#these articles are so enlightening to read and if anyone’s notice the don’ts are used in certain boy’s sections but then they apologize

[sherbet-shark]

WOOOHMAHHGODD I JUST CAME BACK FROM VACATION HELLHOLE AND BADABING-BADABOOM CHECKED MY FAVORITE TUMBLR PERSON ONLY TO DISCOVER I AM NOW BOG ANON??? This is an honor??? Is this how knighthood feels like?? Not only that but I was just in time for a new content (✯ᴗ✯) which is SUPERB. Tbh, I've seen somewhat similar requests about non-verbal mcs like this in twst tumblr and what happens often is that characters love mc so much that they slowly start speaking to them (though I think this is due to the lack of research). I am glad that it's not the case because that's not how it works with non-verbal people. I also love that you made things more realistic/human (very normal sherbet behavior methinks) as possible. There's struggles with communication and tbh I too wpuod be scared shitless if I was dating the royals and Kalim. I'd literally wear a hoodie 24/7 with sunglasses and change my name to spoingle doingle to avoid stalking and assassination attempts. Like as much as we all love sticky self-indulgent ooc fluff from time to time, it's also worth noting that relationships–romantic or platonic–are a constant cyle of communication, adjustments and learning something new about each other every time. Relationships are like that, especially in the context of a magical place like twst. Mc acknowledges that there are boundaries and explains stuff!! I like how the guys are struggling sometimes but they keep on trying and apologizing. Honestly, I could go on and on but I fear it's getting too long. I just want to say that I really love this. I really, really do. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaàaaaaaaaa

Signed,

Bog Anon

Edit: After an in-depth enlighting conversation with a selective/situational mute person I will edit and make changes to my previous words.

BOG ANON!!! I HOPE YOUR VACATION WAS AMAZING FIRST OFF!! I’m honestly got a few more in the works, but, man, things are getting so busy. But to the non-verbal requests, I was honestly surprised but also not to see there are more reqs like the one I received. More so because writers tend to do the same thing you’re talking abou, but I do agree. Being non-verbal is a spectrum, just like anything else. While I may not have gotten a severe case of begin nonverbal, I did have to deal with learning how to communicate my feelings, sometimes people around me and due to my age wouldn’t understand. And I’d do “harmful” things when it turns out, I was being self-defensive towards a bully. I still have habits of using my body language and expression tho, speaking with my hands, using my expressions ect.

Edited section: Not everyone can “speak” when non-verbal, I was able to grow out of the temporary stage, and I speak. Again, it’s a spectrum that not a lot of people tend to think of, and again I believe it’s connected to some sort of an over romanization of “being close to another person and I’ll speak to them.” While yes, some people are, for example, situational/selectively mute, people with this do not feel comfortable with speaking to others they are not close with. However, this is not always the case, having selective/situational mutism is heavily varied from circumstances, area, people and actual ability to speak at that point in time. While nonverbal people can make some sounds they cannot speak.

So please, authors, when you receive an ask that resembles a nonverbal or Selectively/Situationally mute person,, be conscious of which one you’re writing for, and you’re not mixing the two terms up.

I want to be inclusive of all people on the nonverbal spectrum. Through my research as well, sometimes people that are non-verbal are on the autism spectrum. Not always, but sometimes are. So be conscious of that fact.

But again, I think people do tend to forget some people cannot make comprehensive sentences or even make sounds that resemble words. While I understand how it would be easier to write a nonverbal character then have them speak to a close person is a good thing, very fluffy we love to see it. But there are times I wish people did more research upon these topics, I don’t mean to shame any author because it is hard to write a req you aren’t knowledgeable in or heard more things about. Perhaps it’s because I found through this research, that during that young time in my life I would be considered a nonverbal child but I found this req resonating with me as a person.

THEN DERAILING TO THE REALISM PART OF MY WRITINGS, GOD, I LOVE WRITING THAT!!! I love adding layers of realism to my works because it’s easier for me to write in character. Yes. We want fluffy. We want heartwarming content, self-indulgent things. There is no shame to this desire, but as a good friend said, real life isn’t a fairytale “Happily Ever After,” having any sort of relationship requires work. Hard work, and sometimes you must make your boundaries known to your friends or partner. It’s full of adjustments, moments where sometimes you inevitably get into disagreements, you will clash with them and things don’t just heal magically, and things are as they were no. It’s not how real life works. Especially where we take into account in this case where more often than not, all of NRC boys be assholes.

I’ve seen some requests and received one where Mc/reader/S.O doesn’t know boundaries and I know for a fact that is not healthy at all and sometimes in writings the boys will snap at them for lack of them. The boy will feel bad and come back to their lover, then things aren’t at all different. Mc presumably still crosses their boy’s boundaries and everything’s peaceful with the world. I know that if it was a real relationship, it would slowly start to become toxic. I’ve also seen a lot of requests never mentioning any sort of mistake on the reader’s fault that may make the twst boy mad or hurt. Again I’d love to write a fic where Mc/reader/S.O are in the wrong. Have made their partner or friend uncomfortable and then be willing to be the mature one and think “I was wrong,” or “I’m so sorry. I was wrong. I won’t pressure you to forgive me but I want you to know I know what I did,” in relationships. It’s makes everything stronger and I live for it,, I CAN’T BELIEVE MY WRITING HABITS ARE BECOMING ICONIC IN THR BLOG I ASDJKL

BUT FOR KALIM AND ROYAL’S PART JFC I LOVED SPRINKLING IN ALREADY KNOWN LORE INVOLVING THEM AND BLEEDING IT INTO THE READER INSERTS (platonic and romantic ^^) it would be perilous to be public with any relation to someone of that status, from assassination attempts, kidnapping, or being picked on. Even more so when you put in the reader to be Yuu, the game mc, a literal no one, no credentials, no traces of the world and family they have would be great pickings for bad people. And this leads to another thing. The twist is boys aren’t going to baby anyone (save maybe Kalim). They want the others around them to be able to stand on their two feet and stand up for themselves. They’re going to be watchful, but they’re not going to involve themselves or pick a fight every time someone says something about Yuu. And I can’t tell you how many bullying reqs where the boys charge head first into the bullies' asses when mc doesn’t stand up for themselves. While it may solidify their “kind, sweet, shy,” and the cute factor that the boys will step in and I’m not saying it’s bad to see those types requests or writings. I get a bad feeling when it becomes over-reliance. If the twst boys did that every time or if mc keeps bringing that up, the twist boys would feel like a bodyguard rather than a boyfriend, an equal.

Ok,,, I’m off my soap box I’m sorry for the ranting. 😭BUT DON’T APOLOGIZE FOR THE LENGTH OF YOUR ASK I FEEL LIKE I OVER COMPENSATED OR JUST WENT OFF ON RANTS I’M SO SORRY AND BOG ANON IF YOU OR ANYONE ELSE HAS REACHED THIS FAR I LOVE YOU AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME!!!! PLEASE DON’T BE AFRAID TO COME BACK BOG ANON I LOVE YOU!!!

For those wondering! I’ve used these articles and videos to help me learn.

https://youtu.be/z3YQ9F4SFAQ This young person explains what it’s like to use AAC devices as a young adult. This person also has autism and they explain challenges they face everyday.

https://youtu.be/BPo1H1eMU9k This is another video explaining speech therapy and how it works for children using pictures to communicate what they want. While I realize this video is dated I found it was a a great stepping stone.

Article Time:

https://brilliantio.com/how-to-write-a-mute-character/ This article is very good on supplying multiple scenarios for a character to be nonverbal and touches on, “Make a good realistic reason why they are non-verbal” they’re a very conscious writer saying that it is hard to write a character that cannot speak for people not well-versed.

https://lucindathee.com/how-to-write-non-speaking-characters/ Another amazing article about the spectrum of nonverbal. ALSO PLEASE SUPPORT NON-VERBAL CREATORS

https://allwritealright.com/how-to-write-a-mute-nonspeaking-character/ This article tells the fact that author’s sometimes rely on harmful stereotypes when writing nonverbal people. This also helps giving much needed advice.

[coconutcordiale]

In honor of How To Lose a Guy In Ten Days and Matthew McConaughey: “Great Answer.” “Good Question.” With Hangman

make my motor run

pairing- finnegan (everybody wants some!!) x afab reader

synopsis- everyone thinks finn is so sweet. you're not convinced.

warnings- 18+ minors and glen powell - you are not welcome here. protected piv, oral (f receiving), slight dumbification/degradation, praise kink. reader has ethically not great motives around sleeping with finn but do we honestly think finn cares? no

length- 2.1k

an- not hangman, but it's still glen so...close enough? this is the crossover literally not one person asked for - how to lose a guy in 10 days (if you squint a little) & everybody wants some

idk y'all, i don't have it in me to be ashamed anymore. this is just smut with some bants. idk if anyone even wants to read this but the glen powell brain rot is real so it had to be done so it'd stop rattling around in my mind. blame glen and his stupidly handsome face and the fact that he steals every scene he's in

title from my sharona - the knack

tagging some finn peeps - @sebsxphia / @iguana-braces / @justalonelyslytherin

It’s Saturday night. Against your better judgment, you’re at the rickety baseball houses, silently debating if you’ll have time to get a tetanus shot before your study group tomorrow morning.

Finn twirls his pipe between his fingers, leaning against the porch railing in a ridiculous paisley button-up. “Aside from how to take my breath away, what do you study here, ladies?”

“Does that ever actually work on real, human women?” You ask, ignoring the elbow to your ribs that Sophia digs into your side, presumably to get you to shut up.

The blond tilts his head, processing. He eventually grins. “Take no prisoners kinda gal, aren’t ya? I like that.” 

You hold back a grunt when Sophia elbows you again, answering the question before you can snark him any further. “We’re both journalism majors.” 

Going to take a sip of your drink, something you’ll surely need to swallow whatever faux-enlightened comment he has about that little piece of information; you furrow your brows when you realize it’s empty.

“I’ll grab you another drink, try not to miss me too much.” Finn winks, the bastard. What a ham. 

Your eye roll is barely contained when Sophia gives you a knowing look. 

“Oh, come on, he’s sweet,” she insists. 

“You’ve seen him with other girls, right? Everything out of his mouth is a line, Soph. It’s all bullshit. He’s pandering to us, so he seems better, different than his asshole teammates. It’s insulting.”

“Then why haven’t you told him to fuck off?”

“I think he’d be a good subject for my article.”

Her eyes widen. “About benevolent misogyny?”

“That’s the one.”

“How far are you gonna take this? Sleep with him to prove a point about how far a chauvinistic male will go for sex?”

You shrug. You hadn’t really thought it through, honestly. It’s not like it’d be a chore, he is pretty hot when he keeps his mouth shut.

She takes your silence as confirmation. “That’s kind of fucked up.” 

“Can’t be worse than changing your entire personality every other night just to get laid.” 

+ 

You find yourself sitting on the roof with Finn, having already shown up his mediocre golf swing. You’d never admit it to Soph, but your article is the furthest thing from your mind right now.

“True or false: all fundamental beliefs are reasonable.” You’re so taken aback by his pop quiz you almost don’t notice him sitting down behind you, pulling you into the space between his legs.

Smooth. You roll your eyes, but don’t move away. “False.” 

You can hear the smile in his voice. “I see someone’s already taken Philosophy 101 with Roberts.” 

“Yes, but that’s irrelevant. That’s an insane statement regardless.” 

When you turn to catch a glimpse of him you see him opening his mouth, ostensibly to argue, but you shake your head. “My turn. True or false: all’s fair in love and war.” 

“True.”

You can’t help the smirk that tugs at your lips. “Great answer.” 

Finn positively beams. “Good question!” His hands drift up from your hips, working their way under your flimsy tank before he brings his lips to your ear, murmuring, “True or false: you’re gonna let me take you inside so I can take you apart.” 

Your breath hitches. “True.” 

He turns your head to him, mouth pressing against yours, mustache tickling you, soft and sweet for just a moment, before he slides his tongue into your mouth filthily. “Let’s go then, honey.”

Your tiny denim shorts and little tank get lost on the floor of his bedroom almost immediately, skin ablaze as he pushes you back onto his bed, on soft forest green sheets that smell like him – warm and spicy and earthy. He stays standing as he makes quick work of his own clothes, raking his eyes across your naked form.

You try not to shy away from his gaze, meeting his eyes defiantly as you feel slick pooling between your thighs. You’re barely keeping yourself from rubbing them together, words laced with an edge you don’t feel. “Thought you were working on a degree in cunnilingus. Put that mouth to good use, Finn.”

There’s a sparkle in those green eyes that you catch just before he braces himself above you, arms bracketing your head. His words are muffled against your skin as he kisses his way down your body. “Overheard that, did you? Knew you were paying special attention to me.”

You roll your eyes, mouth open to respond, but he drags his lips across your collarbone before his mouth closes around a nipple, effectively driving any wit from you.

He pushes your legs open wide, settling himself between them. His chest presses into the mattress as his arms wrap around your thighs where he’s busy putting them over his shoulders. When his mustache brushes against your thigh's sensitive skin, it sends shivers racketing through you and you feel his smirk only centimeters away from where you want it. 

He licks his lips as your resolve crumbles with every passing second.

“C’mon, Finn, please,” you whine, threading your hands through his shaggy hair, trying in vain to pull him closer to your cunt.

“Impatient,” he tsks. You lean up to fix him with a glare, but it only makes him chuckle. “Don’t worry, honey, I’ll take care of you.”

He finally, finally licks a stripe up your slit, and despite it being exactly what you asked for, you tug on hard on the blond hair between your fingers in surprise. He groans long and low, vibrations rolling through your body from your center where his lips are busy fixing themselves to your clit. 

His buries his face in you, moaning against your cunt as his tongue laps at you like a starved man. “Could spend hours drowning in this pussy, tastes so fucking good.”

The sound that leaves you in answer to that is pathetic – high and whiny – hips bucking. His big hands are gripping you so tight you’re sure there’ll be bruises high on your legs tomorrow. He stiffens his tongue to fuck it in and out of you, nose bumping your clit and making you shake, your eyes rolling back into your head.

Any sense of shame, any idea that you should keep yourself quiet in this house full of strangers has left you – your existence narrowed down to your hands in his hair, his lips on your cunt, the moans tearing their way from your throat, unbidden.

Your legs dig into his back, urging him in, hurtling towards the point of no return so fast all you can think of is needing more. He moves his lips back to your clit, hand loosening his death grip enough to slide a finger into the wet mess you’ve become at the same time he curls his lips and sucks.

“Don’t stop, please, Finn I -” You’re begging now, grinding against his face as much as you can in the vice-like grip he still has on you. He doubles his efforts, tongue working over your clit harder, finger inside you curling as you burn with the intensity of it, electricity bursting beneath your skin as the tension finally bursts, his name falling from your lips like a prayer.

Your legs feel like jelly. You let go of his blond locks belatedly, resigning yourself to your new existence as a puddle, a melted version of your former self. 

He looks up from between your legs and grins. 

You grab for his arms where they’re still flexed around your thighs, bringing him up face to face with you. He smiles, dropping sweet kisses to your parted lips and warm cheeks. Whining, you wrap your legs around his waist, wordlessly trying to pull him to you, get him inside of you, greedy for him.

“Don’t tell me a smart girl like you doesn’t know how to use her words,” Finn goads, laughter curling in his words, and you’re torn between wanting to smack him and beg like your life depends on it. You’re so distracted you barely notice him shifting his weight to his knees so he can reach for a condom, tear it open with his teeth, and roll it on.

You try to glare but he braces himself over you again, rubbing his cock between your folds, catching your oversensitive clit and a truly embarrassing whimper comes out, eyes blurring with a mix of pain and pleasure instead. “Finnegan.” 

“Yeah, baby?”

Taking a deep breath, you try to get your last functioning brain cell to cooperate. “Get inside me right now or so help me –”

You can still feel the amusement on his lips as he ducks his head down to slot your mouths together to cut you off, swallowing your moan as he pushes into you, slow and steady. 

When you flex your legs around his waist impatiently, he chuckles before setting a relentless pace, grinding his cock into you hard with each push. It’s too much, it’s not enough, it sets your skin on fire, it rackets the headboard against the wall – if his teammates didn’t know what was happening before, they certainly have a good idea now.

Your head lolls to the side as he hits that spot inside you on every thrust, nerves overloaded as you grip the nape of his neck, just trying to hold on.

“Fuck,” he groans, looking down at the glazed expression taking over your features. “Not gonna last long.” 

The thought that he’s already so close from having his mouth on you has your eyes crossing, cunt clenching around his thick length. His face crumples, mouth parting like you’ve just knocked the wind out of him. “Trying to kill me, honey?”

He lifts one of your legs to his shoulders, leaning down towards you and bending you in half – pushing limits to flexibility you didn’t even know you had.

“Wanna feel you come on my cock, you can do that for me, can’t you?” Finn asks, panting against your cheek, deft fingers moving down to circle your clit.

The sparks shooting through you as he presses into your center border on pain but you’re nodding, head bobbing up and down of its own accord, nails scratching red along his shoulders as you get closer and closer.

“Good girl,” he grunts and you keen, his words hurtling you towards the edge again. “So good for me…look at you, smart ass, brilliant girl fucked dumb on my cock.”

He’s pulling almost all the way out of you on every thrust now, slamming back in, and your back arches against him, a string of unintelligible noises leaving you that you’re just barely aware of, mewling filling the air in the room as your release snaps through you, ears ringing.

When you come to, still shaking and clenching around him, he’s running his mouth still, a litany of praise and groans of fuck honey, perfect for me, spilling from his bitten, red lips. His hips tear forward without rhythm as he pumps into you one last time, filling the condom before dropping your leg and collapsing next to you, strings holding him up suddenly cut.

Finn rolls to the side, and you stare at the cracks in the ceiling, wondering if you’ll ever be able to move again. You think he’s talking, but you can’t even begin to register what he’s saying. 

“Did I fuck all the brains out of the mouthy girl I brought up here?” Finn asks, amused when you don’t respond.

“Just surprised you wanted audience participation for your post-sex speech,” you snark, trying not to belay how difficult it is to form words currently.

“Well, I think Joanna Russ would disparage of me if I were indifferent to your thoughts and opinions immediately after getting off.”

 You raise an eyebrow. “You know who Joanna Russ is?”

 “The Female Man is a cornerstone of feminist literature. I read it be—”

 You can’t help but interrupt, brain quickly coming back online. “Because you thought it was going to be about the ideal woman through a man’s eyes.”

 He even has the gall to look offended. “Of course not, everyone knows Russ is a feminist writer.”

“Then you read it so more women would sleep with you after hearing that you’d read it.” He presses his lips together to hold back a smile and you snort. “I knew it.”

“Honey, don’t get mad at me just because it works.”

“Incorrigible.” 

You lay your head on his chest, trying not to purr like a kitten as his hands tangle in your hair.

“I enjoy Jack Kerouac too if you really want to round out your article. Paint a full picture.”

Your eyes widen, trying desperately to keep in the surprised squeak when you look up to meet jade eyes and see them filled with mischief.

“Just a thought,” he murmurs, hands resuming their movements on your scalp, lulling you toward sleep.

full disclosure i haven't actually read the female man but i'm pretty sure it was published in the 70s which seemed fitting for ews being set in the 80s. thanks for reading!

[unwrittenlibrary]

i don’t wanna do this (i don’t wanna lose this)

eighteen plus blog minors dni

summary -> it’s all fake, every piece of it scripted and perfected for the camera, even the upcoming break-up you pretend doesn’t break your heart.

words -> 2.5k

warnings -> fake relationship, use of name (bucky calls the reader by her character’s name, lucia, once) nickname uses (baby, sweetheart) co-workers/friends to lovers, no smut, not beta’d

notes -> this is for the lovely maera’s ( @ambrosiase ) hotel indigo writing challenge i absolutely love this idea mae and am so appreciative that you created this challenge, it really pushed me out of my comfort zone and i got to explore an entirely new au.  

room & service -> business meets pleasure with celebrity bucky barnes -> bucky and reader are co-stars in a fake relationship in a hotel for their final comic-con together.

— ➶ —

Bucky has been doing interviews with Sam all day today. 

You’ve been working together for six seasons and have both been to too many comic-cons to count. Every single one of them you and Bucky had been paired up to do interviews and photo-ops together. 

A scripted piece of a scripted relationship. Agreed upon when your characters romance began to pick up popularity and designed to look perfect until the end.

Tomorrow an article with be released ‘leaking’ the details of your perfect break-up too. A source close to the both of you will comment that wrapping of the show and being forced to go long distance just wasn’t working for you two. The writer will supply photos of today, the two of you avoiding sitting near one another and not speaking. They’ll write that their source confirmed this convention is actually the first time you’ve seen each other in months. 

Even more articles have already been planted periodically questioning whether the two of you were still together, generating buzz around the show and what happens between your characters. It’s a brilliant job, honestly.

Except, you and Bucky had been in a fake relationship for so long, it had begun to feel real. This distance between you two felt purposeful in a way that hurt you more than it ever should have. 

