Mrs. Prune never does anything herself, and always blame it on others. There are problems in the world? For her people should fix it, but they are too lazy to do it - while she herself does nothing about it. Her son acts rude? "Someone should teach him good manners" she says. She loses all of her money? "That's because the people in charge of the economy are all incompetent!"

Mrs. Prune thinks of everything and everyone as stupid because it allows her to blame all of her problems and flaws on other people. But ultimately she never takes any kind of action herself. If someone should teach her son good manners, it is "those lazy teachers at school", certainly not her! She also dislikes things that are "foreign".

Marvin found the Golden Ticket when he ordered by mistake a chocolate bar in France : in truth, he wanted to buy a "tablet" (in French a tablet is tablette, and a chocolate bar is also a tablette de chocolat).

Marvin will also be incredibly frustrated inside Wonka's factory, because in there numeric devices mess up, stop weirdly or disfunction totally (the same way UFOs tend to mess up phones, radios, computers and the like). As a result, he becomes powerless and helpless.

 Sixth Winner: Charlie Bucket

(Based on: Charkie Bucket)

Here, I decided to really twist things up. To have a Charlie Bucket that isn't thin or malnourished, but fat! Yes, here's Chubby Charlie! (No, not Fat Charlie, this one is copyrighted)

Charlie's story is deeply linked to the story of the Wonka factory. The town Charlie lives in was built around the Wonka Factory a bit before the 20th century - it was a "worker town", created to allow the workers of the factory to live with their family next to their place of work. For more than fifty years the Factory was the only occupation and work of the town. But somewhere in the 1950s or 1960s, all the workers had to take an early retirement. They were kicked out, and the Factory closed to the public. The Factory was still working, but not hiring anyone anymore. This was an enormous blow to both the town's economy and moral. There was an economic crisis and poverty (since people were trained only to work in a candy factory).

But there was one good thing: since it was the town Wonka's products were created in, they were sold at must cheaper prices than anywhere else in the world, and all the ex-workers of the Factory got in exchange for their work coupons and reductions for themselves and all of their families - reductions on the Wonka products, of course. This was seen as a chance, because the Wonka products were world-renowned candies, even luxury goods in foreign countries. It was like being able to buy haute-couture as daily clothes and eat gastronomic cuisine every week-end.

But this good wasn't so "good". Indeed, given the poverty and lack of job in town, the ex-workers and their family relied more and more on the coupons and reductions, their diets filled with candy and sugary products. As a result, from the 1970s to the 2010s, the number of people suffering from obesity, diabetes and teeth problems blew up.

[ This background is actually a mix of two different real-world fact. Real-world fact 1: the Menier Chocolate Factory in France, aka the real-life Wonka Factory, was revolutionary for creating a town for its workers, and taking care of their health, education and the like, but closed after World War II, to the deception of everyone. Real-world fact 2: Coca-Cola, Nestlé and other big food industries tend to pay their employees with extra-sugary and extra-addictive if their own products in poor areas, such as South America - resulting in sicknesses and diseases.]

As a result, in this version Charlie is fat. Because in modern days, and in developped countries, poverty and malnourishment actually leads to obesity and diabetes, due to the cheapest food being candies and junk-food.

This version of Charlie is a very nice kid, but a kid addicted to the Wonka products. He grew up on the coupons, due to his family all being ex-workers. Grandpa Joe and Grandpa George both worked at the factory, but were too old or sick after being fired to find a new job ; Mr. and Mrs. Bucket had been trained for the factory and could barely afford new studies after its closing. Mr. Bucket became a street cleaner, while Mrs. Bucket became a receptionist and secretary for a dental office (due to the rise of tooth diseases, dental offices boomed in town, but most are actually crooked or scams).

Charlie grew up in a very humble home, with two parents working really hard to have enough money to buy food for everyone. Of course, fresh or good food is too expensive. Charlie tries to help his family the best way he can with his part-time job (making people fill surveys) and by working really hard at school. But as the years go by, his weight and his health are beginning to cause problems. Due to not having any money he can't do sports, wich makes him gain weight, and the fattest he is the hardest it is to do sport, it's a vicious circle. Every year, the scale reveals he puts on more and more weight, and faster and faster - if he doesn't do something quick, he may end up obese.

And, as I mentionned before, Charlie is truly obsessed with the Wonka products, it is an addiction. He dreams of them at night. He sticks Wonka bars wrappers on the wall of his room like posters. He drools at the mere mention of a Wonka bar. He isn't spoiled, cruel or nasty, but he is too addicted for his own good. In fact, when he finds money in the stret and buy chocolate bars with it, it is a pure act of selfishness, because he doesn't have the willpower to turn away from the candy shop and go back home.

[huihuiheart]

Knight Without His Armor- D&D  Series

So going to be the first part of my Dungeons and Dragons series with Stray Kids.

Not so say this is for someone in particular, but.........maybe it is....you know who you is.....

Series Pairing: reader x Knight! Chan, reader x Dark Prince! Hyunjin, reader x Thief! Felix, reader x Fairy! Jisung

This chapter will be focused on Knight! Chan, ignore the stupid title please.....

Genre: fluff??, angst ??, smut 

Word Count: 2,278

Warnings: kinky-ish?? Not really, it's really just love making honestly..... I don’t know that there are too many warnings in this chapter cause it shouldn’t be too much. Things will certainly get much filthier and more scandalous and more bloody most likely as this series goes on. I don’t have it all perfectly mapped out yet, but anyways I have this chapter in my brain, so let’s get to it!

Next Part

Your night started as wonderful as you could have hoped for, finally having convinced the boys to play dungeons and dragons with you. Everything was already set up by the time they got over. You sat the boys Christopher, Felix, Hyunjin, and Jisung around the table, having bribed them with snacks before pulling out the latest dungeons and dragons stuff you had gotten. While being out recently, a set of dice and a D&D map had caught your eye, and with tonight coming up, you decided to get it to have something special.

The boy’s imagination went crazy with a mix of cliche and their own unique twist. Though unfortunately for you, they slotted you into the cliche part. Deeming you the prized princess as they all laugh and giggle as you rolled your eyes, but if it got them to play, then you’d put up with it for one game.

After everyone rolls once, things are going great until you roll a second time, starting to feel a little queasy. After you roll a third time, it’s noticeably worse. You tell the boys you’re going to be right back, watching Hyunjin with the dice as you move to stand as the dice hit the table, the whole world goes black as you drop to the ground, passing out.

When you come to, your eyes slowly start to blink open until you notice your surroundings and sit up with a start notice that the room you’re in is unfamiliar to you. Twice the size of your modest apartment and adorned in gold, silver, and precious gems you’d never yet seen in person.

“Oh! I didn’t mean to startle you, princess!” A familiar voice and chuckle sound through the room, and it has your head whipping towards it immediately.

“Chris? Where are we? What’s going on?” You ask, moving to get out of bed, slightly panicking still as your eyes dart nervously around.

Chan is easing you to sit back on the bed, “Easy princess, easy~ You’re safe here. We’re in your room. For now, anyways ….we were discussing our plan when you fainted, so I brought you back here.”

“W-What?…..C-Christopher enough….y-you guys are taking this too far….”You try to take deep breaths feeling like you might black out again, which proves to be too much for your brain to process so quickly.

“What are you talking about Y/N? Please calm down ….we’re going to get you out of here soon enough, and then you won’t have to worry about a thing.” Chan gently places his hand on your shoulder with a small smile, one that quickly dropped as he saw your tears, tears that came without your realizing as you registered the fact that Chan truthfully had no idea what was going on. You had always been able to tell when he was lying after all …..not that he hid it well from anyone.

“O-Okay…..j-just assume I don’t know what’s going on….I-I think I hit my head rather hard.” You tried to cover so that Chan hopefully wouldn’t get suspicious, but you needed to figure out what was going on and how to get home hopefully. At the very least, you wanted the boys back with you, all of them! You didn’t know what you would do without them in your life.

Chan sighs softly, shaking his head, “Sounds about right for you…” He mumbles softly, but his tone is worried more than anything else, the other part of it only mildly teasing,  “The dark prince….Hwang Hyunjin plans to force you to be his bride in two days so that he can take all your kingdom easily next, but he’s only going to bring bad things to your kingdom, so we have to get out and get home so that we can warn everyone of what’s to come ……I found a map to help us get home.”

You gasp, unable to help it as the map he pulls out is the exact one from your D&D game, causing Chan to look at you in shock, surprised by your reaction, “I-It’s nothing really…..anything else I need to know?”

“There’s someone who can help us…..his name is Felix…..he’s a thief and escaped the prison in this castle three times to date. They brought him in today and plan to execute him at dawn, so we’re going to unlock him, and he’ll help us out of the castle, but we have to go tonight ...are you feeling up to it?” Chan questions softly, to which you nod.

You squeak when you feel Chan pressing his lips against yours, but you gladly kiss him back. Sure he was your friend, but with how tempting a man he was, your imagination couldn’t help but wander …..quite a bit at that …

“My princess….”Chan’s voice becomes gravelly as he lays you back, “…you’re so strong. Even if it’s just for your people…” He trails off, taking your breath away as he kisses down your jaw to your neck, “Let me thank you again, my love~……and let me feel you once more before we’re on the run. Grant me that wish your highness so that if anything happens to me, I have the peace of memories with you.”

Your heart both fluttered and ached at his meaningful words, but the softness in his eyes as he asked made it impossible for you to refuse him this as you nodded through your widened eyes as you registered his change in demeanor. Chan’s eyes darkened and showed that while he was the loving man he’d been a second ago, this wasn’t going to be soft and vanilla-like you had been expecting.

Chan reaches to untie your corset back on your dress before gripping and ripping it off, “I’ve wanted to do that to this dress since he gave it to you..”He growls darkly.

“W-Who?….H-Hyunjin?” You ask softly, gulping as soon as you see the look he gives you. Realizing your mistake as his dark eyes bore into your soul, and despite thinking that you probably shouldn’t have said it, part of you was enjoying it as your wetness seeped through your panties, registering the dominance rolling off Chan.

“F-Fucking say his name while I’m taking you to bed again and see what happens, princess~” Chan nips at the shell of your ear with his threat, causing your heart to hammer in your chest as he said princess in such a tone as if to challenge you.

“Hyunjin~” You moan softly to challenge right back before what’s left of your dress is ripped to shreds by the man before you. Though you’re surprised as he gently spreads your bare thighs, the softness is the exact opposite of anything you would have expected, and you didn’t know what to make of it as he kisses up your thigh towards your panties. His eyes screamed that he was up to something, and the anticipation was driving you mad. Soon enough, you feel his teeth biting at your hips as he looks at you coyly before they move to take the fabric of your panties between them, “ Oops~ Guess I should’ve been paying more attention~” He teases smugly through your panties as he’s dragging them down with his teeth.

“F-Fucking tease~ I thought you were going to punish me~” You quip, quirking an eyebrow, and swiftly rewarded with a slap to your inner thigh.

“All with good time, love~ Though we both know that you hate when I tease the fuck out of you….so that’s a pretty decent punishment in itself too.” Chan doesn’t miss a beat, and it has you moaning. Suddenly wishing with how well this Chan knew you that you’d given your Chan permission to do this long ago. Considering how good it seemed when you had barely even been touched, mind swirling with all the possibilities of where he was going to take things tonight.

“Do you have the patience for that, Christopher?” You inquire softly, and he picks up on how your question isn’t to tease this time.

Chan hums in thought, nipping at your collarbone as two of his fingers rub through your folds to gather some of your wetness before meeting your clit in soft circles, “Not tonight, princess….not tonight...” He sighs softly though his voice sounded strained when he spoke as if it was already impossibly hard to hold back.

“C-Chris….”You moan softly, eyes fluttering shut to which he growls softly into your ear in disapproval.

“Don’t you close those eyes, princess…” Chan demands fingers leaving your clit to slap your thigh again before they return to your core, slowly dipping into your sopping entrance, “…want you to keep your pretty little eyes on me….want to remember who was the one to make you feel like this.” He continues, fingers carding through your hair before gripping the back of your head and lifting it so that you could watch his fingers disappearing inside of you. “Watch what I’m doing to you~”

Chan’s eyes also trail down to the sight of his fingers thrusting oh so slowly into your core, your soft moans and whimpers music to his ears as he ingrained each one into his memory.

“C-Christopher please~” You plead softly on the brink of insanity at his teasing, the sight before you proving to be too much when coupled with it, “I-I need you to fuck me now, please~”

Chan slaps your hand away as it starts to rub his bulge through his pants, “Hands off, love~ This is about you feeling good. Until you cum you aren’t getting my cock….and don’t think I’m going any faster.~” The full scope of your punishment is revealed though he does show a sliver of mercy knowing you wouldn’t likely cum just from his teasing thrusts, and while he doesn’t speed up, his fingers thrust into you harder, curling deliciously with each thrust, thumb pressing against your clit. His other hand still holds your head to watch each action against your pussy. Taking satisfaction in each cry that left your lips leading up to your orgasm, moaning himself feeling the way your core clamps down around his fingers so tightly when you cum. Pulling them away to suck clean, he gently lays your head back down again and moves, to quickly get his suddenly extremely constricting clothes off as well.

Your whines draw his gaze back to you, smirking when he realized that your impatience is due to seeing his bare skin, “Don’t worry princess, you’re going to get what you want, and as long as your eyes are on me like a good girl then it’s not going to go anywhere.” He assures softly, before taking his place over you again, teasing his tip through your folds before suddenly pushing entirely inside of you with a moan.

“C-Christopher!” Your squeal, coupled with your nails raking down his back only encourages his actions, not giving you time to adjust as he relentlessly thrusts into you. He presses his forehead to yours softly in contrast to the way his hips meet your thighs in bruising contact, while his hands keep them spread as wide as you can take. Chan’s hips were moving so sinfully, yet his eyes held a softness….the teasing side still there as well as he kept his lips just out of reach from you.

“I-I don’t think so, love….you’re going to give me every little sound and every facial expression that I’m fucking out of you. Y-You can get all the pleasure you want if you just give that to me.” He promises, his hands leaving your thighs to pinch and pull on your nipples. Gentleness barely there is his full focus is on flooding your senses with as much ecstasy as he could, eyes focused on every tiny detail of his face, to see how it’s changing with each stroke of his cock against your walls or touch to your nipples. Until he’s decided he’s had enough patience even for this situation, and he’s moving his hips, angling them to hit the spot that would have you seeing stars. The knot in your stomach impossibly close as he knew would be the case when he started to thrust the way he was now, yet, he also knew that there was one more thing he could add to give you that sweet release in the best way possible. His thumb finding your clit and sending wave after wave of your high wracking through your trembling body, barely keeping enough sanity to keep your eyes open for him as had asked of you. You’re glad you did, though thinking, that if you ever get the chance to fuck Bang Chan again, you’ll have to will yourself to keep your eyes open for the godly sight of Chan cumming for you. His thrusts get sloppy as he rides you both through your highs, body glistening in the sunset light flooding through the window against his form as sweat beads on his skin from your activities. Best of all …. his head thrown back in a grunty moan being ripped through his throat, the sound raspy and growly, and you could see it coming before you heard it. Chan panting softly afterward, leaning down to give you a heated yet exhausted, breathless kiss before pulling away to get a damp cloth to clean you.  

“Rest up, princess, I’ll get everything prepared and wake you a bit into the night when it should be safe to go.” Chan kisses your forehead now, tucking you in as you start to doze off already, “We’ll meet up with Felix and get to safety then…don’t you worry, my princess.”

[jasontoddiefor]

Batfam Fanfic Rec Sunday!

I’ve decided to do something worthwhile with my 1400+ Batfam bookmarks, therefore I welcome you to my first Fanfic Rec Sunday. Every Sunday I guess I’ll recommend fanfictions for a specific theme, AU, trope, etc.

Feel free to request specific themes or AUs and I’ll do my best to search for fitting fanfiction!

(”Oh, I’ve always wanted to read something like a Brooklyn 99 crossover!” ”I’ve got your back, young reader.”)

This week’s theme is Time Travel & Batman Beyond!

And I’ve got 28 amazing fanfics for you below the read more!

Have fun and don’t forget to leave these lovely writers a comment!

Title: A Gift to Cherish Summary: The wonderful thing about being hurdled through time and space is that Jason doesn’t have to deal with the fallout of not listening to Bruce. The awful, terrible, no good very bad part of hurtling through time and space is that he has no idea where he is. It’s all up to wormhole he was thrown into to decide where he gets spit out to. In which Jason is thrown into a future he never came back to, and gets to heal, just a little bit. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20226775

Title: A Good Place Summary: Damian Wayne is kidnapped and sent back years through time. Together, he and Father – who's only been Batman for a mere six months –must figure out how to return him to his own time. Over the course of the next week, Damian discovers that Mexican gangsters do not mess around, that social workers find Bruce annoying, that Bruce might be a little messed up, and that crystal chandeliers create the fondest memories. Oh. And Alfred has hair. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13515501

Title: A hundred miles through the desert Summary: Finding himself nearly three decades into the past hadn't been part of Jason's plans for the day, but he could manage. Having no idea how he got there, no clear path home and a recently orphaned Bruce Wayne determined to drag Jason into his search for his parents' killer - that might be a little more complicated. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18197330

Title: And They’re Only Getting Better Summary: 90's!Tim Drake wakes up in his Red Robin body. Exhausted from a YJ mission, he chooses to focus on getting through a normal day so as not to disrupt things for his future self. But, y'know, his way. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10522401

Title: A Time to Reflect Summary: Bruce finds himself stuck in the past, and while waiting for the league to pick him up, struggles to get along with his past self. Plus being in a practically empty manor is a bigger adjustment than he'd like to admit. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20156707

Title: Back to the Past Summary: Bruce is Robin, his dad isn't Batman though, despite how similar the outfits are. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17237258

Title: Careful what you wish for Summary: Sometimes, Batman can’t help but miss the time when Dick was the one and only Robin. In a world with magical imps, he should have known better. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15009647

Title: Choose - Lose Summary: Tim looked to the empty space where the time traveler had stood, a forgettable man with a forgettable face in a forgettable shabby brown suit, and had made his unforgettable offer. You can save him. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18320876

Title: Cocoa in April Summary: There are strict rules when it comes to time-traveling. But when Dick is faced with an adorable young Bruce when he's accidentally sent back to 1988, he can't resist a conversation. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16888914

Title: death sucks (and then you live) Summary: Red Hood is starting to put some serious plans in motion when he's attacked by a not-so-welcome blast from the past. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15532380

Title: Do Not Stand At My Grave and Weep Summary: I am not here I do not sleep. Terry wants to say he's okay with cemeteries. But taking your kinda boss, kinda mentor, kinda surrogate father-figure to his creepy family cemetery does not make him feel good. He didn't realize just how much Bruce mourns. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19378990

Title: In my arms Summary: There was nothing he could do. Nothing he could change. Those were the rules of the past. Besides, babies cried all the time, even if this was less a cry and more of an angry wail from a little one pushed past its limits. But still. He should have been on his way. He likely would have been, had this been a different home. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20728655

Title: Innocence and experience Summary: What starts as a normal patrol ends up shaking up the world of Young Justice when a boy claiming to be a future Robin drops from the sky while chasing after a man in white. The Team struggles to deal with Damian and the future he represents all the while trying to return him to his rightful time. But for what purpose is this new villain in the past and can Damian and the Team stop him? Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9224534

Title: I Used to Be an Adventurer Like You, Then I Took an Arrow to the Knee Summary: Stephanie was just on patrol and now she’s stuck somewhere, sometime, with Bruce. They bleed and bond and mostly try to keep each other alive— you know, just a Tuesday. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16437716

Title: life, if well lived Summary: Jason wakes up from a time-travel mishap to find Thomas and Martha Wayne hovering over him. Just another day in the life, right? ...Not quite. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18378512

Title: Lost and Found Summary: Bruce is dying. Slowly, painfully. Not going out in a blaze of glory and defiance for a greater purpose. He's caving under the weight of his own age, under the damage he's done to his heart through the years. Terry can't be by his side constantly to do damage control. More than that, he can't watch it happen with no reprieve. But there's no one else. Terry needs help keeping vigil by an ill Bruce's bedside. But the old man had kids once, didn't he? Are the bridges he burned unable to be rebuilt? As he observes, Terry definitely starts to wonder how this family used to be. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12214692

Title: meet the robins Summary: sad little orphan bruce travels to the future and meets the family he’ll have one day :) too bad he can’t stay forever :( Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2685095

Title: Mint Chocolate Chip Summary: Summer vacations have been going on just long enough for Jason to start getting bored, when he gets an unexpected visitor. From the future. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18860545

Title: no one seems to go Summary: “Father,” Bruce mumbles, “I am something of an outlaw.” “Were you always this dramatic, son?” Thomas asks, the bed beneath them shaking as he shifts. “Alfred.” Bruce snorts, shaking his head. “Theatrics are his speciality, remember?” Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15663957

Title: Of your own making Summary: Jason died. Then he came back, forty years too late. It takes time to adjust. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20211523

Title: One Big Batty Family Summary: In which Billy Batson and the McGinnis siblings join the present day Batfam. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1133567

Title: Oops I did it again Summary: "You're insane." Or possibly an insane dream from eating chili dogs before bed. Which one Jason wasn't sure since he had yet to pinch himself. "I'm a member of the longer existing Dead Robins Club that doesn't even give you a lousy shirt. Not shocking Jay." Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/936921

Title: Raisin Delight Summary: A year after Jason Todd dies, Tim Drake and Bruce Wayne take on the case when they notice strange occurrences in Gotham city. This has disastrous consequences, but so do most things that Tim gets caught up in, so what's new, really. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15644082

Title: Realization Summary: Bruce makes a discovery while conducting a check-up on Terry. Takes place midway through the "Splicers" episode. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/377468

Title: Strange Manor Summary: Bruce let his eyes close to wallow for a moment in worry and fear for Jason. One second, two, three. He opened his eyes. Time to act. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13474308

Title: The Incandescent Rose Summary: Terry McGinnis (the new Batman) impulsively asks marriage proposal advice from his mentor and grumpy father figure Bruce Wayne. When the older man describes a proposal in which he had been yelled at and abandoned, Terry can't help investigate the matter by seeing some of Bruce's most knowledgeable friends and family members. This search prompts someone else into action. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19414228

Title: The Time Travel Problem Summary: Barry Allen and Clark Kent, follow Bruce around during a time travel mission through Gotham City's recent past. If only Bruce would stay focused. Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21143081

Title: Younger Bruce, Older Jason Summary: Jason wakes up in the dead of night to an unexpected visitor. (Like you’ve never heard that one before...) Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14867975

[toartemis]

My Cherries and Wine

Part 3 of The Moon’s Serenades series. You can read on Ao3.

Summary:  Cardan and Jude haven't had the time to be alone with each other in a while. They decide to play a game.

Word Count: 4794

Warnings: Oral sex, rough sex, dom/sub undertones, top!Jude, bottom!Cardan, degradation kink if you squint, biting.

Preview: The fabric bunches up around her waist and he scrapes his nails up her inner thigh. Her hand shoots down to grab his wrist and she doesn't know whether it's to push him away or pull him further towards her. She doesn’t do either, yet. Cardan watches her hesitate beneath him, and he links their free hands together, lacing their fingers. 

He waits for her signal. It only takes Jude a small moment to gather herself and nod.

---------

Dawn passes outside the windows of the palace’s Council room. Jude, in a facetious manner, has designated said windows as her favorites for when she needs to space out during boring meetings. There is something about them that she likes. They have some extra flare or sparkle that suit her fancy compared to others in the room. Or, maybe, she just started to imagine they do because the repetitive arguments she has to listen to have started driving her insane over the last months.

So far, the day went exactly how she expected: Wake up, meet with the Bomb, sign papers, sit in the throne room (and hear what complaints the Folk have about her), spar as a way to release frustration, then attend this meeting with Cardan and have the rest of the night to herself. 

Of course, Council meetings never turn out to be simple, and she's been here for eons it seems. Her free time disappeared out those favorite windows, along with Jude’s attention, around hour four. 

She could tell when she walked in that this meeting would be longer than originally expected, even more so than usual. Cardan was already there, lazing in his designated, beautifully carved  chair, at one end of the long, engraved table. He had his chin resting on his fist and his eyes were already glazed over. She sighed as she accepted her dull fate for the night.

Jude locked eyes with her husband when she sat down in her equally extravagant seat at the opposite end of the table. His gaze said please put me out of my misery. She raised a brow as a response, and the meeting began. 

Orlagh was discussed, along with Madoc, who promptly had any and all titles and privileges removed after Jude’s ascension to the crown and was being kept on close watch, along with any creature who might be keeping contact with him. Jude listened intently to these topics, but began to zone out at the mention of more mundane things. Honestly, she never would have imagined that she would let herself be idle in any part of her job as the High Queen, but talks of the woods and colors of the land get monotonous quickly. Eventually, the subject changes again to the most controversial issue of the last six months.

The Folk and their lasting resentment towards Jude. 

Really, over the short amount of time since she was crowned Queen, many of the fae have taken a liking to her. Much more and much sooner than she thought they would. The land has flourished and ancient beings have long settled with her new status, but there are still the stubborn creatures that despise her and threaten her life. 

Jude pretends she is confident in how safe she feels, but she knows she could be assassinated at any moment if they don't keep up with the constant precautions they've been taking, like the personal band of knights she has flanking her almost every waking moment. Even the enchanted clothing she wears that alerts her of potential ill intent any fae may have towards her when they get close enough doesn’t soothe the nerves. These meetings always focus on new measures that might be taken to ensure her and Cardan's safety and how to possibly quell the rage and unrest of their enemies. It's more of the same at this point. 

Jude has always been more involved with the meetings than Cardan, but damn it all if they don't bore her as much as they do her husband. She's dished out as many ideas as the rest of the Council, but they're running dry at this point. It’s been so figuratively beaten to death that she can almost genuinely smell the blood.

The underlying conclusion she's made is that it'll just take time.

So she sits and listens for the first few hours of this, then she lets herself space out again. 

She adjusts her circlet, watches the sky, and feels the thrumming of the land as they drone on, her thoughts running about. 

Making sure everything not only runs, but runs smoothly, is much harder than it seems. 

Jude is good at juggling responsibilities and coming up with barely-successful plans, but running a kingdom correctly is like trying to stack jagged stones together a mile high without them falling over.

Even so, that being coupled with the threats thrown her way every day, she would be lying if she said she hasn't been enjoying her life as of late. The only thing she can't really stand is the fact that she sees Cardan much, much less than she expected she would. 

Sure, they rule together, and often see each other before bed, but they most often have different focuses in their duties, so they are not together much more than they are. 

She hates it. 

Once Jude figured out that they both simply enjoy each other's company, whether it be just having a conversation or reading near each other, she began missing him terribly every second they weren't together. It was frightening to be so attached to someone.

She knows so much more about him now. And he knows all about her. The thought that she has someone she can share herself with as they learn to live and heal together thrills her.

Even now, she smiles at the thought. 

Jude steals a glance at her husband across the table and finds him watching her. Cardan has a glint in his eyes that she doesn't quite recognize, which is disconcerting to her, and his mouth quirks up just a bit as she watches him. 

She feels butterflies in her stomach, and the next breath she takes hitches in her chest. 

When was the last time we even…?

Too long, apparently. Jude's thoughts immediately turn to some of their previous escapades. It's hard for them not to.

Jude and Cardan had weeks of lively, fresh joy where they had ample time to explore each other. But then they got busier, and their time together quickly shifted to barely getting their hands on each other whenever possible. Now they're both so tired after long nights that the farthest they ever get is falling into bed, and occasionally into each other's arms, before sleep takes over.

Jude decides at this moment that she refuses to be tired today. Cardan, it seems, is on the same page.

"Are we done prolonging things, or shall we keep going and eventually arrive at the same conclusion as always: that there's nothing we can do right now," his voice cuts through whatever conversation was happening. The Council members either look annoyed or insulted. One of them speaks.

"If... the High King wishes to meet again another time—"

"He does," Cardan says, and he stands abruptly, chair scraping across the floor. Jude stands with him, but with better concealed bravado. 

The rest of the Council follows looking exasperated. Jude decides to simply leave without looking behind her. Cardan is right on her heels. 

