#they deserve it far more than me I just photoshopped it together

[magical-misfit]

YASMINE AL-RASHID :: EP 4-6

“My stories never started with Once Upon a Time, but yours will”

Upon Yasmine’s death at the hands of animated furniture, she found herself in a place previously known by few. Her father called it “The World Between Worlds” and claimed only genies and beings of cosmic power could access. But Yasmine was the daughter of both a genie and a storyteller, and power like that was rarely found in the Neverafter. 

Sent into a body that held more scars and less say in her situation with Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, Yasmine takes her destiny in her hands and finds herself in a tavern on the edge of a town she’s never visited, reuniting with friends she thought she lost forever. But the mysteries in the Times of Shadow only grow thicker and more confusing, and when Mother Goose contacts her mother through the book, Yasmine is exposed to a truth she never would have imagined. 

A wish brought her to the Neverafter in the hopes that she would escape the Endless Nights, but now it seems in vain. But Yasmine was never one to give up easily, especially now that she knows her mother is alive and waiting for her in another universe and her father is always willing to help her find her way through The World Between Worlds. 

And so with renewed purpose and more skills than she held previously, Yasmine embarks on another adventure with the beings of the Neverafter, and finds herself facing foes with more ease than before. 

But that does not mean the Neverafter is any less dangerous, and when Rosamund du Prix informs her that Cinderella is looking for her as well, Yasmine has to prepare herself for the worst. 

For if Cinderella is looking for her, then so are the fairies, and that means that none of her friends are safe. And then there’s that issue of that pesky genie of the lamp...

IMAGES DO NOT BELONG TO ME:

TEMPLATE: ( X )

YASMINE PNG: ( X ) ( X )

[popculturebuffet]

Pirate Month III: We Lost Our Gold (Comission by WeirdKev27)

Arrgh all you happy swabs and welcome back to PIrate MOnth, our cleebration of everything piraty. eeyyyarrgh.

We're almost at the end and it's time for the return of an institution. Muppet Madness is back... and we've dropped the monthly as sometimes there's simply something else I want to do and trying to force it wasn't working. Thankfully we've come back with a whopper We Lost Our Gold

We Lost Our Gold is a 2010 puppet series by creators Vincent Bova and Damien Eckhardt-Jacobi, two pupeeteers with more than a little muppet energy to them. The two had previously made, and were still making at the time of this series Glove and Boots, another youtube show about a red muppet and his beaver pal covering various topics. I'd heard of Glove and Boots going into this but wasn't told it was by the same guys

Glove and Boots is one I'd actually considered covering on here and plan to now in 2025 in some form, and you can smell their hallmarks: the human puppets are the same they used, Mulligan of WLOG uses the same voice as Mario and has about the same personality, and Mario and Fava even guest star in episode 2.

The series was brought out of a need for promotoin: The two pupetteers wanted to draw more eyes to their work so they came up with a zany scheme I love: they took out ten thousand dollars in us coins, buired that heavy amount of money in a treasure chest, put a skull and crowbones on it and left clues. Then they shot 8 shorts starring a group of hapless pirates who lost the chest, seeding in clues to the chest. It's one of the most audacious stunts i've seen and deserves praise. They buired in in New York, made that clear and then... no one found it.

Yeah while many came close no one quite put the clues together, some deriding it as fake.. which it very much wasn't but is understandable given how hoax filled the internet is.. though given they SHOWED the chest at a few points and how hard it'd be to photoshop 10,000 us coins, I think it was safe to assume they were on the level and they were.

They eventually had to give up on it three years later for very understandable real life reasons: Hurrican Sandy ripped thorugh new york, tearing up the landscape and thus not only destroying their clues but leaving new york in a very bad state. So in a truly selfless and kind act they dug up the heavy treasure chest (A NY TIMes article covering it had them remakr on being remidned how heavy that much coin is) , and donating it all to disaster relief. It's a truly wild and heartfelt story and I love it.

So the question is how are the shorts themselves, more than a decade later and with the big reason for their existing, the treasure hunt long over? Jump down under the cut with me to find out

The Crew: WLOG follows four pirates and a parrot whose just kinda there to piss off the captain who , as the title suggests lost their gold and are trying to find it they are

The Captain: No name given ala Pirates!. A salty old cus with a giant mangy beard that covers his body half the time, and is liable to snap at the bulk of his crew, even if he cares for 2/3 of them. He's determined to keep the knowledge secret keep it safe and frustrated by his crew's deep well of incompetence minus one member.

Mulligan: A blonde pirate, a goof off whose deal is annoying the piss out of the captain and wanting to go up in the crows nest. Why isn't he allowed up there? Simple the captain dosen't want him to be happy and neither do I so I can undrestand.

Crothers: An injury prone dum dum. Not a bad guy but very clumsy and loud.

Black Tom: A ninja. None of the other pirates realize this

Yeah as you can kinda guess the crew's a bit one note: the captain's the constantly pissed off straight man, Muligan the annoying dumbass, Crothers the big ole dumbass, and Black Tom is a ninja who speaks in subtitles but dosen't really speak japanese far as I can tell , which was accpetable at the time for reasons i'm not aware of.

It's the series main weakness: the cast is fairly thin and with 7 decently sized shorts and one 30 second one, the gimmicks wear on you quick. There's just not enough comedic depth in any of these guys to justify an 8 episode series. Thankfully the series compensates in other ways as it goes on as we sift through this pile of episodes

So speaking of the pile

Ye Episodes

The Beggining: This is the weakest episode. It has a good gag or two: Black tom being the reason cruthers is missing an eye in flashback and the pirate captain getting SO tired of mullins interrupting his flashbacks "I'm not even going to wast a flashback on ye" but it's just... broing. It's not helped Mullins is at his most annoying here, working better as a foil to the captain in other episodes but here just popping in with a pretty lame joke about swapping letters around.

The Chase: This one's okay as the stuff on deck is kinda entertaining. it has a very dated bit spoofing anime animation that feels out of date even for when this came out. The ships under attack and naturally sinks

The Larry King: The best episode of the 8, and a fun one. It also has Mario and Fava in it claming the gold is actually theres, which in a joke I didn't see coming and love, it absolutely was. It's helped by the format: Larry king is interviewing the pirates and glove and boots , leading to some fun chaos as the captain tries to keep them from dropping clues, Mario bullshits, Fava interrupts then goes along with it, and Black Tom sits down with his good friend larry king. This was more lik eit

The Black Tom: A one minute short soley for the clues.

THE WPPPT: This one suffers from the same issu eof the first, dragging in places but unlike it has some great gags to it as the pirates play poker. The parody of the poker obession at the time has aged like fine milk on a sidewalk and it highlights an issue of the show at tims: some bits... just feel very dated in comparison to glove and boots. GAB had pop culture refrences, but the refrences here very late to early 2000's: celebrity poker, larry king still being around, the pirate craze at the time, pirates vs ninjas, all things long left buried by the zeigeist.

The Monkey Buisness: A really fun one as a monkey on an island reads a comic about our heroes exploits: i'ts really fun to see these goofy pirates drawn all muscular and realistic in a seroius story.. then see the style used for their usual nonsense. Really great. It's not a totally new concept but it's unexpected and fun.

The Ghost STory: This one is fine Not really much to say an da fun concept of telling ghost stories

The Final Episode: My second faviorite: the pirate captain recons with this quest, Crothers gets turned into a parrot and Mulligan finally gets to go up in the crows nest. It's an oddly moving finale too as Crothers dies in the previous episode, and posses the parrot and after freeing him from a demon they accidnetly summon is stuck there. But the Pirate Captain accepts it because he's his friend and lets go of the treasure, a suprisingly touching ending to a throughly silly series.

So overally.. I found the series.. okay. It has some good jokes, some great concepts but the core cast is fairly weak, making the ballance of the show wonky and th efirst half is bogged down by some topical refrences. The final three epiosdes are really good, as is the larry king.

The shorts main problem is pacing: the having to sneak in clues combined with the format mean it's not quite as snappy as glove and boots. And I hate to keep comparing them but by this point glove and boots existed. THey knew how to do this and I belivie could've done better. I don't feel they half assed it: the puppets themselves look great, really nice felt and the performances are great.. but the core of the series is a bunch of characters I just don't care about or find all that funny and it tempers the experince for me. It really dosen't help coming off reading the second pirates book, as that book knew how to have fairly thin characters but manage them well with wacky shenanigans. Here their trying to do a character based comedy at atimes with characters who don't fit it. It works best with stuff like the larry king or the monkey buisness where the weird scenario allows them to do fun stuff with the characters and format.

I will be positive here: while these shorts didn't grab me, the early glove and boots stuff around the same time was better, they'd learn from it and as glove and boots went it'd be awesome. These are two talented men who created a silly pirate contest then used the money for said contest to help people. I wish them luck in whatever their doing now after youtube left them off and thank them for this fun day. WELOSTOURGOLD isn't the best.. but it wasn't a bad way to spend an hour. Thanks for reading

[bellamyblakru]

a very beginner’s guide to gif making (ashley’s version)

(ill be using one of my favorite merthur smiles in this example from 4x01 when they are alone together with the dorocha)

for @its-hyperfixation​ and @mykingdomcomeundone !! sorry its taken me so long to do this sigh this was my first free night lately 😭😭

download free ad blocker (i use uBlock Origin). pls dont skip this step, it protects you and your computer from the bad ads!!

go to a completely “free website” aka illegal lol. i use yes.movies because that is what im used to, but you can use whatever one you prefer. 

go to merlin bbc, click the episode you want, and record. on my “not as cool HP computer”, i have to click the windows flag button and the key “g” to record my screen, but your computer might have a button for it already to just go right to recording. if you are not sure, google your computer type and how to screen record (its fast to learn!!)

THE SHORTER THE SCENE THE BETTER! tumblr only takes up to 10mb gifs, so normally thats up to 3.5 second scenes if you color them too. however, if you are doing black and white, you can get away with longer scenes (this is what i did for my very first gifset actually LOL they were eight seconds long dude)

go to this website to convert to gif: https://ezgif.com/video-to-gif

chose the file of the video where asked, upload, then where it says: Frame rate (FPS) select 33 (max 10 seconds) for a better quality gif, and convert

WOO your first gif!! this process isnt done, but im proud you got this far!! 🥰

now, go to resize. this is important since tumblr gifs are usually up to 540 width and 330 height (these are my normal go-to proportions). lately, ive been liking the more square looks, so 540:340 or 540:440 works too! if your gif has too many movements, a square look might not be the best choice. (if you are doing two side by side gifs i recommend 268:230, and if you are doing three side by side 177:177 works best (learned from maria my beloved)). you dont need to change anything else here. (if your gif is over 10mb for some reason, you can optimize -> lossy gif and go in small units to not ruin the quality too much). 

now, i like to make my gifs a bit slower to make it more like a slow moment in time. press speed if you wanna do this and explore different settings!! i like to do 80% usually, but here i did 70%. here is what we have so far:

not too bad!! but as you can see, this scene is rather dark and gloomy and their smiles deserves something better in my opinion, so OFF TO PHOTOPEA WE GO (free photoshop my beloved)

10.  now we are at https://www.photopea.com/ and click file and open up our bad boy. DONT BE INTIMIDATED!! there are so, so many choices, but it is solely up to your preference and desired look. i like my gifs bright and saturated, but you might not, and thats okay!! you can fuck with all of these things over time (i do still LOL)

11. THE BASICS: go to layer -> new adjustment layer -> color balance. you do this layer first if you are going to use it at all. you’ll soon find that merlin has a very yellow early seasons and an extremely blue later seasons (it drives me crazy), so here is where you just mess with them til you get a baseline look you like. i start with shadows and go up from there (i dont change too intense ever. i go up or down like 6/7 the most on blue or red at any gif tbh). for this gif im working on, i want it to look less blue, so ill focus on the blue mostly.

i also put selective color as one of the first layers, and here you can fuck with all the colors if you wanna make one a different shade or hue or make something pop or darken. it is a beloved layer im ngl

12. now, remember all of these steps are optional and this is just the order i go, but that is not the only way. do what you feel makes the gif to your liking!! i then go to selective color (i like doing the contrast with the black coloring option here more than the choice later, but it up to you). i mostly make most of the colors darker here so the lightening later looks a bit cleaner.

13. next for me is the hue/saturation layer. i normally try to avoid using this, but it may be needed if you want to make the gif a bit less red or smth like that. if i want one particular to be really saturated, ill do that here at this level. its good to put this third tho if you are gonna use it.

14. vibrance layer time!! i love this bitch. i go ham with it fnesfljesfk i like my stuff really saturated (like “i went up 45″ hard). i dont usually use the actually vibrance option on top since i read in a post by the incredible maria that it makes gifs more grainy (btw @arthurpendragonns taught me like so much. her gifs are TOP TIER and literally take my breath away every time. so fucking talented man. the goddess of gifmaking, if you will).

15. then i click brightness/contrast and THROW THAT BRIGHTNESS UPPPP. here i just went up to 126 LOL. (this is where my comment about the selective color comes up. you can do contrast here, but i think it looks better if you increase the black in the black selective color option. again, up to you)

16. CURVES LAYER MY BELOVED. i literally just fuck with the curve on RGB until i like it lolol

17. im going back to the hue/saturation to make the blue pop more since it is so much in the background!! and then just fuck with them all to get something you like!! this gif is making me upset so i redid it rn lnrelkjfrmf 

18. ADD TEXT IF YOU WANT!! we can do blending two gifs together and fun text stuff next time if you want in another list (lmk!! ill do anything if u want it).

19. woo! she done now. onto the next gif to start this over, or one and done! ive never done this kind of tutorial before, in the past ive just went live on my discord and some people have sat in to watch the process, so let me know if you wanna join my server to do this, too, if you are more of a watch learner than reading!!

