#there's a huge drop-off around like. season 4 or 5.

[cube-cumb3r]

Below: Most answered and least types of questions, aka:

Which questions do people LOVE and which questions do people HATE?

Un-annotated version of graph below

For a quick overview, here's a graph of the amount of responses every single question (excluding obligatory questions, consent questions, and any other non-skippable non-question question)

This graph is really fun and might actually be my favorite graph, there's many things you can see!. Firstly the unskippable question part is as expected completely flat, except for one question that was secretly skippable* that is the tiniest dip in an otherwise straight line.

(*Accident btw)

You can see people gradually dropping off over time, unsurprising as I gave form takers many opportunities to send the form in early, and many form-takers also skipped over whole sections (due to perhaps a bit of fucking around and finding out, or perhaps a bit of malicious form-trickery on my part, who really knows.)

For example, some options made you skip straight into Pt. 5, thus skipping over Pt.4 and/or the Trolley Problem section (you can clearly see the huge dip in the latter, and then the recovery in Pt. 5)

But, no matter which sections you saw everyone will eventually be asked if they want to leave feedback before they submit, which many did, resulting in a huge spike, and then an even bigger spike is asking for a song recommendation which 76% of ALL responders chose to do (or at least, they wrote something in the textbox. I'm sure some people said "no" and hit submit).

So we can clearly see certain questions are skipped more often than others. Which are they?

MOST AND LEAST SKIPPED QUESTIONS

A question can be "skipped" if you it was in a section you simply never saw, therefore, how many responses out of total respondents doesn't tell us whether it was a "popular" question or not.

So instead, I'd rather look at how many responses a question got from people who actually saw the question, I'm calling this its "adjusted response rate". With this information we can uncover:

TOP 5 MOST POPULAR QUESTIONS:

(Excluding any un-skippable question, for obvious reasons,)

Nr 5: Favorite season (A) (adj. RR: 97.83%.)

This question is from section 3A, and has an adj. response rate of 97.83%. This is a question that is different in section 3A and 3B, in section 3B instead of "Option 5" there is an "Other:" option where you're free to type out whatever. For whatever reason, the A version of this question was much more popular (the adj. response rate for the B version is 92.45%). And the majority gave a serious answer too, with only 7.4% of responders picking the very tempting "Option 5" !

Nr. 4: Gender status (adj. RR: 98.14%.)

This question is simple, and includes a catchall option if you either don't want to answer but you also don't want to leave it blank, or if you feel like neither term applies to you. It's also one of the first questions in the form. I assumed more people would skip the more personal questions, especially ones like these, but this one is the most answered question from section 1, with an adjusted response rate of 98.14%.

Nr. 3/2: Caffeine source (adj. RR: 98.15%.)

This question is from section 2 and has an adj. response rate of 98.15%. There's many potential reasons why this question has a high response rate. It's for the most part easy to answer (except for the fact that you can't pick multiple), it includes most thinkable options (+ the option to write in your on answer if your true answer is something even more specific, or if you want to complain you can't pick multiple) It's also, like the question before, early in the form so form exhaustion hasn't hit yet.

Nr. 3/2: Rock, Paper, Scissors (adj. RR: 98.15%.)

This question is also from section 2, and also has an adj. response rate of 98.11%. Rock, paper, scissors is a question that includes all possible options and is low-stakes and easy to answer without requiring much thought. But it's also not random and absurd enough to turn more serious responders off.

Nr 1: Rating (adj. RR: 99.33%.)

Very anticlimactic, I know. It's also not surprising as everyone who got to here mostly already agreed to leave feedback, and this is a very easy and low-effort way to do so, the adj. response rate drops off dramatically in the latter half of the feedback section as subsequent questions require more time and effort to answer. But this question has a response rate of 99.33%.

Of course, now we obviously also have to move on to,

TOP 5 MOST UNPOPULAR QUESTIONS!

nr. 5: Good questions (adj. RR: 49.66%.)

I lied this question isn't actually nr. 5, it's nr. 6, but nr. 5 is from the secret section, so you'll get this one instead. This question is from the feedback section at the end and had an adj. response rate of 49.66%. I suspect people generally dislike any question where you have to type out the answer yourself, especially if the prompt is too open-ended (which we will investigate this later in this post).

nr. 4: Recipe question (adj. RR: 39.27%.)

This one is from section 3, and had an adj. response rate of 39.27%. Not only is it annoying to have to think of a recipe out of the blue, this question also requires you to exit the form to grab the link as this question will not accept any answer that is not a link. So unsurprisingly, many people skipped this question. Even among the people who answered this question, many did not give a recipe, they simply answered something that was technically a link, such as "no.com", "mymommakesallmyfoodsrry.com", and two entirely different people in a row who sent me rickroll. Fair play

Nr. 3: Bad questions (adj. RR: 35.57%.)

The "inverse" of nr. 5 (6). On top of having the same problems, additionally it also perhaps felt rude or weird to write out anything "negative" directly to me, which is perhaps why it ended up having an adj. response rate of 35.57%. I could also make the assumption that people also generally didn't have anything negative to say, but I'm not going to make that assumption.

Nr. 2: LPS number (adj. RR: 32.98%.)

This one is from section 3, and has an adj. response rate of only 32.98%! Not surprising at all, to begin with unlike some other questions this one contains the word "if", which gives people explicit permission to skip if they do not have an answer. On top of that, even people who DO have a favorite figurine will perhaps not know its number, and now they have to exit the form to go look for it among THOUSANDS of figurines on Toy Sisters' guide?? It's not only niche, but annoying to answer, which is why I included it in my form. Maliciously.

And drumroll please,

Nr. 1: Employment status (adj. RR: 1.45%)

This one is my favorite. It's not only the question with the adjusted response rate but also the question with the lowest TOTAL response rate.

It's from the timeloop section and it requests form-takers to leave it blank, but that's not the only reason it has a low response rate. It's meant to be "unanswerable" as almost anything you type in will give the error message seen in the image. Almost. It doesn't tell you this, but it does accept numeric values. There's only ONE SINGLE PERSON who managed to figure this out (I can only assume by accident), which results in this question having a BEAUTIFUL adj. response rate of 1.45%.

Now,

As you may have noticed, which questions do and do not get answered have a few commonalities. The first and most obvious one is just which questions are easy to answer and don't require any excessive time or effort.

But there are also more qualities that might make a question more or less "appealing", but to be able to compare we need to split the questions into categories, the first and easiest way we can categorize them are by:

QUESTION TYPES

In the table you can see the averages for the adjusted response rates for each type of question (excluding the types that there were only one of). The most popular types of questions were sliding scale and checkbox questions, with multiple-option questions following very closely behind, so it seems like a reasonable assumption that people prefer questions that are just easier to answer, especially ones that allow for nuance and multiple answers, which may feel more representative of the truth.

The grid questions (which are pretty much multiple sliding scales in a row, or multiple horizontal multiple-option questions in a row, and also prone to looking a bit terrible on mobile), are a bit more complex to understand and to answer but still only lagging a slight bit behind, and by a large margin the most unpopular type of questions are ones that require a responder to type their answer out themselves, likely because it requires more time and effort.

Of course, you already knew this, and I already knew this as well (you don't think I've spent hours on SurveySwap and SurveyCircle answering surveys trying to scrape together survey credits? I Know).

You might have noticed though, drop-down questions also have a low response rate, despite being very similar to multiple-choice questions. This might be because there are other qualities a question affects its appeal.

Note: The following sections are subjective categorizations I have come up with, and many questions also fit into multiple groups, but I've chosen to classify them as one of them arbitrarily at my discretion. For this reason, any comparisons between groups should be taken with a grain of salt.

With that said, onto,

CLARITY

Sometimes it's not entirely obvious what a question is asking for and how you're expected to answer. Here's how I've chosen to define a question's "clarity".

Clear: It is obvious what I am asking for, and there's an obvious correct answer. (ex: which continent you live on, how many unread emails you have)

Subjective: It is obvious what I am asking for, but there's no objectively "correct" answer. (ex: favorite movie)

Unclear: It is not entirely clear what I'm asking for, and/or it is not obvious how you should respond to the question (ex: rating "edibility" of rocks)

Nonsensical: It is obvious there is no "correct" answer and neither the questions nor answer have "meaning" (ex: rock, paper scissors)

Free-form: You're given some sort of prompt, but are free to take whichever approach you want to answer (ex. "Give this thing a name")

Open-ended: You're given little to no direction at all, and can answer however you want. (ex. "Write anything)

Quiz: Fits the description of "clear", but I chose to put it in its own category.

This table shows the average response rates for each level of "clarity", divided up by question type (and total avg. for each level of clarity can be found furthest to the right).

From this we can see that across most question types, people generally preferred questions that were quiz questions, clear and nonsensical. These are all questions that the responder know how to respond to "correctly", whether it'd be to give an honest answer or guess, or to pick whichever option amuses them the most. People responded less to questions that were subjective or unclear, and they responded the least too questions that were too open-ended in nature.

Based on this, I suspect that the majority of responders, even more "unserious" responders, feel it is important to answer a question "correctly" or how it's "meant" to be answered, despite this form being a moderately unserious form that does not expect serious answers. In theory you can pick any option at random and type "E" into every textbox and send it in. But in my opinion, this is not very rewarding, and I have a suspicion most responders feel the same way.

The last groups I've divided the questions into is,

TOPIC

This one is the most arbitrary and subective way of categorizing the questions, but I felt it was necessary to see which kinds of questions people generally find the most "fun." (I came up with far too many categories in the end, and the ones I've excluded here (mostly because they were too highly specific or had too few questions in them) are "Timeloop", "Songrec", "Other" and a fourth spoiler category.)

The most fun type of question seems to be "self-evaluating" questions where responders get the opportunity to evaluate themselves and place themselves in little boxes, like rating their own personality scores, or defining themselves as "kiki or bouba", and so on. Following closely behind are quiz questions and random questions.

Also popular, but not quite as popular are more personal questions, questions that are complete meaningless nonsense, and questions where responders get to state their own opinion.

The second least popular questions are ones that expect the responder to be creative, and the ABSOLUTE least popular type of question is one that pertains to a certain type of media, like a show or a game a responder might not have seen.

The unpopularity of the this latter category may simply be due to many responders not feeling qualified to answer these questions, but many also feel frustration of being expected to answer questions pertaining to something they're completely unfamiliar with.

Of course, I already knew this question type was disliked (many expressed this in the feedback section of my first form), which is why I nefariously included a handful on purpose in this one as well.

Here are two bonus charts just for fun to compare question response rates based on restrictiveness of question options, plus a table comparing other factors that may or may not affect response rate.

All in all,

this kind of knowledge is quite important if you're a person who makes surveys and forms and you want as much usable data as possible, so if there's any of those people reading, I hope this was of use.

But additionally it is equally important for those who plan to use it for evil. Like me.

PS. I'm not able to share the full sheet I'm working with because it includes full responses from people who may wish to not have them posted publicly, but what I can share is just the part of the sheet containing all the stats about individual questions, which also lists every single question and how I've categorized them and stuff. If you're interested in that for whatever reason, go nuts!!! Spoilers for secret section though.

Does anyone want to do my new google form

[thebreakfastgenie]

Did the MASH gay stuff peak in season 2? I feel like all the big moments are concentrated in seasons 1 and 2, with just sporadic jokes (like "I knew it, you're one of those too") later on.

[nyasiaaaaa]

In the Bleak Mid-Winter

In the Bleak Mid-Winter

Pairing: Thomas Shelby x Fem reader (Nurse)  

Summary: This is a story about two people who become constants in each others lives, and eventually fall for each. While one learns to love again, the other learns the cost of loving a man like him. 

Word count: 4.3k

Warnings: Cursing, blood, Slight smut ( hand job), Kissing, angst, hurt/ no comfort Tommy Shelby, ( If I missed anything or you think something should be added please tell me.) ( Also Y/N is on dick, IDKY she acts like this)

A/N: part 1 takes place during season two, part 2/3 season 3 and 4/5/6 season 4. This is a Slow burn there will be smut eventually. 

Part 1  Part 2  Part 3  Part 5  part 6

******************************************

Week 1: 

 The first 72 hours after surgery were rough; everyone was waiting around to see if he would slip in the night. He made it through. Well, he started breathing on his own, so that was good, but he still hasn't woken up. In the mornings, you would continuously walk past his room, peaking through the window, seeing if he was still alive, seeing who visited him. You always watched, but you never went in. During the day, you worked with other patients, and at night, you would sit by his bed and watch him sleep every night. 

Week 2: 

Tommy was still in a coma, and every day, your fears worsened. All the what-ifs ran through your head; what if he never woke up? Still, every night, you were by his side waiting, watching. 

Week 3: 

Two nights ago, Tommy woke up; you were "talking" to him, which you did most nights to help with the silence and pass the time. You were busy ranting about your day and this horrible patient who had come into the ER as you knitted a sweater. 

"So then she yelled at me, telling me I'm a stupid bitch who needs to go get a real doctor to check her out. So then, you know what I did? I gave her a piece of my mind," you said, pausing to focus on the sweater for a second. 

"You did, eh?" 

If it wasn't for the fact that you could see his eyes open, you would've thought you had hallucinated. You rushed over to him, dropping the sweater on the floor.

"Tommy, are you ok? How do you feel? Do you need some water? Hold on, let me go get the Doctor." You were about to rush off when you felt yourself being pulled back slightly

"Let another nurse get the doctor; you didn't finish telling me your story." His words came out rushed, almost as if he was pushing them out so he could take a breath. 

"Ok," You laughed as you wiped the tears on your face and held his hand tightly. 

Week 4:

   Tommy was getting better every day; he wasn't making huge milestones, but he was meeting his goals. 