Her heart is pounding, a smile tugging at her lips. They only make it a few corridors and turns away from the Council room before Jude spins to face him. He's mere inches from her, breathing heavily. 

They really are on the same page, now. 

But Jude doesn't want this to go the way some of their other trysts have: quick and dirty, so good but over too soon.

No, she wants to prolong this. 

So she leans into him, threads her hands through the hair at the nape of his neck and says, "I want to play a game."

Immediately, want flashes in Cardan's eyes. 

"Oh?" He says, head tilting to the side. "What did you have in mind?"

Jude tightens her hands in his hair and pulls his mouth to hers. The kiss is rushed, all teeth and sharp exhales, a startling promise. When she pulls away, his lips chase hers, and something hot and dark spreads through her chest at the sight of him. His eyes shut, his mouth open, and she kisses him again.

Jude prides herself on many things. Lately, one of those is that she’s gotten much better at thieving, and she’s come to know that sly hands are very useful in all types of situations. In this moment, they work better than ever. She’s leaning towards his ear, mouth nipping along his jaw. Her hand is at the crown on his head and she slips it off without him even noticing.

With a smirk and one last kiss below his ear, she whispers, "Catch me."

And she bolts. 

It takes Cardan a few moments, then Jude hears him chuckle from somewhere far behind her. She barely glances back as she rounds the corner into another hall, but she sees he hasn't moved.

Giving me a bit of a head start, then.

Jude rips off her own crown, dislodging some of her hair from its braid, and runs faster, turning another corner, her leather slipper clad feet slapping against the floor. 

She really picked a horrible day to wear a dress. It’s a sheer, flowy one at that, pale green with stupid poofy sleeves and tiny embroidered flowers. But no matter, she works with what she's got. 

She gathers the front of her dress in one hand, both crowns in the other, and sprints into a room that leads into a stairwell. In there, she feels something in the air shift, and stops for a second. 

She knows Cardan must have started after her by now. She set no time limit, and he seemed impatient back there. Jude feels giddy, and takes a moment to be glad that the faeries living in the palace should be asleep soon. It means less obstacles to watch out for. She ascends the stairs and slips into a library there. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she the Roach told her there was a secret passageway in this room, but she has no clue where, so she starts feeling around the walls and bookcases for anything strange. Jude finds the hidden latch by one of the smaller shelves in the back of the room surprisingly easily. What she learned during her time with the Court of Shadows stays with her.

As she steps into the tunnel, Jude thinks of Cardan catching her in here.

Exhilarating panic shoots through her chest and desire pools deep in her. Jude almost regrets not giving him any instructions. Anything she said he would have followed with no thoughts of cheating. She could have given herself an advantage in this little game, but she didn’t. She loves a challenge, especially one where the odds are against her. And they definitely are right now.

Cardan is a creature of the night; a boy who blends with shadows, and though there is daylight shining through the sparse windows of the palace, there are more dark spaces than bright for him to creep through.  

It is impossible for her to outrun him. But she will try to out maneuver him. All at once, this game becomes real, and she desperately wants to win. 

She makes her was through the tunnel as quickly as she feels comfortable, and pushes the door open on the other side. When she closes it behind her, she realizes she's in the opposite side of the palace, and she grins. Bless those secret passageways.

Jude doesn't linger. She runs out of the room she's in and almost smacks into a royal guard in the hall.

"Your Grace—" the fae says to her, but she's already darting away, dress whipping out behind her. Another staircase comes into view in one of the Northern entrance halls, but it's grand and exposed. She has the option to continue to the corridor on the other side of the room or take her chances with the stairs. 

She chooses the latter. 

Her footsteps echo in the empty room, one that isn't used much company because it's a part of the palace that’s bare except for some hidden gardens, which she thinks would be too obvious for her to head towards, so, stairs it is. She's nearing the top when she feels a prickling on the back of her neck and her heart stops as well as her feet. Her chest heaves from the excitement. There’s sweat on her brow and her skin feels a little too tight. Her hand twitches around the crowns in her grasp. She steels herself before glancing back over her shoulder. 

Sure enough, Cardan stands at the base of the stairs, a smirk planted on his face.

She moves again before she's even thinking, increasing her speed, heart beating out of her ribs.

She should have heard him coming, but she knows he can erase all sounds of his movements if he wants to. 

Creature of the night. 

She barrels through a door to her left and finds herself in a pair of empty apartments. Skirting around a chair in her way, she runs through to the other room and freezes. 

It's just a study. There's no other way out this way as she had hoped. She turns around and confirms what she already knows: she's trapped herself. One way in, one way out. 

And that's when Cardan appears out of thin air, silent as a cat, in the doorway she just ran through across the room. Intoxicating delight spikes through her blood, and her mind is screaming runrunrunrun—

So she does, and a terrified giggle escapes her without her permission. She leaps over a low stool and scrambles behind a desk at the far end of the room, breath coming in shallow bursts, before she whips around to face the study door, her back to the wall. 

Her hair has come loose from its braid, her skin is tingling all over and her stomach drops when she sees Cardan standing in the middle of the room.

He has triumph in his eyes along with something else that's deep and predatory. 

Jude swallows. 

Her only way out is if he comes for her and she somehow makes it around him.

Again, she curses her dress. She'd have a much better chance if she was wearing trousers like he is.

Neither of them move. Jude's heart is in her throat. 

Come on, come on, come on—

Still, he doesn't budge, just looks at her like he's a wolf salivating over a kill. 

A jittery feeling takes over her limbs. She feels a pang of fear, which she knows is ridiculous, but she can't help it. 

Honestly, Cardan can be terrifying. She used to not let herself forget that.

The toe of his boot moves forward an inch and Jude flinches. Cardan laughs. He's messing with her. She feels a spike of anger. 

He does it again, inches his foot forward, and that’s all it takes for Jude to sprint to her right and for Cardan to move after her. She knocks over a table and chair to put obstacles between them before running as hard as she can into the other room and towards her chance to escape, but she barely makes in ten feet before she feels arms suddenly squeezing around her like a snake. 

Jude shouts, the sound a strange mixture of shock and excitement, and tries pushing at his arms. 

No luck there.

He swings her around and carries her back into the room of their miniscule showdown, all the while she scrambles to get free.

He drops her in front of one of the bookshelves, and she barely has time to regain her footing before he's got her pressed up against it, books digging into her back, his body trapping hers. She releases her hold on their crowns, lets them clatter on the floor, and tries wriggling away from him, but goes still when his teeth are suddenly at her neck. 

Her pulse is beating wildly, anticipation too high, and he drags his teeth to her ear.

"Caught you," he whispers, then withdraws to look her in the eyes. "Do make it harder for me next time." 

Jude scoffs. The smile he gives her is wicked. 

She jerks her chin at him. 

"You assume this will happen again?"

He looks at her lips.

"I know it will."

"Asshole," she says with an eye roll.

"What an inappropriate word for a queen to say."

"Oh, fuck you, Cardan."

"Yes, please," He responds and rolls his hips into hers. Jude gasps. 

He is so annoying. So incredibly insufferable and irritating and beautiful and she loves him so much. 

She closes that last bit of distance between them with a searing kiss. He pushes her back against the bookcase even harder and she bites his bottom lip in retaliation. She tries to get her hands on him, but it's hard with their proximity and the way he's caging her in, so she attempts tugging at his shirt where it's tucked into his trousers, but it doesn't work either. 

Cardan grinds his hips again, then pulls away just enough to sneak a hand between them to yank her skirts up. Jude's breath stutters from her chest.

The fabric bunches up around her waist and he scrapes his nails up her inner thigh. Her hand shoots down to grab his wrist and she doesn't know whether it's to push him away or pull him further towards her. She doesn’t do either, yet. Cardan watches her hesitate beneath him, and he links their free hands together, lacing their fingers. He waits for her signal.

It only takes Jude a small moment to gather herself and nod.

Cardan goes straight for her underwear, moving the fabric aside to run his fingers over her as he attaches his mouth to her neck again.

Jude throws her head back at the sudden contact. Cardan nips at her skin in response.

He drags his fingers slowly through her folds and says, "Look at you, you're so wet for me." 

Jude doesn't know if she hates or loves it when he talks like this. She says nothing back.

He mouths at her jaw. "You liked me chasing you."

To this, she huffs. 

Without warning, he pushes two fingers into her. A small, choked noise escapes her at the feeling. 

"You wanted me to catch you, didn't you?" His thumb moves over her clit as he works his fingers in and out. 

"Shut up," she mumbles. He pulls back to look at her.

"Make me, Jude," he curls his fingers, and sparks fly behind her eyes.

Annoying.

Jude rises to his challenge immediately and tugs his hand from her center, her fist tight around his wrist. Cardan raises an eyebrow as she brings it to her face. 

When she licks long and slow over the fingers he just had inside her, it seems like all the breath rushes out of him. His stares at her lips as she takes both of them in her mouth and sucks languidly, tongue flicking in between and swirling around. 

Yeah, that shut him right up. 

His eyelids grow heavy, lashes grazing his cheeks, and his mouth parts at her ministrations. 

He's so easy. 

Jude takes advantage of his distraction to unlink their hands, pull her mouth away, and shove him hard. 

He stumbles backward a few paces and continues to retreat as Jude advances. She corners him right into the desk she hid behind earlier and can't help but smile. 

Now it's her turn. 

His mouth clamps shut when she reaches for his trousers and starts undoing buttons and laces. She pulls his shirt loose and unceremoniously shoves her hand down his pants to wrap around his cock. 

Cardan gasps and puts his hands behind him on the desk for purchase.

She loves him like this. As soon as she touches him, it’s like a weight lifts from his shoulders, and suddenly he's soft dough in her palms; malleable and delicious. They both prefer it when she's in charge. 

"Come on, Cardan, hard already?" She says as she fully pulls him from his pants. He closes his eyes and doesn't answer. Jude sinks to her knees.

"Don't pretend you didn't enjoy our game just as much as I did," and with that she licks from the base of his cock all the way to the tip. One of Cardan's hands immediately threads in her hair as he takes a steadying breath. Jude continues teasing him with her tongue, all the while his thighs are steel beneath her palms.

Jude's waiting for him to beg. She can’t always get him to, but this time they’re both riled up. 

So she keeps her pace. Slowly, Cardan's jaw unlocks and his mouth falls open, and eventually his eyes lock with hers, then her mouth. His breathing is erratic as she places open-mouthed kisses on him from tip to base, and runs her fingers lightly over him in the wetness she leaves behind. 

Finally, she hears what she’s been waiting for.

Cardan chokes on a noise that sounds like a whine, then says, "Jude," and it's heavy, breathless. "Jude, please." 

And Jude complies. Her lips wrap around his cock and she sinks onto him, one hand wrapping around what she can't reach. 

She's knows, deep down, she’s not the best at this, but she's had time to practice and learn what he likes. She loves watching him get worked up because of her. So, despite lacking some skills, she is incredibly enthusiastic in this act. 

She takes him in as far as she dares and twists her hand as she goes, then sucks lightly as she withdraws, and repeats. She pauses at some points just to see his reaction and give herself a break, and Cardan looks increasingly desperate every time. She does this again now and his cock jumps. A shaky breath leaves him and his hips jerk toward her. 

Jude's confidence boosts at this, and she feels entirely smug at his reactions. She revels in this power over him. 

Her mouth is moving again, sinking lower than she has yet to go, and Cardan makes a sound like he got all the air knocked out of him. Jude hums around him, taunting and teasing. On her way back up for air, she makes sure to drag her tongue along the bottom of him and press her thumb into the junction of his thigh just the way he likes, and sure enough, Cardan moans brokenly, and his chest curls over her, head hanging low, hands in her hair pulling himself deeper into her mouth. 

He's close.

As soon as the realization comes to her, she pulls off of him completely and stands. His hands fall from her hair and grip the desk again, hard enough that she's sure the wood will certainly snap, but it doesn't. Jude trails a hand from his navel to his chest, muscles jumping underneath her touch, and grips his jaw tightly between her fingers. It takes him a moment to come back to himself long enough to look at her, his eyes thoroughly glazed over. 

Jude leans up, mouth close to his.

"Fuck me," she commands.

Cardan puts his unnerving speed to good use, then. 

He grips Jude at her hips and lifts. Within seconds, he has her on the desk, his shirt and pants all off, and he's kissing her breathlessly. 

Jude is seriously impressed, and so turned on that she aches. 

Cardan doesn’t bother with removing her clothes, he just tears her underwear in half, throws the pieces on the floor, and hikes her dress up. She leans back on her elbows. 

Jude's throbbing in anticipation and is more aroused than she can remember ever being. It's been much too long since they've had time alone together; time to do this. 

Before she can tell him again, Cardan pulls her hips to the edge of the desk and pushes into her in in one stroke, completely to the hilt. They both groan at the feeling. There’s something about that first connection that drives Jude insane every time, like she’s being lit on fire from the inside out and she needs him to keep going, going, going—

Yesyesyesyes—

Cardan pulls back and thrusts forward carefully, then begins a fast pace that has her toes curling in seconds. Her nails scratch at the wood of the desk. He feels good, so good, so good. She keeps looking from their joined bodies, where his cock disappears into her over and over, to his face, where he watches only her, brow furrowed, lips glistening.

He's waiting for something. Waiting for her to speak, or move, or—

He gives a particularly hard thrust and she moans, mouth hanging open. She catches his eyelids fluttering at her reaction. 

Ah, she knows what he wants. 

"Come on, Cardan," she pants. "Harder."

His next breath catches in his throat and he increases his pace. Jude locks her ankles around his waist and pushes herself up to lean on her hands. She knows she must look as wrecked as he does, but she doesn't give a damn. Cardan's hands splay on the desk near hers, their faces close.

"You can do better than that," she says into his mouth as she brings a hand up to tug on the jewelry in his ears, her calves squeezing his slender hips. 

Cardan moans, and she can see his tail flick behind him. He puts both his hands on her hips as an anchor and begins really fucking her. 

Jude loses herself in white-hot pleasure for a moment. The hand she had on his ears grips the back of his neck, her eyes squeeze shut. She throws her head back, broken moans escaping her.

But she gathers herself and leans up again putting her mouth to his neck. Jude rakes her nails down his chest and she can't tell if the sound he makes is one of pain or pleasure. 

"Harder," she demands against his skin. 

Cardan groans above her, his grip on her is hard enough to bruise. His tail winds around his own arm restlessly, then around one of her ankles, slipping across her skin. He lifts her hips now and tugs her to him with each thrust. 

Jude's mouth falls open but no sound comes out. She can't catch her breath and all she can focus on is the feel of skin slapping on skin and the sounds Cardan is making and she's so overwhelmed that she really, accidentally, bites into his neck. 

Cardan just whines. 

Jude's arm behind her loses balance on the desk and she collapses onto it, the small of her back right on the edge, and Cardan comes down with her, back bent over her body. 

This is absolutely feral, what they're doing, and Jude loves every bit of it. She's vaguely aware of him bleeding and what that might do to her mouth but she doesn't care, all she can focus on is how their chests touch and his cheeks are flushed and his lips are swollen and the way her hips feel like they'll crack under his grip and the building pressure in her belly. She reaches to grab onto Cardan's forearm as a way to ground herself but she doesn't get to come back to reality because as soon as her hand closes around his arm, his brows screw up and he's moving his shaking hand down to where their bodies meet and he’s swiping his thumb over her clit and she's gone.

She's pretty sure she screams. 

And it takes Cardan all of three more strokes before his face is buried in her neck, his voice stuttering over something like a sob as he follows her over the edge.

They stay like that, intertwined, spasms wracking their bodies, all the while Jude runs her hands soothingly over Cardan's skin and through his hair.

They've barely been recovering for even a minute before Cardan shatters the glow.

"Thought I was—" his chest heaves against hers, "—going to die—in that meeting."

It catches her off guard. Jude laughs so hard and suddenly that she wheezes. 

Cardan laughs too.

He's still catching his breath when he untangles himself from her and lifts her to her feet with him. Jude winces. She's already sore. 

"We should cut our meetings short more often, don't you think?" Jude says while tracing a finger over his jaw. He leans into her touch.

"Mmm. Maybe next time you'll give me a challenge,” he says, voice sickly sweet with a cocky smile on his face. 

Jude rolls her eyes and tries her hardest not to beam right back at him. It doesn't work. 

So, so annoying.

She loves him more than anything.

---------

Cardan is a bottom and you can’t convince me otherwise.

Thank you for reading! It took me a while to get to this because school started up for me and I have professors giving me hard ass critiques all day every day, so I’ve been a little discouraged lately. Hope you enjoyed!

[yououghtaknow]

5, 29 and 30? Also, I read all four seasons of Skam Brighton over quarantine and it was fantastic! The changed storylines were so refreshing and I’m so excited for season 5 💛

hi!!!!! thank you so much for asking and thank you so much for reading <3.

29. which version (og + adapts) does yours most closely resemble?

hmm. well i would say skam austin, definitely, as a western english speaking remake. also with the dance team/theatre club vibes and the music aspect. also skam españa, definitely, with the centring of the girls' stories and just the beautiful friendship tone of it all, which is what i really wanted to get across. also some druck in there, with the realism and fixing the trans wrongs they did. and alistair fletcher has the drama of skam france, just as a character. what do these remakes all have in common? canon wlw. which was the main thing i wanted to write in this remake. skambr has 11 canon named wlw characters who have all played major-to-minor roles in the plot of each season, with 5 of them being members of the girl squad and three of them being mains and having wildly different experiences with their attraction to women because you can’t sum up the lgbt experience with just one person.

30. free choice! just give us some fun facts about it!

fun fact: i have never physically been in brighton. i would like to be one day, but i will most likely not get there before the series finishes.

second fun fact: i was originally planning to write a skam remake set in derry, northern ireland before i wrote skam brighton. that idea has morphed into something else that i plan to write, but it is a fun fact!!

and now. the big one.

5. what are some iconic soundtrack moments?

here we go lads, seasons 3 and 4, like promised.

season three

tw for discussion of mental illness and suicide, drug abuse and violence throughout.

trailer

WE START OFF!!!! WITH A BANGER!!! "tainted love" by soft cell. it’s an iconic 80s banger that we all know and love, about a toxic relationship, and we see a type of favourite character that is niche to me (the guy with perfectionism/parental issues who did some fucked up stuff in a piece of media who not a lot of people like). it’s jake baby. it’s about him living his life and being like “i feel like i have to run away from all of this” (a sentiment which shall be echoed later on). and jake with all of his different masks…….. i was ahead of my time.

episode one

we open with “say amen (saturday night)” by panic! at the disco which is. kind of yikes now, but the song does have the vibes i desired for the opening scene. a party-esque banger. lyrics like “i pray for the wicked on the weekend / mama, can i get another amen?” for the catholic imagery and mommy issues. also panic! is known throughout history to be an lgbt band. 

then we get “get out of my head” by redlight”, just for the mental illness of it all. also it has been said that i do love a good party song with deeply depressing lyrics about the main playing in the background <3. 

and then we get me ripping off druck with “idontwannabeyouanymore” by the theorist playing because i just wanted to use a piano cover of the song because silence with just instrumental is just very dynamic and mentally ill. 

and then we meet eleanor with “insane” by sonny fodera and biscits, which is basically just the lyrics “girl you make me go insane” because. well. you hate to see it folks, but we gotta foreshadow the internalised ableism and the hating one woman as a treat.

and to close off a very music filled first clip, we got “drive” by halsey, a staple of tumblr culture back in the day because it is just like “all we do is think about the feelings that we hide”. literally when you are gay and alone and are just so desperate for someone to see you but also so deeply afraid of it because that means change coming <3 

AND THEN!!!! we meet the love of my life ms christine love as she hums “express yourself” by madonna as she cleans the house. i wanted to give christine a lot of 80s music in her scenes, to show that she’s living in the past in regards to jake’s dad. also it’s just a good song, “you gotta make him express how he feels” is me writing any of the characters having dialogue.

AND THEN BABY!!!!!!!!!!! we get a moment i love so deeply. “mama who bore me/reprise” by the sweet signatures. an all female acapella cover of the iconic spring awakening song. this song has everything - heavy metaphor about sex, wanting your mum to tell you shit, catholic imagery, teen angst, amazing belting. we get the slow part as jake is alone and just trying to work out how to help his mum, and then get the ANGRY BANGER as jake goes out to play with his dogs to get his frustrations out, because at the end of the say, all of these characters are still kids <3

then we get “young (club mix) by jaded because i just wanted kind of boring straight party music for the bryan and rory scene. 

BECAUSE THEN LGBT COMMUNITY!!!!! we get jake’s dramatic walk down the hallway as “somebody to love” by queen plays. it’s about the catholicism, it’s about the being gay, it’s about the being so fucking lonely and just wanting somebody!!!!! also the parallel between jake’s lonely scene with “somebody” playing and liz’s crowded scene with “nobody” playing…. it’s about mentally ill people being different but also the same <3

AND. NOW. THE MOMENT I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. we meet Him. the most valid theatre kid rep in the world. mr alistair thomas fletcher, who enters our lives singing “shallow” from a star is born under his breath as he washing his hands. once again, i’m ahead of my time. but also the first lines al sings are, metaphorically, him talking to jake. like “aren’t you tried trying to fill that void / or do you need more”. and then we begin a piece of foreshadowing most pleasing to me. alistair in season 3 and the recurring motif of falling, which will climax at the end of episode 10. also foreshadowing of his experiences with bipolar disorder with “in all the good times i find myself longing for change / and in the bad times i fear myself”. and we also begin the motif of jake interrupting al’s singing. 

(you may be thinking, isaac tumblr user nickhealy, you’re putting a lot of thought into this. that’s because out of all of the characters, al’s the one who never really expresses himself with his words or actions - he usually expresses himself primarily through music, which is a very fun and autistic thing of me to write.)

(also, the og episode 1 bench scene did make me feel very. not good as a gay trans guy, with all the talk of penises and such. it’s just very sexy of me to change it to al talking loudly about ballet and elton john. and then we get jake up on the balcony and al down yelling up at him. because i have literally never referenced anything subtly in my life)

and we end with “how does it feel” by m-22. like: “how does it feel when your walls fall down /  how does it feel when you're lost and found / how does it feel / it's the sweetest sound”. like it’s about jake meeting al, king of not being Good At Social, fletcher, and instantly being like “yes, husband material, thank you”.

episode two

(yes, this episode is titled after the gay hsm song. yes i’m a genius)

we open, as all good things do, with a fun homoerotic punk song with catholic imagery “east jesus nowhere” by green day. it’s just jake being like “i am Trying to find the instagram of a cute guy outside of church, love being a sinner”.

and now we see the beginnings of Sad Boy Jake, with “it’s ok, i wouldn’t remember me either” by crywank. we got “i am looking for an easy place / to mask my thoughts behind my face” and “i can hide from friends but i cannot hide from you” because he’s gay and he has depression. 

AND THEN!!!! we get “i like you” by dandelion hands playing as he comments supportive things on the youtube video of al….. literally jacob love will see a pretty boy one time and be like “last time i had you i should have kissed you”. also his alternate name being jack valentine…. valentine and love ugh my brain is so big

AND THEN!!!!!!! slow mo time, with “bite” by troye sivan…… a gay classic, if i do say so. like it’s about jake seeing al casually walk past, being all prententious and out, and jake’s just like “please set me free and let me walk beside you” because of the gay experience of simutaneously wanting to be a person and kiss them.

and then we get “the daisy chain” by the growlers. “feeling pressure on every side” and “tired of waiting to be explained / weakest link in the daisy chain”. it’s just the vibes babe.

AND THEN!!!!!!!!!!!!! a brilliant moment in my bare a pop opera stanning career - we get jake watching a bootleg of bare 2004 as “role of a lifetime” from the show plays. literally one of the most gorgeous songs ever written, sung by matt doyle. like everything is an act when you’re pleasing everyone - which could be the tagline of skam brighton as a whole. also jake watching “see me” and beginning to tear up because he’s afraid to come out to his mother and get the same negative reaction….. and him watching “cross” and sobbing because he relates to jason so much and feels like he would also be better off dead than gay….. 

BUT AFTER THAT!!! we smash cut to al as jeremy in be more chill, singing the beginning of “more than survive”. absolute king shit!!!!! also, i don’t remember if it’s mentioned in canon, but eleanor is the person who plays the squip in this production of bmc, because i am not!! subtle!! with!! my!! metaphors!! 

and we return to sad boy jacob with “swear to god the devil made me do it” by the front bottoms, chosen because references to the devil and mommy issues <3

AND THEN!!!! A MOMENT OF GREAT FORESHADOWING!!! we get mister alistair fletcher practising alone in a theatre because he is dramatic, and jake walking in as he sings “broadway here i come” from smash. we got references to saints, we got hints at al’s anxiety, we got the falling motif coming back in a song explicitly about jumping off of a building, that also doubles as a song about wanting to do theatre….. also, al plays the last note wrong as a metaphor for al’s plan of suicide going well until the very end, where he ends up alive and goes home.

(side note, we also got the football team’s jackets and signature colours being black and white (straight pride flag colours babey) and then we see al in bright yellow. it also represents jake’s depression and al’s mania, the everything and the nothing of it all.)

AND THEN!!!! we get manic (in the most literal sense of the word) pixie dream boy al asking jake to dance with him to “movement” by hozier because. it’s literally just such a beautiful song. and jake is just watching al dance like “hm. no thoughts head empty just pretty boy”. also the scene itself is a reference to wicked, with jake doing an awkward and stilted dance and al taking it and turning it into something graceful (the glinda and elphie scene in dancing through life)

and then we get the return of blue neighbourhood with “youth” by troye sivan playing over a smoking montage with the boys, because they’re young, they’re gay, they’re vibing

AND THEN!!!! we get “talk” by hozier playing as the episode ends - a song that of course references orpheus and eurydice, as al also did in this clip with hadestown. it also plays over ellie talking because jake is just Ignoring her to pay attention to al. also the inherent homoeroticism of making eye contact while hozier plays

episode three

we open with “highway to hell” by ac/dc over a fun football montage of jake both playing the game and getting bored and checking out guys. it’s about the thinking he’s gonna go to hell for doing it but he literally Cannot Stop

AND THEN!!!!!! a moment. we get a performance of some of “all you wanna do” from six by al and ellie and their theatre kid friends as they rehearse for something at lunch and jake, bryan and rory watch them. ellie’s doing the whole flirty k howard thing, and not actually getting into the real feeling of the song, and the guy she’s dancing with it awkward as all fuck because he’s her cousin. so we get al stepping in and fucking going the fuck off. and we see how good of an actor al really is in this scene, as he’s legit scary. we also see ellie clearly having feelings towards al and him just being like “yep good acting! moving on!!!” because no thoughts just dance. also bryan and rory not understanding that the song is about assault and jake being genuinely concerned….. and then al and ellie’s kiss at the end as ellie “dies”..... god the real reason this show isn’t made is because i would be too powerful if i could make everyone see my theatre kid mischief.

AND ANOTHER MOMENT!!!! we get “like a prayer” by madonna playing as jake is living his life and taking some “am i gay” quizzes - the questions of which are comprised of actual am i gay quizzes i took to make the scene as legit as possible, and as a gay trans person. Did Not Like. Would Not Recommend. also jake admitting he’s gay to the quiz because he’s pissed about the concept of misgendering al….. also jake forcing himself to pick the straight options even though it’s emotionally hurting him…. and then we hear christine singing in the hallway “everyone must stand alone” because it’s jake pov at the time…..

AND SMASH CUT TO!!! fall out boy’s cover of “i wanna dance with somebody”, because at the last very gay house party “i wanna dance with somebody” played and i love a good parallel

AND THEN!!!!!! literally the hottest of all hot boy summer things, we get al and esther doing some karaoke at the house party with “don’t you want me” by the human league. (which, yes, is a glee reference.) THE LITERAL COURAGE OF THIS MAN!!!! alistair fletcher looked a closeted guy, who he has had three (3) interactions with in person, dead in the eye and was like “i know you want me”. as opposed to esther “just be her friend first and then see about anything else” montner and james “I Will Never Speak To You Again If You So Wish” cohen.

and then, because of course i did, we get “bad romance” by lady gaga playing over the next scene with the beginnings of the boy squad because it’s a gay house party and it’s a fucking banger for the ages

(also just the shift from al hot boy summer fletcher to al gay disaster fletcher with him running literally out of the house because he kissed a guy.)