20: the final product (not my best work frdiusnr im sorry ive been writing this up for like three hours LOL)

[falloutjay]

Stan x anxious/compassionate reader (kind of has a little canon divergence)

After giving up on Wendy (around Season 12), Stan and us start dating, we were always worried about him (no we weren't dating him out of pity, we were just a very anxious person). Some people find of clingy, others find us adorable but We've never left his side:

Ex: We were by his side helping with whales (Whale W)

We were the only one who didn't leave him when he got depression (You're Getting Old/Ass Burgers)

Next to Heidi, we became social pariah because we didn't want to dump Stan (this even made Wendy guilty)

But him moving, really gets to us, the coronavirus makes it worse. We get worried about him, then we start getting worried about everyone else as everything falls apart (Kyle, Kenny, Eric, Butters, Tweek, Craig, Scott, etc.) And we pass out of stress. About waking up in the hospital, we find out, everyone was worried about us. And Stan is the most worried of all, he spends the whole day with us. We tal-no vent about all the happened to the both of us. By the end of it, we agree that whatever happens we'll do it together.

Guess whos back! :D

Well, while it's not my best work, in my humble opinion, I sure hope you enjoy and like it. Again sorry for the delay! ಥ_ಥ

And if it's not that clear, because I know I can write a little cryptic, there is a time skip. You can either have all the show events happen when they are children and have the time skip between Covid and the memories or between you getting together as kids and the memories. Choose however you like! ^^

_________________________________________

Stan x anxious!compassionate!Reader

Tiny eyes watched the scene unfold.

Normally, Wendy was the one to break up with Stan, but not this time around. Stan was actually telling Wendy that he had no interest in her anymore.

���What changed Stan?” Wendy asked, obviously confused.

“I think I like someone else… I don’t know yet…”

Wendy gave him a smile.

“I wish you all the luck Stan, say if you need anything!”

“I will.” And with that, Wendy took off to be with her friends, while Stan turned a corner and told Kyle and Kenny how it went.

Cartman was there too, but he only wanted to know if she cried, because “she would deserve it.”.

You closed your locker and felt your heartbeat like crazy. Ever since you changed school a few months ago, Stan captured your little ten-year-old mind.

He was kind and showed you around when you had no idea where to go. It was a little crush you developed, and you never felt as scared and excited as now, since that Stan had broken off with Wendy.

This newfound feeling almost made you dizzy but you quickly snapped back into reality when you heard your name.

“Y/N?” Stan asked and waited patiently for his answer next to you.

“Oh, sorry, I was thinking, what did you want?”

“Would you maybe like to hang out some time?”

Stan almost got a heart attack when you suddenly squealed but was happy when you managed to get a high-pitched “YES!” out.

“Okay, what are you betting Kenny? Some Pennies or a dead rat?” Cartman almost fell from his chair laughing about his shitty joke, while Kyle and Kenny rolled their eyes.

“Don’t you think it’s weird how clingy they are?” Kyle asked his blonde friend, while they kept watching you and Stan, who were seated at a separate table at lunch.

“Honestly, I think it’s pretty cute.” Kenny said with his muffled voice.

You held his arm and hugged him from the side, while he happy kept on eating his lunch.

Eric, who had now calmed down from his laugh attack eyed the couple critically. “I’m giving them a month max.”

He said lazily and looked around. “I say longer than a year.” Kenny said, throwing a crinkled five-dollar note on the table.

“You two are horrible.” Kyle shook his head before he threw 10 dollars on the table.

“Four months.”

Kenny was a happy man after a year, because despite everyone believing you two would eventually break up, you never did.

You were always by his side, no matter what.

His desire to desperately save whales with the help of a braindead ship crew?

You were always right by his in the interviews he gave.

His horrible depression that even drove Kyle away? No chance, you stood strong and helped him through the whole thing and even help reuniting the gang.

Even during the protest against Skanthunt42, you chose to sit this one out, despite you absolutely hating that the troll photoshopped a dick into your mother’s mouth.

At least you and Heidi got close due to you guys both becoming social outcasts. When Wendy heard this, she was impressed by your dedication and felt somewhat guilty for obviously not trying as much in her former relationship.

Everyone admired your patience and endurance. No matter what obstacle came, you managed to get through it.

“You don’t need to be sad, Y/N. I won't be that far away.” Stan said, holding your hand.

“B-But it's outside of town. You need ages by bike to get there and vice versa.” You said, holding back tears.

Randy walked past you and you desperately pleaded to him.

“Please Mister Marsh, please stay in town!” Randy put the box he carried into the car, before turning to you.

“Real sorry, dear Y/N. This town is…How do I put it… Absolute shit and I really want to get away.”

He patted you on the head and went back into the house to get more boxes.

“Told you, you cant talk to him.” Stan said and shrugged.

“But it’s unfair. We won’t see each other as much anymore.” Stan pressed a kiss onto your cheek, which made you blush intensely.

“Don’t. Worry. I will make time for you.”

With that in mind, you didn’t feel as sad, when the car with the Marsh Family in it left for their new home.

“I will make time for you, my ass.” You mumbled while you sat at a bench near Starks Pond. Letting out a deep sigh, you leaned back and just enjoyed the warmth of the setting sun.

Covid was one hell of a bitch and just had to have this big impact on everyone’s life. Stan and you now saw each other less and less.

It was just a horrible feeling that tainted your heart and made you worry a lot.

Maybe he was feeling just as bad as you are, maybe even more?

Maybe he just didn’t want to tell you how he felt?

Were you maybe a bad partner? Your mind began racing and your train of thoughts became unrailed.

So many bad thoughts manifested themselves and it made you almost gasp for air.

“I need to check on him.” You mumbled getting up from the park bench.

You began walking and you kind of hoped that maybe just the walking would get your mind in check, but sadly it didn’t. Involuntarily you had to think about all the other stuff that happened during this horrible time.

The precious Broship was more fragile than ever. You had become such good friends with Kenny, Kyle and Cartman over time that it hurt you a lot too.

You also saw Covid take a toll on your other friends, like Craig and his group, who now took Cartman into their gang after the split up.

However, that came to be…

The girls were also pretty divided, so hanging out with them meant picking sides which wasn’t your thing, you kinda just want them to get along again.

Everything felt like it was falling apart. Your parents had fights ever so often, all your friends had problems and your beloved boyfriend was stuck on that stupid farm.

God how you hated that stupid farm and Randy.

When he gave you one of those plushies that looked like him, you functioned it into a voodoo doll. But sadly, it didn’t seem to affect him, no matter how many needles you rammed into it.

Your heart felt heavy, and it seemed hard to breathe, but you brushed it aside.

You had already reached the busy streets of South Park and mingled between the newly vaccinated people.

Everywhere you looked, the people seemed happy.

Everyone was happy except you and the people around you… Maybe…You were the problem?

You shook your head. No, you didn’t allow those kinds of thoughts.

You much rather think about Stan. How you miss him and how amazing your dates were.

Oh, how much effort he put into all the small things… Well… At least he did.

Now that you thought about it when was your last date?

It feels like it had been ages. It has been ages. Everything had been ages. Going out with him, hanging out with your friends, your family not fighting… How long has this been the new normal? You can’t help but wonder.

Your heart clenched again. “Stop it, stupid heart.” You mumbled under your breath.

An exhausted sigh escaped your lips when you thought about how you maybe had to walk all the way up to the farm… It would take ages, but you really craved being held by the person you adored so much.

So, you continued walking down through the street when an elder lady stopped you.

“Excuse me, but you look rather sickly, are you alright?” Confused you raised an eyebrow. Did the vaccines make them delusional?

“No, I’m fine.” You answered, somewhat snippy, even when you didn’t know why you were so agitated.

“But you look rather pale, maybe you- I am fine.” You interrupted her and continued your path.

Were all people in this shitty town stupid or- The thought could not be completed, due to you suddenly losing consciousness.

When you woke up again, you immediately recognized one of the Hells Pass Hospital rooms, once your eyes had adjusted to the bright lights. Around the bed were your parents and more importantly Stan and his mother.

“Thank God, you’re awake again!” Your mother said when she went for a hug.

Confused you asked why you were here.

“Well, seemingly you were so stressed out, that your body basically shut down.”

Somewhat shocked you looked around. Was it really a surprise to hear that? Not really, but it still felt odd knowing that it happened.

“Well, I’m glad you’re fine, Y/N.” Misses Marsh commented and smiled warmly at you. She had always liked you and you felt the same. She was always nice to you and you felt like she was the only one with a brain in the family…

Feeling a sudden sensation of warmness on your hand, your eyes darted down to it. Stan held you hand while answering something your dad had asked him.

“Well, Sharon, you wanna accompany us to get some hot chocolate for us all?”

Your mother said with an odd wink, which made you and Stan roll your eyes.

The three adults left the room chatting happily. Stan looked at you with a stern expression, which kind of surprised you.

“I swear, whenever I think I couldn’t get more worried about you, your parents call me, to tell me that you’re in the hospital.”

“Worried? About me? I should be worried about you?” You laughed to which Stan shook his head.

“Listen, everyone has been super worried about you since you seemed so down and just exhausted. Like, Kyle already called me earlier to ask if you’re awake again. I don’t know why you worry about me; I am really fine babe. Promise.”

With that said, the door opened, and your parents came back inside.

“Y/N, the doctor said they would like you to stay the night, so they can check that you’re really alright.” Your father informed you and you were immediately annoyed.

Well, you had no choice but to oblige. Your parents left after an hour, wanting to get you some clothes and other things you’d need.

Sharon also bids her goodbye and so you and Stan were left.

And just like you wished, you got to cuddle with him. He held you close, and you vented to him, how worried you were about everything and everyone, while he told you just how worried all of your friends had been since you were acting so out of character.

“Even Cartman?”

“Yup, even when he would never admit it.” Stan laughed. He held your hand tight, and his content smile never left his face.

“I think we should talk more about feelings and being worried and all that. I know I’m not all that good at it, but I don’t ever wanna have to visit you in a hospital again.” Stan said, giving your hand a squeeze.

“That sounds good. But you gotta accept, I worry a lot, because I care a lot about you, okay?” You said sternly and Stan nodded. You two looked fondly at each other and just enjoyed the time you got.

“Together forever?” You asked and he whispered “Forever.”, before he pressed a sweet kiss onto your lips.

[lilyharvord]

Is Red School good?

I have a lot of thoughts in regards to Red School, the further removed I am from it (that is the longer its been since I read both parts) the more I loath it. There's just a lot wrong with it and I guess since I've come so far and I've digested both parts after a year it's time to make a list of all the reason I hate that thing.

1. We'll start with the cover.... I should have known this whole thing was going to be C-/D+ at best with those cover. I know people who only have a year of photoshop experience who could have done a better job. You couldn't have paid me to buy that hard cover or a physical copy of that thing.

2. The art is.... subpar. Sometimes the characters looked good, most of the time they did not. I told someone that Maven's face literally said "🔻" on every page and that he looked like a knock off version of Severus Snape 🤢. His eyes too? Are you serious? And the reason for why they didn't give him blue eyes is such a fucking joke. The artist had one job, literally one job. AND CAL, my son... my darling boy, on the week of his birth was done so goddman dirty. I mean, WHAT THE FUCK VICTORIA. There were NEGATIVE things attractive about him. I dont even wanna talk about the bare chested fight scene with a 14 year old. I dont wanna talk about it. I dont wanna talk about that (BUT IT IS DEFINITELY ONE OF THE POINTS ON THIS LIST). MAVEN WASN'T EVEN ATTRACTIVE. And dont get me started on Malibu Barbie Mare Barrow (I will say, at least she has "brown" skin 🙄 we love the bare minimum being done). Every girl in the story looked the same, except for the minor characters in Skool...which is maybe a problem but I haven't read A Skool of Gud and Evile so I dont know those characters. I felt bad for them too tho. The ONLY character who looked good (as she deserves) was Evangeline. My Queen looked like an absolute fucking badass, but that's it (even though she in on way shape or form looked asian in descent but that is a battle for another day 😒). the Skol characters seemed to fair better than the RQ ones on every page and I was just tired by the end.

3. The story is... meh. It's fine. It's entertaining. I get that it's supposed to just be "fun" or whatever. But it's so strange. And i know people are gonna be like "Oh but Lily, it's a cross over! It's meant to just be a giggle, and entertain us"... and that I say to you: I KNOW FANFIC AUTHORS WHO COULD HAVE COME UP WITH A MORE BELIEVABLE REASON FOR HOW THOSE CHARACTERS GOT THERE AND A MORE BELIEVABLE STORY LINE. Also... like... what is the time line??? Cause if you read Reed Skool, the ending makes 0 sense in the context of Red Queen. And I get that is was probably hard to mash those two worlds together and come up with a believable plot... but are you serious? Two New York Times Best Selling authors? And they decided on Zombies? Zombies? For real? My god they could have done better.

4. The characters... are just off. There is something off. I dont know if it was because all I had been doing for over 2 years since broken throne was writing and reading fanfic but man... there was just something off. Maven was not charming (period) he was sullen and sort of... I dont know already tipping toward whatever he was in glass sword? At least he was interesting in RQ, in this he was like a cardboard cutout. Mare had 0 personality. Her main personality trait was staring out windows dramatically and making innuendo comments (there is literally a bit of dialogue where she tells maven "at least we're not eating each other" with like a suggestive smile in reference to her, Cal and Maven. i threw up in my mouth). And Cal... oh lord I dont have the strength. For a moment, I actually believed the people who called him a brick wall with no personality in RQ because he had NEGATIVE personality in this thing. WHERE WERE THE PUNS? WHERE WAS THE PINING AFTER MARE?? He spends the whole time... like not saying anything important at all. I couldn't tell you one line of dialogue that he said. He doesn't even really talk to mare and they're in like 50 panels together. Maven doesn't even really have a conversation with Mare? and he's in even more panels with her. HE SPENDS MORE TIME FUCKING FLIRTING WITH THAT BLONDE CHICK FROM ASOGAE. I swear to god, if that thing hadn't been a PDF on my phone I would have thrown it across the room.

