#theyre a little surprised they made it all the way out there and havent quite clocked that theyre carrying a shell yet

[moonstandardtime]

hunter toh in my botw au.....oh i could go on and on abt this au. i think ill do lumity next?

feel free to ask question abt the au. please do actually. to get you started heres some base info under the cut. its VERY ramble-y.

base character matchups are Luz as Zelda, Hunter as Link, and Belos as Ganon. this au doesnt involve much from TotK bc i havent finished it but. given the story it will definitely come into play!

basic story/plot/exposition is that 10,000 years ago, the sheikah Made a Hero for the future. just in case. extra safety measure or whatever. they saw how difficult it was to overcome the calamity and were like, hey, what if we made the ideal hero for future hyrule? make it easier. and so they do. they Make a Guy (caleb is the first hero (yknow the one in the hyrule historia manga bit) so his bones arent available to use for a grimwalker. so idk if hunter is a grimwalker of the 10k hero or if hes made entirely independently bc the sheikah. probably could do that) and stick him in the shrine of resurrection. this is the true purpose of the SoR: its really more of a shrine of stasis, to keep this manmade hero alive till hes needed. think cryogenic stasis or whatever.

so. hunter sleeps in the SoR for 10,000 years. has an awful time. one of the first (maybe The first) fic i read on ao3 was about what the SoR was like for botw link and it. stuck with me. so now i incorporate it into everything i make for botw if possible. anyways he has a miserable time, which is important because he had this miserable time for 10,000 years instead of just 100. Anyways. like botw link, he loses his memories. unlike botw link, they are inaccessible. period. there is no remembering Shit. besides like. vague vibes that he was instilled with. turns out if you make a person and tell them for their entire short existence that theyre made for a thing, then even if they forget everything else they Will still remember that theyre made for a thing. even if they dont really. so yeah all hunter knows is that he is not a person, that he exists for a Reason, and how to breathe. and other basic bodily functions. hes basically a big baby with a hero complex.

the rest of the au takes place "pre-calamity". i have a vague idea on how the actual calamity takes place (and how to make it similar to botw w/out so much death bc i have thought Very Much about this specific time period and not whatever the hell would be going on a century later. lmao.)

so. when the SoR is Discovered by sheikah researchers everyone is Very Surprised at the Whole Human Boy inside. because well. that should not be possible. this thing was difficult as hell to get into and also there was quite a bit of rock in the way! so they assume him to be dead and just miraculously preserved by the SoR fluid. And then he wakes up screaming (imagine being in the most agonizing sensory deprivation tank ever for 10,000 years and then abruptly being exposed to the world again. not fun!) and everyone is like OH SHIT ITS ALIVE.

eventually they get him out and not having the worst overstimulation meltdown in the history of all time and space and get back to hashtag Researching. some ppl focus on him (taking care of him (like i said. big baby with a hero complex), figuring out what the hell is up with him, etc) and others continue examining the SoR. the ppl with hunter make very little progress. because just bc hes not having the worst overstimulation meltdown in the history of all time and space, it doesnt mean he has a clue whats going on at all. or that hes not still having one of the worst overstimulation meltdowns in the history of all time and space. the ppl at the SoR, however, find a plaque with his name and vague purpose for existing, as well as the sheikah slate. yippee!!!

after all this, once hes less. of a big baby with a hero complex ig. we move to more character-focused stuff than exposition. so ill end this here for now. if you read all this you are very invited to talk to me abt this! i would love that! a good place to start i think would be with explaining characters. most of the important characters in the show are in this au. and i do mean most. there is quite a lot going on

[trackinghallownest]

Skullbearer curiously inched toward Thimble bit by bit, staring up at them in wonder. After a while they let out a small peeping noise and gestured to the mossflies with one free arm, then tilted their head. (@just-another-hollow-knight-blog)

local lonely sad unstable teen won over by random child with the equivalent of ‘hey can i pet your dog’

[icecreamkink]

watched all of the untamed / cql in two weeks after my friend 1 told me abt mdzs a hundred years ago and my friends 2 and 3 tried to get me into cql for like two whole years and there are.

feelings.

very first scene is a very dramatic death in the middle of nightmare battle on sith planet land . i will forget abt it in the next tenish episodes and then will be very surprised when it becomes Extremely Painful

anyway magic flying gays and possession and human sacrifice! we are off to a great start

in retrospect, chaos goblin wei wuxian must have had a blast pretending to be so cRaZy and be as disruptive as he could as mo xuanyu lbr

listen. why is fire always evil coded. cant a magic clan wear red, black and orange and have flame motif while being wholesome?

For Legal Reasons These Are Not Zombies

i wish the politics of the sect were a bit clearer, especially at the beggining when the wen clan had sm power, was wen ruohan the chief cultivator? is that why they were so slow in responding to the attacks? im v confused by the pre yiling patriarch politics

fighting in the roof by the moonlight as way of flirtiiiiiiing. as i understand this is a wuxia/xianxia trope and honestly...... thank u for ur service

slight bullying and being a nuisance in general, as a way of flirting we love to see it

wwx: if i drink on the rooftop, thats not inside the cloud recesses! hmmm check and mate :D lwj: i will fuck u up so help me god   wwx: :0

i lov them

through hell or high water (quite literally) wei wuxian rem ains a trashfire gremlin till the end and i love him with my whole heart

in the pt subs wei wuxian calls jiang cheng a stubborn duck and i dearly wish that had come back

my opinions on almost every character goes from love to hate u - Hmm Me Like U - BABY. ILY. and i am Very Pleased w that. its been a while since i loved such a complete cast so much i think

no really. i WONT go into a detailed rant abt what i love about each of these characters and each of their relationships to each other. but i COULD. 

some lan disciples in the loudest whisper ever: YEAH THATS THE JIN BASTARD MENG YAO HEARD THE GOT SUPER HUMILIATED BY HIS DAD LOL SURE HOPE HE DOESNT TAKE SLIGHTS TO HIS CHARACTER TO HEART

lan xichen, immediately: i must Love him 

being into problematic ppl is in the Lan genetics, we come to realize

wen qing deserves so many awards for so many things but not snapping and just stabbing wen chao is at the top 

that scene at lan qirens class where wwx talks about using resentful energy to fight a violent spirit. exquisite.

 It establishes Good Student lan wangji, wei wuxian as curious and questioning and not afraid of taboo,  lwj sees that wwx is not, in fact, a dumb ass hes just a Dumbass,  shows us the audience (esp. a western audience) how shocking the idea of disrupting the dead/dying and controlling resentful energy actually is,  the theoretical foreshadow arguing, everyone else like ‘shUT UP’,  “and how could you ensure that the resentful energy would obey you and not hurt other?” “well i havent thought that far” and of course, lan qiren just straight up lobbing a hard object at wwx head,. chefs kiss

fellas is it gay to bother the hot rule obessessed nerd from ur school and make drawings of him with flowers in his hair and then hide gay porn in his book to antagonize him and ask him to hold ur hand and be ur friend and talk to him all the time and get him drunk and give him bunnies bc you know he likes them and give him a lantern and always want his attention and dedicate yourself to getting him to smile-

and after all of that wwx rly said oh i Admire him, aksd like yeah we all were there in high school buddy

i have Learned. caves = gay.

 accidental marriage +beint physically tied together with the sacred married ribbon+ gay panic+foreshadowing+bunnies! in the cave (1)

the story abt lan yi and baoshan sanren tho. i would like to see it

early days wen bros pull my heart strings like a guqin 

EVERYTHING about the lantern scene; disaster hets jiang yanli and jin zixuan; how wwx made lwj a bunny lantern. how soft and touched lwj was. wwx gleefully pointing out he was smiling and lwj IMMEDIATELY PULLING HIW SWORD ON HIM LMAO. tragically foreshadowy promises to do right by pepople, living without regrets. lwjs 'oh no do i love him??' face. just. all of it. 

i have it on good acc that in the novel lwj is explicitly Repressed Gay Panicked Big Horny which is delightful and rly Adds to the performance

 baby lwj is really just conceal dont feel dont let them know u have EMOTIONS (derogatory)

jiang cheng rly went "why dont.u go play with HIM if u like him so much"

jc and wwx have big BIG annoying sibling energy dont think too hard abt it or youll cry

lotus pier is soo pretty :((((((((((((((((

up until episode 13 you could think this could be a magical ancient chinese gays pride n prejudice w swords and shenanigans ................youre just not prepared for the game of thrones of it all

seriously ha ha ha i cried so much w this show my eyes genuinely swelled up . like. physically. fun timez fun timez

that being said, its hilarious that wen xu goes to cloud recesses like 'come out or ill kill all these hostages' and then DOESNT WAIT FOR AN ASWER AND KILLS THEM ALL IMMEDIATELY. do u know how blackmail works sir

 would like to make it recorded that from day one i was like 'CALL A GODDAMN CULTIVATION G20 THIS ASSHOLE SECT IS LITERALLY MASSACRING YALL!!' and it took them like 3 or 4 massacres to do anything and they STILL sent their heirs into their territory  LIKE

when wwx cites the gusu lan rules to wen chao tho. that rebel/attention whore/cutie pie 'look lan zhan i DID memorize the rules after all' ‘also a big fuck you to the wen sect :D :D’ sweet spot that scene achieves . delicious

all the cultivator young masters being petty af even though they are practically prisoners at the cave is hilarious and i love them

hurt and comfort + gay mistunderstandings + watsonian gay declaration music + accidental evil acquisition! at the cave (2)

its like where do i start? the fact theyre both trapped and kind of heavily injured inside an isolated cave with a murder turtle? wwx gay panicking lwj into coughing up bad blood? lwj being jealous as wwx babbles abt mianmian? telling him he shouldnt play with people and wwx saying he never played him? wwx going Oh. I See what is happening. YOU like mianmian, and lwj absolute done face ??? (iconic) wwx touching the sacred married ribbon Again? the telepathic communication? the sword? WEI WUXIAN ASKING LAN WANGJI TO SING TO HIM AS HE IS PASSING OUT AND LWJ SINGING HIM. THE SONG. HE WROTE. FOR WWX. AND THAT HE CALLED. THEIR SHIP NAME????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

they are SO insufferable pleeeeease

in the words of my friend 1 : “CQL is so gay we were all amazed how it got past the censors Ofc unfortunately it can't be novel level gay But they did their best And we love them for it”

in the theme of songs THIS OST. WUJI HAS BEEN LIVING IN MY MIND RENT FREE SINCE I FIRST HEARD IT the whole ost is so so sO beautiful.

 the costuming in this is also soooo exquisite. the embroidery? the fabrics? the details? how every sect and clan has a distinct style and architecture? (also ik they based each off of dif periods in chinese history which is REALLY fucking cool) just chefs kiss

the direction too!. i enjoy the unusual camera movements and i think they give it that Vibe, also their composition is PARTICULARLY good when it comes to telling the subtext through position of camera/position of character (like nhs off to the side in scenes he at first glance doesnt need to be/ how lwj is often centered when hes Jealous Yearning at wwx being affectionate w other ppl, wwx return from burial mounds etc)

ik madam yu is like Badass Milf Check and shes not getting any mom of the year awards but im delighted at how messy she is. IMAGINE that woman on tiktok

you better have enjoyed gay cave (2) bc its Just Pain from here on out! 

jiang fengmian and madame yu win the Most Dramatic Way to show they do care about each other, actually ..... ever :)

i thought jiang yanli jiang cheng and wei wuxian forcing themselves to escape yunmeng barely holding on after their parents are killed was going to be the height of pain in this show. ha. 

the family dynamics in general on this showwwww, both blood/ adopted/ found families, brotherly bonds and lifelong friendships just. rly. truly. fucked me up. theyre all so important and complicated and well rounded and beautiful and tragic

and beyond being a Win For the Gays im so glad the relationships w wwx and jiang yanli/ wen qing were NOT changed from platonic bc they are so much better like that imo. like maybe if we didnt Live In A Society it wouldnt be so, but the fact wwx and others can love and value them so much and theres nothing romantic or sexual abt it is like. so refreshing. especially @ jyl, with the way he and jc are overprotective of her and shes such a nurturing/care taker figure for them, it would just not vibe as well if they made it romantic

i love that this is a story abt Wei Wuxian, the Yiling Patriarch aka Actual Satan/Boogey Man/Village With/Public Enemy Number One , my dude is literally a necromancer who only dresses in black and has evil smokey black tendrils wafting out of him, but the really edgy one is still jiang cheng, pastel purple fashion icon

and speaking of best/worst siblings wei wuxian and jiang cheng *immediately starts crying* 

The Golden Core Transfer i just. no thots only tears 

wen qing and wen ning putting themselves in so much danger just.... to help them. wn saving jc from wen chao. wq finding a way to get wwx to transfer his core. like thinking about the monumental work these two did to help wwx and jyl and jc... jyl trying so fucking hard to be strong and keep on moving and giver her little brothers comfort after losing everything... jiang cheng. losing his parents and his home and his ability to do anything abt it and his complete desperation and lack of self worth and turning on them with agression  when he didnt realize all that they did for him ... hhhhhhhhhhhhh

me, pointing at the whole cast “i just LOVE them mom!!!”

its sad tho, that BARELY ANY of the women have like.... actual important conversations let alone relationships with each other at all in the story. and like wq and jyl have stayed at the same place for extended periods of time, where wq actively took care of her TWICE,  and still! not one measly convo, nothing! ................ .𝓌ₕᵧ

everyone in this show need a good sip of Self Worth and Stop Sacrificing Yourself juice 

ngl the sword flying looks very dumb 

“a-cheng, please bring a-xian back.” “i will, i promise.” ;-;

the whole calling each other by the More Intimate Version of the name, first as teasing and later as true intimacy. mmmhmmm yes

untamed where everythings the same but wwx evil flute song is eoeo

related that scene when wwx comes back from the burial mounds for the first time w demonic cultivation and he acts all formal and calls lwj hanguang-jun and keeps being evasive and distant and mean and soooooo................. facetious 

and how hes kind of desperately trying to keep intense lwj at bay (A FIRST) and avoiding actually talking to either of them and its all tension ughhh and then he MOCKS his and lwjs relationship, he jokes w him in this like... mean echo of their usual ~banter~ oof 

 and like!!! uncertain but so relieved jc who just HUGS him w no reservations for once and its not like he isnt just as worried as lwj abt wwx and what hes doing, but he chooses in that moment to enjoy getting him back first and mmhmMMMmMm yes (maybe my favorite scene in the whole show? MAYBE SO. ) 

highkey hurt me but also. i might be into mean wwx. i will take no criticism.

lan zhans sad eyes tho :((((((((( 

on one hand i wish we could have seen what happened at the burial mounds but on the other the timeskip adds so much flair to his return so im hnnn

also i love that hes been missing for 3 months reappears kinda melancholic and bloodthirsty and knowing malign tricks and jc is like 'so. are u sad bc of lan wangji'

when ur bae survived the war but he thinks ur evil/ might be evil so you cant kiss :///

hmmm talking at the rooftop under the moonlight not mentioning everything that stands between usssss

they are the two jades of lan and we’ll be the two heroes of yunmeng is the type of line u dont even need to know whats gonna happen to know thats gonna be sad

when they fight wen ruoshan at the nightless city i thought that was the battle we see at the first ep and its not and its so easy and theyre all like ‘yayy we won go wwx!’ i was just. SCREAMS WHAT is gonna HAPPEN

so like. post burial mounds/sunshot campaign pre yiling patriarch wwx is like. ultra arrogant, ultra mocking, peak lil shit and it gave me e v e r y t h i n g i wanted

even tho having the wen prisoners at the targets at phoenix mountain and still having wwx and jzx shooting the arrows was???? so.... tone deaf 

wwx: fucking w demonic energy   jyl: he has never done anything wrong in his life, ever <3 <3 (mood)

the parallels between meng yao/wei wuxian (and even xue yang a bit?) are Seen and they are Valid

wwx post burial mounds: can yall SHUT UP abt the goddamn sword (suibian left the chat)

LIKE truly, we talk abt the angst and yearning with wangxian. but what abt wwx and suibian. xianbian / xianqing angst and comfort 100k

take a shot everytime someone coughs up blood

zidian is simply the coolest spiritual weapon rip to suibian and chenqing and bichen and sendou and baixa........ but tis the truth 

cons: everyones families died in a nightmare war! everyones homes burned to the ground! everyone is traumatized! pros: everyone gets cooler clothes and weapons!!

wen ning and a-yuan and yanli bestest babes squad dont touch me rn

everyone: brooding and fighting                                                                wq and jyl: why dont you try some acupunture/drinking some soup and calm down huh? how abt that bitch?? 

showing the battle/massacre at the nightless city first was genius actually bc then everytime we have a cute scene w yunmeng bros and theyre like 'we'll be together forever! uwu' youre like oh. oh no. oh no no no. 

justice vs lawfulness vs means and ends ���

jc: stay in the right path and practice the art of the sword                        wx: yeah thats not gonna happen chief

my reaction to wwx renouncing to the sect politics to help the wens was just that elmo burning gif in succession

the dramatic rain. wen qing desperately calling out to wen ning. the ghosts/puppets killing the guards. how terrifying wn actually was while wwx was controlling him :( lwj goeing after him to try and stop him and then he just; he Sees him and understands him even if he cant actually do anything about it other than let them go. 