“left handed kisses” by andrew bird and fiona apple plays after jake and al’s deep conversation outside. like jake’s really out here like “i don't believe everything happens for a reason” and “i don't go in for your star-crossed lovers / in the heart of a skeptic / there's a question that still hovers near” because al info dumped about his love for adaptation of romeo and juliet…. (side note, al is definitely an & juliet stan, as everyone should be, stream & juliet <3)

episode four

we open with a song i discovered when i was in a community theatre rip off version of cats, “the show” by lenka. it’s about a song about indecision in the middle of a church before confession, because jake can’t actually confess to the sins he believes to be true. it’s about the “'cause it's too much, yeah it's a lot to be something i'm not”.

And then we fade to “pink + white” by frank ocean (because mlm rights), and just like “you showed me love / glory from above / good glory, dear / it's all downhill from here” is a very al/jake line. also it’s a bop for a little football montage.

AND THEN!!!! on halloween, we get a little montage of jake dancing to “paradise by the dashboard light” by meatloaf as he makes himself a sandwich - it’s literally about just being happy and having a nice time. and also jake dancing to more old timey music because he’s going up to his parents’ old room and he’s also living in the past a little, with his childish snack and playful dancing.

(also, the phone call where al just infodumps about bare and jake’s listening and asking questions <3 it’s about the autistic love and friendship yet again)

and then we get “i’m so tired…” by lauv and troye sivan as we arrive at the very awkward ellie/jake/al pre drink, because Is Jake Not So Tired Of This Heterosexual Bullshit He Must Do.

(also, it is my personal headcanon, and therefore canon, that al convinced ellie to go with the angel and devil costumes so that he could pull up in his leo-as-romeo get up and live out his baz luhrmann esque fantasy).

AND THEN LGBT NATION!!!! we get “run away with me” by ms crj as jake and al literally run away from the party after al got misgendered and Pissed. it’s about the using romance and whimsy as an escapism from your shitty life, it’s about the being the in darkness and occasionally getting hit by the street light, it’s about the “i’ll be your sinner in secret”, it’s about the bare connotation with the “run away with me” parallels. it’s also about the song being one of the best songs ever written.

(and then we get the wedding, which, before i get into the song, is a reference to So Many Things. we got west side story with the fake wedding and first kiss, we got hadestown with al making the wedding rings from nature (a la wedding song), we got bare with wedding bells and the dream wedding, and in the scene, we get some vineyard scene from spring awakening vibes, with the discussion of the future and religion and philosophy…… quite literally i love art so much)

and then. ladies. a piece of writing written in Peak tender tumblr. al and jake have the kiss of their wedding to “pink in the night” by mitski. it’s literally about the “i know i kissed you before but / i didn’t do it right / can i try again?” of it all. like jake love voice “i glow pink in the night in my room / i’ve been blossoming alone over you”. the repression, the pining…………. i am such a talented man.

and then we end with a doctor who reference, with al saying “run”, taking jake’s hand and the two of them running out of the church as “run away with me” comes back in. it’s literally about al taking jake out of his dull life and helping him find his own happiness. it’s also about the inherent autistic culture of relating to aliens.

episode five

WE! OPEN! WITH! a song about being gay and falling in love with someone immediately after meeting them - “share your address” by ben platt. a bop for the ages. it makes me so happy, it’s a great “early stages of a relationship honeymoon stage” montage song.

(also, i just really love the detail i put in about al’s binder, because the cuddle scene with david and matteo in druck did make me worried because david was wearing his binder. like i understand why he wore it for the actor’s comfort but just the thought of sleeping in a binder…… terrible. awful. pain beyond my wildest dreams.)

(also also, al saying he couldn’t get on hormones because of “problems with his heart” is a lie, because he means because of his mental health, which is based on personal experience babey)

and then we get an iconic skam song: “talk show host” by radiohead plays as jake sits in the back of a drama club meeting, isolating himself. it’s literally about the “i want to be someone else or i’ll explode” of it all. 

and then we get “rock and roll” by led zeppelin as jake walks his dogs - just because it seems like the kind of song jake would like and it just vibed with the whole scene.

(also, the clip where jake texts al at the beginning of it and then asks bree about her family….. literally i’m so good at foreshadowing)

AND THEN!!!!! WE GET THE ICONIC!!! “involuntary teenage rebel” by clout from grandma’s closet plays as we get a jake solo slow mo. literally they were right when they said “they say i'm a teenage rebel / but i'm really just afraid of how i come across to others / and it bothers me when i look weak”. like that’s just another skam statement line babey. also it’s genuinely such a good song and literally helped inspire me to do more songwriting…. stream it 

and then we get “heaven” by avicii, chosen purely for the title being “heaven” because christianity centric season.

AND THEN!!!!! we get jake asking al to come save him from the shitty party, and al says “wait for me, i’m coming”, an obvious hadestown reference, and when he arrives, he’s singing the “la la la la la la la”s from the show. it’s because the party - where bryan, rory and ellie are - is, in al’s mind, hell, and he’s going to save jake from it. 

and then, because, as mentioned, the way al express his true feelings is through Music, we get al trying to comfort jake by playing him a song - “you matter to me” from waitress (put a pin in waitress, i’ll get back to it later). the inherent homosexuality in “come out of hiding i’m right here beside you / and i’ll stay there as long as you’ll let me”. also it’s just about mattering to someone. like, for the first time in his life, jake has someone who’s saying “i love you, you matter, i will be here for you” and he just needed that So Much. 

episode six

AND WE SMASH CUT IMMEDIATELY TO!!! “london boy” by taylor swift, a campy and beautiful bop!!!! because al Is from london and he Is a boy!!! (also, fun fact, i was going to make al be from ireland originally, but then someone in the skambr discord said this song should be used in a scene, and i was like “okay, fuck it, london time”)

(also, you can subtly see al’s mania in the london boy scene, with him coming up with quick ideas, clearly having very low anxiety through the past few episodes, and just taking off his shoes and going for a walk in a park in november…..)

and then we get “landslide” by fleetwood mac as jake lies in his dead dad’s bed. it’s really about the “can the child within my heart rise above? / can i sail through the changing ocean tides?” and about the grieving as a child and your mental health getting worse while you’re still so young and you feel like the world’s on your shoulders and you’re both an adult and a child at once……

and then……. we get “class of 2013” by mitski after christine has her breakdown and jake packs his things to run away. it’s about both of them dealing with their grief by pretending it never happened and having all of that build up inside of them until they can’t take it anymore. And i see the lyrics of “mom i’m tired / can i sleep in your house tonight?” in this specific situation as jake being tired of his father’s constant presence and he just wants to be in a house with his mother the way he remembered her before his father died. 

(and, sidenote, this is one of the saddest scenes i’ve ever written, in my opinion…...with jake being like “she’s so crazy, but i’m nothing like her” because he’s in denial of his own mental health issues and al seeing him saying that as “oh, he’ll see that i’m crazy too and want to leave”...... and al says his final goodbye to jake, using his full name, because he assumes jake will never want to speak to him again, but jake has no idea……..)

(also, jake parroting bryan’s words of “gay marriage is legal, so everything is fine” in the pride clip……. God. and the way jake’s internalised homophobia and ableism manifests in the same harmful way….)

and then we get “don’t threaten me with a good time” by panic! At the disco as they boy squad rolls up to the party in the park. it’s just a party song. no deeper meaning lads.

and then we get jake in the bathroom having a little breakdown (as a treat) to “Give me novacaine” by green day. it’s just about the using alcohol and drugs to cope with your poor mental health because you have no other quick way to make it all better. It’s about about jake trying both to numb himself and to force himself to feel something, but neither one of those things give him the results he wants.

episode seven

we open with another iconic and beautiful song: “life in italics” by clout from grandma’s closet babey. like jake love voice “all these troubles on my mind i’ve been lonely / building walls running from the old me”. thank you clout for literally writing some of the best lgbt music. 

AND THEN!!!!!!! a scene that brings me much joy. “gotta go my own way” from high school musical 2 plays in the other room as jake has a religious breakdown in a literal (storage) closet. and then al leaves the group chat and blocks jake…. like jake voice “another colour turns to grey / and it's just too hard to watch it all / slowly fade away”

and then we get “hello!” by role model as jake goes for a depressed jog and he sees bree out drinking with some random people. like “i never really talk much, keep it inside / to find someone who cares is getting harder to find / we should be dancing in the sun / it's hard when everything is numb”.

(also, at the end of that clip, we briefly shift from jake’s pov to al’s, as we see al filming in the park and he films jake running away…… do i know what this means metaphorically? not really. do i vibe hard with it? oh hell yeah)

AND THEN!!!! after jake and sandy have their beautiful conversation, we get “under pressure” by queen and david bowie, another older song, this time expressing jake’s joy as he finds some small solace with his younger self. it’s also just about the inherent homosexuality of the song and of sitting on the beach, eating chips with your best friend.

episode eight

WE BEGIN!!!! with a youtube video of ellie and al singing “wallflower” from we are the tigers. i chose this basically because i wanted to get more of a vibe of what their relationship is/was across, and also because i love the song (stream we are the tigers original off broadway cast recording). it’s also about the dynamic of the song being “shy introvert vs outgoing extrovert being very toxic friends”, and also about the ellie supporting al stuff, because she has canonically been there for him for years, just not in a very good way. also i wanted to write representation for the “had a very intense friendship with a girl pre-transition and then had a dramatic friend break up and now i’m a guy and feel disconnected from the whole thing, although it was quite homoerotic at the time” people. this scene also marked the beginning of my purely self indulgent musical number scenes, and be warned, this may the the first, but it is by no means the last.

and then it’s very music lite for the rest of the episode, until al returns, and jake’s like “hey, maybe you should stop talking to your toxic friend” and al responds by beginning to make out with him as “fuck time” by green day starts to play. the COMEDY of jake being like “seriously, i think--” and then all you hear is “OOH BABY BABY IT’S FUCK TIME”. skam brighton is a comedy show.

and then we get al “communicates through music and theatre references” fletcher beginning to sign the ASL translation of the bridge of “word of your body (reprise)” from spring awakening with jake - which is another Very tragic show - and al also literally says the line “and so you should”. and al responding to jake jokingly calling him insane by shutting him up with another kiss….. oh ladies.

episode nine

WE! OPEN! WITH! “love shack” by the b-52s as jake wakes up and sees james and al just having some Fun making breakfast in the kitchen. it’s just some boys being boys and having bants.

and then we get jake using al’s love language of music and singing “those magic changes” from grease, singing along to the jordan fisher and aaron tveit version because that song did assist in my gay awakening.

(also, al stanning female doctor pomatter in waitress and james stanning waitress as someone from an abusive household….. my mind.)

and now. we begin The Big Bad Clip. “why didn’t you stop me” by mitski plays over the beginning of jake and al’s london adventure. it’s literally about looking back on the scene as it happens in a montage and al being like “why didn’t you stop me from doing that”..... god.

(also, jake and al go to see waitress, which Has been played before, and it’s foreshadowing for how their relationship ends. jenna and jim’s relationship - the main couple of waitress - begins with them cheating on their parents and falling in love quickly in secret, but they know it’s not healthy for them to keep the relationship going, so agree to end things and part ways as friends who wish nothing but the best for each other.)

and then we get “oops! I did it again” by britney spears glee cast version, because it’s just really Sexy and Fun. also just the mentally ill experience of “oops! i did a manic episode again!”.

and then we cut between a piano version of “last night on earth” by green day, as jake sits alone in the hotel room, and “true trans soul rebel” by against me! as al walks down the streets of london, in a split pov, and then we see al having a full meltdown/breakdown in the middle of victoria station. like al voice in this scene “another night you wish you could forge, / making yourself up as you go along / who’s gonna take you home tonight? / does god bless your transsexual heart?”.

and then we get legit “last night on earth” by green day as jake walks away after ellie yells at him. just because it vibes so much.

episode ten

we open with “mystery of love” by sufjan stevens as jake walks down to al’s house, because it’s just a vibey song, and while i hate cmb//yn with the fury of a thousand suns, it Is a song written for mlm.

and then we get “better alone” by lykke li as jake researches al’s various diagnoses. and it’s just like “nobody wants to be the one to walk away / nobody wants to see the truth, then let it in, run away / nobody wants to know the ways they don't love you right” and then “i’m better alone than lonely”..... mr love

and then we get “let it be” by the beatles, a Very nostalgic old fashioned song with catholic themes and just big comforting and recovery vibes…. jake confessing his real feelings to the priest and then reuniting with christine in the church and hugging her tightly and they both agree on working on getting better….. 

and then we get to the talent show, where we see the end of ellie singing “on my own” from les mis - as jake did at the beginning of season one. is this foreshadowing? is it a coincidence? i honestly don’t know. i just chose it because basic theatre girl song.

AND!!!!! THEN!!!!!! we get the song that acts as al’s suicide note: “the goodbye song” by joe iconis (writer of be more chill and “broadway here i come” from smash). we get the return of the falling motif with “i’m flying away” and the lines that really act as what al imagines to be his final goodbye to everyone he knows, as everyone he knows and loves is in that building: “i'd stay if i could / but the universe won't let me / so please be good / and don't you forget me”, and then al turns the “aahs” at the end of the song from a catchy crowd pleaser ending to a long, painful scream as the audience slowly stops clapping, until the room is silent, and then he bows a la the emcee at the end of cabaret (a bow which is often viewed as a metaphor for the character’s death). it’s literally just al having a breakdown on stage, but he rolls a nat 20 on his performance check, and the audience are like “this is very good performance art”

we then get a flashback to “broadway here i come” because. i am a king of foreshadowing.

and then we get “wait for me” from hadestown (obc version) as jake runs to find al, and it’s about the role reversal of jake running to save al from something worse than al saving him for bryan. it’s about the repetition of “wait for me, i’m coming” because of the fear of “what if i get there too late?”

episode eleven

“a better son/daughter” by rilo kiley plays as jake looks through al’s two tumblr blogs - and the song simultaneously a very al and jake song. with the descriptions of depression and dealing with a mother with mental illness at the start, which are very jake, but then the lines “and sometimes when you're on, you're really fucking on / and your friends they sing along and they love you. / but the lows are so extreme that the good seems fucking cheap” are just the base character description for al.

and then we get “the archer” by taylor swift as jake goes into the school again…. like he has been the archer and he has been the prey, in regards to being gay (with him helping in outing sandy and being outed himself).....

(also, fun fact about the episode, it was originally written to be from al’s point of view, but then i decided against it and had to rewrite it, which is why there’s only 4 clips instead of the usual 5 or 6)

and then, lgbts, we get “the predatory wasp of the palisades is out to get us!” by sufjan stevens as jake walks his dogs  out on the beach and al goes to the beach to write his emo poetry…… also, fun fact, al’s poetry is the first time i’ve ever written poetry/lyrics that weren’t about me, which is very fun. 

and then!!!! at the beginning of the final clip, we got “footloose” by kenny loggins, the iconic bop from the film of the same name. just because it slaps and it’s a fun time.

(we also get some Foreshadowing with al referencing rent in this scene)

and then. transgender nation. we get “midnight radio” from hedwig and the angry inch playing over al and jake’s having fun and being dumb kids montage. 

i know riverdale made this song a meme, but it HITS. it’s about the al referencing origin of love in the cuddle clip, al saying “i laugh because i will cry if i don’t”, it’s about the “for the misfits and losers” and the “hold onto each other”. it’s literally about jake finding community and also wholeness and happiness in himself.

(also, jake talking about all the little soulmates and the fact that he believes that the boy and girl squads are all his soulmates in different ways…… and bree actually paying attention and showing some vulnerability at that point because she loves her friends so much!!!!!!!!!!)

season four

tw for discussion of sexual assault/rape, alcohol abuse and abortion throughout

trailer

lgbt community. we begins with the regrettes' cover of "don't stop me now" by queen because a) i think it's fun when women and b) it's about bree's mania that we've already seen throughout the seasons, this time from her perspective, and it's simultaneously a Fun Time and a Foreboding time.

episode one

we open with "hail mary, gentle woman" by the cathedral singers, which is literally just the prayer "hail mary", but a song. i chose this because catholic, women, and church time babey. also because it was always one of my favourite hymns growing up (because, in case you couldn't tell from half of the mains being raised catholic and lowkey fucked up because of it, i was raised catholic)

and then we SMASH CUT to "r u mine?" by arctic monkeys, a sad british teen staple, as we see bree wake up in josh's bed for the first time and take the "walk of shame" to get to church. it's about the "i go crazy 'cause here isn't where i wanna be", introducing the Mental Illness, bree's want to get out of where she's from and go to a good uni, and her literally not wanting to be in some strange guy's bed in one line. am I reading too much into this? hell yeah. but it's my show, so i can read as much as i want!!!! (also "satisfaction feels like a distant memory" is both about her depressive states and josh not being able to make her orgasm <3)

AND THEN!!!!!!!!!! we get "all i really want" by alanis morissette, the beginning of my season 4/jlp parallel hyperfixation. it's about bree kinning frankie healy and "do i stress you out?" being her @ audrey. and just bree voice "it would knock me to the floor if i wasn't there already / if only i could hunt the hunter". it's just a perfect teen angst song and it's perfectly grungy and brianna-y.

AND THEN!!!!! we get "kiwi" by harry styles playing as bree slow mos by herself down the street. it's about the just hot girl energy of the song and also the romanticization of unhealthy behaviour because that's bree, baby!!!! also we get more of the word "crazy" because of bree's internalised ableism, and we also get the chorus of "i'm having your baby, it's none of your business", foreshadowing her unplanned pregnancy done by josh, who we saw in the last scene.

AND THEN!!!!! we get "chandelier" by sia as bree and the girls have a fun party moment, but bree is still Fucked Up mentally by seeing annabell and also men being creepy. it's about the using alcohol and drugs to push away your feelings because you have a lot of trauma and have internalised ableism and have no idea how to get the help you need without being vulnerable, which terrifies you so So much. also we see that bree forgot to take her meds in this scene, which i couldn't explicitly say in the scene because spoilers, but it's a fun thing.

then we get dodie's cover of "when the party's over" by billie eilish because i like the soft piano vibes of it as bree walks home after the party, because we always see bree as "the party girl", but the party's over now and we see her petting her cat, making sure her brother's home safe, taking off all her makeup and pretty clothes, completely non sexualised, and just getting into bed to sleep because she's just So Tired. also it's about bree pretending she's happy on her own, but she's Not, she has a lot of self loathing and deeply loves her friends more than anything. also a bree/rori moment with "call me friend but keep me closer".

episode two

we open with an audition sequence!!!!! because i'm a theatre kid and love a good audition sequence!!!!

we get rori singing "sexy" from mean girls, because it's a very rori show (pink aesthetic, fun female characters, a funny time), and because it's a very maureen from rent song. also rori is just a very funny person and also has a sick high belt in my mind. also it's about her learning to like the way she looks, slowly but surely. it's also a song about changing who you are, which is a very skam brighton theme.

and then we get al singing "vienna" by billy joel, but the shortened version they did in smash, but he also plays the piano like ben platt in the politician because he's a basic white theatre boy. it's also just a beautiful song about growing up and maturing, and also "if you're so smart, then tell me why are you still so afraid?" is a very bree line. 

(also, the part where josh calls milo his "kid cousin" and then bree's like "yeah, milo's the same age as me" but josh ignores it…… creepy!!!!! bad!!!!!! also, side note, milo is canonically genderfluid and uses different pronouns depending on the day, which is why they change throughout the season.)

and then!!!! we get annabell singing "hallelujah" by leonard cohen, which is just a stunning song, we all know this. it's a song about faith and doubt and it's also a parallel to rori's happy go lucky song, which annabell's being slow and sad instead. also they're jewish and gay and lovely. and then the jeff buckley cover plays over the next scene because it's Good.

and then we get "feel it still" by portugal. the man as the girl squad text. it's just a fun song and the line "i'm a rebel just for kicks" is great from brianna "rebel girl by bikini kill" holland.

and then, swiftie nation, we get “new romantics” by taylor swift as bree agrees to go out with josh because she’s being self destructive. like the fact that she says yes to him as the line “we’re all bored / we’re all so tired of everything” plays say it all. and just the whole song is very bree core, as a whole, also it’s a really fucking good song. i am a 1989 (deluxe) stan.

and then we fade away with “vienna” by billy joel because it is such a good song god bless <3

episode three

WE!! OPEN!! WITH!!! “tik tok” by ke$ha because it is genuinely one of the best songs of our generation, and also it’s just a very shopping centre song. i don’t know why but it Is.

AND THEN!!!!!!!!! we get genuinely one of my favourite songs that i’ve been waiting to find the right scene for ever since i first heard it. “dog bite” by stella bridie is just genuinely a stunning song that really Gets bree’s character as a whole, especially the first lines “putting on lipstick in the bathroom at the doctor’s  / i got a party after this blood test”..... the whole Need to be perform feminity whilst doing something as simple as going to the doctor’s as bree draws herself and tries to make herself look perfect because she believes her only self worth comes from her body and just….. the vibes. immaculate.

and then we get “ophelia” by marika hackman, another beautiful song, as we see bree self destructively look through all of the cyber bullying that’s happened to her in the past as a way of emotional self harm. it’s just a genuinely depressing scene with a good song underscoring it.

but then we cut to rori and brianna out for a jog together - because both have issues with their self image, but also because they’re friends and like to do things together - as “it’s nice to have a friend” by taylor swift plays. it is a very homoerotic song, with a lot of childhood friends to lovers vibes, which is kind of what we’re going for here. they are both very deeply sad but also it is nice to have a friend and have someone there for you when you find out the cast list of the musical you auditioned for and you can hug them…….

and then!!!!! we get “...ready for it?” by taylor swift as we get another party sequence because it’s a fucking banger and also brianna is Very reputation as a person, which will be shown with some other taylor songs throughout the season. also it’s kind of a “are you ready for it?” for the Deeply Sad scene that follows the fun party sequence, because this is skam brighton, and i will always write scenes of people being sad outside/after parties.

episode four

we begin with “harlem” by new politics as bree, annabell and dean hang out at the shopping centre and fuck around in clarie’s. it’s about a funky song and about the recurring line of “like you, like me, like everybody else” of the three of them all having their mental illnesses in common and bree simultaneously feeling happy that she can be open about it, and deeply uncomfortable that she has to be open about it.

and then we get “crush on you” by elijah who as bree scrolls through instagram and looks at two pictures - one of annabell and one of rori and nick, and when she likes the picture of rori and nick, she literally taps over nick’s face so that she can just look at rori <3 it’s about the bree being a bicon.

and then we get the theatre club watching rent as a fun time!!!! we get tune up #1 and voicemail #1, just iconic numbers. we get theatre kid supreme al knowing all of the words, cool guy james doing his air guitar, and when the line “let her be a lesbian” is sung, we get annabell cheering and rori awkwardly looking away because she has internalised homophobia.

(side note, one of my favourite aspects of this season is that it’s a subversion of the past three, where we’ve seen sandy, liz and jake deal with their internalised struggles with their sexualities, but with bree and rori, rori’s the one dealing with her sexuality, while bree is in love with her quietly)

AND THEN!!!!! we open clip 5 with the iconic skam verse song “call your girlfriend” by robyn as the girl squad show up at a house party and bree and rori have a homoerotic moment

and then!!!!!!!!!!!! a moment of skamverse wlw solidarity, “blush” by rhiza plays as rori and bree kiss in the bathroom. a) because it’s a good song and b) because the whole “she's just a friend, you know, but sometimes yeah i wanna kiss her, uhm but that's just 'cause she's cute right? that don't make me gay, it's not like i like other girls like i only like her, i mean no, i'm not gay, right?” part is really summing up what rori’s going through in this scene. also the song is just a bree song. 

episode five

WE OPEN WITH!!!!!! an iconic moment, if i may say so myself. an iconic wlw song, “boyfriend” by marika hackman, plays over bree and nick out partying. like it opens with the lyrics: “i've got your boyfriend on my mind / i think he knows you stayed with me last night” and then we get “it's fine 'cause i am just a girl / ‘it doesn't count’”. i mean. come on.

we then get a snippet of “rent” from rent in a rehearsal, with the lines: “how do you leave the past behind / when it keep finding ways to get to your heart” and “how can you connect in an age / where strangers, landlords, lovers / your own blood cells betray / what binds the fabric together / when the raging, shifting winds of change / keep ripping away”, which all really relate to brianna with her trying to bury her past traumas and and how she struggles to connect and also struggles with change - and the reference to fabric in the line when she’s the person who does the costumes for the show.

and then we get “pynk” by janelle monae as bree and annabell go charity shopping together and have a nice time. It’s just a fun wlw song and i like it. also it’s boppy and happy and kind of dreamy to show how their relationship is very on the surface and not as deep as it once was and they’re not really going to get that back so it’s just really awkward. 

AND THEN!!!! we get bree panicking because she’s getting creepy messages from josh so she runs to hang out with the girl squad and works on her drawing of them, focusing on rori as “head over feet” by alanis morissette plays. this is kind of a contrast to “pynk”, with it being a song that uses real instruments as opposed to the more electro feel of “pynk” to represent the two different relationships. also the lyrics “you treat me like i'm a princess / i'm not used to liking that” and “you've already won me over in spite of me / and don't be alarmed if i fall head over feet / and don't be surprised if i love you for all that you are / i couldn't help it / it's all your fault” are just Incredibly rori/brianna.

and then we get “hand solo (acoustic)” by marika hackman as we get a brief scene of bree masturbating to some not very healthy p*rn. i was hesitant to include this scene, out of fear of over-sexualising bree as a bisexual girl of colour, but then i thought i had to include the scene from a non-sexual stand point - to show how bree uses sex, even in her own mind when she’s alone, as a self destructive thing, and to show that masturbation is a normal thing to do, but also it’s a hint that bree’s state is getting a bit more manic than usual, so she’s getting more hypersexual. also for the catholic guilt of her stopping and looking up to see the cross above her bed.

when then get ortopilot’s cover of “basketcase” by green day, which is more of an acoustic version of the song. the song itself is just a Very mental illness song and just has a lot of vibes of guilt with it, and the beat of the song is very quick and manic in itself.

we then get “every breath you take” by the police playing over bree and josh’s Scary text conversation in the fish n chip shop, because it’s a creepy stalker song with Pleasant Music over it, which is kind of the Vibe i was going for with josh. also, the season came out around the same time as skames season 3, and seeing the parallels between josh and miquel, with josh being very emotionally distant and miquel being very emotionally close, but both of them having the same goal in mind and end result was very interesting to me. also both of them being very creepy old guys who should stay away from teenagers <3

but then. oh but then. we get a moment that is genuinely one of my favourites. we get the broadway cast version of “forgiven” by alanis morissette, another one of my favourite songs. i chose the broadway version because i prefer the quieter orchestration and the build up to the chorus instead of going all in on it so quickly. i chose this song because bree does parallel frankie from jlp, yes, but she also parallels mj in the fact that she’s repressing her trauma from being sexually harassed and assaulted by adult men ever since she was a child. and the song itself is very beautiful and bree core, with lyrics such as “my brothers, they never went blind for what they did / but i may as well have / in the name of the father, the skeptic and the son / i have one more stupid question” and “we all had our reasons to be there / we all had a thing or two to learn / we all needed something to cling to / so we did”. we also see bree seeking refuge in a church after being harassed by josh, because religion is the place where she genuinely feels safest, but she also doesn’t feel safe, as a bisexual woman in the catholic church, but she also knows in her heart that she is loved by god. 

episode six

WE! OPEN! WITH! “motion sickness” by ms phoebe bridgers plays as bree wakes up at liz’s house the next morning - a song literally about a shitty older man - and then bree is literally sick in the bathroom, claiming she has food poisoning from the strange fish they got last night because she couldn’t go to their usual place out of fear. but, in reality, this is morning sickness from her pregnancy, because she had sex with josh for the first time 6 weeks prior.

and then we get a scene of bree in a manic state rapidly working on costumes as “my body’s made of crushed little stars” by mitski plays. this scene is directly inspired by me in what i believe to be a manic episode staying up until 5am writing because i thought that if i stopped i would forget everything that i was thinking and never write anything good again. fun times. but also just the fast pace of the song and the very depressing lyrics and the whole “i’m not doing anything” playing over bree doing So Many Things…..

we then get a lot of silence because it’s Emotion Time, but then!!!! we get a moment very pleasing to be, “unprodigal daughter” by alanis morissette playing as bree goes to buy a pregnancy test. the song itself is just one of my favourites, and it’s also about bree kinning ms frankie healy (having a “perfect” white older brother, having an intense relationship with your mother, being artistic and into english, being bisexual and just really cool), but it’s also a song about choice and the singer choosing herself and who she wants to be and having hope for the future and wanting to run away. also the line “i’d invite you but i’m busy being oppressed” once again being used in regards to a young bisexual girl of colour….. genuinely one of my favourite lines ever written. the power it has.

and then. bree finds out she’s pregnant via the tests. and “oh no!” by marina begins to play, because skam brighton is a comedy show, but also skam brighton is a show for depressed british-ish teenagers. bree copes with this Really Fucked News by deciding to go and get wasted because that’s her favourite method of dissociation. also the song is just very bree as a whole, with the wanting to change and the “i'm now becoming my own self-fulfilled prophecy” after her making fun of her cousin’s pregnancy in the first episode.

and then we get “bubblegum bitch” also by marina as bree goes out to drink. it’s there to represent how bree is trying to force herself to get into her familiar role of the fun bitchy party girl, but it’s not working because she’s just really fucked, but she’s trying her best.