5. There is literally an entire 2 pages wasted on this stupid moment where Cal and whoever that guy is from Skol of Gud and Evile where they take their shirts off and have a fucking wrestling match in the middle of a ballroom in front of 100s of people... I... I had no words. I think I actually cringed and made an ugly face about it. The boy is 14 in the book, I googled it. Why the fuck is Cal a (21 year old) fighting bare chested with a 14 year old who looks like he's 30? Man I dont know, but I cannot believe Victoria green lighted that. Greenlighted a level headed military strategist who is a GROWN MAN having a dick measuring match with a 14 year old like it's middle school. And dont get my started on how they drew Cal in that scene. Annie has posted that panel on here and I actually can't look at it. I...I was so upset. I was upset on behalf of Mare and the entire fandom.

6. There is a fucking joke where this skinny dude can turn into a buff werewolf and then when he changes back he's butt naked in front of everyone. Like... was that supposed to be funny? Was I supposed to laugh there? Oh shit, my bad. 😒 Why was that in there? What was the point of that?

7. The "twist" is just... for real Victoria? You who championed the whole; SUPRISE GUESS WHO THE BAD BUY IS twist and you went with what you did. I was so disappointed. And again, it makes 0 sense in the context of RQ.

8. This is personal to me but Mare and whoever the main girl is in Skool definitely should have been Bi for each other and that's on that. They had more chemistry than Mare had with Cal or Maven.

Reed Skol was clearly a cash grab... or an attention grab. A means of keeping both fandoms on the hook while RQ rode the coattails of ASoGaE since it was already announced it was getting a TV series. It was a very poor grab too. There were 100s of better ways this could have been done. 100s of better ways Victoria could have kept our attention. They could have done a RQ graphic novel set like Sabaa Tahir is doing for an Ember in the Ashes that details Prequel-esq type stories. We could have had a set of those stories that were Red School's length in graphic novel format: One story about Mare and Kilorn in the Stilts or Mare and Shade with Kilorn in the Stilts. A story about Farley and her sister in the Lakelands. A story about Iris in the Lakelands. A story about Maven and Thomas where we learn what happened at the front with them. A story about all the young Silvers in the Palace were we would see all their interactions when they were younger. We could have just gotten a fucking RQ graphic novel in general. I would have dropped 60+ dollars on a hardcover graphic novel version of RQ. Instead we got whatever the hell Reed Skol was supposed to be. It honestly pissed me off, and I'm glad I didn't spend a single penny on it. Would have been a waste of money. Glad I didn't buy that special package with the interview with the authors either... Victoria would have faced my wrath over both Broken Throne and Reed Skol if I had.

[missymurphy1985]

The Umbrella Girl (part 6)

The Aftermath of your night with Cillian...

Taglist @queenshelby @margoo0 @being-worthy @peakyscillian @ntmynouis @janelongxox @elenavampire21 @noctvrnalmoth @ysmmsy

Warnings - language, mentions of baby loss, smut (this got long... Sorry!!)

The morning after your night with Cillian had gone incredibly well, considering. Your mum was surprised to see him the following morning, but she was one of the most liberal people you knew - and she adored Cillian too, especially after the cooked breakfast he'd knocked up. Emily had arrived home with Steph later that day and Steph pulled you to one side to talk to you alone.

"Lisa's gone crazy y/n.. she's already contacted the Sun, the story's going live tomorrow morning... It's all over social media.." You took a deep breath and Steph hugged you tight. The sound of Cillian's phone in the background interrupted you, you had a feeling you knew who it was. He came into the living room to join the two of you so Emily and your mum didn't overhear anything in the kitchen. Steph left the two of you alone.

"All you have is one side of the story Mr Grayson.... No I'm not prepared to give a statement yet..... Yes I'm aware of the implications... Again, I'm not interested in giving a statement... Call me again and I'll have your job Grayson, delete my number!" You could see the anger rising in his eyes and you swiftly took the phone from him before he said something he'd regret and ended the call, turning his phone off. He wrapped his arms round you and held you tight, you could feel the emotion rising in him.

"It's okay. It'll be okay... I promise..." Suddenly two little arms wrapped round you both, Emily looked up at the two of you sadly.

"Cillian crying?" She whispered, and he lifted her up into his arms to give her a big hug. Your heart lurched watching your child wrap her arms round his neck tight.

"I'm better now I've had that hug Emily... Thank you." He kissed her cheek affectionately and smiled at you, nodding. He was okay. For now.

"I'm gonna head home y/n... I have a feeling my publicist will want a word or two. I'll call you later, okay?" He kissed you, still holding Emily who giggled at him as he tickled under her ribs. "You gonna take care of your mama?" She nodded and he placed her back on the floor letting her run back into the kitchen. Saying a quick goodbye to your mum and Steph, he kissed you again before opening the front door. He quickly came back inside and closed it again.

"Fucking press are out there y/n... There's dozens of them... The fuck do I do?"

"Shit... Did they see you?"

"I think so.." he ran his fingers through his hair and leaned against the wall.

"Stay here. Call your publicist from my room upstairs, tell him EVERYTHING. He needs to know before it comes out tomorrow.. he'll know what to do?" Cillian nodded, and headed upstairs, turning his phone back on.

CILLIAN MURPHY IN BABY SCANDAL!!

Former Peaky Blinders Personal Assistant Lisa Tyler reveals she lost her and Cillian's baby as a result of the stress caused when he refused to have anything to do with their baby... even going as far as to claim she wasn't even pregnant. Their affair began six months before Murphy's wife, Cassie, left him, speculating she found out about the affair which led to their divorce last year. Murphy is yet to make a formal statement, however he did threaten to have our entertainment reporter, Len Grayson, fired yesterday when we contacted him. His temper clearly something he needs to keep in check.

Cillian's head sank into his hands, he couldn't read the rest. The front page even had a blurred out screenshot of the sex tape Lisa had made, next to a photo of Lisa holding a baby scan photo - not her scan, clearly, she was only 2 weeks pregnant when the miscarriage happened, but for the purposes of the story the image just added to the drama.

There were reports the tape was now all over the internet - the date mark clearly photoshopped to make it look like it had been filmed months before it actually was, but the untrained eye wouldn't spot that. She'd given the Sun all of the details - nothing left out. His publicist had gone ballistic the day before when Cillian told him. Even his ex wife had called him to berate him. His family didn't believe a word of it - they of course knew the truth and were standing by him unconditionally.

You sat next to him on your bed and held his hand. He hadn't left your house since Friday night, too worried about facing the paparazzi outside, but he needed a change of clothes - he had to face them today whether he liked it or not.

"Want me to come with you?" You asked him, resting your head on his shoulder.

"No.. I can't drag you into this any more than I already have y/n.. this isn't fair.. you don't deserve this. Emily doesn't deserve this..."

"Don't you dare Cillian... Don't you dare push me away now!" He looked into your eyes and put his hands either side of your face.

"I couldn't push you away now if I tried.. please don't leave me y/n?"

"I told you, I'm not going anywhere! Come on. We need to do this sooner or later... Hand in hand, remember?" You stood up, taking his hand and led him down the stairs. Your mum with Emily in the living room. You both walked in hand in hand, and Emily rushed to Cillian. The two of them had spent the weekend playing tea parties and dolls, they'd become thick as thieves. He'd charmed your mum all weekend, cooking meals and helping with the cleaning - you were worried your mum loved him more than you did, because that's exactly how you felt. You wanted him completely, and had fallen for him hard.

He put Emily down and looked to you.

"You sure you want to do this?"

"Shut up, Murphy." He laughed, and kissed your hand, leaning in to kiss your cheek. Leaving your mum and daughter in the living room you both made your way outside to the waiting reporters, statement ready. You wouldn't speak, simply hold his hand for support and let him do it.

Approaching the cameras, Cillian took a breath and told his side. Essentially repeating everything he'd told you that day in Sophie's trailer, but with less emotion. His publicist had warned him not to get emotional - the papers would simply rip him apart even more. You stood to the side, hand in his, squeezing it now and then, as he came to the end of his speech.

"This lady has completely bowled me over. Without her, I couldn't have faced you today," he looked back at you and cleared his throat. "I'd ask, politely, that you give us space. Respect the privacy I've always requested in good faith. Allow us to deal with this privately and together. What's been said about me isn't all true. I was never unfaithful to my wife of 21 years.

I have made mistakes. Show me a man who hasn't? I have hurt people. I have disappointed people. I have let people down. What happened with Lisa and the baby was tragic... It was a tragic accident. Yes, I was angry. Yes, I doubted the baby was mine, and no, I'm not proud of my actions. I've nothing else to say on the matter, and I repeat, respectfully, that I'd appreciate privacy for myself and my family now. Thank you." You both made your way to his car, ignoring the barrage of questions from the paparazzi, and Cillian kissed your cheek before getting in and driving away. You walked back into the house, closed the door and fell into your mum's waiting arms, finally letting out the tears you'd been holding all weekend.

That week's filming was, fortunately, smooth sailing. Not a single person on Peaky believed the venom Lisa had been spouting in the media, and even Cillian's ex wife had been convinced of his innocence over a course of phone calls and texts. Anto had instructed that you cancel any media interviews Cillian had planned in order for him to keep as low a profile as possible. For the most part, it was business as usual. You were all meant to have a week's break, but with the situation as it was, it was agreed across the cast and crew that the sooner you all finished filming the better so the week off was cancelled. As disappointed as Cillian was not to be going home to Dublin for a week, it meant an extra week with you, so he wasn't complaining too much.

You were sat in Cillian's trailer, a cold, miserable Friday morning. The story had been out for nearly a week and the media circus was showing no signs of calming down. There were even random women sharing 'kiss and tell' stories now that were completely false, Cillian had never even met these women, never mind had sex with them. His head was laid back on the sofa cushions his hands over his eyes rubbing them tightly. He hadn't slept properly since Sunday. You made your way over to sit across his knees and pulled his upper body into your own, holding him tight to your chest as you stroked his hair gently.

"You need sleep Cill, you're not doing yourself any favours. Plus, Steph is sick of wasting her expensive eye cream on you covering those suitcases under your eyes," you chuckled, making him laugh a little under you. He ran his hands softly up your back making you shudder. You hadn't slept together since Sunday either - his mind too preoccupied.

His hands soon snaked underneath your t-shirt, making you arch you hips slightly closer to his. He lifted you off him, and sat you on the sofa next to him. You were about to ask what he was doing, before his body was hovering over yours, his lips attacking your neck. Your fingers began unbuckling his belt and jeans, pulling them down to his ankles allowing his hard cock to spring in front of you. Without missing a beat, you took him into your mouth, his hands gripping the back of the sofa behind you as you licked slowly up his shaft. Pumping the base of his cock with one hand and taking the tip into your mouth, bobbing your head over him quickly. This was not going to be your usual slow, sensual session, but neither of you wanted that right now.

"I'm not coming in your mouth y/n... Turn around..." he pulled you up and bent you over the sofa, your skirt now hitched up over your waist and your underwear pulled down to your ankles. He ran his tongue slowly against your slit, his hands squeezing your thighs. You were already wet for him after days of no physical contact.

"I need you inside me Cillian, please...." You raised your hips up, he groaned as pushed himself inside you until you felt him flush against your thighs. His thrusts quickly becoming hard and fast, pounding into you as you gripped onto the sofa, panting his name.

"Stop... Wanna ride you... Sit down..." He spun the two of you round, never leaving your warm core as he sat on the sofa, you were now on top of him with your back pushed forwards. You held onto the table in front of you for leverage and moved your hips in circles over his thick length, buried deep inside you. He pulled you back into his chest, his hand now between your legs rubbing your clit as he thrust up into you sharp, hard, and fast. The new angle hitting your sweet spot inside with a new level of intensity.

"Fuck... I'm gonna come Cillian... Don't stop..." Your walls clenched around him as you came harder than ever, your juices flowing from you onto the sofa underneath, his release following quickly with a deep, gutteral groan. He rested his head on your shoulder, and you felt his breathing becoming shallow, before his eyes closed softly into a deep sleep. You eased yourself off him slowly and cleaned yourself up, before laying him down on the sofa with a cushion under his head and a blanket over his half naked body. He barely made a sound as he slept. Kissing him gently on the head, you straighted out your clothes before heading out of the trailer. Luckily he wasn't due on any scenes for a couple of hours at least.

Your phone pinged with a group message to you and Cillian from his sister, Orla, you could see 4 missed calls from her too. Opening the message, you nearly dropped your phone in shock.. a video of Cillian's house in Dublin... Surrounded by fire engines and police cars, smoke bellowing from a window downstairs...

The scream from the trailer behind you could've woken the dead...

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep11: Seto's Ultimate Lifelong Rival (He Knew Basically Nothing About)

This episode was mostly dueling--which I’m sure was deep and complicated (something to do with Seto losing his dragons and then getting back his dragons yada yada) but we’re gonna get to the good stuff, which includes the fact that Zigfried had this cute little Willy Wonka lavender suit combo since he was 11.

So I guess my theory that he’s dresses like this to be a cute Willy Wonka game developer only makes sense if you look at it from the perspective of him being a Willy Wonka Military developer, and, according to Youtube, they’ve already made that movie. Actually...Snowpiercer came out in 2013. I can’t believe Yugioh came up with the concept of Willy Wonka being an evil ass weapons manufacturer a decade before the Youtube literary conspiracy theorists got to it first.

Throughout the duel, Zigfried regales Seto with tales about their rivalry and like...we haven’t heard anything about this guy in the past several years so...way to invent a rivalry right out of your ass in S5, Yugioh.

It does actually kind of work with Seto’s whole vibe because there’s a lot of things his Father never told him about before he booked it to the middle of the ocean and plugged himself into the Orb. Seto has been dealing with the fallout from his late(?) Father this entire show, which include this rivalry that we have never heard anything about before today.