   You walked in to check on Tommy during lunch after finishing up with most of your work for the day. You caught him trying to bring his head down to his hands so he could put the cig in his mouth. This might not seem like much, but the fact that he could get the cig out of the box in the first place was huge.

 You walked up to him, taking the cig out of his hand before licking your lip and running the cig across them. You held the cig between your lips as you reached down and got a match from the box; you lit up, taking a drag before placing it in Tommy's mouth.

"Thank you"

"You welcome." 

You walked towards the end of his bed, picking up the paper for Today and walking back up towards him, pulling a chair with you along the way. You placed the chair next to him, taking a seat as you flipped through the paper. 

You stopped flipping to reach up and take the cig from Tommy to ash it before giving it back to him.

"Anything interesting," he asked. 

"Nope, the only thing is that it seems your horse came in 3rd place at the derby; congratulations, Mr.Shebly." 

Again, you reached up, taking the cig from his mouth, ashing it, and then giving it back. Tommy rested his head back and closed his eyes as he finished his cig.

"What else does it say?" he turned to look at you. "Read it to me," he asked, and you did; for the rest of the afternoon, you sat there reading the paper to Tommy as you lit and ashed his cigs for him. 

Week 5: 

 It didn't take long for you to catch on that Tommy couldn't read. Well, it's not that he couldn't read, but he couldn't see. Tommy was on a load of medication, and you couldn't even remember everyone, let alone the dose of each one. You were getting his medicine ready for him, but you could only remember three out of six of the medications, and you didn't read the doses for them.

You looked around for Tommy's chart and saw it was on the nightstand across the room next to him.

"Tommy read the medicines and doses out loud for me; I can't remember if I'm doing this right, so just read them all, please,"

Tommy grabbed the clipboard and looked at it; you waited a bit, giving him some time to locate the information.

Seconds turn into minutes, and Tommy still hasn't said a word; you turn around to catch him holding the clip close to his face, moving it far away, and then back close up. 

"Tommy"

He looked over the papers one more time before handing the clip out to you; you walked up, took it out of his hand, and then walked back over to the medicines; you fished up and brought them all over to Tommy.

"I'm going for lunch with the other nurse. I'll be back." You walked toward the door, opening it before you turned back toward Tommy. 

"I'll send for the eye doctor to come about." You gave him a tight smile before closing the door and heading out for lunch with your friends.  

Week 6: 

Tommy started his physical therapy a couple of days ago, and every day, you accompanied him. You didn't have to be there for his physical therapy, but you wanted to, and you had the feeling Tommy did, too. 

You sat at the opposite side of Tommy, who stood at the end of parallel bars; he held himself up as the physical therapist told him what to do. 

"Ok. Now, Mr.Shelby, when you are ready, start walking down to her; take your time. Don't rush." 

Tommy started to walk towards you. It wasn't the most stable, and it was very slow as he basically dragged himself along the bars as he walked. He only made it a few steps before taking a break to catch his breath. You could tell he was embarrassed if anyone saw him right now….

It's been a few minutes, and Tommy still hasn't moved; you don't know if he's in pain or if his mind is racing with fear of the future.

You pick the newspaper up next to you and quickly glance over.

"Tommy, I knew you had a horse racing this weekend, but you didn't say it won first place." You held the newspaper up, covering your face as you spoke. Your poker face wasn't the best, but you needed to get Tommy out of his head.

"Bring it here." 

You knew you had him, seeing as it was early in the morning, and neither John nor Arthur had been by to tell him the actual placing of his horse.

"Wow, won by an Inch, a close call, they say. Hey, what's the type of payout from a win like this?" You Ignored him as you continued to "Skim" through the paper.

You peeked around the paper to see Tommy walking towards you. He was still struggling, but his steps had much more determination behind them. 

He reached the end of the bars and leaned on them as he held his hand out. 

"Oi, give it here."

"You can't even see the words on the paper, Tommy."

"Don't care" 

You handed him the paper, and even though Tommy couldn't see, it didn't really matter; on the cover of the newspaper was a big picture of a gangster who had been killed. 

Tommy's horse had raced the other day, and the papers had the result, but it would be on Today's paper, and Tommy was holding yesterday's. 

He let out a puff of air as he read over the paper. He looked up at you raising the papers, and he did,

"Where's today's paper?"

"I don't know; I think the mail boy is running late." You glanced over your shoulder as if you were looking for him. "He should be here soon, maybe even by the time you finish your therapy," you gave him a smile with a thumbs up.

"Now, going on, turn around; you still have about an hour to go," you said, cheering him on.

He looked at you briefly before Turning around and walking back towards the Doctor. 

You watched Tommy continue on the bars before switching to some weight lifting and more. Today ( Monday) was the start, but by Friday, you could already see the difference in his steps and how confidently he took them; he was getting better and stronger every day. 

Later, you learn that his horse did, in fact, win first place. 

Week 7:

Tommy has been doing very well in physical therapy to the point where he is off the bars and is now walking around with a cane; he can't go far, but it's a start. You still go to every appointment even though no one asked you to; you still go, just like how you still sit with Tommy through the night even though he's been out of the woods for weeks. You don't know why you are doing this, but you can't stop. 

Week 8:

You were exhausted; you had been doing this for eight weeks now, and to be honest, you were surprised you had been able to keep this up; you hadn't spent a night at your apartment in weeks. You were always at the hospital during the day and night; you slept next to Tommy at night but only caught a couple of hours if you were lucky. 

And your body ached in places you never knew could hurt; sleeping in that chair every night started to make you have bad posture. You had to stop; you had to start going home, getting a good night's sleep, and taking showers in the comfort of your own home; you need rest and space. 

You decide that starting Today, you will go home instead of staying with Tommy for the night; you finish your shift like usual, but instead of heading towards Tommy's room, you head outside to head home. You decide not to tell Tommy that you aren't going to be "staying the nights" anymore; you don't see any reason to. Tommy is usually asleep by the time you come, and you are gone by the time he wakes up, so he wouldn't know the difference anyway, and you feel like if you did say something, he might see you as…… Creepy. 

Week 9:

You ended up taking three days off. That first night you got home, you slept the best you have in your whole life, and the following day, you couldn't get up, so you called off; you stayed home relaxed, read, and just spent time with yourself. You didn't realize how bad you need this until day two came, and you called out again because the idea of returning to work makes you sick. 

Again, you rested, cleaned, and just spent time with yourself; the quiet is what you enjoyed the most, and the smell of anything other than chemicals and bleach. Again, on the third day, you called out, but you told yourself that this would be the last day; after this, you would head back to work, so you needed to enjoy it while it lasted, and you did. You went to the market and shopped for food, went out to the pictures during the time, so it was empty and quiet, and even went to a boutique in town that you've always seen but never gone to. By the end of your day, you were tired, but in a good way, you felt good enough to head back to work. 

The next day, you headed to work with a bit of a skip in your step; you missed Tommy; you would never say that out loud, but you did. 

You walked in and said a quick hello to the other nurses before. Heading off to Tommy's room, as soon as you entered the room, you smelled opioids. You looked around the room for the source and found a pipe next to Tommy on the bed. You picked it up and turned it over in your hands as you studied it.

You reached down and pushed Tommy. 

"Wake up, Tommy. Wake up." You pushed him again; he was lying on his stomach, and his arms circled his pillow. You pushed his once more as you yelled, "TOMMY!"

He began to stir as he lifted his head up to look at you; you looked at yourself dazed before darting his eyes to what was in your hands and then back to your face.

"What?" his voice was raspy. 

"W-what is this, Tommy? This is bad for you, and especially with your injury, you have no business doing this; the damage it could cause is irreversible.” You were upset. You had gone over everything Tommy could and couldn't have, what he could and couldn't do. 

"I needed to sleep," he said before laying his head back down. 

"You sleep fine; if you didn't, you could've asked for some tablets to help."  

You guess he was tired of hearing your voice cause he covered his ears, letting out a groan; he Lay there for a second before turning and sitting up; he looked at you and nodded his head toward the cane, leaning up against the wall.

You walked over, got it for him, handing it to him as you still awaited an answer for why he was smoking this.

"Tommy, you don't make sense; I've been watching over you for weeks; not once have you had trouble sleeping; every night when I'm here with you, you've fallen asleep like a baby full off milk. Smoking this can cause brain-" 

You stopped talking as you realized what you just said. He didn't wait for you to continue, and he stood up, putting all his weight on the chain as he pushed himself off the bed. He starts walking, and you let him pass with a word as he heads to the bathroom. 

**************

You haven't talked to Tommy all day, you've been avoiding him, and you're unsure what to say. 

You've walked past his room a couple of times, and every time you peak in, it's like he can sense you cause he immediately stops what he's doing and turns to catch your eyes. You quickly turn away and rush off to do nothing, nowhere. 

Nightfall came, and you couldn't go home; you didn't want to. 

You walked towards his room slowly; you were nervous.

You enter the room and is relieved as you see Tommy asleep; you pull up a chair next to the bed. You rest your legs against his bed as you slide down in the chair, trying to get comfortable; you close your eyes as you try to call to sleep.

"The bed would be more comfortable."

If he could see in the dark, he would definitely know that you're awake. Your body practically flinched at his statement; your eyes remained closed, though, too scared of what you might see when you open them. 

You lay as still as possible, hoping that he would think you were sleeping.

"You can sleep there if you want, but if you don't," he trailed off as he pulled back the blanket and made space for you.

You remain quiet not because you still want him to think you sleep but because you don't know what to say or what to do. Getting in bed with him would be highly inappropriate; he's your patient, and you're his nurse.

But your body was already starting to hurt from this chair, and the night had barely begun, and besides, it was just sleeping. 

You crack your eyes open to get a quick look and find Tommy already lying back down with the covers still thrown over, making a spot for you; you get up slightly before sitting back down; you couldn't do this; there's no way you should just g- 

You got up so quick that you didn't even realize that you had started to walk towards the side of the bed where Tommy had made space for you; you slipped your shoes off as you slowly crawled into the bed. 

You were glad that Tommy had his back towards you; you couldn't even begin to imagine what might happen if he watched you crawl up next to him. 

You lay down, slipping your legs under the covers as you pull the top half over your body. You also decide to lay with your back towards Tommy, leaving plenty of room between the two of you. You snuggled up in the cover and let out a sigh of relief as the aches your body felt started to go away. 

You close your eyes and again called out to sleep.

You felt the bed shake, and you froze.

You were already warm, but now you felt hot.

Tommy had pressed up against you and put his arm around your waist, tugging you back closer to him, 

"Tommy wh-"

"Shhh," he whipped softly. 

He had nuzzled his head in between your neck. He molded his body to fit yours. You just lay there, unsure of what to do, but as soon you realized that his body stilled and his breath evened out, You knew that he was sleeping and that you were stuck. You lay there for what seemed like forever till, eventually, your eyes grew heavy, and you fell asleep.

Week 10:

Things between you and Tommy were…… something. It wasn't awkward, but a lot of things went unsaid. You were grateful for the lack of conversation; nothing ruins the moment more than asking what this was. Though you fought it at first, now you can't imagine a night that doesn't end with you in his arms. To say you're conflicted doesn't even come close; every night, you're one step closer to doing something you can't come back from, something that would be hard to regret. 

Week 11:

You were trying to do paperwork at the nurse's station when you heard your name being called by a fellow nurse; you looked up, giving her your full attention.

"Mr.Shelby refuses to let me give him a bath and request that you come see him." 

"Ummm, ok, thanks." You slowly get up and head toward Tommy's room

Tommy hurt himself a couple of days ago. Because of his incident, he required help doing things like using the restroom, putting on clothes, and showering. You had helped him with the clothes but had been off shift when help with the other things was requested. 

You entered the room and headed to the bathroom, seeing as you didn't see him anywhere; once you entered, you saw him sitting in the tub with his back facing you. As you slowly walked closer to him, you saw that he was smoking; as soon as you were in his peripheral, he turned his head to meet your eyes. He took a long drag as he looked you up and down; you stood there uncertain, hopping from foot to foot; your discomfort was written on your face, clear as day. You couldn't help it; Thomas Shelby was sitting In front of you in a bath, fully naked. 

"You asked for me?" He just looked at you, eyes skimming your body repeatedly as he finished his cig. 

"Doc says I need help, can't do much, hate to tear my stitches." 

"And what was wrong with the other nurse?"

"I don't know her." he struggled his shoulder and put the cig out, looking up at you. 

You tried to take a deep breath, but it got cut short once you remembered the situation you were in. Your throat felt as if it was closing with every step you took toward him. Your hand fidgeted by your side, grabbing your dress and trying to ground yourself. You took one final breath as you reached him. 

Deciding you couldn't look him in the face, you got behind him on your knees. He sat up straight in the tub, and you reached towards the wall to grab the sponge from the hook. You dipped the sponge in the water and started washing his back. 

It was painfully quiet; all you could hear was the water splashing and your shaky breaths. 

You finished with his back and put your hand on his shoulder, pulling him towards you.

 You're so close that his back rests against your chest; you press your hand to his chest to keep him in place as you continue to wash his chest. 

He stares up at you, but you keep your eyes focused, 

because your eyes are glued to his chest, you can't help but notice the scars littered across it. 

You let go of the sponge and began to trace every scar that you see across his chest, 

You know there's a story behind everyone 

And you want to hear it. 

Suddenly, he reaches up and grabs your hand; your eyes snap up to look at his, and his eyes dart down to your lips before looking back at you. 

You were barely breathing before, and you're certainly not breathing now.

He let go of your hand and reached up to grab your face; he brushed his thumb across your cheek before pulling you in. 