BIG TW FOR SEXUAL ASSAULT

and then “you are going to hate this” by the frights plays as josh and bree dance together, and we see josh giving her more and more drinks, getting her purposefully drunk as she gives into it, wanting the release being drunk gives her, not realising that he could be doing something bad to her because she’s so distracted by a) the alcohol and b) the fact that she’s fucking pregnant and doesn’t know what to do about it.

and then we get “seventeen” by sharon van etten as josh begins to assault brianna. i first heard this song in sex education, where it played as a group of girls supported their best friend after she was sexually harrassed on the bus, and i wanted to use it here as kind of a parallel to that, but also as a reminder than bree is seventeen years old, a child, and josh knows this, purposefully got her drunk and is assaulting her, because he is a disgusting human being.

episode seven

we open with “interlude iii” by tessa violet, as bree wakes up and leaves josh’s bed again, a parallel to the first clip of the season, but this time we saw the before that presumably happened. it’s just a really pretty song that vibes with the lonely emptiness of the scene.

and then we get “the ballad of mona lisa” by panic! at the disco as bree walks into school. it’s just a really vibey bree song, and the whole “i’d pay to see you frown” line is just about the always masking around people and never showing your real emotions. 

we then get “out tonight” from rent, but the movie version, purely because i just prefer the music production on that version. it just slaps. also, i just used this scene to talk about my love for my interpretation of mimi marquez. she’s just a teenager with a lot of problems who needs proper professional medical help, very much like bree. also, i have always seen “out tonight” as mimi having a manic episode and using the number as a distraction from her actual problems (literally what bree is doing) and i love her. (also the scene of bree watching the scene from the movie and having gay panic is just an Iconic moment)

we then get “funeral” by phoebe bridgers as bree lies in bed, deeply depressed and barely able to move. it’s just about a beautiful and deeply sad song. like all of the lines just vibe really hard with bree and the deep loneliness and emptiness of the song, and the underlying panic really outline bree’s actual emotional state.

and we end with the titular song of the episode, “will i?” from rent. i chose this song because, despite it being very repetitive, it’s always been deeply meaningful to me. and the only lines being “will i lose my dignity / will someone care / will i wake tomorrow / from this nightmare?” playing after bree talked about having to deal with her pregnancy, and following the dream imagery used in funeral, because all of the music Is connected…….. quite genuinely one of my favourite moments, because it’s so understated

episode eight

we begin the music of this episode with “everything i own” by the front bottoms - just a really fucking sad song for a really fucking sad time in bree’s life. with like like “just try to appreciate what you got while you got it” and “sometimes i don't feel like singing / i don't really like these songs / sometimes i don't feel like dancing / dj please, don't turn the beat on / let's keep it quiet, keep me honest, keep me true” just really vibing with her.

and then we get “even my dog” by kathryn gallagher, another one of my personal favourite songs, as bree walks through the hospital. first of all, kathryn gallagher’s character in jagged little pill, bella, does parallel bree quite a lot - being from a poor family, being talented at art, being slut-shamed by her school and dealing with the trauma of being sexually assaulted. the song itself has lyrics describing depression, with lines like “i don’t know how i’m gonna get better / i just know that i’m supposed to / i don’t know how i’m gonna get better / but i’ll tell you i’m good ‘til i believe it too” and “everybody wants me to be happy / everybody wants me to be” and “i can feel it / the life i knew before you / it’s beautiful to be so naive” which i feel just Really fit bree and her situation

then we get a little bit of “musetta’s waltz” played by james, because it’s a rent thing, and rori sings a bit of “over the moon” because it’s a maureen song and i just wanted to include it for a little bit of fun in the hell week

and then. oh and then. we get the funeral scene from rent and “i’ll cover you (reprise)” performed by milo and everyone else. the reason i chose this song is because a) it’s one of the most beautiful and heart wrenching songs in musical theatre canon, and b) i wanted to use the imagery of a funeral to show bree quietly making the decision in her head to go through with the abortion, even though she has many doubts. and the line “a new lease you were, my love / on life” is about the baby bree might have had may be being her ticket to a new life, the way she was for her mother, but bree knows that’s not what she wants and not what she can handle right now. and the moment bree finally break is the climax of the song, the moment death is said out in the open “when your heart has expired”. she hears that, is struck by the reality of what she wants to do, and just runs because it’s a lot for any person, let alone a seventeen year old, to handle.

and then we get the girl squad picking bree off the ground, quite literally, and helping her go to the doctor, all of them together, as “sign of the times” by harry styles played. all of the girls are involved, organising rides and where to go and comforting bree, and al’s staying behind, doing ground control at the rehearsal, because al and bree are siblings and they love each other god damn it. ans the song itself is just. simply epic. and the lines “you look pretty good down here / but you ain't really good” really get to where bree is in regards to her self image and it’s about her finally opening up and accepting help and doing what’s right and good for her, not being self destructive or doing things for someone else.

episode nine

we open with a slowed down piano cover of “knee socks” by the arctic monkeys, simply because i liked the sound of it and it’s a quintessential sad british time, but it’s also about girls being pretty.

and then we get one of my favourite songs from rent being sung by bree, “without you”. it’s a genuinely beautiful song about addiction and the struggles that people can go through with it. the song has a double meaning to bree, as she’s been struggling with her alcohol abuse problems recently and going clean, but the song is also about bree imagining life without her hypothetical child. “but i die / without you” is how bree is seeing it, still thinking she’ll be rejected by her mother, and partially by god, if she goes through with it, but the song goes on. she knows the world will go on without her child, but she’s unsure of how she’s going to be after the child is gone. (we also see james come in and sing too, as he plays roger, but him singing is also a reference to him dealing with his own addiction, as mentioned before in this season, to nicotine).

we then get “you gotta be" by des'ree playing as we go from bree getting herself together after josh gets fired to bree and her mother sitting together and watching ladybird. i wanted ladybird to be playing because it’s a very bree movie, in my opinion, and the “give me a number” scene playing is a really good feel, for me, of what it’s like to be a working class child and feeling the need to pay back your parents, which is something bree also feels immensely. and the song has lyrics such as “challenge what the future holds / try and keep your head up to the sky / lovers, they may cause you tears / go ahead release your fears” and “stand up and be counted / don't be ashamed to cry” and “you gotta be tough, you gotta be stronger / you gotta be cool, you gotta be calm / you gotta stay together / all i know, all i know, love will save the day”, which just really vibe with where bree is in this scene, trying to figure out all the things she has to be and can be and the whole thing about standing up is just very bree, because, despite us seeing her insecurities and weaknesses, she’s always been a confident person 

and then we get a scene that i wrote just to make myself cry. bree gets her hair cut by her mother after deeply connecting to her as “slipping through my fingers” by abba plays. it’s a song about a mother watching her daughter grow up and trying to stay close to her despite her always growing and changing, which is how i see audrey. she’s a woman full of love and she will do anything to support her daughter and make her happy, and it took bree until now to see it. and then we see bree’s hair literally slipping through audrey’s fingers, because haircuts are often used as a way to regain control over one’s life, and i’ve used bree’s hair throughout this season as a way to represent her trauma. when she gets morning sickness, she throws up in her hair. josh pulls on her hair when he assaults her. her cutting her hair off is a metaphor for her cutting off her trauma, but then from the hair cutting we transition to:

the abortion clinic, where “soon you’ll get better” by taylor swift and the chicks is playing. a song where a daughter sings to her mother to get better, and we see a mother supporting her daughter as she gets ready to go through surgery. the song itself, though, feels more about bree’s mental health than her physical state. she knows that through this surgery, she will ultimately end up better, but it’s going to take a lot of time.

and then as bree and audrey sit at home, they watch another movie: this time “grease”, representing bree’s desire to get back to her younger, happier self.

and then. we get “wake up” by alanis morrissette as bree gets ready for the rally in support of sexual assault survivors. a song, when used in the jlp musical, is used to talk about how it’s easier to not stand up and speak out against sexual assault. with the line “it’s so much easier not to / and what goes around never comes around to you” being used in regards to the cishet abled white man who will never get back all of the harm he puts out into the world, but we see bree reclaiming the song and her own body, putting on makeup in a way that makes her happy and marching out to the streets as it plays, focusing on her and only her

episode ten

WE OPEN WITH!!!! a moment most pleasing to me - “i did something bad” by taylor swift playing as the girl squad slow mo down the street together, a united front. i chose this song because it’s literally about society saying a woman did something bad, but she doesn’t give a fuck and wishes that she could do it again, which is how bree feels about fucking up a rapist’s life. also, once again, bree rolling a nat 20 on her deception roll as she gets proof of josh having the pictures of her on his phone by pretending to be the manic pixie damsel in distress josh wanted….. and we also get josh using the term “witch hunt”, the same phrase bryan used when he went off on bree, to show that they’re both the same character archetype, but in different flavours (bryan coming in asshole jock and josh coming in adult man incel).

(note: i also wanted to include the girl squad in this scene, because in the og when noora when to go meet nikolai on her own i was just. So Scared for her because she had No One. also, fun fact, i included the fact that the squad call nick “nickolai” as a nickname in season 2 so maybe there would be a theory that he would be nikolai, but i was just playing 4d chess with myself and he’s just a nice guy)

and then we get “seasons of love” from rent, which is, yes, a basic theatre song, but you can’t deny how good it is. and the whole “minute” thing in it lining up with the “minute by minute” iconic skam speech, and we get annabell on the big soloist lines because they’re the person who also heard the “minute by minute” speech before from the same place as bree, because it was said in their group therapy…. and it also parallels “i’ll cover you (reprise)” with them all standing in a line, but this time bree stays because it’s about love and being supported by your friends and not being sure if you’re okay, but knowing there’s always a safe place for you to go where you’re loved.

(also, we get a throwback joke of sandy, once again, being surprised by how strangely sexual all of these musicals are. i love her so so much)

and then!!!!! we end the episode with rori and bree confessing their feelings for each other and kissing for real for the first time, and it ends with “dress” by taylor swift playing. literally just the most homoerotic song, and the whole “i don’t want you like a best friend” line…… they deserve to be in love with each other and i have been building up to them finally admitting it for four seasons. literally the longest slow burn i’ve ever written. 

episode eleven

WE! OPEN! WITH! “watch you sleep” by girl in red, a song i discovered in 2018 and wanted to save for a good moment, and then the whole “do you listen to girl in red” thing exploded, so. (james from derry girls voice) i support wlw, though i myself am not wlw. also it’s just a really sweet song that i like a lot. and we’ve seen bree wake up a lot at the beginning of episodes, and we see her wake up from a nightmare this time, and she calms down instantly when she realises she’s home and with rori…..

and then we get a moment MOST PLEASING to me!!!! we have canon swiftie alistair fletcher streaming “daylight” by taylor swift in the bathroom as bree and rori wait for him to be done. and then they start to dance together to it, with them referencing rent before they start dancing, and rori begins to sing along because rori, as a character, has such “lover” energy. and we get rori singing “i once believed love would be black and white”, which is a reference to her and james’s relationship, with her thinking it would be simple and easy, and then “i once believed love would be burning red”, with her and nick’s quick, passionate relationship “but it’s golden like daylight” and we see her and bree together, calm, best friends who are now lovers, no big dramatics, no fireworks, just two people who care so deeply about each other, holding each other, having seen each other at their worst and still adoring them with every part of their being. and we get the “you’re so pretty”, “no, you”, “no, us” exchange, which is just saying “stop comparing yourself to other girls, just be in love with them and yourself”

and then we get “number one fan” by muna, which is just a really fun boppy song, and just big bree core. with lines like “so i heard the bad news / nobody likes me and i'm gonna die alone / in my bedroom / looking at strangers on my telephone / well, wouldn't you? / wouldn't you like if i believed those words?” is showing her development, going from believing all of the bad shit people say about her, both online and to her face, and standing up for herself and believing in herself

(fun fact, there was originally a clip in this episode where we see bree going to the police about josh, but as i was getting closer to publishing it, i thought “fuck that, i’m not giving them any screentime”, and just gave bree some fun exposition about reporting josh to his school)

so we get “icu” by phoebe bridgers as bree’s walking down the street, just vibing, very happy because she just got her rapist expelled from his university. we get lines like: “and i get this feeling / whenever i feel good / it'll be the last time” which vibes with my perception and bree and her relationship with her mental health, which is currently, in the episode, in a good place because of goos things happening, but she knows that it’s going to come back down eventually, but she’s prepared for it now, she’s not as scared of herself anymore

then we get al’s film of the rehearsal process - which is, once again, him using art and music as a way of expressing his love - as “heroes” by david bowie plays. this is a direct reference to “the perks of being a wallflower”, a very inspiring piece of media to me, writing wise. the film that al makes is just a love letter to being teenagers and making art and noise in a world where people are constantly telling you to shut up.

and then, following two deeply philosophical speeches i wrote at 3am one night, we get the last 15 minutes of act one of a musical because it’s my show!!!!!! and if i want to have a character yell about love and then sing a song i can!!!!!

we begin with “la vie boheme”, the iconic act one closer of rent. quite genuinely, this song has the same meaning here as it does in rent, only with the added layer of “this is the last clip, so we’re just all having a fun happy ending” on it, so i’m just gonna be talking about my favourite fun parts of it.

we got al and bree sharing a laugh as al sings “not to mention, of course / hating dear old mom and dad”; we got al high-fiving jake as he talks about “fruits”, because they’re both gay; we got one of my favourite lines: “to being an us for once instead of a them”; we got milo and bree messing around because i love their friendship; we got bree and nick singing a verse together; we got al making it canon that mark cohen gets pegged with the “mucho masturbation” line; we get rori making eye contact with bree while she kisses another girl, because we love a call your girlfriend reference and we love her character development; we get james finally perfecting “musetta’s waltz”

and then we get “i should tell you”, a song i hated upon first watch of rent, but now i love it so so much. while james and bree are singing it together as roger and mimi, bree is very much dedicating the song to rori, because it’s a song about being scared of starting a relationship but doing it anyway because you’re learning to trust the other person. we also see audrey and patrick in the audience, both so happy and supportive of their children, because i love them so much. i love all of the parents, but audrey is definitely my personal favourite so fa.

and then!!!! we begin “la vie boheme b”, literally one of the biggest bangers of musical theatre history. 

we get rori singing the first fast verse, literally raising a middle finger to the idea of perfection and eating disorders, because while those ideas may be a part of her life, she’s happy to say “fuck you” to them; we get nick voguing to the camera as he sings his fast verse, goofing around like usual; and then we get milo yelling out their verse to the audience, serious, because they genuinely believe in the words they’re saying

then we get the cast all yelling out their lgbt identity in the form of a reclaimed slur. i also changed this part of the show because there’s two terms referring to lesbians in the song and i wanted to a reference just for bisexual people. 

then we begin to shift all focus away from bree and her story, beginning to move onto nick, as he and james dance together as al yells out the title line of the episode: “the opposite of war isn’t peace, it’s creation”. and i decided to edit the closing monologue because i felt that it placed too much focus on roger and mimi’s romance and wanted to end the season with a focus on revolution and positive social change, ending with the line: “the riot goes on and on and on and on…”

and then we end the season with the line “we will now take a short intermission” as nick looks into the camera, because it’s time for a break between seasons babey!

and that’s another well over 10k essay on my music choices!!!!! also, as of writing this, i have officially finished production on skambr season 5!!!! i’m way ahead of schedule, which is really good for me, and the trailer will be coming out in about a month’s time!!!! until then, thank you for reading my infodump <3

[bionicdragonguardian1]

Voltron Rewritten Defender (1/8)

Also known as My Almost Raging Bitch List for this Goddamn Disastrous Disappointment of a Show

I binged all 8 seasons in under a week, so believe me when I say almost nothing was forgotten between seasons/episodes and I do tend to note that.

If it’s not obvious by the title, I’m planning an entire show AU. I am extremely open to people’s opinions on what I’m currently thinking and when I finally post this I’ll be open to criticism there too. If you would like to avoid seeing anything in regards to this feel free to blacklist #voltron_rewritten_defender because that’s what I’ll be using for this whole thing.

Enjoy, I guess.

Fair warning I am a multishipper, but for this show I leaned towards Klance, so if that bothers you that’s okay, I’m not going to be bashing any other ships (mainly just Dreamworks’ forced Allurance). If you think I missed something for any other ship lemme know! If you wanna have a ship discussion that’s cool too. The only other thing I can think of is that Allura’s attitude in S8 really stuck with me to the point that she bothered me throughout the entire rewatch (I was admittedly one of the people who thought she could be very Mary Sue ish when I first watched this) so that’ll show up now and again.

If you want to look at the Google Doc for the whole show, click the link, if not you can expand this post to see Season 1. I’ll be doing these in chunks, but as some of you know I do a FicRecList on one of my other accounts here @sorcerusdragonbionics​ so I’m gonna be alternating between that and these for the next couple days.

If you do the Google Route it’ll have you ask me for permission, this is normal and if you request it I’ll give you commenting abilities.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1t30IRJonrBFh0qvs8recf3ayGoQ0rx02y0Tg1e4NTaI/edit?usp=sharing

Key

Things I kinda wanna bitch about

Things I did genuinely enjoy and like 

Rewatch Thoughts (basically what I remember from further forward and how I feel like it reflects back on earlier seasons)

Ship Talk (behold my multishipping insanity)

Things I think I’ll do in the Rewrite

Writing Notes (mainly for me or as explanation for what I’m planning)

VA and Closed Captioning Things

Other Fic Thoughts

This ended up being music commentary in S8

Season One

Problems with the Season overall:

To be honest if I hated this season I wouldn’t’ve kept watching because by the time I started S3 had just dropped

Episode 1

Here’s the deal, WHY ARE YOU SO LONG BUT SO EMPTY?!?

Yeah, nope, that’s mostly it

Fix the problem of telling instead of showing about the other Lions and remove Allura’s explanation of the Lions if possible (thank you Kross for explaining why it felt so empty- this vid is actually where I started getting the idea to actually go through with a full series AU)

DON'T RUSH THE LION INTROS

Also let the 5 introduce themselves to Allura and Coran

Also Character Drive to Complete Mission Should Be A Thing

Flesh out Paladin Personalities so that the Aris Arrival is End of Part One (making it closer to the length of E1)

Flesh out Lion intros so part 2+3 are more like full Eps without Sendak

Episode 2

75 degrees… that’s definitely in Fahrenheit, which why?

How does no one have a watch with a date on them?

“A man can be driven to do anything if a beautiful woman is just really really mean to him”

More inbetween scenes bc I can

I will accept the transformation sequence here, I’m just not going to write it

Episode 3

Please watch the use of Earth Time Slices please, because it’s confusing

I love the portrayal of PTSD in this show and I would die before I change it

Bye bye transformation sequence

Pidge’s talk with Shiro can please change

Episode 4

“I say Vol, you say Tron” will come up again if it kills me

Lance, how do you know what hotdog water and feet taste like?

I love how Coran is completely nonchalant about the fact that he’s drinking a hair tonic

Shiro, don’t bring down the mood

Goddammit Sendak, you could stay for this arc, but god I want you GONE!

Keith, having an emotion? Really?

The Pidge plot DID NOT NEED TO HAPPEN LIKE THAT!

Fight me I will change it

Or minimally change the fact that their selfish motivations are revealed to BAD and should be changed

Oh yeah, let’s not give the ONE GUY with notable homesickness a character arc around that

That moment when you realize Allura is like ‘wtf is a peanut’

Allura, don’t push it, some people don’t want to talk about it

You will have something to talk about, BIOLOGY

Decryption happens here, and next attempt to find family occurs… when?

Poor Coran, if there is anyone who was more forgotten than Lance it was him

Keith isn’t wrong, but he also doesn’t know how to say it without getting mad, which mood

Just pointing out Lance is not only smart, but selfless, tell me how he’s not the main character

My inner Shance/Klance shipper is sobbing

“Bomb fuel” mentioned here, occurs… actually it’s ok

Timelines need to be a thing!

Can I make the fight scenes more intense? Yes, I write them for my YJ Scripts. Will I? Almost definitely.

Keith with that much fire your mask should be closed because smoke inhalation is bad

Can we explain Vrepit Sa before s6?

It feels like Coran forgets that 10k years have passed under an evil empire and part of me likes it, but it hurts me

Episode 5

The Katie flashback is hurts me

I want to add Gender Identity

Can we talk about how Shiro is a nickname for Takashi Shirogane?

That’s not how an EMP works

The Coran sitting on Hunk’s shoulders with a machine gun is everything

I know the back x-ray was a joke, but I still don’t like it

Rax is an idiot, just saying

Bonding Moment!!!

Episode 6

“Intergalactic time measuring competition.”

“We had a bonding moment!”

Where is Sendak’s arm?

Fight me, Pidge’s ‘gender speech’

It will be a gender speech if it kills me

Lance, why are you acting the way you are?

“I figured” and “We were supposed to think you were a boy” ARE NOT PROPER REACTIONS!

Rolo, sometimes I want to punch you in the teeth

Lance’s boner is going to get someone killed

Lance had 4sec of logic and then Nyma brings up Keith, which ofc does him in

Let’s expand on the Komar, yeah?

Quiznack means fuck and NO ONE can tell me otherwise

Keith’s ability to fly is impressive and it’s awesome

Friendly reminder that Lance acknowledged the bonding moment

Episode 7

I LOVE the laser gun sound effects!!!

I just realized that Allura has no clue what an Acronym is

We… literally just talked about this and YOU didn’t know that Shiro, I understand the point, but seriously?

LIONS are TELEPATHIC Shiro DID NOT need to say that aloud!

I do actually like the fact that Kieth gets excited before realizing what he did

FIRE and ICE PEOPLE come on! What the hell?! You barely had to try

“Yes sir?” Keith to Shiro, what?

I love them and their cute little arguments

Left vs Right, thank you Zamber

We be lovin’ Hunay bc it’s pure as hell

Thank you Shiro for validating Hunk’s concerns

You could check  a little faster, Allura

I LIVE for this scene

Was it actually Rolo?

Do they have teleporters?

Keith being weird is my favorite thing

I love good big bros who argue tradition to save their baby sis

Zarkon is a bit of a moron

THEIR LIVES ARE IN DANGER ALLURA!

They all came through different doors… how?

What if the answer was no?

I’m ok with Lance embarrassing himself when he’s cocky, some people seem to forget that

Bye transformation sequence, I explained you ONCE and that’s it

Prorock… why are you familiar?

Episode 8

I admittedly forgot that they didn’t know these things would be different

Flying fight scenes I can do, teleporting not so much

Poor Shiro he thought he had an idea and he was wrong

I love Coran’s reaction

Also NO SHIT Allura

UHHHH Pidge said that not and of the other three so how did He know?

Allura may piss me off, but I do love this speech

“Your Altean Energy”??? Coran, you’re an Altean, I’m confused.

The “Sacred Altean” thing I get, but you must be more specific cuz it makes Coran sound like he thinks he’s not a proper Altean.

Oof, angsty

Also, I  know we can’t kill Allura yet, but... 

I love that Hunk forgot they hadn’t formed Voltron

Bye bye transformation sequence

Ummm, they NEED to explain the Bayard Equip bc that’s… two very different things that occurred between Hunk and Keith’s Bayard Weapons

Why is this a scene? It’s not a dog. So, yeah, I’m with Keith here

Episode 9

THIS IS NOT HEALTHY ALLURA!

I just realized that this doesn’t come back until S..7? 8? Whatever, WAY too long

I can’t unhear “Training Dick”

Did they have homework on Altea?

Be still my Punk shipper heart

WHY is he SO pretty?!

Y’know, the glowing red eye is usually a bad sign

I could SO mean and hurt Keith here

That moment when you’re like 90% sure Shiro heard that somewhere

Not what haunted means Coran, but accurate

Why could Lance see Alfor for a second?

I too would like the answer to “where was the Red Lion?”

PTSD IS AMAZINGLY WRITTEN!

It’s a shame this is NEVER treated properly again

Thank you for NOT making the swimming thing a thing

You didn’t need to TRY Voltron, what the hell?!

Here’s the deal,  Altea not being Obliterated-obliterated is actually a really interesting idea

Lance still wins, for the record

If she was infected in any way this wouldn’t drive me crazier than a bot on Halloween

But she’s not so this is BULL

Shallura confuses me SO much…

Ok, admittedly the scene with Allura and Alfor is beautifully heartbreaking

Episode 10

The fact that Zarkon was a close friend to Alfor should be addressed

Also Shiro calling himself “an inexperienced Pilot” hurts

Allura’s a MORON!

YES! MASSIVE ISSUE WITH YOU COMING

Nice puppetry Hunk

What happened to THIS Allura?! She’s reckless but not INSANE (or so boring I might cry)!

Is this the same Druid from Season 8? Pretty sure it’s 8… I forget which, but the one Keith fought

“Don’t walk through that door!” / Keith does/ “I think I told him” // “You are a paragon of leadership, Lance”

Hehheh I love Hunk teasing Lance about Allura

I do actually the fact that I can’t tell what size the purple container is until Keith grabs it

Heheh the Allura interacting with the Galra soldier

The computer sounds like Lance

Also Shiro had that “holy shit” moment

I HATE WRITING TELELPORTING FIGHTS

I’m 99% sure that the ONLY reason I didn’t fall into the Galra Keith rabbit hole was the fact that I binge watched

This scene confuses me… so much now that I know Shallura was apparently never going to be a thing

So confused

Episode 11

That hair flip though...

Coran, I get it, but calm down

Okay, but Keith has a point. Seriously, he’s not wrong. 

For the record, Haggar scares me

So much makes so much more sense now that we know Zarkon is the Original Black Paladin

That… makes no sense… “enough essence to open a wormhole”

Why are you transforming? More pieces to shoot at is usually a smart idea…

Hey hey, THACE!

Why can’t you have two active at once? I’m honestly serious.

I mean too OP, got it, but you can maneuver around that for temporary stuff

Shiro, use your words, yeah?

“Thinking” uh huh you mean “telepathy” right?

I genuinely forgot that Shiro got booted from Black

Damn! Yes Shiro! Kick some ass!

Ok, here’s the deal, Keith’s not listening to Coran, but he doesn’t have all the info (LIKE THE FUCKING BAYARD), Zarkon’s the OG Paladin, and he’s in distress

I HATE TELEPORTERS!

“Could have been” … uh Kuron exists ?? 

Also, Shiro with yellow eyes is fucking terrifying

We ain’t ficking stupid VLD

Zarkon’s a fucking idiot

Written properly his power-hungry attitude works even with him destroying his own ship

But it wasn’t so it’s null

You aren’t even subtle about Galra Keith

How can Allura see through Illusions?