It’s low key kind of hilarious because you can imagine that Zigfried has been desperately trying to follow Seto and co for the past 4 seasons and kept running into coincidental roadblocks, shaking his fist at the sky and going “Herr Kaiba zwarted me, yet again!”

The implications of this photo. Did Zigfried photoshop it together? Was it a gift from Zigfried’s Dad that he photoshopped together? Did Gozaboro send it to them as a gift or something? Like...when was this photo taken???

I could be wrong but...Kaiba is wearing a different suit than what he had on at that party so...this must have been a different event where Zifried was dressed up like a nutcracker again, but...what event?

The implications that this exists...

(read more under the cut)

While Zigfried’s Father followed Gozaboro’s footsteps, and I assume ran headfirst into the ocean to plug himself into his dead son’s electronic brain, Zigfried found himself heir to a giant weapons company. Which he decided was not in the cards for him. Because he liked CARDS.

At this point, Zigfried could have counted his lucky stars, turned around and said “My trials have finally ended!” and just gone into weapons manufacturing, now that there was a huge, gaping vacuum in that market. Yet, he was so obsessed with beating Kaiba (who, again, has no idea this is happening) that he continues down the road of game development (which is more dangerous than the road of weapons development...strangely enough).

Logically, the next road of game development is to tackle the biggest game with the zaniest investor--which was Duel Monsters.

And considering that Pegasus sort of owned duel monsters, it kind of makes sense why they both of them came out with hologram tech to make his wife seem as real and alive as possible. They both came from the same military background--so it isn’t that wild that Seto and Zigfried came up with a similar thing.

I DO think it’s funny that this story kind of mirrors the plot to like...the Manhattan project, and maybe that’s all a huge coincidence--but it says a lot about how freakin lethal cards are.

And yet again, Seto deserves a peace prize for getting not only the largest weapons manufacturer off the gun-making racket--but also the 2nd largest weapons manufacturer off the gun-making racket--and he had no idea he did it.

I’m just baffled by how many times Seto has saved the world.

Back in the present day, everyone reacts to this with some surprise although...we are talking about a Season Zero Seto so stealing tech totally checks out. He probably went as far as to make Zigfried late to work by asking all his security team to stand in the hallway with their arms stretched really wide and sort of walk side to side in front of Zigfried like they’re football linebackers saying “woops, my bad, excuse me, pardon me.”

Like clearly, Zigfried sort of lost track of Seto Kaiba shortly after he started working with Pegasus. Clearly he missed the part 2 weeks ago where Kaiba Corp was being sued for making cards real, and then was bought out by Dartz who then proceeded to murder everyone on the planet.

Like clearly Zigfried has not picked up on the fact Seto is trying very hard to make cards not look like weapons of mass destruction and has very much failed to do so.

This is just a weird way to send someone to court, but we are talking about this universe so card games are actually a form of court and it is legally binding.

So after Seto lies about his credentials (well...is it lying if you honestly think you’re telling the truth?) he spends the rest of the episode getting his ass tossed by Zigfried. But, it’s the last ass tossing that dictates the duel, which is why Seto won. Normal duel stuff.

So, it’s not the end of the arc...Zigfried really was about to pull some shinanegans with his cards...but I guess we’ll wait for next round.

Which I think is just straight up Leon so...

...wow I have never been less interested in a character’s backstory, I’m gonna be completely honest with you. Maybe he will pull off the mask and reveal he’s been Marik this whole time? Maybe Leon will pull the eye out of his pocket and be like “Hey you dropped this!” Maybe Leon will do literally nothing as the park falls apart around him? I just feel like Leon is the type of character that has so little going for him that he’s probably going to die eventually but like...he hasn’t died yet. Literally no one has died yet.

Or maybe Zigfried will just do a warcrime and be done with it? It wouldn’t be the first time a Yugi villain has done that after getting frustrated one too many times.

And if you just got here, we got like...hundreds of these recaps now for you to read when you’re feeling the itch, so this is a link to read these in chrono order, because that’s just way more convenient:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[amythecinnabunny]

Space AU and Time Travel for Juke 👀 <33

Holy shit holy shit holy shit ok ok ok ok first of all AKDBJSJSJJEJE YES

Okay okay so let me try to iron out the mess in my head skxbjsjjd I hereby apologize if things get out of order or whatever but I am literally vibrating with excitement someone please write this I'll love you forever

Ok so I'm thinking also an aged up au for ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* reasons *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ sjsnnsn

Also, I've done this before and I'm gonna do it again, but Bobby and Trevor are two different people for the sake of the timeline here.

Time frame for this would be WAY into the future. Humanity has gone galactic. We also had our asses handed to us by several alien planets but we probably deserved it. Anyway, after we got rid of Elon Musk, we eventually made peace with the aliens and now roam the galaxy freely. 20-30yo generally try to get into a different fleet, just to learn about other races. Think all those alien ships adopts a human posts.

Julie, Carrie and Flynn are my three girl geniuses. They're like,,, the smartest people in every room. They've been like this since freshman year of college. Julie, Carrie and Flynn also all want to get into the student exchange program, which is exactly what you think it is. Alien races (and this now includes humanity) swaps out older students with each other so they get a feel of what the other race is like. It's fun, educational, and! You get to make super long distance pen pals!

I'd also have so much fun making up new memes???? It would be so fucking stupid tho but I love it.

Anyway, so after a few years of jumping through the exchange programme, hoping from planet to planet, unfortunately, without their bestfriends :<, the three of them qualify to board research ships!!!

So at like 23-25, my girls come back together on the same ship!! Its a massive thing and so they've hired so many interns from so many different races. It's like a landing hub for several smaller ships. They have like 10 interns per species and that's only because there are laws against having too many of one kind after they put 50 humans on a space station and the humans tried to take over. Also, humans multiply faster than the others. This terrifies some races.

Anyway, the ship's really just a bunch of college kids from different planets trying to avoid exam season by submitting research papers from their ship. They all bond over deadlines, breakups and coffee (or the alien equivalent thereof)

Flynn dated an alien girl for a while. They were cute. Flynn: as a lesbian, it's my duty to date all the women in space

This is also where they run into Willie!!! Yay, Willie!!!

Nick Danforth-Evans and Kayla Evans-McKessie are around ... somewhere ... in bunk beds like the little toddlers they wish they were, crying about the 15 page essay on why Xjsbsjdjd is a very intelligent race that we could learn a lot from (yes, that is a keysmash I'm too buzzed to be creating alien species names sjdjjdjd)

Carrie and Nick do date for a while but then Carrie hooked up with Kayla. Bisexual queen who?

Julie met Willie that time she didn't sleep for over 48 hours because she had a research paper due within a week and she hadn't started yet and it was 10 000 words on her experiences with the Psjxjjdkeiwj race. Luckily for her, the kid she bumped into and spilled an energy drink all over had the same paper and helped her finish it. Willie sometimes goes by the nickname Lifesaver, thanks to Julie. This confuses the metaphor-less people because Willie's never saved anyone's life?? So why is he a lifesaver??

ANYWAY ON TO THE TIME TRAVEL BIT

On their own, Julie, Carrie and Flynn are professional smart people who know what they're saying and are clever enough not to do things with too many risks. In the same room, however, they turn into dumb geniuses who can and possibly may blow up the entire ship. It's a good thing they have Willie, Nick and Kayla to babysit them, right? WRONG. Willie Kayla and Nick egg them on.

They decide there going to gather all the information there is on time travel and they're going to decipher it and make it work! Yay!

When they find stuff in alien languages they start calling up their alien pen pals "hello what's this word mean in this context? What, haha oh no, it's a research paper on why time travel projects were abandoned before completion. Okay, thank you!"

Before long, they have a working time machine. I mean,, they hope so. And so they enter a random date from the past and prepare to pop their heads through just to see what the world looked like approximately 200ish years ago

2020s, post covid because that exists for joke reasons later, Sunset Curve is performing live for one of their biggest audiences yet when mid-song, the floor just opens them up and swallows them whole before vanishing. The crowd things it's a stunt but Sunset Curve's managers are flipping their shit

Back on the ship, the machine starts sparking and with a soft boom and a hiss, the power in that quadrant goes out -- not before Willie's is pelted in the face with a pair of drumsticks and then a whole person.

It's a miracle the drums survived the trip, pet alone everything else.

So now these sleep deprived geniuses and co. have to hide three people and several musical artifacts, plus the smoking remains of a time machine, from their Supervising Officer, who is regrettably, a human too.

And none of them are very good at lying.

Luke and Bobby are though, and after piecing together bits and pieces from the frenzied rambling around them, Luke and Bobby save the group.

Shenanigans ensue as they try to rebuild the time machine under the watchful eye of the SO, while trying to mantainbfake credentials for the boys and trying to explain their very dated clothing. (Yes, Sunset Curve STILL rocks the 90s vibe. In the 2020s. It's their thing.)

Willex happens in the background -- and I mean that very literally. (Jukebox having a tension moment, Willex making out in the background.)

Honestly I'm not sure yet how theyd solve the problems, whether they'd send the boys back or not or what, but I do know that they will all cause a BUNCH of problems in between.

Sometimes they play music just because they still can. Sunset Curve becomes a house band for the ship. They get broadcasted to neighbouring or passing ships like "hey, losers, we have live music, SUCK IT!"

Focusing on the jukebox aspect of this whole fic, that's gonna be a fucking hilarious slow burn.

It will definitely contain the lines "Oh my god, I have a crush on Julie." "Congratulations, you're officially the last to know." "What? Even [SO's Name] knows??" "Dude. The ship's navigation crew knows." "Does ... Julie know?" "No, you're both morons."

Julie is having the exact same conversation four hallways away.

They'd talk a lot about sending the boys back home and it'd be really quiet conversations when everyone else is asleep.

Julie and Luke write music together and after a while, Julie performs a few of them too. Thanks to the concerts, they meet the other human interns that were on the other end of the ship and Carrie and Kayla form Dirty Candy.

The ship becomes known as the party bus.

A thing that will happen: Luke helps Julie write one of her history papers that she gets an A+ for and a comment about how dedicated she was to have delved so far back in the history records to get authentic insight.

Julie and Luke speak in memes but they don't speak the same memes and it drives them both up the wall.

Luke says yeet one day and Julie's soul leaves her body because she hasn't heard anyone say yeet since she was a toddler back on Earth.

Julie: odd display, but acceptable.

Luke, physically experiencing a record scratch: what the fuck did you just say

That is all I have to offer because I'm afraid of plotting further and causing angst somehow.

oh one more thing, someone gets to bang an alien and it's probably Flynn.

Oh oh oh another one more thing. Reggie says "this is just like in Star Wars" for literally anything. The band goes along with it for shits and giggles. The rest of them are very interested in this ancient tale called Star Wars. Reggie sees a picture of Flynn and her green gf and says "hey, you dated photoshopped Yoda" and Bobby just loses his shit.

[dragons-bones]

Your screenshots are amazing and beautiful! I’m always impressed by your visual storytelling! I’m just incredibly curious about how you do them! What program or mod do you use? And do you do commissions? Thank you and keep up the lovely work! 💚

Aww, thank you so much, that’s very kind of you!

The only things I really use are my NVIDIA overlay (the base graphics of FFXIV is very grey and fiddling with the gamma only gets me so far, so I use the overlay for a tiny bit of color saturation for my regular gameplay), some preset shaders via GShade (which is...basically exactly like the NVIDIA overlay), and for some more complicated ideas (or wanting to do something ship-themed for Synnove and Aymeric), and CMTools. CMTools is basically where I draw the line in terms of modding--it uses strictly in-game assets and allows for manipulation of the in-game models, and that’s what I’m perfectly content with. I do not use anything related to Textools. Very rarely I may do some color touch-ups in Photopea (basically a free in-browser Photoshop dupe) or if I want to a complicated edit like I did a few times with FebHyurary.

Otherwise, it’s just /gpose! I’ve got plenty of screenshots where it’s just one of the base gpose filters (Bright 4 is the one I usually end up using) and a standard emote (possibly with the addition of a different expression, which can really change up the feel of an emote!) frozen at just the right moment. There’s typically a lot of factors I try to pay attention to when taking a screenshot or putting together a photoset: framing; lighting (each zone’s lighting is a little different and can be further affected by the weather and time of day, so a screenshot taken in the early morning in Mist can look radically different at noon and then sunset); camera angles (great for making something appear more dynamic, but also especially useful when posing the character models with CMTools and you can’t get a damn elbow to un-jankify...very careful framing and angling can hide a lot of sins); zoom (related to camera angles, really, but deserves a mention with how much I love a good closeup of my gal’s gorgeous face); and straight up cropping a shot to a smaller size to better focus on the scenery or the character or fix up the framing or even just because something smaller is less likely to get compressed to hell by tumblr. XD

This stuff just...takes a lot of practice, honestly, and figuring out what I liked in my screenshots, and replicating what I liked seeing in other folks’ shots. I’ve been messing with gpose since I started playing in late 2016 and there’s tons of things I’m still learning and beginning to experiment with. Hell, some of my favorite screenshots were happy accidents rather than anything meticulously planned!

I don’t do commissions, no; taking screenshots in FFXIV is strictly for my own fun, either spontaneously while playing the game or when I’ve got a specific idea. It’s admittedly a very nice bonus that other folks like what I put together, too! :)

Thank you again for the kind words! ♥

[holy-yeosang]

Content Creator year in review

This is my content creator year in review! I was indirectly tagged by @wabisaba 💖�� 

First creation and most recent creation of 2020: 

Well my first creation of 2020 was this every ATEEZ member at the center of a choreo edit. While not new to editing, it was my first ATEEZ edit and also my first edit ever since I came back to Tumblr. My most recent creation is this San THANXX facecam gifset.

One of your favorite creations from 2020:

These Hongjoong/Yeosang INCEPTION stage compilation. I was new to working with Vapoursynth with the help of the lovely @sanshine. While the gifs are far from perfect, I really enjoyed making it and messing around with the colouring and the layout of the gifsets. These are still one of my favourite gifsets. 