Your assistant is supposed to go through your instagram soon and begin archiving posts and pieces of your fake life with Bucky. He’s been glaringly absent from your social media recently and it makes your heart ache at the idea of him being nonexistent.

Your fans have noticed too. You read comment after comment all asking the same thing; What happened to you and Bucky? 

“Oh, Lucia! My dear, Lucia.” You bite down a grin at the sound of Bucky’s voice through your door. His words were filtered by the wall between you and a little slurred from the drinks he had no doubt consumed at the hotel bar. “Open the door, please.” 

You lock your phone and lay it on the bed beside you. “I’m busy, Bucky! Go bother Sam.” You call back despite already walking towards the door. 

“Bother Sam? On our last night together?” You can see Bucky smile teasingly though the peephole. Despite his joking tone the words hurt. “Four years together and this is how things end? Through a hotel room door?” 

His fist comes up to bang against the door and a hand comes up to his heart. He’s putting on a show for you, fully away of your eye watching carefully through the peephole. “How much have you had to drink, Bucky Barnes?” You ask as the door remains closed. 

Bucky holds his fingers up in a pinch too small to be true. “Not much.” When his hand falls back to his side he smiles up at the peephole. “Let me in, sweetheart. I’ve missed you.” 

You melt, becoming putty in his hand as you quickly move to unlatch the door. “I’ve missed you too.” You admit to him, face to face, as you lean against the door jam. 

A smirk replaces Bucky’s sweet smile as his hands reach out to grip your hips. “This break-up is tough on me, baby.” He pushes you into the room, kicking the door shut behind him. “One more night. One last time. You and me.” 

“Shut up!” You force his hands off of you and turn towards the mini bar in your room. “You’re such a dweeb. I’m glad we’re breaking up.” You pull out the miniature bottle of wine and twist the top off. 

Bucky’s hand slams across his chest as he falls against the wall in dramatic fashion. “You’re… Glad? My frail heart can’t take it,” he falls to his knees, “Please. Tell my mother, I loved her.”

You watch, unamused, as Bucky falls to the floor in front of you. “You’re obnoxious.” A beaming smile breaks out onto Bucky’s face that makes you grin.

“I was serious, about missing you.” Bucky moves to sit up with his back against the edge of your bed. You move to sit beside him on the floor. “These junkets and photos just aren’t the same without you by my side, cracking jokes in my ear.”

You rest your head against his shoulder. “Me too. I love Wanda, but it’s just not the same.” You admit quietly.

There’s so much that you want to say to him. What if this wasn’t fake? What if we didn’t go through with the break-up plan? “Did they send you our social media plan?” Bucky asks quietly.

“Yeah,” You swallow thickly, “I have my assistant going through my account for me soon. We’re supposed to start untagging and deleting photos of each other this week.”

Bucky snorts. “How fucking sweet. Four years together and they have us untag each other to confirm a break up.” His fingers tap against his thigh as the two of you sit on the carpeted floor together.

“Has it really been four years?” You ask quietly. It’s more of a question to yourself, but Bucky answers it with a nod anyways.

“My longest relationship ever and it was fake.” Bucky’s awkward laugh makes the air tense as he stares down at his hands. “I’ve wasted so much of my life. So many chances gone.”

You know the words aren’t said with ill intent, but that doesn’t stop the crack from forming in your heart. You can’t fathom the idea of all your time together, fake or not, being a waste.

Your eyes cut away from him in embarrassment. “Was it really all a waste?” You ask quietly. The words are unintentional, but that doesn’t change the fact that they’re out in the air.

“What?” You can feel his eyes settle on you in an attempt to read your face or body language, but a career in acting comes in handy. Your back is ramrod straight and your face turned away perfectly to hide the emotions in your eyes. “It was fake when we could have had something real with people we actually cared about.”

It’s a knife to your broken heart. “People we actually care about?”

“You know, like, other girls and guys who we wanted to pursue but couldn’t because of the contract.” Bucky reaches out to wrap a hand around yours, but you pull away. “I don’t understand what’s wrong here.”

You shake your head, the regret of your words settling over you. “Nothing. I’m just… It’s been a long day.” You use the edge of the bed to help you stand while Bucky remains on the floor, watching you in confusion. “I’m tired, you should go.”

“Woah. What’s this one-eighty?” Bucky stands too and follows you as you move around to gather your toothbrush and skincare. “Two seconds ago we were joking about a fake break-up and now you’re all quiet and weird? You expect me to just leave?”

“Please.” You plead. The last thing you want to do is dump all your feelings out to Bucky, on the last day you two were officially contracted to each other, and make him feel guilty for feeling free. “I just need to be alone, Buck.”

You move to push past him towards your bathroom, but Bucky’s hand wraps around your wrist. “Come on, sweetheart. Don’t do this closing yourself off thing.”

“I’m not.” You say stubbornly. “I’m tired.” You try again to move past him, but his grip only tightens as he forces you to actually face him. “Buck-“

“You can tell me, you know?” He says quietly as his grip slackens. Your eyes meet his, pools of blue staring back at you with something akin to hurt. “You can trust me. We’re best friends, right? You’re my-“

“You don’t have to lie to me, Bucky. Pretend to care. You can go back to the bar and…” You pull your hand from him and cross your arms over your chest. “And tomorrow we can start being with people we actually care about.”

Bucky’s eyes squeeze shut as his own words are repeated back and left out in the open between you two. “That’s not what I…”

“What did you mean then?” You cut him off. You want to sound angry, but your tone is sad and tired. “Enlighten me, please.”

“I just meant… I meant we could date who we wanted to date, I didn’t mean for it to sound so awful.” He answers quietly. “I care about you a lot. We’ve been friends for over half a decade, of course I care about you.”

You swallow thickly. “What if I don’t want to date anyone else?” You force yourself to ask. If not now, then when? Ten years from now at a reunion of your show? You couldn’t live with this what if.

“What?” Bucky’s hand falls from your wrist as he takes a step back like your words have burned him.

You push through the thundering of your heart and ringing in your ears to ask, “haven’t you ever thought about it? I mean, four years of just us, all those dates and premieres, was it really all just work for you?”

“I don’t know… I mean…” Bucky rubs a hand over his jaw as you stare at him expectantly. “Have you?”

“I asked the question I think that would imply…” You trail off as his answer weighs down on your mind. It feels like a no. No. No. No. It’s on repeat in your mind as you move to sit down on your bed. “After a while the dates and photos and sappy posts didn’t feel all that forced anymore.” You admit quietly.

Bucky paces silently in front of you. You’re unsure of what’s going through his mind as he does it and it’s all you can do to not tap anxiously as you watch.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” He finally asks when he finally pauses in front of you. You look up at him unsure of what to say. “I mean… When did you start…” He trails off like he doesn’t want the answer.

You look down at your hands in your lap. Despite your worries in telling Bucky you guess you had never truly thought of this conversation ending up this way. All these questions felt like Bucky preparing for a gentle rejection.

“I don’t know. After our second anniversary?” You keep your answer to him vague despite you being fully aware of when you started seeing Bucky differently. “That post you wrote for me that day. All the ones after. All of those words were fake?”

Your mind drifts to his words that day. The sweet and short caption had made butterflies erupt as you scrolled through the photos he had posted with it. Despite you both being required to post something, the photos he had chosen had been entirely genuine.

Pictures the two of you had taken together on set, selfies during your fake dates, and even a sweet set of photo booth pictures from your first premiere together.

You had stared at the post far too long as emotions rushed through you. Your heart raced at the idea of Bucky taking his time to pick photos that meant something to the both of you.

“I think that..” You shake your head in an attempt to rid yourself of the painful reminders. “I think you should go.” You stand up suddenly, your hands pushing gently at his chest.

Bucky’s eyes widen as his hands come up grip your arms in an attempt to stop you. “Woah. Let’s talk about this. I’m just trying to figure everything out.”

“Figure it out? What is there to figure out, Bucky?” You cry out, shoving harder. “If you don’t know how you feel then you should figure it out on your own.” You move past him to open the door.

Bucky follows after you hastily. “Sweetheart, wait, please. I just need a moment.” You grip his forearms tightly using Bucky’s own momentum against him as you guide him to the hallway outside your room. “I wasn’t expecting this. We have articles and photos and interviews planned about a break-up tomorrow.”

“I shouldn’t have said anything, Bucky.” The two of you are back where your night began. Opposite sides of the door as you stare, unsure of what to say. “Let’s just pretend this never happened, okay? The article will be published and we’ll confirm it and life will move on.”

The door slams shut in his face without warning, not giving him a chance to say anything else. You stare blankly at the ugly, green shade its painted in silence as you remind yourself; It was all fake. A script you had been given and followed to a tee. One you had gotten too caught up in.

You’re feelings don’t change the ending.

There’s a slow knock on your door. You suck in a breath as you move to open it an apology on the tip of your tongue.

“Bucky.” You’re cut off as his hands come up to rest on your cheeks and he pulls you towards him. Anything you had to say dissipates as his lips meet yours in a bruising kiss.

Your hands come up to grip his t-shirt tightly as you kiss him back your tongue slipping into his mouth while he pulls you flush against his body.

An arm wraps around your waist and Bucky pushes you back into your room, his foot kicking your door closed harshly.

The back of your knees hit the edge of your bed and you finally pull away to look at Bucky, but he speaks before you can say anything.

“Of course I’ve thought about it.” He breathes out. His eyes are wide with nerves and his cheeks flushed red. The sight of it mixed with his kiss makes your heart pound. “I’ve thought about kissing you for real, not in a room filled with crew and cameras. About what it would be like to be on a date where paparazzi hasn’t been tipped off. Baby,” his hands rest on your cheeks again as he forces your eyes to meet his, “I’ve thought about it all. What it would be like to be with you, to really be with you in every way. Sometimes it’s all I think about when we’re together.”

You take pause, your eyes widening and hands freezing in place as you listen to what he’s saying. “Why didn’t you say anything then? Why’d you just pace and ask me all those questions?”

“Because I’m an idiot.” He smiles brightly when you giggle. “Because I couldn’t believe you actually felt the same way. I was in shock.” He presses a gentle kiss to your lips.

You smile up at him softly. “What do we do about the article tomorrow?” You whisper your question.

You feel giddy with excitement as Bucky’s hands land on your hips to hold you in place, flush against him. “We deny it.”

“What about our managers?” Your smile doesn’t fade even as stress over the situation arises. “And…And our separate interviews tomorrow?”

“What are they gonna do? Fire us?” Bucky smiles. “We’ll tell them all about how in love we still are. That the source in the article was a dud and we’ve just been private recently as the show wraps.”

“We will?” You ask quietly. Your heart racing at his words. “You want to say all that?”

Bucky nods his head. “I do.”

You don’t say anything else he leans in for another kiss, you could worry tomorrow.

Bonus -> The Next Day

liked by buckybarnes, samwilson and 134,759 others

yourinstagram the final season of our show premieres this weekend and we’re so excited for you all to see how it ends. the first photo is from tonight and the second from our first season! the past six years has brought me so much joy and i’m so grateful for everything this show has given me. most importantly though, i’m thankful for you, bucky barnes. my adrian to my lucia. my best friend. my lover. thanks for making this show so fun.

View all 15,398 comments

samwilson we made a great show. love you guys.

buckyfan thought y’all were a pr stunt lmao

yourinstagram apparently you’re not supposed to really fall in love for those to work…

buckybarnes i am most grateful for you. you made work worth it every god damn day.

yourfan my favorite couple on and off the screen.

— ➶ —

notes -> this is my first ever time joining a writing challenge, it really pushed me to work through block and focus on this instead of letting is die out like i have with other projects despite liking them so much!

(hoping you guys don’t hate the extra instagram idea, i just felt it fit in!)

hopefully you enjoyed and if you did, reblogs are greatly appreciated!

[tradgicworks]

Heartfelt: P-2 Heavy Meddle

Anna Hjarta finds herself as the sole witness of a strange disappearance. She decides to help find the missing student, despite how much her academy wants to keep it a secret.

WORD COUNT - 6030

Fast paced heavy metal music blared out of Anna’s headphones. Her short dirty-blonde hair bobbed up and down to the fast paced rhythm. Her grey-blue colored eyes scanned the floor as she picked up any trash that was left behind. She brushed her bangs out of her face revealing a faint scar that ran from her left cheekbone all the way through her left brow. Her music was interrupted by the ringtone of her phone. She tapped her phone and answered the call.

“Yeah?” Anna asked as she continued picking up trash.

“Hey, Anna,” Another volunteer’s voice responded. “I finished up where I’m at. Everyone else is done too, we’re gonna head back for today.”

“Cool. I got the keys with me, I’ll finish here then head back myself. You guys have a good night.”

“Don’t overdo it Anna. Goodnight,” The volunteer said before hanging up the phone.

Her music roared back to life. Anna sighed as she looked at her nearly full trash bag. She pulled down her headphones and turned them off. She laid the bag on the floor and swept the remaining bits of trash into the bag with her leg. She tied the bag up and carried it to the dump.

Despite the academy’s strict rules, disobedience was inevitable- especially the week before winter break. For some reason or another, the academy had a policy of having Juniors and Seniors take their finals early. This was done in order to “encourage the active pursuit of future academic endeavors”. Most students took it as a chance to apply to college, scholarships, or internships. While others treated it as an early vacation or an excuse to party in secret. The abandoned auditorium especially was a hotspot for delinquents. Due to the lack of manpower the academy could not afford to routinely survey the theater during the last week of classes, their focus was on finishing up the preparations for the graduation ceremony after all. As such the troublemakers rebelled in relative comfort, often leaving huge messes. Ultimately, it would be up to the older students to take it upon themselves to volunteer and clean up the mess. Anna Hjarta included.

Anna heaved the trash bag into the dumpster and shut it closed. She took off her work-gloves with a satisfied look. Thunder faintly growled behind her. The sound of rain wafted into her ears.

“Mph,” She thought to herself as she checked her backpack. “I forgot my umbrella.”

Anna stuffed her headphones and gloves back into her bag. She glanced outside through a dirty window. The light of the campus walkway was barely visible through all the rain. Anna frowned and flipped a switch on the wall. The work lights that lined the halls of the auditorium blinked into darkness. Her body froze as she heard a shrill scream echo through the pitch black halls.

“Is someone there?” Anna called out in a hush tone.

She was met with silence.

The muffled sounds of teary cries for help crawled into her ears as she waited for a reply. She flipped the lights back on and ran towards the sound.

“Are you okay?!” She yelled out while trying to find the source of the struggle.

One last shriek rang out before being snuffed short. Anna found herself at the doors of the theater. She tried to open them but felt a strange resistance hold them shut. She slammed against them until they finally swung open. She shook her phone and its flashlight turned on. She found herself in the empty theater, the draped curtains fluttering softly. She surveyed the room in confusion and let out a deep sigh after searching for a few moments.

“I need more sleep,” She muttered.

Anna turned around and began to head back towards the dorms. Her shoe kicked against something and sent it gliding across the floor. She flashed her light at it and noticed a sparkle in the corner of her eye. She walked towards it and picked it up. In her fingers was a small golden bangle bracelet.

“Devoted to our pride and joy, Sophie,” Anna read out the cursive that was written across the back of the bracelet.

. . .

Anna flinched awake to the blare of her phone’s alarm. She sat up and looked at her surroundings groggily. Articles of old clothes laid scattered all across the floor. Her desk was stacked high with medical textbooks- some open, almost all riddled with sticky notes. Her bag hung from the door knob with Sophie’s bracelet attached to it by the zipper.

Anna slowly got out of bed. She walked to the bathroom and began to brush her teeth. When she finished she rinsed out her mouth and splashed some water on her face. She looked in the mirror, her scar had become an ugly streak that burned through her face. She traced it lightly with her fingers and frowned. She pulled out a small makeup bag from underneath her vanity. Layer after layer, she applied makeup on her scar until it returned to the faint seam that it was before. She gave a slight smile as she observed her handiwork. The academy’s morning announcements buzzed to life as she finished up.

“Good Morning, students,” Dr. Ward’s, the headmaster, soothing voice called out. “Yesterday’s rain proved to be heavier than was originally forecasted. Be careful when going between classes as staff have reported significant amounts of mud from the downpour. Furthermore, yesterday also marked the most amount of curfew violations in the academy’s history. A fact that brings me much disappointment. The students who violated the curfew will be called to my office to receive a punishment. You know who you are and you will be contacted privately. Let this serve as a reminder to the rest of the student body that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated again. Now, for today’s agenda…” Dr. Ward began reading out the remainder of the dull announcements.

Anna put away her makeup bag. Her phone began to buzz. She picked it up and read the screen.

“Anna Hjarta. Please report to Dr. Ward’s office at-” Anna raised a brow.

She threw on the cleanest uniform she could find and grabbed her bag as she walked out the door.

. . .

The headmaster’s office was built at the highest point of the campus. Curved stairs lead up to the main entrance. A ramp sloped downwards and cut through the middle of the stairs, allowing access into the library on the bottom floor. Colorful flowers and well maintained shrubs all sprinkled with water droplets from the rain decorated the entrance. Anna made her way to the headmaster's office.

“Excuse me,” She said as she walked inside.

Dr. Ward’s office was incredibly organized. Her large desk was filled with papers- all stacked into neat piles. Two bookshelves filled with all sorts of books, awards, and gifts stood behind her. On the wall was a display case with a beautiful ceremonial dagger stored inside. Behind her was a large window that allowed for a majestic view of the entire campus.

“Anna,” Dr. Ward smiled. “Have a seat.”

“You wanted to see me?” Anna said as she sat down.

“Yes, I did. I wanted to see you and Eva,” Dr. Ward gestured at Eva who sat in the chair next to Anna.

Dr. Ward sat down and opened her laptop. The door to her office swung open and a tall warden walked in with a cup of coffee.

“Thank you, Caroline,” Dr. Ward smiled as she set down the cup.

Caroline replied with a curt nod. Her green eyes were locked into a permanent glare. Her brunette hair was tied into a tight bun. She wore the Warden's uniform which consisted of combat boots, neatly pressed pants, a long sleeved button up shirt with a tie, and a blocky hat. Caroline specifically, wore a small badge and a large coat over her shoulders like a cloak as an imposing way of signifying her position of authority amongst the Wardens.

“I have been informed that both of you entered the dorms after the curfew, is that correct?” Dr. Ward asked while quickly typing.

“That’s correct,” Anna said casually.

“Yup,” Eva clicked her tongue.

“Hmm,” Dr. Ward glanced at the two before continuing to type. “Would you mind enlightening me over why you entered the dorms so late?”

“Lost track of time,” Eva said.

“I was helping clean up the auditorium, my group was scheduled for yesterday and I stayed after to finish up. I ended up getting caught in the rain though,” Anna explained.

“I see,” Dr. Ward said as she typed. "Was there anyone else with you, Anna?"

“There shouldn't have been, everyone else went back early. I only stayed after because I had the keys.”

“Did you notice anything strange on your way back?" Dr. Ward asked.

“What do you mean by strange...?” Anna asked slowly.

“Yesterday there was some unexpected interference with the academy’s security system. Given how many students disobeyed the curfew, I wanted to make sure that no one was up to any mischief while some of the cameras were offline,” Dr. Ward drank from her coffee.

“No, not really. I mean I can’t even think of anyone crazy enough to be out in that rain on purpose,” Anna shrugged.

“You can never be too sure,” Dr. Ward pushed up her glasses.

“Well, actually, there was one thing,” Anna grabbed the bangle bracelet from her bag and held it towards Dr. Ward. “I found this.”

Dr. Ward grabbed it and investigated it. Her face tensed slightly as she read the back of it. She handed it to Caroline who didn’t react.

“Where did you find this?” Dr. Ward glanced up at Anna with a smile, but her eyes turned cold and empty.

Both Anna and Eva shifted uncomfortably at the unusual look in Dr. Ward’s eyes.

“The theater,” Anna replied.

Dr. Ward glanced at Caroline who quickly nodded in reply and walked out of the office.

“Something wrong?” Eva asked with slight meekness.

Dr. Ward’s eyes brightened to her usual comforting shine. “No, nothing is wrong. I am just upset that your more rebellious peers are still using the auditorium irresponsibly. Especially when we both know that they could be doing so much better.”

“I see,” Eva awkwardly replied.

Dr. Ward took a deep breath.

“Thank you ladies for providing some insight into what happened during the storm. Regardless of your intentions, the fact remains that both of you disobeyed the curfew. As such, you will be penalized. The school adheres to its strict guidelines after all and they must be enforced indiscriminately,” Dr. Ward took out two forms and began filling them out quickly.

“What do we have to do?” Anna asked.

“The two of you will be working as receptionists at the freshmen dorms,” Dr. Ward handed a filled out form to Anna and Eva each. “Take these to the front office of the dorm. They’ll give you everything you need and tell you what to do from there. You may leave now,” Dr. Ward instructed before returning her attention to work.

Anna and Eva walked towards the door.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Dr. Ward called out to them as they opened the door. “Try not to get into any more trouble,” She said with a gentle smile.