Nobody knows!

Shiro, you have no jetpack, how are you so fast?

“Who cares, wormhole!” mood

I… uh… I want to do SO many things with this idea

Preferably not what they actually do...

[britesparc]

Weekend Top Ten #448

Top Ten Moments in The Secret of Monkey Island

This week was one of those weeks where I had a list all ready to go, and then I discovered something that made me throw the whole lot in the bin and write something new in a hurry. And the thing that I discovered is that it is, approximately, the 30th birthday of my favourite videogame of all time, The Secret of Monkey Island.

When I was a kid, I’d go round my cousins’ house and play on their Spectrum or their C64. I played the usual 8-bit hits of the era; Dizzy, Ghostbusters, Skool Daze, that really weird and probably insanely offensive Spitting Image beat-em-up… then I got my Amiga around Christmas 1990, and I figured games would be more-or-less the same but with more colours. I was wrong.

I got two games in short succession that utterly changed my appreciation for the medium: Lemmings and Monkey Island. The first was funny, inventive, colourful and characterful; a fiendishly difficult puzzler that nevertheless made you want to come back for more, because you just fell in love with the Lemmings themselves. It was like nothing I’d seen before, and felt impossible. Monkey Island, on the other hand, was not only better, not only more my cup of tea gameplay wise, but just blew the doors of my perception of what games were and what they could do. It was like an interactive movie before that was even a term; a living cartoon where you were the main character. A funny, wordy, witty adventure story, full of gags and references that I didn’t quite get but that I knew were smart and humorous (and there was lots of daft humour in there that I did get, too). It wasn’t just a case of being able to talk to people – I’d done that in stuff like Skool Daze – but the ability to solve problems, to divine solutions; to work out that you can drug dogs by smearing meat with dubious petals. And even when do did something like that, the game was irreverent enough to put a disclaimer on screen assuring you that the dogs were only sleeping. It broke the fourth wall, and I was only just old enough to understand what that meant in narrative terms; this was a game about gaming, about stories and adventures. It was filled with movie references (George Lucas even makes a cameo!). It inspired me to write into Amiga Power for help with a particular puzzle, and they printed my letter, but by the time it came out about three months had passed and I’d solved the puzzle on my own.

Monkey Island was the first game that I loved as much as the cartoons I watched or the comics I read; Guybrush and Elaine and LeChuck and the rest were the first gaming characters that I took to my heart in the same way as Bumblebee, Garfield, or Peter Venkman. I’ve said it before, but I’m not sure I’d love games the same way if I’d never played Monkey Island. It certainly changed the types of games I wanted to play; even though I’ve enjoyed my fair share of platformers, racing games, and shooters, it’s always the slower-paced narrative games that I come back to, the Fables and Mass Effects and Deus Exes of this world (even faster-paced games like Halo, Gears and Half-Life still grab me with their stories, as daft as they may sometimes be). Basically, Monkey Island made me a sucker for a dialogue tree.

Monkey Island was my gateway to a whole host of other LucasArts adventure games; Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Sam & Max Hit the Road, Day of the Tentacle, Grim Fandango… Ron Gilbert and Tim Schafer were among the first names of games creators that I ever knew (probably the very first, in all honesty, was Peter Molyneux – I am British after all). It was a window into a much larger world, one filled with choice, consequence, non-sequiturs, and rubber chickens with pullies in the middle.

Anyway, to celebrate Monkey Island, here are my Top Ten moments from the game. See you next year for the Monkey Island 2 list.

How to Get Ahead in Navigating: I’ve gone about it before, but this simple, daft joke – swapping a guide book for an actual navigator’s head – blew my mind as a kid. It forced me to think differently about puzzles and comedy and how to approach the game. For little old me, it was a revelation, and just desperately funny.

How Appropriate, You Fight Like a Cow: a discussion of Monkey can’t be had without talking about the innovative swordfights; a wholly successful attempt to replicate the verbal parrying of a classic Hollywood swordfight, the insult-riposte dynamic also reinforced the puzzle mechanics of the game. Sublime.

Order Hint Book: Monkey Island was the first adventure game I played, so I didn’t realise at the time how innovative its gameplay was, because you could never get hopelessly, game-ruiningly stuck, and nor could you die. Except at one point, when you drown, but even that is a hilarious gag that is easily avoidable. The control verbs changing from things like “Pick Up” to “Decompose” is just tremendous.

Use Staple Remover on Tremendous, Dangerous-Looking Yak: Monkey plays fast and loose with game conventions, sending itself up in the process; the moment when Guybrush enters a room and is hidden from view, undergoing a series of preposterous and expensive-sounding adventures, which you only know about because you can read his actions in the sentence line as if you were still controlling him (“use… gopher repellent… on another gopher…”), is a phenomenal piece of comedy stagecraft, a game parodying games parodying itself, using its own architecture to tell a joke (as well as being a play on the whole “noises off” style of gag in the first place).

Ask Me About Loom: like I say, I’d never played an adventure game before; I’d never heard of any LucasArts (sorry, Lucasfilm Games) titles, apart from maybe Maniac Mansion. So the bloke in the SCUMM Bar with his “Ask me about LOOM” badge, who launches into an intense sales spiel when you speak to him, didn’t make sense at first. But when it clicked, the very idea of a pirate in this game directly referencing another game was fourth-wall-breaking hilarious genius; happening right near the start of the game lets you know what you’re in for.

The Rock: when you get to Monkey Island, there’s a puzzle where you need to use a makeshift seesaw to catapult a boulder onto a tree (or something). If you line it up wrong, you can sink your own ship (and presumably drown your mutinous crew). The first time I played the game, this is what I did; there’s another great gag where castaway Herman Toothrot turns out to have a ship of his own. But the second time I played through, I didn’t sink my ship, and sailed back with my original crew. This blew my mind; whilst obviously not at Warren Spector levels of emergent game design, the fact that you could actually change what happened, to have a different experience to another player, was phenomenal, and another one of those watershed gaming moments for me.

Men of Low Moral Fibre (Pirates): the trio of loitering pirates are funny in and of themselves, with their breath mints and Pieces o’ Eight and minutes from a PTA meeting. But what I always found really funny was that they are literally called “Men of Low Moral Fibre (Pirates)”; that’s what it says in the sentence line when you hover your cursor over them (an aside: Monkey Island and Lemmings probably taught me how to use a mouse). Again it was the game using the structure of a game to tell a joke.

Rescuing Otis: this is what promoted me to write into Amiga Power back in the day: how the heck do you rescue Otis from the jail?! There are delightful red herrings regarding files and whatnot, but the eventual solution – juggling acidic grog from mug to mug as you make your way through the town to eventually pour it on his lock – was a rare moment of fast-paced tension in a relatively slow game. Solving it on my own made me feel so clever at a tender age. And it’s funny! So great!

A Rubber Chicken with a Pulley in the Middle: ah, my beloved rubber chicken. Found early on in the game and used in a couple of puzzles, I don’t think I quite grasped the silly brilliance of it; as a kid you’re just more accepting of the surreal. Why does a rubber chicken have a pulley? It’s basically just so you can zip-line across a chasm; it’s a wholly functional, boring plot device. But it’s also a rubber chicken. It’s sublime comic genius. And then you cook it! Madness!

The Voodoo Root: I’ve not even mentioned The Ghost Pirate LeChuck yet (if I’m honest his best “moments” are in the sequel) but the finale of the game, when you’ve distilled your Voodoo Root and you’re dispatching ghosts left right and centre, brilliantly marries an epic adventure action sequence with the point-and-click structure of the game itself. But then you fight LeChuck and he boots you around the island, until finally you crash land on a soft drinks dispenser, and finally defeat him with… a can of root beer. Cue fireworks and a strangely romantic ending. Is it as good as the ending of Monkey 2? No, but nothing is. Literally nothing, in the history of the universe.

Wow, there we are. I never had room for the dance steps, the recipe, finding the treasure, defeating the Sword Master, or Stan. Stan! I didn’t have room for Stan! See, that’s how good the game is; I barely mentioned one of the greatest gaming villains of all time, and I didn’t even get round to one of the medium’s funniest supporting characters. Blimey.

Man, I love The Secret of Monkey Island. Ron and the rest of you guys: you done good. Thanks for the memories.

[blackjack-15]

All Dogs Go To Pennsylvania — Thoughts on: Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake (DOG)

Previous Metas: SCK/SCK2, STFD, MHM, TRT, FIN, SSH

Hello and welcome to a Nancy Drew meta series! 30 metas, 30 Nancy Drew Games that I’m comfortable with doing meta about. Hot takes, cold takes, and just Takes will abound, but one thing’s for sure: they’ll all be longer than I mean them to be.

Each meta will have different distinct sections: an Introduction, an exploration of the Title, an explanation of the Mystery, a run-through of the Suspects. Then, I’ll tackle some of my favorite and least favorite things about the game, and finish it off with ideas on how to improve it.

If any game requires an extra section or two, they’ll be listed in the paragraph above, along with links to previous metas.

These metas are not spoiler free, though I’ll list any games/media that they might spoil here: mention of MHM, DOG, brief mention of VEN, brief discussion of two characters from ASH, brief mention of LIE, spoilers for 20th Century American History in case you’re not caught up yet.

The Intro:

Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake is, first and foremost, a game that is simultaneously over- and under-appreciated. It’s a rare phenomenon in gaming, and one that only occurs once in the Nancy Drew game series. 

It has an intensely atmospheric location, but is coupled with the least fitting cast to ever grace a Nancy Drew game. 

The maze (and its bird spotting/worm finding puzzles) is tedious at best, but the speakeasy is riddled with fun puzzles and pitch-perfect décor. It has the most boring, milquetoast, robotic suspects of all time, but some of the best phone characters. 

And, to top it all off, it has one of the most straightforward mysteries paired with an insanely weird ending.

The thing that DOG really nails is the location. The visuals, the accents (Emily’s is a standout), the feeling of timelessness — all of that is central to this specific area of Pennsylvania and somehow Seattle-based HER really just gets it all right. Not only is this significant in this burgeoning era of Nancy Drew games, but it also goes a long way to making the game fun to play.

By this point, HER has cottoned onto the fact that their audience really likes historical background to the games, and includes it as a matter of course. For DOG, we’re learning about Prohibition-era Pennsylvania — and more specifically, bootlegger history. 

To understand the game completely, a little history lesson might be in order. If you’re familiar with Prohibition and its cultural impact, you can skip the next few paragraphs.

For those not from the US, Prohibition was when a bunch of uptight, meddling people in the early 1900s decided that they needed a good Moral Panic and that the best way to get rid of the problems that can come with drinking was to give the government the power to make it illegal by adding it to the United States Constitution.

This lasted a total of 13 years  (1920-33) where everyone immediately and promptly ignored the law, until the government sheepishly passed the repeal in the form of another amendment to the Constitution, having accomplished nothing other than moralistic finger-wagging and the solidification and exponential growth of organized crime and the black market in the US.

Thus, in United States culture, bootleggers and others who defied Prohibition are usually viewed as folk heroes fighting against stupid governmental overreach, rather than as criminals. 

One of the most famous anecdotes from the Prohibition era is about an FBI agent who went undercover to see how long it would take to get alcohol in the major cities of the time. The longest took him a bit over 15 minutes, while the shortest was in New Orleans, Louisiana, where it took him 32 seconds due to his cab driver answering the question of where he could get alcohol by producing a bottle and saying “right here”.

This backstory is crucial not only to understanding characters like Jeff Akers, Eustacia Andropov, Vivian Whitmore, and, yes, Mickey Malone, but it’s also crucial to understanding why the game feels the way it does.

Unlike the other Nancy Drew games that touch on organized crime — Phantom of Venice, Labyrinth of Lies — this game holds a sort of fascinated reverence and “good ol’ American boy”-type feelings for Malone and his fellow gangsters. 

Usually in Nancy Drew games — and almost always in the early to middle games – HER tries to send a very strong message against any type of illegal or immoral behavior (as evidenced by the games’ Fundamentalist fanbase), but DOG stands out in its sheer American pride in these law-breakers from a different age.

It’s to the benefit of the game that the character archetypes of certain suspects and/or phone characters feed into these 20s/30s Prohibition-era tropes, as it gives them some grounding in a game that really doesn’t have much to say (in contrast to how much it feels).

Other than the historical background and its modern-day underpinnings, DOG is a paint-by-numbers Nancy Drew game with one or two annoying puzzles, a strong atmosphere, fun phone friends, and a decent plot. In a first for the series, it’s also a primarily outdoor game, which would inspire future games such as Danger on Deception Island and Creature of Kapu Cave, among many others.

While I would never rate DOG in my top games (and probably not even in the top half of games, due to the overall quality of the series), there’s a lot it does right. Ultimately, the problem with the game — and the reason that it doesn’t rank too highly on a lot of lists — is not that DOG does anything wrong, per se. It’s just that, for all its good things, DOG doesn’t do enough right.

The Title:

Lots of Nancy Drew games (always excepting the first two, which were more trial-style games and thus are different on a whole host of levels) are titled with “The [adjective] [noun]”, “[noun] in a/the [adjective] [location]’ or “The [noun] of [Proper Noun/Location]”, and Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake thus stands out a bit, making the title seem more important than it would normally.

The title tells us pretty explicitly what the main conflict — and the main “haunting”, as this is a Haunted game in its trappings, if not in its actual plot — will be: the ghostly dogs that haunt the Moon Lake property. It also lets us know, in a roundabout way, the location of the game (though there are Moon Lakes in multiple places throughout the US).

However, that’s all the title does. Unlike most other titles in the series, DOG’s title doesn’t really let you play around with possible meanings or read into it at all. As good a title as it is for pointing you right to the heart of the premise of the game, it’s also a bad title because it refuses to tell you anything else about the game.

In other words, the title, much like the rest of the game, is a mixed bag that, for me at least, hangs a little more on the negative side than the positive.

Now, onto the only thing that the title points us to:

The Mystery:

Nancy’s been called to investigate by a friend of her family’s, Sally MacDonald — a photographer and land owner — due to the fact that Sally’s cabin has been experiencing nightly hauntings by ghostly dogs of the cabin’s previous owner, a Prohibition-era gangster named Mickey Malone.

Technically, Nancy is supposed to be there to visit, but Sally can’t take another night of hauntings, and books it out of there before Nancy can arrive. Upon her arrival, Nancy experiences one of these hauntings, and promptly sets out to solve the case behind the Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake.

As a mystery, DOG isn’t too standout — it’s in the vein of MHM, though not as good — and follows the basic structure of a Haunting Game: a few instances of the haunting, some logical explanations, some illogical explanations, and a few shifty people who could have caused the disturbances.

The reason behind the hauntings is established fairly quickly, as Nancy learns that Malone’s property is valuable for a number of reasons, and Sally’s purchase of it upset the plans of the other three residents of Moon Lake. What’s not clear is which of our three extremely guilty-seeming suspects (four if you consider Sally a suspect) is actually responsible.

While the culprit in this game isn’t immediately recognizable, as HER has tried to lay some red herrings and distribute blame a little more than they have in the past, it’s still easy to figure out once you’ve hit the halfway mark (and can be figured out well before that if you’re paying close attention), but that’s more due to the suspects being one of the most lackluster suspect groups in the entire series.

The Suspects:

Sally MacDonald is the owner of the so-called haunted cabin on Moon Lake, and is the “client” of the game. She bought the Moon Lake property for its picturesque views, but soon learned that the cabin came with a price beyond the monetary. Upset by the hauntings, Sally high-tails it out of Moon Lake, leaving Nancy an incredibly garbled message about the dogs and not much else. She also hasn’t apparently tested her water even though she’s been there for a month, which is a Bit Much, City Girl.

Sally’s not really a suspect, but there’s nowhere else to put her, and if the game didn’t begin with Nancy witnessing the dogs for herself, Sally would start out as a halfway-decent suspect herself, rather than a mostly-pointless phone friend.

Sally herself is one of the weakest points of the game (more on that below), which is a little sad when you consider how important her presence is to the game versus how much impact she actually has (less than anyone else)

Red Knott is the rather unfortunately named birdwatcher that perches on what I’m pretty sure is Sally’s property to begin with and yells about The Youth with the vigor that only an oldster in civvie-camo can do. He’s upset about Sally’s purchase because he wants to watch birds 24/7 and having more people — especially someone younger, as he hates those under 50 — in Moon Lake means more people disturbing the birds.

Red is rude, cantankerous, and firmly believes in having people do things for him, provided it’s an 18 year old in unisex camo gear. You’d think his and Sally’s shared hobby of photography would link them together and make Red your first-cleared buddy-buddy suspect, but Nancy’s pretty much on her own the entire game.

As a suspect, Red is pretty lackluster as well. Sure, he likes his birds, but no one believes for a moment that this dude is actually behind anything other than being a pain the butt. Red is entirely un-useful in everything, but not so unhelpful as to stymie Nancy. In a cast of nothings and no-ones, Red is especially forgettable apart from asking Nancy if she smokes.

Jeff Akers is the local park ranger and resident owner of the most firmly lodged stick in the universe. He’s also the strongest tie to the Prohibition-era backstory as the Lawmen opposing people like Mickey Malone and Valerie. 

It’s a shame he doesn’t do his job better; Jeff should be the embodiment of Consequences when Nancy goes too far, but instead, he barely shows up to have his dog be a red herring and then disappears into Moon Lake like some Nessie-style monster of Little Consequence.

As a suspect? Well, Jeff isn’t going to tick many boxes. Sure, he’s got a dog — albeit not the right type of dog at all — and he’s not fond of Nancy, but pretty much no one in this game is a fan of Nancy, so that doesn’t do much for his suspect-ness at all.

In a game where dogs are bad news, Jeff is all bark and no bite. He’s a comic relief character that shouldn’t be a comic relief character, and a present-day presence when he should be a relic of a past time.

Emily Griffin is the owner of a local bait shop/general store/Prohibition-era antique corner who definitely only sells Legally Obtained items, thank you very much. She’s got that cheeriness that HER liked to conflate with friendliness, ignoring that they’re two very different things and produce two very different reactions in the player (think in ASH Toni’s cheeriness versus Alexei’s friendliness).

She’s the one most tied to the past through her side hustle of selling Prohibition antiques, and it’s obvious that she must be the culprit through that reveal alone. Unfortunately, that’s her only tie to the Prohibition era, as nothing else about her is a shadow of Malone, Vivian, or any other bit of the past we learn about in the game.

As a suspect, Emily is the best, but still isn’t fabulous. There’s little depth to her beyond simple greed, and her interactions with Nancy might as well be with a slightly cagey computer rather than a person. She’s not sinister enough to be scary (apart from one subtle moment covered below), but not silly enough to be funny. She perhaps best represents DOG as a game: she’s a mixed bag with a few shining bits, but is ultimately forgettable.

The Favorite:

There are a few things that DOG does righter than rain, so let’s take a run-down.

The first and most important thing that DOG nails is the atmosphere. I’ve mentioned it above, so I won’t dwell too much, but HER really just gets rural Pennsylvania right, and it’s an absolute treat to play in that atmosphere.

The next is also covered above, but I really adore the good ol’ American appreciation for our bootlegger heroes. It would have been so easy to demonize these people who did, admittedly, break the law, but instead HER for once doesn’t play the wet blanket and acknowledges that sometimes (most of the time, really), American folk heroes are a bit good and a bit bad.

My favorite puzzle is incredibly lame, but it’s the Roman Numeral puzzle. I have a slightly secret, mostly nerdy love for puzzles that use things that are useful in the real world, and having taken Latin in college, this puzzle really actually helped me be able to 1) pass accelerated Lain and 2) feel more confident when looking at dates. It’s also just kinda fun and relaxing. I like puzzles that make me sort stuff.

My favorite moment in the game is probably when you first step into the speakeasy and Malone’s presence is almost palpable. Every time I walk in, I’m always looking around for someone to speak to, even though I know the saloon is empty. It’s a great moment and an appropriate reveal given the heft of the historical background.

Once again, the Hardy Boys are a bright spot in this game, as are Vivian and Eustacia. Really, the phone conversations are the best part of DOG — not just because the actual game is a bit lackluster, but more because they’re really just that good.

I’ve also gotta give credit for the insanely terrifying tidbit of Emily trying to give Nancy calming tea that would poison her after setting the shed on fire. It’s a great moment of fridge horror, and shows that Emily does have some subtlety (attempted murder with a femur bone notwithstanding) when she wants to.

The Un-Favorite:

There are probably as many bad things as good, however, and it’s here that DOG starts to show its weaknesses.

As mentioned above, Sally really drags down the parts of the game she’s in, as she could have been a good character and ultimately winds up not even being a character at all.

If you restructure the beginning and have a little more subtle haunting of the dogs happening to a cabin and then cut to Sally leaving Nancy a voicemail/talking to her on the phone — but Nancy sees no evidence of dogs, just general mild destruction — then you start out a haunting game on the right foot.

Proving Sally right about the dogs and right to leave Moon Lake from the beginning weakens the game, and is one of my least favorite bits of it.

As far as least favorite puzzles go, there are two contenders. The maze in the woods is a high point for some, but as someone with a little trouble with distinguishing visual stimuli in the first place, it can be (and usually is) absolute hell. None of the puzzles are hard except for the bird-spotting puzzle, which isn’t hard as much as it is frustrating.

My least favorite moment is the beginning haunting simply because it builds the game up to a point that it never reaches again, not even with the hilarious screwball ending. When the best moment of the game is the first two minutes, you’re not looking at a satisfying game.

The cast is often what makes or breaks a game and, unfortunately, this is a game where the cast breaks it. There’s simply nothing in the suspects to propel the game forward, which gives the game a feel of more of a graphic novel-type game than a whodunnit. And, spoiler alert, it doesn’t make for a good graphic novel game either.

The lack of length in this section isn’t a testament to the value of the game itself; rather, it shows DOG for what it is: just unremarkable. Not good enough to be solid, not bad enough to be an outlier.

The Fix:

So how would I fix DOG?

There’s not much you can do with the current cast of characters, despite their tenuous ties to Prohibition tropes, so I’d pretty much start over.

Make Sally a mid-game presence (actual tangible suspect, thank you very much) and shift Emily from the ‘bumpkin’ archetype to someone a bit more world-wise (though keep the accent, it’s fantastic) and hide her involvement in dredging the bottom of the lake a little longer (or implicate someone else in it first, whichever works).

Give Red something to do to make him a bit more suspicious and use him as Nancy’s buddy once Sally comes in (to keep the number of suspects the same) and have his photography actually come in handy. As for Jeff…an obstructionist presence is fine, but root him a bit more in history as a figure of the law rather than a sissified bureaucrat whose only character trait is that he loves to give tickets.

The puzzles could also solve to be more memorable and not auto-solved (save for the bird-spotting puzzle, which is a Disgrace) by the game, but part of that is the age of the game.

DOG is structured as a haunting game, so beginning it with Nancy experiencing a haunting full-stop is a horrible beginning. It takes out any suspense and any sense that this might just be an old legend and minor sabotage getting the better of Sally (or better, Sally damaging her own property in order to hype up its status as Malone’s house and then flip it for a profit/get her photos of the “hauntings” featured in a nationwide story) and instead gives us the most cut and dry (emphasis on dry) haunting game in the series.

Beginning DOG in the way that HER does, while a great cinematic (especially for 2002), drains the suspense and Mystery out of the game like sap from a pine tree. We’re still left with a structure of sorts, but it’s just not what it could have been.

Ultimately, even with DOG fixed, I don’t think it would be a standout game for anything (except possibly atmosphere). At its best, DOG is simply a three-star entry in a series; no one’s least favorite, very few people’s favorite, and memorable only for its initial haunting rather than for its plot, characters, or mystery.

[quagmireisadora]

[Jonghyun / Taemin] Spring Runs in My Blood (Part 1)

Rating: R-ish Warning: none (yet) Genre: soulmate au Length: ~7694 (this part)

A/N: I rarely write JongTae and I never write soulmate aus so, my gratitude to @minhoandthebabes for allowing me to indulge in both with her. Title is a reference to the poem 봄 by Yoon Dongju

------

It wasn't the timer itself but the anticipation of it going off that led Jonghyun to the cafe. Not fate, not kismet. No. It was purely nerves. That's what he told himself later on.

In all honesty, his nerves had been performing calisthenics ever since he'd hit the "three months to go" mark and they'd sat him down for an orientation at work. What to expect and what not to expect, they’d told him--expect to be surprised, pleasantly or otherwise; don't expect sex right off the bat. Everyone went through an orientation like that, he was assured. Everyone was given a full rundown on the physical and emotional changes that were to come in the following… rest of his life, really. That's the standard duration spent with a soulmate, anyway. A lifetime. 

So there he was, in the cafe, definitely not predestined to be there and simply craving caffeine before an important meeting with an important client. His head was in the bulky presentation he still needed to review, not on some stupid sequence of numbers on his wrist. Definitely not on the damn numbers, because they caught him by surprise. After all, time doesn't wait. Not for clients and not for meetings. 

As he was placing his order, his wrist began vibrating. 

"Oh hell…" he mumbled to himself, clutching at the string of green zeros as if to hide a shameful scar. “I can’t do this right now!” he thought as his eyes roved the cafe, looking for other victims of similar misfortune, other people panicking just like him. Anyone else with a soulmate problem? he silently--desperately--called out in his mind. Anyone at all?

Taemin went there often. The wifi was great, the coffee he didn't really care about. Snacks were nice too, and the barista was hot. At least, he'd tried to get her number and she hadn't slapped him, so that was a plus. Many years later as he recounted the memory for guests, he insisted he visited the place to escape his mother's nagging and his brother's domestics.

But really, he only went there for the wifi. 

When he was just about to execute a perfect KO against another player, his timer buzzed. He jumped in surprise, yelled out a shocked “shit!”, did everything he wasn't supposed to do. And sent his drink flying onto an old man in a suit. 

"Yah!" the man barked indignantly. "What do you think you're doing?!" 

"A-ahh…! Why'd you sit so close to me, then?" Taemin complained in response. He looked back at his computer to find he'd been defeated and that his opponent--some guy from Taipei--was sending him all kinds of trash talk in celebration. "Ahhh!" he let out another disappointed sound.

The old man stared incredulously at him. "You punk...! Do you have any idea how expensive this suit is?!" he demanded, waving his lapel wildly, drops of juice flying from the action. 

"Do you have any idea how good that drink was?!" Taemin snapped back, a few other patrons within earshot snorted. "What?" Taemin replied to them too. "It was really good, OK?! Had like little bits of pineapple and everything! And now your… stupid expensive suit is drinking all of it. You should be the one sorry to me, ahjussi!"

"Oh, I'll show you sorry--" the man glowered and rolled up his sleeves.

Jonghyun rubbed a hand on his forehead. "These idiots are being too noisy…" he muttered, still looking around. "How will I find that person now?!" 

"--you need to watch your tone, young man!" the ahjussi yelled. 

"I'm not a young man!" Taemin fought back, then realised that was incorrect. "I mean. I'm young and I'm a man. But. No, wait--" he held his hands out in front of himself to compute the situation, but the buzzing on his arm continued to be a distraction for his already addled brain. "Ahhh this stupid stupid timer going off right now!" he slapped the place like that would help stop it.

Had Jonghyun not been eavesdropping, he wouldn't have caught that. "Wh--what?" he narrowed his eyes, walking over to the scene and addressing the young and disoriented guy. "E-excuse me?" he started. 

"Wat?"

"May I see your uhm…" he gestured to the other's arm, holding his own out. "May I see it?" 

Taemin looked from the offered limb to the man. "Why?" 

Jonghyun rolled his eyes in exasperation and grabbed the guy's hand to compare their timers. The buzzing stopped, a sign that they really were a match. He looked around the cafe and no one else seemed to be coming forward. "You’ve got to be--! Are you really the one?" he demanded, like that made absolutely no sense.

Taemin scratched his head. "The one what?" 

It was the ahjussi with the ruined suit who came to their rescue. "Oh… I see," he backed away from them, his threats dissipating. "Uhh. Congrats," he waved his hand dismissively at them and left their side.

As more people around them caught on, they started to clap, the applause growing in a wave until every single pair of eyes in the cafe was on them. Taemin’s confused face slowly split into a grin, and then he waved at the other patrons like he was some kind of celebrity. 