A creation you’re really proud of:

Hongjoong’s birthday edit is by far my most favourite creation of 2020. I was inspirted by @yunogf​‘s NCT VHS cover edits. While mine doesn’t look as great, I was actually quite proud of it and very excited to share it after I finished it. I enjoyed putting everything together and trying to create a story that could fit the covers.

A new style you tried this year and a gifset that uses it:

The use of a gaussian blur overlay. Previously I wanted gifs to look very sharp, but I really like the soft glow gaussian blur gives to specific type of gifs. I also use an overlay of a black&white filter. I noticed it darkens the shadows and makes things pop out more, so I am kind of attached to the use of it.

A creation that took you forever:

Okay this is going to sound very stupid, but this Yeosang GwiYeomi gifset took me 3 hours. I don’t know why, but photoshop was so slow that day and at some point it crashed and I had to redo everything. I was actually gonna give up on it, but I told myself that I had worked on it so long, I might as well just post it. Another reason why it took so long was because, instead of making several small clips and gif that way...I just made a 700 frame clip and had to deal with that...

Your creation from 2020 that received the most notes:

To my own surprise it was San “accidentally” revealing his pink hair on Hongjoong’s VLIVE. Somehow I got over 1K notes and I am more than delighted about it.

A creation you think deserved more notes:

I honestly have quite a few (in my own opinion). However, this gifset of Yeosang during the Black Cat Nero MV behind the scenes. I am quite proud of my colouring of that gifset eventhough it isn’t that out there.

A new fandom you joined and a creation you made for it:

It’s not that I newly joined the fandom, but I am starting to make gifsets for NU’EST as well. I thought about it a while back, but thought no one would really care. But then came to the conclusion that if I want to make something I should just do so. So basically NU’EST content.

A creation you made that breaks your heart:

Hongjoong calling out a Yeosang hater on VLive. When I read about the entire Yeosang ordeal, I got very sad and honestly very upset. Watching that VLive with subs and hearing Joong calling out the person who kept leaving nasty comments made me happy but actually also more sad realising how open some people are with being so rude and disrespectful. 

A ‘simple’ creation that you really love:

Gifset of San “jumping” on Yeosang after waking up during Fever Road. It makes me feel soft and warm inside, the way both of them are laughing while Jongho is lying on the couch like a lazy cat.

A creation that was inspired by another one (add both your creation and the one that inspired it!):

The Hongjoong birthday set I mentioned before!

A favorite creation created by someone else:  

This gifset by @sanshine

This by @jwy 

This by @seungyoune

This by @songmingki

This by @jaemtens

This specific gifset by  @choi-san

Some of your favorite content creators from the year: 

Okay so @songmingkis @songmingki @sanshine @wabisaba @seungyoune @shuhuas @jaemtens @halahala @ceojongho @lilacwoo @she @woo-san @djxiao @park-seonghwa @choi-san @joonghwas @lkeonhee @ateezgf @hongjooong  and there are probably many more but my brain is mush...

And for good measure, another a couple more creations of yours that you love:

Okay so I really love this gifset of Joong during The Kolor. This gifset of Yeosang during Port of Call (I’m obsessed with the last gif). Him :(. Asia Song Festival San was smth else... and last but not least, swag rich golden boy Seonghwa.

Tagging whichever content creator wants to do this~

[hopevalley]

Season 8, Episode 10: Old Love, New Love, Is This True Love

All right, so...like I said, work has picked up and my eyes feel like old marbles from staring at numbers (the woes of working in accounting I guess) so I want to get this written up and tossed into the nether before I lose steam and motivation to do it. The interesting thing about these little write-ups is that as the week goes on they just get harder and harder to write...

I do apologize in advance to those who like the long-winded write-ups. I’m just not up to it at the moment. Still feeling kind of bleh from the episode.

Let’s go back to an old format, shall we?

The Good

We might as well start out with the things about this episode that I enjoyed! 

Gossip Hour with the Men was one of the best openers they’ve had on the show in a while. It was genuinely funny without being meanspirited. Nobody looked like the bad guy. Everyone just calmly talked about it alike it was a normal thing to maybe call off the wedding. Bill calling out Carson for giving marriage advice was pretty funny, Mike was a delight. I don’t know what to say. I’d watch a whole episode of The Boys just hanging around spending time together.

--

Florence’s worry that she’s ugly was...not a terrible idea for a storyline, but the actress is too good-looking to pretend to be ugly (I saw her in this pretty yellow dress on Instagram a couple years ago and she was smashing)? Also, it’s not like Ned is a handsomely aged gentleman (like Henry lol) so it makes even less sense for the characters. I think they should have gone with Florence feeling she’s “plain” and that dressing up Super Nice makes her feel uncomfortable because she just doesn’t feel like Herself and worries maybe it’s projecting a false sense of Who She Is or something? I guess overall I still liked that an attempt was made to add some depth to Florence and her difficulties in choosing a dress/hairstyle, so...it goes here.

--

Ned asking Henry to be his best man was nice, too. I can forgive the shoddy pacing and weird placement of this request (like I do with almost everything in the show) but only because the scene was just...so incredibly wholesome. 

I like how Henry just casually is like, “Well maybe today’s just not the day.” I think it eased Ned’s mind just a little that he CAN back out if he really wants to.

I think it’s worth thinking about the fact that Ned and Henry would have always worked very closely, since the mercantile would have been a company store before the mine closed down... I like Henry and Ned as pals.

--

I’m glad the “investment” thing with Jesse and Clara’s savings was brought up in a way that...makes sense. And also, glad it wasn’t forgotten.

--

I really liked Molly and Florence in this episode. I’m a little sad Florence married Ned because I AM SORRY BUT I WANTED TO KEEP SHIPPING MOLLY AND FLORENCE TOGETHER UGHGHGHH

But their relationship is so good and maYBE Elizabeth will learn something from them.

Hey Elizabeth...you see that?

YOU SEE THAT?

Just saying.

And then later...

“You are the sister I never had, the mother I forever wanted, the friend I have always needed. From the depths of those dark and terrifying coal mines you’ve walked beside me, picking me up whenever I’ve stumbled along the way.”

AAAAAAAAA IT GOT ME.

--

I’m...really liking Fiona and Mike’s relationship, whatever it is. I kind of think they’re not headed toward anything romantic. Everyone thinks Mike is really into Fiona but at the end of the episode we realize he likes talking to her about business; it’s almost like they have this shared passion for numbers/ideas and he likes infodumping to her (and vice-versa).

I think they’re going to end up being “just friends” and Fiona will end up paired off with the man Elizabeth doesn’t choose. They hinted at Nathan briefly in this episode (with Allie’s hair), but who knows? I’m over trying to speculate on where the triangle is going at this point, but I actually like Fiona’s relationship with Mike so much that I’ll be disappointed if she fades into the background with Nathan or Lucas. Mike deserves more screentime. 

--

Ned and Florence sharing their fIRST KISS. My husband got emotional over this. And I admit, it was starting to get to me, too. I can’t NOT root for them. 

--

I said it before and I’ll say it again: I WOULD DIE FOR THE CANFIELDS.

--

The wedding was nice. I liked that Bill and Joseph officiated it together; it gives Joseph a li’l trial run of pastoring and finally Bill gets to use some of that power of his to officiate a wedding.

“Please, if you’d like” is such a Bill way to say that they may kiss LOL.

--

Also, I have to admit that I did enjoy Lucas calling Nathan out about Allie. She wouldn’t be caught in the middle if he’d leave Elizabeth alone AND HE IS RIGHT LMAO.

The last good thing: Elizabeth telling Nathan she doesn’t blame him for Jack’s death. Nice. Good. Thank you. He probably needed to hear that.

--

...THE BAD

Carson and Faith. UGH. UGHHHHHHHHHH. BREAK UP ALREADY I HATE YOU BOTH.

I appreciated that Carson had the ring ages ago, and I did like his conversation with Minnie—or more accurately, her advice to him. I felt like she was nudging him toward, “Remember why you became a surgeon in the first place.” If he became a surgeon to help people, then there’s no reason he can’t help people where he is. Sure, he might not be doing state of the art procedures but with Faith working alongside him, he can afford time to learn new things and go to doctor conventions or even take a specialized class now and then. No other doctor could get away for very long but he has that chance!

And he’ll arguably be doing more good in the middle of nowhere than in the city. All the doctors want to live in the city. Nobody wants to barely get paid for their time in the countryside.

We had a whole episode that made it clear that Faith and Carson don’t make a lot of money and do a lot of charity work. They also work for trade goods (mostly food). So it’s like...a pretty big difference in lifestyle? 

Half the reason I can’t get invested in these characters is because I really can’t stand Paul Greene. He just...annoys me on every single level imaginable. But he’s a decent actor and I can’t help but feel that his character was a massive waste of space for the past few seasons through no fault of the man himself. Imagine introducing a character like Carson and then leaving him to rot before you try to make him interesting with a romance plot that nobody asked for.

Yes, some people really like Faith and Carson, but as a whole I think the fandom didn’t buy into them as a ship due to the lack of chemistry.

It really is a shame. This episode didn’t do a thing to endear me to either character. Please, Carson. I am begging you to leave town.

--

This one particular line of dialogue almost enraged me.

WE KNOW WE KNOW WE KNOW WE KNOW WE CAN SEE THAT FOR OURSELVES. WHY DID THEY HAVE ROSEMARY SAY THIS LIKE IT’S AN EPISODE OF A CHILD’S TV SHOW?

--

Elizabeth.........

How could Katie have...looked up to her? She was never in her class? That was? Never part of anything? It was just something they threw in here to force Elizabeth to make 1% more sense in the role she’s in but IT STILL DOESN’T WORK.

I felt like I was back in Season 5 again with Lori and Elizabeth putting their nose in everyone’s business except it’s just Elizabeth!! The whole plot, which was boring and contrived anyway, should have gone to Molly, since she’s Florence’s best friend and another woman from town that Katie would have known as a child.

AND ALSO, MOLLY WOULD HAVE KNOWN KATIE’S MOTHER AND WOULD REMEMBER THE GRIEF THAT NED STRUGGLED WITH.

I know they wanted to make Elizabeth give advice so that she’d Realize that she needs to, I don’t know, make better choices or something, but it was too on the nose for me and I hated it.

GinithePooh on Reddit made a good comparison to Elizabeth in this episode by saying she reminded them of Clippy from Microsoft Word, always popping up and offering to help when nobody really needs or wants advice.

To honor their incredible idea, I opened Photoshop and created this gem, which I will also be posting separately so that people can reblog it if they wish to.

I also don’t think I need to say also filed under The Bad is the fact that Elizabeth didn’t even apologize for being awful to Rosemary and then gave her unsolicited advice to other people for two days straight. I can’t believe they wrote that? 

All I can say is that her apology to Rosemary, when it comes, better be good.

--

And I didn’t like this either:

I wish it had been followed up by literally anything: Nathan saying he’s sorry he didn’t tell her sooner or something to make the hand-holding actually be a little more innocent.

As it is, it just seems so deliberate? 

Maybe the next episode starts off right in this scene and we’ll get that? If so, this might actually end up being fine. I just don’t think it is if it doesn’t get a little more direct attention.

--

& THE UGLY

I debated on putting anything in here, because I’m not ready to talk about my feelings on this matter, at least not fully. But I’ve been pretty quiet all season so far, and...eh, why not just mention things in advance? What will it hurt?

Let me preface this section by saying I’m biased and I doubt hardly anyone on this site will agree with me, so feel free to just ignore this part if that’s the case.

There are two things that I really didn’t like in this episode.

I hate the slanting toward Bill/Molly.

I like Molly just fine but I don’t like her with Bill. I’m biased as all getout and also worried about the future/potential Season 9 with regards to this. I don’t want to see it. Like at all. Why, you ask? You should know why if you follow me. I’m super transparent.

It’s because I like AJ AND I WANT HER BACK LOL.

John Tinker rewatched the series so we know he wouldn’t have missed that hanging plot thread��especially since he didn’t forget any of the other things that were brought up this season! So why didn’t she appear this season? The love triangle absolutely needed to be a focus or it would have never ended, so that’s part of it, but I’m also pretty sure Josie Bissett wasn’t interested in doing any filming last year during Covid. My only “proof” is that Wedding March 6 wasn’t filmed last year even though it was scheduled to be filmed, but it makes sense. Last year was chaos.

THAT SAID, Jack Wagner posted on his Instagram the other day that they are actually filming Wedding March 6 now, so... I guess AJ’s re-appearance in Season 9 wouldn’t come as too much of a surprise if they wanted to write it.

You’d think I’d be hyped about that, and I kind of am? But it doesn’t come without its share of worries, too. We just had the worst love triangle in the history of love triangles and I really don’t want another one, especially if it makes any of the characters in question look stupid or mean.

I fully admit a well-written love triangle could be a LOT of fun for them* (low stakes because they’re not front and center characters), but I saw how Nathan was written so far this season and I really, REALLY do not want to see that happen to Molly, Bill, or AJ.

Anyway, not a fan of the Molly/Bill stuff. No chemistry. I don’t want it.

*I would totally write a fanfic like this lmao.

--

And finally...the part that everyone will hate me for:

I DO NOT WANT TO SEE ABIGAIL COME BACK. And I specifically do not want her to come back ‘cause I do not wanna see Henry/Abigail happen.

I fully recognize that a lot of you like it and ship the heck out of it, and that’s...good. I’m glad you enjoy it. I loathe it, though, and I worry that all these hints (more like...mentions) are leaning toward...something. Like, either they’re:

1) Sending Abigail off/tying up that loose end with Henry (since nothing was ever clarified either way), or

2) Warming up the audience to receive Abigail back on the show.