Your lips brushed against his playfully, almost as if you were hesitant,

But you weren't 

You crashed your lips into his

He grabbed your head in between his hands, pulling you closer. His lips were rough against yours, and he tasted slightly of tobacco, but you didn't care.

You were close but felt the need to be closer. You reached your hand down in the water and grabbed him; you gave him a slight squeeze before stroking him. 

His cock twitched in your hand, and his breath hitched. 

 He let go of your face as his head fell against the rim of the tub; his breath quickened as you increased your pace and bent down to kiss his chest and up his neck. 

You stop at his jaw, nibbling along it before going back down to the base of his neck and slowly licking up; you lick up till you reach his lips, pausing and hovering above them. 

You slow down your pace and stroke him slowly as you kiss him.

Suddenly, Thomas places his hand on top of yours, stopping your movements; he pulls your face back from his and just stares at you. 

You're not sure what the look is, but the feeling in your stomach tells you it's not good.

You pull your hand away from him and sit back on your knees. 

He gives you a look over once more before clearing his throat and turning away from you.

He grabs a cigs and lights it before putting his head back and closing his eyes.

You just sit there.

You look down at the floor, your eyes shifting back and forth as your eyes begin to fill up with tears.

Your throat starts to burn as you hold back your tears.

You get up almost in a panic; you refuse to cry in front of this man. 

You walk out of the bathroom, and you don't run. 

He can't know. 

The door barely closes behind you before you let the tears fall. You wipe your face fast with your hands. 

Your walk slowly turns into a jog before you start running towards the nearest bathroom. 

You push open the door, shutting it and locking it behind you.

You take deep breaths to calm yourself down; words can't describe how you feel. 

Why

Why

Why.

Millions of reasons and insecurity raced through your head, you felt sick to your stomach. 

You've never felt so stupid in your life; of course, ...... of course, he would never. 

You kept saying to yourself, but you couldn't even think of a real reason as to why. 

You felt someone knock on the door and yell something, but you weren't listening; you were trying to get out of your head.

You pushed yourself off the door and walked towards the mirror. You gripped the side of the sink as you stared yourself down. 

You took one last deep breath before standing straight and fixing your hair and clothes. 

You grab a couple of paper towels, cleaning your face up. 

You stand there looking at yourself in the mirror, making sure you look presentable. 

You nodded towards yourself before heading out of the bathroom and back towards your station. 

You sit back at your desk and begin some paperwork. 

The rest of your day goes smoothly, Thomas never rings, and you never go in there. 

You finish up your day and head home. 

Once you arrive home, you grab the bottle and take it to bed with you. 

You lay in the bed, all bundled up, taking the occasion swing of your drink.

Staring at nothing. 

Till you fall asleep 

Week 12:

You haven't seen Thomas since that night.

Not because you've been avoiding him, but when you came to work the next day, he was gone.

An overnight nurse said he checked out a little after you left. 

You don't know how you felt about that, honestly. 

You aren't conflicted between feeling happy or sad about it.

Honestly, you feel sorta relieved, 

Now you don't have to decide whether you could be with a man like him. 

You felt free, 

from him 

And from being honest with yourself about how you feel about him. 

The only thing that you know for sure is that you'll pray that you never run into Thomas Shelby again. 

Because honestly—

Despite everything

You're still hooked.

**************************

Tag List:

@fannibalsrule @mysticalbouquetwolf-posts

[missveryvery]

I want to know wtf is going to happen with the dub of ep 4 *_* in the meantime, while I wait to know how high to turn my anger dial, Ep 5 thoughts under cut.

So many tiny things!

I yelled when Shi Qingxuan landed and his arms were so jacked, holy shit, what?!??!?! He's so BIG.

I thought Hua Cheng swinging his sword around looked awkward ;0; but all the other weapon usage looked good?! Why was e'ming animated at 2 frames a second ;0;?! That's e'ming secret power, lowering the frame rate.

The little twitch in Ming Yi's hand really made it seem like Shi Qingxuan started fighting because he was mad Ming-xiong was hurt instead of just practicality. LOVE THAT.

Xie Lian gripping Shi Qingxuan so hard it left marks ;0;?!?! Xie Lian loves Shi Qingxuan? Must protecc him? ;0;?!?? They're such cute little friends.

Feng Xin being the god on duty and coming before merits were even used. Immediately dropping his hesitation about speaking to him when Xie Lian is hurt.

Mu Qing rolling in like a huge bitch "so what if he's hurt, we all get hurt on patrol >:V" like he's NOT WRONG. Probably, if Xie Lian was any other god Feng Xin would be less freaked out. Mu Qing continually gets pissed off when Feng Xin falls into loyal dog mode. Which is actually him being pissed off at himself for falling back into loyal dog (cat) mode. He loves bitching at people for doing something stupid and then doing it himself right afterwards. Which is exactly what he's going to do in the next episode (assuming it follows the book, the manhua left that part out). "What are you looking so concerned for? >:V *is there, also being concerned*"

We finally got real dialogue out of these two, jfc.

Mu Qing healing Ming Yi!!! And picking him up!! Touching his chest!! A++++!!! Were those 4 dudes who carried Ming Yi away supposed to be his? I wouldn't think so except they made Mu Qing get so handsy there and their outfits reminded me of his blueberry boys from season 1.

Mu Qing looking manic about the idea of Xie Lian killing the royal family! in the book, I thought maybe this was the narrator misunderstanding his facial expression but they really did make him look fucking excited about it. So if he IS thrilled, I'm guessing this is "oh sweet, he got revenge!"? On the other hand, when Xie Lian fesses up to it, he seems as shocked and horrified as Shi Qingxuan and Feng Xin?

So:

He's pleased he got revenge then changed his mind about being pleased once they got the details and then was freaked out

He's pleased Xie Lian is being accused of something fucked up but doesn't think he'd actually do it so he's freaked out that he did

He's pleased he did it, loves that for him, and is freaked out Xie Lian admitted it because he'd prefer he get away with it

He wasn't pleased in the first place and that was just his fucked up facial expressions

(Ohhh he has eyeliner now!!!)

Shi Qingxuan catching Taihua's sword with his whisk, why is he so rad. I love that he thinks in practical, social terms, he considers consequences. "If Hua Cheng hassles you about this, make sure you blame me, it's all my fault" "throwing out merits is way more effective" "you two weren't going to do anything so let me be the bad guy".

[bichietozier-s]

🕷️Catch You On The Web!!🕸️

An Itafushi spiderman socmed au ❤️

In which Yuuji Itadori, newly a sophomore in college who still has not a clue what he wants to do with his life, gets bitten by a radioactive spider and gains new abilities, stats and powers. He's coasting on his raw athletic ability, a full-ride scholarship handed to him despite his less-than-perfect grades, when he realizes he's got way more ahead of him than he'd ever imagined. Including, but not limited to, a newfound crush that also throws him for a loop.

you are reading:

Prologue | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 5.5 | Part 6 (coming soon!)

notes:

This part is definitely my favorite that I've written so far and I literally had to cut myself off from continuing writing because I was having too much fun lol

The texts in this one should be obvious again, but just in case they're MOSTLY from Yuta's pov! There's a couple here between nobara and Yuuji but thats abt it 🙂‍↕️

Yuuji tossed his phone onto his bed and walked over to his dresser, where he’d dropped the five small gummies earlier in the day, picking one up and popping it into his mouth. Now was as good a time as any to try sleeping. Hopefully these really worked.

He went through his usual nightly routine, brushing his teeth, changing into some cozy pajama pants, going over his little checklist for his next day to make sure he had everything done that needed to be done, and everything ready for the next day for what he needed to do. 

If he didn’t do all that, he’d almost 100% guaranteed forget something somewhere, and then he’d really be screwed. Butterfly effect and all that. 

Once he was certain that he could in fact lay down and go to sleep now (even though he definitely was prepared to not sleep for yet another night), he crawled into his cruddy college dorm bed, tucking himself underneath all of his blankets. It was slowly starting to get colder now with each passing day as the season trudged further and further into fall weather. 

Somehow, it seemed that the instant his head hit his pillow, though, the world turned dark and… he was out.

— — —

The next morning, Yuuji woke up, bleary eyed and stiff as a board. He slept like a fucking rock.

He groaned out at the bright sunlight shining directly into his face, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with the backs of his hands. He sat up in bed slowly, pushing himself up from the mattress with his forearms and elbows, still blinking the sleep away as he took in the sight of his almost-clean room.

Wait a minute. He got sleep. He actually fucking slept. 

A huge grin plastered itself onto his face as he realized that he did, in fact, sleep last night. And, completely through the night at that. No tossing and turning, no hands getting stuck to the surfaces around him in the middle of the night, and no staring at his blank ceiling for hours on end. He could nearly cry. 

He really needed to buy some more of those damn gummies for himself.

He also needed to make sure that he properly thanked … Megumi? Was that his name?

Yuuji yawned, pushing himself out of bed and stretching out all of his limbs, his back and especially his shoulders, which felt like they had turned into a rock overnight for some reason. He picked up his phone, clearing any notifications he had and checking the time while he was at it. He slept in a bit, but luckily not past the time he was supposed to meet up with Todo for his extra practice session, so he figured he should just get ready for that and head over to the field now, rather than put it off. 

As Yuuji approached the field, he stuffed his phone into his pocket, looking around for any sign of Todo around. Todo practically lived his life training, whether it was on the field, in the gym or something as simple as lifting weights in his dorm room. Honestly, Yuuji would be surprised if Todo hadn’t beat him to the field. 

Yuuji looked to Todo as somewhat of a mentor; Todo was told the moment that Yuuji had been invited to attend the college, since he was basically the second-in-command for all of the sports events and teams at the school. So naturally, the moment that the news came to Todo that Yuuji had accepted the full-ride scholarship to take positions on any of the multitude of sports they offered, he was waiting on the edge of his seat for this kid to show his face to him. He needed to see this kid, and the potential he had.

Todo instantly took him under his wing, and they��ve been bros ever since. He can be a bit much at times, but Yuuji regards him very highly and has a neverending amount of respect for the guy.  

“Ah, Itadori!!” A booming voice calls from behind Yuuji. He whips his head around to see none other than Todo himself, already covered in a thick layer of sweat. Clearly he’d already been at training, as usual. Yuuji expected nothing less from the guy. 

“Hey Todo! I was just looking around for you,” he spoke happily, beaming at the older man. Honestly, his whole mood was about a million times better today since he had actually gotten some decent sleep.

“Yeah, sorry, I just ran to grab us some drinks from the vending machines!” He held up a blue gatorade to Yuuji, giving him a nod and then tossing it his way. Yuuji caught it no problem at all. “Nice catch! You sure you even need this training?” Todo asked as he finally caught up to walk beside Yuuji. “Seems like you’ve got everything pretty on-lock,” he added, clapping Yuuji once firmly on his back. 

He looked at the taller man as he uncapped his gatorade, speaking after taking a nice big sip of the refreshing drink, “Yeah, I’m sure,” Yuuji said, wiping his mouth with his arm. “I just wanted to test something out. I feel like I have oddly good reflexes, but I really can’t tell without someone else helping me.” He shrugged.

“There’s only so much I can learn from knocking glasses off the counter myself. I want to see how it goes when someone else  is doing things, so I really don’t know what is or isn’t coming.”

“So it doesn’t really have anything to do with football itself then?” Todo asked curiously. He wasn’t trying to be rude at all, just genuinely curious. 

“Nah,” Yuuji said, looking down at his feet as the pair approached the bleachers so that he could drop his things. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, brother!” Todo boomed once more. “I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page here is all. Now that I know you’re confident in your football abilities, I know how hard I can really go on you with the training.” He ended his sentence with a smirk and a pound of one fist into his hand. “So, shall we get started??”

Yuuji smiled brightly at Todo. “Sure!”

— — —

“Alright, now try making it even more unexpected. Toss a couple beside me, and then one random one right  at the back of my head.” Yuuji beamed at Todo from several feet away, excited to keep pushing his limits and testing his newfound skill. Todo, however, was only becoming equally concerned as impressed.

“You’re sure? I really would rather not land you in the hospital with a concussion a day before the first game,” Todo said, that smirk steady on his face still, but he really did want to make sure he didn’t end up gravely injuring Yuuji. Both because he’d be down for the count for the team’s first big game, but also because he did care about the kid.

“Yeah, super sure!!” He bounded away by another good 20 to 30 feet, before stopping and standing completely still, back to Todo. “Whenever you’re ready, bro!”

Todo paused for a moment, considering whether or not this was the right thing to be doing. But, if Yuuji was sure…

Then who the hell was he to stand in front of his brother’s personal growth?

“Alright, get ready brother!” Todo yelled as he began throwing balls toward Yuuji. One zipping past his head a few feet away, and another coming almost exactly a foot away from it. Each one that came that close to his head, Yuuji would whip around and grab at the speed of light it seemed. Todo almost couldn’t believe his eyes.

The only reason he did believe them was because he was actively watching this all unfold. And he was a part of it. He continued throwing footballs, at random speeds, intervals in time between one another, and distance from Yuuji. Each time, Yuuji would catch the ones that would be potentially dangerous to him, and the ones that weren’t would speed right on past, landing in the distance.

“Bro, this is INSANE!!” Todo yelled excitedly, not being able to hold in a loud chuckle. “How the hell are you doing this??”

“I don’t know man! It’s just something I noticed I could do one day, and now I’m just trying to really see how it all works!” Yuuji yelled back, just as excitedly. Truth be told, he was really fucking proud of himself. But he wanted to know WHY so suddenly this was something he could do. It just didn’t make sense. 