“there must be somewhere in this earth we can go to :(((((((((”

"IF I HAVE TO FIGHT THEM, I'D RATHER IT BE YOU. DYING BY YOUR HANDS WOULD AT LEAST BE WORTH IT." oh my god oh my god oh my goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooddddddd

also lwjs umbrella is white w black smoke.. .  . nice

yiling patriarch / demonic farming burial mounds settlement is like one of my favorite concepts. they an "EVIL" FARMING COMMUNITY LED BY THE VILLAGE WITCH COME ON

they planted TURNIPS and LOTUS FLOWERS and ONE (1) baby and made lanterns and a common hall :(((((((

wen qing and wei wuxian, baddest bitches and genius science best friends i absolutely LOVED to see it. they rly went ‘is anyone gonna sibling/project partner that’ and didnt wait for an answer

both wwx and jyl getting lotus ponds at the burial mounds and in lanling bc they miss lotus pier ;;;;;;;w

;;;;; wish jyl had actually gone into the burial mounds. we were robbed of jyl and wq meeting again and jyl meeting a-yuan and seeing the settlement and the homes and all ;w; at least jc did go, stab wounds and broken arms and all

wwx like... having thrown his whole life away to help the wens (yeah the sect leaders and jin guangshan in particular wanting his stygian tiger amulet was an Element but still) and not.... necessarily regretting it, but grappling with all of the consequences of it... becoming moody and drepressed at times, missing his family and lotus pier and his friends and probably simply missing being around people and causing trouble, extrovert that he is, lashing out at the wens and at a-yuan, just in general the whole messiness of that experience

the way the resentful energy does affect his temperament is rly nice bc its not too in your face,(i mean outside of the Shaky Hands of Rage) but like he clearly has a much lesser control on his anger and impulsivity (tall order) than both before bm and after hes ressurected

on that note A-YUAN BABIEST BABY BOY BEST BOY

lan zhan being like oh hey there wei ying fancy meeting u and our son here. just passing by u know how it is hmmmmMm and then PLOT TWIST having defied orders to go see him and being punished for it. oof;;

 they habent seen each other in like? a year? and now theyre tgt 10 seconds and are already parenting a child together

also lwj rly kneels down in the snow way too much to be healthy

wwx: calm down guyssss i wont lose control of demonic cultivation omgggg  .   spoiler alert: he loses control of demonic cultivation

did u enjoy cute children? good bc now the Real Pain Begins

jiang yanli and jin zixuan rly out there APROPRIATING both disaster gays AND bury ur gays huh ;w;

i KNEW jin lings birthday was gonna fuck something up but the GASP that left my body when wwx lost control of wn and killed jin zixuan .. . . 

im sorry and thank you aaaaAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaAAAAaAAAAA 

when wen ning and wen qing were telling wwx their plan i was saying NO NO NO NO NO NO out loud in despair 

also can we talk abt how wq is definetely talking about only the both of them surrending themselves but then? everyone else just surrenders w them? IT MAKES NO SENSE LIKE WHY WOULD THEY what would be the Point

 sometimes there are some pretty gaping jumps in logic and continuity that are just like                     ?          ?

wwx: oh so when you try to murder me its justified but when i survive through dark magic and murder all of you its a "war crime"

unsurprisingly, his most feral, most spiraling moment talking to the sect leaders on the roof and attacking them and even fighting lan zhan is among my favorite scenes... its like, so painful to watch but also   so       thrilling   (and maybe my wen bbs dying arose some resentful energy in me what can i say) 

and its JUST, all they ever wanted was to do good but then... war. and trauma. and hubris. 

jiang cheng on the ground clearly thorn between what to do and feel is a Mood, lets just say

i was already crying when jyl showed up, but if i wasnt-

 i suffered SO MUCH through this series trying to figure out WHY jc would kill wwx. and when i understood. its somehow not as bad as i thought and also MUCH MUCH WORSE

a look into my group chat during the last flashback episodes:

SO ANYWAY. after the BLOOD BATH and RIPPING YOUR HEART OUT and FEEDING IT TO YOU  the untamed goes ‘ayy back to the present!! tu du dud ud du’ 

literally it ends a quarter into an episode and then KEEPS GOING i had to pause and stare blankly at the ceiling for an hour

babie cultivators and detective soulmates . i do need some cute after All of That 

(not that the pain is over LOL)

lwj is significantly less emotionally repressed in the present and its delightful. hes just ALL IN with wwx. and not just in the ‘i would and have killed various men and risked my reputation for you’ but also ‘ur tired here have a drink i brought it up cause i know u like it and it want you to be happy, always’

“when everyone praised me and wanted my power, you were the only one that challenged me. now that everyone hates me and wants me dead, youre the only one that stands by my side.” hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhnnnnnnnnnnnnnn 

and just filling in the blanks how lan zhan searched for him. for all of those 16 years he searched for him and was punished for it and raised a-yuan, the only survivor of the burial mounds settlement, as his own in gusu......

and jiang cheng.  being the tough love uncle . having raised the yunmeng jiang clan from the rubble all alone, his whole family dead, some of it on the blame of his own brother, his siblings, his closest friends gone.......and only jin ling there needing his guidance. 

THE PARALLEL BETWEEN JIN LING BEING A LIFELINE FOR JIANG CHENG AND A-YUAN FOR LAN WANGJI AFTER THE BATTLE AT THE NIGHTLESS CITY  

great now i made myself sad

and like . the fact! that lwj and jc dislike each other!!. jc projects blame onto him for wwx both “leaving” him and indirectly causing their families deaths and when hes so consumed by it he makes wwx an enemy, lwj is there now? trying to protect him?? and lwj, who can never understand the pain that wwx , indirectly or not put jc through, but who was right there when jc tried to kill him and will never allow him to hurt wwx again. and how they like. in a way project blame of their tragedies onto each other while dealing with some type of survivor guilt and in their own way still loving wwx through it all???  amd in way its kind of fundamentally selfish but also tragically understandable? and like when u put it against the fact that after he disappears during the sunshot campaign they were looking for him together and fought together??

JUST. THE CHARACTERS. AND THE RELATIONSHIPS IN THIS. MAN. UGH. GOD. 

and like i think thats what makes it so good? its such a sad and painful and violent story, edgy even, but its compelling bc at the center of it there are all of these relationships and different types of love and hope and. :( i love it

enough crying lets talk abt wwx sleeping at the jingshi with lwj and wearing his under garment for a minute ����

 jin ling just has that Was Raised by JC energy tho lmao i love him

babie cultivator squad is the perfect ammount of cute and comedic relief while still bearing the weight? of the narrative in a way, both from sizhui and jin lings existences, and also. like. how do i put this. they feel hopeful? they were born after a war, they came of age at a time of relative peace, they dont hold on so closely to the resentments of their parents/father figures, they are specifically shown as more accepting and open minded. and its like.... Hope for the future  

one of the ?? things  i love the most is the fact that the main cast are often in situations where theyre hunted/running but they like. never wear disguises... just going around in their gorgeous expensive clan clothes and hair ornaments and distinctive spiritual weapons.... maybe w a straw hat on, just for kicks

wwx teacher 🥺🥺🥺

so this is why its called Yi City Misery huh

a-qing is such. an icon. im so sad. my girl even knew to leave xys dumb self rotting by the road but no one listens to her thats why theyre all dead or sad 

her and xue yang measuring each other up was so entertaining lmao

 its the funniest thing when hes like. HERES MY SAD STORY. FOR WHY IM A SADISTIC MURDERER. I BROKE MY HAND ONCE. 

like ok someone broke his hand in a horrible way, and like Poverty, i get it but also like.......... that lost the brunt of a proper sob story like, 50 sadistic murders ago bby

and i love that xingchen does not entertain that for a second hes like ‘not ?????? good enough???’ and the best thing is he wasnt even like 'u hadto be the bigger person' or sth but ' well then break that dudes hand back, rip his arm off for i care, what do the rest of us have to do w anything???” 

anjo sensato :(

xue yang is like..... the sexy sadistic evil version of a himbo..... a meanbo...

the fucked upness of xy’s feelings for xxc/ xxc and sl feelings for each other... like my dude literally gave his bf HIS EYES. and xy getting so attached to xxc .... the fucked up fake domesticity.... having him hurt sl..... then desperately trying to bring him back ...................... oof

song lan........... literally had his eyes AND tongue removed, his bfs eyes put in place, was almost killed, turned into a puppet by his bf unknowingly, manipulated by xy, sees his bf killing himself in despair.... and STILL finds the strenght to get up from there, and keep on traveling and helping people and attempting to fix xxcs soul.......... like, my man. damn. 

wangxian looking at songxiao and seeing an Actually more painful parallel for themselves. ft. that Color Coding. 

THE A-YUAN/SIZHUI REVEAL PUNCHED ME IN THE HEART but in a good way for a change

should have know that he would be the Best Boy the cute one w all the braincells

the butterfly AND the bunny lantern. i see how it is

u know is very convenient that no one can see the stark black veins on wen nings neck, ever 

BAT WEN NING 

wns face when lwj comes into wwx room like ‘:0 omg did u two finally get your shit together? good for you master wei good for u’ 

(they didnt) (yet)

DISASTER DRUNK LWJ. JUST. THRUST SOME CHICKENS TO SHOW UR RESSURECTED BAE THAT U LOVE THEM.

i have absolutely no idea WHY they gave lwj the same punishment for fighting his own sect/allies to protect the burial mounds as when they got drunk on cloud recess class days.... like? its such a ... emotional continuity error again

also is lwj gonna get an actual friend besides wwx , ever

mianmian marrying and having a family and a cute life after saying FUCK U AND UR SYSTEM TOO in a much less unhinged and dramatic way than wwx......... fills me w joy

also lol the idea that like. her husband not knowing that shes friends w satan/the boogey man/the village witch is hilarious

i love nie mingjue bc hes the resident Though Guy but also the most dramatic bitch in this show and thats Saying Something

jin ling cant have one uneventful relative can he

the fact that everyone present already knew “mo xuanyu” was wwx at the stairs is so funny, their faces are like ‘oh............ wow. that. sure is a development. shock” 

in the tradition of extremely loud whispers wwx tells lwj with twelve guards standing like one meter away from them: HEY PSH LAN ZHAN PRETEND IM FORCING YOU TO STAY W ME DO IT

oh my god oh my god

the absolute Yearning on his face when he leaves wwx and a-yuan at the burial mounds and refuses to stay for dinner was already Enough but the fact?? they brought it back?? to this declaration of love?? their expressions??????? strike me dead right now just go ahead

lFor Legal Reasons We Cant Kiss but we will have a very sappy declaration of love and trust and look at each other in way that is the actualization of 💞💘💗💖💓💘💞💗💖💘💗💖💕💞

also icb all the sect leaders and guards are standing there watching them say they like like each other with a dozen swords pointing at their neck

i enjoyed the depiction of the fickle public perception and how easily it can be used to scapegoat people. when the sect leaders turn on jgy and wwx knows thats its more for convenience than anything else...

poor lxc is literally like 'oh so when YOUR problematic boyfriend gets called evil its a misunderstanding but when its MY problematic bf-'

ok like i cant get over nmj let jgy play a song that messed with his temperament at all, like maN u KNEW he might be shady wth

wwx: “hey dont say anything bad abt lan zhan hes not an arrogant dick, thats just his face. 

ME ON THE OTHER HAND"

the cultivators as wwx is poking holes in their narrative is literally *nazaré meme*

"wei wuxian-!" "what did i break your leg, too?" not to be problematic but i laughed so hard

not as hard as "you dont have the rank to talk to me " tho

i Enjoy that, over the course of story, wwx sees that... theres nothing truly to Do, but move on. he saw how his arrogance and his mistakes hurt others, and hes trying to fix what he can, but he already did die for his mistakes and there are things he cant fix and that's. just how it is. even towards jgy, the narrative doesn't go gleefully and completely with "lets make THEM pay bc theyre the big bad" bc its not that simple, and it wouldn't lead anywhere but more pain...

re him and jiang cheng and the wens and kinda. isnt that what nhs did? scheming to displace jgy out of revenge more than any justice and doing so in the most painful way?

idk if that actually makes sense im truly just babbling

i thought the scene at the lotus pond would be CUTE but the context was PAIN again

jiang cheng finding out about his golden core and his conflict with wwx at the guanyin temple .... destroyed me but in a nice way kinda.... same way it destroys him look at his face oh god

and. the fact??? he sacrificed himself for wwx?? first?? and he'll probably never tell anyone much less wwx???? keeps me up at night

i havent decided if the neckbreak transition between jgy does sth super Evil or does he he does OR Does He yes he does O R does heeeee is sth i dislike or not

jin guangyao and wei wuxians most interesting parallel is that... theyve both seen 'hmm hey this system is fucked up' and wwx went 'so fuck it all i will renounce it and challenge it' and jgy went 'so fuck it i will use all of it to my advantage and manipulate it to my goals and whims'

the fact jgys mom was actually great and he loved her and his whole issue w it was more than simply being ashamed of being a bastard kinda got me ngl

never trust a dude with a fan.

nhs and jgy: the first rule to a convoluted and decades spanning violent revenge plot is to have fun and be yourself! 

when a-yuan finally FINALLY remembers ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;-;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; wen ning has someone in his family back and a-yuan has someone to talk abt his wen family and wwx has him back bc he survived and lwj raised him anD HES THEIR SON. THEYRE MARRIED AND HAVE A SON. UGH.

and theyre allowed to heal. everyone is allowed to try and recover and be happy

netflix put all of the 3 endings on top of each other and it looks kinda weird actually BUT I DONT EVEN MIND :’’’’’’’’’)

the gasp that left me when lwj says ‘wei ying’ and wwx turns.........

there was also a screen with ‘thank you mxtx for creating these characters, we hope their wishes come true’ and i might. have cried then too. maybe. 

that was . a ride. as is proven by this behemot of a ramble clearly i just really needed and Outlet. i am currently trying to convince dumb monkey brain to not consume the other medias of mdzs immediately bc i REALLY need to like. live. a life. and take care of real responsibilities.  *longest oh boi ever*

[starryfreckles]

Flavie and Ayumi Live (26 mai 2020 on YouTube francetv slash) 

Translation/Summary -

(I apologise in advance for the typos. i didnt really read this over tbh)

Interviewer: Where are you at the moment?

Flav: I’m at home, in my room

Ayumi: I’m at my country house in my room. [Her friend joined her there when deconfinement happen and now they’re living their best life. There’s sun and everything is good]

Flav is chilling “la vida loca” she says

Is it not too frustrating to live this 6th season in confinement and SKAM France has a reputation of having very involved fans and with the screenings?

A: Yes, its very frustrating but then again it’s something that I haven’t really lived the projections with the fans so I dont know what it does. But just the feedback of social media is incredible. Its a good preview at what can happen in a live screening.

F: Yea I agree. It is frustrating but seeing everyone on social media is kind of reassuring and comforting and like Ayumi said, we dont know that [the screenings] so its not that frustrating.

what kind of reactions have you guys had on social media?

[flav and ayumi arguing who goes first. Its the cutest thing ever. Flav always wants ayumi to go first]

A: Just love and positivity. On my end is really incredible. I thank everyone. It’s really just incredible.

F: Its so wonderful. At night, I really try to read all the dms on instagram and even if I cant respond to everyone, know that I read everything and I translate everything that isn’t in French. If I  were to reply to everyone, it would take a long time so that’s not possible. I dont speak all the languages of the world so I copy and paste is translate to understand.

-video cuts out-

I: we were talking about fan reactions so let’s continue. Have you gotten any that made you surprised, laugh, smile, made you emotional, etc?

A: what is beautiful is that ive gotten many messages from girls and boys who said that they had similar a similar relationship to Lola and Maya in the sense that one helps the other more because of addiction problems. And that’s always nice to hear that they just wanted to thank skam for writing and portraying this kind of story. And of course the reaction of la mif. It’s true the character Jo has been loved by fans. She is so funny and so great and she’s [actress who plays jo, louise] really like that in real life. Like literally from A to Z

Flav agrees.

A: “Louise just played Louise” and it’s just so funny. And everyone online says they want to be friends with jo becuase she made this joke pr did that but she’s really like that.

F: she’s always joking

A: and she just comes up with stuff on the spot

I: we really just can’t wait to see La Mif reunite and see how they are in real life because they are just awesome on screen.

Flav and ayumi agree

I: Maya’s arrival to the season that was a little intense, let’s not lie, is like a ray of light. What does that do to you for having that role of the character who brings light and wonder? (This is kinda hard to translate)

A: its incredible to bring that kind of message, like you said, this light. She is totally this kind of girl that I would love to be friend with. It’s hard to explain. It’s just so beautiful. Maybe flav has something to say.

F: it’s true that you and La Mif brought a light for everyone. Even me when I see my family and close ones they say that they are so funny and new and that they felt my pain [as lola] even if its a show and its feels weird to see you like that because you’re close to us but seeing them [lola + la mif] is a good mix. And ayumi you bring so much like when your face lights up when Lola comes up the stairs its incredible.

A: its a chemical reaction. Its incredible. But flav I saw you on screen and everything that you brought, what David saw. And we lived it but for us it seems natural and on screen and rediscovered the characters and the chemistry at the same time as everyone else.

Flav and Ayumi saying that they havent seen the whole thing before hand and are constantly check their phone for new clips. They have the notifications for the YouTube channel.

F: we at least have the hours for the clips AT LEASTT and thankfully

A: which flav sent me because I didnt have them and she left me panicked for 2 weeks and then she finally sent them over.

F: its great. They’re on my fridge and I cross off each day with my parents and we are one it. My dad everyday is like there’s a clip. So funny.

I: Just so we’re on the same page, there’s a clip today right?

I: [fan question] what do you love the most and the least in the character you play?

A: flav please start

F: I love her “who the fuck are you talking to me like that” and her fuck you attitude. I love that she shows off that nothing moves her but deep down not really, like everyone I guess. I love that about her and she’s so natural. I love her, I really love her. Something negative. That’s hard.

I: you are a very happy, bubbly person. Is there not her depressed, dark side that bothers you?

F: well lola is just full of emotions where we’re going to see everything. But really what I dont like is her fashion sense.

A: im dead. But I was going to say the same thing

F: maya’s fashion sense? You are crazy. And also girl it’s your clothes they used as costumes

A: no no but people have made edits with you know the big pink coat or my outfit at the supermarket and its there that I realised how ridiculous even if they not really.

F: well I think theyre great. Love the pink coat

A: ill send it to you with fedex. I dont have it but ill send it to you.

F: when we were doing costume fittings I told the costume designer that it was simple and that I would be stealing all of these looks. Im going to take a suitcase, im going to take ayumi’s clothes, put them in my suitcase and go back to Vance with them. And I took nothing from lola by the way. She just doesn’t have a style. She doesn’t neglect herself but its her I dont care attitude, again.

A; I love maya’s engagement and her will towards everything and everyone. Shes a teenager but that’s beautiful to be engaged in many causes. She just really wants everyone, her friends, to be well and happy. But otherwise things I dont like outside of her clothes I dont know. Clothes is like the best answer

F: you forgot about her makeup. The makeup artist did her eyeliner and dots under the eyes and I was there like do the same thing with me!

A: that is really the best thing in all of humanity. It was so cool.

F: honestly. The makeup artist gave everything on you but on me she went in the morning like poof poof ‘well that’s it honey, there’s nothing else I can do for you’

A: you forgot the drama hair!

F: oh my god. She would pour oils and everything you want on my head. “You could like cook French fries”

A: flavie says that but you know she can wear whatever she wants and still look good

F: awe I love you

I: Did the age difference between you hinder your ability to be friends?

A: no not at all. What do you think flav?

F: not at all. Im just the baby of the group, im the youngest but we all so dumb together that we don’t realise

A: exactly. We all act like we’re 7

F: all of us together is horrible. The whole mif. Intolerable.

I: how was youre guy’s first meet?

F: ok let me tell you from my point of view because its quite funny.

A: she was so annoying. She looked at me all weird. she was not cool No that’s not true at all. She was adorable. Trop cute

F: I arrive to the production offices and im with David signing contracts and he says don’t move I have a surprise. And im like oh no what has he brought me a croissant or something and he brings back ayumi. So we start talking for like 10 minutes and I did not who she was actually. And I was like who tf is this. I did not know. And im one point im like so she’s the one who plays Maya? It was so funny. It was cool. And then he brought Maxence

A: from my point of view, flavie was so shy and locked off. And I knew who she was and I was honoured and thrill. She was so small and closed off. But honestly NOT AT ALL. i quickly understood the next day that flavie is a bomb! You understand ?

F: at first maybe you were like “I just want to protect this little thing.”

I: so what was the first scene that you guys filmed together?

Ayumi makes it clear that it’s a scene that hasn’t been released yet. And Flavie can’t remember what it is.

A: flav, you are putting our whole relationship in question!

F: I just dont know!

A: ok but the second scene we did together was the scene of Saturday morning after the first urban party

F: OHHH you right! I remember now!

I: but that’s a great scene that fans loved because of the chemistry and people loved it. How did you create that complexity? Was it the writing or did you try to meet up on your own?

F: honestly, not that much because the problem is that I live in Vance. We really tried to see each other but trains made it difficult to see each other just us two, but it still worked somehow. We worked a lot with David but not so much just us too and yet we still manage to create something really strong and powerful.

A: in between scenes we also just talked all the freaking time. And by the time David said action, it was like we just finishing our conversation in the scene.

F: every morning we were always happy to see each other and we didn’t see each other that much but that honestly wasn’t a problem at all.

I: in the YouTube comments, everyone is slightly making fun of flavie for living so “far”

A: [also starts making fun of flavie] oh yea yea basically 45 minutes.