Jonghyun, on the other hand, wanted to shrink away in shame. 

A barista came over with a tray, a gift set of two matching cups and several coupons for free drinks on it. "Congratulations, sirs," she bowed to them and smiled pleasantly. "Please accept these on our behalf, and make sure to post about this wonderful coincidence on your SNS!” She gestured politely to the large glass front of the cafe. “The nearest Soulmate Depot is across the street. Please be careful on your way, and visit us again soon!" 

"Waaahhh~" Taemin accepted the gifts happily. "This is all so--!" 

"Unbelievable..." Jonghyun completed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "W-wait," he had a sudden thought. "Are you even eighteen?" 

"Why does that matter…?" Taemin scowled before his expression lightened. "Wait, you're gay?!" he pointed a ridiculing finger at the man as he laughed, then stopped with shock in his eyes. "Wait, I'm gay?!" he touched his chest. "But… girls think I'm hot."

Jonghyun nearly swooned and fainted at the stupidity. "Please come with me," he said in a very strict and very formal tone. 

"What?! Where?!" Taemin defended himself. But his arm was tugged and he was left with no choice. He packed his things, hurriedly stuffing them into a backpack, and followed the other out. 

It had snowed recently. The ground was slippery and the sky overcast. Someone at Jonghyun’s office had circulated news that there was a storm coming later in the week. But considering how insane his day had been so far, he wouldn't have been shocked if the sky started spitting a blizzard down at them any minute. As they walked towards the depot, he hugged his coat closer around himself.

"How old are you?" his inquiry had an impersonal tone. 

"Uhh… twenty-six?" Taemin replied, counting on his fingers. "I think?" 

You think? Jonghyun wondered if this guy was on drugs. He was sure he couldn’t handle an addict for a soulmate. "Uhm. By any chance, have you completed high-school?" he continued his questions.

"Duh," the other snorted. "I'm not some. Uhh. Imbecile?" he confirmed the word with Jonghyun. "Yeah, yeah. Imbecile. I have a job and all, OK?"

"Oh. May I ask where you work?" Jonghyun stopped walking and took out his phone, held it at the ready to cross-check the information.

"Ahhh why're you asking all this stuff?!" Taemin jiggled a finger in his ear. "So annoying…"

The other grit his teeth, struggling to maintain his composure. "Sir, if we're about to spend the rest of our lives together, I'd feel more comfortable knowing all this.”

"Oh," Taemin blinked. "Fair," he shrugged. "Uhh, I mean. I said I have a job but uhm--"

Here comes the clincher, Jonghyun thought.

"Heh. See, I did have a job. But then I went to the army for two years, and then I had only two months to go on my timer and nobody would give me a job. So now," Taemin chuckled stupidly. "I'm… unemployed?" 

It didn't sound as bad as Jonghyun had expected it to be. Maybe not a druggie, just a weirdo. Still bad, but maybe he could learn to live with it. "And… may I ask how you survive, sir?"

Taemin picked his nose as he answered, completely bored now. "Well, hyung found his soulmate last year. They married and get a stipend from the state. And eomma and appa… they do what they can," he said with a noncommittal shrug, getting his hand slapped away from his face by a disgusted Jonghyun. 

Moving on from the place and the subject, Taemin blinked at the large blue and white sign above their heads when they’d arrived across the street from the cafe. "I've never been inside one of these…" he spoke with awe, then turned to explain to the other. "You know. Cause I didn't have a soulmate before. But. Now I do. So. Yeah."

"I gathered," Jonghyun spoke from behind gritted teeth. He was losing his patience with all this. "Let's just get this over with."

They were asked to present their wrists to a scanner each. After a series of beeps and blinking lights, the door hushed open for them. They looked around the empty hallway, its walls and ceiling and even carpeting a pristine white. 

"Whoa…" Taemin let out. 

Soon, a woman with a confident gait walked over and stopped before them with a bow. "Welcome to Nonhyeon Soulmate Depot! Congratulations on beginning your journey together. We hope to give you all the information you need before you can go on and make happy and wonderful memories!" she bowed again and gestured for them to go through a tall set of doors at the far end of the hallway. 

They shuffled over together, and a second wrist scan later were allowed into a much larger room filled with desks and cubicles and mechanical apparatus of all kinds. 

"Whoa!" Taemin gushed again.

While the place looked full, it wasn't really. Only a handful of other couples were scattered around, seated at different tables. Each was being instructed by pleasant-faced officials, pointing at pamphlets or screens, talking with exaggerated motions, directing them to their next stop.

"Whoa--" Taemin started to express his amazement a third time when he was cut off by an irate Jonghyun. 

"I think we should call someone over to help.”

On cue, a woman walked over to them, her air professional but her smile tight like she wasn't impressed with what they had to offer. "Welcome," she bowed as well. "This won't take very long. We've got biometrics over there--" she began to walk, pointing to various cubicles as they passed them. "Blood test over here, general physical test over here, eyesight and hearing here, urine test in the far end over by the toilet signs. And over here--" she stopped at one point. "We'll require your national ID numbers to link you up on our database," she explained. "Standard procedure. We also have an in-house specialist providing advice on pregnancy, but you won't be needing that."

"Oh. Why not?" Taemin asked with some disappointment.

The woman turned to him with exasperation. "Because you're both men. Now, come this way please…" 

As they were herded from place to place, Jonghyun was constantly shocked by the man and his ridiculously dumb questions. The officers at the HQ seemed to have a very high threshold for nonsense, but Jonghyun--not a chance. He went eagerly when they separated them for individual interrogation.

In return for his curiosity, Taemin was asked all kinds of questions too. Did he have cancer. Did anyone in his family have cancer. Was he allergic to anything, did he have any phobias, was he currently on any special medication. Was there any history of mental illness in his family, or in his own life. He tried answering as faithfully as he could, even when some of the questions were complicated. Soon, he was starting to feel uncomfortable with all the measuring and weighing and poking and prodding he was being subjected to.

But when they were finally brought to the last counter, he was told he'd get a monthly stipend of five million won with a potential for increase depending on how their relationship progressed. Taemin nearly jumped for joy, doing a little jig when they were reunited again. 

"Five-mill-yun, Five-mill-yun," he sang as Jonghyun watched him, embarrassed and wanting desperately to leave. The relief he felt when a woman came up to them and said they were free to go, was unparalleled. He stormed off into the night, wishing this was all a very elaborate nightmare his hysterical brain had conjured up, and that he'd wake up laughing about it. 

But, nope. 

"Hey…!" Taemin chased him down, almost slipping on ice. "Hey, wait!" he called after the other, reaching him only to keel over and breathe with difficulty. "What's--what's your name, though?!" 

"I am Kim Jonghyun," came the stiff reply. "And you are…?" 

"Taemin. Lee Taemin," he said with a bright smile. "Sixty-fifth nephew of the great Lee… Lee uhh," he scratched his head. "What was that philosopher dude's name again…?" he asked himself before flapping his wrist to dismiss his own thoughts. "Never mind. Nice to meet you anyway," he nodded and walked beside the guy for several feet.

It was only fifteen minutes later that Taemin stopped in confusion. "Wait, wait. Am I supposed to come with you?" 

Jonghyun gave him a deprecating look. "Sir. I understand we are soulmates. But right now, I have more important things to attend to. Please," he gestured back the way they’d come. "Let me be on my way."

Taemin frowned. "But… numbers," he said like that explained everything. 

Jonghyun huffed tiredly. "May I have your phone?" he held his own out. When he had both devices, he passed them against each other. "There. You have my details now. May I go?"

Taemin started to nod, but then held up a finger. "W-wait. They gave me--" he fished through the pockets of his large and puffy jacket before pulling out a box of condoms and holding it as if triumphantly. "These."

Jonghyun felt his face burn. "Goodbye!" he barked and scuttled away in urgency.

"So rude…!" Taemin scowled and spun on his heel to walk in the opposite direction. Once again, he made it several steps before he stopped and rang the newly added contact on his phone. 

"Yes?!" Jonghyun hissed. 

"Uhh, I'm lost. Where's the nearest station?" 

Jonghyun nearly burst out in tears. Why did he have to walk into that café?

------

At home, Taemin was asked eager questions by his family. Who was it? What kind of person were they? Where did they live? Were they coming to pick him up that night? Was he moving out soon? He brushed all their inquiries away like he did with anything they'd ever asked of him. 

Then he returned to playing video games again. 

On the other, posher side of town, Jonghyun's coworkers easily forgave him for being late. The important meeting turned into a discussion about his soulmate, major project stakeholders and clients turning into gossip mongers within the blink of an eye. Jonghyun shifted uncomfortably from the attention to his personal life, happy to finally leave the room when the meeting was adjourned. 

"You're happy, though?" Jinki asked him at the end of the day. 

"Hardly," Jonghyun tried to keep the whine out of his voice but couldn't help it. "He's an idiot."

Jinki chuckled. "I'm sure he's not that bad."

Little did he know that over the duration of one week, Taemin would be the direct result of ensuing disaster. 

To be fair, he did nothing out of the ordinary--he spent his time sitting in front of a screen and stuffing his face with junk food. His phone rang several times, but he ignored it. His mother knocked on his door at mealtimes but he ignored that, too. His hyung finally walked in and tried to fight the game controller out of his hands, but he resisted it until he couldn't. 

By the end of the third day, there were weird headaches that lasted hours--pangs that nearly blinded him with tears. Then, his stomach started to get upset, rejecting everything he ate regardless of how healthy and nourishing his mother insisted it was. His father bought a bag of red ginseng to boil for him, his sister-in-law found a good acupuncturist in the neighborhood. They did their best to ignore his stubbornness, to stop his health from failing the way it was. But every remedy every solution was accompanied by the same, very strict advice. 

"You need to go be with your soulmate."

Jonghyun knew this would happen, just as he knew he would probably end up suffering the same illness. As time wore on, he felt shittier and shittier and his health got worse and worse. And although Roo’s company would usually comfort him in such times, there was no curing this with puppy tricks and silly games. 

When his stomach took a break from heaving its contents, he crawled out of the bathroom and rested against whatever he could find before reaching for his phone. He texted instead of calling. “I assume your condition is just as bad as mine,” he managed to write in formal words, despite the shudder in his hands. “Please come to this location, I believe meeting may help us.”

Taemin, in a daze of sickness and pain, wrote back a “who dis” to the location pin, before rolling away and falling asleep. His phone rang frantically for a long time in response to that, but there was simply no rousing him. 

Somewhere across the river, a man let out an agonized and indignant yell of annoyance.

It was several hours later that Taemin could finally gather the strength and fortitude to sit up in bed, then waddle his way out of his room. It took him a long while to stop swooning and shrug on a jacket, leaving his home to the happy encouragement of his entire family. Outside, the air was biting cold, but the sun was out for a change. It reinforced his courage to keep going--he’d feel better soon, he thought to himself. A few minutes out in the fresh air would do him well. Right?

Wrong.

In a cold sweat, hanging off the side of a pedestrian bridge, he threw up again. Walking had been a bad idea. Being outside had been a bad idea. Thinking was a bad idea, too, he realized from under the haze of his splitting headache. He felt his phone vibrate in his pocket and cursed loudly, answering the call.

“Where the hell are you?” Jonghyun’s impatient voice immediately berated.

“I… I don’t know where I am!” Taemin whined, looking around for signs. “Come--come get me, I’m dying!

“You’re not dying, just… just send me your location, OK? I’ll come to you.”

It took them a while to navigate around each other, sharing directions and several calls filled with colorful language. Jonghyun’s head reeled with more than his sickness, and he had to try very hard not to just give up and fall onto the side of the street himself. But they did finally manage to find each other, and to their credit, Taemin wasn’t yet comatose enough to not recognize his soulmate and latch onto him as soon as he was within arm’s reach.

Relief filled them the minute they came into contact with each other, a long and heavy sigh escaping their mouths in unison. Jonghyun brushed the dirt off of Taemin’s clothes, muttering something about lying on the sidewalk like a homeless man, and then he piled them onto a bus. 

By the time they’d arrived at his apartment building, they were both walking upright again.

“Is… this a kidnapping?” Taemin shattered all hope of a civil conversation the minute he opened his mouth.

“Yes,” Jonghyun replied sarcastically. “Man kidnaps his own soulmate, of course, what a terrible and common crime. In what world would that even make sense?!” he yelled.

“Y-you could be into…” Taemin gestured wildly, even though his argument held no conviction. “Organ trafficking!” If he had any other protests to make in that line of thought, they were all invalidated when he was yanked into an elevator.

“Wait… is this your house? Are you taking us to your apartment?” he asked as they waited in the lift car. “Do you have video games?”

“No…” Jonghyun shook his head, frowning. “Why?”

The other made a disgusted face. “What kind of person doesn’t have video games…” he mumbled, pulling out his phone and switching it to game mode. A hologram appeared above his screen, accompanied by the sounds of clashing swords and grunted exclamations.

Jonghyun scoffed, then snatched the device away. “Hey--” he said sternly, putting the device out of reach of the other as a struggle ensued. “Hey, listen to me! I’m bringing you into my house because we need to spend time with each other. Do you understand? That means no video games, no sulking in different rooms, no doing our own things, OK?” he explained. “Do you understand me?”

“Yeah, yeah, stop shouting,” Taemin complained when he gave up, covering his ear and mumbling something about feisty old men. He plodded after the other when they arrived at their floor, hands deep in his pockets and eyes on the carpet. “What are we going to do then?” he pouted as Jonghyun unlocked his front door. “You don’t have video games, you don’t look like a fun guy, and--” he suddenly brightened with an idea.

“Do we fuck?”

Jonghyun let out a choked noise. “N-no!” he denied, hesitating for a minute before allowing the other into his home. “We don’t even know each other yet!”

“But I mean…” Taemin followed his host indoors. “We’re two guys, aren’t we? Are we supposed to fuck? I don’t even know how we would fuck. Do you know how we would fuck? I don’t think we can fuck. What happens if we do fuck? Do I fuck you or do you fuck me? Is fucking even legal between two guys? Are we supposed to fuck in this neighborhood--?”

“Can you!” Jonghyun whirled and covered the man’s mouth. “Stop saying fuck so much?” he hissed. “It’s… it’s making me nervous!”

Taemin frowned, but nodded. But as was in his nature, when he was let go of, he muttered a single and unnecessary “fuck” and then ran away into another room.  

“What has my life come to…” Jonghyun sobbed as he watched the other clown around in his apartment, opening door after door and peeking in.

------

When he’d calmed the guy down and handed him a glass of juice, they sat across from each other in the TV lounge, studying one another--or at least, Jonghyun did the studying while Taemin simply hummed tunelessly and sipped from a curly plastic straw. We’re adults, Jonghyun thought to himself. Right? Even if he’s a moron, we’re adults, we can deal with this like adults. This is no big deal.

“So. Uhm. Since you were so enthusiastic about it. Have you uhh…” he made a vague gesture at the man’s torso. “You know. Ever explored? Down there?”

Taemin frowned as he sipped noisily. “What, you mean Australia?” he asked. “No, I’ve never even crossed the equator before. Why’re you asking about travel all of a sudden?”

Jonghyun nearly fainted. No, he realized. We’re not adults. “I’m asking about your… you know! Man things!” he gestured wildly, a jabbing action at the other's crotch.

Taemin let out a low sound of comprehension. "Right, yeah, uhh--" he scratched the back of his neck in embarrassment. "Yeah. Sometimes. When there's. You know. Girl groups on TV and stuff," he shrugged.

"Girl groups," Jonghyun repeated to confirm. "On TV."

"Yeah, why--" Taemin pouted a little, sitting up in the armchair, feeling a little defensive. "You haven't?"

Jonghyun made a motion of the hands as if to say obviously that's a stupid thing to do, and I would never do that. "Wait, so," he started again after an awkward pause. "You… you like girls?"

Taemin scratched his forehead. "I… I've never been with one," he answered honestly. "Never been with anyone."

Jonghyun studied him at that, watched the way he sat, the way he shifted and scratched and worried his lip. Watched his nervous tics and his curious eyes. He leaned back in his chair and watched for a long time--somehow unbothered by how his staring could be perceived by the other. Somehow unconcerned with that etiquette for now. 

Growing self-conscious by the minute, Taemin bounced his leg nervously as he looked around the apartment. "You live alone?" he asked before noticing the water dish in the corner. "You… you have a doggy?" he pronounced the word like a kid would.

"Hmm?" Jonghyun perked up a little at that. "You like doggies--I mean. Dogs?" he asked. "I can… I can let her out, if you're OK with them?"

Taemin’s eyes took on a gleam when he nodded eagerly. "Can I pet?"

Roo struggled in Jonghyun's arms, barking at the stranger when he walked her out. With each step she growled, baring her teeth. 

Taemin's hand reach out tentatively for her to sniff. When she was satisfied he wasn't a threat she continued her barking until he giggled and offered more of his hand, scratching her neck. "Such a good girl…" he hushed. "How old?" he looked up at Jonghyun with awestruck eyes. 

"Two years," the other replied with some pride.

For a while that's all Taemin did, playing with the pup, watching her perform her tricks, feeding her a treat or two, cackling gleefully when she licked his face. Jonghyun watched them with fondness, thinking this wasn't so bad after all. The man was an idiot, yes. And he had no experience with relationships, sure. But at least he wasn't some jerk. At least he wasn't an asshole--at least he wasn't a complete mismatch. That's what Jonghyun had been most afraid of. 

Later that day as Roo ate, Taemin sat nearby ruffling the soft fur between her ears. "You want kids, don't you?" he asked his host. 

Jonghyun was taken aback by the sudden question. "Why… what makes you say that?" 

"My hyung says… he says that only people who can't have kids keep doggies now," Taemin replied. 

There was a long silence between them at that, until Jonghyun broke it with an almost unintelligible, "Do you want kids?" 

Taemin blinked at the other, looking to where he stood cleaning dishes. "I don't think I could afford to raise a child," he admitted.

Jonghyun took off his gloves and motioned around them at the apartment, at its large space, apparently designed for a family. "You don't have to do it alone, now. We can use both our stipends."

The other shook his head. "I want to use that money to… to help my family."

"Uhh…?" Jonghyun raised an eyebrow at that. "Isn't that money meant for us? For this relationship?" He frowned at Taemin. "Are there… does your family have financial difficulties?" 

A nonchalant shrug replied. "Eomma used to work until she hurt her back and appa retired three years ago. Now hyung earns everything in a house of four, so… my stipend will help?" he reasoned. "Why. Do you--should I give that money to you?" 

Jonghyun tutted. "No, of course not. But--" his frown deepened. "Why don't you get a job again?"

Taemin whined. "Like I haven't tried?!" he insisted, walking back to the armchair and falling into it with a pout. "They keep giving the job to people with more time, more freedom. Single people. People with no soulmates…" he complained. "Why is it so unfair?"

"That's… that doesn't seem right to me," Jonghyun shook his head, joining the other across the table. "Workplace equality includes people like us. We're protected by the law. You should complain about that to the--"

Taemin excitedly pointed at the other. "That's exactly what I say to them at every interview!" he nearly yelled. "... before they ask me to leave," he wilted in place.

Jonghyun thought about that. He had heard of people leaving the company before, citing an increase in responsibilities once they had a soulmate and a family to look after. He’d heard of it happening to others. But if the truth was that they were being let go in exchange for younger yet-unconnected workers with several years ahead of them before their timers ran out... if that was the truth, he suddenly felt threatened. The boss had said he was up for a promotion soon, would him meeting Taemin change that?

“What uhm...” he tried to allay his own fears by continuing to question the man. “What did you do? Before you went away for your service?”

“I... used to work as an engineer,” Taemin scratched his chin.

“E-engineer?” Jonghyun scoffed, wondering if he should cross-check the information after all. An idiot like this? And engineering? “You’re--you’re not joking, are you?” he confirmed suspiciously.

The other scowled. “No, I’m not.” 

Balking, Jonghyun shifted forward in his chair. “Th-that’s...! That’s so prestigious! Why don’t you apply to get your old job back?!”

“Because they don’t want me back!” Taemin insisted. “I called, I sent my CV, I applied for internships--even when I’m not an intern anymore. And they--!” he sunk lower in his seat. “Just give me back my phone. I have a game to finish.”

“Taemin ssi,” Jonghyun said sternly. “There has to be another reason why they’re refusing. Have you ever thought of that? I mean, I still have my job,” he pointed to himself. “There has to be something else, something you’re not doing right--”

“Why did you bring me here if all you’re gonna do is lecture me?” Taemin complained.

The elder sighed. “OK... OK,” he placated. “You don’t want to talk. And I can’t leave you to play games by yourself. What else do you want to do?”

Taemin shrugged, still pouting.

“Have you... ever kissed someone?” Jonghyun inquired, receiving a shake of the head. “Would you like to try it?

Taemin looked around the apartment in confusion. “Who do I kiss?”

“Who do you think?!” Jonghyun demanded in frustration.

“Oh...” the other blinked, then widened his eyes. “Oh! Like two soulmates doing the--” he crossed his fingers together, “The thing. Oh. Yeah. Uhh... OK, then--” he sat forward excitedly, then stopped. “Wait, what am I supposed to do?”

Jonghyun couldn’t help the chuckle that escaped him. He move closer, kneeling in front of the other and taking hold of his hands. They were small, he noticed. Soft, small, with a few silver rings on some of the fingers. “I’ll help you,” he assured in a kind voice.

Taemin shifted, unsure. “Do I need to do something?” he asked. “Like... do I hold my breath? Do I close my eyes? Is there a prayer I need to say? Or like a symbol I need to make or--?”

“Just...” Jonghyun held a finger to his own lips and craned in closer. He placed his palm to the side of the man’s face, feeling the hair and skin against his fingertips. The simple contact alone sent his heart into a speeding frenzy, his eyes studying the other for every shift every blink every exhale. There was so much to be read in Taemin’s expression, he realized then. So much sitting unspoken at the corner of those puffy lips, so many dreams in those trusting eyes. As the distance between their mouths narrowed to nearly nothing, he kept his gaze on the other, unfaltering until they were so close he had to let his eyes run out of focus before he blinked them shut.

The contact was so dizzying, Taemin thought he’d fall out of his seat. He’d never thought he’d be kissing a man, much less a man who was his soulmate. He’d also never imagined it would make him feel like there were fireworks going off in every inch of his body, like he lay face-first on a frying pan, the oil spitting as soon as it came in contact with his skin. He reached out for support, finding a pair of shoulders to lean against as his lungs started to burn for lack of air.

Jonghyun moved away a minute, then burst out laughing when he saw the other gasp. “You’re supposed to breathe!” he cracked up.

“How… how am I supposed to know that?!” Taemin demanded.

For once the other’s stupidity didn’t feel as stupid. “How did that feel?” Jonghyun asked, stroking his thumbs over bony knees. 

“... wasn’t long enough for me to decide,” a mutter replied.

“Want to go again?”

Taemin frowned in confusion. “Go where--?” he started to ask before the lips were on him again, firmer and more insistent. He noticed more this time around. Their temperature, their softness, the way they slipped against his own mouth like. Like… he tried to compare it to something he knew but this was like nothing else. This was something that couldn’t be compared. So he held onto the strong shoulders and tried kissing back.

When Jonghyun hummed, the sound reverberated against Taemin’s cheek. He gasped once more, for more than breath this time, fingers tightening on the other’s shirt, brows knitting together, eyes squeezed shut, tongue--

The circle of Jonghyun’s arms grew tighter, bringing them closer together. He was filled with an odd sense of validation, of being complete and on the verge of unbelievable happiness. And the closer he pressed Taemin to himself, the larger the feeling became.

When they parted a second time, Taemin felt shaky. “I… I should--” he stood and fell back into his seat, knees weak and thighs trembling. He looked at the other with some shock, some fright, some confusion at the intensity of his feelings. “I’m going home,” he announced when his legs were working again, finding his phone on a table and dashing for the door. 

He didn’t stop when the other protested, didn’t stop when he slipped on the stairs, didn’t stop for the traffic signals or the angry ahjussis pushing carts. He ran like there was no tomorrow, like there was a monster coming to swallow him whole if he didn’t get far away soon enough. He raced and wound through the streets, arriving at his parents’ home out of breath and maybe even a little out of his mind.

When his father let him in and asked him what he was doing back so soon, he pushed his way through and locked himself in his room. Sitting with his back to the door, hearing his chest pound in his head, feeling his breath rasp at the ends, he ignored his mother’s concerned knocking and stayed hidden.

------

The curriculum changed every few years, but when Taemin was a child schools would spend a few minutes every week instructing their students about soulmates. Some found each other as babies, their teacher had explained. Some didn’t meet until they were well into their seventies. Some had soulmates across the border while others were destined for someone on the other side of the world. It was a convoluted system that governments often debated on and countries frequently clashed over. But it always found someone for someone else--that was the guarantee people usually lived with. In this massive world filled with people and problems and prejudice, no one was ever alone.

Growing up, Taemin was used to constantly seeing people around him head to a Soulmate Depot hand in hand with strangers, or suddenly announce wedding dates. It was common for friends to stop seeing old friends, for families to be halved, for people to move across the country or even for children to be sent off to someone else’s home when their timers ran out. In the army too, he’d often hear snatches of gossip when a fellow private abruptly disappeared overnight or had to be reassigned public service positions closer to civilian sectors. Countrywide, the Ministry of Emotional Health monitored its citizens’ timers, their connections, and--it claimed--all their unique situations. Everything was controlled with an iron fist, ensuring citizens’ basic rights weren’t violated and any separations were managed quietly, without fuss or media attention. And Taemin... he’d been conditioned, over the years, to accept it all as a natural course of life. A mundane theme from his everyday. Everyone must have a soulmate, everyone must register, and everyone must try to make it work.

It was only when his best friend moved to another country and his brother brought home a bride overnight that he understood the weight, the implication of it all. 

Meeting a soulmate in this sterile system, an act celebrated in media and spoken of avidly on morning talk shows--Taemin had come to expect it. What he hadn’t expected was how different the experience would be from his calculations. He’d always thought he would meet a city girl, like his hyung. That they would go on dates for a few months before marrying and settling down, living together, working together, spending the rest of their lives together like all the advertisements on TV. He’d resigned himself to something like that.

Someone like Jonghyun was not in his plans at all.

------

Over the next few days, they lived as they always had until the pain returned with a vengeance. Jonghyun tried to give the other space, tried to leave him alone. Remembering how Taemin had scampered away, he tried not to be too eager or pushy, that would only scare the guy into staying away. But the pain left him feeling as empty as his large apartment. He lay in bed sad and alone one evening, eyes on his phone, hoping for a call or a text. Anything. 

In his place, Taemin distracted himself once more with games and food and drinks. He stayed in his room, watched old anime shows he’d already watched years ago, turned a blind eye to the pulsing in his rib cage. Maybe if I stay in once place the feeling will go away, he convinced himself while his health worsened. Yeah, maybe if I do other shit I won’t think about it anymore. He told himself to forget the way Jonghyun’s hands had held him, the way his breath had been warm and his tongue quick. He told himself to forget all of that--but the more he tried, the more space the memory took up in his mind.

He tried whatever he could to not think about the way his stomach turned every time his phone screen lit up with a message and it wasn’t Jonghyun. Eventually, he buried the thing under the mattress, out of sight. He pressed his hands to his ears when his mother asked him why he wasn’t going back, why he was making himself suffer. He yelled and threw a tantrum when his father reprimanded him with a “if you’re not going back, at least look for a job!” 

Everything was agonizing. Everyone was an enemy. Finding himself a few blankets, he built a cocoon for his weakened body like it would protect him from the rest of the world. But when his breath shortened and his head began to split, his family couldn’t ignore him anymore.

It was finally Taesun and his annoyance that pulled him out of a pile on the floor and dragged him to their car. “You’re worrying everyone,” he scolded. “We can’t have you sitting at home acting like this. It’s making us feel on edge all the time!” He found Taemin’s phone, fought his brother away to look through the contacts and made a call. 

Jonghyun pounced when he saw the number. “Taemin?! Is that you?! Where are you? Do you need me to come get you again--?!”

“Jonghyun ssi,” Taesun stopped him with a chuckle. “This is his brother.”