The pair went on like this for a couple of hours, until Yuuji decided finally that it was good enough for him. They both decided to grab a late lunch together from the campus cafeteria before parting and going their separate ways. Yuuji had not classes today, so he decided to spend the rest of his day relaxing after a long and difficult training session with Todo.

author's note:

This is another part I had to split in two because this one got too long 😅 but the follow up will be right behind this one so no worries :3

jump to:

Prologue | Previous | Next (part 5.5!)

taglist:

@meme-ty7 @runfrme @poemeater @gemicorn

[xx-blueboy-xx]

Oooooh Gabriel’s guide to Sam Winchester I must know 🥺

WIP Ask Game!

Sooo!!!

The title is a reference to "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy" - and there is a reason for it!

Here is a little synopsis of the fic I have:

Gabriel, in a last ditch effort to save his life - goes careening through space and time. Searching for his one and only: Sam Winchester.

Sorta.

He really should have told the hunter about his feelings, before he went off and nearly died. Now, he is stuck jumping through universes and alternate-timelines, until he manages to discover the soul his own was anchored too.

So: basically, the plot is season-13 divergent where as Gabriel is being stabbed by Alt!Michael he tries and does his "fake death" trick but due to a lack of grace (and Alt!Michael's doing) something goes awry. Anddd, so, instead of ending back with OG!Sam in the bunker in the OG!Supernaturalverse he crash lands himself straight into an AU!

The fic follows him hopping between universes as he attempts to track down his Sam - meeting a bunch of AU!Sams along the way! And each chapter is titled realted to something he knows about Sam/learns what is different about the AU!Sams he meets! (and are numbered like a list)

I was planning on finishing it for GBB but, life happened and I didn't get around to it + had to drop out due to a lack of time. It is currently sitting at about 23k words with 4 complete chapters!!

Which are, because i genuinely love this fic and I will finish it someday (there is 2-3 more chapters I have planned and a lit of editing)

1. Sam Winchester is Not A Coward

- which is taking place in the world where Dean visted during his jinn dream! Lawyer!Sam who because of OG!Dean's visit entire timeline was set astray... (so the supernatural still exist in this world he just didn't know about it obv - because all the ppl they saved died)

2. Sam Would Die For Dean

- this is also taking place with Lawyer!Sam

3. Sam Likes Two Spoonful of Sugar in his Coffee

- in this one Gabriel meets a coffee-shop no real monsters Sam! Who is a huge fan of the books "Supernatural" (but they feature the Ghostfacers as the two brothers)

4. Sam Winchester is Warm

- Still with coffee-shop Sam! And it features Gabriel meeting his own alternative (who is basically just Richard Slieght)

5. Sam Winchester is Not An Evil Son of A Bitch

- the unstarted chapter but !! It's BoyKing!Sam :) and Gabriel meets his own alternative from this world too!

6. Sam Is Perfectly & Beautifully Human

- Gabe ends up in a Reverse!verse and meets angel!sam and hunter!gabe (unstarted only plotted)

7. Sam Is A Survivor

- Sam is dead. That's it. That's the world. (plotted only)

8. Sam Is Everything

- Gabe finally makes it home!!! 🎉 To his Sam!

I am like spoiling the whole thing but it has veen a while since I touched it so, jt's nice to explore it again/think about it once more. Life just got soooo busy when I was working on it.

Anyways! Have an excerpt because, well, I have a lack of self control!!

(From Chapter 4, the last few hundred words of the WIP)

“I don't owe a traitor anything. All you need to know, dearest little brother: is that you are never getting home. And that I am tired of being nice. I tried my best to give you a happy ending. But, perhaps, I should show you one of the bad endings, hm? Maybe that will make you appreciate my gifts more.”

“Bastard! You know over the millennia, you would think someone would have managed to remove that stick from your ass!” he screams at nothing hearing his own voice echo off the walls, and spiral down the staircase: his true voice is leaking through a bit as well. Ever since Asmodnoues he hasn’t had such good control over it as he used to. Having spent hundreds of years in a vessel had made him a master of control. He doesn’t receive an answer to his quip, feeling the world tilt before it swirls. Melting around him, the walls and ceiling dripping. Feeling as if he is being thrown by an invisible hand he finds himself stumbling into an entirely new environment. His vision swims and he feels his grace flare out around him defensively only for it to be - locked. Not gone. But locked inside of his body. He feels shackles around his wrists and his blazing golden eyes snap to them. There are Enochian runes carved into strange flickering-smokey bracelets. They vanish, but their effect is as strong as ever.

He has been bound. To what, or who, well that’s to be seen. Gabriel flares his wings out feeling them stir the air around him from their incorporeal state. He doesn’t fly. His shoulders slump in defeat and he finally starts to take in where he is. In some kind of grand throne room.. It looks nicer than it had in a long time, there is a strange familiar touch to the layout. Every ruler of Hell loved to reshape the place. Large black-marble columns, very Greek in style around him lining the long-hall. Beneath his feet a plush red carpet was rolled all the way to the base of a massive throne, carved from bone. Human skulls line the top of the throne, placed delicately upon spikes, hollow eye sockets glaring with small red-burning fires in them.

The archangel feels like he has lost the ability to process as his gaze first finds the shining black-dress shoes upon the man sitting in the throne. Gabriel’s eyes reveal the long-blue tail whipping behind him, deep-red spikes lining it, and he can see carefully folded leathery-wings behind his back, the spiked tips blood red while the wings themselves fade from black into a navy blue. Two long-horns protrude from the man’s head of wavy-brown locks spiraling straight up in spires. On earth, these kinds of things would be unseen on the vessel. But not in Hell. Blazing yellow eyes glow as they take in the sight of the archangel, who finally processes the face that bares the sharp-toothed grin being sent his way.

“Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in?”

The Boy King, steps down from the throne of Hell.

[4getfulimaginator2022]

20 Questions for Fic Writers

I haven't been tagged, but I saw @fandomsbyladymelodrama do one of these a few months back - so of course, I wanted to give it a try. 🙃 Also, I haven't done any personal posts on here in forever. Time for a change!

How many works do you have on AO3? I have 18 works so far. And when it comes to ships, it looks like I have a "type." 😉

What's your total AO3 word count? Oh boy. 660K+ right now and growing all the time because when stories speak, I write.

What fandoms do you write for? Mainly Once Upon a Time (starting in 2013), followed by Game of Thrones (2024, baby!) and then that 1 Greek myth collection thingy. I was a die-hard Once fan back in the day and watched episodes religiously, so all the canon lore was seared into my brain until season 6 (when I dropped the show because the writing was so off the rails). Surprise, surprise - I haven't watched GoT in its entirety. Everything I know is through my own research, watching videos, reading, reading, reading, and the contributions of the wonderful Jorleesi fandom.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? All Captain Swan fics, in order from the most to the least: 1) Heart Bound 2) Only the Beginning 3) A Cobbler's Life For Me 4) Be My Angel, Be My Demon 5) Nevermore

Do you respond to comments? I try! I used to be less strict about replying to comments, but with my resurgence in fanfic after years of absence, I have replied to each and every one. Currently, I am behind on replies, but I will get around to it again. Soon.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Oof. I don't do angsty endings because I will die on the hill that is Jane Austen: “My characters shall have, after a little trouble, all that they desire.” Probably my angstiest ending is in Trader of Hearts, which is a really dark fic. I do have a one-shot that is semi-angsty, though: Thinking of You.

What's the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? *deer in headlights look* I make it my business to give my beloved characters the happiest endings I can. Seriously. I don't know how to rank endings against each other, since the characters always end up together. I currently think my happiest ending is for The Old Curiosity Shop, my Jorleesi fic.

Do you get hate on fics? I have, but these were readers telling me how I should write my stories "the right way." I also have gotten spam comments. Overall, people are pretty nice.

Do you write smut? Hoo-hah! 😏 Let's count: I have 3 fics rated Mature and 5 fics rated Explicit. That's half of my fic repertoire. And when I do Explicit, it's ❤️‍🔥. Enough said.

Do you write crossovers? No. Not happening, cannot do, end of discussion.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Well... There was a scandal back on FF.net in 2014 or 2015? Websites were copying all fanfics to scammy websites or selling fanfics as ebooks. Not cool. I used to have all my content on FF.net, but now only my in-progress fics are there. All my fics are up on AO3.

Have you ever had a fic translated? No, not that I know of.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Hey, if someone is offering... But again, no. No one ever wanted to co-write with me. 🥺 But maybe it's because I'm sooooooooo bossy!

What's your all-time favorite ship? Oh crap. All-time favorite?! WHAT. I have to cheat here and say there's a tie: Captain Swan and Jorleesi. Emma Swan and Killian Jones had a long journey to love and happiness, both in terms of their individual character growth and their relationship as a couple. The more I learned about them, the harder I fell in love with them. It helped that the CS fandom was HUGE as the ship became canon, and Tumblr was so active then that #captainswan was all over the place. We were one of the largest canon ships for that show. Now, as for Jorleesi... Jorah Mormont's loyalty and devotion earned my attention and respect from the first, and then when I found out about his love for Daenerys and her repressed love affection for him, I was a goner. My 2 OTPs: both women are BAMFs who are survivors and warriors, while their guys value love above all and are willing to die to protect them (*sobbing for Jorah because noooooooo* 😭)

What's a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? Heart Bound. This fic... I love this fic. This is my Jane Eyre/Jane Austen fix. It's my 2nd period piece and I adore some of my prose in this one. It. Needs. 4. Chapters. To. Be. Complete. Can I do it? Yes. Do I want to do it? *cries* Of course I do but it's hard...

What are your writing strengths? Hmm. Some would say it's my prose, while others would say that I know how to channel emotion into my writing. I like to incorporate literature and historical references into my fics (historical AUs or not), so I think I've done well with that. I've also been told that my characterizations are fantastic and unique. You do notice that I'm not claiming credit for any of these observations, right? Usually, I believe my writing is awful and I could have done so much better. I have a hard time acknowledging my strengths. You could hand me an Olympic gold medal for Writing and I would still insist that it's all lies. My self-belief and confidence have not improved over the years.

What are your writing weaknesses? Dialogue. It's always dialogue. I want it to be realistic but my vocab gets in the way and it starts sounding like prose. Not good. But I am getting better! No way to go but up.

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Maybe I'd do it, but it would have to be necessary for me to put in the effort. I don't purposely bamboozle my readers. 🤣

First fandom you wrote for? Once Upon a Time (of course *rolls eyes*). One Against the Wind is my ultimate period fic - pirates, the Caribbean, my tribute to PotC and pirate novels I've read. I created character backstory when there was no canon backstory. It's also my longest fic at 147K words. So proud of it and it still holds a special place in my heart. 😍

Favorite fic you've written? Ugh, no no no! I always, always say I cannot have one favorite because that is BORING. But okay, I will say that at the moment, it's The Old Curiosity Shop. I just did a full read of the entire fic and my heart absolutely melted. Adorable, heartbreaking, angsty, and so romantic. Jorleesi, I love you and I will die for you. You own my heart a thousand times over. ❤️

Fineeeee, I'll tag 5 people (no worries if you don't want to do this - completely voluntary fun and games here 💕): @ser-jorah-the-andal, @rileypotter17, @houseofthebear, @clarasimone, @thank-god-and-you

[justalonelyslytherin]

Could the name of the Shelby sibling's mother have been Bernadette?

This might be a huge tangent and taking a lot of liberty but bear with me for a minute. So I'm currently rewatching Peaky Blinders, am on season 3 episode 4. At around 5 minutes into the episode:

Polly just entered the church to confess and is now in the confessional booth with the priest - they are talking about her name and she wonders whether god would call her pol or polly and she mentions that the voice calls her pol. The priest asks her if she hears a voice to which she answers:

"Yeah. Like Bernadette heard a voice."

And it caught me off guard because I was like 'Who the hell is Bernadette?' Because that's a random name drop, seemingly with no significance as it's never elaborated and neither is the name mentioned ever again. But the way Polly says it, the way she mumbles it as if she knows exactly what it means and what kind of darker implication it holds. It sounds to me like a dreadful comparison, something that conveys 'I'm losing it like her'. Then I remembered that there was one more Shelby mentioned who had troubles and lost her mind before she died and that was the Shelby's mother.

Now I'm aware this is quite the reach and there is no other evidence that would suggest this. So this is entirely me trying to interpret something into it. But it's weird to me to have Polly mention a random name in a situation like that and with the tonation it is said in the scene. Of course, it could be someone unrelated, some neighbor or some family friend, or someone entirely random, but why mention it then?

So either it is a reach or not, but I wanted to share it for the off chance it could be a lead and because I haven't seen anyone talk about this ever before.

[giigil]

RIP rooster teeth. you got me hooked with rage quit in 2011, which eventually led me down the rabbit hole of red vs. blue & achievement hunter with fails of the weak, achievement horse, let's play, etc.

and eventually rwby on november 5, 2012 -- i remember seeing the red trailer right at the end of rvb's season 10 finale. monty's animation and jeff's music got me fucking hyped INSTANTLY. to this day, whenever i'm in the mood, i like to rewatch all of the fight scenes (it got to the point where i remember every line spoken it's 😂😂), and occasionally, a whole rewatch of the series.

2015, i bought tickets for me and my friend to watch their movie lazer team. it wasn't the greatest movie, but i fucking LOVED just seeing michael and gavin doing their usual thing on the big screen. i don't remember much of the movie since it's been 9 years, but i had a great time seeing the people that i looked up to doing something huge like being in a movie

i stopped watching roosterteeth and achievement hunter (especially AH) on a daily around 2016 because things in my life changed after graduating high school and i wasn't as interested anymore--especially after ray left achievement hunter. that's not to say that i dropped roosterteeth entirely; i checked in on occasion. i always, always watched EVERY new volume of rwby. even when i hated the direction it was going, starting from volume 4.

looking back now, i think volumes 4 to early volume 6 are fine. end of volume 6 to 9--i will die on this hill--aren't as good.

i have a love-hate relationship with rwby and i can fucking sing its praises or shit on it for DAYS. i really hope rwby can continue, but if not... there's always fanfiction.