F: BY TRAIN! By car its like 2 hours and a half, so sorry.

A: you don’t even have a driver license! So you have to take the train!

F: alright I almost have my drivers license! Soon supposedly! And don’t worry ill come pick you up in my ride!

Ayumi makes more fun of Flavie for her hours of driving and her basically driving illegally (in France you can only drive at 18 and flav is 17)

I: what was the most difficult scene to film for you?

F: well im not gonna answer. I can’t answer

A: honestly I dont have any. Oh wait yes yes yes! I just remembered. Flav you do know! It’s the scene where I tell you that ive missed you.

F: oh right! You were sick right!

A: yea I had shrimp for lunch. Bad shrimp and in the scene im in process of dying. I have never been in more pain and discomfort.

F: and I was like why is she angry at me? What did I do?

A: and flav is like are you okay and thank god you were there flav because she was telling me breathe and take it slow. It was the difficult

F: for me the most difficult that we’ve seen is was hard because of weather conditions. It was so cold on the whole set but it was the one where we were around the fire and jo sees eliott for the first time, the first urbex party. We were getting fire embers in our eyes so we were all crying and complaining. It was awful. Louise was actually crying so so hard.

A: it was so funny. Louise was actually crying and was joking at the same time whilst crying. We were laughing so hard.

The say that night was still a lot of fun and then they all went to Quentin’s apartment [actor who plays sekou] and the ambiance on set is better than on screen. It was a lot of fun

A: la mif always has a great time, messing around

F: David would say “FOCUS FOCUS”

I: it was mid November, and we all know skam france shooting is very intense and fast. So David was like a police officers. We cant wait to see the behind the scenes. David in the comments says thank you to all the extras who were there until 4am

F:  oh yea honestly. Thank you– just thank you

A: oh yea flav thanks for that. Its great.

I: we know there’s a clip today with a reunion. And fans are expecting a kiss. Are we getting that moment today?

(Silence)

A: listen if there is a kiss, it will happen at a perfect moment

I: there is a lot of pressure on this kiss becuase there are so many people from the LGBTQ+ community who are saying that this kind of relationship is rarely seen on screen. Do you feel the need to do good?

F: its so well written and directed that we do want to do really well. Ok your turn

A: the want to do good, of crows but its already something we want to do. We are not forcing ourselves, because its already there.

They say that its sad for the time being that they have to continue to fight for rights in the LGBTQ community and Ayumi says that with SKAM its all going to change. They always get lovely messages thanking them.

They talk about the ship name and how fans have decided that is going to be Mayla. Ayumi is happy that its Mayla. Flav wanted Loyla. Ayumi says it was their first “fight” and they weren’t agreeing. Even la mif voted on the ship. It was heavily debated.

I: Are we right to have so much faith in Mayla or are you going to break our hearts?

F: for that you’ll have to keep watching

A: well said flav

F: l’amour gange toujours

I: what is next for you two?

F: not much. Im seeing friends at a distant. Stay safe. I was starting to miss my social life. Not going out too much because I really dont want to get “this vicious/awful thing” so yea “la vida loca”

F: project wise everything is on pause but im on a good path. Crossing my fingers. If it happens it happens. Its destiny

A: its destiny. Same thing. There was a movie that stopped before quarantine and won’t start again but there are castings. Until filming starts again, we are all waiting.

I: it’s funny, everything something is said, it gets translated in the comments in five or six languages. Have you taken something from your character and have you left them something?

A: her joy to live at everything. And give her my body to just exist

F: what I took, well nothing. I gave her 7kg more. Well actually I took from her 7kg. That’s it!

I: who forgets their lines the most?

F: ME! But you too kinda. You just talk SOOO fast you start to stutter

A: I talk too fast and then I stutter and it was so cold that that doesn’t help. So in front of flavie, she really made fun of me.

F: I didnt always forget but sometimes when its really long I forgot.

[dramaticnerdwithanxiety11]

, LITERALLY WHO LOOKS AT NICK FUCKING RUSSEL AND GOES “mm yes, take my autism”

THIS IS AN ISSUE

WHY AM I LIKE THIS

whatever its too late now! you get to hear me talk about it to avoid writing it!!

So, i’ll be explaining the show for you newbs who dont watch power rangers like a smart person (as in the not watching it is smart). 

Power Rangers Mystic Force is, obviously, power rangers. It’s got the standard team of five with superpowers and weird biker-looking uniforms. 

If im honest, PRMF is literally just power rangers but with like fantasy magic.

It follows Nick Russell, the new guy in town. He’s a biker and he’s got this tragic bs backstory about how his parents abandoned him (update: they work overseas, they adopted him and like do not vibe with him)  and he travels, living with  family members and how he never sticks around long enough to make friends. We know he’s staying with his sister, and about nothing else. ~ Nick Russell is actually really important, of course, he is the Red Ranger and if we didn’t have the leader be angsty what kind of Power Rangers would we be, am I right? (i dunno i havent watched other power rangers in like ten years) ~

But we’ll come back to that. ~

There’s also Charlie “Chip” Thorn, a hyperactive hyperimaginative redhead with a love for fantasy and superheroes. He’s eager to join the team and loves the idea of quests and fighting villains and shit. He’s the Yellow Ranger, with Lightning Powers. ~

Vida Rocca, the ‘bad girl’. She has this one strip of her short hair that she dyes and may I just say when I finished the show a third time I couldnt not think ‘yO HER HAIR CHANGES TO SHOW HOW SHE FEELS ABOUT THE RANGERS’ but lets be honest thats probably bs lol. Anyways, she’s a DJ and she loves music, she’s the Pink Ranger (who hates pink for most of the show) with Wind Powers. ~

Madison Rocca, the ‘good girl’. She’s Vida’s sister, and she like following the rules and she enjoys recording her friends to make little videos for them to look back on when theyre older. She’s hesitant and cautious, but will do a lot to make sure her sister is safe. She’s the Blue Ranger, with the power of Water. ~

Xander Bly, he’s cocky and thinks hes all that, and flirts with women like every chance he gets. He thinks he’s super handsome and amazing and probably has a superiority complex for one reason or another. He’s the green ranger, with Nature Powers. ~

Not rangers include: ~

Koragg, one of the big bads who (SPOILERS) later turns out to be Nick’s father and Udonna’s long lost husband. Early on in the show he can telepathically communicate with Nick, which gives Nick these really really bad headaches, great for angst, it’s used as a bit of a plot device through a lot of the show and ngl I love it cause angst. ~

Uhh forgot her name but there’s the Vampire Queen who has bat wings on her hips and is in a full leather body suit. She’s kinda boring. ~

I forgot her name as well but the Vampire Queens daughter, who later goes on to save her mother because she realizes that the Rangers are the good guys and she’s on the wrong team.  ~

Udonna, the kinda ex White Ranger and a very powerful sorceress, as well as the Ranger’s trainer and Claire’s aunt. ~

Claire, (SPOILERS) who turns out to be the Daughter of Udonna’s sister, who was more powerful than her and sacrificed her life to seal the gate to what is essentially hell. She’s comedically bad at magic early in the show, and acts a lot like a comedic relief. ~

The Master, aka The Big Bad that the evil guys are trying to let free. Koragg before he became Koragg was trying to kill him and succeeded in trapping him further than all the others. He’s some weird tentical creepy muscles-showing no skinned weird i dunno i think i repressed this cause i forgot what he looks like lol.

Alright, so those are the characters. Now let me explain the plot.

Nick rides into town on his bike and is usually found set up outside the record shop that the rest of the Rangers (yet to be) work at. Btw, theyre all teenagers, but I think this takes place in summer cause we never see them go to school. 

Anyways, this old man calls for somebody to help him, and says that his brother and him were walking through the woods and somebody grabbed him, and he needed somebody to go looking for his brother. Nick, not being apart of the town to know they have rumours about dying in the forest, offers to help.

Xander tells him the woods are haunted, he ignores the man saying the man needs help so who gives a shit about some rumours, and then Vida is like “i’ll help too,” and Chip joins in cause he thinks its gonna be some awesome quest. They make it out to the forest, and Maddie and Xander join them, (”Xander I told you if you ever took my car I’d rearrange your limbs!” -Vida, episode one).

The man is like super ominous and her vanishes once they get into the forest, this creepy witch lady saves them from some bad guys attempting to attack them, and then throws brooms at them that they fly off on. 

Time skip not actually in the show but im losing steam so we’re moving on. Eventually, they make it to RootCore, aka the base of operations, and meet Udonna and Claire. Udonna is this super powerful sorceress and the White Ranger, and she trains them. Claire is her apprentice who is comedically bad at magic.

She hands out wands to them, they go to leave, get into a fight, all of them but Nick believe in and use magic, Nick leaves the forest, Udonna fights Koragg and loses her staff aka her White Ranger magic, and the Rangers are left in charge of saving everybody. In the end, Nick goes to leave and ends up showing up anyways to save the rangers from Koragg and embraces the magic, becoming the Red Ranger.

That’s the gist of the first episode, and the rest is kinda just “fight the bad guys, discover random secrets that make a surprising amount of sense for a show like this, fail a couple times, do some weird shit then end on a happy note”

WHICH BTW THE ENDING? FUCKIN WEIRD

The fantasy creatures integrate with Humans, Vida dyes all her hair bright pink, Nick fucking leaves town and this is the weird part. Because for one, Nick wanted to stay with his friends it was obvious, but for two; the way he left was w e i r d . He, Udonna and not-evil-Koragg who I forgot the name of, leave together.

The end scene is Nick riding up to the edge of the rode on his Motorcycle, then it slowly pans out to show Udonna and Nek (im just calling him Nek as in not evil koragg now) on bikes as well?? one of them asks if hes ready to go and they ~ride off into the sunset~

For one: THESE ARE AGE OLD SORCERERS WHO HAVE VERY LITTLE IDEA ABOUT HUMAN TECH?? HOW DO THEY KNOW HOW TO RIDE??

For two: dID THEY JUST HAVE THESE BIKES RIDING AROUND?? AND THE HELMETS?? DID THEY SHELL OUT A BUNCH OF MONEY FOR THIS?? LITERALLY WHAT???

anyways, great show! youve gotta watch it on some.. less than legal sites but shh its okay shhhh. It used to be on Netflix but like yaknow, its gone now. Either way, it’s a great show in my opinion! Like I mean it’s bad cause Power Rangers, so to most who are looking to critique there’s probably shit acting, and there’s a lot of not needed grunting in battle, the effects are shitty and the costumes are kinda depressing, but it’s still enjoyable! 

Random Facts-- ~

Vida hates Pink, despite being the pink ranger. ~

Chip, Vida, and Maddie have been friends since either kindergarten or elementary school, i dunno about Xander. ~

They all work at a Record Shop/Music Shop together, and their boss is an idiot but kinda entertaining. ~

Vida turns into a vampire for about two episodes, and Chip is the one to figure it out. ~

Maddie gets turned to stone because Nick essentially calls her useless and shy, and so she went out to prove otherwise, and got caught up in an attack. ~

Chip opens a weird black bottle he found after a battle and some weird thing comes out and attacks him, he spends the B Plot of that episode quite literally dying with his soul being eaten and climbing a mountain to get the cure. ~

Koragg has a really dumb moral code about how he only fights with Honor and refuses to kill the rangers most of the time because its “not honorable” for some reason or another. ~

There’s an episode where Xander gets this really really ugly and big zit right on the tip of his nose, and he uses this perfection potion Claire made for plants. He proceeds to turn into a literal tree and be depressed. ~

There’s a Troblin, the child of a Troll and a Goblin, named Phineas who’s very entertaining and I like this. By the end of the show, he ends up dating the daughter of the Vampire Queen which when you think too hard about makes no sense. ~

Nick turns into Koragg at one point late in the series. I completely fucking forgot how, but he does lol.

[youssefguedira]

Aaah I've been absolutely living for your zelda au posts!!! I want to know everything- there's too much I can't think of where to start!!! I'm gready for absolutely any more details you want to want to share!!! (also, thank you so much for puttling those posts out in the world- your writing is just amazing and beautiful and you're just fab)

anon this is so sweet i wasn't sure anyone was actually paying attention to that au bc it's uh. pretty specific to me personally. so it's really nice to hear that someone is actually reading them and enjoying them!!!!! so, here are some thoughts i have about how nicolo gets the master sword because this is one of the things ive been thinking about recently. along with how they actually get together romantically but i'm not going to tell you that i would like to keep some things a surprise. i also am putting it under a cut bc it got long:

- i know there's no triforce in breath of the wild but i don't care this is my zelda au and i'll do what i want. for non-zelda fans, the triforce is basically the ultimate power, usually split into three pieces, which are courage power and wisdom. princess zelda holds the triforce of wisdom, ganon holds power, and link holds courage. so in this case yusuf's got wisdom (well. not yet) and nicolo has courage.

- i know in botw link got the master sword when he was like 12 but again i'll do what i want. i still havent finalised how old they are yet but theyre not 17.

- so onto what actually happens. at this point, they don't know who has been chosen to be the hero. nicolo has already been assigned as yusuf's bodyguard, the divine beast pilots have been chosen and are currently staying at hyrule castle, and nicolo and yusuf are just about reaching the friends stage.

- so. one morning yusuf wakes up to find nicolo at his door looking a more than a little bit freaked out. yusuf is, you know, worried about this, and nicolo shows him the mark of the triforce on the back of his hand, which appeared during the night after a weirdly vivid dream he had about a forest and a sword in a stone pedestal.

- (now as a quick side note - while in the zelda games the triforce always just looks glowy and gold and cool on the back of link's hand, nicolo's mark looks like a burn mark or a brand. this is because one of the main points in this au is that the triforce/being chosen is a burden more than anything else. it is unwanted. it is stressful. it often results in painful death. the zelda games occasionally hint at this but they're made for children 7+ so don't go into it. i, however, very much do. the triforce can be considered both a blessing and a curse, as it grants you abilities but also forces you to fulfil a destiny you may never have wanted. yusuf's feelings on it are complicated but he mostly considers it to be a curse. we don't see nicolo's feelings on it directly as the first part is written from yusuf's point of view but i will tell you that he has a complicated relationship with it too. this will be hinted at in part 2 but that is... also complicated bc reasons. this was not a quick side note at all. oops)

- that aside, yusuf knows exactly what the mark means, of course. because when his mother died and his father got weird about training he made it a point to learn as much about all of this stuff to try and figure out how to access the sealing power. it didn't work, but this does mean he knows what it means

- so, he takes nicolo to see his father, because he's not quite sure what else to do. long story short they organise a journey to the lost woods, where the master sword is. i probably won't actually call it the master sword within the fic but i'm referring to it that way here. (for non zelda fans: the master sword is the only weapon that can harm calamity ganon. at least in this au, because technically anything can harm ganon in botw but again i do what i want) the champions go along because i like them.

- another important detail in this is that while the mark of the triforce means nicolo is the one destined to wield the master sword, but that does not automatically make him worthy of it. the master sword stands as a test. if you try to pull it from the stone and you are not worthy, you just straight up die. again with the idea of destiny being a curse i feel like i mention that a lot. (it's a test of courage, see: you have to be willing to try anyway, despite knowing you could die. you must also be like kind and not evil or whatever)

- nicolo's not going to die (yet) but you know. nobody knows that. so understandably it's a little stressful. yusuf maybe tries to talk him out of doing it or something idk yet. perhaps tries to call it off when he sees nicolo in pain. but nicolo does get the sword in the end

- and yusuf has... complicated feelings about this. because you see he has been training for years, and he has achieved nothing, and now nicolo has the master sword. in yusuf's eyes, he is everything he is supposed to be, and yusuf is still a failure. (his father also says something like "finally, we are making progress" because yusuf's father is kind of a jerk)

- he gets a little withdrawn after this but then nicolo comes to find him after he doesn't see him at dinner (with cake. this actually happens on two separate occasions in the fic because i have a lot of thoughts and feelings about nicolo acts of service di genova and food as an expression of love) and they like. talk and stuff

- this is an important stage in their relationship tho because before they have been pretty formal with each other and almost-friends but not quite there and this is what moves them past that stage. yusuf is finally able to actually talk to someone. so is nicolo. i am not describing all of it because i do want to leave some things as a vague surprise but yeah

- so that's how nicolo gets the master sword

[pestopascal]

While I will absolutely agree that CB2077 isn’t the ONLY game doing all this bullshit, or that other AAA studios don’t deserve the flack CDPR is getting, I have to say that this is absolutely the perfect storm and I think people are FINALLY seeing the problems in modern AAA gaming. CB2077 might be fun to play, may have a good story, but it’s almost impossible to see because of the glaring issues. Which, honestly, is a good thing. I hope games change after this.

under here

AAA studios have been like this and this sort of release has been completely normalised on all accounts by both the businesses themselves and fans because of the inherent reliance on modders (bethesda at the forefront of this), as well as the pushback every time companies actually go ‘uh we need a lil more time’ (although... they just shouldnt announce potential release dates, im even of the camp they shouldnt even start releasing the game until like 6 months out from their official date because they fuck it up every time. borderlands 3 being the only game i know of being in “secret” development and then announcing itself in march for a september release. game itself aside, thats how companies should do it). easily i can remember a lot of 2011 release games which have had the exact same issues as cp77′s release, and then every other game in between since. very rarely do you actually have a game that isn’t a fucked up mess of a pile of pixels. and it is always the customisable character ones that are honestly, genuinely, ugly looking at release. but you can definitely say its been happening looooooong before 2011, with unrealistic expectations, word limits, 11 month time frames, offloading sequels to smaller companies so they can suffer if it fails, etc etc. the entire system has been like this for so long... they dont know any real different nowadays.

i mean look. tlou2 released under crunch conditions this year, and was rewarded. it was ALL over the social media feeds, it was quite the controversy because, surprise surprise, the company promised they wouldnt do it uwu and then. bam ! crunch conditions. literally around that time too, bioware employees came out with a statement saying ‘man we wish dai FAILED so that back in 2014 we couldve proven crunch was a wrong practice’. they say this as well after having to produce da2 in 14 months, which just suffered from fans and journalism for reusing environments, because it was produced in 14 months, and honestly? no one pointed that out back then, bioware themselves pointed it out again this year, 6 years after release, that that game was produced in 14 months. rdr2′s release was hounded by stories of crunch, and they all disappeared into the night because... it was heralded as the best game of all time. that was 2018, 2 years ago.

i think too is that some people get kind of ... morally and ethically concerned. which is understandable. can you consume something when you know it was made under conditions like crunch? and i think one of the most confronting things about it is that 9/10, not only has your favourite company engaged in crunch conditions, they almost actively choose to continue with them. and then that’s a whole other bag of issues blown up over there when it comes to what is able to be consumed what isn’t etc etc

i think also like a mix of marketing, promises and then the expectations of what the game will be like have really had cdpr earn the ire of fans which is just like... you don’t believe what these companies are saying. you never should, esp when it’s their ceo’s saying it who don’t work on the actual floor. bioware itself is the main culprit of doing this to the point they finally came around with all the da4 concept art and teasing to be like ‘ummm but actually dont get invested?’. remember all that qunari lady fanart that bioware management was like ... please dont get attached? yeah. yeah. like at what point as well is there going to be heavy level of apprehension to approach this? and i can’t really talk either, i cracked open the door for mass effect again. i know exactly what kind of shit bioware will pull, i know they are teasing it already on social media, but mass effect is my ride or die series. that’s why people keep opening the door on letting these companies get away with it. and you can’t fault fans entirely either because this is down to a science of how to get money. i mean, fuck, mass effect andromeda’s entire advertising campaign HINGED on the n7 logo. for the nostalgia value. and i see text posts in the same vein of both ‘guys, disney isnt gonna fuck you if you consume every remake for nostalgia value’ and ‘its understandable why people do it’.