. . .

Anna’s gaze lingered on the empty hallways. She leaned over the receptionist counter, her cheek resting in her palm. Eva, who sat beside her, groaned and put her feet up on the counter. Anna glanced at her with annoyance.

“Stop that,” Anna said.

“What? My shoes aren’t dirty,” Eva replied.

Dried up mud crumbled onto the counter.

“Not that dirty at least,” Eva yawned.

“It’s just rude to the janitors who have to clean that up,” Anna’s gaze hardened.

“Sheesh, calm down. A little dirt won’t kill anyone. What are you some sort of neat freak?” Eva replied matter-of-factly.

“No,” Anna looked at Eva in her eyes. “I just don’t like dirt.”

Eva put her feet down and sat up straight.

“What do you mean by that?” Her eyes narrowed.

The two stared at each other. Anna grabbed a napkin and cleaned the dirt off of the counter.

“What else would it mean?” She glanced at Eva’s shoes.

“Fine, my bad for bringing in dirty shoes,” Eva took her shoes off the counter. “Sue me.”

“Thank you,” Anna nodded curtly before kneeling down to clean up the dirt.

“You’re a real bleeding heart you know,” Eva commented looking down at her.

Anna didn’t respond, she simply continued until the mess was clean.

Eva looked at her for a few moments before she gave up and went back to playing on her phone.

Anna crumbed up the napkin and threw it into a trashcan. The sound of loud banging erupted from the front doors as it fell in.

“Let me in!” A desperate voice yelled from outside.

“She’s going to break the freaking doors-” Eva growled and stood up.

She quickly walked towards the doors and swung them open just as Gwyneth was about to knock again.

“What are you doing?” Eva grit her teeth.

“Thank you-!” Gwyneth barely got the words in before trying to push her way into the dorms.

“What are you doing?!” Eva roared and shoved her back outside.

“Please- Y-You don’t understand. I need to get in I-” Gwyneth choked on her words. “Please, please, just let me in!”

“No way, you psycho!” Eva barred her from entering.

“Calm down, you’re hurting her,” Anna ran beside her and tugged on her shoulder.

“The hell I am! I’m just stopping her from getting through the door-'' Eva glanced at Gwyneth’s face. “Oh, it's you.”

Eva looked at Gwyneth’s wrists, faint bruise marks were beginning to form.

“Oh,” Eva’s frown grew annoyed.

“That’s why I told you to relax,” Anna pulled Eva behind her and looked at Gwyneth.

“Please let me in!” Gwyneth pleaded.

“Sure,” Anna grabbed her wrists gently. “But first we’re going to take care of this.”

“There’s no time I really have to-” Gwyneth said in between panicked breaths.

“There’s no option, either you come in and I help with the bruising or you don’t come in at all,” Anna gave her a stern look.

“O-Okay, but please hurry!” Gwyneth’s breathing relaxed before she exclaimed.

“I will,” Anna led her inside and behind the receptionist desk.

“Are you crazy? You’re going to take the person who tried to break into the dorms seriously?” Eva exclaimed.

“She wouldn’t be this panicked if it wasn’t for a good reason,” Anna sat Gwyneth down and looked for a first aid kit.

“Wow, I was spot on about that bleeding heart thing huh?” Eva groaned. “What if she’s here to cause trouble or stalk some helpless freshman girl?”

“You really think poorly of people you know,” Anna commented as she prepared an ice bag.

“I’m realistic,” Eva huffed.

“You’re paranoid. All I see is someone in need,” Anna kneeled in front of Gwyneth and pressed the ice bag against her wrist.

“And that’s all you need to be at their beck and call?” Eva sneered.

“Yeah, that’s it,” Anna glared at her.

Eva could only reply with an equally furious look.

“I-I’m not here to hurt anyone,” Gwyneth said meekly. “I’m here to- ah” She squeaked as Anna moved the ice bag to her other wrist.

“I’m worried about my friend, her name is Sophie,” Gwyneth said.

Eva tensed a little upon hearing Sophie’s name.

“What about your friend?” Eva grunted.

“I think she’s in trouble.” Gwyneth said sheepishly.

“No way,” Eva waved her hand dismissively. “The academy’s got security like a prison. If she was in trouble she would have been helped out by one of the Wardens.”

“I know, but I’ve called her so many times and she hasn’t responded once. She didn’t show up to our breakfast meet up and last night she seemed really worried about something,” Gwyneth said, her words growing more frantic.

“Well, maybe you’re just overthinking it,” Eva said apathetically.

“What’s your problem?” Anna glanced at her in a mix of anger and shock.

She turned towards Gwyneth and started wrapping bandages around her wrists. “Why are you so sure she’s in trouble?” Anna asked calmly.

“Sophie’s not like this. She always answers her calls, she's a polite and cheery person. She’s full of optimism and hope and she always does her best to help others. I’ve never seen her act so depressed before, so… docile. I just know something is wrong, it just doesn’t add up...” Gwyneth gazed at the floor.

“Pfft, talk about working off hunches,” Eva muttered.

“I agree,” Anna said as she finished tying her bandages.

“You do?!” Gwyneth and Eva said in unison, relief and surprise in their voice respectively.

“You know the people close to you better than I do. If you really think something is wrong, you should do something about it before you regret not doing anything at all,” Anna stood up and held out her hand. “And I’ll be here to help.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you soooooo much!” Gwyneth leaped up and hugged Anna tightly.

“Woah, okay, okay, I’m just glad I can help,” Anna chuckled. “She’s really soft.” She said towards Eva.

“And I care why?” Eva shook her head. “I can’t believe you’re helping her. What do you even want Gwy- uh... Girl?”

“Oh, that’s right,” Gwyneth let go of Anna. “My name’s Gwyneth, I’m a Sophomore.”

“I’m Anna, a Junior,” Anna replied.

“Eva, same,” Eva mumbled. “So what do you want?”

“I-” Gwyneth paused. “I was planning on visiting Sophie’s room and checking up on her.”

“What floor is she on?” Anna asked.

“Third floor, room 309,” Gwyneth replied.

“Cool, let’s go,” Anna grabbed the master key from behind the counter and headed up the stairs. “You coming, Grinch?” She asked Eva as she stopped on the first step.

“Screw you,” Eva spat before following suit.

. . .

The freshmen dorms were not the nicest on campus, mostly due to how old the building itself was. The steps led up to a view of the many hallways on each floor. Rows and rows of evenly spaced doors lined the walls. Occasional break and study rooms broke the monotony of the layout. Framed paintings of previous headmasters and photographs of the academy’s history dotted the free spaces on the wall. On the opposite end, stood an identical set of stairs leading into the floor below. Anna, Eva, and Gwyneth stepped into the third floor. Gwyneth walked ahead of them and led them to Sophie’s dorm.

“We’re here,” Anna stated as they stood in front of room 309.

Gwyneth stepped forward and knocked on the door.

“Sophie, are you there? It’s me, Gwen,” She called out.

There was no reply.

“Sophie?” She knocked again.

“She’s probably just asleep,” Eva commented.

“At six in the evening?” Anna raised a brow.

“You’d be surprised at how many people hit the hay early,” Eva yawned.

“She’s not answering,” Gwyneth turned towards them.

“Hmm, let me try,” Anna knocked on the door a little rougher than Gwyneth. “Sophie, are you in there?”

The door creaked open on her last knock.

“You broke it,” Eva scoffed.

“It just happened on its own,” Anna replied with a tinge of panic.

“Well, no use crying over it now,” Eva swung open the door and gestured for them to walk in. “After ya’ll.”

They all entered the room. Eva flicked on the light switch and the ceiling lamp hummed to a faint light. Comfy looking bed sheets sat as a messy pile on an unmade bed. The cabinets held half open drawers filled with thrown-about clothes. Makeup, perfume, accessories, and other knick-knacks once neatly organized on the shelves laid scattered across the floor. A torn apart sheet music book with ripped out pages leaned limply against a violin. Gwyneth’s gaze lingered on a corkboard that hung above her drawer. Pictures of Gwyneth and Sophie spending time together were pinned on to it. Dumb drawings that Gwyneth made in a silly attempt of explaining some of her favorite controversies were displayed like badges of honor. The letter she wrote for Sophie’s birthday was neatly held by tiny styrofoam stars. A calendar filled with pretty handwritten notes was to the left of all of that. “Dinner with Gwyneth, yay!” was circled in red marker.

“What a mess,” Eva murmured.

“It looks like someone tore up the place,” Anna said quietly.

“Sophie…” Gwyneth whimpered as she walked to the corkboard and traced her fingers over the memorabilia.

“We need to report this to the principal,” Anna said as she glanced at Gwyneth’s worried face.

“Agreed, the way this room is torn up is way too sketchy,” Eva let out a deep sigh. “The academy seems to be slipping in more ways than one.”

“That’s ominous,” Anna commented.

“Just saying, the schools vow of security ain’t looking so secure right now. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are other dorms where just about anybody can break into them,” Eva opened the closet. “We could have a real case for false advertising on our hands-” Eva’s words were snuffed into violent chokes.

A woman stepped out of the closet. Her dark gray colored eyes shone with a strange intensity. She held Eva by the neck, nearly lifting her off the ground. Gwyneth shrieked as she grabbed something to defend herself with. Anna hopped over the bed and slammed herself against the woman. The woman grunted in pain as she let go of Eva and struggled to keep her balance. Eva coughed in heavy breaths. The woman took a step forward ready to attack Anna, only to have a stapler thrown against her face by Gwyneth.

“You. Effing. Creep,” Eva yelled in a horse voice.

Eva kicked at the woman’s legs before she could retaliate and tripped her onto the ground. The woman fell with a hearty thud and her body went limp. Eva raised her foot to stomp her face but was stopped by Anna’s hand.

“What are you doing?! You’re going to kill her!” Anna screamed.

“Oh, do not make excuses for the panty stealing weirdo hiding in a sixteen year old’s closet- she deserved this!” Eva yelled back.

“But, she’s already knocked out!” Anna pushed her leg out of the way. “So, we stop!”

“Fine, Goldilocks. Have it your way, but I’m not helping you if she gets up and starts choke slamming you,” Eva rubbed her shin. “Damn, that hurt. Her legs felt like they were made out of steel.”

“W-Who is she anyways and where did you two learn to fight like that?“ Gwyneth asked.

“I kinda just threw myself at her,” Anna said matter-of-factly.

“Kickboxing is a hobby,” Eva replied. “As for the mystery woman…” Eva took out her phone and turned on its flashlight.

The light shone over the face of a Warden. The three of them stared in silence as the realization dawned upon them.

“We are so screwed,” Eva murmured with a deathly serious tone.

“WE KNOCKED A WARDEN UNCONSCIOUS?!” Gwyneth screamed.

“Shut up!” Eva put her hand over Gwyneth’s mouth. “Do you want the whole dorm to know?!”

“I-It’s fine, we can just explain to the principal what happened. T-That this was all just one big misunderstanding,” Anna said in a slightly shaky voice as she sat the Warden up as best as she could

“Oh yeah, sure, and she can kindly explain how many years in prison we’re gonna serve for assaulting a freaking police officer,” Eva gave a panicked chuckle.

“I don’t want to go to jail,” Gwyneth whimpered.

“No effing dur, girly,” Eva commented.

“Calm down, both of you. Worse comes to worst I can just-” Anna started before being cut off by the sound of a radio.

“Warden 06, can you hear me?” A staticky voice called from the Warden’s breast pocket.

Anna, Eva, and Gwyneth looked at each other. Gwyneth gestured to Anna to give her the radio. Anna tossed into her hands and she began to fiddle with it. After a few seconds she held the button to reply. White noise poured out of the radio.

“Warden 06, there seems to be some interference on your end. Do you read me?” The voice asked again.

Gwyneth tilted the radio downwards. The white noise became more chaotic.

“Warden 06, do you read-” The voice got cut off before changing into a deeper, colder, voice. “Warden 06, you are to cease your search of the target’s dorm. We have narrowed down the location of Sophie Dives to the auditorium. Rendezvous there ASAP. Failure to do so will be met with severe punishment.”

The radio went completely silent. Gwyneth took out the batteries and took a shaky breath.

“Sophie’s in the auditorium?” Gwyneth whispered.

“From the sound of it, it looks like they were trying to keep it a secret too,” Eva commented.

“I knew it,” Anna muttered.

“What?” Gwyneth asked.

“Last night, when I was cleaning up the auditorium I heard a scream. I tried to follow it, but by the time I got to the theater all I found was a bracelet with Sophie’s name on the back of it,” Anna stood up. “I think something happened to her.”

“Why didn’t you bring this up before?” Gwyneth frowned.

“Because I thought it was just a coincidence,“ Anna’s face softened. “We have to tell Dr. Ward, if she knows that the Warden’s are acting out of line she might be able to stop them.”

“Sorry to break it to you, but the Warden’s are on the CCPD’s payroll- not the headmaster’s. I doubt they give two craps about what she wants,” Eva said.

“What other option do we have then?” Anna asked.

“We have to go and help her ourselves,” Gwyneth said with a serious tone.

“Are you crazy? She’s being hunted down by the Wardens right now, y’know like actual highly trained cops. On top of that, they’re on high alert, if they find us they’ll rip us to shreds,” Eva furrowed her brow.

“Not exactly,” Gwyneth turned towards her. “I’ve heard rumors that because of all the curfew violations yesterday the headmaster is pissed off at all the Wardens. She wants to make sure that not a single student misses it tonight. Me thinks- I think that they won’t head to the auditorium until after curfew. It gives us some time to break in.”

“You really believe those stupid overblown rumors? Give me a break, they’ll have Wardens posted all over the auditorium,” Eva groaned.

Anna walked to the curtains and opened them up. A view of the auditorium bathed in the light of the setting sun appeared with not a single soul in sight.

“Are you sure about that?” Anna said with a tiny jeer.

“Screw you,” Eva looked away and scratched her head.

“We don't have much time," Anna looked at her phone. "Curfews in three hours. If we're going to help Sophie, we should move now."

"You're still going to help?" Gwyneth asked.

"Of course, it doesn't sit well with me to stay still when someone needs help. Besides, who knows what the Wardens will do to her if one of them was ready to strangle us to death," Anna explained.

"Thank you," Gwyneth said quietly

Anna and Gwyneth looked at Eva who thought in silence. After a few moments she spoke.

"I wouldn't go as far as to say that she's in danger, but yeah, the sooner we find her the better," Eva said curtly.

"I really thought you would say no," Gwyneth said with a slightly stunned face.

"Don't act like you know how I think," Eva scoffed.

"Well, we better head out then. Let's go close up the receptionist's booth first," Anna said as she walked out of the dorm.

"Ever the worrywart," Eva grumbled.

. . .

Day began to bleed into night by the time they arrived at the auditorium. The weathered down entrance was chained and locked shut by a simple key lock.

“They locked it,” Anna stated bluntly.

“I guess this really means that Sophie is in here,” Gwyneth said with a worried face.

“Well she won’t be trapped here for long,” Eva said as she took out some of the bobby pins that held up her hair and kneeled beside the floor.

“What are you doing?” Gwyneth asked.

“Picking the lock, duh,” Eva replied as she started unlocking the door and blew some of her loose hair out of her face.

“Where did you learn that?” Anna asked.

“Would you believe me if I said daycare?” Eva turned around with a smirk as the lock clicked open. “We’re in.”

“Follow me,” Anna walked into the auditorium and towards the theater.

The work lights from the day before stood in the exact same spot. Anna turned them on, lighting the auditorium with a musty light. The three walked at a brisk pace while still scanning each room they came across, before turning towards the theater. Anna opened the door and looked at the rows of dimly lit seats.

“The only place I didn’t check yesterday was backstage,” Anna said as she made her way down the stairs and climbed onto the stage.

“This place gives me the creeps,” Eva muttered as she read the scratches on the podium.

Anna walked in between the curtains and into the dark backstage. She turned on her flashlight. Old props and backgrounds littered the floor. Rusting clothing racks filled with forgotten costumes loitered throughout the backstage. A large grandfather clock leaned against boxes stacked up high. The word “John” was painted onto it, it’s time was stuck at 3:13 PM.

“Wow, it's a whole lot of nothing,” Eva said loudly as she leaned against the grandfather clock.

“We at least have to try to look for her,” Anna said as she started searching the mess.

“But, there really is nothing here, Anna,” Gwyneth said sadly.

“We don’t have much time left either,” Eva glanced at her watch. “We should just head back and try again tomorrow before they catch us and we can’t try at all,” She looked at Anna, her long hair fluttering slightly in a soft breeze.

“Yeah... good idea,” Anna said with a slightly dejected tone before turning towards Eva. “What’s wrong with your hair?” Anna asked suddenly.

“What? I was too lazy to tie it back up after picking the lock,” Eva replied dismissively.

“No, why is it moving,” Anna asked again before walking towards the grandfather clock herself.

She felt around it looking for the source of the breeze. Eventually she found a small crack in the wall. Cold air trickled out of it slowly.

“Help me move this thing,” Anna said towards Eva and Gwyneth as she started trying to move the grandfather clock out of the way.

“This is heavy,” Gwyneth panted as she pushed as hard as she could.

“Just push,” Eva commented as she led the clock onto the floor. “Now what?” Eva asked Anna.

Anna picked up a broken off leg of a chair from the floor and smashed it against the crack. The wall crumbed into wet clumps of drywall that revealed the entrance to a tunnel.

“A tunnel?” Anna murmured.

“You are amazing at breaking things, y’know that,” Eva said blankly.

“D-Do you think that Sophie could be in there?” Anxiety lumped in Gwyneth’s voice.

“If this was a horror movie, sure, but to me that just looks like an effing death trap,” Eva shifted uncomfortably.

“We have to check,” Anna took a deep breath before stepping inside.

“Are you crazy?!” Eva grabbed her arm. “We have no idea where that leads, if there’s anything even in there or if there’s even a way out.”

“Where else could she be if the Wardens couldn’t even find her?” Anna tugged her arm away from Eva’s grasp.

“I don’t know, but I’m not gonna risk my life to find out,” Eva crossed her arms.

Anna’s breaths stiffened. She glared at Eva who returned the gesture.

“I-” Anna opened her mouth before being interrupted by the muffled echo of classical music.

“Nocturne op.9 No.2, Sophie’s favorite song. She set it as her ringtone…” Anna and Eva turned to face Gwyneth.

She clutched her phone close to her, she had dialed Sophie’s number while they were arguing.

Eva looked into the tunnel. Its jagged walls seemed like they were cut into the building itself. Drops of a mysterious liquid fell onto the floor with an unnerving pitter-patter. The end of the tunnel remained a mystery as it curved into an unknown depth.

“Still not doing it,” Eva swallowed nervously.

“Fine, you can stay out here. I’m going,” Anna steeled herself as she turned on her flashlight.

“Me too-” Gwyneth said as she took a step forward.

Her voice skipped into a shriek of terror. Anna and Eva turned around to see Caroline holding Gwyneth up by her hair.

“Warden 06 was right, there were some rats in the theater after all,” Caroline leered.

Anna sprinted past Eva and tried to help Gwyneth only to get kicked in the stomach. She fell onto the floor and curled up into a ball as she clutched her burning stomach.

“Let me go!” Gwyneth shrieked and tried to kick herself free.

Caroline swiftly jabbed her in the abdomen before dropping her. Gwyneth gasped as air escaped her lungs.

“And you?” Caroline turned towards Eva, her eyes glowing an ethereal dark green.

Eva looked at Anna and Gwyneth whimpering on the floor. Her face hardened.

“They didn’t deserve that,” Eva grit her teeth as she raised her fists.

“Hmm,” Caroline stepped over the two and towards Eva with her hands behind her back. “But Miss Sophie did?”

“Don’t act like you know everything, you crap shoveling pig!” Eva yelled as she jabbed at Caroline.

Caroline caught her first and pulled her close before headbutting her. The strength of the blow forced Eva onto her knees.

“Oh, Eva,” Caroline said in a condescending tone and got closer to her. “We know everything,” She whispered.

Caroline pulled back her fist. Eva sluggishly looked upwards, unable to move. She closed her eyes as Caroline swung at her face.

"You’re not hurting her anymore," Anna's shaky voice said.

Eva opened her eyes to see Anna holding Caroline's shoulder back to stop her from punching her.

"How persistent," Caroline said in an unamused tone as she elbowed Anna in her side.

To her surprise Anna didn't budge.

"You have no idea," Anna grunted as she stomped on the back of Caroline's knee.

Caroline hollorred in pain as she crumbled onto her knees.

"Take Gwyneth into the tunnel!" Anna screamed, struggling to hold Caroline down.

Eva looked at Anna stunned at how much she was fighting back. She groggily stood onto her feet.

"Hurry up and go!" Anna yelled again.

Eva's face burned into a furious frown. She closed her fist and grit her teeth before punching Caroline’s face with the full force of her body.

"Don't tell me what to do!" Eva roared as her fist collided with Caroline.

Anna let go of Caroline with barely enough time to evade the blow. Caroline held her bloodied nose as she struggled to move.