“Wh-why are you… is he OK? What happened?!”

“He’s with me. I’m bringing him over. He’s uhh--” he looked over at Taemin twitching in the passenger seat. “Look, I apologize for such short notice. Would it be OK if I leave him with you? It only has to be for a few days. You know. Until you two… get used to all this?”

Jonghyun blinked. “Uhh… s-sure? If he’s OK with it?”

“Well, he’s an idiot so,” Taesun laughed a little as he drove them through the narrow streets. 

“He’s my idiot now,” Jonghyun murmured, getting out of bed with a groan, taking the support of walls and furniture to maneuver through the apartment. 

Taesun smiled at that. “You seem like a good person. I’m not worried anymore. We’ll be there shortly,” he advised. “If you’re going through what he’s going through, please be safe until we get there.”

By the time Jonghyun made it downstairs and negotiated the lobby to arrive at the glass doors leading out, he was a sweaty shivering mess.

Parking nearby, Taesun lugged his as-good-as-comatose brother along until he saw the man sitting outside his building. “He’s all yours,” he handed the kid over when they were within earshot. “Aigoo, this kid… stubborn like you won’t believe!”

Taemin, having spent the whole drive whimpering and scratching at his arms, reached out weakly when he saw Jonghyun, his consciousness slipping away under his pain. But as soon as he was pulled into the other’s arms, he gave a long moan of relief as he clutched desperately and tried to climb onto the man like a child.

“It’s OK,” Jonghyun hushed. “You’re here now, it’s going to be OK.” He noticed the bag. “Are those his things?”

“Ah… yeah, clothes and some other stuff,” Taesun handed it over. “Please. If you need anything at all, just give me a call. Take care of each other,” he waved a hand with concern, hesitant to leave. 

Jonghyun nodded and tried to wave back, walking them in and towards the elevator. He felt his strength returned little by little, felt his senses clear the longer he held Taemin in his arms. “You’re OK now,” he murmured. “You’re safe now, I’ve got you.”

Taemin shivered, burrowing into the other’s neck. “Yeah...” he managed, his mind still not entirely whole. When he heard the sound of an excited dog in the distance it only made him hold on tighter. 

Jonghyun, feeling the strain of carrying the other all the way in, finally sat him down on the sofa and crouched before him like he had only days ago. “Do you need anything?” he asked. “Anything at all? Food, water…?” But his questions fell on deaf ears. The exhaustion of their time apart and the comfort of their meeting had clearly taken a heavy toll on the other. His head lolled forward as he started to fall asleep. 

Taemin felt a pair of lips press against his forehead before his mind took him away.

When he awoke, he was alone, in a strange room on a strange sofa… no. Bed. He sat up in confusion. “What the…?” he began before a very adorable and very familiar doggy jumped onto him. 

“Oh! Roo!” he grinned, gathering her into his arms. “Hello~” he carried her out of the room, following the smell of food. “Hmm, looks like your appa’s cooking us something nice? Isn’t he? Isn’t he, you cute little baby? Isn’t--?”

Jonghyun turned to look at him with eyebrows raised. “You like sausages?” he asked.

Taemin blinked. “Will you cut them like octopuses?” he asked, leaning against something as his giddiness still came and went in waves. “Eomma always cuts them like that for me…”

“Are you twelve?” Jonghyun ridiculed, but did as he was requested. “Your hyung seems nice,” he commented as he worked. “Poor guy looked so stressed. You’re a real troublemaker in your house, aren’t you?”

“No…!” Taemin protested, letting Roo run off and making his way to the fridge. “I just. Have a strong personality, OK?”

“Let me guess,” Jonghyun chuckled, holding the bowl of rice and sausages out to the other. “That’s something your eomma says, isn’t it?”

There was no more exchanged between them. Taemin’s appetite kicked the door in hard. He finished his bowl, took seconds and even thirds. Then he washed it all down with a bottle of juice, found yogurt and cut fruit in the fridge. Jonghyun made the mistake of leaving him alone while he showered, and when he returned all the boiled eggs and baby carrots and cheese slices were gone.

“Can we order pizza?” Taemin asked, still sitting on the floor in front of an ajar and now sad-looking fridge.

“What the fuck?!” Jonghyun balked at his raided pantry. “You even ate all the side dishes my eomma sent last week!” 

“I… I was hungry!” Taemin defended.

“You ate what would’ve lasted me a month!” 

“I told you I was hungry! Why don’t you pay attention? Why don’t you listen when I’m talking Why don’t you--?!” Taemin’s stomach grumbled and he clutched at it. “Ugghh so hungry…” he whined.

Jonghyun held his head in his hands.

Some time later, with a slice of pizza in one hand and his phone in the other, Taemin lounged on the living room floor as he chuckled along to stupid memes online. He entertained himself like this for a while until he noticed his host fuming at him. 

“W-what?” he asked self-consciously. 

“Put your phone away,” Jonghyun ordered, an edge to his voice, his face only softening when Taemin did as he was told. “Now. We’re going to spend some quality time together. And we’re going to learn to live with each other.” He patted the space next to him on the sofa. “Come here. Let’s watch a movie together. Then we’ll go out. Someplace warm. Like a cafe, OK?” he offered.

Taemin nodded slowly. “O-OK.”

[thecollegefootballguy]

The Top 25 Teams of the Decade: #6 Florida State

Hello everybody, we’re celebrating the arrival of the 2020′s by looking at the 25 best programs of the previous decade.

We’re on to the top ten to celebrate the #6 team from the 2010′s:

Florida State University Seminoles

Record: 96-37 (.722) Division Titles: 4 Conference Titles: 3 Bowl Seasons: 9 Major Bowls: 5 Playoff/BCS Berths: 2 Final Top 25 Finishes: 7 Final Top 10 Finishes: 4 Final Top 5 Finishes: 2 National Championships: 1 Best Season: 2013

Florida State just misses the top five. Given the way the Seminoles ended the decade, this comes as no surprise. The rest of the top 5 combined only produced a single losing season. That FSU made it so high is also a testament to how good the team was for portions of the 2010′s. The Noles spent most of the 2000′s asleep at the wheel as Bobby Bowden remained in charge but was unable to duplicate his past success that made Florida State one of the premier teams of the 1980′s and 1990′s. Bowden finally retired at the conclusion of the 2009 season, allowing Jimbo Fisher free reign to recreate the program in the 2010′s.

The Seminoles began the decade with tempered expectations. FSU entered 2010 ranked 20th in the AP poll, which was pretty reasonable for an underperforming blue blood. The Noles were blown out 17-47 by #10 Oklahoma in week 2 which dropped them out of the polls. Florida State was a pretty good team, just not good enough yet to hang with the big boys. The Seminoles rebounded with a nice five game win streak, including a huge 45-17 upset over #13 Miami. Beating an overrated Hurricanes squad would become a calling card for the Jimbo Fisher era. After climbing back to 16th in the polls, 6-1 FSU suffered back to back losses to NC State and North Carolina to tumble right back out. It was a setback to be sure, but the Atlantic wasn’t quite the division it would become in a few years when both the Noles and Clemson really put things together. Florida State won out with wins over the Tigers and Maryland, then jumped all over Florida, finally beating Urban Meyer 31-7 as he was on his way out the door in Gainesville. By virtue of their 6-2 conference record, the 9-3 Seminoles represented the Atlantic Division in the ACC Championship Game. #20 FSU faced off against #12 Virginia Tech, who lost their first two games then rallied to win out for the rest of the season. The Hokies won the scoring race 44-33, denying the Noles their shot at an Orange Bowl. The Noles were relegated to the Chick-fil-A Bowl, where they beat #19 South Carolina 26-17. Florida State ended their first year under Fisher with a 10-4 record, a division title, and a final #17 ranking. It wasn’t ideal, but it was a step towards greater things.

With 2010′s team showing a lot of promise, expectations dramatically rose in Tallahassee for the 2011 season. The Seminoles began the year ranked 6th in the AP poll, and won their first two games against cupcake opponents. However, FSU hit a wall in mid-September. Losing to #1 Oklahoma by 10 points at home could be forgiven, but then following that loss up with defeats to #21 Clemson and unranked Wake Forest were not quite so forgivable. The Noles tumbled from the top five out of the rankings in three weeks, a feat that we’re lucky to see every few seasons only when an overrated team gets exposed very quickly early on in the year. Thankfully, the Atlantic really didn’t boast too many threats and Florida State was able to salvage the situation with another timely five game win streak which included the obligatory win over Miami. The Seminoles finally found themselves ranked for the first time since the loss to Wake, and they promptly lost to Virginia. 2011 was one of those years. FSU was able to beat Florida by two touchdowns for the second straight year, which is a great way to end the regular season even if the Noles didn’t win their division. 8-4 Florida State beat Notre Dame 18-14 in the Citrus Bowl to once again end the year ranked, albeit 23rd in the country.

2012 was when Fisher’s turnaround really began to take hold. Expectations were again high thanks to the strong recruiting of the previous few years. The Seminoles began the season ranked 7th in the AP poll, a pretty nice vote of confidence that this time bore fruit. FSU bloodied up a couple of nobodies before the now #4 Noles hosted defending conference champions #10 Clemson. It was the first of five epic showdowns between the two that would decide the ACC Champion every year. Florida State outpaced the Tigers 49-37 to vault themselves into serious national title consideration. However, as the calendar changed to October, the Seminoles suffered a serious setback. #3 FSU was upset by unranked NC State 16-17. It more or less crippled their national title aspirations in an especially competitive season among the BCS conferences. The Noles made quick work through the rest of their conference schedule, and were granted the Atlantic’s berth to the ACC Championship Game by virtue of their tiebreaking win over Clemson. #10 Florida State hosted a resurgent #6 Florida, but ended up losing to their rivals 26-37, ending the regular season on a sour note. The ACC Championship Game was probably a bit more interesting than it should have been. The Seminoles only ended up beating unranked Georgia Tech 21-15, but hey, that’s a ticket to the Orange Bowl all the same. #13 FSU was matched up against #16 Northern Illinois and the Noles easily dispatched the overmatched Huskies 31-10. Florida State’s 11-2 record and #10 final ranking was their best finish since 2000. The Seminoles were still trending up.

FSU put all the pieces together in 2013. Redshirt freshman QB Jameis Winston led one of the most talented teams of the BCS era onto the field in the last season of the Bowl Championship Series. The Noles blew through all of their competition, outscoring opponents 205-60 in September, with more than half of those points surrendered coming against a Boston College team that Florida State still beat by two touchdowns in Chestnut Hill. The Seminoles beat #25 Maryland 63-0 in the last game they’d ever play against the Terrapins, who were about to move to the Big Ten. Two weeks later, #5 FSU squared off against #3 Clemson in another titanic battle for the Atlantic, at least, it was supposed to be a battle. The Noles dismantled the Tigers 51-14 at Clemson, making no mistake in showing the nation who was in charge of the ACC. Florida State then dismantled NC State and #7 Miami en route to another Atlantic Division title. The now #2 Seminoles ended their undefeated regular season by crushing Florida 37-7 in Gainesville. FSU was now the only undefeated team in the BCS left standing, and cemented their place in the championship game with a 45-7 cakewalk in the ACC Championship Game against #20 Duke. The last ever BCS Championship Game was one of the more entertaining in the 15 year history of the contest. The #1 Noles pulled ahead of #2 Auburn to secure a 34-31 win. It was Florida State’s first national championship since 1999 and third in program history.

2014 was an interesting year. The Seminoles lost an insane amount of talent to the draft, but remained the best team in the ACC regardless (if you ignore the computers). As the defending champions, with Heisman winning QB Jameis Winston still guiding the offense, FSU was well positioned to be the first repeat national champions since, well, Alabama two years earlier. The #1 Noles began the year with a 37-31 win over Oklahoma State in the Cowboys Classic in Arlington. It wasn’t the most impressive win, but it got the job done. That was pretty much the motto for Florida State in 2014. The team that blew away all comers in 2013 transformed into a squad that still got the job done but just barely in 2014. The defending champs were taken to overtime by #22 Clemson but pulled out the 23-17 win. In mid-October, the Seminoles beat #5 Notre Dame 31-27. By this time, FSU had already been relegated to #2 in the AP poll despite not losing a game. That’s pretty extreme for a defending champion but Mississippi State of all teams looked that much better. The Noles managed to scrape their way to 12-0 for a second consecutive year despite almost losing to Miami, Boston College, and Florida to end the regular season. Florida State was pitted against #12 Georgia Tech in the ACC Championship Game. The Seminoles again came away with the victory in the 37-35 contest. Despite their overall competence and sterling 13-0 record, FSU was ranked a 3rd seed by the first College Football Playoff committee. The doubters were proven right. Any lack of competence can be masked over in the ACC in the regular season, but not in the Playoff against top flight competition. The #3 Noles were completely humiliated in the Rose Bowl by #2 Oregon. The Ducks dominated every aspect of the game in a 59-20 blowout. That Oregon didn’t even end up winning the national championship was another blow to the idea that Florida State was actually one of the best teams in the 2014 season. They got by thanks to a whole lot of luck. It’s a weird way to go 13-1.

After the craziness of the 2013 and 2014 seasons, it’s easy to forget the 2015 and 2016 Seminoles teams. They were both still very good, albeit not the world beaters we saw in Jameis’s first season. The vaunted QB was now in the NFL, and FSU was left to plod along without him. They did a pretty good job. The Noles started the 2015 season 6-0. Outside of the scrub games at the beginning of the year, they didn’t look particularly commanding, and never rose past 9th in the rankings despite starting the year 10th in the nation. Florida State suffered their first loss at the hands of a horrible Georgia Tech squad that would finish the year 3-9. It pretty much ended the national title hunt without needing a second loss to fully shut the door. Of course, Clemson shut that door anyway with a 23-13 win at home. The Tigers were now on their way to commanding the ACC Atlantic the way the Seminoles had done for the previous several seasons. #14 FSU ended the regular season with a showdown against #10 Florida. It should have been one of the most exciting games of rivalry week, but the Noles walked all over their rivals with a 27-2 smothering of the Gators. 10-2 Florida State was selected to the Peach Bowl as an at-large entrant. The #9 Seminoles faced off against #14 Houston, the G5 representative in the NY6 Bowls for that year. FSU was upset by the upstart Cougars, and finished the year outside of the top ten for the first time since 2012.

The Noles were again one of the best teams in the nation in 2016, but they were growing inconsistent. Expectations were high, Florida State began the year ranked 4th in the country. The Seminoles began the year with a 45-34 win over #11 Ole Miss in Orlando, a solid beginning to the season. However, just two weeks later, #2 FSU was absolutely blown out by #10 Louisville 20-63. The Noles had never surrendered 60 points in program history. Two weeks later, Florida State lost at home to North Carolina on a last second field goal. I’m kind of surprised that the Seminoles didn’t fall totally out of the rankings at this point, but Louisville was having one of its best seasons ever and UNC was 4-1 at the time. But, just when they needed it the most, Miami showed up, and FSU still hadn’t lost to the Hurricanes since Jimbo Fisher took over. The #23 Noles scraped past #10 Miami 20-19 to halt the skid. At the end of October, #12 Florida State played host to undefeated #3 Clemson. In a back and forth battle, the Tigers pulled out 37-34 win despite the best efforts of Dalvin Cook, who was now firmly established as one of the best running backs in the country. If you can call a loss a momentum-builder, then the Seminoles turned the momentum of nearly beating the eventual national champions into a nice little win streak to end the year. FSU defeated their last three ACC opponents and then once again made short work of the SEC East champs with a 31-13 victory over #13 Florida. The 9-3 Noles were selected to their fifth consecutive New Year’s Bowl. #10 Florida State would represent the ACC in the absence of undefeated Clemson, who were in Playoff. The Seminoles battled with #6 Michigan to a 33-32 victory. The Wolverines had very nearly made the Playoff themselves.

Things were looking up at the beginning of 2017. FSU began the year ranked 3rd in the country on the back of their strong finish to the previous season. In one of the most anticipated Kickoff Games in years, the Noles went up against #1 Alabama. Florida State held their own against the fearsome Tide, the biggest difference maker being the 3 turnovers given to Bama. QB Deondre Francois ruptured his patellar tendon, ending his season with 6 minutes left in the 4th Quarter of a 7-24 loss to the eventual champions. And that’s just about when the season ended as far as many fans are concerned. With the QB position compromised, other problems began manifesting across the board. Florida State lost to 0-1 NC State in their next game, falling from #3 to unranked in two games which is basically unheard of in college football. The Seminoles rebounded with a win over Wake Forest to stop the bleeding somewhat. #13 Miami came to town for a win FSU needed desperately. The Noles hadn’t lost to the Hurricanes all decade and a win would hopefully salvage a bad start. Well, it didn’t happen. Miami left Tallahassee with a 24-20 victory and suddenly things really started to fall apart. A touchdown win over Duke was offset by a three point home loss to Louisville. Florida State hit rock bottom the next week, getting absolutely run off the field by Boston College of all teams. The Eagles beat the Seminoles 35-3 and suddenly Jimbo Fisher was coaching for his job. #4 Clemson naturally won, this time the game meant nothing in the ACC Atlantic race. Fisher, who was finding his situation increasingly untenable, left to coach Texas A&M before the end of the season. FSU still beat a Randy Shannon-led Florida because the Gators also managed to collapse the same year (lol) and the Noles were able to skate into bowl season with a 6-6 record. Florida State beat up on Southern Miss in the Independence Bowl, but that was cold comfort for a program that had completely imploded in the span of three months.

Not many teams are put in this situation. Jimbo Fisher elegantly reinvigorated a flagging--but by no means bad--program when he took over the reigns in 2010. When Willie Taggart was brought in to replace Fisher, the situation was dire. Obscured behind all the winning from 2014 to 2016, the program was somehow falling apart on the inside. Perhaps Fisher was aware of the damage and was eager to leave, either way Taggart was dealt a horrible hand. The offensive line was under-recruited to the point that a stiff breeze could knock them over. The Seminoles were so deficient on the offensive side of the ball that they didn’t have the ability to compete with teams they couldn’t roll right over. I mean, how does that even happen at a blue blood school? FSU began the year ranked 19th in the country because how bad can they really be? Well, after losing to 24-3 to #20 Virginia Tech, that was the last the AP poll has had anything to do with the Noles. Florida State was crushed by Syracuse, Clemson, NC State, Notre Dame, and Florida. One of the few close games the Noles played in all year was a gutting 27-28 loss to Miami, which made things all the worse when their end of season record was 5-7. Florida State managed to beat #22 Boston College, but that team really didn’t deserve to be ranked and finished the year 7-5. It was just a mess of a season from start to finish. It still boggles my mind thinking about how a program can fall off this quickly.

2019 saw a slight improvement to the team as the offensive line started to slowly stop being completely terrible. The Seminoles beat every bad team they faced, of which there were plenty in the ACC in 2019, but they also lost to every good team they came up against. That evened out to a 6-6 record after everything was said, but getting back to the postseason wasn’t good enough. Willie Taggart was fired after FSU turned in a miserable performance against Miami for the third season straight, this time a 10-27 loss, the worst of the decade against the Canes. Taggart was slowly turning things around, but ultimately he over promised how fast the team would rebound and under-delivered considering just how bad the ACC was outside of Clemson. I seriously think he’d still be there if the Noles didn’t lose to Virginia early in the year. Nobody knew the Cavaliers would be any good. Oh well, either way, Odell Haggins was tabbed with cleaning up the mess for the second time in three years. Florida State lost to Arizona State in the Sun Bowl. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I have no idea what’s in store for the Seminoles in the 2020′s. It all depends on what new head coach Mike Norvell can get done. FSU is still a blue blood, and in the ACC Atlantic they can probably get better faster than many other teams in other conferences.

It may be a bit strange seeing a team that so publicly flamed out in the past few years so high on the list. That really speaks to everything the Noles were able to accomplish from 2010 to 2016. They stuffed a decade’s worth of accolades into six or seven years.

One thing Florida State can hang their hat on is that they were the most dominant team in the state in the 2010′s. The Seminoles hold 7-3 records against both rival Florida and Miami in the span. For what it’s worth, FSU went 4-6 against Clemson as well, and most people would probably say that the Tigers were the second best team this past decade. Not a bad showing all things considered.

[sailor-toni]

World Building week Day 2: Pariah Dark

    Pariah Dark is both a fun evil character, with a cool, iconic, but historically confusing costume, and a boring character. He’s an evil king. There are hundreds of evil kings throughout television, movies, written works, and video games. For Christ sake, video games have thousands of evil kings with in the medium itself. From Bowser, to Loghain, to every evil king in the Fire Emblem series that is secretly being controlled or manipulated by an evil dragon. That is one stereotype that Pariah Dark does not fall into by the way. Owning an evil dragon, or being controlled by an evil dragon. Pariah Dark and the race of evil dragon ghost seem to be separated according to Danny Phantom Cannon. 

    But according to Danny Phantom cannon, Pariah Dark fits into every other stereotype of an evil King. He is

Big

Powerful 

Wears all black 

His methods to control his subjects include fear and torment

HE RULED WITH AN IRON FIST (I have read/heard this line so much it has lost all meaning to me)

There is a rebellion to overthrow him 

He owns powerful artifacts that allow him to be all powerful 

Controlling, ruthless, strict, malevolent, and arrogant. 

    I could go on, and on about how generic and almost frustrating flat the giant ghost king is. He like an armored cardboard cut-out. Expect when he tells Danny “Power is a burden”. Most evil kings are cowers or warriors who obtain power for the sake of being powerful. Very rarely will an evil King reflect on the influence of power beyond the effect it has on others. If we were to just take this line and run with it (Which I will do.) we could elaborate that Pariah Dark is not so much an evil king but a fallen hero?

  Launching myself off the cliffs of Butch Hartman's chin and into the sea of insanity lets make a case for fallen hero Pariah Dark. An idea I see talked about, but never elaborated on. 

    First a foremost, why would Pariah be considered a king and was his name originally Pariah? Pariah is a harsh as fuck name bro. Like your mother naming you scar and calling your brother mufasa levels of harshness. The only thing worse than that is being named abcde. If Pariah was not born with this name, that would mean he would have to earn it from somewhere else. Was he banished? Cast out by other ghost? If so, then why didn’t he return to his birth name after becoming a hero? My theory? He never returned to his birth name because it was no longer his name. 

    For some reason Pariah was cast out of his family or group and left to fend for himself. Maybe he was a normal boy who was a little too headstrong, challenged authority a little too much, and tried to go somewhere he was not ready to be. Maybe he was a prince who tried to overthrow his own father but failed? Maybe he was cast out due to his malevolent ways? Either way, he became a pariah, and that title became him. A myth of an outcast who would rise above it all and become king of a land who once betrayed him. Harden by a world, or a ghost zone where dangers whispered in every corner. A very compelling myth, one that has been heard before. One that was overshadowed by his fall. 

    An outcast who became king, and a king who returned to being an outcast. Trapped in a coffin of forever sleep. 

I do wish there was more to go off from. Besides one episode, and a few myths and information we get second hand from Frostbyte and Skulker. Who seems to be quoting myths. Another Ironic thing about the Pariah. He will never be able to tell his own tale.

[harperfinkles]

My Ranking Of Every Barbie Movie

A few months ago I finally decided to watch every barbie in order. When I was a kid I loved barbie movies, but I stopped watching them after Princess & The Popstar came out, and I felt like I’ve been missing out ever since.

Here I present to you: My Ranking Of Every Barbie Movie!

Keep in mind that I’m basing this off of my personal enjoyment of each film, and not by how “good” it is. There are many movies here that are ranked high despite being objectively flawed, as well as there are movies ranked low despite being objectively good. My opinions are also subject to change, especially since some of these I’ve only seen once.

36: Barbie & Her Sisters In A Puppy Chase

This entire movie is a mess. Like most of the barbie & her sisters movies there’s no real plot. The events of this movie only happen because of bad luck, which is never a good way to kick off your movie. I also find barbie to be completely OOC in this movie. Her disorganization and lack of planning is something that isn’t present in any of the sisters movies. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy movies that humanize barbie and give her more flaws but there are way more creative ways to do it. It doesn’t help that her insistence to “keep positive!!!” and “be optimistic :)))” just robs this movie of any meaningful message.

Then after the frustrating mess that is the puppy chase itself, Chelsey STILL wins her dance competition despite the fact that barbie didn’t let her practice, and she cheated by adding her sisters and the horses to the dance. It’s unbelievably stupid. I don’t know how the writers of this movie thought we would buy into that. I’m probably never going to watch this movie again.

35: Barbie Presents Thumbelina

The main reason I don’t like this movie is because of the style of the Twillerbees. Unlike Mariposa (the only other movie that doesn’t have a barbie protagonist) their faces look inhuman in a way that makes it hard to relate to them. I would’ve much preferred if Thumbelina had just gotten the normal barbie face, just her body becoming smaller. Besides that I think the girl whose name I can’t remember is annoying, and I didn’t like Thumbelina’s plan to get on her good side to save their home. Both of their character developments were weak and unbelievable. Then once the parents were convinced to stop demolition the movie lost all of its dramatic tension. This movie isn’t ‘bad’ per say, just completely boring. Not I understand why I never rewatched this as a kid.

34: Barbie In Princess Power

This movie had so much unrealized potential, but fell apart due to its plot that went all over the place. The villain and his frog were extremely annoying, Kera’s friends were completely one note characters, and Dark Sparkle was so petty and unnecessary. The part that pissed me off the most was how Kera’s identity was revealed to everyone. First off Wes was forgiven for this way too easily, despite it completely making me lose what little faith I had in his character, and secondly her parents handled it so casually. It seemed more like she had gotten in trouble for sneaking out to go to a party than her being forced into getting superpowers and using them to fight crime in the city. Plus the animation was absolutely horrible. What is with Mattel and changing barbie’s model every new movie?

I really wish this movie was better. Barbie as a superhero is such an amazing concept, and it makes me sad to see it executed so terribly.

33: Barbie & Her Sisters In The Great Puppy Adventure

Another movie with the most annoying villains possible. They’re the core reason I couldn’t stand watching this. In addition to that I found that the treasure being under the big willow tree was completely predictable from the first ten minutes of the movie. And even though the puppies were quite cute, their voices were so annoying. There are also a few plot holes (if you can call them that) such as the metal detector app (it hurt typing that) and how the girls knew that scaling the wall of the cave would lead to where the elevator lead. Despite this I still liked learning about barbie’s childhood and all of her achievements, though her grandma was quite creepy.

32: Barbie & Her Sisters In A Pony Tale

This movie straight up has no plot. It’s the worst of the sisters movies in that regard. Many chunks of this movie felt like filler (such as the party scene), and the character conflicts were weak and contrived (such as Chelsey and Staci's). One thing that I really liked about this movie is Barbie’s character, but that’s pretty consistent with all the sisters movies that aren’t Puppy Chase. I also found the two french guys very annoying (is there any sisters movie with a good villain?).

31: Barbie: Fairytopia

I feel bad for putting this one so low, especially considering how high my placements of all the sequels are. It feels like information is revealed to quickly at the beginning and the rest of the movie is just boring. Elina is very interesting but she could use a lot more character development. The part about her being bullied for not having wings was relegated to cheesy dialogue and didn’t really amount to anything. Plus the fungi aren’t nearly as funny as they are in Mermaidia.

The main reason I’m not putting it lower is for nostalgia and setting up the rest of the Fairytopia series. Aside from that I also really liked the vibe of the one underwater scene, and the “friends you haven’t met” line was quite good. This movie is just a complete anomaly in the great track record of early barbie movies. You honestly don’t even need to watch it to understand the sequels.

30: Barbie: A Perfect Christmas

As a musical this movie really sucks. The only song that I actually liked was barbie’s one solo, and even her singing voice there really didn’t sound like her. There’s really no plot to this movie, but I did find myself enjoying the dynamic of the sisters a lot more than the other sisters movies (even though Skipper’s Arc with the concert came out of nowhere and stressed me out). The way Santa’s magic was shoehorned into the story really bothered me though.