so then you have to go ‘well are fans as just to blame’ and then that’s a whole other argument.

i think also like. i personally havent run into aaaannnyyyyyyy of the issues that you see posted online. which is ironic bc 1) i play on ps4 and 2) its an old dusty ps4. in fact a lot of ppl i have spoken to who have had issues have played on pc. does this mean the glitches dont exist? ofc not, the vids and screenshots are right there. but like... ive had a basically unhindered experience so far, and i get where ppl are coming from (i do, i promise) where theyve basically found the game unplayable. is there also a standard of what ppl consider unplayable because ive played most AAA games at launch when they basically rushed to slap the box label on the game and called it a day until they work on patches. when ppl consider unplayable is also just... different per person. some people have a slight blur on the screen when turning too fast even in an MMO and decide the game is horrible and unplayable. some people can have broken quests and npcs not loading and falling through maps and still be fine. there’s no agreed statement of what makes a game unplayable either, which is why you read threads on twitter and someone goes ‘yeah this npc t-posed so i quit in the first hour’ with a dozen replies. everyone has different levels of it.

it’s a mixed bag of issues. im not excusing cdpr, but the ppl who worked on the game are honestly likely not the ones who pushed for a release. you’ve gotta look at sony and microsoft and ceo’s with bonuses coming up and the investors and shareholders and people who sit behind computers and read numbers detailing interest and demand and supply and how every single time they had to delay this game, the loudest (but smallest) bunch of assholes on like reddit and in the twitter threads complained that it was delayed AGAIN even though back in what 2015? they said it’ll come out when it’s ready. and yeah there are times when game delays result in a mismatched half assed sort of story (kh3... p5... ffxv... dai...) and then there are times when, if they need to delay the game... they probably need to delay the game. sometimes delays are bad sometimes theyre good sometimes you are sitting there like whew if you only didn’t try to be like THIS TIME this is the release date.

the ONLY WAY this will stop happening is, quite frankly, unionising. and everyone is allergic to that whole concept so like... this is “the perfect storm” as you put it. but it’s also not. people have been so disappointed over the last 2 years alone for gaming companies, the final product, the attitudes from higher ups, that i think cdpr is receiving a good few years worth of anger. i think theyre also on the receiving end of misdirection from american fans who still don’t fucking get the company isn’t american, because that’s another bag of issues as well. like we’re holding at least 8 bags of groceries out of the back of the car now, and we don’t want to take another trip, because there are so many little bits of this entire situation to look at. there’s so much back and forth.

i think the worst, but most realistic thing is: games won’t change. how they will social media wise will. maybe. assuming bioware gets their heads out their asses but... they’re going to be a lot more careful. i mean, hell, sony offered refunds. that was just a publicity stint. they dont give a fuck if the game was bad. as i said before, if they did, they would make all companies fix trophy problems, starting from like 2010 or whenever the trophy system first came out. they just don’t wanna fall in alongside cdpr being thrown on its sword. but the companies are gonna learn from this, get smarter, still do the same shit to their employees, still pay off journalists, still do media blackouts, etc etc. and we’re gonna be here in another year’s time, with another game, having these same roundabout arguments, and cp77′s issues are gonna fade into just a wikipedia article.

[ahtohallan-calling]

chapter 5 of don’t read the last page is here!

[kristanna / m / multichap / modern au with actress!anna and vetstudent!kristoff]

He’d put the phone down on the counter while he made breakfast, but now that his hands were free again he still didn’t pick it up; after their initial awkward phone call, they’d started FaceTiming instead, and as much as he loved seeing her face, he was really glad she couldn’t see his right now.

“And I was soo confused, so I started telling her, like, ‘Seriously, Honey, he’s got this amazing blond hair that you just like, want to touch all the time and these big brown eyes and little freckles and plus I’m pretty sure he’s kind of ripped and I—‘ Kristoff, I heard the microwave go off already. Are you hiding from me?”

“No,” he muttered, his face turning even redder.

chapter 5

day 1

Sven was just stumbling into the kitchen when Kristoff came in. He frowned, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

“You look really happy for someone who just dropped off their girlfriend at the airport for a six-week trip,” he said, pouring a glass of chocolate milk. 

“Not my girlfriend.”

“Not the important part of that sentence.”

Kristoff snagged the bottle and poured himself a cup. “This is mine, by the way, so you owe me.”

“Fine, I’ll buy toilet paper l-- no, I know you, Bjorgman, you’re trying to distract me.”

Sven narrowed his eyes further, fixing Kristoff with a hard stare. He tried to look as innocent as possible as he went to rummage through the fridge, but then he remembered the way Anna had clung to him, the feel of her little hands in his hair, the press of her lips against--

“Oh my god! You kissed her!”

Kristoff stood, not bothering to hide his smile anymore. “Well, technically, she kissed me.”

“I fucking called it, man, I knew you wouldn’t be able to hold off that much longer.”

“We really did try.”

“You didn’t even make it a week, my guy,” Sven said amiably, meandering into the living room. “You tried harder at Mario Kart the other night. Which, by the way, I know you lost on purpose so Anna could win.”

Kristoff considered arguing, but then his phone lit up with a text from Anna, so instead he grinned and walked away to the sound of Sven sighing dramatically. “I heard that buzz! I know it’s her! Jesus, I’d say get a room, but--”

Kristoff didn’t hear the rest as he shut his bedroom door.

kris!! theres wifi i can text you

Im in first class look 

..

That’s crazy

They gave you champagne this early in the morning?

..

supposed to be for mimosas

but it’s like 5 o clock somewhere

specifically romania so

..

That jet lag is going to be rough.

How long is your flight?

..

10 hrs to london then 3 to bucharest💀

but i think my seat turns into a bed so ill try to sleep

theres sooooo many movies tho!

omg theyre bringing more snacks….i feel like a movie star already

..

You kind of are.

..

havent made the movie yet!!

oh the director is here he wants to talk ttyl

..

:)

---

day 4

For some reason, her hands were shaking as they hovered over the green button. “Just do it, Anna,” she muttered to herself. “It’s just Kristoff. He told you to call.”

Thanks to the time difference and long flights, it had taken most of two days to even get here, and on her first full day in Romania she’d been so overwhelmed with the film set and meeting her co-star Adam and talking to the directors and producers and costumers and cameramen that she’d completely crashed the moment she’d gotten back to her hotel room. She’d woken up in the middle of the night and sent Kristoff a quick text apologizing for not calling; he’d responded almost immediately, reassuring her that it was fine and to just call him the next day. At a reasonable hour, he’d made sure to add, not at 2 A.M. Go back to sleep.

She had, and then she’d nearly missed her alarm and hadn’t had time to call him in the morning, and then she’d been filming her first scene and been so overwhelmed by all of that that now it was nearly six o’clock, and it was the first time she’d gotten to look at her phone all day.

He’d texted her once at around 9 A.M. her time. Good luck today! You’ll kill it. Her heart had done a funny little flip at the message, simple as it was; every time she thought of Kristoff, it didn’t feel quite real, like it was just a daydream she would wake up from, but here it was, concrete proof that even literally halfway around the world-- more than halfway, actually-- he was still thinking of her, still caring about her.

The remembrance of that was what finally gave her the courage to hit call. She felt too nervous to FaceTime him, especially considering she was already in sweatpants and halfway through eating a bowl of pasta on her bed. He picked up on the third ring, sounding breathless for some reason.

“Hey! Anna! How are you?”

“I’m, um, I’m good! How are you? You sound kind of...out of breath?”

“Oh, yeah, you caught me at the gym, so I--”

“Oh! I’m so sorry, let me hang up and--”

“No, don’t! I’m almost done, just--”

There was a quick beep in the background, and a whirring noise she hadn’t noticed until now stopped. “Okay, sorry, we’re good.”

She couldn’t help but imagine what he looked like right now, with his hair hanging in his eyes and sweat dripping down his very well-muscled--

“Anna? You there?”

He’d just asked her something, but she’d been too busy daydreaming to catch it. Maybe it really was for the best she hadn’t gone for FaceTime; she probably would have been struck speechless at the sight of him. “Sorry, I was just-- sorry. Um. What did you say?”

He laughed softly. “I asked how your first day of filming went.”

“Oh! It was good, really good, actually. We filmed that scene I auditioned with, actually. They changed the bit about the cowboy boots.”

“Thank god. I don’t know anything about movies, but I know that was awful.”

“Oh, yeah, Adam-- that’s who’s playing Jesse-- he said they’d have to double his paycheck if they wanted him to say shit like that, and then we kind of improv-ed something else and it went really well.”

“That’s awesome!”

Anna felt herself blushing, just barely, at the sound of the genuine pride in his voice. “It was, um, it was nothing, really.”

“So how’s all of it going? Are the...um...honestly, I don’t know who all is involved in making movies. But are the other people nice?”

“Yeah! I really like the girl who does my hair and makeup, her name’s Honey. Isn’t that cute?”

Kristoff laughed; she could hear him starting the car in the background. Anna bit her lip. “Oh-- did you get to shower?”

“I will at home, don’t worry. Anyway--”

“You need to focus on driving? Yeah, I totally get it, seriously. Bye!”

She hit the red button and quickly dropped her phone. Her heart had been pounding the whole time; god, she was really out of practice with this whole thing. Embarrassment swept over her, and she buried her face in her knees; how the hell was this going to work when she was too self-conscious to talk to him for more than five minutes? God, she’d be lucky if he ever bothered to call her again after this.

To her surprise, the phone buzzed only a moment later. She debated picking it up for a long moment, then decided to go ahead and rip the bandaid off and snatched it up.

Just FYI, I was feeling really nervous, too. Want me to call you back after I get home and shower?

For some reason, tears started to fill her eyes as she typed a response. 

yes please :)

She showered, too, taking her time as she let the hot water work its magic on the tension in her shoulders, drawing in slow, deep breaths to steady herself. It wasn’t that every guy she’d ever dated had been bad, per se, just that it had been quite a long time since she’d been with someone who made her feel this nervous and excited and terrified and joyful all at once-- actually, now that she thought about it, she didn’t know if she’d ever liked someone else this much right off the bat. Since coming to L.A. almost two years ago, she’d had a string of bad luck with men, and it was strange readjusting to the notion that one would want to talk to her as much as she wanted to talk to him, that he actually wanted to hear about her day, that he saw right through all her embarrassing little defense mechanisms and somehow knew just what to say to make her feel better. Of course they knew each other, but this was something different, something more, as if she didn’t even have to say something for him to understand.

Her phone buzzed again ten minutes after she got out of the shower; with a smile, she picked it up.

“Hey, Kris.”

“Hey, Anna.”

“Ready to try again?”

“With you? Always.”

---

day 9

“So I was telling her, like, ‘I wish I had a recent picture of him to show you because he’s like, super super hot.’ And she kind of made this face and was like ‘that won’t make a difference.’”

He’d put the phone down on the counter while he made breakfast, but now that his hands were free again he still didn’t pick it up; after their initial awkward phone call, they’d started FaceTiming instead, and as much as he loved seeing her face, he was really glad she couldn’t see his right now. 

“And I was soo confused, so I started telling her, like, ‘Seriously, Honey, he’s got this amazing blond hair that you just like, want to touch all the time and these big brown eyes and little freckles and plus I’m pretty sure he’s kind of ripped and I—‘ Kristoff, I heard the microwave go off already. Are you hiding from me?”

“No,” he muttered, his face turning even redder. 

Anna giggled. “Then show me your face.”

He did so reluctantly; to his surprise, she didn’t laugh. “Kris, you know you are, like, super handsome, right? Seriously.”

“I’m, um, I’m just gonna—“

“I mean it. Like I get why you’re feeling shy about it and stuff but just know that, okay?”

He only nodded, feeling a little better, although his face was still heated. Anna, knowing when to leave well enough alone, smiled at him and continued her story. “Anyway, I told her all that and she just started laughing, and finally when I was done she was like ‘Anna, I’m gay’. And so then I showed her a picture of my sister, and I’m just saying, when we’re back in LA, we’re definitely doing a double date.”

—-

day 15

She didn’t know why she felt so nervous about telling him about it. She’d already texted him that morning telling him what scenes they were filming, and it wasn’t like it had meant anything; it was just part of the movie, and Adam was married anyway— but then again, it wasn’t that part that had really been bothering her. She still wasn’t sure until she was explaining it all to Kristoff, forcing herself to maintain eye contact as she held up her phone inside the blanket nest she’d constructed on her bed. 

“And like, he and I are good friends now, so that at least made it easier. And we were all in character and stuff, so, you know, it felt right, and then they started the fake snow going and we just did it, you know?”

“Uh-huh,” Kristoff said, his voice neutral. 

“That like— this doesn’t bother you, right?” she asked quickly. “Because seriously, it didn’t mean—“

“Anna, I know. This is literally your job, I’m not jealous or anything. But please tell me if I ever make you feel like I’m mad or something, because I’m seriously not.”

She let out the breath she’d been holding. “I— I know. I just...wanted to make sure. Because it still, like...still felt weird to me, you know? And I can’t figure out why.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “Have you done this before? Like, stage kissing and stuff?”

“Oh, yeah, lots of times. But this time felt kind of different. I just don’t know why.”

He considered it for a moment, looking so thoughtful she couldn’t help but smile, feeling a little flutter in her chest at the thought that he really and truly cared about helping her figure this out. “Enough about me, though, tell me about that crazy to-go order you texted me about. Did you end up getting to see the person who’d ordered it?”

They talked for so long Anna lost track of time, until she yawned so widely Kristoff stopped talking mid-sentence. 

“Anna, what time is it there?”

“Um...close to eleven?”

“What time did you get up this morning?”

“...four.”

He laughed softly. “Get some sleep. I’ll talk to you again tomorrow morning, okay?”

She wanted to argue, but honestly she’d been fighting to keep her eyes open for the last half hour. “Night, Kris.”

“Night, Anna. Sweet dreams.”

He said that every night, but the way he’d smiled tonight— she was thinking about it until long after she’d hung up her phone and closed her eyes. Then, suddenly, she sat upright and snatched it up again, typing furiously. 

figured it out...before, there’s never been someone i ACTUALLY wanted to kiss instead 

..

:)

I wish it had been me, too. 

—

day 21

hey kris!!! sorry i know it’s the middle of the night there so i hope this doesn’t wake you up but i set an alarm on my phone for the exact time and as of like 10 seconds ago we’re halfway there!!!!!!! 😊😊😊

To her surprise, a response came just a few minutes later. 

:) Knew we could do this.

—

day 23

“I got my class schedule today.”

“Yeah? Show me!”

He held it up awkwardly to the camera, and she squinted at it. “Oh, wow, that’s a lot of blocks. Are you still going to work at Starbucks?”

“Yeah, I’ve been there the whole time I’ve been in school. Just work less hours on weekdays, usually pick up some early morning weekend shifts.”

“Oh, that sucks.”

He shrugged. “It works out. I, uh, I’ve got some scholarships that cover most of my tuition, so then it’s, y’know. Rent money and stuff.”

Anna frowned, feeling suddenly acutely aware of how much money she was making for a lot less work. “Will you have, like...any free time?”

“Oh, yeah, of course,” he said quickly, suddenly sounding nervous. “I promise I’ll still have time to hang out with you and stuff, just--”

“No, no that’s like-- shit, that’s not what I meant, Kris, I mean I kind of did but like-- I’m not trying to like, pressure you or--”

“No, I get it, I--”

“No, I mean like school is way important and you like--”

“Seriously, when I say we can--”

Anna took a deep breath. “Okay. You talk first.”

“I, um. I don’t want you to think, like, I won’t make time for you or something, though. Um-- that was all.”

She smiled, wishing she could be there in person; it was so much easier to reassure him when she could just squeeze his hand. “Seriously, that’s not what I meant. I was just worried about you, ‘cause that’s, like, a lot of stress. So if there’s anything I can do to like, help or whatever, just...just let me know. Like...with anything.”

“Seriously, I think it’ll help a ton to just have a pretty girl keeping me company while I study.”

She felt her cheeks turn pink. “What if I end up wanting to distract you?”

Now she wasn’t the only one blushing.

---

day 30

“Miss you.”

“Miss you, too.”

Tonight, there wasn’t really anything else to say.

—- 

day 34

He’d stopped leaving his phone on silent overnight; it was silly, really, but he always had a tiny fear that maybe something would happen over in Romania while he was asleep, and maybe Anna would need to reach him, and there probably wouldn’t be anything he could actually do...but still.

Despite that, though, it still took a lot to wake him, so when his phone went off one night close to three in the morning, he nearly missed the call. “Hello?” he mumbled sleepily, putting it to his ear.

He heard a familiar little giggle. “It’s FaceTime, Kris. I’m sorry to wake you up, I just-- I really wanted you to see this.”

“Oh-- hang on.” He fumbled for his glasses on the nightstand, sliding them on and blinking blearily at the screen. “Um...where are you? I just see, like...the ceiling?”

“Oh-- that’s cause I gave my phone to Honey, just a second, and she’ll show you.”

The phone was lifted up suddenly by a pretty woman with bronze skin and dark hair thrown up into a bun. “Nice to meet you, Anna’s boyfriend.”

He wondered if she could see him blush even in the dark room. “Nice to meet you, too.”

“Okay, okay, I’m ready!” he heard Anna chirp from somewhere. “Turn the camera!”

Honey did with a laugh, and Kristoff sat upright, his eyes wide. Anna was in a deep blue ballgown that fit perfectly to her torso before flaring out into a long, shimmery skirt. Her hair was down, set in curls that shone especially bright against the dark color of the gown, and she was smiling so brightly he thought his heart was going to burst.

“You look beautiful, baby,” he said, half-convinced he was still dreaming.

She was quiet for a moment, and then he realized she was blushing bright red. He heard Honey giggle, and then the phone was being handed back over to Anna. “You’ve never called me that before.”

“What, beautiful? I definitely--”

“No, I--” Her blush deepened. “Kris, are you wearing a shirt?”

He glanced down. “Oh-- uh, no, I’m not. Sorry, I didn’t think you’d be able to see without the lights--”

A mischievous glint was twinkling in her eye. “Trust me, Bjorgman, there’s nothing to apologize for.”

Now he was blushing, too. “Um-- so you’ve got to be filming something special today, right?”

“Yeah, the big ballroom scene. I just...I really love this dress, and the way Honey did my hair and stuff, and I, um...I wanted you to see.”

He smiled softly. “I’m glad. You really do look so, so beautiful.”

She opened her mouth to say something else, but then he heard Honey call, “Hey, Anna, say bye to the boyfriend, they want you on set in five.”

Anna turned back to the camera, looking suddenly nervous. “Kris, are you my boyfriend?”

“Do you want me to be?”

“Yeah.”

He grinned, no longer sleepy. “Okay.”

Anna laughed. “Okay?”

“Hey, it’s still the middle of the night, and I’m still kind of speechless after seeing you in that dress. Cut me some slack.”

“Go back to bed. Sorry I woke you up.”

He yawned. “I’m not.”

---

day 40

“Look! All packed!” She grinned, turning her phone quickly around the room to show off her only slightly overstuffed suitcases. “And ready to come home!”

“Do you think you’ll miss it?”

“No, I mean...it’s beautiful and all here, but it’s still not home.”