"Come on, Goldilocks," Eva said as she leaned Gwyneth on her shoulder.

Anna quickly grabbed Gwyneth's other shoulder. The two limped into the tunnel as fast as they could. Waves of frigid air poured out of the cracks of the tunnel as it curved deeper and deeper into darkness. The ground under their feet morphed from concrete to something squishy and wet. A sense of dread creeped down Anna's neck as the air became thinner. Sophie's ringtone distorted and echoed into noise before suddenly extinguishing into a deafening silence.

"Eva, can you see anything?" Anna asked loudly, her voice reverberating in her ears.

"I can't see shi-" Eva yelled in reply before suddenly screaming out of panic.

Anna felt the ground underneath her crumble into nothing. Her screams echoed endlessly as she plunged into absolute darkness.

[dreamcatcherfication]

Welcome to the Murder House - Lights Up on Hampton High

Fuck it. I wasn’t going to post anything today, mush less this, but I thought I’d surprise you all. The only person who really knows about this is @theatergirl06 who read half of the first chapter way back during our ask war (it’s been over a month since then, I think!). I have the whole plot written out already, but I realized I would never finish this unless I started posting and pushed myself to work on it.

A little context! This is my high school/murder mystery AU that’s been in my google drive for a while now (no, it’s not based on WATT - not majorly, at least). PSA: I’m using American style high schools because I’m not British and I don’t want to mess something simple up. I’m cruel, and let’s just say there are going to be many, many plot twists. Also Parrlyn is in there. But enough rambling - it’s time I welcome you... Welcome to the Murder House, please enjoy your stay.

Writing Masterpost

If you want to send a request or a prompt, my inbox is always open! I publish a story at 8:00 AM PST everyday, so I’m always in need of new ideas. If you want to be tagged in my works, just let me know and I’ll be sure to tag you!

Prompts | More Prompts | The Trifecta of Prompts | Original Prompts

Trigger Warnings: Talk of death, the typical amount of swearing/insults you’d expect from high schoolers, brief slut shaming/sexual harassment, high school bullying, mentions of parental abuse

Anne Boleyn was the most popular girl in school, and it was obvious to anyone just why. She was the prettiest girl around with the most desirable figure. She had a sharp wit, ready to cut anyone who got too close for comfort, yet at the same time drew everyone in. Everyone at Hampton High bowed down at the feet of Anne Boleyn, worshipping her very existence. Any newcomer to the school would immediately be enlightened on her legendary rise to fame.

The only thing Anne Boleyn was more infamous for than her rise to power was her fierce protectiveness over her cousin, Katherine Howard. Katherine was only a sophomore but she had quickly climbed the ranks at Hampton due to Anne keeping her close at all times. It was rare to see the cousins separated outside of their classes. 

Kitty Howard was an innocent lamb compared to the predator that Anne was among the student body. Anne sheltered her from any boy wishing her harm and attacked anyone who even looked at Kitty wrong. Unaware to Anne, this backfired on Kit, keeping her from making any friends of her own other than the seniors Anne deemed acceptable to be around Kitty.

This included Anna von Cleves and Cathy Parr, two of Anne’s classmates whom she had the most faith in. Anna was vulgar and unafraid to fight someone bold enough to challenge her, a butch senior with a history of disciplnary trouble. Anne had known Anna since elementary school when their teachers thought it would be fun to pair the two together due to their names. On the other hand, Cathy was quiet and supportive, but also a talented writer with distinct opinions and uncontrollable stubbornness. She had transferred to Hampton in junior year and Anne had taken her under her wing, hurling her up the social standings. The four of them were the golden quartet of Hampton High and no one dared mess with them.

Not when they were together at least.

Henry Tudor was a popular, brutish jock with as many brain cells as inches on his dick. In his time at Hampton, he had dated six girls, including all of the four aforementioned girls. His first girlfriend, Catherine de Aragon, had dated him for the entirety of freshman year and half of sophomore year. It was in their second year when Catherine found out that Henry had been cheating on her with Anne Boleyn, some popular queen at school. Catherine tried to confront Anne but was instead humiliated and kicked down the social ladder. Anne was boosted to the most popular girl after getting together with Henry.

But karma always came back, and Anne found out her idiotic boyfriend was cheating on her as well. Jane Seymour, the sweet student council member had been seeing Henry before he broke up with Anne. She refused to back off Henry, leading to Henry breaking up with Anne so the two of them could be together. But Anne wouldn’t let herself be pushed out of the light like Catherine, so she fired back at Henry, stepping on him to secure her spot at the top of the social ladder.

After a pregnancy scare, Jane broke up with Henry, too frightened to stay with someone like him. So Henry moved on and tried online dating, meeting HotAC and taking a liking to her. Too bad that when he tried to hook up with her, he found out that she was one of Anne Boleyn’s friends. Too embarrassed to admit that he was scared of getting on Anne’s bad side again, Henry accused Anna von Cleves of being an ugly horse and turned half the student body against Anna and the others.

Thus began the ongoing feud between Henry Tudor and his jocks with Anne Boleyn and her Golden Quartet.

Henry’s final girlfriend was Cathy Parr, if only briefly. When she first got to Hampton, Henry latched onto her and essentially peer pressured her into dating him. Barely a month into the two of them being together, Anne pushed her way into the relationship and saved Cathy from an unsavory high school experience with Henry.

The bad blood between Anne and Catherine and Jane kept the three from interacting, but Anne was fiercely protective of all the other previous girlfriends of Henry Tudor. Senior year, finally the drama with Henry had cooled down and the school seemed to be at a standstill, waiting for the next bombshell to drop. No one dared to talk about Henry’s fifth girlfriend to Anne’s face for fear of what she would do at the mention of his actions...

Like any other day, Anne was sitting at the quartet’s lunch table while Anna was on top of the table itself. Anna had one hand leaning against the table as well as one foot up while the other dangled off the edge. “It said some pretty nasty stuff, are you sure you want to know?” Anna asked hesitantly, her eyes on Anne’s clenched fists.

“Yes, I want to know what they’re saying about my cousin,” Anne gritted out through her teeth.

Nervously scratching her nose, Anna relented. “It was on her locker, thank God she didn’t notice. There was some cheap photo from a porno with the words ‘Slutty Kitty’ written under it.”

“Those dickwads!” Anne slammed her hands against the table.

Rushing to calm Anne down, Anna assured her, “Hey, Cathy and I cleaned it off before Kit could see it.” It was a miracle she managed to calm Anne down, even if only by a little bit. The popular girl was known for having a temper, and it had been a long time goal of Anna’s to balance her out.

What neither of the girls noticed was Kitty herself approaching the table, her backpack pulled tight around her body. She had overheard the conversation, but put on a perky attitude to make it seem like she was oblivious. Anne didn’t like when Kitty was sad, so she tried to avoid being sad around Anne. No need to worry her cousin about something stupid like high school bullying. “Hi Anna, Hi Annie!”

The two girls turned to face Kit and smiled. “Hey Kit,” Anna said, sliding off the table to sit on the bench across from Anne.

“How’s my favorite cousin?” Anne asked, scooting to the side so there was room for Kitty.

Shrugging, Kitty put her backpack on the floor. “I’m fine. Science was boring, as usual. But in history we started talking about the French Revolution, and I told my partner about the time you built a guillotine -”

Gasping in playful shock, Anne covered her cousin’s mouth. “I thought I told you never to talk about that incident!” Anna leaned forward dramatically, even though she had already heard the story multiple times.

“You tried to chop my head off for treason!”

“It was out of love -”

“How do you chop someone’s head off out of love?”

Before the conversation could escalate, Cathy entered the cafeteria and made her way over to the table, catching the trio’s attention. “Hey Cathyyyy,” Anne said, batting her eyelashes at the other girl.

Ignoring Anne, Cathy sat down on the other side of the table with Anna. “Are you still working on that article for the newspaper?” Anna asked before taking a bite of her rice and chicken (yes, she was the stereotypical black girl. She knew and was proud of it).

Nodding in confirmation, Cathy sighed and banged her head on the table. A moment later she lifted her head again and gave the others a tired smile. “Yeah, and it’s kicking my ass. I was just interviewing Jane Seymour and Catherine de Aragon about -”

“Woah woah woah, you were talking to Jane Seymour and Catherine de Aragon?” Anne gaped at Cathy.

“Well yeah, it’s for -”

“Why would you talk to them?” Anne exploded. “They’re massive bitches and you know our history. They’re the reason behind all the rumors at school and you entertained their bullshit?”

Giving Anne an incredulous glare, Cathy shot back, “Okay first, I was only talking to them because they’re both in charge of the student community service branch of council and I needed their interviews for the paper. And two, even if I did want to talk to them, who are you to tell me who I can and can’t be friends with? You’re popular Anne, but you’re not our dictator.” All the girls were open mouthed at Cathy’s tirade, but the girl in question only sighed and ran a hand through her hair. “I’m sorry Anne, but let me make my own decisions.”

Swallowing thickly, Anne nodded. “Right, I’m sorry Cathy. Just… the three of us don’t have a good history.”

Laughing lightly, Cathy made eye contact with Anne. “Yeah, I know.”

“More like the whole school knows,” Anna mumbled, giving Anne a fake smile when her head shot to the side to glare at her friend. But when Kitty giggled, Anne let Anna off the hook and laughed with her cousin.

“Hey Anna, you’re still good to walk Kit home, right?”

Shooting Kitty a cheeky grin, Anna confirmed with Anne. “Yeah, I’ll make sure no wild kidnappers jump out to catch her while you’re not there.” They all joked about it, but everyone knew how protective Anne was over her cousin. 

“And Cathy, you and I are still -”

“Still going to infiltrate the cafeteria in order to prove there is malpractice going on, yes.”

Rolling her eyes, Anne complained, “Come on, you make it sound so boring. We’re going to break into the school and cause chaos in the cafeteria.”

“That sounds like fun!” Kit agreed, bumping shoulders with Anne.

Resting her chin on her hand, Cathy exhaled loudly. “It is not fun, it’s important. If we can prove the food isn’t up to health standards, then we can finally take some steps towards proper changes around here,” the writer explained.

“Wait, does that mean they’ll get rid of the pizza?” Anna asked.

“NOT THE PIZZA!” Anne cried, far louder than she should have. Kitty shushed her when some of the nearby tables looked over. Protectively, Anne hunched over the last slice of pizza still on her plate. It was far from healthy but Anne was addicted to the grease.

The only ones at the table who didn’t have lunch were Cathy and Kit. Cathy tended to sleep or work during lunch, so she trained her body to run only on two meals and a plethora of snacks throughout the day. And although Kit wouldn’t admit it, her father never gave her any lunch money or provided her with lunch foods. If she asked, he would give her lunch but then refuse to serve her dinner, so Kitty learned to stop asking. “Look Anne, if you want to break into the cafeteria with me, you’re going to have to forfeit your pizza rights.”

In an almost comical moment, Anne actually contemplated whether to choose pizza or breaking and entering, but eventually she gave in. “Alright, I’m sorry pizza, my second love!” And then Anne devoured the slice.

The other three girls rolled their eyes. Whenever Anne made a comment about “my second love” it was almost always followed up with something like - “As much as I love you pizza, you never stood a chance against Cathy Parr, the apple of my eye.”

For as long as the quartet had been friends, Anne had been flirting with Cathy. None of them questioned it anymore, and even Cathy had become accustomed to the constant shows of affection. Both girls were obviously attracted to each other, but Cathy made it very clear she didn’t want to date anybody anytime soon. So instead, Anne kept serenading her with proclamations of love.

Later that day, Anna and Kit were talking home together, comfortably chatting with each other. “She built the guillotine to threaten Mary, but Mary scares Anne way too much - even though she’ll never admit it - for her to actually attempt it.” Anna nodded along to the story, even though this was probably the fourth time Kit was telling it. “So when I told Anne that the guillotine idea was stupid - which it was! - she accused me of treason.”

“How dare she,” Anna spoke in mock horror, playing along with Kitty.

“Right! Ugh,” Kit groaned, “so of course George was on board with it because he’s always on board with Anne’s shi-” 

Anna shushed Kit aggressively before she could curse. “I may not be your cousin but I don’t want my head chopped off if she gets wind I let you curse.”

Kit frowned but then continued her story. “So they got the guillotine which looked so scary, because I was only ten, and carried me to it execution style. George held me down and everything while Anne tied a blindfold around my eyes. By now I’m freaking out because no one’s stopping them - I didn’t actually think they were gonna kill me,” Kit scoffed in the self assured voice of someone who was most definitely lying. “And whoosh! The blade comes down and I don’t scream, and the two of them are laughing at me!” Kit pouted and stomped her foot in frustration. “The blade was fake, it was only styrofoam.”

Lightly punching Kit’s shoulder, Anna commented, “Must’ve been traumatising.”

“It was embarrassing,” Kit groaned.

“Well it’s your fault for hanging out with them.”

Perking up at those words, Kit ran ahead and spun around so she was walking backwards and facing Anna. “On the topic of hanging out with people…”

Quirking up an eyebrow, Anna invited, “Yes?”

“Do you think Anne would be mad if I hung out with other people?”

Furrowing her eyebrows, Anna shrugged. “I don’t know, Anne’s pretty unpredictable. But it’s like Cathy says, she can’t control who you hang out with.”

“So…” Kit waited for confirmation. “Does that mean it’s okay to be friends with other people?”

“Of course Kit, you can be friends with whoever you want,” Anna told the sophomore. The two of them had known each other practically their whole lives, Anna remembering Kit from when she was a toddler. It gave her a lot of teasing material, but usually she left that to Anne. If Kit wanted to branch out and meet new people, Anna would support her without hesitation.

Unbeknownst to Anna, Kit already had an idea of who she wanted to befriend. In her mind, it made perfect sense. Together, the six of them all shared the misfortune of dating Henry, so why shouldn’t they be friends? Or at least acquaintances. She had never told Anne, but Kit found her rivalry with Jane and Catherine stupid. They had so much they could relate to, why let past bad blood govern their relationships?

Anna waved Kit goodbye when they reached her door. “I’ll see you tomorrow Kit,” Anne called, watching to make sure Kitty got inside safely.

“Bye Anna!” she replied, unlocking the door and moving inside. Once the door was closed, Kit let her backpack slide off her back as a smirk grew on her face. She couldn’t wait for tomorrow.

Anne kept turning around in her seat to watch the cafeteria doors, completely ignoring her lunch. Whatever Cathy and Anna were talking about faded into white noise as she peered through waves of students passing through the doors. She couldn’t focus on anything, frantically searching for any sign of her cousin. “You alright Anne?” Anna asked, breaking her conversation with Cathy.

Removing her gaze from the crowds, Anne faced her confused friends. “Have either of you seen Kitty today?”

“I saw her during passing period,” Cathy commented, twirling a pen in her hand.

“Right,” Anne mumbled, shooting another glance at the door. “She’s late for lunch.”

“Maybe a teacher’s holding her up,” Anna offered, 

Still, Anne was unconvinced. “You think something’s wrong?”

“No,” Cathy waved her hand. “Kit can take care of herself, Anne.”

“But what if -”

“But what if nothing,” Cathy cut her off. “She’s not eating lunch with us for one day. It’s not a big deal. You’ll see her after school Anne, and everything will be fine.”

Sighing, Anne shook her head, glancing at the empty seat next to her. “Everything will be fine,” she told herself.

As for Kit, she was on a mission. Jane Seymour and Catherine de Aragon tended to stay away from others, not interacting all that much with the student body. They were both reserved, so Kit didn’t expect to be able to confront them easily. It was pure dumb luck she ended up where she did.

While leaving her classroom for lunch, Kit had been swarmed by a bunch of juniors who knocked her over without apologizing. All her books went sprawling across the floor, stepped on by her inconsiderate peers. Scrambling around, Kit tried to pick up her papers before they could be ripped or further damaged.

A hand came into view, holding her history textbook. Looking up, Kit was stunned into silence at the kind face of Jane Seymour. “You dropped this,” she prompted, holding out the book.

Hesitantly taking it, Kit murmured, “Thank you.”

Her eyes sweeping across the floor, Jane offered an apologetic glance at the mess of papers. “Do you need some help with this?”

“Uh,” Kit blanked. “That would be great!” she accepted a little too enthusiastically. Jane only chuckled and bent down to help grab the papers.

It occurred to Kit for a moment that Jane might not know who she is. But when Jane handed her the last of the papers and said, “There you go Katherine,” that thought went flying out the window. Biting her lip, Kit awkwardly shifted on her feet. She could leave right now and go have lunch with her friends or… Jane seemed to catch on to what Kit was waiting for. “Would you like to eat lunch with me?” she asked.

Without a second of hesitation, Kit nodded her head. “Yes, I’d like that.”

“Well okay then,” Jane grinned, leading Kit away from the cafeteria. “Catherine and I - Catherine de Aragon,” she clarified as if Kit didn’t already know, “we sit outside. It’s peaceful and not many people come to bother us.”

“Sounds nice,” Kit replied, her voice still soft. Jane noticed but decided not to comment on it. She wasn’t one to judge people.

When the two of them made it out of the building, Jane was flagged over by Catherine de Aragon who was sitting on a blanket under a tree. It seemed like she had set up for a picnic, even though they were still on school grounds in the middle of a school day. “You brought a guest today?” Catherine raised her eyebrows at Jane, her lips tugging upwards.

“Sure did,” Jane replied, plopping down next to her. “You can sit down wherever you like Katherine.”

Awkwardly shuffling to the opposite side of the blanket, Kit sat down and hugged her backpack to her chest. She didn’t have any lunch, as per usual, so she used her backpack as a barrier between her and the other two girls. Suddenly, she cursed herself for wanting to make new friends. Where had this social anxiety been before she got here?

Catherine and Jane seemed to notice her awkwardness (who wouldn’t?), so they attempted to get rid of it. “So Katherine…” the other Catherine started. “Why’d you want to have lunch with us today?”

Mumbling lightly, Kit felt a small blush of embarrassment rise to her cheeks. “What?” Jane prodded, unable to hear Kit’s answer. 

“I wanted to make new friends,” she told them, burying her head in her arms.

The two seniors shared a glance before turning their attention back to Kit. “Of course you can be our friend,” Jane assured her.

“Really?” Kit peeked her head up.

“Sure, why not,” Catherine answered. “You seem nice enough, and there’s no reason for us not to be friends.”

Frowning, Kit picked at her fingernails. “But Anne.”

Visibly, Jane flinched and Catherine’s face morphed into a snarl. “You’re not her,” Jane spoke calmly, putting a hand on Catherine’s arm. “If you want to be our friend, we’re not going to let that come between us.”

For a moment, Kit almost ran away. This is what she wanted, but now that it was being presented to her, she was terrified. She had never had friends that weren’t also Annie’s. She didn’t know how to start her new friendships other than with, “Okay.”

Catherine and Jane shared a glance. “Okay.”

“Well this is going to be awfully confusing for me,” Jane laughed, “Two C/Katherines!”

“Oh!” Kit perked up, “You can call me Kat. Or Kit. Or Kitty. Any of them work.” Then to herself, “Wow, I have a lot of nicknames.”

Chuckling, Catherine stuck out her hand. “Kat’ll do. Well Kat Howard, I’m your new friend Catherine.”

“And I’m your new friend Jane. Pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

At the end of the day, Kit almost screamed in surprise when Anne practically rugby tackled her to the ground. “Where were you!” Anne demanded, hugging Kit tightly. “I was so worried.”

“I’m fine Annie,” Kit assured her cousin. 

“Then where were you?” Anna stood beside Anne, watching the scene unfurl. Anne was huffing, her face red, a cross between relief, fear, and anger. The Boleyn girl cared so much about her cousin, but sometimes she became overbearing.

Hugging Anne back, Kit explained, “With my new friends.”

“You have new friends!” Anne brightened, pulled Kit closer. “That’s amazing! Do I know them?”

Letting out an awkward laugh, Kit prepared for the worst. “Jane Seymour and Catherine de Aragon,” she admitted.

Freezing, Anne slowly pulled away from Kit. “What?” she asked, her face as hard as stone.

“Jane Seymour and Catherine de -”

“I heard what you said!” Anne screeched. “You of all people, Kit!” Turning around and stomping a few feet away, Anne screamed into her hands. She spun back around to face Kit and marched up to her. “Those girls aren’t worthwhile friends. They don’t actually care about your wellbeing -”

“How do you know that!” Kit fired back in frustration. “You’re blinded by this stupid fued that’s been going on for years. They were nice to me and we didn’t even have to talk about Henry or any of that.”

Clenching her fists, Anne tried to stay calm. “I don’t trust them Kit. I don’t feel comfortable letting you hang around them.”

“Good thing it’s not your choice then,” Kit stood up for herself. Anna continued watching to the side, frantically texting Cathy for backup. She wasn’t getting any response.

Yelling through her teeth, Anne pulled at her hair. “Kitty, my dearest cousin,” she spoke in a sweet voice. “You know I love you.”

“Don’t you dare and try and guilt me.”