ANYWAYS--

thank you to each and every past and present roosterteeth employee (as well as those who've done contract work) for your hard work, dedication, and your beautifully amazing minds. i have so many quotes, moments, and songs that i hold near and dear and will cherish for years to come. i pray everyone's able to bounce back from the lay-offs. (fuck you wbd.)

thank you for getting me through the bad days, and for the wonderful memories.

--

TL;DR : rip roosterteeth, you were my childhood. i'll miss you. 21 years is a long time, and you were a part of pretty much half of my life. (12-13 years, i'm 25 now)

thank you for the memories

[starseneyes]

Chenford REWIND- Lucy Chen / Tim Bradford - The Rookie - Season 5 - Ep 2, 3 & 4

Sitting here in a slight bit of disbelief that I'm writing another one so soon, but there have been pockets of time that have opened up in my life, and I'm going to take advantage before I run out, again!

Combining a little, here, because where we had 19 minutes plus of screen time in Episode 1, the number goes down considerably for a few episodes to off-set and focus on some other story lines/characters.

SPOILER ALERT: While I'm primarily writing these as though I were watching the episode for the first time, I will definitely spoil these episodes and MAYBE a little more (there ARE some nice points to reference as we go forward). Consider yourself forewarned!

Can Tim and Lucy untangle the mess of last episode's impulsive near-boinkfest? Let's dive in to find out.

Labor Day

"I'm positive your Sergeant will approve it?" "Yeah, he would, for sure. It's just, um, I have some things going on in my personal life right now."

There is so much to unpack, here. Let's start with Lucy's absolute surety that Tim would approve her going to the Undercover Academy.

When she first thought about pursuing Under Cover, Tim was totally against it. Yes, he has his own history regarding his ex-wife, but he also wasn't sure that Lucy could handle it.

Obviously, he under-estimated her, and he's repeatedly remarked on her doing a good job every time. "Not bad." "I thought she needed rescuing." "You're really good at this." Tim will approve it. No question.

The second is "I have some things going on in my persona life". Because, Chris immediately assumes he's the only roadblock to her happiness, at this point (and, Chris, honey, you are a roadblock... just not the one you think you are).

If you watch to the end of the episode, though, this isn't the only thing on her mind. Tim is, too. Not Sergeant Bradford, but Tim... the man.

They didn't get to finish their moment, and there's no way to take it back. In the flash of a moment, Lucy had to acknowledge her cheating ways and then register that the man she was cheating on was dying on her couch.

And what if that drove Tim away forever? What if that was her only chance, and now it's gone. What if it could have meant something, but she'll never have the chance to know?

Yeah... this is messy.

"How's Lucy?"

Hold the phone right there. Angela is asking Tim Bradford about Lucy.

In the past (especially post DOD), it was always Tim asking others about Lucy. He was the one on the outside who wasn't as close. Now, he's the mouthpiece for Lucy's state of being... and that's huge.

Tim has been in contact with Lucy. Maybe a call, but more likely text messages. But, however he's done it, he's been the one to check on her directly instead of going through someone else.

"Are you checking up on me" is now Tim reaching out to Lucy about Lucy. And that's huge.

"Uh, she's still a little shaken. Taking some time to get Chris settled." "Remind me what you were doing at her apartment... when you found Chris bleeding out."

Hermana! You are not giving this man any leeway and I am living for it!

Look, gossip gets around, but Angela's the only one who knows Tim's caught feelings for Lucy. It's unlikely any of the others would think Tim, who never stops seeing his Boots as Boots, would even consider boinking a Boot.

But Angela's different. She knows her Man of Honor better than most, and she has a feeling there's a reason behind Tim's presence in Lucy's apartment. "Search your feelings, you know it to be true."

"Just dropping her off after we got back from Vegas."

He leans into the truth. Honestly, that's the best thing you can do in a situation like that. But he knows she is fishing and he is hoping she will bite onto his lure away from the truth.

"Mmhmm."

Yeah, she's not biting, Tim.

"What are you implying?" "What do you think?" "I was just dropping her off." "Mmhmm."

Tim narrows his eyes at her, frustrated that she's now going along with his half-truth. Because, for goodness sake, this is messy.

Imagine Tim and Lucy don't get interrupted and they go through with it. Who would ever know? Tim goes his way. Lucy goes hers.

And then they'd have to deal with the inevitable emotional fall-out... but neither of them was thinking past that moment. They certainly never thought they'd have to explain it to others!

A Knock At The Door

Melissa O'Neil has some beautiful physicality to this scene, as she leans up to look out the peephole and sees Tim standing there. Gosh, is that indicative of her life, right now.

She has Chris. He's right here on her couch. But she wants Tim, and all she can do is glimpse him from outside her world. He's right there, but he's not inside... He's back on the other side of that threshold.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" "Just checking in. How you feeling?"

Look. At. Lucy. Her face screams, "Are you seriously doing this?!" This is likely the first time she's seen him since that horrible moment... the first time she's seen him wearing his own clothes and rocking his own hair (slicked back Tim was sleezy, I'm just sayin').

"Lucy's taking great care of me." "I have no doubt."

Tim's voice is so soft on this. I'll later come to identify it as his Velvety Voice... because he's talking about Lucy, the natural caretaker. The one who watches out for others. The one who sends food to her TO to help expedite his recovery.

Lucy is a beautiful caretaker, and a part of him wishes he was the one receiving her affection, right now.

Everything in him is aching to reach for her to offer comfort, right now, because he can see she is hurting. But his hands are firmly in his pockets, and have been since the second he stopped knocking.

"Can we talk?" "Yeah, sure."

He motions his head to the hallway, drawing her back out, across her own threshold. His voice is almost hesitant, and she doesn't know what they might discuss, but I think they both know their "almost" is going to come up.

She leaves the door open, probably to keep herself in check. And as she steps out, she and Tim are now standing in almost exactly the same positions as the last time they saw one another... standing at a threshold prepared to go in.

But, now they've both stepped back out.

"So, I, uh, I hear you're on the fence about going to UC school." "Chris called you?" "Yeah, which was expected. He wanted me to talk to you."

I love his little smirk on that. Not so long ago, his girlfriend called Lucy, and she wasn't phased a bit. But this is different for Tim.

Tim has feelings for Lucy, and that's making things complicated enough in this moment. Now, her "work in progress" is calling him to get him to nudge Lucy in the right direction? Because Chris trusts Lucy will listen to Tim.

Tim is Lucy's person. Man, these people are so bloody dense.

Because Lucy is standing before the man she truly wants to be with, and she's aghast that her stand-in cardboard cut-out is reaching out to the leading hunk in her life.

"It's not the right time." "He's gonna be fine. You owe it to yourself to go." "I know, but-" "What happened to him isn't your fault."

This is important. We're hearkening back to post DOD when Lucy ensured Tim understood Caleb wasn't his fault. But, the problem is that Chris isn't the only thing on Lucy's mind.

"We were about to." "But we didn't. We didn't."

Tim's shaking his head as he's speaking, volume dropping to barely above a whisper, pain in the assertion. I've thought a lot about this... and Tim's trying to assuage Lucy's guilt. He thinks she feels guilty. He thinks that is what is holding her back. Guilt.

But Tim is as wrong about Lucy as she was about Tim when he tried to talk to her in the hotel room. Lucy has had time to think about everything that has happened, and even as she is nursing Chris back to health, she's been thinking about Tim.

Yes, in that moment, they were both going for sex. But, here's the thing, Lucy thinks she's revealed herself to Tim. She thinks he's onto her feelings for him. And right now, she's trying to have the same discussion he wanted to have in the hotel room.

But they have this bad habit of not listening and instead assuming.

"Are you trying to get rid of me as your Gofer?" "No. No. I'm trying to look out for you."

Listen to how Tim's voice breaks. Look at how his face crumples. This is killing him. But he truly believes Lucy feels guilty about what almost happened. Maybe he worries his conversation in the hotel pressured her in some way.

But no matter what, he doesn't believe for a second that Lucy Chen has feelings for him.

He's had time to think this over, and over, and over. And every time he comes to the conclusion that she doesn't feel anything for him, and that she really wants to be with Chris. And Tim wants whatever makes her happy.

Lucy, in the meantime, is breaking. Tim rejecting sex was one thing. But now, as she's trying to talk to him about them, he's pushing her away. That's how she sees it, at least. Tim's pushing her to UC school. he's going to replace her as his Gofer. "Tim doesn't want me."

"It's time for you to move on." "And some time away would be good." "It's a great opportunity, Lucy." "Mmmhmm." "You should go for it."

She thinks he's using US school as a prop to reject her, to push her away, to separate them. And it hurts.

Lucy looks up to Tim's eyes, searching them for something to tell her that she's wrong, something that'll make her believe he means this for her good, truly. Something that says, "I'm not rejecting you."

But Tim turns away. Because this burns. He glances inside to see Chris on the couch, through that threshold Tim thinks he will never cross, again.

He barely glances back at Lucy... because the tears are already brimming in his eyes... and he can't let her see.

Lucy stands in the hallway in pieces. Because she wanted to talk to him. She had time to consider their actions, and she needed to know why he crossed that threshold. Was it just physical? Is there something more there for him, as there is for her?

But they're still talking past one another. Time will tell if they learn how to have an actual conversation.

Dye Hard

"I'd like to congratulate Officer Lucy Chen for successfully completing the DEA Covert Operations Training Academy, which is no small feat."

Tim is watching her the whole time, smiling at her accomplishment. It's no longer, "Your accomplishments are my accomplishments". Lucy did this all on her own.

And Tim is going to support Lucy however he can. Because, in his mind, that's all he can do, now.

Look, 5x01 was all over the place for Tim, emotionally. But in 5x02, he had time to consider what happened, and he has determined that he is Lucy Chen's biggest mistake.

Think about it. He knows how heartbroken she was after her ex cheated on him, then married the girl. From what he knows, Lucy has never cheated, and we know that he never has, either.

So, he has to think about what went wrong, and in Tim's mind... it was him. We know that's not right. We know how these two feel about one another. We know it was a lapse in judgment, not an absence of emotion.

But Tim grew up in an abusive household, with a father who likely blamed him for every beating. He was never good enough... maybe he questioned if anything about him was good.

He puts himself in harm's way every day to protect people, to help people, to put some good out in the world. But what did he do with Lucy? He led her down a path that left her guilt-ridden.

We know that's not true! But, Tim is keeping his distance from Lucy, now, in an effort to protect her... and himself. It's such a mess.

He doesn't even walk over to congratulate her. For all he know, he hasn't texted her since she left for UC school. They're both stuck in their heads thinking the other needs/wants space. A simple conversation would solve everything... but they're too hurt to even start it.

"He hasn't replaced you, yet, so he's happy."

Ouch. Lucy gives us quite a bit of insight into her head right now. She thinks Tim's unhappy, so Tim replaced her... and is avoiding her.

Her eyes land on him across the room, and he can feel her gaze. He looks back, but he has no idea what to say. Lucy breaks the eye contact, feeling even more lost than she did before.

"When did you last hear Chen on the radio?"

It's Lucy's first day back on the job since leaving for UC School, and Tim's hyper-aware of that. He's keeping a listening ear out for her, even if he would never admit it.

He jumps into action, immediately, to go rescue Chen... Chen... He said "Chen", didn't he?

In the past, Tim stuck to "Boot" or "Chen" with Lucy nearly all of the time. "Lucy" was a rarity. But, in 5x01, that's all he called her. He uses her name at the end of 5x02 during their breakup scene (thank God we got that out of the way...).

But once they're both back on the job, he's gone formal as a way to protect and distance himself. But that was before his woman was in possible danger.

"Chen? Chen!" "Yeah. Yeah, I'm in here!" "Hang on. The door is stuck." "No kidding." "You okay?"

Tim is looking at her not entirely like an SO, but more like an... SO. Oh, you know what I mean. He looks her over to make sure she's alright, and there's this softness to it that reminds me of how he looked at her in her apartment before they found Chris.

This is their first interaction since he encouraged her to go to UC school. And it's him rescuing her, again.

Getting to say, "You okay" is the first opportunity he's had to gauge how she is directly in weeks, and her brain is already firing on the Rosalind angle.

This episode is the peak of their era of discomfort. And we needed it. We needed to see how it looks when these two are pining and aching for one another, but not knowing the other wants them, too.

Sure, they could have skipped this era, but this is a huge transition for these two. Every step of this relationship has been earned. There are times he was in the wrong, and times she was in the wrong, and now they're both wrong.

The Choice

"I'd like to stay, too, and make sure Bailey's never down there by herself."

Tim glances back at her as she says it. Rosalind's acolyte... another... trapping another woman in a hole. But one thing I love about this is how Tim never once tells her to sit it out, or acts like she can't handle it.

Lucy once said if she couldn't handle Rosalind in a cage, she shouldn't be a cop. She also said that she knew Tim would help her if it got to her head. (and he protested... but... c'mon, we all know he's going to do it).

"Is John there? Lucy, where's John?"

Lucy looks up to Tim, unsure how to answer. He feels her glance and he kneels down, taking over. "If you need a cop, tag me in" comes to mind.

"Chen." "I'll go down." "No. There may be more traps. It's too dangerous. Just be ready to follow if it's clear." "Okay."

I get both perspectives in this moment. Lucy wants to help in every way that she can. She survived one of Rosalind's acolytes. She wants to do everything she can to help Bailey.