Kristoff grinned at that. “You still want me to pick you up from the airport?”

“Um, is that even a question?”

He laughed. “Just making sure! I mean, six weeks is a long time, don’t know if you got tired of me.”

“Kristoff, the second I get back to LA, I’m like, jumping on you again and kissing the fuck out of you.”

He waggled his eyebrows. “And then?”

She could tease him, too. “And then you’d better hurry the hell up and take me back to your apartment so I can show you how much I missed you.”

“....Jesus Christ. Why does waiting two more days suddenly feel so much longer than the other forty?”

[imagineclaireandjamie]

Come he’ll or high water is excellent can you please write more I love it 🥰 please thank you 🙏🥰🥰🥰👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Claire comes back to the past with Brianna and arrives at Helwater looking for Jamie—but must confront the Dunsanys first.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven

Come Hell or Helwater - Part Eight

Rain pattered against the window while Brianna sat at the table in the corner with Isobel working through a set of simple mathematics problems. She didn’t have the heart to tell Isobel that she’d mastered both multiplication and long division two years prior. Instead she worked her way through them slowly, allowing herself the fun of observing the others in the room while they thought she was thoroughly engrossed by the numbers on the page.

Brianna had found soon after her arrival at Helwater that she couldn’t help but like Isobel—she couldn’t have borne pretending she was so far behind in her studies otherwise. But Isobel’s sweetness could become grating if not for the presence of her sister, Geneva. It was Geneva who knew exactly how to push Isobel’s agreeableness to the brink, to coax a few less-than-kind remarks out of Isobel—and then offer reassurance that she hadn’t been so unkind as to require begging anyone’s pardon.

There was more to Geneva that Brianna found mesmerizing, however. Quiet moments when she managed a glance at the older girl and it was clear Geneva didn’t realize she was being watched. In those moments she looked the way Brianna had felt when Mama and Daddy had told her the great and terrible Truths of her life—first, that Daddy wasn’t going to live with them anymore, he was going to live with his special friend, Sandy, and, just a short time after that, when her mother informed her that Daddy wasn’t her “real” father. From what Brianna could tell, it was partly Geneva’s parents who were causing her to look that way, but not because they were breaking up. No, the lady Geneva was going to be married soon and anyone could see she didn’t want to get married.

But that was why there were beginning to be so many extra people at the estate. They were guests visiting for the upcoming wedding. Several older relatives of the Dunsanys had taken to sitting with Lady Dunsany in the main sitting room while the younger guests preferred to gather in the drawing room. It was in the adjoining library that Isobel was giving Brianna her lessons but the door was kept open so Isobel might pop in and make her necessary appearances every so often. Brianna thought Isobel perhaps preferred the quieter library to the group in the drawing room.

Brianna enjoyed peeking up at them through the doorway. She could only see a portion of one setee and a fragment of the floor to ceiling windows behind but Geneva was partial to planting herself on that setee and as the bride to be, she frequently had company beside her—usually one of the two British soldiers who had startled her mother in the forest that day they’d arrived. The younger of those two often turned to glance through the same open doorway at her, which always made her flush and look down at her paper. Or was he looking at Isobel? Brianna peeked up to see Isobel looking flustered as well, no doubt aware of the soldier’s piercing gaze.

Even if Brianna could convince herself that the young man was paying his attentions to Isobel, all it took was Geneva seeing her sister’s blush to throw a wrench in Brianna’s plans of going unnoticed.

“Isobel,” Geneva called rising from the setee and floating to the door. “Aren’t you going to join us? As the sister of the bride it’s part of your duties to help me entertain my guests,” she teased with a playful giggle and glance over her shoulder. “John, Hal, won’t you help me coax Isobel into joining us?”

Isobel sighed but smiled at Brianna before pushing herself up from her chair at the table. “You’re doing wonderfully,” Isobel assured her. “Keep working on this set of problems and I’ll be back shortly to check your progress.”

Brianna nodded and then watched as Isobel glared at her sister who stood in the doorway with a satisfied grin on her face.

“Really John, you must ask Isobel about her latest obsession with playing governess,” Geneva continued, the conversation still drifting in for Brianna to overhear since the door between the rooms remained open. “It’ll be something to keep her occupied when she no longer has me around to entertain her.”

Isobel spoke too quietly for Brianna to hear but from Geneva’s subsequent, “Oh come, I’m only playing,” she assumed the young lady had rebuked her.

“It is the curse of younger siblings to always be tormented by the older,” John remarked, lightening the mood even as he too scolded Geneva.

Brianna set her pencil aside and leaned forward over the table, straining to see if she could catch a glimpse of them but they must be standing near the fireplace. The rain outside was unrelenting in a spring that was already slow about taking root. That was one of the things about this time that Brianna found most frustrating and quietly terrifying—how cold it was without proper, modern heating and how afraid she was that she would get too close to the hearth or that she’d knock over a candle and go up in flames.

“I know Isobel’s attempts to improve the poor child arrive from the best of intentions,” Geneva assured the others and Brianna could hear the eye roll in her tone. “I just think that when it comes to the staff and their families, it’s not our place to interfere. They have their lives and we have ours.”

“And the fact that their livelihood depends upon our whims doesn’t matter?” Isobel challenged more vocally, clearly surprising the others.

Brianna rose from her seat and tiptoed closer to the door to hear better and maybe sneak a better angle through the door so she could see them while remaining hidden in the shadows. If she was truly lucky, there’d be a mirror on one wall that would let her watch their reflections—she couldn’t remember if there was a mirror in the drawing room though.

“So long as they’re paid for their services, I’m not sure I understand to what you might object,” the older one—Hal, Geneva had called him—said gently.

“They require decent pay to support their families,” Isobel agreed, “and sometimes they’re compensated in other forms—for instance, housing or their meals—but what about their other needs, especially for their children? Is it not our duty to guide them towards being productive members of society where their parents are either lacking the means or the opportunity?”

“And what makes you think the Mackenzies are lacking the means and opportunity?” Geneva countered. “Did you ask them if they wanted it when you asked for their permission? Shall we ask the little lady now?”

Brianna panicked for a moment as she heard Geneva’s footsteps crossing toward the door but her instincts quickly kicked in. She started walking for the door herself and nearly collided with Geneva.

“Sorry,” Brianna muttered, backing away. “I was just coming to ask Miss Isobel if she might excuse me to go help my mother. Miss Isobel should be spending her time with your company, not with me just now.”

“I don’t mind at all, really,” Isobel insisted but Geneva made a dismissive gesture, keeping her eyes on Brianna.

“The child is quite right, don’t you agree, John? It’s terribly rude of Isobel first to ignore your presence and then to ignore her young charge’s. If she had a nursemaid, we might turn her over to so she doesn’t inhibit her mother in her work. Should we engage one for her, Isobel?” Geneva asked, looking over her shoulder at her sister. “Would that be more of the means and opportunities that our hired servants are lacking? I suppose we’ll just have to keep an eye on her ourselves then. Come child,” Geneva turned back to Brianna with an overly sweet smile. “Join us in the drawing room and we’ll try not to bore you too terribly.”

Brianna stood her ground, staring expressionlessly at Geneva.

“Geneva…” Hal said quietly, stepping toward her.

“Quiet little thing, aren’t you,” Geneva murmured, her attention still fixed on Brianna. “Do you speak at all?”

“I’m ten, not two,” Brianna replied, unamused even as the color began to rise in Geneva’s cheeks. “And my mother always told me if I didn’t have anything nice to say I shouldn’t say anything at all. I’d rather spend my time somewhere I can have a conversation. Thank you, Miss Isobel, for the lesson. I’ll see myself out.”

Brianna kept her ears pricked for their reactions as she turned on her heel and went to the table to retrieve her things before exiting through the door at the side that led to the servant’s passage and from there down to the kitchen. She heard one stifled chuckle (Hal) and Isobel’s gentle, “You were the one who provoked her.”

The sound of a slight commotion drew most of the others back into the drawing room—a footman announcing the arrival of another guest.

“Daniel,” Hal exclaimed in joy. “It’s a miracle you made it in this weather. You ought to have stayed at your inn until it cleared.”

“If he did that he might not have arrived in time at all,” Geneva declared, brushing away the awkwardness of being put in her place by a ten-year-old girl. “The way it looks now it could rain through the next fortnight and my wedding’s one week away. He knew I’d never forgive him if he wasn’t here.”

“Always said Gordon was like a brother to me so I see it as my brotherly duty to make sure everything stays on schedule,” a new voice chimed in.

“Well you might’ve been as a brother to Gordon but you’ve hardly been a brother to either of his sisters,” Geneva objected with a laugh. “You haven’t written a word to either Isobel or myself in over a year.”

Brianna snuck one final peek through the door to the drawing room.

John, the soldier who had come walking through the field with her mother that day, was the only one watching her as she made her exit.

“Bree,” Claire gasped as her daughter barged into the cottage, dripping wet from her brief run through the rain from the main house. “For heaven’s sake, what are you doing here? I was going to fetch you back after your lesson was finished. You’re soaked to the bone.”

“Well you might wind up back there later treating their latest guest. Sounds like he rode a ways through the rain and I wouldn’t be surprised if he comes down sick from it,” Brianna said, shaking her hair like a wet dog.

“Sassenach,” Jamie called from the cottage’s back entrance. “Do ye have anything hereabouts we could eat? Thought it might be nicer to have our midday meal alone together rather than trek through the muck to the main house. And as Bree’s occupied there with Miss Isobel…”

Claire cleared her throat loudly soon after he began and spoke over him, “We’re in here, Jamie. Bree’s just got back too. We hadn’t addressed the subject of lunch yet.”

Jamie came around the corner, his face pink and dripping with the rain that had soaked his hair.

“Bree,” he said with a smile. “Is it wet enough for ye out there? I ken I must look and feel like a half-drowned cat.”

“Well it is raining cats and dogs,” Brianna remarked without enthusiasm.

“Why don’t you fetch some dry things from your trunk and change in our room,” Claire offered.

“I suppose we won’t be using it after all,” Jamie whispered in her ear as he brushed a kiss against Claire’s cheek.

“I had brought a leftover side of ham from the house after tending the cook the other day,” Claire continued, ignoring Jamie, “and there’s cheese I had set aside as well. We’ll see what kind of meal we can make with that and maybe it will let up enough tonight for a larger meal with the others at the main house.”

When Brianna had closed their bedroom door behind her to change, Claire turned into Jamie’s arms and stood on her toes to give him a kiss.

“When the wedding’s over and their guests have gone home, things will calm down enough that we’ll have a little more time for ourselves,” she whispered, pulling away from him as his hands drifted down to her backside. “Not just the two of us, but the three of us.”

“Except for when we have time just the two of us to get back to work on making that three of us into a four, aye?”

“Aye,” Claire smiled and blushed. “Though by my watch we’ve spent a fair bit of time working at that already.”

[bluesfortheredj]

Gwilym and the reader have been best friends for as long as they could remember and they just did a movie together so they’re doing an interview together and he accidentally reveals a huge secret

You sit in the middle of Joe and Gwilym on a small velvet purple coloured sofa, so small in fact, that it seemed as if it were made for you three, and you lean your head back as one of the make up team applies some powder to your face to make you look a little less shiny on camera. The three of you had done two previous interviews, and by now the room was a little on the warm side, so you needed all the help you could get for the next one, although it was your last, so there was a light at the end of the tunnel thankfully.

“You okay?” Gwilym asks in a slight whisper as the make up lady moves on to Joe.

“Yeah, I’m great, you?” you smile, turning as much as you could to face him.

“Perfect,” he grins, placing his hand on your thigh and squeezing it lightly. This was nothing out of the ordinary for you two, everyone knew that you’d been friends for years before doing Bohemian Rhapsody together, and your small public displays of affection went unnoticed nowadays, especially from the rest of the cast.

“Get a room you two,” Joe smirks from beside you. Well, it went unnoticed most of the time, anyway.

“We did, but you followed us in,” Gwilym quips back, shooting Joe a playful grin over your shoulder.

“Okay, calm down boys, one more interview then we can go for a drink, yeah?” you say as you turn to the face the currently empty chair in front of you all.

“Sounds good to me,” Joe replies, “will you be joining us, Gwil?”

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world, mate,” he says, stretching his arm around the back of the sofa, and carefully placing his hand on your shoulder so that it’s not visible to the camera. His thumb strokes your t-shirt, then the interviewer enters the room, and you all stand up to greet him. He’s a young man named Harry, and his hand shakes a little when it gets to you.

“You okay, Harry?” Gwilym asks, noticing the slight shake.

“Yeah, yes, this is my first big interview though, so please forgive me if I’m a little nervous,” he smiles as he takes his seat, “feels like a job interview with you three sat opposite me!”

“Don’t worry! At least it’s not all of us, right?” you grin.

“True, very true,” he nods, “thank you.”

The camera starts to roll just as he gets his papers in order, then with a surprising air of confidence, he makes his introduction, then delivers the first question.

“Gwilym, I’ll come to you first, how was it working so closely with the Brian May?”

“Intimidating, to say the least. Although by the end of it I think I was the one freaking him out… We sort of ended up mirroring each other quite a lot, it was a little worrying,” Gwilym chuckles.

“If it weren’t for the colour of the hair, you’d never have been able to tell them apart!” Joe adds, and you laugh along with them.

“Now, (Y/N), what was it like kissing Rami in those teeth? Did they get in the way at all?”

“It was more than a little awkward,” you laugh, feeling Gwilym’s hand on your shoulder again as he stretches out once more, his long fingers tickling you slightly, “there was a certain amount of practising that had to be done beforehand, that’s for sure.”

“Is that what you call it?” Joe smirks.

“I think Lucy would have been having words with me otherwise...” you say, nudging Joe’s arm.

“Speaking of which, were there any other romances on set?” Harry asks, looking along all three of you for some kind of sign before you answered. He may be nervous, but he knew exactly what to look for.

“You mean apart from the bromance that formed between the four guys?” you answer, before anyone else opens their mouths, “they weren’t exactly subtle about it, either.”

“What can we say? It was an instant connection,” Joe smiles.

“If only we’d met a few months earlier, they definitely would have been invited to our wedding,” Gwilym laughs, then his face drops as both you and Joe turn to look at him, shocked expressions on both your faces.

“Our wedding?” Harry asks without missing a beat. Gwilym looks directly at you, his mouth moving a little, but no sound coming out of it yet, and you manage to arrange your face into one of calm, then give him a nod, keeping your face turned to him as he speaks to Harry.

“Yes,” he croaks, then clears his throat as he sits upright and places his free hand on yours, which is resting on your knee, “our wedding.”

“Well, to be honest, that’s thrown my questions completely out of the window,” Harry laughs, “how long ago was the wedding?”

“Just over a year,” Gwilym replies confidently as Joe sits there like a deer in headlights.

“Guys!” he eventually gasps, “guys!”

“I take it you had no clue?” Harry asks Joe.

“No clue at all!” he replies, still looking at you both, “I’m speechless!”

“And he’s never speechless,” Gwil adds.

“(Y/N), would you like to add anything?” Harry asks, and you finally look back up at him with a smile.

“I don’t think so, no,” you chuckle.

“So, in light of this news, I have to ask… How was it watching your wife kiss another man?” Harry smirks.

You sit back against Gwilym’s arm with a laugh, his other hand still caressing yours on your leg, and you shuffle over to rest against his side as Joe looks at you both with a smile. Thinking about it, he knew there must have been something between you at one point, or there was going to be something in the future, and he was actually impressed with how well you’d kept the secret from everyone.

“It was a challenge, I’m not going to lie. Especially as they did actually have to practise it beforehand,” he laughs, “how I stopped myself from letting this slip then, I do not know.”

“Is there any reason you’ve kept this a secret so long?” Harry asks, looking to you more than Gwilym. You feel Gwil turn towards you, his hand resting soothingly on your back, and you give a short shrug before answering.

“Not particularly,” you start, “it just sort of… happened.”

“It was such a natural progression in our lives, that it didn’t even occur to us to ‘announce’ it as such,” Gwilym adds.

“You two are too much,” Joe says, pretending to wipe tears from his face, “the sweetest damn couple I’ve ever met.”

“Stop it, you,” you laugh, playfully slapping his leg.

“I’m just really happy I was here to witness this moment,” he carries on, dabbing his cheeks with his jacket cuff as if he were crying. Gwilym reaches from behind you to give him a shove, and you all sit there laughing for a moment before regaining your composure and directing your attention back to Harry.

“I have a question,” Joe then says, turning to you both on the sofa, “when were you going to tell us?”

“Probably when we got back to normality and started wearing our wedding rings again,” Gwilym laughs, “it would be the only time we’d actually remember that we hadn’t said anything before.”

“True!” you agree, “it’d be that sudden moment of realisation that you still had no clue!”

“I’ll try not to take it too personally...” Joe winks.

“Sorry, we’ve sort of derailed your interview here, haven’t we?” you apologise with a slightly worried look on your face as you meet Harry’s gaze.

“I can forgive you, you’ve given me more than enough with your accidental reveal,” he grins.

“Me and my big mouth,” Gwilym scoffs, rolling his eyes.

“What else has he got that’s big?” Joe asks you, a devilish grin spread across his lips.

@disneyprincessbuffyannesummers @mychemicalimagines

[batfamily--headcanons]

My Thoughts on Episodes 7-9 of Young Justice Outsiders

Episodes 7-9 of Young Justice Outsiders gave me what I had been wanting since it was announced that season 3 was happening. So, I’m going to talk about my thoughts on these three awesome episodes. Spoilers ahead (duh).

In episode 7, we got plenty of team bonding between Violet, Brion, and Forager which I was kind of loving. Brion’s “hot lava” comment had me laughing so hard and then the shade about Nightwing’s mullet and disco era made it so much better. The dynamic between Brion and Violet is something that I’m starting to enjoy and I’m actually starting to get invested in the new characters.

When they were having that campfire and discussing how stupid it would be for Batman to fight Superman, I was living for it. It almost gives me hope that DC might be able to learn from and even joke about their mistakes. Seeing Dick, Conner, and Artemis train a new team on the beach of Mount Justice made me seriously nostalgic for season one and it made me realize how grown up the original team is now.

Vandal Savage was there too, which is relatively common for Young Justice. As someone who used to watch Legends of Tomorrow, I’m just so sick of Vandal Savage that I don’t really care that he’s here. I get that he was the main villain for season 1 of Legends, but they overused him quite a bit and it feels played out to me.

In episode 8, Jade makes her (triumphant?) return. I’ve got to say, Jade’s appearances almost always irritate me. There hasn’t been much character growth with her, she’s just defined by the fact that she’s a villain even though she doesn’t really have much motivation anymore. Maybe I’m only angry because in the comics she did see Lian even though she was in jail and she wanted to be part of her life. At the same time, I understand that she thinks that Lian is better off without her. Artemis telling her to go visit and that she’s still Lian’s mother was good to see too. Even though she isn’t her sister’s biggest fan, she still tries to help her in a way.

This episode might have been my favourite of these three for three reasons in particular. Those reasons being Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Cassandra Cain. Just before they made their appearance on screen, I’ll admit to being kind of annoyed. We hadn’t much of Batman, Robin, or Spoiler since episode one and even in episode one, they were barely there. Everyone kept mentioning that Batman Inc. was happening simultaneously and that’s one of my favourite Batman stories. The fact that it was happening but we were focused on training on the beach was kind of irritating.