There was a moment where Anne almost continued, but her conscience kicked in. She knew Kit’s history with guilt tripping, and that was a line she would never cross. Before either of them could make another comment, Cathy came bursting out the school doors, sprinting towards them faster than she had ever run in her life. Anna looked up from her phone which she had been repeatedly texting Cathy on. “Cathy? What’s wrong?” Anna called.

Gasping for air as she slid to a stop in front of them, Cathy’s face was ghostly white. “Christina Denmark is missing. The police think she’s been murdered.”

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

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[lovehaswonangelnumbers]

New Post has been published on https://lovehaswonangelnumbers.org/mars-enters-aries-a-rush-of-hot-passion-fiery-ambition-the-warrior-rises-once-again/

Mars Enters Aries- A Rush of HOT Passion, Fiery Ambition, The Warrior Rises Once Again

Mars Enters Aries- A Rush of HOT Passion, Fiery Ambition, The Warrior Rises Once Again

By Astromomma

On June 27th, Mars, the planet of: aggression, passion and purpose, enters his home sign of Aries. Whenever a planet enters the sign its rules, it becomes: very powerful, directed and fruitful. Since we have had no fire within the planets, since the Sun was in Aries, this will feel like a huge wave of increased vitality and energy. Aries, the 1st zodiac sign, is all about: initiative, action, innocence and innovation.

Mars in Aries is here to bring back spunk and action to our lives, with an ushering in of fiery ambition. Mars, for the last 6 weeks,has been in the sign of Pisces and struggled to show his strength and prowess in the murky waters of the fish. Now, as he enters his home sign of Aries, he is ready to rock and roll and light sh@t up, lol! He will have an extended stay in Aries until January 2021, as he will be going retrograde from September- November 2020.

While Mars is home in his home sign, this is a great time to be energized to risk it all and to feel empowered to go after your goals and ambitions. The flip side of Mars in Aries will be: aggression, irritation and fighting. He also represents our sex drive. This could get a real boost during this transit! It is all how you transmute his energies. Many great accomplishments that take courage and will power will be honed in during his transit, but this can also raise our tempers and hot headed tendencies. Anyone with Aries, as their: Sun, Moon or Ascendant, will be most affected by this transit. We will all though, have our libidos raised to maximum capacity and will have to be responsible for these increased energy levels.

As Mars transits through Aries, he will make tense aspects to: Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto, all in Capricorn. Saturn, is the planet of: obligation and restriction, Jupiter, is the planet of: expansion, wisdom and finally, Pluto, is the planet of: death/rebirth and regeneration. Capricorn, the 10th zodiac sign, deals with: authority, government, big business and control. Mars in Aries square to Saturn, Jupiter and Pluto in Capricorn, could produce epic fighting and conflicts among, the people vs. the established orders that prevail. Aries is about freedom and liberation and Capricorn is about order and control. You can see the big clash of energies. As much as I don’t want to predict war, this aspect sure signals the potential for it. This will be especially true around election time in US here in early November. This year of 2020 is giving us many tests and these aspects certainly will play a pivotal role within these lessons and trials.

Mars in Aries is here to bring back the passion and drive that might have thought disappeared for quite some time. As the warrior planet dives home to fight for his right to party, our internal flames will be ignited. Remembering to keep a sense of grounded calmness and peace, might be more difficult during this transit. The best way to utilize the warrior planet in his home sign, is to use the extra boost of passion and purpose into a: hobby, project or life style transformation. Mars, within his home dwelling, is here to: ignite you into action with loads of energy, bring back the courage and will power to achieve and light a fire under you ass to get going and to make it happen. If you have Aries as your: Sun, Moon or Ascendant, as well on your: IC, DC, MC, then this transit will be most potent and noticeable for you. Mars will remain in the sign of Aries, until January 6, 2021.

For this HOT transit of Mars in Aries, I am doing an extended sign horoscope on my Astromomma Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/astromomma

These horoscopes, which are channeled from spirit, give you: practical, tangible and enlightening advice on how best to navigate this transit according to your individual sign.

Patreon is a huge supporter of mine, and is a subscription based model of a $4 or $6 USD monthly contribution, that gives you access to all my special extended horoscopes and articles. In addition, you receive discounts on my astrology and tarot readings. Your support is always appreciated but even more so now with all that is going on. Thank you for your trust and love, be well my loves!I

© Astromomma, 2020

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[twentiethcenturymoviesandtv]

‘Watching A Movie Wrong?’: Subjectivity vs. Objectivity

Tell me if this sounds familiar.

You pick out a movie to watch one evening, something that you’re kind of excited about.  Maybe it’s a new movie that’s been getting great reviews.  Maybe it’s something all of your friends recommend.  Maybe it’s an old classic, something like Citizen Kane, Sunset Boulevard, or Gone with the Wind.  Either way, you sit down, perhaps with arms full of snacks, and high expectations, starting the film and leaning back, anticipating an enjoyable and enlightening evening, anxious to see what the fuss is about.

You sit through the film, trying to pay attention, or pick out some engaging scenes to talk about with your friends, but you’re finding it hard to find anything you like.  You can’t relate to the characters, and you can’t seem to get invested in the story. Halfway through the movie, you’re thinking to yourself: It has to get better, right?  This is supposed to be a great movie!

The film ends, and you sit on your couch, confused and disappointed. You don’t get it.  What made this movie so great?

You think to yourself: What happened here?  Did I watch this movie wrong?

Whether this scenario has happened to you or not, there are many cases in all of our lives where we’ve found ourselves at odds with the critics, be it in film or any other category.  That’s why today, we’re going to be taking a look at the good old fashioned debate that usually resurfaces every Oscar season: Subjectivity vs. Objectivity.

Or, in other words: Personal Opinion vs. Critical Consensus.

Let’s be honest, it’s close to impossible to get away from the word of others when it comes to entertainment.

When you pick up a DVD case, it’s plastered with words of praise from critics.  If you look a film up, you access IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, or Google’s ratings and rankings.  Your friends rave about an old classic that you missed or a new release that you haven’t seen yet.  Oftentimes, when we get a look at what others say, we can end up feeling a little like we’ve done something wrong when our opinions don’t match up, leading us to come to one of two conclusions:

Conclusion 1: The critics are right and I’m doing this wrong.

Or

Conclusion 2: I’m right, and the critics (and everyone else) are doing this wrong.

So, which is it?  Is it one or the other, or does it depend on the movie?

Well, the answer is a little more complicated than that.

To start, we’re going to discuss what exactly ‘watching a movie wrong’ is, first by discussing what it is not.

Watching a movie wrong is not enjoying something that critics disliked.  It’s also not disliking a movie that critics adored.  Watching a movie wrong, in fact, has nothing to do with your final opinion on a movie, and everything to do with intent.

See, when you watch a movie and end it finding it lacking, or surprised that your opinion didn’t match up with others, implies something about your personal movie-watching experience: you paid attention and thought about what you watched.  You looked back on the film.  You noticed things about it.  As long as you’re thinking about what you’re watching, you can’t ‘watch a movie wrong’.

On the other hand, if you sat down with total complacency and watched a film with the notion that it is nothing but mindless entertainment, that’s what watching a movie incorrectly looks like.  No thought, no effort, simply turning a movie on to entertain you for a few hours, and ending with absolutely no effect, or even worse developing opinions with no reasoning whatsoever, simply proclaiming: “I don’t like this because reasons.”  As I’ve mentioned in my introduction post, films are meant to make people think and feel.  By going in with the wrong intent, you’ve missed the point of the film, and indeed, storytelling in general.

‘Okay’, you might say.  ‘That tells me I’m not watching movies wrong.  But it also doesn’t explain to me why I don’t agree with critics or other people.  Isn’t a good movie a good movie, no matter what? If it’s a matter of opinion, why do we even bother ranking movies good or bad?’

These are good questions, and they both revolve around the balance of the two things I have listed earlier: Subjectivity, and objectivity.

The definition of the word objective is ‘not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in considering and representing facts.’  In a way, watching a film objectively would seem like the best way to watch a film.  By analyzing what should be a solid plot, what should be what good cinematography, structure and characters, this would be the most obvious choice for good movie watching, right?

On the other hand, to be subjective is to be ‘based on or influenced by personal feelings, tastes, or opinions’.  To watch a film subjectively is to throw objectivity to the wind, to watch a film and enjoy it for very simple reasons: your own tastes.  Liking a film because you think it’s fun, or engaging, or interesting.  Perhaps this is what it is to be an audience, to decide what you like and to pay little attention to the word of the critics, list makers, or friends.

Which one is right?

The answer is simple: A little of both.

All film-watching is subjective, whether we realize it or not. There is no way you can scientifically prove that a movie is great, you can only use evidence from the film to support your argument as to why it’s a solid film because great movies (like any kind of creative venture) cannot be ranked as easily as the internet often leads us to believe.  This is why this blog refuses to rank films by number or percentage: for one, it’s too hard, and for another, there’s no point.  I can give the most solid argument ever heard for why Rocky might be the best movie ever made, but there will always be someone who disagrees.  To some degree, all film-watching comes down to subjectivity.

By the same token, objectivity has a lot to do with the process as well.

Being objective in your film watching is retaining the ability to recognize things that are made well.  Subjectivity is all well and good, but there is definitely a difference between a good movie and a bad one.  Nobody is trying to claim that Batman and Robin was high art, or deserved an Oscar.  Even the most subjective of legitimate movie-watchers can recognize a bad film.  We know what a sketchy or thoughtless plot looks like when we see one, we can recognize good cinematography, excellent performances, and good special effects, thanks to objective thinking.  Rocky is well acted, with good production design and solid story.  Most people will agree with me, but not everyone will say it’s the best movie ever made.  See what I mean?

‘Wait a minute,’ you may say.  ‘I recognize that Gone with the Wind is a good movie.  It has all of the elements to be a good movie, I just don’t like it.’

Congratulations, my friend.  You have found Enlightenment.

In all seriousness, if that’s your dilemma, you’re on the right track.

There’s no rule in movie-watching that says you must agree with the critics.  You can disagree all you want, and that doesn’t make you a bad film-watcher, it just means you have different opinions, and that’s totally fine!  Being able to know what a good movie looks like and yet admit that you don’t like it is the perfect meld between the two ‘philosophies’.  Alternatively, it’s entirely possible to love a movie that the critics panned, recognizing that it’s not ‘great’.  Films are there for fun, and as long as they’re not hurting anyone, your opinion is what determines what you watch.

Take it from someone who can’t sit through Citizen Kane without going to sleep but who adores Big Trouble in Little China.  The critics aren’t wrong and neither are you.  You just have different tastes.

In my opinion, the best way to watch a movie and truly enjoy it is to do what I said earlier: take a little of both.  Watch a movie and recognize its faults.  Watch critically, but not overly so, and appreciate a good movie for the features that make it so.  But you’re under no obligation to love The Godfather.  If you liked Independence Day better than Braveheart, it just means you liked that movie better for your own reasons.  Movie-watching is personal, meant for your enjoyment, but as I’ve said before, it’s also meant to be good (usually) and meant to make you think.  It’s hitting that balance that we’re aiming for on this blog.

In the end, there is no Subjectivity vs. Objectivity.  They’re not at war with each other, they’re two sides of how to look at something.  Learning that helps us be better movie-watchers, and it also helps us have more fun at the theater.

Thank you so much for reading!  If you want, feel free to send me an ask with your thoughts, I’d like to hear from you!  I hope to see all of you in the next article.

[tearapline]

BTS ' blood sweat & Tears Japanese ver mv ' Colours meanings/Code  theory

No one can ignore the strong Colours shifting through BS&T jap ver MV! & of course it’s not Random (BH Do Everything For A Reason)!There are Already so many Great theories regarding symbolism, So Here I will just Write about colours as the title Sets.

I know it’s too late to write about this, But I didn’t find anyone Do a separated article So Why Not? (I’m a New ‘April019’ ARMY HeHe)

Sorry for the long Intro (•^•) …. LET’S START. READY? SET, GO: (its long, brainstorming & All; so Bring snacks)  

Colours that keep appearing on the mv are Blue, Red, Green, Purple & somehow Yellow. let me explain each one of them shortly & then Clarify How do they together interfere with the symbolism!! (let's assume there two personifications of each member adult persona immature one)

First: BLUE:

Blue represents the Wisdom & stability of being Mature.

Suga & jhope Aura (adulthood)

JHope dancing on a Blue background:

Young jimin looking around feeling unfamiliarity towards adulthood (blue room)

Second: RED:

Red refers to Juvenile joy & pure Passion of youth.

Here is young jimin 

-Young jin Gazing at ‘The crash of the fallen Angels’ painting & His sight is all red (being on pure realm realizing the existence of dark)

The painting actually depicts the rebellious angels dragging Down other angels to Hell.

Young jungkook aura 

Even V :

Jimin dancing on a RED background :

THIRED: PURPLE

Purple is the colour of mystery, symbolizing The unknown complex Feeling of Meeting the devil & Facing maturity Pain! The cruelty of realizing the existence of the Dark realm. Mixing Red (childhood) + Blue (adulthood) → Purple (Between them: Youth)

-J-Hope’s Legend ’ Wings comeback trailer: BOY MEETS EVIL ’ aura portrays it perfectly. Clearly the whole MV is on Purple background:

Jungkook awakes finding purple Blood mark (maturity pain) showing wings (maybe his wings are protruding?)

Jimin eating an Apple (apple symbolizes temptation sin forbidden apple of garden eden)

The scene of Jin suffering  

V dazing, as if he is Drunk?

GREEN:

One of Green colour meanings is ’ Rebirth’. Reminding me of ‘DEMIAN’s Breaking the Egg concept (Demain: a novel by Hermann Hesse the inspiration of Wings album entirely I’m sure you know about this) Green is to Shake Hands with the Devil, to Sin! This colour meaning is the most obvious on the MV & Even clearer on the Original ver (Korean one):

Jimin Here is literally mixing the apple with the juice then it turns into green 

Let’s talk about the most interesting scene (ladies & gentlemen Fasten your Belts!!)

Okay ehm ehm we have a residence on blue light & RM siting so manly on the left side (adulthood) (the residence represents stability)

A Hotel on Red light  & jungkook siting so politely on the Right side (youth) (the motel represents uneasiness of the young)

In the Frame we got a green light as RM is about to offer a liquor to jk (SIN, ruining purity).

(As you see the scene proves my whole theory.)

What happens after jk is forced to drink the liquor?

His surroundings become BLUE & he Looks dazed cause The maturity is hitting him so hard.

Then a yellow light!

(I will explain it further Below)

YELLOW:

yellow = Enlightenment !! the exact moment of noticing the wickedness.

the painting jin looking at is on yellow (the actual painting is colourful) (enlightenment) even the Binocular is Golden LOL

getting back to the very start: jk waking up looking surprised inside a ’ mainly ’ yellow room, even the light above him is yellow!(enlightenment) other colours are green & purple (the pain of realizing the evil is reason he astonished)

On the wall Colours are painted in a way looks as they’re jk’s wings woow!!

-Jhope sits in front of ‘Pietà ’: (a subject in Christian art depicting the virgin Mary cradling the dead body of Jesus) pointing an arrow (if we consider it as pointing to his left symbolizes warding off evil if right protection. both meanings interfere with being on motherhood realm) the lights are purple + yellow

Keep reading if you Don’t wanna miss the real joy! (bring a cup of coffee it’s deepening)

Further Explanation:

Young jimin (Red lighted) looks at His maturing-self in the way reaching Adulthood (the one inside Blue room) & suga quickly covers his eyes as he looks Hesitant to eat the apple (to accept his fate going through maturity). (What if jimin is just a visitor on Suga own world (as suga is his mentor, showing him the way toendure maturity)?  I mean in the mv beginning there is a piano (suga first love) who knows!! (yall lets appreciate how the walls looks like piano inside)

jk entering a restroom in a red light to spit out the Green liquor (going back to his pure young side refusing maturity) suga is trying to stop Him (encouraging jk to handle maturity soreness move on) feels like the same thing suga did with jimin when he closed jimins eyes preventing him from yearning & longing to his pure young-self. but jk pushed him away!!

lights changed to purple jk fainted + black smoke spreads

jhope pulling an arrow (pulling an arrow back symbolizes conflict tension life struggle facing maturity releasing it from the bow represents positive transition in one moving forward mature)colours meanings of Yellow & purple interfere.

Is jhope pulling the arrow towards V? Does He want to Help V breaking His world? (OH! Does it sounds strange? Then let me quote the most famous line of the novel DEMIAN: ‘the bird fight its way out of the egg. the egg is the world. who would be born should first destroy a world’ I’m Gonna use this concept a lot so please put it on mind.)

-V is Suffering inside a blue veil, trying to be out to the Red surroundings but couldn’t(v agonizes maturity pain desires his youth back)

What Do you see?

On a purple light Jimin & jungook holding V, V looks worried & scared, Jhopes hand aiming something Green towards him (not sure what is it, Green small arrow?) (the point is jhope about to ruin v pure youth)

If you gonna argue how on earth I know it’s jhope’s hand then:

Same shirt!! yeah .

As jhope ruins V purity the arrow is pulled, it hits white bringing in green & red (hitting purity: youth been ruined)

Jhope on a blue room wearing half Blue half red T-shirt (mature jhope is aware about adulthood youth) throwing pills into a yellow can while smiling (jhope is no longer suffering letting go of his past struggles he throws pain away) (jhope’s facial expressions says it All

Look at this again (oc I didn’t take this screenshot to convince u about jhope t-shirt sleeve only haha)

On this scene it Seems like all members are already matured (the way they sit) leaving the pain behind them as they watch jhope throwing the pills. jk with a blue lollipop (matured) (I couldn’t point out all but) suga’s piano, Rm mirrors, curtains (jin) all behind. Also there’re so many small palms all around the room (palms symbolize victory triumph peace as they overcome the struggle)

¬

RM’s room is Red & green: on green light there’re so many red items ‘roses, curtains’ even the walls painting is red-green scratches! but How?

(I know what’re you thinking now: like ‘why isn’t it purple you’re manipulating.’  Just keep reading)

first Look at the very left, the surrounding of the room is Red (the director could cut it to directly show the inside but bighit is leaving clues) or simply mirror’s reflection shows Red. So Rm is actually on his young realm which is starting to be ruined. this scene timing comes with jk being forced to drink (which are very interfering with youth being ruined concept). Red roses symbolize romance love + in front of Rm there’s the same cup of Green liquor he offers to jk (both ruins purity) the existence of the dressing partition & the mirror support the idea of RM being his young-self (changing cloths symbolizes personality changing the reflection refers to self-reflecting ego shows instability of youth)

Still not convinced? What if this whole scene is made to prove Yellow meaning? (green and red mixture makes yellow: pure youth being ruined so one be enlightened)

Rm looking at his reflection the light changes to yellow while the lyrics goes ‘the wings resemble the Devil’(rm acknowledges what looks devil to him is makes mature gives wings fly) (his facial expression be like I know it all now)

you see now? it’s a state of enlightenment not suffering this is why there’s no purple. What happens after that?

The mirror breaks into pieces & the Blue rays shine (as rm breaks his egg finding way out to maturity concept)

¬ Mixing specific shades of Green & Red doesn’t give yellow but Brown. on the mv Brown appears on some scenes giving the same meaning of yellow:

-Jin’s scarf before it gets purple lighted:

-The lamp 

The painting 

Curtains & the sofa 

& here, HERE!!

¬ what’s going on here?

Blue lighted V is scratching a Green wall walking up stairs (mature v is rebelling he wants to go back his young-self) (look at the thing he’s scratching by it is Red.)

The colours gradually change ‘Green, purple, then Red’ from down to up, as V is trying to return to his pure youth BUT!… 

V finds out there is no way back, he is already trapped as the whole sky is ruined green & his world is changing.

-          The fact that youth & adulthood are unseparated is expressed a lot through the mv specially at the ending:

What bangtan is telling us is that “it’s alright!” Maturing is hard, painful, storming & makes you feel not yourself but “it’s alright!” Sensing the existence of the evil, passing by it or even commiting it- doesn’t mean that’s who you are. You’re just maturing. Forgive yourself Learn & move on.

Jin young world falling apart:

The room jk awakes in breaks down (it Goes from yellow to green then into blue/ a galaxy of Red, blue, yellow & purple interfere)

Scares on Rm hands left after the mirror breaks, the room is no longer Red but green & yellow. (the paint that Revealed on the wall is “the Fall of Icarus” by Pieter Bruegel: Icarus fell from flying too close to the sun. Allegory of pride, youth & the dangers of going to extremes) see? very interfering.

Look here(Red through blue/ Green through blue):

Green & Blue crossing: 

Bonus:

The station RM works on (you can see the Red though everything is black & white):

Jin gives RM a Green lighter!!!

Trivia: I’m sorry if anything sounds wired or clingy I’m not native, I truly tried my best wording this theory but English isn’t my first language after all. Please support me.

[thaumaturtles]

Begin ANGELQUEST

The other day, I was doing some.......

...... studying.......