But Tim's not about to lose Lucy to Rosalind twice. He already has his gear in hand as he preps to go down. And he can't look at her.

Tim can't meet her eyes as they're arguing here about who should go down. The last time they were on opposite sides of an issue they were in the air and she kissed him out of nowhere. It's still too fresh.

He settles into position, and as he does he can't help but look up at Lucy—to find her staring back at him. And then neither can look away.

Because they both know that if there are more traps, this may be their last moment looking at one another.

It's the risks they take for their job, but sometimes when you face your own mortality directly (and I have a few times), you consider all the things left unsaid. These two have a lot left unsaid.

In classic YA romance style, Lucy seems to hold her breath until he disappears from sight, when she starts breathing, again.

The rest of the episode isn't Chenford-heavy (this episode isn't about them), but the fact that Lucy was the one to bring Bailey back? Oh, I'm in tears. Because not only did Lucy beat Rosalind's acolyte once by cheating her Day of Death, but she did it twice by saving Bailey.

Stopping here with these three. I feel like we really needed this episode for Tim and Lucy, though. This is the first episode they're working together, again, after things started to get weird. And they easily found their rhythm of leaning on one another, again.

They needed that. They needed to get here so we could get what we see in the rest of the season. If the avoidance had lasted too long, I fear it would have gotten tired and frustrating. Yes, Tim and Lucy aren't yet ready to talk about them, but they're talking, again. Even if it's only work-based, they're talking, again.

And that gives us what we need to get into "The Fugitive". But that, quite literally, is another Meta.

As always, thanks for reading!! This has been a lot of fun!j

[tacoma-narrows]

Six Flags Great America! - 5/4/24

Finally decided to put together my post from going to Great America about two weeks ago lol. Sorry it took so long! With moving back home after college, I kept getting distracted by other things haha.

Here are some of my fav pictures I got! In-depth thoughts about each coaster I rode are below them!

So I went with a friend from college and rode about half of all the major coasters there (7 out of their total of 15) since lines were pretty long all day. American Eagle, Whizzer and Sprocket Rockets were closed all day (this was only the third weekend of the season so it was to be expected - you know how it is with Six Flags lmao), and then everything else we didn't get to ride was either a kiddy coaster (Little Dipper) or has a clone somewhere else that I've ridden before (Batman the Ride, Joker, Flash: Vertical Velocity, Superman Ultimate Flight). So not super bummed about missing any of those. Getting on American Eagle and Whizzer would've been fun since those are both classics, and even with clones, a credit is still a credit lol. My friend and I are hoping to go back when we come back to school in August, so we'll hopefully be able to ride what we missed then.

But enough about what we didn't ride, onto what we DID ride! (This will be in the order we rode them throughout the day, plus what number they are in my credits list)

Maxx Force - Credit #162! This was easily my favorite coaster in the park! I am a huge sucker for launch coasters, especially ones with powerful launches. With Maxx Force now having one of, debatably the, fastest accelerating launch on any coaster in the world, that did not disappoint! The funky inversions were a lot of fun and I really liked the high speed heartline roll in the middle. Of course the one downside to Maxx Force is that it's a very short ride in duration, in addition to the brakes kicking in while you're still going through the final element. But overall, it was still an absolute blast of a ride and I definitely wanna ride it again next time I'm at the park!

Raging Bull - Credit #163! I knew this B&M Hyper has gotten mixed reviews in the past, so I knew going in it wasn't going to be the best Hyper out there. I did really enjoy it's more unconventional layout for its model and the focus more on lateral and positive forces throughout the layout, and it was pretty smooth all the way through. What did disappoint me a bit though was the airtime. Like I said, I knew not to expect the 5+ second floater airtime hills you get on other Hypers like Diamondback or Candymonium, but I had heard that in the back row, the main first drop off of the pre-drop had some crazy ejector air in the back row. We rode in the back row and there was definitely some air, but not the crazy throw-you-out-of-your-seat type air that I was expecting. There were a few other good pops throughout the layout, but like I said, I liked it's focus on laterals and positives more. Definitely solid all around.

Viper - Credit #164! Viper I was slightly underwhelmed with. Going in, I had heard that Viper is one of the more underrated coasters in the park, both from other enthusiasts and locals who visit the park regularly. It was definitely smooth for a wooden coaster, it had clearly been well taken care of and looked to have gotten some recent re-tracking, which was very welcome. It also had some good laterals going around some of its turns, but similar to Raging Bull, I found it to be kinda lacking in the airtime department. Again there were some good floater hills here and there but not every hill hit like it should I felt like. This is one I wanna give another shake next time I'm there to see if I just missed something.

Demon - Credit #165! Demon was, not my favorite I'll say. Like it wasn't awful, I've certainly ridden worse Arrow loopers but this one was kinda middle of the road. I didn't think it rode as smoothly or had as much hangtime as the other Demon at California's Great America did. I liked the theming that this one had around it though, much like it's sibling in California. The rock work around the lift and corkscrews and the tunnel you fly through after going through the loops were both pretty cool. Other than that though, I wasn't huge on this one.

X-Flight - Credit #166! Opposite of Viper, X-Flight was better than I had expected! I had heard going in that it was the weakest Wing Coaster in the US, so I wasn't really expecting much, but really ended up enjoying it! We rode in the back row on the right side, so we really got whipped through some of the elements, especially the first wing over drop. I sat on the outside seat, so it was a little rattly there but that's to be expected with B&M Wings lol, and it wasn't really that bad. There were a lot of positive Gs that were a lot of fun and I really enjoyed the hangtime on the first drop and the final in-line twist through the tower (which was also a really cool visual moment both on and off the ride). Of the three Wing Coasters I've ridden, I put it in the middle. I liked it more than Wild Eagle at Dollywood, but not as much as GateKeeper at Cedar Point.

Goliath - Credit #167! Goliath was the longest line we waited in throughout the day at over 90 mins, but I would say it was worth it! I knew this was one of the shortest RMCs in duration, so that wasn't an issue for me but I really enjoyed the elements here. Great first drop and some really strong airtime moments. Both inversions were awesome too! The dive loop was really weird in a cool way, since I turned my head up while we were upside down to look through the structure as we dove down, which was a wild moment. And then the HUGE stall under the lift was soo cool as well. I'd only done prolonged stalls on Jersey Devil and Wildcat's Revenge (the one on Steel Vengeance is really quick and snappy unlike the ones mentioned here), but this one was just so big and so long that it was just a crazy moment. Easy number 2 in the park after Maxx Force for me!

Dark Knight - Credit #168! The last coaster we rode was Dark Knight, the indoor Wild Mouse. I know there are better coasters we could have ridden like Batman or Superman, but at this point, it was about 4 o'clock and we just wanted to get out of the heat and sun for awhile, so we chose to wait in the indoor queue of the Dark Knight lol. I knew what to expect since I had done the one at Great Adventure before, but I think this one was a bit better. The trims didn't seem to be hitting at all on the switchbacks, or if they were, they weren't hitting very hard. So lots of laterals all over, and it looked like more of the theming elements were either on or working than on Great Adventure's (at least from when I rode that one back in like 2018 lol). So it was fun, but in the end it was still just a Wild Mouse in a box lmao.

So that's my recap of my day at Six Flags Great America! I had a great time, at least until it started POURING as we were heading out at about 6 lmao. I'm definitely looking forward to going back, hopefully in August like I said. It definitely had similar bones to California's Great America, but I liked the charm of CGA a bit more, although Six Flags Great America has way more coasters lol. If you've been to SFGAm, let me know what you think of their rides or how your thoughts compare to mine! I'd love to know!

Here's all of the coasters I rode at the park from most to least favorite, along with where they landed in my overall credits ranking (plus which coasters are before and after them on my list for frame of reference):

Maxx Force (#20, between Phantom's Revenge at Kennywood and Thunder Striker at Carowinds)

Goliath (#30, between Volcano the Blast Coaster [formerly] at Kings Dominion and Candymonium at Hersheypark)

X-Flight (#46, between Magnum XL-200 at Cedar Point and Nitro at Six Flags Great Adventure)

Raging Bull (#50, between Great Bear at Hersheypark and Impulse at Knoebels)

Viper (#65, between Flight of Fear at Kings Dominion and Comet at Hersheypark)

Demon (#101, between Iron Dragon and Wild Mouse, both at Cedar Point)

Dark Knight (#113, between Racer at Kennywood and Dark Knight at Six Flags Great Adventure)

[safyresky]

Frostmas Year 5: Behind the Scenes

Prologue | Y1 | Y2 | Y3 | Y4 | Y5 | Y6 | Y7 | Y8 | Y9 | Y10 | Y11 | Y12

[To Read Frostmas: From the TOP on ao3 | ff dot net]

We are writing this one FRESH from the second to last edit of the 2024 version! A shorter one for sure, as this is very much the calm before the storm chapter, but a fun one anyway >:)

Let's fucking GOOOO

Jacqueline's Intro: SO MUCH LORE

So much lore I'm gonna have to tag this as CS Lore and CS FACTS

Anyway

I think this was the first time, when originally writing, that I properly opened with Jacqueline's Intro and recognized it as part of the structure of a Frostmas Year

It was a HUGE lore dump! I toned it down a notch this time around, streamlined it and such, and updated the lore as I've got the frozen heart thing tightened UP

It's a sprite thing, so it's like this:

Sprites

Personified Natural Elements

Two types:

Season (has domain over entire season's worth of elements)

Elemental (has domain over one element, i.e., fire, air, water, earth, flora, fauna, winds, etc.)

Elementals typically classify themselves by their element, but will align with a season as a catch all

The season they align with dictates how their hardened hear manifests

LORE! YAY!

(Also, I wrote this in Word so lets see if the bulleted list stays >:3)

(OMG IT DID. Well, in the editor. We'll see how it looks post posting...)

Fun fact: I did a DnD campaign with my pals where sprites were playable characters, and I made them a race sheet and EVERYTHING. They are DEFFS OP but it's a homebrew--we work on it, lol

And also we only played like, 3 or 4 sessions and then fell out bc we all moved or what have you lol

BUT the dnd-ing DID help me refine sprite lore!

Elemental sprites are WAY more common that seasonal sprites. There are only NINE seasonal sprites in existence these days. WAY more elemental sprites around

The Call NERFED sprites

You can thank Snowy and Heat for that one (as Jacqueline mentions in her intro!)

The Snow Queen and the Winter Warlock are Winter's bio parents, and this was the very first time I dropped their names. They make a proper appearance in The Call!

The Snow Queen stealing children references the original fairy tale in the most Jacqueline way possible

And the Winter Warlock is HEAVILY based on the man of the same name from Rankin Bass's Santa Claus is Comin' to Town. Those movies SHAPED ME. CS Lore originally had RB lore, too! And RB movies did influence CS in general!

So many fun facts and I'm not even through the intro yet! WOW!

I did cleverly link CS when Jacqueline drops the Pyros lore 🤭🤭 I LOVE AO3'S CAPABILITIES, YOU GUYS

I CAN'T DO THAT SHIT ON FF DOT NET!

"It used to be a point of pride for me."

This line almost went "It used to be a point of pride for me. But it's hard to take pride in a lie"

Which is a BANGER of a line, but I am trying to keep the Y10 Reveal under wraps and that's as obvious as Pyros's lament to Blaise in Chapter 15 of CS.

You can see the 2020s influences now, which is very funny given this was all originally written almost a decade ago. I love seeing growth! But that's why Jacqueline is like THE HORRORS and also like NEWSFLASH, JACQUELINE! Which is a reference to one of my favourite It's Always Sunny reaction images:

It's so VERSATILE. Deffs top 10 things Dani quotes (and apparently Jacqueline. Which checks out as we are CONNECTED, muses and such. Oldest OC. Has the most dani-isms. Blah blah blah)

Then there's the "be the change you wish to see in the world" with her being like "YOU can be the change you want to see in this horrible terrible timeline!"

Which is a string of words I see on hellsite a LOT :)

Describing her fit was FUN! You can see it accurately (more or less) in this scrimbly Jacqueline, and also this Jacquie as a meme doodle!

And of course, off she goes to terrorize B-Man :)

Scene 1: Every Day Bernard WAKES UP

Their friendship is so fun to me and me alone 🥰🥰

She's such a sweetie. She's like "I will make things HELL for my brother BUT only if it's okay with Bernard first bc I don't wanna make things harder than they are for him 👉🏻👈🏻"

Him being B-Man, of course

Have you guys ever read Just An Elf by Locrain-Mode? If you haven't, I STRONGLY RECOMMEND IT (hence the link!) It's a group of oneshots based on Bernard and things he is NOT, and each one SLAPS. They write SUCH a good Bernard and B-Man's office just being a mess of paper was low key inspired by their work, lol (Chapter 5: One of Roemer's Singing Elves. I LOVED the idea of B's office just being like a vault/hidey hole. LOVED it)

FAVE B-Man characterization, hands DOWN. I strive to write him that good (and I hope I do! :)

"You should know first hand how frozen sprites get!” followed by "What's THAT supposed to mean?!" Is 100% Jacqueline getting a wee bit defensive on her Mom's behalf (and maybe a bit of Jack's but she's just going to ignore THAT feeling)

But B-Man is very, very right--usually post-hardening a heart, sprites rely on one emotion to get them through things so. Y'know. What'll it be for Jacqueline? ;)

And of COURSE he can see right through the illusion after he's done lamenting lol. He's an ELF. I bet they can see through all sorts of illusions!

“Yeah, I’ll say! I think I may be having a heart attack.” “Do you smell burnt toast?” “No, just betrayal.” “There’s no need to be so dramatic.”