Then, we got to see the whole Batfamily (minus Jay and Dami who obviously shouldn’t be there right now) together in several scenes. I do hope that we get to see some part of The Killing Joke this season because it’s obviously already happened and because not everyone is well-versed in the comics. Casual fans are probably wondering what happened to Barbara and it would be bad storytelling to assume that everyone knows and to not tell the story.

As for the fact that Batman Inc., Dick’s new team, Young Justice, and Wonder Woman have been secretly working together the whole time, I’m not surprised. Batman wouldn’t quit the Justice League without a bigger plan in place and I knew that from the moment he resigned in the first episode.

In episode nine, we can really tell that this show isn’t on Cartoon Network anymore. Lady Shiva brutally decapitates Ocean Master, something that we would have never seen before, and I really enjoyed it. Lady Shiva is a dangerous assassin, she wouldn’t simply give him a warning, she would kill him. It is interesting that Lady Shiva seems like she’s going to play a fairly large role this season, the season that introduces Cass for the first time. As some of you may know, Lady Shiva is Cassandra Cain’s mother, so I wonder if they’re going to do anything with that.

I was worried throughout the episode about the superparents and their children. Logically I knew nothing would happen to them, but then again, we’re not on Cartoon Network anymore so I couldn’t be 100% sure. Seeing all of the League’s kids having one big play date was kind of adorable and it’s something that most superhero shows wouldn’t bother showing. That’s one of my favourite things about this show, it shows more than the heroes kicking ass, you see their every day lives too and the characters feel more fleshed out because of it.

Bart also got some screen time this episode and I loved seeing him help Iris with her speedster twins. I really hope he and the rest of the second team get some more screen time soon. As much as I love the original team and getting to know this newer team, I do feel like we’ve been seeing a little bit too much of them. I grew way more attached to the second Young Justice team than I thought that I would when I started season 2, which is why it sucks that we haven’t seen much of them.

To sum it all up, I enjoyed these three episodes more than the six that came before them, but I do understand that they had to set everything up in the other episodes. I do have some questions about certain things that haven’t been acknowledged yet like what happened to Arthur to make Kaldur Aquaman or why M’gann’s hero persona looks so drastically different. However, I’m sure they will explain in due time. Here’s to next week’s episodes and to seeing more of Jason soon, even though that’s probably not going to happen.  

[the-desolated-quill]

Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2018

Congratulations dear reader. You survived 2018. And you know what that means. It’s time for another best of/worst of list. Welcome to Quill’s Swill 2018. A giant septic tank for the various shit the entertainment industry produced over the course of the year. The films, games, TV shows and various other media that got on my bad side. As always please bear in mind that this is only my subjective opinion (if you happen to like any of the things on this list, good for you. I’m glad someone did) and that obviously I haven’t seen everything 2018 has to offer for one reason or another. In other words, sorry that Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald isn’t on here. I’m sure it is as terrible as some have been suggesting. I just never got around to watching it.

Okay everyone. Grab your breathing masks and put on your rubber gloves. Let’s dive into this shit pile.

Hold The Sunset

The news that John Cleese would be returning to the world of BBC sitcoms was incredibly exciting, being a massive Fawlty Towers fan and all. Unfortunately Hold The Sunset was not quite what I had in mind. It’s one of those rare breed of situation comedies that chooses to offer no actual comedy. It’s not a sitcom. It’s a sit. Like Scrubs or The Big Bang Theory.

An elderly couple plan to elope abroad only for Alison Steadman’s son to barge in, having left his wife, and forcing them to put their plans on hold. Hence the title ‘Hold The Sunset.’ It’s like a cross between As Time Goes By and Sorry, but if all the humour and relatability were surgically removed by a deadpan mortician. The characters are weak, the plots are thin on the ground and the humour (hat little of it there is) feel incredibly dated. The middle aged mummy’s boy is something that hasn’t been funny since the 90s. It’s an utter waste of great talent and what hurts even more is that this tripe is actually getting a second series. I can only assume the people watching this are comatose. Either that or there’s an epidemic of people in Britain who have lost the remote.

Avengers: Infinity War

Yes this is one of the worst movies of 2018 and no I don’t regret saying that one little bit. Avengers: Infinity War was fucking terrible. Period. There were too many plots and characters going on, which made the film hard to follow (and what staggers me is that the so called ‘professional’ critics have condemned movies for having too many characters and plots before. Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice and even Deadpool 2. But because this is an MCU movie, it gets a free pass. Fuck off). The characterisation was weak due to sheer number of characters they try to juggle, resulting in characters coming off as one dimensional caricatures of themselves and scenes where characters such as Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Star-Lord sound completely interchangeable. The villain, Thanos, is a stupidly and poorly written villain, but that’s hardly surprising considering what a shit job Marvel have done building him up over the course of these 20+ movies. And let’s not forget that pisstake ending. A bunch of prominent Marvel characters die and it’s all very, very sad... except all these characters just so happen to have sequels planned, which makes this ending fucking pointless and have less impact than a feather on a bouncy castle.

I don’t know which is more shocking. That Marvel and Disney think their audience are that stupid and gullible, or that their audience are actually validating their view. Fuck you Disney.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

I’ve always wanted a Harry Potter RPG, where you could customise your character, choose your house and actually live a full school life at Hogwarts. This year, Warner Bros and Jam City gave us just that.

That was a mistake.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the mobile gaming market right now. The gameplay is boring and involving where you just tap images on a screen until a progress bar fills up. Wizard duels are little more than rock-paper-scissors challenges that require no kind of skill. Bonding with friends and caring for magical creatures just consist of pathetically simple pop quizzes and yet more boring tapping. Oh and of course you only get a certain amount of energy to complete these tedious tasks. If you run out of energy, you wait for it to fill up... or pay up for the privilege. So determined are they to extract your hard earned cash from your wallet, there’s actually a bit where Devil’s Snare strangles your eleven year old avatar and the game effectively tries to guilt trip you into paying micro-transactions to save them. It’s sleazy, gross and manipulative. Honestly, you’re better off just playing Candy Crush.

Agony

When the developers of this game said they wanted to give the player a trip through Hell, they had no idea how true that statement really was. Agony is dreadful on a number of levels. The design for Hell itself, while visually interesting at times, is often not very practical and gets quite dull and repetitive after a while. The stealth mechanics are a joke and the AI of your demonic enemies are pitiful. All of this alone would have been enough to put this game on the list, but then we also have the casual misogyny. Agony is a gorefest trying desperately to shock the player. We see men and woman get tortured, but it’s the women that often get the extreme end. The violence inflicted on them is often sexual in nature and the game seems to go out of its way to degrade and dehumanise women at every turn. The orgasmic cries of ‘pull it out’ quickly become a staple of the game’s experience as we see naked women raped, tortured and murdered, all for the purposes of ‘entertainment.’

I would call Agony sexist, but honestly that would be giving it too much credit. Agony is like a little child trying desperately to be all dark and edgy in a pathetic attempt to impress everyone around him, and we should treat it as such. Go to your room Agony. No ice cream for you.

Peter Rabbit

If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of Beatrix Potter rotating in her grave.

Yes we have yet another live action/CGI hybrid, but instead of something innocuous like the Smurfs or Alvin and the Chipmunks, Sony instead decides to adapt Peter Rabbit, with James Corden in the title role.

It’s about as bad as you’d expect.

Their attempts to modernise the story are painful to say the least with pop culture references, inappropriate adult humour and twerking rabbits. Plus rather than the gentle, but slightly mischievous character we got in the source material, here Peter is a sociopathic delinquent who seems to revel in making the farmer’s life a living hell. He’s unlikable and unwatchable as far as I’m concerned and the film doesn’t in anyway earn the emotional moments it tries so desperately to sell to the audience. And the worst part is it’s getting a sequel.

Wait. Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of Beatrix Potter tearing out of the ground, ready to kill whatever idiot came up with this shit.

Fallout 76

I was excited for Fallout 76. A MMORPG where players band together to rebuild society after a nuclear apocalypse. Could have been great. Pity it wasn’t.

Fallout 76 is a dreadful game. Not only is it a buggy, glitchy mess that requires a constant online connection to play, which could result in you losing hours of progress if your WiFi went down, it’s also unbelievably tedious, and that’s because there’s nothing to do in the game. There’s no other characters to interact with, the various robots and computers you come across are really little more than quest givers, there’s no actual plot so to speak, and because of the sheer size of the world and the number of players allowed on a server, the chances of you actually meeting any actual players is remote. And let’s not forget all the behind the scenes drama. Bethesda falsely advertising Fallout themed canvas bags and players getting shitty nylon ones. Bethesda accidentally releasing the account information of various players trying to get a refund for said bag. Bethesda failing to program the year 2019 into the game code, meaning that the game’s nukes don’t work.

Maybe there’s a chance that Bethesda could pull a No Man’s Sky and fix everything over the coming years with various patches and DLCs, but the damage has already been done. It’s incredibly disappointing. The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to have be fucking incredible to win everyone back.

Mama Mia!: Here We Go Again

I can’t stand jukebox musicals anyway, but Mamma Mia was always one of the worst. Its boring, meandering story with its one note, obnoxious cast of characters screeching out ABBA songs like they’re at some drunken karaoke session at some poor sod’s hen party has always grated on my nerves. So imagine my delight when they announced we were getting a sequel. Ever wondered how Meryl Streep met her three lovers and founded her hotel? No? Well tough shit, we’re going to tell you anyway.

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is basically just Mamma Mia again. The actors still can’t sing, the characters are still annoying and story is still boring and meandering, completely at the mercy of the chosen songs rather than the filmmakers using the songs to compliment the story (you know? Like proper musicals do?).

How can I resist you? Very easily as it turns out. Gimme, gimme, gimme a fucking gun so I can end my misery.

The Cloverfield Paradox

A lot of people were unhappy about the direction Cloverfield was going. They wanted a continuation of the found footage, kaiju movie from 2008, not an anthology series. I was personally all in favour. Partially because I thought the first Cloverfield was a tad overrated, but mostly because I thought it would be a great opportunity for more experimental film projects and could be a great launchpad for new writers and filmmakers. 10 Cloverfield Lane was a great start. Then The Cloverfield Paradox happened.

The Cloverfield Paradox is basically JJ Abrams trying to have his cake and eat it too. Maintaining the anthology format whilst connecting everything together in a ‘shared universe’ (yes, yet another shared universe). The result was a cliched, poorly edited and idiotic mess of a film that actually took away from the previous two films rather than added to them. Everyone hated it and, as a result, 2018′s Overlord, which was totes going to be part of the Cloververse, was made its own standalone film and Abrams double pinky promised to make a true sequel to the original Cloverfield. A complete and total disaster. No wonder it was a straight-to-Netflix film.

The Handmaid’s Tale - Season 2

This is probably going to be the most controversial entry on the list, but please hear me out because I’m not the only one who has a problem with this season.

I was reluctant to watch The Handmaid’s Tale simply because of how gruesome the original book was, but I forced myself to watch the first season and I thought it was pretty good. It remained faithful to the source material for the most part and included some nice additions that helped to expand the story and mythos. If it was just a one off mini-series, everything would have been fine. But then they made the same mistake as The Man In The High Castle and Under The Dome did where they commissioned another season and attempted to tell a story that goes beyond the book.

There’s a reason why the original story ended where it did. The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t meant to be an empowering story about women sticking it to the patriarchy. It’s a cautionary tale about how fragile our civil rights truly are and how easily they can be taken away from us. It’s designed to shock, not to satisfy. So seeing a handmaid blow herself up in a suicide bombing feels very incongruous and just a little bit silly. It would be like doing a TV adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 where the first season followed the source material and then the second season turned Winston Smith into this heroic freedom fighter trying to overthrow Big Brother. It would represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the book was about in the first place.

And then of course there’s the increased level of violence in Season 2, which many have complained about. In Season 1 and the original source material, the violence was justified. In Season 2, the motivation behind the violence has gone from ‘how can we effectively demonstrate how easily a fascist patriarchy can happen in the West?’ to ‘what brutal act can we inflict upon Ofglen to shock the audience this week?’ It’s purely for shock and nothing more. And with the showrunner (who I feel I should mention is a man) announcing that he has planned ten seasons of this, it seems that The Handmaid’s Tale is going to go even further with this depravity until it effectively becomes the equivalent of a Saw film.

The Handmaid’s Tale exists as a way of shining light on and critiquing misogyny in its most extreme form. Season 2 however demonstrates that there is a serious risk of it becoming the very thing it’s criticising in the first place.

The Predator

I love the Predator franchise, but The Predator is the worst.

People thought that this would be good because director Shane Black had actually starred in the first Predator movie back in 1987. Instead we got this bloated, confusing, obnoxious and insulting mess of a film that seems to go out of its way to ruin everything that makes Predator so good. There’s no tension. No suspense. No intrigue. Just a bunch of gore, explosions and shitty one liners from annoying and lifeless characters. They essentially took this big alien game hunter from outer space and turned him into a generic monster from a bad summer blockbuster. It no longer hunts for sport. It wants to take over the world and splice our DNA with theirs. But don’t worry, a rogue Predator doesn’t want to kill humans (even though he himself kills a bunch of humans), so he gives us a Predator Iron Man suit to set up a sequel that will probably never happen because this movie was a box office bomb and it fucking SUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKEEEEEDDDD!!!

This film also has a very nasty streak towards those with disabilities. There’s a lot of jokes at the expense of a character with Tourette’s and it has an extremely ignorant and patronising view of autism, portraying the main character’s kid as being a super genius who can decipher the Predator language and even going so far as to say that he represents ‘the next stage of human evolution.’ Presumably the Predators want social communication difficulties because apparently it helps them hunt somehow.

What with Disney acquiring 20th Century Fox, the future of both the Alien and Predator franchises were very much in question. This film needed to be a success in order to make a case for Disney to keep making more of them. It wasn’t. Congratulations Shane Black. You might have just killed off this franchise for good. Thanks arsehole! :D

So those were my least favourite stories from 2018. Join me on Wednesday where we shall discuss something more positive. Yes, it’s awards season. Who shall win the coveted Quill Seal Of Approval? Watch this space...

Or don’t. It’s up to you. I don’t want to force you or anything. It’s a free country.

[lilulo-12fanfiction]

Nothing Breaks Like A Heart: Chapter 2 part 1

So I had to split this into 2 chapters because it’s really long. I’m not big on regurgitating content but it was a good way to set the story up further. Going forward there will be more original content with some cannon thrown in. P.S. IDGAF about Cannon if it doesn’t work well for my story.

I’d love it if you reblogged, gave feedback, etc.

Let me know if you want to be tagged

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@shreddedparchment @fanfictionjunkie1112

Nora smiled to herself as she approached Bruce Banner, Natasha and Steve. She was ecstatic to meet Bruce Banner. She hadn’t seen Natasha in a while and well Steve was another story altogether.

“Is that the only word on me?” Bruce questioned Steve looking incredibly apprehensive.

“Only word I care about.” Such a Steve Rogers thing to say. She watches as Banner seemed to relax, if only slightly.

“Well he won’t be doing it alone.” Nora beamed at the 3 of them. “Besides myself I’m quite positive that my Uncle will show his face after getting through Coulson’s information bomb he gave us last night. No way is he missing out on this.”

“Nora Stark.” The red headed assassin smiled back at Nora.

“Good to see you Rusty. It’s been too long.”

“Well Tony isn’t my biggest fan. So I’ve steered clear.” Natasha shrugged.

“Well stop it. No one cares what he thinks.” Natasha shook her head at Nora. The attitude was 110% Tony Stark.

“Hello Nora.” Steve finally spoke after observing her.

“Hello Captain. Good to see you again.” She watched as the heat rose to his face and turned to Bruce Banner before she reacted and stuck her hand out.

“Well apparently my friends here forgot their manners. Dr. Banner, I’m Nora Stark. I’m a huge fan of your work. I’m really looking forward to working with you.” Bruce tentatively shook her hand.

“You’re not scared to be around me?” Bruce looked at her small stature and assumed she’d be terrified. She shrugged.

“Why would I be?” She smiled. Her kind eyes put him at ease. She linked her arms through Bruce’s. “C’mon Dr. Banner. Let’s go do what we nerds do so the super heroes can get to work” Nora gave Steve a wink only he could see and led them towards the Helicarrier.

“Okay Bruce, apparently Loki is in Germany. I highly doubt the Tesseract is with him.” Nora sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

“I agree.” Bruce didn’t look up from the computer screen.

“I’m going to head out to Fury. I need to see this. Let me know when you need me.” Bruce nodded again and Nora headed out of the lab and down to the main section of the Helicarrier.

As she made her way out to the main deck, she could hear AC/DC over the comms and then her Uncle’s voice. “Agent Romanoff, you miss me?”

“I see I made it just in time for the show.” She crossed over to where Fury was standing and he Gave her a smirk.

“Make a move Reindeer Games” Nora watched as Natasha landed the Quinjet to capture Loki.

“He doesn’t have the tesseract with him. And we haven’t located it yet. But the staff he carries, the one that turned one of your best parents into a puppet. I’m thinking that might help us.”

“I agree, Nora. Go let Dr. Banner know what’s going on and both of you join us back here once they’re back on this ship.” Nora nodded at the order and headed to retrieve Dr. Banner. She turned her comm on so she could listen in to their ride with Loki and was privy to the fight between the three men.

A little while after Loki was on the ship, Nora made her way back down to the main deck to discuss Loki. Dr. Banner would be joining them shortly. As she approached she heard her Uncle refer to someone as “Point Break”. She rolled her eyes and made herself known.

“Oh good. You’re all done playing swords. Did you find out who’s the biggest or did you just waste our time?”

“See that’s what makes you my favorite Stark. You’re infinitely more funny than Tony.” Natasha and Nora smiled at each other.

“What? No! Absolutely not! You’re not helping on this mission!” Tony wasn’t exactly surprised to see Nora but he wasn’t going to allow her to jump into the line of danger.

“You say that like you still have a say in the choices I make” Nora scoffed at her Uncle. “You need me. If you didn’t Pepper wouldn’t have asked me to come and Fury wouldn’t have agreed to it.”

“Nora I know you’re brilliant but we can do this without you.” Tony shot back. Steve watched on with interest.

“No you can’t. You need my memory and my professional abilities.” Nora was just as stubborn as her Uncle. This wasn’t going to end quickly.

“Your memory? What does that mean.” Nora looked over to the heavy accented voice that was sitting at the table.

“You must be Thor" He nodded. I have a photographic memory. I remember every detail of everything.”

“That sounds very useful and overwhelming.” His understanding and empathy took Nora by surprise. It was overwhelming and incredibly useful. There were some things she wished she could forget, yet instead they plagued her dreams. “And what are these professional abilities?” Thor was intrigued by this tiny human.

“I have some pretty stellar computer skills.” Before Thor could question Nora further Tony was interrupting.

“Uh hello??? I have some pretty decent computer skills myself.” Nora rolled her eyes at the exact same time Tony did and the resemblance between her and Tony couldn’t be ignored. It made Thor smile.

“Obviously you know your way around a computer. But you know full well that you can’t hack like I can.”

“She’s right Tony.” Fury finally spoke. “She hacked the Pentagon on a dare in High School.”

“You what?!” Steve was shocked and Nora stood there with a proud smile on her face. He wouldn’t have thought she would do something like that.

“Sorry Captain. Sometimes you just have to bend the rules. Especially when your sexist classmate thinks he’s superior because he has a teeny tiny appendage between his legs” Thor audibly laughed.