When I came across an advertisement. This isn’t at all an unusual experience; I’ve been on the internet for a decade and change and I’ve come to accept that ads are a part of the experience. This was an ad I’d seen many times before, too. I’m so accustomed to seeing it that my eyes often skip right over it. However, I’ve been reading a lot of articles about Enlightenment, lately, and I’ve been trying to put that into practice in my everyday life. I’ve been attempting, to varying degrees of success, to become more aware of myself and my environment, to probe onward into my mind’s own blind spots. In short, I’m trying to blitz my chakras. (Don’t worry, am Indian, can reclaim.)

And so, for perhaps the first time, I took a moment to truly see the ad in front of me. To stop and smell the dogshit hiding behind the roses. And, goodness, was it a sight to behold. Ladies, gentlemen, and all who fall betwixt, I present to you, THIS:

Take a moment, if necessary, to take it all in.

Have you collected yourself? Good. You’re holding up the rest of the class.

I don’t know how I’ve managed to let this pass without mental comment on more than one occasion. How did I look at this image, think “angel reading? yeah, sure, that’s a thing that exists” and then shuffle along? The only explanation I can muster is Divine intervention, which would ironically lend this product some legitimacy. I need to understand. What does Angel Reading mean? How could such a process be personalized, and, furthermore, how could it take place over the Internet? Who is this “Celeste”? What is she after? Why does she look vaguely disappointed in me? Can she see my soul? What is an “Angelic Medium”?????

Clearly, if I want answers, I’m going to have to dive in. I place my Crocodile Dundee hat on my head with no small measure of trepidation, though I must confess a moiety of excitement deep within. As I hike up my Adventurin’ Shorts and stuff a few hundred metres of rope into my backpack, I consider the long road ahead. And then, with my cosplay explorer’s outfit put on to my approval, I sit down at my computer. I’m really not sure why I felt the need to do all that when I’m just gonna be here at home.

I steel my will, and I click.

This loading screen appears, and I’d like to mention that the URL for this page is perhaps longer than any URL I’ve ever seen before in my 16 years.

Okay, let’s just take a moment to get our bearings here and-

HOLY MACKEREL, THERE’S A COUNTDOWN!

And only twenty-seven minutes left! Sakes alive, I clicked this link just in time! Imagine If I’d wasted more time farting around and dressing up like Indiana Jones!

Although, weirdly enough, whenever I refresh the page, the timer restarts, and it always restarts at 27 minutes and 50ish seconds, which is a random-enough number to seem legitimate.

Hmm. Odd.

I wonder if maybe the countdown isn’t actually real and is just there to pressure you into typing your info more quickly so you don’t notice how fishy this whole opera-

OH MY GOD ONLY 26 MINUTES!!!!!!!

OK, gotta think quickly here. Gosh, they’re asking some personal questions right off the bat, but I can’t let them know it’s me; they might recognize me from tumblr. If this sting operation’s gonna go forth I gotta lie my ass off. My name? Uh, uh.. My name is Dyl-Dy- Uhhhh, shit, okay, it’s Dylan-NO, Dylllllllll...... Delilah? Delilah. Like from the Bible. Yeah, that’s fitting, especially since I’m swindling these fools. Soon, Celeste, your hair will be mine.

They’re asking for my date of birth, which I’m hesitant to put because my 16th birthday party was kind of a big deal and Celeste might’ve heard about it, in which case she’ll know it’s me AND things will be super awkward cause I didn’t invite her to the party.

I put 4/13/1969 obviously

They’re also asking for my e-mail address, which I can’t give out because it has my full name, address, and social security number in it, so let’s just pull this ripcord real quick and parachute out of this nightmare zone, and over to a quick, free, secure e-mail client. That is, protonmail.com, which is not my usual e-mail server and will thus throw Celeste’s goons even farther off my trail

Wow, that was a surprisingly quick and painless process! I might just have to use protonmail in the future

So anyway here’s my info, sent in right under the wire, with a mere 24.3 minutes left! God that was close. Picture that classic scene in Indiana Jones where he slides under the door and then reaches back in to get his hat, only it’s an out-of-shape teen and also the door hasn’t even started closing yet.

I went with my actual country because, c’mon, there’re a lot of people in Jamaica. Statistically speaking, how likely is it they’d find me through that?

You know I didn’t. You know I fucking didn’t. Why are you asking.

Also, here’s a quick rundown of what Celeste is actually offering in case anyone was curious. It does somewhat tickle me that she claims she’ll “get to work immediately” as soon as anyone clicks the link and subscribes, as though the process isn’t completely automated. It evokes a clear image of Celeste, in full angelic garb, sitting at a computer screen and answering calls while also typing into three discrete keyboards simultaneously.

The idea that she could personally take the order of every individual who clicks this ad betrays either a complete lack of confidence in the desirability of her product, or an incredible amount of confidence in her own ability to multitask.

Who is “she”? Celeste? That doesn’t make much sense in the context here. Peter’s Guardian Angel? But earlier Celeste made it sound like all angels use he/him! Also, what does “bring her back” mean if it’s the angel? Can angels leave and later be found again? I feel like if you find your guardian angel once, that should be it forever, but apparently they can leave and you have to ensnare them again?????

Hooray! A link from an unknown source to an unknown destination! I sure can’t wait to click it all day long!

The things I do in the name of science, I swear to God Celeste.

It took a minute but here it is. Sidenote: I rather enjoy the irony of an inbox which consists of three e-mails about encryption and ways to curate a safe internet experience, and one which is an automated link from a bullshit ad for a product that doesn’t exist. There’s a subtle poetry to this image. I almost want to frame it, and then sell it for an exorbitant amount of money.

Here’s the e-mail, folx. If ever you needed proof that this was a scam, look no further.

Who on this good green earth would think beginning such a missive with, “Thank you for your trust,” would be a good way to garner MORE goodwill? When I go to my local grocer and I purchase a party-sized bag of Tostitos to eat by myself over the course of a day and a half because I’m in control of my body, goddammit, the bag doesn’t say, “Thank you for believing in us! We promise we won’t give you dysentery!

Like, what the fuck? “Thank you for your trust.” Your product should be able to stand on its own two feet and proudly proclaim, “I’m gonna give you a fucking angel reading or die trying!”

That initial line has honestly made me more scared than ever for this process. I’m confident I’m going to click that link and it’s going to auto-download a terabyte of obscure Norwegian pornography to my hard drive. I did just update my computer this morning, however, and all my data are backed up, so I feel somewhat more secure than I might otherwise.

Did I really just say “data are”? I know it’s grammatically correct and all, but it’s still jarring to hear. Messes with my mental flow. And wouldn’t the proper, descriptivist thing to do be to use “data is” to avoid confusion? Using “data are” feels clunky, is more difficult to say, and makes me look a bit snobbish. I’d delete it but that would require hitting the backspace button on my computer and I’m frankly quite lazy about that sort of thing. What was I talking about again? Oh, right. I have to click the link.

 Again with the “thank you for your trust” bullshit! Whatever, I’m going to let it pass. They’re clearly going for a friendly, approachable persona here, even if they’re doing it in the most threatening, ass-backwards way possible.

This next email took a seemingly endless eight minutes to arrive, during which time I meditated, raised a bonsai tree to adulthood, watched Marley & Me, grappled with intense feelings of loneliness, and worked on some of my homework.

Or maybe I just played games on my phone. You decide!

Okay, not quite what “hereby” means, but sure. It’s a common mistake, likely exacerbated by the presence of the word “here” within “hereby.” Sort of a “wherefore does not mean where” situation I suppose.

Anyway, I’m submitting to the mortifying ordeal of clicking the link yet again.

Christ get a load of this shit. How fitting that the Angelic stone for someone born on 4/13 would be Jade. My archangel is Megatron apparently??? His info claims he’s some sort of scribe. My major planet is Neptune, and my secondary planet is.... the sun? Is anyone going to tell Celeste what stars are or do I have to do everything myself around here? I do like that ram up in the top left though. I’m naming you Ram Elliot.

Now for the pièce de résistance. Meet Mahasiah. Mahasiah is not my guardian angel; Mahasiah is the guardian angel for anyone born between April 10th-14th. My guardian angel is Yerathel, apparently. A few things I learned while researching this: both Mahasia and Yerathel have “feminine energies” (???) and both have Fire as their associated classical element. Also, Yerathel rules over Intelligence, which is one thing I actually somewhat like about myself. This is actually kind of neat to learn about!

I mean come on. That’s pretty fuckin cool. His name means “He Who Punishes Evildoers” which is beyond epic, and his associated gem is Smoky Quartz, aka the only Steven Universe character.

You know, maybe this whole Angel Reading business isn’t a scam after all. Maybe it’s a perfectly safe process and I’ll be totally fine, what am I worrying about? At the very least, it couldn’t hurt to explore her site a bit more..... for research’s sake.

yeah baby tell me more

h-

certainly, miss celeste, anything for you

wait, aren’t I already in a relationshi-

JAZZERCISING JUNIPERS BATMAN THERE’S ONLY 28 MINUTES LEFT

holy shit! I want accurate readings!

Oh god oh no okay i’ll do whatever you want celeste please don’t leave me i need my tarots

THEY KNOW ABOUT ME ALREADY OMG

Well, okay, even in my currently addled state I can still see that “Duo-Telepathy” is complete bullshi-

OH WELL IF AMANDA GAVE THEM THREE WHOLE STARS I HAVE TO TRUST IT

Amazingly, my info was pre-filled in. Almost like this site is linked to Celeste’s in some way, or perhaps even run by the same group of scammeUPSTANDING CITIZENS IS WHAT I MEANT TO SAY

Ooh, another e-transmission from my good friend Celeste! Oh, how I’ve missed her! And apparently large and surprising discoveries have been made concerning me! She’s presenting me a Guide? I sure hope I’ll be able to open it, hassle-free, with no additional purchases/information required!

OHOHOHOHO

bro i’m shitting my drawers rn

I have no fucking clue what that means but you said FREE so i’m in!

oh my god there’s still so much left. just shut the fuck up and take my money you fools

AW TITS YEAH

....i think

Okay, I know the original thing said FREE and I should be “mad” or watever, but look at that bargain! that’s more than half off! It might as well be free! I’d be stupid NOT to buy it!

I’ve invented a lot of secondary information for Delilah. The phone number is merely (559) YOU-SUCK, as a subtle way of establishing the power dynamic at play here. I’m sure Celeste will appreciate it.

Hmmmmm.............. It would seem my method of “just input numbers randomly” won’t work here. Such a shame. Credit card fraud used to be so easy. I’ll have to put that on the backburner, though, because look what just appeared in my inbox!

You can see where this is going.

I’ll take my leave now, this post is getting long enough as is, but I do feel it’s important to note that doing a quick bit of research shows that Celeste & co. are famous for emotional manipulation, as well as getting people addicted to their products and forcing a sort of dependency upon them. It’s important to do your research, and remember basic internet safety tips like don’t click popups or check if a site is legit before downloading from them. It’s incredibly easy to get trapped down this sort of rabbit hole, where you wind up buying more and more of their products like you’re stockpiling for the Rapture. Not me, though, I’m obviously fine and can quit anytime I like. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go try a bunch of credit card numbers until one works.

[turtletotem]

Timelines and Time Travel

So I’ve spent a lot of time this morning trying to figure out the time travel stuff in Endgame after seeing it last night. I didn’t entirely follow Bruce and the Ancient One’s explanations at the time, so I’ve had to read some articles and turn it all over in my head. I think I get it now. Mostly.

Question #1 -- How exactly does the time travel work?

Not in terms of the physical mechanism, because we would never understand it and it doesn’t actually matter. But the logic of it. How are they able to run around changing things in the past with total abandon the way they did? Because changing the past doesn’t change the present, it creates a new timeline. The things that happened in the “MCU Prime” timeline have already happened and can’t be changed. So for a change to occur, that event has to form a new timeline in order to exist.

The Ancient One implies that it’s the removal of an Infinity Stone from the timeline that causes it to branch off, because the Infinity Stones are what form the boundaries of reality. So what if you go to the past but don’t remove an Infinity Stone? We don’t know, because that didn’t happen. Everywhere they went into the past, they removed a Stone, so while it’s a super interesting question, it’s one we don’t really have to worry about.

Question #2 -- Why did they have to put the Stones back where they came from?

Because according to The Ancient One, these new timelines are unbalanced without the existence of all six Stones. It’s implied they will collapse, killing everyone in them. These are real people that now exist just as fully and independently as MCU Prime. It would be horribly wrong to let them die, so the stones must be returned. (Which means those timelines do continue to exist!) In other words, these Stones don’t belong to MCU Prime; the MCU Prime stones have been destroyed, and that cannot be undone. MCU Prime can only borrow Stones from other timelines, not steal them, not without dooming trillions of innocent people.

Question #3 -- But wait, doesn’t that mean MCU Prime is now a timeline with no Infinity Stones? Won’t it collapse?

GOOD QUESTION. NEXT MOVIE PLOT? 

ETA: It could be that the stones being destroyed doesn’t have the same destabilizing effect as having them be taken from the timeline.

Question #4 -- So what alternate timelines have been created now?

If I’m not forgetting any:

New 2014 Timeline: Thanos is gone. All his army is gone, including Nebula (killed by the other Nebula) and Gamora, who is moved to our timeline. It’s hard to imagine the Guardians of the Galaxy exist as a unit in this timeline; Gamora is gone and Peter Quill never retrieved the Power Stone. In fact he was probably unconscious when Ronan and his men arrived, so unless he just escaped their notice, he’s probably dead. Ronan will run rampant with the Power Stone in this ‘verse. Who knows what will happen.

New 2012 Timeline: Loki escapes with the Tesseract after the Battle of New York. Cap fights himself, thinking it's a disguised Loki, and that Cap tells him Bucky is alive. There are are some very confused Hydra agents who at least briefly think Cap is one of them. Tony also has a coronary event in this timeline that may or may not affect him later.

New 1940s Timeline: This one is tricky, tricky, tricky. This is the one where Steve was supposed to return to the 1970s to put back a stone. It’s unclear whether he hooked up with Peggy in the 70s, or went back further to the 40s. (Fwiw, the song they’re dancing to at the end was released in 1945, and the events of Agent Carter would still take place in this timeline if he didn’t reappear until 1947). In the 70s he would have been 30 years younger than Peggy, so I’m going to guess he went back to the 40s, and had to just... be sure to remember to return the stone to the right place and time when the 70s came around.

The really funky part of this timeline is that it could be MCU Prime -- almost? close enough? -- because the bulk of Steve’s life would fit into the space between original!Steve going into the ice and him coming back out.* Captain America as we know him could still exist. But it could only be “our” timeline if Steve is careful to make no changes or interference—living under a different name (when he's married to Captain America's sweetheart and has Captain America's face), making no moves against Hydra, etc. I find it hard to believe that could happen, even if he initially intended it. Not Mr. “If I see a situation pointed south, I can't ignore it.” But this would mean that the Old Steve who appears at the end didn’t just wait for the timeline to catch up with him; he had to have chosen to finally use his Pym particles or whatever to pop back into the MCU Prime timeline, presumably after Peggy passed away. Will he stay here now, spend his last days with Bucky and Sam? I really hope so. (I have issues with him leaving Bucky as it is but that’s a different post.)

*if anyone’s even looking for him; if Steve lives publicly as his real self, why would there be a Search For Steve? They already have Steve! Would Steve let his other self remain frozen indefinitely in this timeline?

Technically there’s also a new Vormir timeline, in which Clint and Natasha retrieve the Soul Stone from Vormir (and Natasha dies there). But since they don’t affect anything else there, and the Soul Stone is assumedly returned, it’s pretty indistinguishable from MCU Prime. (Unless something big happens when Steve goes to return the stone and runs into Red Skull because HOO BOY, I WANTED TO SEE THAT SCENE.) Now that I think about it, this is actually part of the New 2014 timeline, isn’t it? Two teams went to 2014, one to Morag and one to Vormir. They time-traveled together, then split up to go to different physical locations.

I am open to All The Discussion here. I may be forgetting or misinterpreting stuff. There may be other explanations I haven’t thought of. Feel free to enlighten me.

[meeedeee]

Cancel Culture: The Internet Eating Itself RSS FEED OF POST WRITTEN BY FOZMEADOWS

As social media platforms enter their collective adolescence – Facebook is fifteen, YouTube fourteen, Twitter thirteen, tumblr twelve – I find myself thinking about how little we really understand their cultural implications, both ongoing and for the future. At this point, the idea that being online is completely optional in modern world ought to be absurd, and yet multiple friends, having spoken to their therapists about the impact of digital abuse on their mental health, were told straight up to just stop using the internet. Even if this was a viable option for some, the idea that we can neatly sidestep the problem of bad behaviour in any non-utilitarian sphere by telling those impacted to simply quit is baffling at best and a tacit form of victim-blaming at worst. The internet might be a liminal space, but object permanence still applies to what happens here: the trolls don’t vanish if we close our eyes, and if we vanquish one digital hydra-domain for Toxicity Crimes without caring to fathom the whys and hows of what went wrong, we merely ensure that three more will spring up in its place.

Is the internet a private space, a government space or a public space? Yes.

Is it corporate, communal or unaffiliated? Yes.

Is it truly global or bound by local legal jurisdictions? Yes.

Does the internet reflect our culture or create it? Yes.

Is what people say on the internet reflective of their true beliefs, or is it a constant shell-game of digital personas, marketing ploys, intrusive thoughts, growth-in-progress, personal speculation and fictional exploration? Yes.

The problem with the internet is that takes up all three areas on a Venn diagram depicting the overlap between speech and action, and while this has always been the case, we’re only now admitting that it’s a bug as well as a feature. Human interaction cannot be usefully monitored using an algorithm, but our current conception of What The Internet Is has been engineered specifically to shortcut existing forms of human oversight, the better to maximise both accessibility (good to neutral) and profits (neutral to bad). Uber and Lyft are cheaper, frequently more convenient alternatives to a traditional taxi service, for instance, but that’s because the apps themselves are functionally predicated on the removal of meaningful customer service and worker protections that were hard-won elsewhere. Sites like tumblr are free to use, but the lack of revenue generated by those users means that, past a certain point, profits can only hope to outstrip expenses by selling access to those users and/or their account data, which means in turn that paying to effectively monitor their content creation becomes vastly less important than monetising it.

Small wonder, then, that individual users of social media platforms have learned to place a high premium on their ability to curate what they see, how they see it, and who sees them in turn. When I first started blogging, the largely unwritten rule of the blogsphere was that, while particular webforums dedicated to specific topics could have rules about content and conduct, blogs and their comment pages should be kept Free. Monitoring comments was viewed as a sign of narrow-minded fearfulness: even if a participant was aggressive or abusive, the enlightened path was to let them speak, because anything else was Censorship. This position held out for a good long while, until the collective frustration of everyone who’d been graphically threatened with rape, torture and death, bombarded with slurs, exhausted by sealioning or simply fed up with nitpicking and bad faith arguments finally boiled over.

Particularly in progressive circles, the relief people felt at being told that actually, we were under no moral obligation to let assholes grandstand in the comments or repeatedly explain basic concepts to only theoretically invested strangers was overwhelming. Instead, you could simply delete them, or block them, or maybe even mock them, if the offence or initial point of ignorance seemed silly enough. But as with the previous system, this one-size-fits-all approach soon developed a downside. Thanks to the burnout so many of us felt after literal years of trying to treat patiently with trolls playing Devil’s Advocate, liberal internet culture shifted sharply towards immediate shows of anger, derision and flippancy to anyone who asked a 101 question, or who didn’t use the right language, or who did anything other than immediately agree with whatever position was explained to them, however simply.

I don’t exempt myself from this criticism, but knowing why I was so goddamn tired doesn’t change my conviction that, cumulatively, the end result did more harm than good. Without wanting to sidetrack into a lengthy dissertation on digital activism in the post-aughties decade, it seems evident in hindsight that the then-fledgling alliance between trolls, MRAs, PUAs, Redditors and 4channers to deliberately exhaust left-wing goodwill via sealioning and bad faith arguments was only the first part of a two-pronged attack. The second part, when the left had lost all patience with explaining its own beliefs and was snappily telling anyone who asked about feminism, racism or anything else to just fucking Google it, was to swoop in and persuade the rebuffed party that we were all irrational, screeching harridans who didn’t want to answer because we knew our answers were bad, and why not consider reading Roosh V instead?

The fallout of this period, I would argue, is still ongoing. In an ideal world, drawing a link between online culture wars about ownership of SFF and geekdom and the rise of far-right fascist, xenophobic extremism should be a bow so long that not even Odysseus himself could draw it. But this world, as we’ve all had frequent cause to notice, is far from ideal at the best of times – which these are not – and yet another featurebug of the internet is the fluid interpermeability of its various spaces. We talk, for instance – as I am talking here – about social media as a discreet concept, as though platforms like Twitter or Facebook are functionally separate from the other sites to which their users link; as though there is no relationship between or bleed-through from the viral Facebook post screencapped and shared on BuzzFeed, which is then linked and commented upon on Reddit, which thread is then linked to on Twitter, where an entirely new conversation emerges and subsequently spawns an article in The Huffington Post, which is shared again on Facebook and the replies to that shared on tumblr, and so on like some grizzly perpetual mention machine.