^This interaction is my favourite in this scene, 100%. Bernard deserves to be a lil overdramatic! As a TREAT!

VESUVIUS/POMPEII! This is a fun bit of CS lore. Originally it was that Blaise and Jack were responsible for Vesuvius erupting and destroying Pompeii and Herculaneum, but that has since changed! They don’t talk about it much, only Winter really knows what happened, but take a tl;dr:

FT tells Blaise to go see Jack in Pompeii bc something bad is about to happen, doesn't specify what. Blaise, of course, assumes the worst, as you are wont to do when it's Jack. Takes the day, gets fitted by the tailors, off to Pompeii where he finds Jack who has built a nice little life for himself. He's got lots of friends and is getting involved with local politics, and Blaise is like "is this why FT told me to get over here? Does a bad thing happen if Jack wins? Everything seems fine here" and then BOOM. TREMORS. Jack informs him the mountain may be a volcano but nobody's bothered to check and he sure as shit won't. Blaise checks. Jack follows. Volcano day happens. Blaise saves Jack's life. But they can't save anyone else :(

It's ANGSTY! Can't wait to write it one day! I've already done research for it and everything!

So YEAH that's Pompeii in CS context. And yes, Jack did keep a bust!

"This doesn't feel right" says Bernard. "I should've listened" narrates Jacqueline. "my GOD I love foreshadowing" says safyresky as she types this up…

I think I'll need to make the line " I got up, standing tall and proud in my fluffy socks" a scrimbly. I just doodled it while writing this out and the sketch SENT ME. My god.

Scene 2: Bernard Hams it UP

Aka, the scene in which Dani realizes how ding dang crafty she has made Jack. WHOOPS

Exploring his POV has been fun, especially with the edits I've been making while crossposting, where it's his perspective being told to us by Jacqueline as he recounts to her in the present? If that makes sense

ANYWAY, making the distinctions and adding the little Jacqueline interruptions (see: the line about dwarfs) has been a LOT of fun

As much fun as Bernard had HAMMING IT UP in this scene when he delivered the frozen Jacqueline news to Jack >:3

Love me a Jack moment of clarity! Love having him look through the villain fog for a second like "wait is this…wrong? Fucked up?' only for the fog to be like SHUSH! NO! IT'S FINE! And regularly scheduled villainy is back in play!

Bernard asking why was interesting, because I was also wondering why Jack wanted more deets. And it's a combo of two things: 1) the obvious is she frozen? Ou. Maybe…new ally, perhaps? To get my little theme park business off the ground? And 2) oh shit I froze my bb sister :(

(in villain fog voice) YES NEW ALLY! PAY NO ATTENTION TO THE GUILT UNDER THE ICE!

"And something about that terrified him" man, these blorbos are getting the shadowed fore'd out of them and it is just not hitting, CRAZY!

Scene 3: Jack's a crafty one

That's it that's the BTS for this bit. He's CRAFTY

And YES, knew that it was fake originally but needs want, as we see in the next scene--he needs Jacqueline close by to make sure she doesn't SNITCH (as well as access to her repertoire), and she needs to keep tabs on him, for the GREATER GOOD (as well as for purposes of trying to find a way to prove to everyone that she's right and fix the timeline)

And it only hit me HERE. IN THIS SCENE. THAT HE KNEW THE ENTIRE TIME AND WAS ONE STEP AHEAD OF EVEN ME!

Frostmas is exhausting

Scene 4: Cold Front Face Off at the Dome

Jacqueline channels Winter bc that's all she knows for a frozen sprite that isn't Jack, and felt it'd give best results

She's not wrong but also is not right--frozen hearts are personalized, after all. She wouldn't be sad nor filled with avarice; she'd simply be FULL OF RAGE (spoiler alert, I GUESS)

Fun fact about the Frozen reference: it came out around the time I was working on Crystal Springs for the very first time! It informed a lot of the scenes. In fact, Cold Front reunion had Jacqueline literally quoting Elsa's mantra! Not anymore--I fixed that this year--but thought the throwback here would be funny. DON’T EXPLODE. DON'T EXPLODE. RARGH. DON'T EXPLODE. DON'T EXPLODE--and so on

(The Summer Sprite blood is STRONG in this one)

Look, we all know Santa Jack was certainly…a look. A choice, if you will. Jacqueline's just SAYING what we're all THINKING

Not Jack trying to catch up Jacqueline by egging her on. And then going GOTCHYA. It's so OBVIOUS he's not buying it, it's so CUTE how Jacqueline thinks it works

(maybe it does work a little TOO well given the events of Year 10)

Translator's note: coconut frosts is magical censoring for coconut fucks.

Y'know. These fuckers:

Scene 5: Well played to well played

Was well played on MY PART! One of my FAVOURITE transitions, I LOVE showing similarities between Jack and Jacqueline, ESPECIALLY in an angsty context like this! Something, something, BECOMING WHAT YOU FEAR MOST/DOING WHAT YOU FEAR MOST TO THOSE YOU LOVE~!

This had major editing done. Like, once I knew Jack saw through the farce, I couldn't have any of the old 'he bought it' drivel. Jacqueline, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry you think you got away with this and that he actually knew the entire time 😬

He just needs to make sure he knows why she did it, which is really Jack for 'making sure she's not on to me re: resort thing yet'

Scene 6: YET ANOTHER NEW BOP TO THE RECOUNTING!

I thought Y4 would be the last one, but Y5 surprised me

This one was fun. Thanks to the people who voted in the poll so I could figure out where they were, lmao

Hit you with the COLD FRONT feels and then a banger of a Jack line RIGHT AFTER

Seriously, I am really loving these little retelling segues. I just hope they don't make the blast to the present in Y9 less jarring!

Scene 7: cookies and cocoa

Crystal Springs has a time zone! I believe it's -8:30 hours? I'll have to double check, I know I wrote it down somewhere and I'm pretty sure it's a crystal springs fact post too 🤔

I checked! It's -8:30 GMT :)

"I'm not doing a sport!" She actually IS doing a sport. Bother-your-brother-on-purpose-athon, specifically

"It was for the greater good, I told myself. I was a big, frosty liar" FACT! More foreshadowing at play here, huehuehue >:3

"It’s like wading through molasses" THE STRENGTH I EXERTED TO NOT PUT A BIT IN HERE ABOUT THE BOSTON MOLASSES DISASTER IN 1919 IS ACTUALLY ASTOUNDING.

Scene 7.5: B-Man's…house?

So, sometimes, when I write, I do say the thing I want to write out loud and that's how we get organic moments like "He was all ‘what’s all this then’ and I was like ‘this is who I am now!’ and he was all ‘oh cool let’s make a deal’ and ‘bleh all is forgiven’"

Jacqueline is just having a TIME

I think I have seen in most fics Bernard always being in the Workshop, but I picture him having a nice lil tidy house just outside of the main hub of the shop! For some odd reason, despite thinking it is a bungalow, in my head I picture TWO sets of stairs up. What the fuck is up with THAT

But anyway, that's why I have Jacquie tease B about his house--when does he ever use it? 🤭🤭

Translators note: "snow queen PLEASE" is magic censoring for bitch PLEASE

Frostmas only gets swears when Jacqueline is thinking, not when she is speaking--UNLESS she is out and about in the world, so if she says a swear she is NOT in Crystal Springs! Fun fact for you all tonight :)

Scene 8: Jacqueline's discovery

I originally wrote it so short and jumpy because I thought the chapter was getting too long at 7k words

TOO LONG. CAN YOU IMAGINE?

I added a whole 5k words. And that was AFTER getting rid of some lore drop! AH!

I think though that I like it like this now! I don’t have the patience to go month by month to see how Jacqueline has been irritating Jack, and the quick, punchy summaries make the conclusion one HELL OF A PUNCH

Okay this is the last scene and I'm OVER this and said the funny things I wanted to say so I am CALLING IT HERE. ENJOY Y5 BTS AND ENJOY THE 2024 EDITION OF YEAR 5, WHICH WILL BE FORTHCOMING 💖💖

[showfallfoodcourtemployee]

[Thank you for using Showfalls wonderful Video to text service! We hope this serves as accurately as the video itself. Enjoy!]

[Transcript Received.]

[The video begins with the camera swinging around wildly, while the pounding footsteps going up steps. The footsteps then continue down a carpeted hallway until reaching apartment number 1020. The person recorder starts knocking rapidly, eager to get inside.]

[Person recording identified as Madeline.]

[A voice responds to the knocking from inside, sounding tired, and slightly annoyed.]

?: Give me a second! Jesus!

[Voice identified: Edgar.]

[The knocking begins to get louder, faster, and harder.]

[Edgar reaches the door and flings it open, exasperated.]

E: What?

[He steps out fully from behind the door, revealing a black peasant-style dress with long, puffy cuffed sleeves. The dress ends just above knee height with a lace finish, revealing thigh garters holding up long black socks. He also has black 5 inch platforms on. His face has a small amount of make-up applied, dark lipstick and sharp eyeliner stand out the most to the camera, and less visible, but still making a difference, mascara. He stares at Madeline.]

[Madeline screams in delight after edgar opens the door.]

M: OH. MY GOD. THEY WEREN’T LYING.

[The camera moves around edgar, getting a closer look at some of the outfits parts.]

M: You never told me you were.. uhm Fruity?

E: I’m not, I just find dressing like this fun. Is that a crime?

M: So, You’re a drag queen?

E: No? I mean, I probably could be, but I don’t really want anything to do with performing right now.

M:Okay buddy, keep lying to yourself! ..Also are you wearing platforms.

E: Yep! I told you I’d catch up!

M: Take them off you COWARD..

E: Mmm. That’s a no from me, sorry!

M: You just can’t live with me being taller than you!!

E: Ha! I can, it’s just really funny to wear huge platforms.

M: Yeahh.. Sure!.. Tootally..

E: So… did you come here just to see if the anons were lying, or did you want something?

M: WELL, I wanted to see your outfit, also I wanted to teach your non-cooking ass to cook.

E: Oh– hm. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to learn a thing or two. Considering I literally don’t know how to properly boil water.

M:YOU SET IT ON FIRE.

[Edgar laughs awkwardly.]

E: Haha… Uh, yeah.

M:How did you even DO that?? Did you somehow figure out magic??

E: I guess I’m just… REALLY bad at cooking. The 4 people there don’t even know how I managed to do it.

[Madeline sighs.]

M: I guess uh.. I'll show you how to make like some eggs? I don’t really know what you tried to make back then, and I don’t think you should try again now.

E: Er, I was trying to make soup. From a packet.

M: SOUP?? Oh nah. There is NO hope for you.

[He laughs, then steps back from the door.]

E: If you really meant it about teaching me how to cook, you can come in.

M: I’ll see if you’re even teachable. I guess.

[Madeline walks through the door into the apartment, going straight towards edgar’s pantry.]

M:Why do you have like. Three seasonings.

E: I’m on a budget.

M: I-Okay. I guess this’ll work for now.

[She then gets out salt and pepper, sitting them on the counter. She then goes to the fridge and pulls out two eggs from the carton.]

M: Uh, Ok. So. First you’re going to want to like, oil the pan? Do you have like spray oil or vegetable oil or like..

E: I… I should? I don’t really know where it would be, but I’m pretty sure I have that.

[Madeline sets the camera down onto the counter, leaning it upwards towards the stove. She then leaves to search the kitchen for any sort of oil to coat the pan. She then finds a bottle of spray oil, and walks back over to the kitchen, shaking, and handing over the oil to edgar.]

M: First off, you need to spray a small coat of oil onto the pan.

E: Alright, should be easy enough.

[Edgar tries to spray the oil onto the pan, except instead of the pan, the oil sprays directly into his eye, having held it the wrong way. He yelps, and drops the canister.]

M: ..HOW. Did you mess that up.

[Madeline sighs and picks up the canister, spraying the pan the correct way.]

M: THAT is how you spray it.

E: Thanks, Madeline. I, uh. I really don’t know how I fucked that up.

[Madeline grabs the egg, and hesitates before handing it to edgar.]

M: Now..You crack. The egg. CAREFULLY.

E: Normally I would be a little offended at you explaining this to me like I’m 5, but I feel like this is probably the best course of action, based on my cooking abilities.

M: I don’t understand how you could possibly mess this up bro. If you do there is NO hope for you.

[Edgar cracks the egg into the pan, fortunately not messing up one of the most crucial parts of the process.]

[Madeline sighs in relief, until realizing. The fire wasn’t on the entire time. She quickly turns it onto low-medium heat as the egg starts to crackle while cooking.]

M: Do you own..a spatula?

E: I should, yeah. I’ll go look for it.

[As Edgar turns around, something brown and very furry can be seen clinging to his back. He opens a few drawers before turning back around, holding a spatula up like a quest item.]

E: Found it!

[Madeline mutters under her breath.]

M: Thank god.

M: Now, uhm you’re gonna like check under the egg to see if it’s cooked?

[He nods, then walks back over to the stove and does exactly as Madeline had said.]

M: If it’s cooked pretty much on the bottom, go ahead and flip it.

E: Alright, will do.

[Edgar squints at the pan, and flips the egg over after a few seconds.]

[Madeline sighs in relief, silently celebrating from edgar being able to actually cook a “meal.”]

M: Congratulations!! You cooked your first, and probably last, uh. Meal!..?

E: The hell do you mean ‘last’? Are you going to shoot me or something?

M: NO I'M NOT GOING TO SHOOT YOU. I just mean you suck ass at cooking and you shouldn’t do it ever again!

[His shoulders lower, it was almost like he genuinely thought Madeline was about to pull a gun on him. At that moment, the squirrel from earlier climbs up onto his right shoulder.]

M: OH MY GOD ISTHATASQUIRREL.