“Yeah that was pretty impressive. I’m still pretty proud you did that.” Tony finally conceded. “Fine. I’m not going to argue with you anymore but if you’re going to be on this mission you need something a little more protective than whatever this is that you’re wearing.” He pointed up and down her body. She was clad in a leather pencil skirt, a denim button down shirt and sky high leopard print heels. Her normally long curly hair was straightened and in a high ponytail with braids on the top of her head.

“Well I asked you to make me a suit.” Nora shot back. Thor watched on enjoying the verbal ping pong match. He liked the fire in Nora Stark.

“So you can put yourself in more danger? Yeah, not likely.” Nick Fury stood up to put an end to the bickering.

“Nora- I had some special Kevlar made for you. There’s a locker with your name on it. You can change when you're ready.”

“Thanks Uncle Nick.” Nora gave Tony a dirty look and went and sat down next to Thor. She was drawn to him for some reason. She couldn't explain it. "So tell me about Asgard and this brother of yours" Steve watched as Thor and Nora seemed to be in a bubble. He had her undivided attention. She laughed at the things he said that weren’t meant to be funny but were because of Thor’s lack of Earth knowledge. She would place her hand on his arm as they spoke. Neither of them seemed to pay much attention to the people around them. He had to force himself to pay attention to what Fury was saying. He was surprised at how jealous he felt. He barely knew her. And he didn’t ever expect to find anyone that stirred feelings in him. Not the way Peggy did. It wasn’t the same, Peggy was Peggy. But Nora somehow set off a spark inside him. The first real connection he made before coming out of the ice.

Nora sighed and sat down on the bench in the locker room. She wanted her own “Iron Man” suit. Tony refused. Nora had contemplated just hacking into his system for the plans, but she couldn’t break her Uncle’s trust like that. She didn’t want him doing this alone. Maybe now that Steve was out of the ice he wouldn’t have to. She was always afraid that when he left in that Iron Man suit he wouldn’t come back. She knew Pepper had the same fears. Nora and Tony both had lost so much. They had been betrayed by people they had loved too. He wasn’t her father. No one could ever take Grant Starks place in her heart, but the relationship she and Tony had was something beyond parent and child. They were connected by loss and pain. They were connected by their similarities. They had the same snark, the same attitude and the Stark swagger. The swagger that sometimes acted as a protective bubble. Tony was Nora’s protector. Even when he was missing he was still protecting her. He had always had a plan in place with Rhodey and Pepper to keep her safe and loved if something happened and he couldn’t. All Nora wanted to do was protect him as well.

She stood and opened up the locker with her name and smiled at what Nick had left her. It was an all black Kevlar suit that looked like leather. It had straps across her hips and boots that went over her knees. There were a number of holsters to hold weapons or technological items. She wasn’t sure where Nick had found it, but it was perfect. It held her body like a glove. She was curvy but strong. She has never been skinny. Her body wasn’t built to be that small. She had accepted her flaws a long time ago and learned how to use them to her advantage.

She headed out of the locker room with plans to head back to the lab. Her eyes caught the door that she knew Loki was behind and she just couldn’t help herself. Her credentials allowed her to enter the room. There he stood. The God of Mischief in a round glass cage.

“Hello Loki.” He snapped his head up and studied her.

“The Dróttning av Gimsteinn” Loki’s voice was almost breathless. He hadn’t been expecting to see her and the words had poured from his mouth before he could stop them.

“What did you just say?” Nora stopped in her tracks and stared him down. Loki’s eyes bore into Nora’s and he didn’t respond. “What does that mean?”

“You’ll find out soon enough I suppose” Loki acted as uninterested in her as he possibly could. I’m reality he was buzzing on the inside. He thought it would be more difficult to get eyes on her. Nora narrowed her eyes at him. She took a step towards him and stopped.

“I’m not going to let you goad me into a reaction. When you get bored of this and want to tell me where the tesseract is, let me know. If I find it before you tell me, I can’t help you.” Before Loki could respond, she was gone. Loki smiled to himself. She was feisty. She liked to spar. This was going to be more fun than he originally thought.

Nora was wracking her brain trying to figure out what Loki called her as she was heading back. She didn’t even know what language it was. She was about to pull her phone out and try to search for what she thought he had said when she stumbled upon Steve trying to pry a set of doors open. Captain America breaking and entering? This was surprising. She crossed her arms in front of her body and leaned against the wall.

“Need some help Captain?” She smiled with a suggestive voice as Steve jumped. He turned and faced Nora sheepishly with red cheeks. He had on hand on the back of his neck and looked impossibly adorable.

“I was…I uh…” He was embarrassed for getting caught but what really had him stuttering was Nora. No one should look that good in Kevlar. He silently chastised himself for behaving like a 13 year old. Nora shook her head and without a word pushed herself off of the wall and approached the door Steve was trying to bust open. She pressed her palm to the lock pad. It read her palm print and prompted for the 2nd security key. “Stark, Nora Margaret”. Steve froze. Was Peggy apart of her life? It couldn’t be a coincidence that she was related to Howard Stark and her middle name was Peggy. Howard and Peggy has founded Sheild together. He wondered if Peggy had any sort of relationship with Nora’s father. He wanted to ask her about it, but it wasn’t the right time. Nora motioned him inside.

“After you.” Nora followed him into the room and the door shut behind him. “Mind telling me what we’re doing in here? What are you looking for?”

“I’m honestly not sure. Your Uncle is trying to get all of Sheild’s files as we speak. He seems to think Fury is hiding something.”

“Oh what a jack ass. He’s trying to hack in on his own instead of asking me. He’s trying to prove he doesn’t need me. I could have had those files in 5 minutes, 10 tops. Plus I have access to a lot of shit around here. Sheild is my family birth right. My father would have taken Howard’s place.”

“Wait- so you agree with Tony? You think he’s hiding something?”

“Don’t be so naive Captain. Of course he’s hiding something. He’s a super spy. His secrets have secrets!” Steve laughed. “What’s funny?”

“Your Uncle literally said the same thing. Word for word.” Nora’s eyes shone with pride. “Are you going to help me look?”

She threw her arms up in a shrug. “Kind of hard to help when I have zero clue what to look for. And how do you know I’m not in on it?”

“Call it a gut instinct.” Nora liked to banter and Steve was feeling brave. He was still feeling a little green after seeing her with Thor. Now was his chance to see if she was as just flirty or interested in him. He was a God. A good looking one at that. And while he felt like an idiot worrying about it when they had more important things to focus on, he had to know. “So you’re done flirting with Thor? You two seemed to hit it off right away.” He looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

“I wasn’t flirting! Why? Are you jealous?” Nora sauntered over to where Steve was leaning over a crate. She put her hand on his shoulder and leaned over so she could whisper in his ear. “Believe me Captain, if I’m flirting, you’ll know it.”

Nora’s breath was hot on his neck and it sent a chill down his spine. He was about to respond but his attention was pulled to the container in front of him. Steve opened a container. “I think I found what we’re looking for.” Steve watched as Nora pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Dammit.” The disappointment was radiating from her voice. “Sometimes, it’s really hard to separate the spy, the head of Shield, from the man that helped me become who I am today. The person my father revered. I just can’t.”

“I’m sorry Nora.” Steve put his hand on her shoulder.

“Why are you apologizing? You didn’t do this Steve.”

“No, but I know that feeling. And I’m sorry that you’re feeling it now.” Nora gave Steve a small smile.

“Thank you. God this is all so messed up. Let’s go to the lab. I’d like to talk to Nick and I need to ask Thor some questions about his brother.” Steve picked up the container and the two of them headed back to her Uncle and Dr. Banner.

Nora could heat heated voices as she and Steve approached the lab. So heated that they didn’t even notice the two of them enter in the middle of Bruce’s sentence.

“…When we get a hit, we’ll have the location within half a mile.” Nora could tell he was trying to control his temper. Tony picked up where Bruce left off. The two of them were a team already.

“And you’ll get your cube back, no muss, no fuss. What is Phase Two?” Tony wanted answers. Nora knew that look in his eye.

Nora jumped as Steve slammed the case down on the counter. “ Phase Two is SHIELD used the Cube to make weapons.” Steve answered for Fury and then directed himself towards Tony. “Sorry, computer was moving a little slow for me.”

Nora gave Tony a dirty look. “I literally could have gotten it within 10 minutes tops. Stop trying to prove that you don’t need me.”

“Rogers, we gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we’re-“ Before Fury could finish Tony flipped the screen to reveal a plan for a missile. Nora pit her face in her hands. This was only going to get worse.

“I’m sorry, Nick. What were you lying?” Nora clenched her jaw. She didn’t know what to say to calm the waters because she was just as angry as the rest of them. She pulled herself from her thoughts as Natasha and Thor came into the lab.

“You wanna think about removing yourself from this environment, doctor?” Bruce laughed in Natasha’s face.

“I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed.” Nora ignored their verbal ping pong as she went over to the monitor to check on the Tesseract. She paused and eyed Loki’s staff curiously. When she focused back on the group Fury was explaining why Sheild wanted to create these weapons.

“Last year earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly- hilariously, out-gunned.” Nora was going to tell Nick he was right but that he should have been upfront but Thor interjected before she had the chance.

“My people want nothing but peace with your planet.”

“But you’re not the only people out there, are you? And, you’re not the only threat. The world’s filling up with people who can’t be matched, they can’t be controlled.” Fury shot back quickly. Nora couldn’t focus on what they were saying anymore. Her attention was drawn back to Loki’s staff like it was pulling her in. Bits and pieces of the argument would break through. She couldn’t focus on who was saying what as her head started to pound and the sceptor started to glow..

“Nuclear deterrent! ’Cause that always calms everything right down.”

“ I’m sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck deep-“

“How is this now about me?”

“I’m sorry, isn’t everything?”

“I thought humans were more evolved than this.”

“I swear to God, Stark, one more crack...”

Nora felt more dizzy and tried to focus on Steve’s voice, though she wished she hadn’t. “Yeah, big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?” Why was Steve attacking her Uncle? He didn’t know what he was talking about. Nora felt too woozy to feel any anger at that point.

“Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist.”

“I know guys with none of that worth ten of you. I’ve seen the footage. The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You’re not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.” He was wrong. He didn’t know what Tony Stark was about. He put on a front but he was a hero. He took the world on his shoulders. Nora remembered Tony destroying all of the weapons sold to our enemies. She wanted to scream at Rogers but her head hurt too badly to speak. Tony’s voice cut through the pain.

“A hero, like you? You’re a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle.”

“Put on the suit, let’s go a few rounds.”

“Steve, Tony- Stop” Nora begged. Her voice wasn’t loud enough for them to hear her. She was sure it was Loki’s scepter causing them to act like this. It was what messed with Barton’s head. Loki had wanted it to be here, to cause this dissension. Finally Bruce’s yelling caused everything to stop.

“IN CASE YOU NEEDED TO KILL ME. BUT YOU CAN’T, I KNOW, I TRIED!” He stopped and saw that everyone is staring at him and he continued. “I got low. I didn’t see an end so I put a bullet in my mouth and the other guy spit it out. So I moved on, I focused on helping other people. I was good until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk. You wanna know my secret, Agent Romanoff? You wanna know how I stay calm?”

“Oh Bruce...” Nora could feel his pain and anger, how broken he felt. He was holding the scepter while Fury and Natasha hand their hands on their guns. Nora was white as a sheet.

“Please Bruce. That thing is making you all act like this. Please put it down. No one is going to cage you, I promise..”

“Nora?” Tony’s voice was full of worry. She looked sick. She had barely said a word during the argument. She normally would tell Tony if he was being an ass or defend him if he was right. Steve took a deep breath, sighed and looked at Bruce.

“Doctor Banner, put down the scepter.” Banner looked down, surprised to see the spear in his hand. Suddenly the monitor made a noise, signaling the Tesseract has been located. Bruce put the scepter back on the table and walked over to the screen on the other side of the room. Nora walked over to the table and lightly touched the scepter, knowing it was the source of her pain. She just didn’t know why. She yanked her hand back and turned towards her Uncle.

Suddenly Tony turned to leave but Steve put his arm out to stop him. “You’re not going alone Stark!” Tony smacked Steve’s hand away.

“You gonna stop me?” Nora groaned. Taking steps towards the two men.

“Put on the suit, let’s find out!

“ I’m not afraid to hit an old man.”

“Will the two of you stop acting like children?!” Nora was pleading with them. Then she heard Banner yelling and then an explosion. Nora flew into Steve, he grabbed her by the waist as he and Tony fell near the entry way. Steve turned her so she would fall on him instead of the floor protecting her head and neck. The next thing she knew Steve was pulling her along with Tony.

[queenofcats17]

Okay so I had bit of a funny idea because of the story you did yesterday, which was amazing by the way! Do you think you could write something with Sammy and Corrupted!Henry and maybe Wally can be there too! (Because he didn’t escape like in the game, in my AU) and they’re just trying to keep him out of trouble? I just thought it would be kind of funny since Bendy wanted Sammy to look after him for awhile. It’ll probably be a bit angsty though. 😅 Sorry if this idea is kind of stupid though.

I’m so glad you liked it!

Prepare for some shenanigans! And maybe angst.

Sammy watched as Bendy vanished into the distance. Once he was sure the little demon was gone, he sighed and let his shoulders slump. Henry sat at his feet, smiling up at him. It pained Sammy to see him like this, stripped of his humanity. Apparently, Henry could sense Sammy’s sadness, as he oozed over and starting hugging Sammy’s legs while making comforting noises. Sammy found himself unable to resist a smile.

“Thank you, Henry.” He said, patting Henry’s head. Even if Henry had been corrupted, it was nice to be able to hug his old friend. 

“So, this is Henry Williams?” One of the Lost Ones asked tentatively. 

“Yes, this is him.” Sammy nodded. A few of the Lost Ones knelt in front of Henry, examining him and offering him food. Henry was admittedly rather excited by all this attention, and Sammy started introducing his congregation to his old friend. Most of them had only heard rumors of Henry Williams. More and more Lost Ones ventured out from their little shacks until there was a small crowd around Sammy and Henry. That was when Wally appeared. 

Wally had felt Henry’s corruption complete. Joey’s control had slipped for a moment and Henry’s location had been revealed to all those with a connection to the Ink. Most of the Lost Ones and Searchers hadn’t noticed Henry’s presence appear, but Wally had been paying close attention. They’d all been worried about Henry, and none of them had been quite sure where he was. So as soon as Joey had slipped enough to reveal Henry, Wally bolted to that location to see what he could do to help. He was pretty surprised when he found Henry in the Lost One village with Sammy, being fawned on by numerous Lost Ones.

“Yeesh. Did I miss something?” Sammy’s head snapped around at the sound of Wally’s voice.

“There you are!” He managed to push past the other Lost Ones to get over to Wally. “Where have you been? You just disappeared! We were all worried!”

“Sorry.” Wally gave a sheepish smile, rubbing the back of his head. “I was lookin’ for Henry. Thought I could help. But, uh, looks like you found him first.”

“Bendy was taking care of him.” Sammy glanced back at Henry. “They were with Allison and Tom.”

“Alli and Tom? Seriously?” Wally’s eyes widened. “How’d the kid manage to get them to let Henry in?” Allison and Tom were good people, but they were extremely cautious around anyone who had been infected or was under the control of the hive mind. They had every right to be cautious, given how they were currently thorns in Joey’s side. 

“I don’t know. I didn’t ask.” Sammy made a vague hand gesture. 

“Right. Cool.” Wally let his eyes wander to where Henry was still being doted on by the Lost Ones. “So…He’s one of us now.”

“He…He is.” Sammy followed Wally’s gaze back to Henry. 

“I really thought we could get him out.”

“I did too.”

“At least…Joey won’t do anything too bad to him, right?” Wally’s voice had a slightly hopeful note. “He cares about Henry, right?”

“I don’t know,” Sammy admitted. “Joey tends to get…unpleasant when people don’t behave exactly as he wants them to.” Wally could tell this topic of conversation was only serving to depress Sammy. So he decided to change the subject. 

“Anyway!” Wally slung an arm around Sammy’s shoulder. “How’s it going? Jack says you haven’t visited him in a while.”

“I’ve been…busy.” Sammy hunched his shoulders a bit. Wally almost could have sworn he was blushing.

“Busy how?” Wally asked, grinning. 

“He’s been teaching us songs!” One of the Lost Ones piped up. 

“You’ve been singing without me?” Wally let out a faux horrified gasp. “You know how much I like to sing!”

“Well, I couldn’t find you!” 

The Lost Ones’ attention was drawn away from Henry by Sammy and Wally. They all started laughing quietly. It was always fun for them to see Sammy and Wally interact. Wally was one of the few people who could get away with teasing Sammy the way he did. The two were almost like brothers. Wally and Sammy were their light, their hope. Wally kept morale high and Sammy was a comforting presence for those who needed it. 

Unfortunately, since the Lost Ones had taken their eyes off of Henry, this meant no one was making sure he wasn’t getting into trouble. As a Searcher, Henry wasn’t nearly as cautious as he’d been before. He had no more fear of the ink. After all, he was made of the ink. With the Lost Ones distracted, Henry began to wander about. He’d never been in this place before. The buildings were strange, not like the ones he remembered. But what really caught his attention was the river of ink at the end of the docks. His eye lit up. He’d never seen so much ink before. He wondered if he could swim in it. Immediately, he began to set out for the river. 

“Wait, where’s Henry?” Wally suddenly asked. Sammy stopped talking, looking around as well. To their absolute horror, they saw Henry making his way towards the river of ink. They knew that anyone who fell into that much ink seldom managed to find their way out. 

“Henry no!” They both yelled, running over to snatch Henry away from the river. Henry pouted a little as Sammy scooped him up in his arms. 

“Henry! What were you thinking?!” Sammy said, putting Henry down a safe distance away from the ink. Henry folded his arms, sinking down and sulking. 

“I’m all for having a little fun, but that much ink is dangerous,” Wally added. “You’d never be able to find your way outta there.” Henry started making a whining sound, reminding both Wally and Sammy of a petulant child.

“This might be harder than I thought.” Sammy murmured. 

Watching Henry did indeed turn out to be harder than he’d anticipated. Both Wally and Sammy had their work cut out for them trying to keep Henry out of trouble. Henry wanted to go everywhere and touch everything. He tried to go to the mostly flooded office area, which was populated by Butcher Gang clones. He tried to slip into the vents. And he kept trying to go into the ink river. Neither Sammy nor Wally had ever anticipated having children, but they imagined that this was what it would be like to have a small child. 

“Geez.” Wally panted, sinking to the ground after he and Sammy had managed to wrestle Henry away from the river again. “Didn’t think it’d be this hard.” 

“He has no self-preservation instinct.” Sammy gasped. Henry sat in front of them, smiling innocently. 

“You’re lucky you’re our friend,” Wally said, although his voice lacked any malice. “If you weren’t, I woulda dumped you.” Henry continued to smile, knowing full Wally would never do anything like that. 

“I hope Bendy comes back soon.” Sammy curled up on the ground. He needed a nap. A long one. Henry oozed over, curling up with Sammy and making contented noises. 

“Okay, that’s pretty cute,” Wally admitted. 

“Mm.” Sammy closed his eyes, letting himself drift off. Wally snorted, pulling his hat down over his eyes. They’d both deserved a rest. 

[cloudbattrolls]

Bleeding Heart

Matcha Ginia [GG] tries to befriend Etuuya Vannyn [TT] , who is naturally skeptical of her intentions after they upset her by revealing their true nature and confused by her gift of blood after their second office interaction. 

a.k.a two vampires dance in circles around each other, trying to figure the other out. 