29: Barbie Video Game Hero

The best thing about this movie is definitely the side characters. They all had nice designs and personalities, especially Bella and Chris. The concept of this movie is also so creative and fun that I actually enjoyed it way more than I thought I would. I liked it mostly during the first two levels as well as the bonus one, but the last two really soiled it for me. The fact that there’s an open world game with no clear way to win makes no sense in the context of the rest of the game, and the Just Dance advertisements are absolutely cringey. This movie has a strong beginning but really falls behind in the second half. The last scene of the movie really made me want to rip my eyes out.

28: Barbie: Spy Squad

This movie really suffers from not getting the audience to care. The characters aren’t developed enough in the opening and the way the girls got their jobs as spies seemed too easy. The storyline felt too straightforward, and even the plot twist at the end was kind of cheap.

Despite this I still really enjoyed many parts of this film. For one the animation is amazing. I loved the character designs, especially Patricia’s. Speaking of her, I thought she was a pretty good villain, even if she was a little cheesy and her ‘redemption’ arc was very clumsy. I also thought Lazlo was sweet. A lot of modern barbie movies only go halfway with the romance because they don’t want to be seen as bad role models for girls, and a lot of the times the Ken characters just seem unnecessary. I thought it was a good idea to have him be the “love interest” of a non barbie character so his inclusion doesn’t feel useless, even if they never actually got together. It was also just really fun to see all the spy technology.

27: Barbie: The Princess And The Popstar

The placing of this movie is extremely unfortunate since I actually really liked Tori and Kiera’s characters. They both had spunk and I really like the tropes of the roundy princess and the celebrity who doesn’t find satisfaction in fame. The reason this movie is so low comes down to the terrible plot. It felt like they were trying too hard to make it similar to the Princess & The Pauper even though Tori and Kiera’s characters would much better suit a different plotline. The villains were just insanely frustrating and had such unclear motivations. The songs were also pretty bad (other than Here I Am), the Ken character is annoying, and the climax has barely any emotional weight since it wasn’t led up to properly. But hey, at least Tori/Kiera is a high quality ship. If it wasn’t for their relationship this movie would be much lower.

26: Barbie: A Fashion Fairytale

I love the set up for barbie’s character in this movie. She’s just been fired for the first time, Ken broke up with her, and she feels like her life is falling apart. She really reached a new layer of dimension with this movie, and she’s the best barbie as herself character in all of the movies. My main problem is the boring plotline with the flairies. Their character’s aren’t interesting and what they do to the clothing isn’t anything special. This movie also suffers from the boring villains. Barbie’s character is my main reason for liking this movie, along with the Ken plotline, even if it could be quite contrived.

25: Barbie: Star Light Adventure

This is a very weird movie. I had completely different reactions to it during the two times I saw this movie. The first time I thought it was very disappointing. The title said “adventure” so I was very surprised when the characters spent most of the movie training in the same location and we barely got to see any cool new locations. The pace was also extremely slow, especially near the beginning. The second time I started to appreciate the movie for what it is. The animation is absolutely stunning and I love what we saw of the creatures in this universe. Sa-Lee is definitely one of my favourite side characters, and the rest of the team was pretty cool too.

They also added a bunch of new things that I think are very unique to this movie. For instance I loved that barbie’s had telekinesis. She definitely needs more superpowers in future movies. I also liked that we got to see her parents.

My main gripe with this movie has to be Constantine. He was annoying for no reason and I think the movie would’ve benefitted from either having him be nicer and more of a character arc, or having him be a full villain who’s using the team for personal gain.

24: Barbie: Mariposa & The Fairy Princess

As a sequel this movie sucks. It doesn’t cover the same themes as the first movie, we don’t get Elina telling the story, the stakes are nowhere near the height as the first one was, and the characters in the first movie don’t get nearly enough screentime. Willa and Carlos’s part in this movie was underwhelming, but I’m especially annoyed by the fact that Rayna and Rayla weren’t even mentioned once. This all probably would’ve been different had the movie been made closer to the original, and I’m extremely confused as to why they waited to make it in 2013.

However if you disassociate it with the first movie it becomes way more enjoyable. I thought Catania was sweet and lowkey ship her with Mariposa (though it still doesn’t compare to the Mariposa/Carlos/Willa OT3). The crystal fairies themselves were an interesting addition to the universe and their designs were really pretty (I actually wish I was still into barbie at the time it was released just so I could’ve got some of the dolls). The increase in animation quality was also a plus. I’m also so happy that after the first movie Mariposa started running a library. It was such a natural progression in her character arc and it’s so perfect. There are still a lot of problems, such as a villain who feels utterly disconnected from the main story, clumsiness and miscommunication being repeatedly used as plot devices, and the annoyingness that are the puffballs. I’m still glad this movie happened and if you liked the first movie you should definitely check this one out too.

23: Barbie And The Secret Door

Oh boy is this one a mixed bag. It was actually the first "new” barbie movie that I saw, but it definitely did the trick of making me want to watch the other ones.

On the positive side this movie is so pretty. I love all the bright colours and the designs for Nori and Romy. Speaking of which, they were such great side characters, and an adorable ship! I especially like Romy since she was so funny and adorable. Plus, the “what’s a boy?” comment made me laugh. I thought that the world building aspect of this movie was really interesting, even if the animal designs weren’t the best.

On the negative side, I feel like the music was extremely disappointing. It got less annoying on my second watch through, so maybe I just have to warm up to it. I also feel like the villain was boring. This movie deserved a more serious antagonist, especially since we saw how terribly she affected the fairies and mermaids. I did overall like princess Alexa, but I’m kind of unsure about her arc relating to responsibility. I think a lot of modern barbie princess movies in general just aren’t as interesting as the ones that take place in the past.

22: Barbie: Dolphin Magic

What a cute movie. I loved Isla’s so much! She and Barbie were so adorable together. The dolphin’s themselves were quite cute too.

This is a very feel good movie, and it almost makes you ignore its flaws. The main thing that annoyed me is why couldn’t they just pick up the dolphin and put him back in the ocean? He’s not even that big, and there isn’t much distance that you’d have to walk with him anyway. The plot and villain aren’t that interesting either, and the sisters were sometimes annoying (such as Staci’s broken foot having no weight on the plot, and Treasure being absolute garbage). Barbie also seems a little too perfect in this movie, which isn’t even true for the rest of the sister movies and they’re all way lower on this list. I also laughed a lot when Barbie called Ken her “Friend”, since apparently romance is too inappropriate for a barbie movie. Still, if you ignore this and just watch all the Barbie/Isla scenes, the movie is really good.

21: Barbie: Fairytopia: Magic Of The Rainbow

Being introduced to all the different fairies in this movie was so much fun. I love all their different personalities and designs, especially Glee, Sunburst, and Lumina. Elina grew so much in this movie, and it truly is the perfect ending to the trilogy. The flight of spring was really cool too. The only real flaw this movie has is how clumsily Elina’s magic abilities are added in. It almost seems like she knew how to use it all along, even if we know she didn’t.

Also Dizzle is the worst. And that one apprentice’s wings being the braids in her hair was FUCKING RIDICULOUS.

20: Barbie In Swan Lake

This movie is definitely the most legitimately beautiful barbie movie out there. The colours are so nice, the dancing is so majestic, and I’d want to live in the forest any day. Odette is one of the prettiest barbie characters and I love her wardrobe. This movie also has two of the most iconic villains of my childhood who make me laugh every time I think of them.

Despite this I still don’t think this is nearly as good as everyone makes it out to be. First off, Odette’s character arc as the ‘chosen one’ wasn’t executed believably, and she wasn’t even that interesting. The romance was way too instalove-y for my taste (even Rapunzel had a more believable romance than this). The message of this movie was also really unclear in the Chelsey scenes. Overall it’s a great fairytale that I have lots of nostalgia for, but it doesn’t hold up as well when you really dig into it.

19: Barbie: Fairy Secret

I love how Barbie and Raquelle’s relationship is expanded upon in this movie. In Fashion Fairytale Raquelle’s motivations were confusing and she felt very flat. I love how we got to see them forced to work together despite their hard feelings and eventually come to forgive each other at the end once they got to the root of their issues with each other. It’s the ideal enemies to loversfriends scenario.

This movie is just really fun. Exactly what a barbie movie should be. Barbie’s stylist friends were great, and the Ken parts were pretty funny. I do overall like the worldbuilding, though Gloss Angelos looked way to small to even be classifed as a city, let alone the biggest fairy city in the world. It’s like 90% castle and 10% actual city.

In the end I always wish that Barbie, Raquelle, and Ken remembered what happened to them, and that’s the most frustrating part about this movie.

18: The Barbie Diaries

Despite being made by a completely different studio than the other movies (and having a downgrade in animation quality), this movie really holds up today. There’s a lot going on here, and it makes the plot seem way more complex than any other barbie movie. We also get to see into barbie’s head a lot more than any other barbie as herself movie, what with her fantasies that we got to see visualized. This movie is just the perfect blend of magic and normal life, and even if I do prefer the fantasy based barbie movies, this one will always hold a place in my heart.

17: Barbie And The 12 Dancing Princesses

There really isn’t much to be said about this movie. It’s just plain good. There’s nice music, a good plot, a great villain, a cute cat character, and a girl obsessed with bugs. What more could you want?

The only thing I don’t like is the wedding scene. It seemed quite out of place. Their relationship wasn’t that important to deserve the last few minutes of the movie.

16: Barbie And The Three Musketeers

Barbie sword fighting is all I’ve ever wanted in life. This movie really broke the mold for what barbie could do. Corinne is a great protagonist, and the other musketeers were great too (even if their personalities weren’t developed that much). I love how important their friendship was and how easily Corinne integrated into their group. This movie is super fun and just makes me want to scream “GIRL POWER” from the top of my lungs.

There were still some drawbacks though. The prince was annoying, I got so tired of that one sound effect that keep on repeating over and over again (if you’ve seen the movie you know what I’m talking about), the cat was way too immature, and while the villain was good, he was not subtle at all. The movie still had a solid storyline, and I loved how it ended with the girls going on another adventure. *sigh* If only this movie had a sequel.

15: Barbie: The Pearl Princess

Lumina is one of my favourite barbie protagonists. She just felt human in a way that not many others do (even though she’s technically a mermaid, not human). She was naive, but not stupid. I loved seeing her react to a world she hasn’t seen before. This movie had such a unique approach with her aunt Scylla. Her aunt may have done something completely wrong, and she admits to that, but Lumina doesn’t ignore the way aunt Scylla has cared for her and loved her over the years. She accepts her found family and her biological family at the same time, and lets her have a chance at redemption. In addition to that I really loved Lumina’s pre transformation outfit. It’s my second favourite barbie mermaid outfit next to Nori’s in Mermaidia.

I also liked how much the animals of this movie felt like active members of society, and had intelligence levels equivalent the mermaids. I’ve never really seen that in a barbie movie, at least to this extent. Kuda was a great animal sidekick who really felt like one of Lumina’s true friends. I also like how Spike looked dangerous but was a real softie on the inside.

There are a lot of other elements of this movie that I liked too, like how sweet Fergus was, and his love of botany. I liked the gag about Caligo thinking he’s being poisoned, and being paranoid about which cup he’s gonna drink from. Even if the Ken character wasn’t utilized much, I liked his dolphin friend. My only complaint is that the climax was a little messy, and I didn’t enjoy Caligo as a villain that much.

14: Barbie In A Mermaid Tale 2

This worked very well as a sequel to the original Mermaid Tale. Eris’s return as a villain felt very natural, and this movie continued to have Merliah feel like a genuine teenager with her own dreams and mood swings. The only reason it’s lower than the first one is because the plot isn’t as all encompassing and it doesn’t feel like Merliah’s life has changed as much as it did originally, if that makes sense. The plot also feels a little too fast at times, but the pacing doesn’t affect the movie drastically.

Kylie was a wonderful addition to the cast. She was mean, but you could clearly tell that it came from her insecurities about her own talent. I cannot emphasize how well her conflict with Merliah was developed. I loved their banter at the beginning and how they came to understand each other at the end, to the point where it didn’t matter who won the competition. It’s just.....SO GAY. I love it.

Speaking of which, Fallon and Hadley were both really cute in this movie too, more so than the first one. I just love how little men there are in the Mermaid Tale movies.

13: Barbie: Princess Charm School

Last time I watched this movie a few years ago I absolutely hated it, but after rewatching it again my opinion has completely turned around. The plot of this movie may still be very basic, and the supporting characters, Princess Isla and Hadley, were very one note, but it’s the strength of the Protagonist, Blair, that really makes this movie. I love seeing her determination in an environment she’s not used to, and how selfless she was even when she’s surrounded by selfishness.

Also can we appreciate how dark this movie was? Dame Devin literally MURDERED Blair’s parents in a car accident. It’s not like that hasn’t happened in any other movie, but in this one the tone just feels a lot more jarring.

I really appreciated Delancey’s character development. She seems so cold and unforgiving at the beginning, but as more information is revealed to her she changes for the better. She was raised in such a negative environment and I can’t help but be proud of her. Her friend Portia was also really funny too. I love the “YOU STOLE MY CAKE” scene.

12: Barbie As The Island Princess

Is there anything better than crazy island girl characters who talk to animals? I think not.

I love Ro’s animal family. Azul and Sagi are essentially Ro and Tika’s dads, and it’s adorable. Azul’s peacock sounds are just absolutely ridiculous, and I love it.

The music of this movie was also soooooo good. Words cannot describe how The Rat Song makes me feel inside. On a more serious note, I Need To Know is absolutely perfect. I love the visuals that go along with it. And just when you think it’s over, Ro’s part ends and Prince Antonio comes in AND IT’S SO PERFECT.  Love Is For Peasants is also the best barbie villain song in any movie. “You need to stop reading those books. Filling your head with thoughts!” ICONIC. The soundtrack of this movie isn’t as good when listening to it outside of the context of movie when you compare it to stuff like the Princess And The Pauper, but it’s still really good nonetheless.

The romantic element of this movie was also really good. I think this is the first time on this list that I’ve listed the romance as a positive aspect. Ro and Antonio are just really compatible people who fulfill very essential parts of themselves when they meet. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I also love Tika’s development in regards to their relationship too.

The villain was pretty okay, but I especially love princess Luciana. She may be a romantic rival to Ro, but she’s a victim too, and she’s given a very sympathetic role in the story even if her mother is the villain. Her arc was very satisfying.

11: Barbie In A Christmas Carol

Not really a typical barbie movie to list as one of my favourites, but it’s a christmas essential for me. Having Barbie be Scrooge was a very risky move, but god, did it pay off. Eden was cruel, but her story is so sad. I always feel her fear when her aunt disrupts Catherine’s party. This is definitely another one of the darkest barbie movies.

Also, GHOSTS. Ghosts should have been in more barbie movies. They all had cool concepts and designs, mainly Aunt Marie and the ghost of christmas future.

Catherine was such a joy to see in this movie. She’s a very kind and selfless person, but her friendship to Eden puts her in conflict with that side of herself. Seeing her fulfilling Eden’s role in the vision of the future was actually kind of scary. It makes it all the more satisfying when Eden apologizes to Catherine in the end. I really love their friendship.

Christmas Carol was always one of my favourite christmas tales after I watched the Mickey version, and I think this movie did it justice (thought it was slightly less traumatizing than that, thankfully).

10: Barbie In The Nutcracker

Even though I’ve had a copy of this for the longest time I never really took the time to watch and appreciate it. And now that I have I’ve gotta say that this was a great start to the barbie saga. The producers still hadn’t settled on making barbie movies the way they’re known for now, and you can tell by the lack of female characters and a few of the 2D sequences, but the sense of adventure this movie has is so unlike any movie that came after. And despite the limited resources they had for animating it still ended up looking stunning. They animators had such a good sense of colour, and all the landscapes looked amazing.

Before watching this I always thought that The Magic Of Pegasus had the best (canon) romance of any barbie movie, but now I actually think that this may be better. Clara and Prince Eric have great chemistry and such a believable bond. The last dance scene was amazing and it so was heartbreaking when Clara was sent back to the real world. I love the scene when Eric visits Clara’s house and confirms that it wasn’t all a dream.

Also, I really appreciate Clara’s decision to stay in the magical world. So much media, including barbie movies, puts emphasis on people staying with their family and choosing more stable environments. What writers don’t realize is that that’s boring. We don’t watch movies to learn about people’s normal lives, and I’m so grateful that this story ended the way it did. So yeah, thanks writers.

There were also many scary moments here too. The rock monster is TERRIFYING. Maybe the reason I don’t remember this movie is because the rock monster traumatized me so much I had to repress it. The Mouse King was also quite creepy. I wish newer barbie movies committed to making scary villains like him.

9: Barbie In A Mermaid Tale

I probably have the most nostalgia towards this movie since it was always my sister’s favourite growing up. Now it’s one of the only barbie movies she’ll watch with me other than the sequel. I expected to not enjoy this movie as much since I’d kind of exhausted it by this point, but I guess I surprised myself.

As I mentioned in Mermaid Tale 2, Merliah feels like a genuine teenager. She likes her normal life and hates responsibility. Because of this her arc of deciding to save her people feels so much more genuine and poignant.

The world building of this universe is just so good. The plot with Calissa and Eris was great, and I love the scene where Merliah is picking out a tail. The world just looks so pretty and magical, even if magic doesn’t play a huge role in this film. The soundtrack sets the scene so nicely, and Queen Of The Waves is definitely one of my favourite barbie songs.

8: Barbie In The Pink Shoes

This is definitely a huge unpopular opinion, so I should get all the negatives of this movie out of the way first. The animation of the faces is extremely creepy, Kristin was very irresponsible to decide to change her routine up at the last minute, and she would’ve worked much better as a choreographer than as a dancer. Despite these flaws there’s still something about this movie that makes me love it.

For one, despite the creepy faces, the dancing animations were still pretty good. And even though Kristin’s arc wasn’t the best I still find her final dancing scenes (the one in the ice palace and the one on stage) to be so inspiring. Keep On Dancing is such an amazing song and it gave me chills the first time I heard it. The movie is also quite pretty. The ballet outfits aren’t as traditional as ones in earlier barbie ballets, but they still have flare and nice colours.

The movie is also really funny. It makes fun of the ballets it covers a lot. I love the “you don’t look a day over 16″ part. The two suitors especially, Hilarion and Prince Albrecht, were so funny. I loved how their petty jabs at each other turned into compliments when faced with adversity. Hayley was also pretty funny since she was the realist of the movie.

I think the irl characters were used very nicely in the ballet world, and I liked how when Kristin got back it turned out that everything wasn’t as bad as it seemed before. Tara wasn’t as mean and Madame Natasha wasn’t nearly as scary. That’s one of my favourite tropes in fiction.

7: Barbie & The Diamond Castle

Liana and Alexa are basically a married couple. There is literally no way to refute this. Their arguments are adorable and domestic, and they clearly love each other more than anything in the world. They may have their differences at times but when it comes down to it they know each other more than anyone else does and work together so nicely. Every aspect of their lives is intertwined so much that separation usually isn’t an option for them. My heart broke when they parted since I knew that that was how Lydia would defeat them. I cried when Liana came to Alexa’s rescue, and the movie ending with them going to back to their normal house instead of staying at the diamond castle was beautiful. Truly the best and purest barbie ship.

Now that that’s out of the way let’s talk about everything else. The plot of this movie is so unique. There is no other barbie movie that’s about music itself. The muses and their drama and betrayal with Lydia was so intriguing. Seriously, Lydia was a scary villain. I was terrified of her as a child. Liana and Alexa seemed like they’re helpless against her powers, and it feels all the more victorious when they defeat her. The last fight scene was truly epic.

I really appreciate how little Liana and Alexa care about the two twins. They’re my least favourite part of the movie, and even if they do start working with them later on in the movie it’s made very clear that they don’t care about them at all.

6: Barbie In Rock ‘N Royals

I really didn’t have high expectations for this one. It was after I had watched The Princess And The Popstar and Secret Door, which both gave me a bad feeling about barbie pop musicals. But this movie really came through and made itself my second favourite barbie musical movie, and my sixth favourite overall.

The only thing I disliked was Courtney’s weird facial design. That’s it. The rest of the movie is basically perfect.

The movie started off at a relaxing pace but I was never tricked into thinking it would end that way. I love the Camp Pop vs. Camp Royalty plotline. Finn and Lady Ann seemed simple at first but their past was revealed at the perfect time. Clive was hilarious and him becoming the real villain was executed so well.

Seeing Courtney and Erika react to the camps was a delight. Their friends were so quirky and nice to them, and the camps themselves were pretty fun too (UNICORNS). Them finally meeting at the beach was such a breath of fresh air. I could imagine them becoming great friends in the future (cough sequel cough). Erika was probably my favourite of the two since she just looked really cool and had a more interesting arc. I just love it when two groups of people who have seemingly nothing in common come together to achieve a common goal. Also I have a theory that Sloan and Princess Olivia were in love the whole time, and the competition was the first time they could smile around each other without being ridiculed by their peers.

Now, onto the music. My favourite song is probably Gotta Get To Camp. I was shocked at how good it was. The choreography was also the most interesting since it was the only time the characters spontaneously burst into song. When You’re A Princess is also such a bop.

This is definitely the first movie I’d recommend to any classic barbie fan who wants to try out some of the new ones.

5: Barbie: Mariposa & Her Butterfly Fairy Friends

This is probably the closest to a perfect barbie movie you’ll get. The protagonist is very relatable, the supporting cast is great, everyone has good development, the world is scary yet so fascinating, and the villains are amazing. Also it has a non barbie protagonist. Having Elina narrate the story was such a great decision. Mariposa really sticks out in the long list of barbie protags. Her transformation scene near the end was so great. It fits the theme of the movie so well and I think that anyone can get inspiration from Mariposa’s journey.

When it comes to characters everyone is so much fun. Carlos is another one of my favourite barbie love interests, even if the movie didn’t commit to the romance fully. He and Mariposa have their love of reading in common and they like each other for non superficial reasons. Willa is also adorable and sweet. It would be very interesting to find out how she and Mariposa met, since they’re so different, yet they’re close friends nonetheless. Rayna and Rayla are both quite interesting cases. When they first showed up I rolled my eyes and thought they’d be tossed out of the way very soon, but they continued through the story and changed as people. They gained respect for Mariposa, and vice versa. Henna was also pretty cool too.

The setting was so interesting too, more than any other Fairytopia movie. Every place looks like it has danger lurking, and he characters genuinely felt small next to the landscape. One of my favourite things in this movie has to be the absolutely horrifying Skeezites. I remember playing the DVD game as a kid and having nightmares about it later.

4: Barbie As Rapunzel

This is probably the scariest barbie movie. Unlike other scary ones like Mariposa and Diamond Castle there’s such an aura of misery and helplessness to this movie that is like no other. Gothel is the main reason for it. The tower just looks so dark and every scene in the normal world has such tension surrounding it. It makes me even more emotional when Rapunzel finally frees herself from the tower.

All the paintbrush scenes are integral barbie moments for any kid growing up. I remember being fascinated by her art, and by how hope came to Rapunzel in her worst moments. We don’t get a real answer to how the paintbrush came to be, but it doesn’t feel necessary. It’s just so beautiful.

I love the animal sidekicks in this movie too. Penelope is so adorable, and I love how she, like Rapunzel, found the courage in herself to stand up and disobey her father. And having a dragon be one of the good guys was a really risky move for the second barbie movie, but it payed off so well.

This was truly an ethereal movie.

3: Barbie And The Magic Of Pegasus

This movie definitely has the most riveting original plot of any barbie movie. Wenlock was a terrifying villain and Brietta’s story is so sad. Plus, barbie standing up for Wenlock’s wives at the end basically invented feminism. I love that it’s about an ice skating barbie, and all the skating scene were so fun too.

Shiver is also adorable. I had a lot of the dolls as a kid and the only things I have left from them are the Shiver toy and the Wand Of Light. Speaking which, that wand was so epic and pretty. The movie was just so aesthetically pleasing.

Annika is another one of my favourite barbie protagonists. Like Merliah, she genuinely feels like a true teenager who's rebelling against her strict parents, and she learns a great lesson. Aidan was also a great mirror for her and when I was younger they were my favourite barbie couple. They have lots of good banter and I really buy their relationship development. I especially love the ice dancing scene at the end.

This movie is a barbie essential for me. It represents so much of my childhood. I used to watch this movie obsessively and it’s just as good now as it was back then.

2: Barbie: Fairytopia: Mermaidia

This is kind of an odd choice for my second favourite barbie movie. This one used to be my #1 favourite before I rewatched the one coming. I was obsessed with mermaids and fairies as a kid and no other movie captured my imagination the way this one did. The land of Mermaidia is so pretty and reminds me of everything I dreamed about as a kid. It also gave me Nori, my favourite non barbie character in any barbie movie and one of my biggest childhood crushes. I love how her sass comes from her insecurities about Nalu, and how she and Elina start to like each other once they see past him.

Elina/Nori is also another contender for my favourite barbie ship. They have nice banter (and I’m sure by now you all know how much I love that) and I love the scene when Elina sacrifices her wings for a tail to save Nori (that’s totally my favourite scene in any barbie movie). I wish we got more of their relationship in Magic Of The Rainbow, but I guess that wouldn’t have fit with the movie. Oh well.

This movie works very well as a sequel, while also being better than the original in every way. We had the same villain, and we got to see a part of the Fairytopia universe that we only saw a glimpse of in the first one. After Elina got her wings it only feels natural that the possibility of her losing them again is explored, as well as the prospect that maybe she doesn’t need wings to be herself. And compared to the original movie the stakes have been raised much higher, we have more reasons to care about the characters, and it’s so much funnier. The fungi annoyed me in the first movie but in this one they made me laugh constantly. And this movie wouldn’t be complete with the amazingness that is opera Bibble.

This movie doesn’t have the best plot, but it doesn’t suffer from it either. It’s one of those movies that just makes me feel relaxed and at peace (other than the Depths of Despair scene, though at this point I’ve seen it enough that it doesn’t phase me as much anymore).

1: Barbie As The Princess And The Pauper

We all knew this was coming. No other barbie movie comes close to this classic. It’s gonna be hard to describe why I love it so much since everything that’s amazing about this movie has already been said a thousand times before, but I’ll give it a go.

Anneliese and Erika are amazing characters. They may come from different social classes but they both have the shared experience of not being able to fulfill their dreams. This movie is so good at showing you how trapped they feel, yet still their duty to their lives never waver. My mom has an interesting story about how she got into this movie. She initially thought that barbie would be a terrible role model for me and my sister until she saw The Princess And The Pauper. Anneliese and Erika are clearly very complex protagonists who have interests outside of romance and are active participants in changing their destinies and saving the kingdom. Especially with Erika, who decides to achieve her dream of becoming a famous singer before getting married to King Dominick.

This movie has a bunch of nice relationships too. Anneliese and Erika click with each other so well and respect each other’s troubles without downplaying their situations due to the class difference. The romances were both nicely developed too. Erika and Dominick may have fallen in love over the course of a day but I appreciate how much he likes her stranger side (like when he walked in on her singing to her cat lmao). Anneliese and Julian’s relationship feels especially believable since they’ve known each other for a very long time. I also really like that they waited for Erika to come back before getting married. OT4 goals.

Preminger is a barbie villain like no other. The rest of my top ten has been dominated by scary and serious villains, but Preminger is just so funny and dramatic compared to them all. He’s the only barbie villain that has became very well known in pop culture.

All of the songs in this movie are so iconic. I think that’s the biggest strength of this movie. I'm constantly listening to music and the soundtrack is a great way for me to take this movie everywhere I go. The Cat’s Meow is a beautiful song, Written In Your Heart feels so inspiring, I Am A Girl Like You is great character study, If You Love Me For Me is a beautiful and tender love song, How Can I Refuse? is an iconic villain song, and Free is a great introduction to the characters, as well as my number one favourite barbie song. Every song has something special about it and that makes it one of the most memorable movie soundtracks ever for me.

I also love the cats Serafina and Wolfie. They’re two of the best animal sidekicks in any barbie movie since they feel a lot like the human characters. THEY ALSO HAVE SO MANY BABIES IN THE END FUCKING GOD.

I hope you all enjoyed my ranking. Feel free to comment with your favourites and least favourites, just be aware that this is all personal to me and really says nothing about the objective quality of each of these movies.