But I digress. The point here is that internet culture is best understood as a pattern of ripples, each new iteration a reaction to the previous one, spreading out until it dissipates and a new shape takes its place. Having learned that slamming the virtual door in everyone’s face was a bad idea, the online left tried establishing a better, calmer means of communication; the flipside was a sudden increase in tone-policing, conversations in which presentation was vaunted over substance and where, once again, particular groups were singled out as needing to conform to the comfort-levels of others. Overlapping with this was the move towards discussing things as being problematic, rather than using more fixed and strident language to decry particular faults – an attempt to acknowledge the inherent fallibility of human works while still allowing for criticism. A sensible goal, surely, but once again, attempting to apply the dictum universally proved a double-edged sword: if everything is problematic, then how to distinguish grave offences from trifling ones? How can anyone enjoy anything if we’re always expected to thumb the rosary of its failings first?

When everything is problematic and everyone has the right to say so, being online as any sort of creator or celebrity is like being nibbled to death by ducks. The well-meaning promise of various organisations, public figures or storytellers to take criticism on board – to listen to the fanbase and do right by their desires – was always going to stumble over the problem of differing tastes. No group is a hivemind: what one person considers bad representation or in poor taste, another might find enlightening, while yet a third party is more concerned with something else entirely. Even in cases with a clear majority opinion, it’s physically impossible to please everyone and a type of folly to try, but that has yet to stop the collective internet from demanding it be so. Out of this comes a new type of ironic frustration: having once rejoiced in being allowed to simply block trolls or timewasters, we now cast judgement on those who block us in turn, viewing them, as we once were viewed, as being fearful of criticism.

Are we creating echo chambers by curating what we see online, or are we acting in pragmatic acknowledgement of the fact that we neither have time to read everything nor an obligation to see all perspectives as equally valid? Yes.

Even if we did have the time and ability to wade through everything, is the signal-to-noise ratio of truth to lies on the internet beyond our individual ability to successfully measure, such that outsourcing some of our judgement to trusted sources is fundamentally necessary, or should we be expected to think critically about everything we encounter, even if it’s only intended as entertainment? Yes.

If something or someone online acts in a way that’s antithetical to our values, are we allowed to tune them out thereafter, knowing full well that there’s a nearly infinite supply of as-yet undisappointing content and content-creators waiting to take their place, or are we obliged to acknowledge that Doing A Bad doesn’t necessarily ruin a person forever? Yes.

And thus we come to cancel culture, the current – but by no means final – culmination of previous internet discourse waves. In this iteration, burnout at critical engagement dovetails with a new emphasis on collective content curation courtesies (try saying that six times fast), but ends up hamstrung once again by differences in taste. Or, to put it another way: someone fucks up and it’s the last straw for us personally, so we try to remove them from our timelines altogether – but unless our friends and mutuals, who we still want to engage with, are convinced to do likewise, then we haven’t really removed them at all, such that we’re now potentially willing to make failure to cancel on demand itself a cancellable offence.

Which brings us right back around to the problem of how the modern internet is fundamentally structured – which is to say, the way in which it’s overwhelmingly meant to rely on individual curation instead of collective moderation. Because the one thing each successive mode of social media discourse has in common with its predecessors is a central, and currently unanswerable question: what universal code of conduct exists that I, an individual on the internet, can adhere to – and expect others to adhere to – while we communicate across multiple different platforms?

In the real world, we understand about social behavioural norms: even if we don’t talk about them in those terms, we broadly recognise them when we see them. Of course, we also understand that those norms can vary from place to place and context to context, but as we can only ever be in one physical place at a time, it’s comparatively easy to adjust as appropriate.

But the internet, as stated, is a liminal space: it’s real and virtual, myriad and singular, private and public all at once. It confuses our sense of which rules might apply under which circumstances, jumbles the normal behavioural cues by obscuring the identity of our interlocutors, and even though we don’t acknowledge it nearly as often as we should, written communication – like spoken communication – is a skill that not everyone has, just as tone, whether spoken or written, isn’t always received (or executed, for that matter) in the way it was intended. And when it comes to politics, in which the internet and its doings now plays no small role, there’s the continual frustration that comes from observing, with more and more frequency, how many literal, real-world crimes and abuses go without punishment, and how that lack of consequences contributes in turn to the fostering of abuse and hostility towards vulnerable groups online.

This is what comes of occupying a transitional period in history: one in which laws are changed and proposed to reflect our changing awareness of the world, but where habit, custom, ignorance, bias and malice still routinely combine, both institutionally and more generally, to see those laws enacted only in part, or tokenistically, or not at all. To take one of the most egregious and well-publicised instances that ultimately presaged the #MeToo movement, the laughably meagre sentence handed down to Brock Turner, who was caught in the act of raping an unconscious woman, combined with the emphasis placed by both the judge and much of the media coverage on his swimming talents and family standing as a means of exonerating him, made it very clear that sexual violence against women is frequently held to be less important than the perceived ‘bright futures’ of its perpetrators.

Knowing this, then – knowing that the story was spread, discussed and argued about on social media, along with thousands of other, similar accounts; knowing that, even in this context, some people still freely spoke up in defence of rapists and issued misogynistic threats against their female interlocutors – is it any wonder that, in the absence of consistent legal justice in such cases, the internet tried, and is still trying, to fill the gap? Is it any wonder, when instances of racist police brutality are constantly filmed and posted online, only for the perpetrators to receive no discipline, that we lose patience for anyone who wants to debate the semantics of when, exactly, extrajudicial murder is “acceptable”?

We cannot control the brutality of the world from the safety of our keyboards, but when it exhausts or threatens us, we can at least click a button to mute its seeming adherents. We don’t always have the energy to decry the same person we’ve already argued against a thousand times before, but when a friend unthinkingly puts them back on our timeline for some new reason, we can tell them that person is cancelled and hope they take the hint not to do it again. Never mind that there is far too often no subtlety, no sense of scale or proportion to how the collective, viral internet reacts in each instance, until all outrage is rendered flat and the outside observer could be forgiven for worrying what’s gone wrong with us all, that using a homophobic trope in a TV show is thought to merit the same online response as an actual hate crime. So long as the war is waged with words alone, there’s only a finite number of outcomes that boycotting, blocking, blacklisting, cancelling, complaining and critiquing can achieve, and while some of those outcomes in particular are well worth fighting for, so many words are poured towards so many attempts that it’s easy to feel numbed to the process; or, conversely, easy to think that one response fits all contexts.

I’m tired of cancel culture, just as I was dully tired of everything that preceded it and will doubtless grow tired of everything that comes after it in turn, until our fundamental sense of what the internet is and how it should be managed finally changes. Like it or not, the internet both is and is of the world, and that is too much for any one person to sensibly try and curate at an individual level. Where nothing is moderated for us, everything must be moderated by us; and wherever people form communities, those communities will grow cultures, which will develop rules and customs that spill over into neighbouring communities, both digitally and offline, with mixed and ever-changing results. Cancel culture is particularly tricky in this regard, as the ease with which we block someone online can seldom be replicated offline, which makes it all the more intoxicating a power to wield when possible: we can’t do anything about the awful coworker who rants at us in the breakroom, but by God, we can block every person who reminds us of them on Twitter.

The thing about participating in internet discourse is, it’s like playing Civilisation in real-time, only it’s not a game and the world keeps progressing even when you log off. Things change so fast on the internet – memes, etiquette, slang, dominant opinions – and yet the changes spread so organically and so fast that we frequently adapt without keeping conscious track of when and why they shifted. Social media is like the Hotel California: we can check out any time we like, but we can never meaningfully leave – not when world leaders are still threatening nuclear war on Twitter, or when Facebook is using friendly memes to test facial recognition software, or when corporate accounts are creating multi-staffed humansonas to engage with artists on tumblr, or when YouTube algorithms are accidentally-on-purpose steering kids towards white nationalist propaganda because it makes them more money.

Of course we try and curate our time online into something finite, comprehensible, familiar, safe: the alternative is to embrace the near-infinite, incomprehensible, alien, dangerous gallimaufry of our fractured global mindscape. Of course we want to try and be critical, rational, moral in our convictions and choices; it’s just that we’re also tired and scared and everyone who wants to argue with us about anything can, even if they’re wrong and angry and also our relative, or else a complete stranger, and sometimes you just want to turn off your brain and enjoy a thing without thinking about it, or give yourself some respite, or exercise a tiny bit of autonomy in the only way you can.

It’s human nature to want to be the most amount of right for the least amount of effort, but unthinkingly taking our moral cues from internet culture the same way we’re accustomed to doing in offline contexts doesn’t work: digital culture shifts too fast and too asymmetrically to be relied on moment to moment as anything like a universal touchstone. Either you end up preaching to the choir, or you run a high risk of aggravation, not necessarily due to any fundamental ideological divide, but because your interlocutor is leaning on a different, false-universal jargon overlying alternate 101 and 201 concepts to the ones you’re using, and modern social media platforms – in what is perhaps the greatest irony of all – are uniquely poorly suited to coherent debate.

Purity wars in fandom, arguments about diversity in narrative and whether its proponents have crossed the line from criticism into bullying: these types of arguments are cyclical now, dying out and rekindling with each new wave of discourse. We might not yet be in a position to stop it, but I have some hope that being aware of it can mitigate the worst of the damage, if only because I’m loathe to watch yet another fandom steadily talk itself into hating its own core media for the sake of literal argument.

For all its flaws – and with all its potential – the internet is here to stay. Here’s hoping we figure out how to fix it before its ugliest aspects make us give up on ourselves.

          from shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows https://ift.tt/2V13Qu4 via IFTTT

[sgxena16]

Thoughts on OITNB S6

I gotta say those last 15 minutes were a roller coaster. Good and bad things happened so I had many conflicting feelings which I’m sure is what they wanted. Overall I enjoyed the season so here are some thoughts I have about the season 6. Spoilers ahead!

Gotta say this first: VAUSEMAN WEDDING. They’re married and I’m so happy about that. They love each other so much and I’m confident that they will make it.

Still confused as to why Fig hired guards with PTSD from war and from the riot. That just screams bad idea. I feel bad for McCollough but she needs to take responsibility for herself and take herself out of a situation that could trigger her which could result in her or someone else getting hurt. Her saying that she would’ve shot the women if she had a gun on her should’ve been the push she needed to take leave from the prison.

Speaking of guards, I’m glad Pennsatucky left Donuts. I could never have accepted her being with him and I don’t think the show did their storyline well at all. I get trying to be complex, but there’s nothing complex about a guard raping a prisoner and the prisoner not just forgiving the guard, but falling for him and running away with him.

Love Pennsatucky and Suzanne’s friendship. They should get a buddy cop movie

I hope Frieda learns how to have friends. 

The first episode was very enlightening since we got to see how Suzanne views the world. It was sweet, funny, and heartbreaking. 

Healy basically choosing to absolve himself of all the fucked up things he did in Litchfield is crappy and unsurprising 

I’m here for Alex calling Piper “babe”

Cindy testifying against Taystee was awful, but she is a victim of the justice system which made her turn against her friend. If she didn’t, she’d get more time. The AUSAs and FBI were basically extorting testimony

 Flaca didn’t really get much to do this season but her words of wisdom to Cindy in the last episode were wonderful

Loved seeing the gang (Piper, Alex, Nicky, Lorna) back together for the wedding. Nicky and Lorna have been with vauseman since the beginning. It’s only fitting that they’re there for the wedding.

I rewatched the last few eps of season 5 in preparation for this. In the last ep, Alex asked Red if the riot was worth it. I think this s6 answered that question. They were separated. They were sent to max. Some of them were given 10 more years and some got life. Blanca was thrown to ICE. MCC is thriving. The guards are still dicks. No justice was gotten for Poussey. In my opinion, the riot was not worth it.

At the end of last season, some of us were worried that Kubra saw the video of Alex and would try to kill her again. Apparently Kubra doesn’t watch the news, isn’t on social media, or notices when one of his people disappears. 

We’re all in agreement that Madison aka Badison is the worst, right?

It was nice of the show to let Alex/Piper and Nicky/Lorna be in the same block.

Piper really does need Alex. Alex was her rock all season. Always calm, collected, and reassuring. I don’t think Piper would’ve survived prison without her. It’d be nice to get the chance to see her try to survive the outside world without Alex. 

Alex being so protective of Piper was super sweet.

Lorna going all gangster was weird, disturbing, and amusing. I guess it’s possible to rationalize that joining a gang would give her people that’d protect her.

Nicky stayed sober! In Max! Where drugs are everywhere! I’m so proud of her. She was there for everyone who needed her. Blanca, Lorna, Red, Barb. Nicky is one of the most reliable people on the show. Her struggle with turning on Red was hard to watch because you knew she’d feel bad no matter what choice she made. 

Nicky protecting Lorna by leaving her in the closet was amazing. She knew that she could possibly die during kickball, but protecting Lorna was more important. 

Any yet something goes wrong. It seems like Lorna is going into labor even though she’s only 7 months pregnant. And there was blood on her uniform as she was taken to medical. As if the end of this season didn’t need more drama and tragedy.

Red is her own worst enemy. It;s like she needs someone to hate so she had something to do. Everyone needs something to do in prison to bid their time but Red’s distraction ruins her connection to the people she loves. I’m so pissed at her for choosing to attack Frieda over seeing her grandchildren. I hope to see her forgive her prison family in s7 and work towards making amends to her family on the outside. She needs to stop focusing on power and vengeance and start focusing on family.

Lorna’s disregard of Red was awful. She said something about how Red wasn’t useful anymore. In season 2, Red was on the outs with her prison family and she figured that it was because she wasn’t useful anymore. It sucks that people in her family (at least Lorna) only care about Red when they can get something out of her.

I have no idea what the deal with Gloria and Luschek is. Didn’t really like it but I didn’t dislike it.

Part of me is annoyed with Daya for joining the gang, dealing drugs, and acting like a jerk. Part of me has no problem with it. Girl’s got life in prison. She’s gotta survive it however she can. I just want her to survive it without being an asshole. 

I’m not sure how I feel about Daya being the one used to showcase the opioid crisis. I also really don’t like her relationship with Daddy. It’s completely based on sex, drugs, and power. And while Daddy cares, she doesn’t care enough to stop dealing drugs even though it’s hurting Daya.  

I respect Aledia for choosing to continue sending drugs into the prison even though her daughter is a junkie. It’s weird that we’re in a place where something like this is respectable. Aleida has to get her other kids. She can’t risk her shot at getting custody back on Daya. Especially when Daya has no problem with how things are going. It was heartbreaking to see her come to decision to basically give up on Daya, but it showed how strong she was.

I just found out the Cindy’s Secret Agent song is from the Backyardigans. I’d love to know how the writers came up with the idea of sing that song. 

I loved that Maria made the choice to be good at the end. It seemed like she lost all hope of getting out in season 4 because she thought she had more time added to her sentence.

I really hope Taystee can forgive Cindy eventually. Not right away cause getting convicted for something you didn’t do and being sentenced to life is probably not gonna put her in a forgiving mood. 

I’m gonna need Taystee to appeal her conviction and win so there can be some justice. The show owes us that. If Poussey can’t get justice then Taystee needs to

I do hope that Piper writes the memoir but it’d be interesting to see how she frames the kickball game since she never knew about the bloodbath that almost happened. I also want to see her become an advocate from prisoner rights 

The show needs to follow Blanca and not drop this immigration detention centers story line they’ve started. Since the show is trying to demonstrate real life issues and their results, I doubt they’re gonna let Blanca have a happy ending but I’m still going to hold out hope. She and Diablo deserve to have their family.

A highlight at the end was seeing Sophia be released early with 300K. I don’t think the show ever really finished her story since she just dropped off the show and came back every now and then. She deserved this happy ending and I hope we don’t see her again. I’m afraid they’ll add drama to her life. 

I saw an article talk about how this show makes freedom seem relative to each person’s situation. With Pennsatucky, she was free but not free. She had to wear a disguise and was beholden to what Donuts wanted. Aleida is free but she can’t do the things she wants to. She can’t afford a place to live for her and her kids and she can’t get a job. She has to resort to dealing drugs to have a chance at getting what she wants. She’s back to doing what landed her in prison while Pennsatucky actually ends up back in prison and seems happier for it.

The show really made the point that Taystee and Piper are the co-leads of the show, especially with their scene in the salon. They both dealth with crap this season, but Piper got early release while Taystee was convicted of a murder she didn’t commit. And even if Taystee got out, she would have a harder time than Piper at having a good life. I hope the show  makes a point to show the contrast between Piper and Aleida as they try to have a life on the outside.

Overall, this season was really good. It wasn’t as cluttered as season 5 and that was partially thanks to writing off some characters. The last 15-20 minutes had a lot going on which left me with conflicting feelings. I’m really excited for next season. It seems like the show is winding down but I’m not sure they can resolve everyone’s story in just season 7 but I shall not doubt this show. I know they want to be realistic, but I’m gonna need most of these characters to get as happy an ending as possible.

I hope we get to see the characters that weren’t in this season again just so we can have a proper goodbye with them.

Just remembered something else. A great moment this season was seeing Boo and seeing Linda get her head shaved. Couldn’t have happened to a better person. Not surprised that her time in prison didn’t change her views on how to treat inmates.

Thanks for reading all this. I’m here to talk about the show if anyone wants to. And you can check out my season 6 Vauseman rant here. I had a lot to say about them and didn’t want to clog this too much. I wish everyone luck on surviving this hiatus. 

[linares45431389-blog]

course="title type-scope ytd-video-Major-data-renderer" type="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; border: 0px; history: rgb(18, 18, 18); max-height: four.8rem; overflow: hidden; font-weight: four hundred; line-height: two.4rem; coloration: var(--ytd-video-Major-data-renderer-title-coloration, var(--yt-spec-text-Major)); font-household: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-measurement: var(--ytd-video-Major-data-renderer-title-font-measurement, 1.8rem); remodel: var(--ytd-video-Major-data-renderer-title-remodel, none); text-shadow: var(--ytd-video-Major-data-renderer-title-text-shadow, none);">pressure-default-type="" course="type-scope ytd-video-Major-data-renderer">Establishing a Workshop in a Small Room (2019) - With out a Nightmare Spending budget (Less than $a thousand)

model="colour: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-relatives: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-sizing: 13px; white-Area: pre-wrap; qualifications-colour: rgb(eighteen, eighteen, eighteen);">How To Create Your Woodworking Shop In A little Area With out a Nightmare Price range. Click here to create your buy less than $a thousand : http://bit.ly/workshopsmall2019model="colour: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-relatives: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-sizing: 13px; white-Area: pre-wrap; qualifications-colour: rgb(eighteen, eighteen, eighteen);">

Discover Almost everything You Need To Know About Creating Your Greatest A little Woodworking Workshop

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This guideline is ideal for you if you want to learn how to create a totally stocked practical workshop. model="colour: rgb(255, 255, 255); font-relatives: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-sizing: 13px; white-Area: pre-wrap; qualifications-colour: rgb(eighteen, eighteen, eighteen);"> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ek5soqyqlw https://brown98038883.tumblr.com/post/184807618857/class-title-type-scope

[xx-thedarklord-xx]

There’s a Ball?

So, this was a prompt. I have included the ask at the very end this time because I don’t want to give away the spoiler! Another one that was slightly longer than expected. Oh well. 

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

            “Did you hear?” A boy whispered in delight, voice echoing around the now silent corridor. Draco rolled his eyes heavily. What was with immature people being obsessed with gossip? One would think that there would be better things to talk about than mindless shite.

             “Harry Potter is coming back for the Remembrance Ball next month!”

               Draco froze as he fought the urge to demand the boy to spill his sources. It wouldn’t do well to bring himself attention, especially about Potter.

               Excited whispers broke out as they all waited for Slughorn to open his door for class.

               “Where did you hear that?” Smith asked doubtfully. “Someone else brought up Potter at the beginning of the year but it turned out to be false.”

               For once, Draco was rather grateful for the Hufflepuff’s insight. He just hoped that it wouldn’t be a recurring thing.

               “I overheard McGonagall telling Flitwick about it when I was passing by the staffroom.”

               Draco furrowed his brows. If Potter was stopping by for a visit, Granger or Weasley would have acted like it, wouldn’t they? He shot a look towards Granger, who had a book on Modern Goat Conspiracy Theories compared to Anciently Deceased Theories open in one hand and their Potion’s book in the other. Surely, she couldn’t be reading both, right? Weasley had his head resting on Granger’s shoulder and appeared to be asleep. His mouth was open and Draco was pretty sure he saw drool.

               The clang of the door opening had Draco putting this behind him. It was no doubt just gossip.

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

               “If Potter is coming back for the ball, who do you think will be his date?” Abbott asked as Draco sighed heavily, a few seats away from her in History of Magic.