I’m pretty into the idea of one-sided Henry/Abigail. Hindsight is 20/20, regrets, that’s all some juicy stuff to give a character like Henry. Some things can’t ever be made right again. He had too direct of a connection to the death of her husband and son for me to ever want to see them together. Forgiveness? Yes. A careful but meaningful friendship? Yes. Romantic relationship? Uh...no thanks.

I liked the Abigail mentions at first because I felt like...the character still mattered (as she should) but I’m at a point where I feel like they’re trying really hard to steer the fandom’s view a certain way and not knowing where it’s going is extremely unsettling to me.

--

I’ll probably talk more about the things that bother me when the season ends, because I’m hoping to have a better idea of where things are going to be headed, but for now just...know that I feel very apprehensive.

And keep in mind that I primarily watch this show for Bill these days, since all my previous faves (AJ, Frank, the old Abigail, Dottie) have exited, stage left. I also always really liked seeing Henry. So as you can imagine, seeing plotlines I hate for the only two characters I’m invested in? Is making me consider dropping the series next year.

My husband told me I should hate-watch it, but I don’t know if my heart can take it. I’ve been following this series for so long...it just...kind of hurts to feel let down like this? 

But sometimes an ongoing series ends up going where you...didn’t want it to, and it becomes something that’s no longer right for you. I hope that doesn’t happen, but last night’s episode makes me feel like...it might be happening for real this time.

I guess if that holds true it’ll be back to fanfiction for me. Will that novelization I planned ages ago end up getting written? Will I write the best love triangle fanfic known to man? WHO KNOWS.

For now, we’ll all have to wait and see! Two more episodes left. I’m really curious to see how they resolve some of the open plots right now. :>

[outlandishcraziness]

Well, someone f@&’d up. Here are my thoughts regarding the latest from Mr. Heughan.

First, some background:

You know me as a voice of positivity, a silver lining in the fandom. I came to OL after I read book one and learned of the show about 5 years ago. I didn’t get thru all the books and came to dislike DG as a writer and ego-maniac. I discovered the fandom on Tumblr at the time the IFH happened.

Honestly, my impression of the IFH was to think they’re together! It was a lame denial, with their looks at each other not matching their words, and Sam saying “we can try!” Duh, I decided to jump down the Shipper rabbit hole then and there.

I got to know so many nice Shippers and created artwork for each season I sold on cards, prints, pillows, and tea towels; the dragonfly in amber is by far the most popular.

It was fun! We looked at reflections and studied backgrounds in fan photos. Receipts piled up among the slip-ups and phoney stories. I never got mired in the Shitner stuff and didn’t like the overt fanning of certain bloggers here. I kept it light and positive—“Shipper Light.”

I almost jumped ship when Sam stood in front of the Georgia sign, hung out at a NC wedding, and Cait appeared to get engaged and then married. But my gut told me they were PR stunts. I’m an artist with friends from college working in HW. I know how low things can go—honesty and truth are extremely endangered animals there.

I also work with photography, Photoshop, and Adobe all day every day so I know what I’m looking at and what to look for in a photo. So many of the official or accepted images regarding the personal lives of SC look like utter BS.

This brings me to Sam’s rant. I’m shocked he was so wordy. I was surprised he referred to a vile narrative more than once (we think the “we’re not together lie” deserves to die, too, Sam). Personally I think he’s protecting his family (SC & kiddos, his mother and brother), his friends, and his career.

His team sucks—we all know that. Sam is to blame here, but he’s not alone. He made mistakes. He knows it. His image is badly tarnished. We’ve all grown more introspective and reflective with time on our hands to worry about the world.

Sam never learned how a good leader takes responsibility for his own misjudgments and those who work for him. I think his tweet rant was his attempt to acknowledge things and move on. But he didn’t apologize. It’s damn frustrating that SC continue to lump all fans together to blame for their woes.

But no, they did NOT sign up for abuse, harassment, death threats, and the kind of mean trolling they’ve received. They made mistakes, but no one should be abused for any reason. If you’re in the public eye, either as a celeb, politician, or other, you need to treat others with respect AND can expect respect in return. SM is vile because trolls have anonymity and act accordingly.

I will always believe that SC are naturally kinder, gentler, and more grounded than many of their peers in show business. Just about every single person who works or collaborated with them have said so and I believe it. Both of their families seem genuine and raised SC in loving homes.

Finally, the saddest thing for me is I no longer find joy in the show. My husband and I loved it together, but now it just drags on. Sophie and Rik are boring as mud. I don’t know about the ratings, but I can’t see any reason for the show to keep going. Story-wise, it’s all downhill from here IMO.

Maybe Sam’s rant is part of an exit strategy. He’s seemed stressed, ill, uneasy. He looked terrible in Mexico. I haven’t follow the latest UBA or Hawaii-2-O, but I don’t care anymore. I wish Sam, Cait, and everyone associated with OL the best. One day, I believe we’ll find out SC have 15 kids, 6 homes, 25 cats, and a children’s book in the works. Until then, my interests are ebbing away from the outlandish OL world.

Cheers! Be well.

[husbandograveyard]

Congrats on 300 followers Hzael! You deserve it! Can I ask for 42 (I'm going to save you from the terrible date you're having) with Aizawa? Thank you! OwO

Hi love! Here’s some knight in shining armor Shota to save you from the other douchebags on donkeys! Hope you enjoy! 

Come save me - Shota Aizawa x Reader 

Cliche with bae event Prompt #42: come save me from the terrible date I’m having  Character: Shota Aizawa - Word count: 1.7k 

Hunger. Regret. Embarrassment. More regret. Anger. Frustration. A whirlpool of emotions was going through you as you kept your expression as neutral as possible, aggressively cutting the piece of steak in front of you and eating a bit to try and distract you from the man sitting in front of you, talking while he barely made eye contact. You weren’t exactly sure what he was talking about at the moment, but you couldn’t care less. You wanted out of here. Now. How did you even get in this situation?

After dating around some in your circle of friends to no avail, you had finally turned to online dating. You made loads of profiles, installed all the apps, did the matching, the swiping, you name it. Out of the hundreds of possible candidates, you immediately deleted anyone that wasn’t looking for anything serious. You were no teenager anymore, you had a job and a home and you were ready to settle down completely.

Your biggest help in this adventure had been your coworkers and best friends, Hizashi and Shota. The three of you had gone to school together and now all three of you were teaching at U.A. Any guy you’d ever date had to go past these two, and honestly, you didn’t mind. Their protectiveness was endearing and they were pretty good judges of character.

They had been helping you weed out matches, even secretly (but not so secretly) tagged along on dates to make sure it wasn’t some creep. Even though you’d be perfectly fine fending off a creep by yourself, you were a capable hero after all, you really liked them looking out for you.

Now for this date, it had been a little different. You had gotten this match from one of the more expensive sites. The kind where so-called experts matched people based on their personalities and profiles. It took you a whole long time filling in a question list for them, but when you got your match, you were not disappointed. Dating apps and such made you a little more shallow, looks were the first thing you saw on those, but hell, you were pleasantly surprised. Your ultimate match was extremely good-looking. But almost insanely so. Shota grabbed your phone, said ‘probably a douche’, and gave it back. Hizashi only laughed at the remark and let you first read up on his profile.

Your match did a normal office job but had an intelligence-based quirk that allowed him to understand everyone regardless of the language they spoke, which he used in his line of work. He was two years older than you, stable income, own house. He did some volunteering in his free time and most of your hobbies seemed to line up or were compatible at least. It was almost too good to be true, which was exactly what Hizashi said.

“Well, who pays so much money for such a personal dating service and then goes around and lies on their profile? That’d be stupid.” You were zooming in on the pictures he shared, desperately trying to find traces of photoshop, but to no avail. Right as you were about to say something, he sent you the first message. You replied enthusiastically, and a nice conversation was born.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly, and your match had proposed to go have dinner somewhere. It was a pretty fancy restaurant he proposed, but you accepted, it was a nice change to maybe dress up and have an actual fancy date. You were keeping realistic scenario’s in your head but you couldn’t help but wonder if this guy was maybe the one you had been waiting for all along.

The date came along and you were actually in a sour mood before you even got there. Mostly because Shota had been increasingly mean about the guy the more you gushed about him. At some point, you had made a remark about jealousy, and that had caused quite a discussion until Hizashi broke it up and told you to get ready, and he’d be off for a guy’s night with Shota. It had been a while after all, and that way you wouldn’t even have to worry about either of them spying on you during your date.

How you were regretting that now. You wished they had spied on you because this date was a disaster. He had been over twenty minutes late, didn’t tell you the name of the reservation so you were waiting outside in the cold until he finally showed up. He looked great, just like in his pictures, but way less well-kempt than he had been looking on his pictures. You had dressed up in your best dress, had gone to the hairdresser to get your hair on point, applied a subtle amount of makeup to look your best, and appropriate for the date and the location. He was wearing some jeans, a T-shirt that had some spots on it that you didn’t even want to know about.

You smiled anyway, greeting him by holding out your hand, not too keen on hugging a total stranger, but he had gone straight in for a kiss on the cheek, and you noticed how he didn’t smell nice either. It really busted your mood, even more, were you only worth so little effort that he showed up like that? But you kept his hobbies, and all the nice things he had said in chat in mind, and went into the restaurant, putting all your hope in the person he was in your chat messages, which had been a terrible idea.

The food was expensive and way too little, and this man had not stopped talking about himself. The volunteering was a one-time gig, ‘always pleases the ladies’ he had smugly added to the story, and many other things on his profile weren’t exactly lies, but were mostly polished up truths to make him look better. He had gone as far as interrupting you multiple times even after he himself had asked you a question, degraded female heroes and generally any woman who worked because ‘you gotta let men do the job’. He expected his partner to drop their job for him, so he could be the sole provider. He was looking for a housewife, but the way he described it, was more a live-in-maid he could have some intimacy with as well, just whenever he pleased. It made you sick to your stomach and you wanted to leave, but that was not so easy in such a fancy restaurant without possibly causing a commotion.

You briefly excused yourself from the table, and he gave you a pissed-off look because you had clearly interrupted whatever very important thing he was saying. You made a beeline for the bathroom, contemplating for a second to just walk out but again, you had some kind of reputation to uphold. Once in the bathroom, you immediately dialed Shota’s number. He picked up within seconds.

“Let me guess. He’s a douche.” He wasn’t even trying to hide the smug tone in his voice. “He’s terrible… please come save me?” “I don’t know if I can. I mean… I cannot possibly interrupt your date with this perfect, wonderful, beautf-” “Shota I swear to god, get your ass over here. I need you right now.” It was silent for a few seconds, and then you heard a low chuckle before he spoke up again. “One rescue mission coming up.”

He had not put in the slightest effort to hide his annoyance, but you knew he’d show up. You refrained from splashing cold water in your face because you didn’t want to mess up your makeup and headed back into the dining room. He made some remark on how long you took and you focussed back on your plate, inwardly praying Shota wouldn’t take too much time in getting there.

Luckily for you, it was only about fifteen minutes later that you heard some commotion and before you could even look up what had made some other customers make surprised gasps Shouta was standing at your table. In full Eraserhead gear. Not that that differed so much from his usual clothes, but still, very recognizable. You frowned. “Wha-?” “No time for questions. It’s an emergency, got your costume in the car.” You nodded and stood up, apologizing to your date, who was too speechless and too busy comprehending what was going on to come up with a retort.

Shota looked him up and down once as you were making your way to the exit, sending the man one more apologetic look and wave. “You look like you can handle the bill. Hero duties call sir. Good night”

You got in the car, and not five minutes later Shota got in too and started to drive. You weren’t really sure what to say or what to do. “Where’s…” “Hizashi? Got drunk and got home. I just dropped him off when you called.” “Oh…” You were feeling strangely uncomfortable, but you were not really sure why exactly, probably because the argument from earlier was not really resolved yet. “Shota, I’m sorry about-” “Don’t mention it. I could’ve reacted more maturely”

You nodded, looking ahead again. No use for deep discussions when Shota had a road to focus on. You looked around and were surprised to not be going back in the direction of your house. “Where are we going?” “A decent place” “What do you mean?” “Well, it’d be sad if you dressed up all beautiful like that for no reason. I know a place.” You blushed a little and looked at him, his eyes focussed on the road as he said that almost matter-of-a-factly. “Like… like a date?” you almost didn’t dare as k. “Like a date.”

You were speechless. In all your dating adventures you had never even considered the option that the perfect match was around you already all along. “If you’re up for that, if not, I can just drop you off at home?” “No no…”, you smiled, “I’d like that. No surprises with you.” “No stupid profile needed.” He smiled a little from behind the steering wheel and you felt the corners of your mouth curl up too. “No stupid profiles needed indeed.”

You knew what you were going to do when you got home: delete all that bullshit from your laptop and phone. Cause this time, it could really be the one.

[mshomestyle]

Cozy Inspirations: Hawks [Keigo Takami] x Reader: Selfish

Based on the information I found this photo is said to be on a train in Slovenia taken by Nikola Janusic, however upon research apparently this is photoshopped and the background is of Düsseldorf. And then once this was pointed out the person who posted the picture said the background was changed to Düsseldorf and the picture is actually in Slovenia (but ended it with a “;)” face.) I just don’t know. (The comments were pretty funny, though, in a rude way.)

Anyway, to preface this, I’m writing while tipsy, and what I have in mind to write is more hurt than comfort if anything.

Also, manga spoilers.

It hurt him completely to have to do this, but honestly, he felt as if feeling that way was entirely selfish. It wasn’t right for him to complain or feel sad or angry or just utterly defeated, because at the end of everything it was his choices that led him down this path.

He wanted to become a hero. He wanted to save people just like the hero that saved him, and as he grew older the road to becoming the beloved and famous hero he was today was paved on what one might call a broken train track in a beautiful scenery. He was adored by all, acquired skills and techniques that were enviable. He had fame, fortune, and adoring fans, but he knew. He knew what this all could lead to. He knew that there was a chance he would end up having to sacrifice himself for the greater good. He knew that he had a target on his back as red as his fierce wings. He knew he’d have to bloody his hands beyond recognition. And he knew that anyone who became involved with him would be dragged down into his abyss.