[Madeline quickly backs up tripping over multiple things, before hiding behind the counter]

E: Wh– Acorn? You’re afraid of Acorn? The squirrel that Adam adopted? Seriously?

M: SHUT YOUR MOUTH NOW. YES I AM SCARED OF IT.

[He starts to laugh, after a few seconds, he begins leaning on his knees for support.]

M: STOP. YOU'RE BEING SUCH A BULLY TO ME RIGHT NOW.

[Edgar attempts to respond, but he keeps cutting himself off by laughing.]

M: THIS IS WHAT I GET FOR BEING KIND!! WOW..

[After a few minutes, Edgar finally is able to respond.]

E: You’re seriously afraid of squirrels?

M: I AM AFRAID OF ALL. RODENTS. SO YES. I AM AFRAID OF SQUIRRELS.

E: Damn, I’d never have imagined that you of all people would be afraid of these little guys! I mean, you can sit on top of buildings in the rain, but you hide behind my kitchen counter at the sight of a tiny ass rodent?

M: THEY ATTACKED ME ONCE WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, NEVER GETTING NEAR ONE AGAIN.

E: You suuuuure? He’s very friendly!

[He takes Acorn off his shoulder and holds him out towards Madeline.]

[Madeline scrambles from her hiding spot, running away from Edgar until she’s cornered.]

E: He won’t bite you, I promise.

M: CEASE THIS BULLYING IMMEDIATELY!!

E: Hey, remember that one time in the mall when you kept squeaking your shoes near areas I was in, just to piss me off?

M: I don’t know what you’re talking about! Totally!!

E: Mhm, sure. Totally.

[He holds the squirrel out again.]

[Madeline eventually surrenders her struggles against edgar.]

M: FINE. I WILL TOUCH THE FUCKING SQUIRREL.

[Acorn sits very politely in Edgars hands as Madeline quickly taps him on the head . Upon realizing Acorn was not a threat, Madeline starts to pet the tiny squirrel.]

E: See? He’s not going to attack you.

M: Finee. You were right.

M: Well, I should probably get going, after you just tried to MURDER ME!!

E: Alright, sounds good, Madeline. See you later.

M: Bye bye!! I’ll be back only for Acorn probably!

[Madeline shuffles out of the corner she was hiding in, grabbing her phone and ending the recording.]

[Transcript End.]

[croik]

some rambling about TMA

So the first time I listened to TMA, it was as Season 4 was airing, and I stopped after the season was done. Since the sequel’s been announced, I decided to go back to relisten and finally finish, which I did! And overall, I’m really glad I did, because I enjoyed Season 5 and the finale a lot! There’s still so much to love about TMA as a whole, from the acting to the sound design to the statements etc etc. If anyone wants to chat about it hit me up! But in the meantime I’m gonna do the thing where I rate the seasons and chat about them a little.

For me, the seasons from best to worst are 2, 1, 5, 3, 4

Season 2 is just so good. It’s in that good sweet spot where the over arching plot has showed its head but is still mostly mystery. The statements are starting to include repeat characters and call backs. Jon is completely unhinged. I just love getting to the end of a statement and then hearing the extra click, followed by his very furtive “Supplemental.” Even when he doesn’t have much to add, I always look forward to it. Plus this is when we get to hear Gertrude Robinson, the best character!!! Gosh I love Gertrude so much. What a fascinating and bad ass character. Sorry Johnny but your mom is sexy.

Season 1 is of course the OG. I remember not being entirely sold at first because I’m not huge on anthologies, but they sprinkled just enough of the A plot in through the early eps to be really compelling. The first time Jon’s recording got interrupted (by Elias?) was such a good drop and I really looked forward to those moments in the "real world". The season finale could have benefitted from the better sound work of later in the show, but, yeah, of course, right? The first season statements are still some of the most memorable and set up so many intriguing characters and storylines, even if not all of them paid off perfectly.

Season 5 I’m coming to way after the fact, so I’d heard a few things about it going in. I’ll admit my expectations were low. Happily, I enjoyed it a lot! The acting has only gotten better, same with the sfx, and I was a little surprised by how much I liked listening to Jon and Martin just talk about the world. They have a lot of interesting morality and character debates, and the final reveals around Annabelle, the Eye, etc, were very satisfying. I would rate it higher than season 1 except for the very large issue that I just did not enjoy the statements.

I mean, the show has so many statements over the 200 eps, they of course range from legit chilling to kinda lame, but in earlier seasons, a big part of the horror for me came from the disruption of the subject’s lives. We’d get a little setup, and then some poor shmuck had everything taken from them, and either survived traumatized or just plain didn’t make it. Sometimes you’d get a villain point of view! But in season 5, all the statements just bled together for me. There weren’t characters with lives anymore, just snapshots taken in the middle of a never ending horror, with very little context and no conclusion. But even worse, Jon and Martin talk about and treat the statements like an inconvenience. “What, another one?” Martin groans, and Jon apologizes, and they both sigh and go through the chore of giving us the show’s content. It’s a real bummer for me, and I wish they would have treated the statements with more reverence or importance, if they had to exist at all.

Season 3 is a mixed bag for me. On the one hand I like seeing the lore fleshed out. Jon slowly gaining powers is very fun and he gets to meet some really fun side characters (POOR GERRY!) but also some irritating ones (I’m one of those that really couldn’t stand Nikola’s voice). But season 3 also set up a few things I didn’t care for that got cranked up to 11 in season 4: the “I could tell you, but I won’t” play from the villains, and the complete lack of compassion that Jon receives once he starts gaining his powers.

Yes, there’s plenty of reason for Elias to act like he did. But “I’m going to withhold information for literally no reason at all” is something I really hate, and his explanation for it after the fact doesn’t soothe my annoyance with it during relisten. It is just so frustrating, and not in a way that feels like “yes I like hating this antagonist” but in a “the plot demands he doesn’t share too much” way. Then there’s Jon, which brings me to season 4.

Season 4 is the only one that I have to admit I actively disliked. I wanted to listen again because I didn’t remember much from it, and wanted to come into 5 fresh – only to realize that not much happens in 4? The entire season is either A) someone complaining that they don’t know what to do next, or B) someone complaining that they can’t talk to the other characters. If there’s anything more annoying (IMO) than characters refusing to share info for no reason, it’s for the reason of “I’m keeping you safe.” Then there’s Jon. Not to excuse some of his shittier choices, but there were times it was very frustrating bordering on unfair that he took so much of the angst and blame of the other characters. He spends several entire seasons talking about how hard he’s trying to keep hold of his humanity, while gaining almost no sympathy from anyone – just their suspicion and scorn when he falls short. Even Martin (in season 5 mostly) jabs all the time about how spooky and weird he’s become. And he is spooky and weird, but there are so few points in the show where Jon receives honest, unconditional sympathy, and I feel so bad for him. He’s trying really hard! I just want to give him a blanket and some soup, and tell him he did his best.

The bright spot of season 4 though was Jon and Daisy, for sure. I really enjoyed that unexpected friendship, and I felt for Jon in season 5, and his disappointment when they were reunited.

And that’s it, I guess!? TMA is still one of the best horror podcasts around, and I am looking forward to TMP, even if the prospect of more multiverse has me a little wary. If you read all this I hope to see you around fandom <3

[depressedstressedlemonzest]

Hey Lem ✨ Time for Gallavich wedding headcanons: 1. Besides edible boxers from Carl and the honeymoon Car from Liam, what wedding gifts do they get? 2. What flavor was their wedding cake? 3. How the fuck do they have 120 guests at the wedding? Who are they inviting? (only to claim they have no friends a season later?) 4. Why did Ian say Mickey and not Mikhailo? 5. What's one thing in the wedding that way important to Ian? (Chiavari chairs level important)

@gallavich-headcanon I'm Finally getting around to these.

Fiona sent them some money, she didn't have enough to send plane tickets to visit her in Florida, but she promised that by the time they were off parole they'd be able to come down and they'd all go to Disney. Mickey is excited to get Ian to a beach finally after him missing out in Mexico. Lip got them a huge ass box of pizza rolls from Costco, a case of beer (that Tami went to buy and wrap so Lip wouldn't have to look at it) and a movie pack of action movies from the 80s. Mickey won't admit that he likes the movies but he does. Debbie gets them

this shirt, as well as a book on the five love languages and a 5000 piece puzzle to help their relationship stay strong. She read it somewhere online that couples who do puzzles together stay together. Franny picked out some coffee cups for them at the store, because they like coffee and the birds on it were pretty. but it's one of those mugs

a d she fills one with mini snickers for uncle mickey and one with mini hershey bars for uncle Ian. Frank had snagged a fancy bottle of whiskey from the house in glencoe before he left and gave them that. Mandy sent them some money and a couple bus tickets to see her in Wisconsin, she moved there with a nice guy she met through the escort agency and now she doesn't have to work. Sandy got them a giftcard to the sex shop and a costco size bottle of lube Iggy+Colin dropped off matching handguns and a nice bottle of wine.

2. Wedding cake flavor was Velvet Valley with cream cheese buttercream frosting. AKA red velvet without the red dye, except for the top tier which was chocolate. They saved two slices of it to freeze, but ate the rest of the chocolate part.

3. God I wondered that too. I think a majority of them are Ian's gay jesus "friends" and Trevor's LGBTQ youth kids that Ian had helped a bit, they heard about the wedding through the pastor because she's the local gay wedding pastor and she talks about each couple she marries at church whether or not they attend and they figure out it was Ian and they kind of invite themselves after seeing Ian and being like "Oh it's so great you're getting married, we would love to meet your new husband!" and Ian's like "Oh yeah you should" and they're like "Great when's the wedding?" and Ian's like "oh... it's this day." And they're like "Awesome we'll be there. By the time Ian realizes that they intend to come he'll feel like a dick for uninviting them. Mickey invites some family that he thinks won't try to murder him, as well as people that he "works for" like the laundromat guy who he kind of bullies into going so they get some good gifts.

4. Ian always called him Mick or Mickey, Mikhailo probably sounded weird on his tongue. Mickey used Mikhailo because he was giving all of himself to Ian.

5. THE MUSIC Ian was Chiavari chair level for the MUSIC, he's the one who picked Ella Fitzgerald and Ed Sheeran to sing about how much he loves his fucking husband, All the sappiest most romantic music possible just to express how much he adores him.

[redheadinjapan]

Top 7 Niigata City Museums You Should Visit *Activity Archive*

If you're interested in museums, Niigata City has a few different options. Some of them are related to aspects of Niigata, while others are just for fun. This is my list of the top 7 Niigata City museums.

7. Niigata Science Museum

The Niigata Science Museum has many interesting sections to show off all kinds of science in action. Even without being able to read Japanese, there are a lot of interactive displays that you can enjoy. There are sections on optical illusions, space, robotics, dinosaurs, and much more. They also have a planetarium and a section where they hold special exhibitions, like the Pokemon fossil one I went to see with friends. It’s also near a nice bakery, Saffron Meikei, so you can always grab some breakfast before heading over.

6. Niigata City Aquarium Marinepia

Right next to the ocean, the Niigata Aquarium, Marinepia, is full of ocean wildlife. You can see dolphin shows or walk around and check out the various animals inside. A small outdoor section showcases different plants and animals with some quiz questions too (though they are in Japanese). It’s not huge, but there’s still plenty to do, and it’s right across from a gelato store and an all-you-can-eat Indian curry restaurant.

5. Niigata Rice Cracker Kingdom

Niigata Rice Kingdom is a rice cracker museum about a 20-minute walk from Niizaki Station, though there are also closer bus stops. It isn’t very large, but it does have a small kitchen where you can cook your own rice cracker and paint it to make some parts darker. It can be a little difficult to find because the first thing you see is the back of one of the buildings, but you should be able to follow the arrows to the doors. They also have a small rice cracker store in Niigata station 2F East Side.

4. Northern Cultural Museum

The Northern Cultural Museum is the beautiful old house of a wealthy farming family. It’s got a Japanese-style garden and a few displays of old artifacts, as well as the Wisteria which blooms in late April and early May. However, it is difficult to get there. You either need a car, or you have to catch one of the few buses that drop off nearby, which don’t run late at night during the Wisteria light-up season because the museum isn’t usually open that late. However, there is a smaller version close to Furumachi that was an author’s home. While it’s not as big, it’s much easier to get to.

3. Shirone Kite Museum

Another museum that’s not further up the list because of the distance, the Shirone Kite Museum is still worth a visit, especially if you can go while the actual kite festival is taking place. The buses to the Shirone Kite Museum come and go about once an hour and during the festival, there are also free shuttle buses to important parts around Shirone. The museum itself displays kites like the ones used in the kite battles over the river, some small and some giant. There’s even a video hall where you can see the creation process, though as far as I could tell it’s all in Japanese, but the visuals are the most interesting part anyway.

2. Minatopia

Minatopia is the Niigata City History Museum located along the Shinano River. It’s a nice place to check out the history of Niigata and even includes some cool old buildings on the grounds. If you want to read more about it, check out my full article here: https://www.tumblr.com/redheadinjapan/720910514442633216/niigata-city-history-museum-minatopia-activity?source=share

1. Saito Villa

Saito Villa is very similar to the Northern Cultural Museum and is just around the corner from its city branch. It’s an old merchant’s house with beautiful Japanese architecture and gardens. It is a little smaller than the Northern Cultural Museum, but you can actually get tea or coffee and snacks while you sit and view the garden. Unfortunately, the Noto earthquake in January did damage part of the garden, but only a small section is currently roped off.

Museums can be a great way to spend a day, alone or with friends. You should definitely check out some of these great Niigata City museums if you have ever have some time to kill or are in the area.