               “Who says he has to have a date?” Macmillan asked with a scoff. “I’m going stag and there’s nothing wrong with that.”

               Finch-Fletchley snorted loudly. “You’re going stag because everyone you asked turned you down.”

               Draco was incredibly sick of everyone talking about Potter. This was getting out of hand. What was with everyone being obsessed with the savior? Merlin, there had to be better things to talk about.

               “That’s because he is blind to Abbott’s desperate pining after him.” Draco snarked, not bothering to turn around. He was just fed up with the whole conversation.

               There was a stunned silence that filled the room. Macmillan sounded as if he was choking on his own tongue and that was certainly the highlight to Draco’s day.

               “Is—Is Malfoy telling the truth?” Macmillan whispered, sounding awed. As if he hadn’t noticed that the girl had been in love with him for seven years.

               “I—umm.”

              Draco spared a miniscule moment of guilt as the girl sounded positively miserable. But it was for the best. He knew how this would end. And really, what was a little pain as long as it ended in happiness? Well, if they actually lasted as a couple that is. As a realist, he predicted those two would break up after one or two children.

               “Would you like to go to the ball with me?” Macmillan’s tone was scared, which had Draco rolling his eyes.

               “Yes!” Abbott squeaked out far louder than was necessary, causing Draco to nod approvingly.

               And if a small smile also escaped, well, no one had to know.

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

               “Did you see the article in the Prophet? No one has seen Harry since the Death Eater trials.” Finnigan informed the Eighth-year common room.

               “I heard he died and was replaced by an intelligent Niffler.”

               Everyone within hearing distance turned to Weasley with arched brows.

               “I didn’t say I believed it!” Weasley argued, ears pink. “I was just stating what I heard!”

               “Was that Luna?” Granger wondered curiously, not bothering to look up from her book on Mysterious but Easily Explained Coincidences on the Mating Cycles Between Foreign Walnuts. “Because that sounds like Luna.”

               Before Weasley could inform anyone of his sources on the ridiculous rumor, Longbottom spoke up. Which Draco was immensely grateful for. This entire discussion was ruining his previously good day of avoiding Potter rumors.

               “You both really don’t know where Harry is? I thought for sure he would have told you guys.”

               Granger snapped her book shut sharply. “He sends us letters, letting us know that he is safe and okay. Harry said he is looking for something. We have no idea where he is.”

               “Is he really coming back for the ball?” Thomas asked curiously.

               Despite himself, Draco leaned to the side, wanting to hear what Granger would say.

               “Your guess is as good as mine.”

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

               “So, Ginny, are you going to the ball with Potter?” Corner asked a little sullenly.

               Draco sighed heavily and loudly from the end of his table in the library. Did every waking moment of the inhabitants of Hogwarts have to be obsessed with Potter?

               “No.” Weaslette answered flippantly. “I am not.”

               “Oh.” Corner’s tone brightened dramatically. “In that case do you want—”

               “Sorry Michael, I am going with Luna.”

               “Lovegood?” The boy asked in disbelief. “I didn’t know that you were into women. I mean you and I dated.”

               The argument was rather unintelligent. Which Weaslette must have found lacking as well.

               “Spot on.” Her tone was far dryer than Draco had ever heard from her before. “We also ended disastrously and in a very awkward manner. Which is a fact, just as yours was. But both have nothing to do with my relationship with Luna. Dating a man previously does not mean that I cannot date someone of the same gender.”

               “It’s called bisexuality.” Draco drawled, looking to Corner. “Something you should look into. Either for your own ignorance or perhaps because Boot has been in love with you for months.” Really, were people blind to reality these days?

               The spluttering of Corner and the smirk on Weaslette’s face was the last thing he saw before gathering his things and leaving the library.

               He really should look into matchmaking. It was turning out to be a success.

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

               “Look! Over there! It’s Potter!”

               “He actually came!”

               “His hair is longer.”

               “Where do you think he has been?”

               “Think he has been rounding up the Death Eaters that evaded capture?”

               “The ball isn’t until tomorrow! What’s he doing here now?”

               No one even bothered whispering. Their gossip was talked about as if this was normal. As if it wasn’t rude to just point and make assumptions about others. Draco pushed through the crowd of nosy simpletons to see Potter greeting his friends.

               The man’s hair certainly did get longer. The length seemed to tame the unruly locks just a little. It was hard to tell but Draco wondered if Potter had gotten taller too. He seemed to have aged inwardly in his time gone. The stance was solid, his smile was firm and the way he talked was easy.

               Potter looked up, clearly sensing someone’s eyes on him. When green met silver, an intense look crossed the savior’s face and it had the courtyard going still.

               “You wouldn’t happen to be willing to give me help, would you?”

               Draco arched his brows as he tilted his head to the side curiously. What on earth was the man talking about?

               “You see, I have this gorgeous but moody boyfriend around here somewhere. It’s been so long that I think I forgot what he looks like.”

               “Well, you have always had poor vision, Potter.” Draco could make out calculating looks from Weasley and Granger but he ignored those. “What’s he look like? He must be a real idiot to want to be associated with you.”

               Potter snorted loudly. “I’ve always thought he was an idiot but it’s nice to have your affirmation.” The Gryffindor smirked a little before clearing his throat. “He’s about this tall.” The hand demonstrating this came close to Potter’s own height. “Blonde hair slicked back with ungodly amounts of hair care product. Grey eyes that are sharp but kind if one knows what to look for. Soft lips that are usually in a sneer but say sweet things when one knows how to listen.”

               A few people let out gasps but Draco only had eyes for Potter.

               “In other words, he’s beautiful.” The man finished, eyes glued to Draco’s face.

               It took several lasting seconds of debate for Draco to set aside his decorum and sprint towards the Gryffindor. He let out a breathy chuckle when he was swept up into strong arms and lifted into the air.

               “Hello, love.” Harry whispered as Draco wrapped his legs around the brunette’s waist. “I’ve missed you.”

               Draco couldn’t help but smile as his face was peppered with enthusiastic kisses. “How was Greece? And Turkey? India? Russia? Africa? Japan? And the dozens of other places around the world?” He peered into sparkling eyes and felt more at home than Hogwarts has ever provided for him.

               “They were enlightening, breathtaking and stunning. I found what I was looking for.” Which Draco knew that his boyfriend had been hoping to find the wonder in the world that he had been lacking his whole life and himself in the process. “But I was lacking something important.”

               “Oh?” Draco prompted, running his fingers down Harry’s cheek. He was just glad that his boyfriend was in once solid peace. Letters were fine, fire calls were better, but nothing was as reassuring as seeing him in person.

               “Seeing the world was amazing but it wasn’t the same without you. Next time, come with me?”

               Draco leaned forward to press his lips against Harry’s. Sighing softly as their lips moved easily. “Only if you go to the ball with me.” He whispered almost reverently.

               “There’s a ball?”

               Draco couldn’t help it. He threw his head back and laughed loudly. After weeks of listening to everyone gossip about the ball and Harry in tangent, his lover hadn’t even known.

              Merlin, this was perfect. Perhaps gossip wasn’t as bad as he originally thought.

So, I don’t know if the ask was quite what anon was hoping for but I had a lot of fun with it! 

Also! I was feeling weird and that is where the inspiration for Hermione’s book titles came in. I also was just wanting to see who was paying attention as well. 

[statusquoergo]

Thanks for the answer. Very enlightening. Especially Korsh’s interview. Now I’m sure I won’t watch 8b. 8a was so boring if the rest will be the same caliber then I’m done.

The video Lawyer react : I found him sometimes ago and I was waiting for him to do a reaction to Suits. I was a little disappointed that, at the interview, he didn’t seem to understand that they weren’t law students and they weren’t there for a « summer associate » position. It through me off a little because I couldn’t understand how he could make that mistake. To me it was clearly said that Harvey was suppose to hire a full time lawyer who graduated to be his associate. It was bizarre. Other than that, he gave interesting informations, he was very enthusiastic and explain pretty well. And it was funny how many times they were facing disbarment in just one episode. And the witness tempering, awesome : they don’t even do it right. 

Thank you for the article. It was fun to read. Almost made me want to watch 8b so I could read another review like that. I went and read other Suits review from him and they were as entertaining as this one.

One thing I got from all of them is that there is basically nothing accurate in Suits. And I’m not even surprised. I knew they were exaggerating, I knew that they were solving cases to quickly and too easily and I always wonder why they were fighting each other as they’re suppose to be on the same side. But, damn, I didn’t know it was that bad. And according to him, it’s getting worse. I knew that about the writing but it’s also the case for the law. The worst is that they don’t even care : mistakes at the beginning, I can understand, but after 8 years. You’d think that they’ll try to makes things a little more accurate. No, what for ? Apparently they’re writing everything last minute, that explains why nothing is verified.

Thanks for the laugh. Strangely, it made me feel better about watching last season. Felt lot less like I was wasting my time than before I read the article.

Sure thing! Glad I could be of some assistance.

I think he understood that Harvey was looking for an associate of his own, but he used the summer associate model to describe the closest thing he could to the process that was going on in the show; especially since so much stress was put on the fact that Pearson Hardman only hires from Harvard, the implication seemed (to me at least) that they were hiring recent graduates. Also (someone please correct me if I’m mistaken) I believe that major corporate attorneys don’t generally hire “personal associates”; associates at large firms would do well to find mentors, and of course partners might favor certain associates over others, but they tend to be hired as part of a pool rather than attached to one specific partner, senior or otherwise.

Korsh has said that Suits wouldn’t be Suits without some kind of internal strife; well, he didn’t use the word “strife,” but he indicated that personal drama is a cornerstone of the show, so pardon me for dressing it up a little. Though I’m sure that real law firms encounter their fair share of infighting, I sincerely, profoundly hope that it doesn’t devolve into partners fighting against partners, jockeying for what is apparently a largely fictitious position. (Though the fact that firms rarely rebrand does make all of Pearson Hardman etc. etc.’s name changes even more ludicrous, which is actually kind of funny.)

The writers certainly do seem to think that the main character interplay is the thing drawing people in, which makes me wonder why they won’t just admit that the show is a soap opera and give up on the legal pretense entirely. They clearly don’t have the slightest clue as to what they’re talking about, so I say either learn, or shut up about it. But no, they keep stringing along the two threads side by side, hoisting up their law-adjacent plots as though they’re captivating the audience; really, though, does anyone give a damn anymore? The cases are insanely convoluted, as though the writers are trying to prove what adept legal scholars they are when in fact it’s just the opposite, but all that does is make me so confused that I completely give up trying to follow them practically as soon as they begin. (Until yet another ham-fisted parallel raises its ugly head, but that’s not even about following the case, that’s just me waking from a doze to point out that they’re recycling yet another plot from an early season and either hoping we don’t notice, or hoping we make the connection and find them just so terribly profound, even though they usually don’t make anything of the connection.)

In previous articles, Korsh has said that he plans out seasons in advance, but then they somehow get through everything he had planned in the first half and have to scramble to come up with filler for the back half. I’m not sure if that’s still their model, or if now they’re forgoing planning anything at all, but either way, it doesn’t demonstrate a whole lot of respect for their audience to be flying blind like this. I would think that at least, they’ve known since the beginning where they want to go with Samantha’s character, but apparently not! They’ve got so many plots they’re juggling now, they don’t know if they’ll even get around to her. (They sure dropped that bit about her time in the armed forces awfully quickly.)

I guess I was hoping that, with the departure of Mike and Rachel, they would’ve plotted this season out in excruciating detail to make it the best that it could be with the new dynamics… I know, I know, a foolish thought, but don’t worry, I’ve learned my lesson.

[lumo-arcanorum]

IN PRAISE OF MMM

This is another repost, but from a blog I came across that I enjoyed. Wordpress blog formats are hard to track together, so I’m also reposting this here. 

This is taken from a 2018 post by The Kite’s Cradle, a blog for a chaos magicikan and self-identified  urban druid. It’s an interesting read into the life of an actual living chaos magickian. 

This is also relevant to me in that I’m sort of inspired to take another stab at MMM, but in my own way. I’m working on an alternative liber to Carroll’s exercise. We’ll see where that goes. 

OCTOBER 9, 2018 THE KITE 1 COMMENT

I like to see a Liber Null that’s been well used. Although chaos magic has moved on since Pete Carroll wrote the seminal chaos magic book Liber Null, chaos magicians owe Pete a huge debt of gratitude for Liber MMM, the ‘studentship syllabus’ for theIlluminates of Thanateros Novice training program. And this section of his book has really stood the test of time as an introductory training programme of magic. Not that you need it, of course.

He adapted the Yoga exercises of Aleister Crowley’s Book 4: Mysticism (part 1). This in turn was appropriated from The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Read these books and you’ll notice the repurposing of the exercises from the “…system by which the practitioner can directly realize his or her puruׅṣa, the soul or innermost conscious self, through mental practices.”(Sutras, p. xlvii) through Crowley’s Thelemic “aims of religion” to the Mind Control exercises of MMM, where “to work magic effectively, the ability to concentrate the attention must be built up until the mind can enter a trance-like condition.” (Null, p. 14).

As I’ve remarked elsewhere, when repurposing a practice it really does matter when you consider the consequences. The What For is important. In this case MMM marks the beginning of Carroll’s growing reduction of ‘spirituality’ to ‘getting good at magic.’ In doing so the baby of Illumination/Enlightenment/Liberation disappears into the bushes with the bathwater.

What makes it worse is that this impoverishment of the Great Work of Magic is committed merely in the name of attaining trance states, often called ‘gnosis’ by chaos magicians. Now excuse me if I point out that trance states are about as difficult as putting on a hat. Get into self-hypnosis, brainwave entrainment, Silva Method or any number of other things and you’ll see what I mean.

By ‘get into’ I mean, of course, ‘research and practice.’ With the emphasis on ‘practice.’ Our belief systems matter less than our practice systems. Occultists are notorious for owning the books, reading the articles, having the debates and not getting down to enough solid practice.

Patanjali required practice: “practice is the effort to be fixed in concentrating the mind.” (Sutra I.14) The whole project requires dedication to practice. Meanwhile in Crowley space, Aleister once chose as his magical mottoPerdurabo: ‘I shall endure to the end,’ or ‘I’ll stick it out.’ Tells you something, eh? Pete Carroll overstates the case when he claims that the magical trances he lists require “fanatical and morbid determination,” but practice there must be. It will be demanding, it will be inconvenient, it will be a pain in the lifestyle. But do it, and magical power will come to you.

Back to that bit about how our belief systems matter less than our practice systems. Echoing the doctrinal disputes of Christendom, occultists often suffer from the ailment of Having The Right Answers. This distracts them from the necessity of racking up the practice time. You’re not a sky pilot until you’ve logged the flight time.

Now I’m not recommending that you fill your every waking moment with ‘praxis,’ the bloatware of magic. A benefit of chaos magic reductionism is that you can restrict yourself to the most economically effective and get most of it done. A few bang-for-the-buck exercises and a simple training program and you’re ahead of the crowd. Weight training starts not with the steroids but with squats, deadlifts, presses and such, the biggest exercises to get you strong quickly.

All you need is a set of exercises and a program. And therein lies another problem with occultists, especially the postmodern variety. They will program-hop, doing Golden Dawn warm-ups then switching to yoga, tryingvipassana for a week, then it’s offerings to the ancestors for a month or so before being ADHD’d by something else. Diet-hopping and program-switching cheat you out of the steady gains offered by sticking out the practice – the promise of Perdurabo. Ask anyone who can pick up twice their bodyweight.

Re-enter Liber MMM. Yes, all right, you’re an experienced magician chasing advanced stuff now. But the basics always count. Use them or lose them and end up falling upside-down through the Abyss of Sophistry and having flamewars on the Internet. Liber MMM is a – not ‘The,’ but ‘a’ – solid program of introductory magical exercises.

So what’s in it? The field of activity in Liber MMM is listed quite clearly under the three headings of Mind Control, Magic and Dreaming. (if you haven’t already done so, now is a good time to fish out your copy of Liber Null. Yes, get one)

In Mind Control, we work quickly through the exercises in the order given such that by the end of the first month we are performing a minimum of 30 minutes of Motionlessness No-Thought (MNT) daily and performing occasional exercises in Magical Trances. This core exercise set is all about developing your concentration and visualization. Motionlessness is about not shifting weight, not scratching those inevitable little itches, and so forth. It’s not about torso movements when you breathe or tics or involuntary eye movements or blinking (if those bother you, shut your eyes). Just sit still. If you gaze at a random spot on the wall for a bit you’ll very soon notice a slight tunnel vision. This is you entering a very light trance. Relax into it and your breathing will slow, swallowing and blinking are inhibited and the itches will become ignorable.

Pick a posture and stick to it. Since you don’t want to be shifting for comfort, pick a posture that’s comfortable in the first place. You may need to attend to your posture — keep it upright — to stop yourself going to sleep.

Breathing: pranayama. There’s a simple technique. In — out. And so forth. There’s not much else to it. If you’re curious about different breathing techniques by all means pick one and use if for a few days. Otherwise, and especially while becoming accustomed to the daily practice, just allow your breathing to deepen and slow naturally. Fancy breathing techniques can wait. No-Thought is an unceasing business. To start with, begin a session by just watching thoughts arise and pass away. Do nothing about them. When you catch yourself fixating on a thought, just drop it.

As you become aware of ‘space’ as it were in your consciousness where no thoughts are, as thoughts arise then simply attend instead to that empty space. From time to time you get some blessed peace, when there are no thoughts to ignore. You’ll probably notice this moment of peace only when it’s over. That empty space will become the arena into which you project visualizations, including sigils. Start with about 15 minutes (time it) daily, and then after a few days of practice add five minutes, and so forth until you’ve got 30-35 minutes practice time daily. Then keep doing that daily. Notice the repetition of the word ‘daily.’ Do not interrupt the dailiness of this practice. MNT more than anything else forges the magician.

That was MNT. If to start with you feel that you’re not doing enough training, do some Object Concentration as well. 5 minutes at a time is plenty. Remember that business of gazing at a spot on the wall? Do that, and keep bringing the gaze back to it and holding the tunnel vision effect. It’s healthy that the eyes wander — just bring them back.

With both, write in your diary what time you started, what time you finished, and any salient features.

After a month or two, if we have not already done so, we investigate works of Metamorphosis. I consider Metamorphosis a neglected aspect of Liber MMM and personally regard it as being equally important as MNT. Simply swap out habits to start with.Need help? Start here.

In Magic, I suggest adopting one or two banishing rituals as soon as possible. In this context, most banishings are simply exercises to settle you down into the moment’s work of magic or to bring you back to normal afterwards. Sigil work and any other magical work is also good, including some sort of sortilege divination – cards, runes, stones and bones or somesuch equally simple. Liber MMM explains sigilization adequately so don’t overthink it: just decide what you want, scribble and go.

In Dreaming, the practice of keeping a diary next to the bed seems to convince your mind that you really do take this seriously, and it will oblige by producing material to put in that diary. It’s not usually worthwhile to ask for meanings of dreams: I don’t believe in universal dream symbols and expect instead that our own individual network of symbolism will explain our dreams best.

I absolutely recommend recording the activities of Liber MMM in a diary. Under the general heading of the day’s date, each activity should be timed, and it should be written up such that a reader could recreate that activity themselves from the notes given. The first time a ritual is described, it should be written in full, with any symbols or technical flourishes explained fully. Thereafter it is sufficient to mention repeats of the ritual by name and add ‘as before,’ expanding only upon any differences from earlier performances.

RESULTS

Both record and acknowledge results. Recording contemporaneously both an activity and its results simply helps us to know the truth of what happened and not to be fooled by psychological heuristics including so-called tricks of memory. Acknowledging results means celebrating our victories. Some magicians handicap their morale by being unwilling to accept successes and need reminding that success is matching actual result to recorded Intent, regardless of exactly how the result manifested. They sometimes need reminding to look out for results of divinations also.

In Mind Control the result is not of nice long periods of No-Thought (nice when it happens though) so much as the abilities, manifested over time, to drop easily into inhibitory trance states, to close down unhelpful streams of thought while under pressure and to concentrate on what is currently important.

Early experiments with Metamorphosis manifest a growing comfort with behaviours which we may have used to find unfamiliar and perhaps threatening, and may give us the clue that behavioural identity is not fixed.

In Magic there’s nothing quite like totting up your enchantments done and ticking off the successes to demonstrate to yourself that your magic works and that you’re not just fooling yourself. Likewise with divinations that turn out to be accurate.

In Dreaming work the results consist of enhanced knowledge of our own symbol system and a more relaxed relationship with our own out-of-consciousness workings.

All in all, good results in these practices help develop confidence in the whole magical endeavour and a no-nonsense attitude to practice that comes as a refreshing contrast to that of many others in the magical community. So if you do this for six months – not two weeks or two months, but SIX months – you will have laid a firm foundation ofskill, consistency and durability as a magician. Any dabbler can do this for a fortnight, but in the month on month daily grind the will of the magician is forged. Thank you Pete for MMM.

Original blog post is here.