So why? Why did he allow himself to fall for you?

Keigo Takami, or rather known to the whole world, as Hawks: The Man Who’s too Fast, knew the second that he saw you, you’d be trouble. So, he kept his distance. He was polite to you every time the both of you were to cross paths, but he wanted more. He was weak to your sweet demeanor, beautiful face, and caring heart. The day he met you, you had nearly ran into him, looking for a hero to help some people that a tree had fallen over. And right after you directed him to the scene of the crime, despite him, a hero, being there, you tried your hardest to help those people, saying things to calm them down, and even attempting to move the tree yourself.

Ever since that day, it was as if you were being guided together, because Hawks kept seeing you around town. He couldn’t get away from you no matter how hard he tried, and because it was starting to become unbearable, he decided to ask you out, assuming that just having a completely casual relationship with you would quench his thirst. But the more he got to know you, the more he wanted of you.

Before Hawks knew it, he was taking you out on romantic dates, spending nights with you, and even inviting you to all of the events he had to attend as a hero. Hawks also went as far as disclosing his real name to you. He knew that you’d have no idea about the significance behind that, but it just felt so nice to hear the word ‘Keigo...’ leaving your lips, especially in time of ecstasy. You became a large part of him, and he enjoyed every minute of it.

All of it was selfish, though. And not only that but a huge danger to you. Hawks hated it, he really did, but there was always this fact looming in the back of his head. ‘I’ll end up taking her with me.’ He didn’t want that for you. You didn’t deserve it, and once Hawks ended up investigating the league, he knew that the end was in sight. You were both going to fall off if he didn’t stop. If he didn’t end this.

So, no, it wasn’t right for him to be feeling this way, especially as he watched you cave in on yourself once he said ‘I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is going to work out anymore...’ He could tell that you were fighting off tears, and you asked him,

‘Why? Did I do something?...Why? Please...tell me...’ It hurt so bad, but Hawks kept a straight face. He tried to comfort you, tried to let you know that it wasn’t your fault, but deep down he knew that it wouldn’t make you feel better. It wouldn’t take away the pain he caused you.

Hawks knew what would happen if you were to get into a relationship. He knew that something like this wasn’t possible, and yet...He just let this all happen. He hurt you, and now he had the audacity to be feeling the way he was now. Truly, it was selfish of him, and it wasn’t right to you that he was feeling this way.

“...Hawks! Hawks!” Being snapped from his thoughts, Hawks rubbed at his eyes before putting on a relaxed face, turning to look at the man in front of him.

“Sorry about that, Twice!” he chuckled, managing to make it reach his eyes in order to look completely authentic, “Now, where were we...Oh, about Redestro!”

“No, no! Forget that right now. I just remembered something,” Twice said before adding, “Keep going.”

“If we keep pausing to talk, then you really aren’t going to learn anything,” Hawks pointed out, motioning to the white board. The two had been meeting regularly so that Hawks could teach Twice about the Liberation army.

“But this is important! I heard from skeptic that there was this girl who came here looking for you!” he explained, “No idea how one of your fans found this place. They’re crazy. She seemed mean. She seemed sweet!”

“That’s strange,” Hawks said with a shrug before turning back to the bored, “Anyway-”

“Oh, yeah! I was told that she said her name was [Name].” Dead silence had followed once Twice said that, the mood of the room completely shifting. It was so quiet that the soft thud of the marker that was once in Hawks’s hand hitting the ground could be heard before,

“What?!”

To be continued...Maybe, IDK.

[ikdrama]

≫❥ hi, hope everyone's doing good. so um i've been inactive on tumblr for a long time for many reasons; whether it was 'cause of losing interests, life getting in the way, etc. i neglected this blog and kept leaving and coming back. i've been on this platform for years now and kept switching between other platforms for the times i've been mia on here. i've tried out instagram, then came back to tumblr, but switched again. i changed between interests—from photo editing to gif making to graphic design to video editing and now back to using photoshop again for making gifs, hopefully. for topics from kdramas to kpop to western back to kdramas, etc.

≫❥ however, i feel like tumblr still holds a space in my heart closer to home unlike instagram. perhaps because it's where i initially started out that i grew more attached to this platform. also maybe i'm getting older and most people on here are the og ones, they're more at the same age range as me, unlike instagram. age has never been an issue to me, i have friends who are much younger than me and those who are older (but mostly young ones) and they all are very dear to me. but i guess i just needed some friends with a closer age range too.

≫❥ i have made some lovely friends on here and i'm forever grateful for those sweet times. however, over the years when i abruptly left tumblr, i had also lost touch with them. so, i might have no friends left on here which saddens me a little but that's all on me and it's okay, i can always try getting in touch with them again, right ? but i'd love to make new friends and reunite with my old ones, so please feel free to message me anytime you wanna be friends, my dms and askbox are always open <3 (doubt anyone's reading this at all lol but it's worth the try i guess heh).

≫❥ anyways, what i'm saying is, i'm coming back this time for real, or at least try making a better effort into taking good care of this blog. i used to be a content maker (mostly creating gifs) but stopped at some point and only rb posts now. frankly, over the time dramas would have a less impact on me, i wouldn't be as much interested in them as before and switched interests but then again came back to them, just now i'm not up-to-date with the on-air ones, i would watch a drama that i find being interested in, so it's random and inconsistent, i don't watch a lot of dramas like i used to (surely my list of watched dramas became quite poor too oof). but i do watch some every once in a while when i find the time and am in the mood for it. my personal favorite genres nowadays are thriller/action/fantasy/comedy dramas with slight romance (teenage romance makes me cringe now when watching those, idk maybe i'm just getting old lol).

≫❥ but another reason to why i stopped creating content was also because i was too focused on whether my post reaches a wider range of audience ? i would get scared it wouldn't get much attention compared to the time and effort i would give into working on my original content. surely, this would bring the content creator down but at the end of the day i chose to be here because i find joy in making the content i wish the world to see and it's still okay if the whole world wouldn't see it as long as i shared it on my blog and me myself am satisfied with what i'm posting. this applied to all the platforms i would use as a content creator. so, one day i just stopped looking at the numbers. and my mind was much more at ease. now every time a post of mine blows up or it would get more recognition than usual, it would make me happy inside and i would be grateful but on the other hand if it would flop, i wouldn't care anyway and still be okay. and why is that ? well, that's because life comes in the way. other things happening irl outside of social media would keep my mind busier than having myself wasting my time by sulking over some digital numbers online. and i guess that's when one's perspective on wanting to gain more recognition on social media changes.

≫❥ anyways, i went a little off topic there heh. so, my blog would mostly consist of the dramas i've already watched or the ones on my watch list or if i find a pretty gifset, i'd rb it too :) i'm rambling on for too long now, oh god, my apologies (i mean i doubt anyone's reading this but that's fine, it's like more for me to get this off my chest).

≫❥ i guess with this post i'm trying to announce that i'll be back to this blog being more active with rb posts and i will also start making content again, but this time it'll be mostly different from the content i've been making so far. my usual content would be creating simple gifsets of scenes/dialogues but i've come across so many artistic and beautiful gifsets that i'd like to give it a try. also since i'm not up-to-date with on-air dramas, making gifsets of the dialogues and scenes from those dramas wouldn't happen—by the time i'd start those dramas people would have made gifsets of the scenes already anyway. this would mean for that kind of content i would give in a much greater effort into making the gifs looking more artistic/aesthetic and that's why i'd post less of my original work. but i'll still try to keep the blog active by rb other people's posts in q of course. however, right now my life is a little bit of a mess, i'm standing on a thin line between education and career, so i'd need some more time to sort this mess out first and then i'll change things up with my blog. i'm excited to come back though; this blog is still getting love from people even at times when it was completely dead and it's still growing which surprises me a lot and i am truly thankful for each of your support. i feel like i don't deserve this, i've been a terrible owner. but i'm willing to change that once i get my life atm together hahah.

≫❥ though i'm not sure how tumblr works now with the changes over the years, i'll just do me and somehow try and revive this blog again. i come back on here because i feel content browsing my dashboard seeing all these beautiful posts on here and i truly wish to come back to being a content maker like these wonderful artists too.

≫❥ ngl, i miss getting on/off anon asks in my askbox (although i wouldn't get that many but it still made me smile every time i received one no matter what it was about as long as it wasn't offensive <3). i missed talking to my friends and people on here. i missed rb ask game posts and get excited whenever someone reacted to it. i miss posting original content and reading other users' tags and them fangirling about a certain topic. i missed the times when i was interactive with my followers/mutuals. i miss the old times on tumblr. when i would have friends on here and a community that was warm and supportive. i wish to experience all of that again.

≫❥ lastly, thank you for listening (if you're still here, doubt so though hah) and so sorry you had to read through this all, i rambled on too much i guess oof. but if you're reading this please know that you're an amazing person. hope we could become friendsʕっ•́ᴥ•̀ʔっ~♡

。.❁stay beautiful:·ﾟ*

·☾ﾟir。

[snaileer]

Chips & Salsa Chp 4

Shiro strode down the castle hallways. Repeatedly. Maybe more like paced. But hey, it was like 4 am and he deserved to be a little stressed out. Waking up and calming yourself down from a panic attack was hard work. He missed having access to coffee.

He slowed down in front of Lance’s room. Keith would tease him for being an ‘overprotective space-dad’ but Shiro was worried about Lance. He wanted to help him, but how could he help Lance if he couldn't even help himself. Shiro had tried to support Lance but all that did was make him angry at him.

He was about to keep walking when he heard a mumble from inside the room. And then a groan. It sounded like someone was breathing really harshly.

Lance.

He must be having a nightmare. Shiro immediately jumped for the door.

“Lance-!” He stared at the empty bed in confusion before lowering his eyes to the ground where Lance was.. “Are you doing push-ups?”

“Shiro! What the hell?! Why are you running in here yelling at 2 am?”

“It’s 3 am. And because I thought you were having a nightmare. I wanted to help,” Shiro watched as Lance rolled and got up from the ground.

“Well, I’m not, so… All good.” Lance smiled hesitantly and did finger guns at him. Shiro raised an eyebrow and leaned back on his hip, Shiro was probably the last person Lance wanted to see right now but-

 Lance sighed and dropped his hands as he turned his back to Shiro, “Look, if you wanted to help me you’d let me leave. Or at least spar with me.” 

“The first one I can't help you with,” Lance’s shoulders sagged a bit, “And I don't think you should be doing anything rough this soon.”

“Right, I forgot, Shiro has to follow all the rules,” 

“Lance, we just don't want you to get hurt or-”

“You guys know you don't need to pity me, right? I’m not some fragile weakling who can't handle anything.”

“I know that-”

“Then why can’t you fight me? Was I really that bad when I came out of the pod?”

“No. I promise we’re not scared of you just because you lashed out a bit.” Shiro felt he had to compromise for Lance at least a little bit. He sighed, “As long as you’re careful, I think we can probably try some light training,” Shiro smiled, “If you’re not too tired.”

Lance turned around and he smiled a bit, “Oh, you know I’m not.” Lance and Shiro walked out of the room together, heading towards the training room. “And I bet I could beat you now,”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah for sure. I picked up some badass ninja tricks in my time ‘away’ from the team” Lance did air quotes around away, “And you’re probably the only one on the team I’ll actually feel comfortable sparring with, so I’m glad your mid-morning pacing brought you to my room.”

“You heard me?”

“Of course I heard you, Shiro. I’ve learned to pay attention to whose footsteps are outside my door.” Lance threw a look at him. The implications of his words set Shiro on edge more than he would like to admit.

He tried to brush it off for another time, “And why am I the only one you want to spar with?”

“Because I need to fight but I also need to know that I’m fighting with someone that can handle me if…” Lance’s voice tapered off as he looked down.

“If?”

“If I lose control.” 

Shiro stopped in his tracks, his voice small, “What?”

Lance stopped as well and turned back to him, though he didn't look him in the eye. “Shiro, you and I both know how bad it gets in.. that place. And we know how hard it is to come out the same on the other side. I mean, you’re not fooling anybody with the ‘I wake up this early because I have self-discipline and military training.’ Plus, you were the one to snap me out of it when I got out of the pod and started throwing hands.”

“But you shouldn’t have to think about this stuff. You shouldn’t have had to go through that.”

“Neither of us deserved what happened to us. But it happened all the same and now we have to move past it.” Lance motioned down the hall, but Shiro wasn’t paying attention.

“But I should’ve protected you. I shouldn’t have let them take you, or even let them have the chance to get close to you. I was just so focused on getting out of there. Getting as far away from that ship as possible and I wasn’t paying enough attention and I shouldn’t have let you go off on your own.” Shiro stared down at his own hands, one that barely seemed like his most of the time.

“No,”

“What?”

“No.” Lance paused, “Shiro, you spent a year on that ship, I spent about three months there. Out of anyone on this team, I know what that place is, what it does to you; and there is nothing wrong with hating it. I should hate it. So it is not your fault that you wanted to leave, we all make mistakes sometimes.” 

“But-”

“Especially when we’re afraid. Shiro, just for one second, put your massive guilt complex to the side. Please. For me?” Lance pulled out the big puppy dog eyes to pout at Shiro.

Shiro gave him a shaky smile, “Yeah, Lance, for you.”

“Great, now can we please go fight?” Lance motioned forward with his hands again.

“That’s the only reason I’m here, isn’t it?”

Lance’s fists clenched and unclenched as he followed Shiro down the hall. He felt guilty about pushing Shiro to fight with him... but doing sit-ups and push-ups all night could only cure his jitteriness so much.

“Yeah, it is.”

x--x--x

“Everybody get your lazy asses over to- Hunk! No- I don't want- Fine!” Pidge’s voice bellowed over the speaker system before fading into mumbled arguments.

Hunk’s voice came on afterwards, “What she meant was: Can everybody please come to the kitchen? I made breakfast and Pidge has something to show all of us. Even though she’s being sour and won’t tell me what it is.” The last part sounded like it was spoken at someone else in the room rather than into the microphone.

“Well, I’m sorry but I don't want to repeat-” The intercom clicked out Pidge’s muffled response.

Shiro looked down from the ceiling of the training room at the same time as Lance did. They made eye contact and stared at each other for a second before bursting into laughter.

“It’s good to know Hunk is still attempting to wrangle Pidge after all this time. ” Lance struggled out past laughter.

Shiro’s laughter wound down a bit at the comment, still chuckling, “Well, it was a little hard while you were gone, but it sounds like they’re bouncing right back. I don't know if I’m happy about the return of the fighting though.”

“Don’t worry, Space Dad, you can always ground them.” Lance grinned

“Ooh, I am gonna kill Keith for telling you about that.” Shiro cursed his brother under his breath.

“Hah!” Lance inched towards the door, then smirked, “Who do you think told Keith?”

“No.” Shiro’s eyes narrowed in disbelief.

“Oh Yeah,” Lance smiled bigger.

“No…”

“Yep, and I helped Pidge photoshop your Leap Year baby photos.”

“That was you!?”

“The very one!”

Shiro gasped in mock anger and lunged for Lance, but he was already running from the room, grabbing his jacket by the door before sprinting towards the kitchen.

Lance spotted Keith walking down the hall from his room.

“Keith!!” Keith paused to look back, “Shiro found out you told me his birthday!”

“Shit.” Keith turned and ran.

“Nooo! Keith, you were supposed to help me!”

“I grew up with him, it’s your turn!” He ducked into the relative safety of the kitchen, Lance close on his heels.

“Where’s Shiro? And why are you two so out of breath?” Hunk asked from next to the oven.

“Oh, don’t worry, he should be right along in-” Shiro burst in, “Now.”

“I can’t believe you, Lance!” Shiro yelled. Hunk dropped his pan in surprise and Pidge nearly fell off her perch on the counter at the sudden clatter.

“Sorry, I saw an opportunity and it was my obligation as a younger sibling to use it.” Lance shrugged.

“Ignoring whatever is going on there,” Pidge waved her hand at Lance hiding from Shiro behind Hunk, “I’ve got some information on the tracker.” Lance’s smile shrunk immediately and the room paused to look at her.

“What?” “What’d you find?” “Can you get rid of it?”

“Whoa, everybody slow down. Let her talk.”

“So I woke up early this morning-”

Lance interrupted her, “Seriously, was I the only one in this whole castle with a normal sleep schedule? Hunk’s already made breakfast and it’s only 6 o’clock,” He threw his hands up at the second pan of space-pastries Hunk pulled out of the oven.

“Hey, you know I bake when I’m stressed. Or tired. Or worried.” 

“Believe me, it’s hard to forget when you force-fed me un pastelito every meal during finals week.” Lance moved to look at Hunk with crossed arms.

“Yeah..”

“And midterms,”

“Maybe..”

“And your history tests.”

“Hey, those are hard.”

“And your English project.”

“That was only once.”

“Okay! I think we’re getting off topic!” Pidge yelled.

“Oh, yeah. Pidge, what’d you find?” Hunk turned back to face her on the counter. Lance angrily bit into a pastry he’d snatched behind him. 

“As fun as watching Lance burn his tongue on space-jelly is, I think we have a chance at getting rid of the chip.” Lance glared at her.

“So I woke up really early this morning because of something I discussed with Keith about the chip last night,” the group looked at Keith but he just shrugged, he knew just as much as the rest of them. “There’s no strategy in putting the chip in Lance’s brain.”

“Why would you ask Keith about strategy? His only strategy is run in, stab them and ask questions later.”

“Hey!”

“Well am I wrong Mullet-!?”

“I’m not done!” Pidge yelled again.

“Fine.” Both boys begrudgingly backed off each other.

“It’s too much work for just a tracker they could put anywhere, so I looked closer at where they put it,” Pidge pulled up a hologram of Lance’s scan, “The temporal lobe.” 

“Isn't the temporal lobe in charge of smell, language and-?” Hunk joined in on the genius talk.

“Hearing. Yep, the primary purpose of the temporal lobe is auditory functions. And when I looked at the scan again, I found not one, but two signals.”

Lance’s eyes widened.

“What? What’s the second one for?”

“That’s what I was thinking. One signal is outgoing,-”

“The tracker obviously,” 

Pidge hummed in agreement, “But the second signal has an internal destination.”

“Huh?”

“Precisely. Hunk, you’re the resident expert engineer, what does the design of this chip tell you?” Pidge passed the hologram to him.

“Well, first of all, the chip is attached mostly to the right temporal lobe, but these wires also connect it to the left lobe and to the hypothalamus, but connection to both temporal lobes would only be necessary to create an equal simulation across both auditory cortexes and Oh my gosh!” 

“Okay, that was a lot of science-tech words that I did not understand.” Keith pushed off the wall to move closer to the group.

“It means that the ingoing signal from the chip is trying to broadcast a false sound directly to Lance’s auditory senses,-”

“Which are controlled within the temporal lobes,” It was almost creepy how Pidge and Hunk talked so much in sync.

“It’s trying to broadcast, but it’s failing because the chip is malfunctioning. Otherwise, Lance would be hearing a high-pitched noise most or all of the time,” 

“It’s like it’s trying to cause constant tinnitus. We don’t know why yet, but the most important thing is we can exploit this malfunction to remove it.”

“Okay!” Shiro moved towards the tech pair to break them up, “One of you, talk. The other, please don't. My neck is starting to hurt from looking back and forth between you two nerds.”

“You say that like you’re not a nerd yourself, Shiro.” Shiro glared at Pidge to silence her.

“Ugh, fine. All yours, Pidge.” Hunk handed Pidge the hologram and leaned back against the counter to grumpily eat one of his pastries off the tray.

“If the chip’s not working properly, that may mean the Druids were unable to completely evaluate the human neurological system.” She zoomed out a bit to show the whole head scan, “Since the human brain is so complicated and everything is connected to everything else, this malfunction in the chip is probably rooted in its attachment and implementation. Which also creates a higher possibility of being able to get rid of the tracker without horrible brain surgery.” 

Pidge looked at the team, “And I don't think any of us are qualified to even attempt brain surgery. Eh, maybe Coran could,” Coran smiled and posed at the attention, “So the better option would be to be able to hack into the external signal and shut it down remotely, which would limit the risk of brain damage and would-”

“It won't work.” Lance’s voice was quiet, though the small declaration quickly got everyone’s attention and they turned to him. He stood at the end of the counter, staring down at his hands.

“Yes, it will. I’ll make it work.” Pidge growled back from the other end.

“No, it won't.”

“Goddamnit Lance!” Pidge slammed her tablet on the table, “Why won't you let us help you!? That’s all we’re trying to do! You’ve barely even come out of your room, except to try to sneak out in the middle of the night! And you won't tell us anything that happened! So if the only way I can help is to get rid of this stupid chip, then I’m going to do that!”

“I won't work,” Lance paused and looked up, “because the chip isn’t malfunctioning.”

Everyone stopped dead in their tracks.

“So you’ve been hearing-”

“See my hand right now?” Lance held his hand out over the countertop.

“Lance, what the hell does that have to do with-?”

“My hand is completely steady right now. And do you want to know why?” Lance clenched his hand into a fist, “It’s steady because I goaded Shiro into fighting with me.”

“What?” The team looked at Shiro, but he only stared at Lance, who refused to meet his eyes. Lance pulled his hand back to his side.

“Why would you-” Shiro’s voice was filled with betrayal.

“Because you guys obviously wanted me to stay and doing hundreds of sit-ups in my room wasn’t working!” Lance yelled, “I do hear that ringing. I hear that ringing constantly, everyday, all the time, except-” Lance raked his hand through his hair roughly, “Except when I fight.” He looked down in.. shame? 

Pidge and Hunk made worried eye contact but kept their mouths shut.

“When I fight, my head is finally clear. And I can think. And do things and feel and be myself, and then it comes back.” He looked up at the ceiling with a pained fake-smile then glanced at the team with hard eyes “And it always comes back.”

“I’ve tried everything to get rid of it. I tried meditating, breathing techniques, exercising, ignoring it, distractions; I even tried to drown out the sound myself! Short of slamming my head against a brick wall till my skull cracks, I don't know what else to do! I can’t even sleep unless I pass out from exhaustion! So yes!” Lance’s voice suddenly dropped, “Yes, I chose to fight. I chose it then and I chose it now. I chose the one solution I’ve found that works. And it works one hundred percent of the time.”

“But why me? You know I struggle fighting one on one without flashbacks.” Shiro sounded even more hurt.

“Partially because I was angry at you. Partially because you were there. Mostly,” he paused, “because I needed to feel like myself again. I needed to be able to hear myself think. And I wasn’t lying, I needed to know you’d be able to handle me if I went off the rails,”

“But?”

“But… I also knew I was going to go off the rails on purpose.” Lance finally tried to look Shiro in the eye, “Shiro, I-”

“Don't Lance. Not right now.” Shiro pushed past them and left the room.

Lance looked at the group. Pidge and Hunk looked somewhere between shocked and upset, Coran looked disappointed and sad, Allura looked appalled and Keith looked…

“How dare you!?” Keith threw his fist at Lance. He let the punch hit him and knock him to the ground.

“Keith,” the others moved to stop him but didn’t get close.

 “You of all people should know!” Keith yelled again before leaving to go after Shiro.

“Lance…” 

“No, it’s alright. I think I probably deserved that.” Lance wiped blood away from his nose as he got up. He looked at it on his hand for a second, “Hell, I definitely deserved more than that; but, uh, I think we should finish this some other time. Yeah?” 

Lance turned his back to them and left as well. He followed down the same hallway as Keith and Shiro.

He stopped behind a corner when he heard their voices in the hallway.

“Shiro, are you okay?”

“No! What he did wasn’t okay!” Lance flinched a bit at the sound of a metal fist hitting the wall.

“I know and you have the right to be angry at him right now.”

“Damn right I do. And I know that... it’s just, yeah, I’m angry at him for lying to me like that. Especially about something like this, but I’m also angry at myself,”

“You shouldn’t be, he’s the one that pushed you even though he knew.”

“You didn’t hear him earlier, Keith.”

“In the kitchen, yeah I-”

“No, before that, when he asked me to train with him. Looking back, he sounded almost...,” Shiro paused, “Desperate.”

“What do you mean?”

He means addicted. Lance ignored his thoughts and stayed quiet against the wall.

“I mean, at first, when he asked me I said no. And then he started saying all this stuff he was worried about and I thought, if I can give him this one thing, maybe he’ll keep talking like this. Maybe he’ll end up better than I did. Maybe I can fix this. But he knew I’d give him what he wanted. He was just trying to use me Keith! How do I react to that!?”

“I don’t really think there’s any way you could have expected him to do this.”

“But that’s the thing, Keith. I should’ve. I should’ve expected it, I should’ve known. Just like when I got him captured, I wasn’t thinking about him, I was thinking about me. Again! I should’ve been able to tell this time. ”

“No, Shiro. The only way this could’ve been avoided is if he had told us about the ringing. This is on him. Not you.”

“No, it’s my responsibility-”

“Keith is right, y’know.” Lance finally turned around the corner to meet them. Keith’s face instantly went from gentle to furious again. “As much as I hate to say it, Keith is right, I should’ve told you guys.”

“I swear to God, Lance, are you looking to get punched again?”

“No the first time was enough, thank you.”

“Wait, Keith, you punched him?” Shiro glanced at his brother.

“Well, yeah, it didn’t look like you were going to. So why didn’t you tell us, Lance? I get we’re all having ‘hindsight is 20/20’ moments but something like that is kind of important.”

“I didn’t say anything because I thought it was just me.”

“Huh?”

“I didn’t know it was the chip and I didn’t know why I suddenly felt the need to fight all the time. Why I was such a horrible person to be addicted to something as horrible as the Arena. I thought this was my punishment, for doing everything I did to get through the Arena. I was-,” Lance swallowed and looked away, “I was ashamed.”

Lance’s mind still told him he should be ashamed. That it was his punishment and he would never-.

“Why the hell would you be ashamed for surviving in-” Keith started out angrily, but Shiro cut him off.

“Because you felt like a monster.” 

Lance’s head snapped back up to look at Shiro in surprise before glancing back down again. 

Shiro pushed past Keith to approach Lance. “You felt like a monster because you thought you were addicted to enjoying the fights.” Shiro said it like a realization, like he was finally recognizing something.

“How do you-?”

“Like you said earlier, Lance; I have a bit of experience with guilt complexes and carrying the weight of the world on my back.” Shiro set his hand on Lance’s shoulder.

“Hey!” Lance said with mock indignation, “I came here to apologize to you, not the other way around.” Lance half-heartedly pulled away from Shiro’s hand, “I am sorry by the way. I shouldn’t have done that to you. No matter the circumstances.”

“I can’t say I forgive you just yet, but at the very least, I understand.” 

“That’s all I can ask for Shiro.”

“Hey! I’m still mad at you!” Keith yelled from behind Shiro.

“I wouldn't expect anything less, Samurai!” Lance yelled back.

“Ugh. Come on Keith, I’m taking you away before you can hit him again.” Shiro was already dragging Keith down the hallway towards his room.

Lance briefly listened to the muffled arguments of ‘but he deserved it!’ and ‘that doesn’t mean you can hit our teammates for me.’ He gave a small smile.

He looked down at the slight tremble in his hands before shoving his fist roughly into the pocket of his jacket. A problem for another day.

Next Chapter: https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/618602039029760000/chips-salsa-chp-5

First Chapter: https://snaileer.tumblr.com/post/613092735756402688/chips-and-salsa-chp-1