-- twitteringTailor [TT] has begun trolling gladsomeGluttony [GG] -- 

TT: You know, it's not that I'm not grateful, given that Rivali is intent on giving me army rations.

TT: Which I can deal with, but I admit it's nice not to.

TT: But I was surprised when the first one wasn't poisoned, or something.

TT: Not that it would have killed me.

TT: Made me drowsy, perhaps.

TT: Ought I to worry about where you get this from?

TT: Or what else you usually use it for?

TT: I'm not one to judge dark arcane rituals.

TT: Only a tiny bit.

TT: Don't get me wrong, I doubt you're going to tell me, but I'm back in the cavern now and I finished the sweeping.

TT: so I've nothing to do but be a chatterbug.

GG: :V

TT: [snail emoji]

GG: 

GG: [cat emoji]

GG: i use iiiiit to patch up a friend, usually? 

GG: and i get it from another friend who works in a hostilespital, althooouuugh they havent had access lately 

GG: what was the other question? :V

TT: your friend must get injured an awful lot, but that's more of an answer than I expected so I'll take it.

GG: ;V

TT: I have plenty of other questions, but you didn't really answer those, either.

TT: If you want a bit of information free of charge, though; Rivali let up on keeping me away.

TT: Not that they're not going to lock me up, for the peace of mind of everyone else in the office, but you can visit if you like.

TT: Unless this is where you shout 'psyche' and give up the joke.

TT: I'd applaud your dedication.

GG: 

GG: that would be a huge waste of energy :V

TT: Something suggests you have a much-longer running motive though.

TT: It would be, wouldn't it.

TT: Unless there was a dare or something involved, but I'm not allowed to question that now, so none of my business if there is.

GG: whaaaaat 

GG: youre allowed to question what you want!! 

GG: even if im kiiiiind of hurt that you think im doing this to make fun of you 

GG: i just dont think its fair to starve you, thats all!! 

GG: i know how much it sucks to go hungry >:V

TT: If you get upset again, Rivali blames me.

GG:

TT: Greenlet, why do you think they changed their mind?

GG: out of the kindness of their pusher? :V

TT: I don't think they have any kindness in their pusher, dear. I think they replaced it all with ramrods.

TT: No, it's because they're afraid, but they rather value your agency more than mine.

GG: dont be mean, theyre a really nice person! 

GG: 

GG: to 

GG: other people, i guess 

GG: sorry :'O

TT: It's really not your fault.

TT: I don't say any of this to guilt you.

TT: I may not have a bull's notion why you're doing this, but I don't bear you any ill will.

GG: im 

GG: glad you dont? :V

TT: You sound a tad unsure about that.

GG: i waaasnt really expecting you to in the first place, and now im thinking about it :V

TT: Do you want me to be mad? It would explain what happened last time.

GG: what!! >:V

TT: Self-flagellation is a silly route to go down, greenlet.

TT: There are better ways to work out your guilt.

TT: Though you really shouldn't have any.

GG: 

GG:

TT: If I were someone else, perhaps.

TT: Then it might be appropriate.

TT: But not with me.

GG: woooow, youre kind of a hypocrite

GG: :P

TT: How so?

TT: I'm quite lost here.

GG: noooooo, but im backtracking 

GG: how would wanting you to be mad explain last time? 

GG: what did i do D:

TT: I could just be throwing darts in the dark, but it felt rather like you wandered over because you felt bad and you wanted me to feel bad, and then you did something that clearly required some effort and desire to go behind Rivali's back. Not that Rivali is difficult to fool, but it still involves some risk for no clear reward on your part, and I certainly didn't do anything that merited such a generous act. Therefore I can only assume it was motivated by guilt or you're just daft, but I highly doubt the second one. Daft people generally don't plan so well.

TT: I didn't react angrily, so your guilt wasn't assuaged, and you had to find some other method.

GG: whaaaaaat 

GG: of course i felt guilty over getting you in trouble, but i didnt want you to feel bad! >:V 

GG: it just felt unfair, and i had to do something about it!! 

GG: 

GG: and im glaaaad i dont come off as daft to you? im pretty sure youre the only person who thinks that :'O

TT: Don't be silly, greenlet, of course you did. Perhaps not much, and perhaps you even felt bad about that, but when someone shows you something horrifying with no apparent remorse, it'd be a rare troll who didn't want them to feel guilty about it.

TT: It's not something I blame you for.

TT: Perhaps Rivali is right.

TT: At least from a practical standpoint.

TT: I have to admit, your idea of 'unfair' throws me.

TT: That I can't puzzle out.

TT: You know I'm property, right?

TT: I wasn't kidding about being a science experiment.

TT: The man who started it is long dead, but I still belong to the Empire.

TT: Why do you think Rivali does as they please, even though I'm many times their senior?

TT: If I am the only person who thinks that, then your coworkers are silly.

TT: Or they don't appreciate you.

TT: Whichever.

GG: you showed that to me because you felt cornered and wanted me to back off! 

GG: of course you dont feel bad about it >:V 

GG: 

GG: you dont, right? 

GG: 

GG: and of course i know youre property! i guess its just 

GG: hard to grasp? you have feelings just like the rest of us! and if i was in your place, i would want someone to be nice to me >:V 

GG: and they do appreciate me, dont be mean! you can still like someone if theyre a little ditzy >:V

TT: Who said I don't feel bad about it?

GG: you!!

TT: I said apparent remorse.

GG:

TT: You missed a trick.

TT: Now I'm hardly sobbing my oculars out.

TT: And I stand by my reasoning being sound.

TT: But I don't actually enjoy upsetting people, for the most part.

TT: It was a necessary evil, but look at all the effect it had.

TT: About the same as a grub flinging itself at a windshield.

GG: sorry ;O

TT: If you were, we wouldn't be having this little back-and-forth, but I'm not here to wag my finger at you for it.

GG: youre doing a lot of finger wagging for that! ;P

TT: 'For that' being the operative phrase.

TT: ...I have to admit, it's been a while since someone cited 'feelings' as basis for personhood to me.

TT: Even I'm not buying that one.

TT: Zombies have feelings, and most of them are about as sapient as my shoes.

TT: But more the point, my feelings don't really count legally.

TT: And it's not really my concern if people are nice to me.

GG: 

GG: does it hurt you if im nice to you?? >:V

TT: No, but it could potentially hurt you.

TT: That was my point.

TT: Not about to argue that, though, pointless endeavor.

GG: kiiiiind of!

GG: becauuuse its a liiiiittle condescending to try to make decisions for me like this! >:V

TT: See, Rivali's logic is that you deserve to make your own mistakes.

TT: I guess they agree with you there.

TT: Also, greenlet, if I seem condescending, it's because I can't quite wrap my head around someone wanting to be buddies with me after they know the truth.

TT: I can infer reasonings behind your individual actions, but the whole is still very much a mystery.

TT: I have doubts it's part of some elaborate plot, you wouldn't really have much to gain.

TT: Yet who willingly befriends something like me? You're not daft, so it's not that.

TT: A desire to prove your own goodwill?

TT: I suppose that's a decent reason.

TT: Or just to prove you can, perhaps.

GG: 

GG: 

GG: dooooes it 

GG: matter if im doing this because im selfish? 

GG: youre getting food and someone to talk to out of it!

GG: if you want me to leave you alone, i will

TT: Not really. You're not bad company.

TT: I just don't want you putting more into this than you should.

GG: you should stop worrying my worries for me ;O

TT: Perhaps I have my own, greenlet.

GG: seeeee 

GG: you can worry those instead!

TT: You would find them insulting.

TT: So I would rather approach it from your motivations instead of my suspicions.

GG:

GG: :V ?

TT: I'm not keen to hurt your feelings again, for several reasons.

GG: 

GG: you shouldnt have to worry about that!! >:V 

GG: if this is about rivali, i can blame it on my recent breakup!

TT: gracious.

TT: clever, though, they'll buy that.

GG: 

GG: do you think so? :O

TT: redirection is as good of a strategy as any.

TT: especially for Rivali, who loves silly relationship comedy shows.

GG: pffffffffff 

GG: i knoooow, its adorable

TT: Don't say that to them.

TT: They don't know how to handle compliments.

TT: At least on anything that's not work.

GG: i know ;V

GG: i figured that out the hard way, pffff

TT: I suppose the greater mystery is why you want to defend them.

TT: They're not really very nice.

TT: They're obsessed with excelling at work.

TT: Thus they don't want you upset.

GG: thats your perspective! >:V 

GG: theyre trying their best!!

TT: Do you know why I suddenly turned up, greenlet?

GG: nooooo?

TT: Rivali caught me and used a hired gun to shoot me in the pumper six times.

GG:

TT: It's not even because they hate drinkers, or anything silly like that.

TT: They just saw an opportunity.

GG: an opportunity?

TT: I'm a science experiment they haven't been able to replicate since.

TT: I can say without any false modesty that I'm valuable.

GG: 

GG: thats a smart move, though! 

GG: 

GG: iiiiif 

GG: youre not weird like me and get attached, i guess :V

TT: It would be smart if Rivali wasn't fighting a hopeless battle.

TT: They want their cavern to accept them and promote them.

TT: That's not going to happen.

TT: They might as well have left me for all the good it did them.

GG: oh dear

TT: Why do you think they got transferred to you?

TT: Just having them work aboveground wasn't enough for their head matron, I suppose; they sent them further away.

TT: and like their barkbeast lusus with a bone, they won't let go of trying to get prestige.

GG: 

GG: 

GG: thats reeeaaaally similar to my my story :'V 

GG: thats so sad though

TT: Don't mistake Rivali as being like you, greenlet.

TT: They don't care who they have to use to get ahead.

TT: I mean, perhaps you don't either, but I imagine you'd at least pause.

GG:

TT: It's less sad and more born of bitterness.

GG: thats so sad though

TT: Don't project on them, they're more than old enough to know better.

GG: whaaaat, and im not?

TT: You're what, nine? Ten?

GG: niiiiine :V

GG: 

GG: i dont like where this is going :V

TT: Rivali is fourteen.

TT: Bit of a difference there.

TT: They would be old enough to make a lower-ranked matron by now, if they had their way.

TT: Old enough to know their efforts are pointless, presumably unlike whatever you want to do.

TT: Which is another likely difference between you.

GG: pfffff 

GG: dooo you know why im doing this job?

TT: Not a clue.

TT: I'd be open to learning.

GG: myyyy headmatron threw me out of the cavern, because she hated my guts that much 

 GG: and now im sloooowly working my way up here, but theres a huuuuge chance that im never going to be very good at it! 

 GG: i just dont work fast enough, or even smart enough :'V

TT: Am I really supposed to believe you're not smart enough.

TT: You keep pretending but it's fairly plain you're plenty smart enough.

GG: im people smart, not book smart :'I

TT: Hm.

GG: >:V

TT: and did she? that's rather petty.

GG: a liiiiittle 

GG: she ruled with an iron fist, pffff 

GG: her part of the cavern was the most efficient one

TT: I find that unlikely if she was prone to making decisions based solely on personal dislike.

GG: i miiiiight have 

GG: lost a few important documents?

GG: but pfffffff, i dont want to talk badly about her!!

TT: Who am I going to tell? I don't care.

TT: But I'm hardly going to ask you to rag on her either.

GG: youre doing a pretty bad impression of not caring!

TT: I meant about if you talk badly of her.

GG: pffff, okay! 

GG: but then im preeeeetty sure im wasting my breath and boring you to death right now! 

GG: 

GG: 

GG: that was insensitive, im so sorry :'V

TT: How was that insensitive?

TT: Inaccurate, but not insensitive.

GG: 

GG: yooooure dead, right?

TT: Interesting question.

TT: Given that was happened to me was an intentional operation done in laboratory settings, I'm not really sure if I am.

TT: I never actually was killed.

TT: Even if I was, I would have to be extremely petty and oversensitive to be offended by such a thing, though.

GG: i never knooooow 

GG: i keep trying not to step on peoples walkstubs, and then doing it anyways :'V

TT: I'm prone to bursts of pettiness but usually over things that are more worth my time.

TT: Greenlet, I'm a one hundred and several decades sweep old rainbowdrinker whose existence is an offense to trollkind.

TT: It's a bit difficult to genuinely step on my walkstubs.

GG: you can have feelings if you want! >:V

TT: I have feelings, greenlet, but generally they don't involve being upset over things that don't matter enough to me to be upset over.

TT: If someone hurt my snails, I would be upset.

TT: This? Doesn't register.

GG: 

GG: okay :V

GG: aaaanyways 

GG: aaaare you 

GG: happy with this?

TT: Do specify, dear.

GG: weeeeell 

GG: you came here looking for a reason why im trying to befriend you, right??

TT: More to state the reasons why I'm skeptical of that.

TT: I wasn't really expecting you to answer.

TT: If it were that simple, I'd have figured it out already.

GG: :V 

GG: soooo iiiii 

GG: typed a lot for nothing

TT: Not to me.

GG: 

GG: you dont have to figure people out, though!

TT: Imagine for a moment you're a creature who tends to repulse people just by existing, never mind by showing what they can do.

TT: It's unusual if people don't react with immediate fear, disgust, and shunning you, if they know what you can do.

TT: You understand those, at least, they make sense.

TT: and then someone comes along and says that's unfair, even though they don't gain any apparent benefit from it.

TT: It's understandably strange and you wonder why.

GG: i was scared of you at first!

GG: but youre a troll around the worms, and one thats getting the reeeeaaaally short end of things

TT: My situation isn't as bad as you seem to think.

GG: 

GG: maybe i have too much empathy to be a good citizen :'O

TT: It's not like I'm being tortured every night. 

TT: That was part of the deal.

GG: 

GG: 

GG: oh dear.

TT: why oh dear.

TT: that's a good thing.

GG: its not a good thing that it was on the table! 

GG: 

GG: are you happy like this, then?

TT: greenlet, dear, what do you think happens to things like me, usually? tea and cookies?

TT: It's fine enough. I have my snails, I have my phone because Rivali's figured out trying to take it from me is a bad idea. I still have my contacts.

TT: Life could be significantly worse. I'm not about to complain.

GG: 

 GG: okay

GG: im sorry if me trying to chatter at you is weird, then

TT: It's strange but not unwelcome.

TT: If I didn't like it, I wouldn't have messaged you.

GG: soooo i can 

GG: keep doing it?

TT: If you like, though in more practical matters, I figure I ought to repay you for the blood.

TT: My stipend's been confiscated, but I'm sure we can figure something out.

GG: noooo you dont have tooooo

TT: for my own peace of mind I enjoy not being in debt too long.

GG: its not a debt, i get it for free!!

TT: It's still a favor to me that must cost you some effort.

TT: Time is as valuable as caegers.

GG: pffff, not really xV 

GG: 

GG: mayyybe you could tell me the office gossip you hear? ;V

TT: I don't think sitting in my locked room is going to bring me much more than you with your connections already know.

TT: unless you want information on Rivali's cavern, though I don't know why that would be useful.

GG: not reaaally 

GG: 

GG: i dont knoooow

TT: Clearly you like information, though, and I do have contacts.

TT: Some in fleet.

GG: :O

GG: 

GG: i meeeaaan 

GG: i like gossip

TT: gossip is just another word for information.

GG: information about other peoples relationships! ;V

TT: I'm sure that's part of it.

GG: yessss i would love to hear it 

GG: just tell me whenever you hear something interesting, and were even ;O

TT: In a sense. 

-- twitteringTailor [TT] has given up trolling gladsomeGluttony [GG] -- 

[konicichan-blog]

5am thoughts: theory: Story Of Light

is it called the Story of Light because its Shinee telling us and the whole entire world that they will no longer grief in sadness and that they've moved on and accepted what has happened? I'm sure we all know Shinee may still be sad (and maybe more than that) but what if this whole album is telling us that shinee, that all the members, Minho, Onew, Key, and Taemin are ready to have a new beginning? Like, they're ready to let all the sadness go and accept what has happened and that they will continue to work and grow.

What if You&I was about them talking about Jonghyun? Like, what if this song is about them trying to talk to Jonghyun? And theyre all trying to tell him that its hard when he's gone like they dont know what to do. "I’m the only one hurting, I may look fine I’m not easy, my feelings aren’t for decoration" And like they're all reminiscing their memories with him. All those good times that they're not ready to let go of. "A handful of memories, I laugh and remember every day" (okay the lyrics arent in order but JJJJust lemme finish and fyi, its gonna be a lOoong one). "There are countless stars in my heart, there’s one star that shines painfully I don’t want to grab it but I don’t want it to go out" okay in this part i think they maybe talking about Jonghyun. Maybe the stars represent people and "theres one star that shines painfully" might be Jonghyun. A star... someone really special to them... is hurting deep inside. Maybe Shinee is trying to tell us that although a celebrity or ANY person in general who may seem happy in front of the cameras or may seem happy in the outside in general is actually in deep pain inside. Dealing with self doubt, depression and all that and we just dont know :( "The things I can’t throw away make me smile" this is kinda self explanatory. Jonghyun, someone they love, someone they deeply cherish, someone they can't simply just let go of, someone who can always make them smile. You know? "I know that you’re being honest when you wish me well I’ll let you go easy, don’t think that you’re stepping on me" this is kinda hard to explain haha ahm.. maybe as time passes by, Jonghyun's absence is telling them to let go and move on and maybe they're mad with what he did? I DONT KNOW I DONT MEAN IT LIKE THAT! like mad, like?? how do i explain?? like maybe frustrated?? thats the best word i can think of right now riwjkrs they're frustrated but theyre not gonna blame it on him. like the good friends and brothers they are they will let it go easily.. UGH do i make sense? anyway. "I’ve let myself go to the wind and the rain that’s falling cooly But my feelings aren’t for decoration" okay so this is the part theyve told themselves that they really need yo accept what has happened. and maybe "my feelings arent for decoration" means that whatever they are feeling and whatever they are going through shouldnt be joked about in social media since its a serious matter and well ive seen some haters and some "new kpop fans" talk shit about this issue and honestly 😤 it makes me want to slap a bitch

Anyway

next song > UNDERCOVER

so the lyrics:

"I’m paddling my feet as busily underneath the surface with a calm expression on my face, You don’t know"

have u seen swans? how they paddle their legs under the water to move but above the water they seem so calm? like ballerinas, how their arms and body are always so graceful but their legs do all the work and stuff ¿¿?? okay im comparing the lyrics to swans and ballerinas because what if the boys are trying to tell us Jonghyun's situation and maybe also their's and other people who is suffering the same way? We don't always know what happens when we turn around. We don't always know when they're hurting. It's actually pretty easy to lie and fake a smile now a days so we always have to be careful with our loved ones. we dont always know what they're dealing with and one wrong move can cause a bomb to explode.

"Before the curtains rise, I’m always busy but when I’m standing before you I’m Acting cool"

Maybe theyre telling us that behind the scenes, theyre also suffering with personal or family issues. like every other person, celebrities have problems that they deal with too. they also have feelings. maybe on stage theyre smiling and having so much fun but backstage, theyre suffering? they cant breathe, they're overworked, theyre tired. sometimes they're forced to do things. Honestly for me, the kpop industry is so pressuring. you have to be this or that and if you cant you get criticized for it.

"I can’t let you know the things that are secretly happening now, now is not the time. I wait for the right moment, so that when you’ve realized it it’s too late."

Obviously most idols worry about their fans. Theyre worried when theyre fans are worried. its like a family thing we idol and fans have for each other yknow and maybe thats why sometimes they cant always speak up about whats really going on inside their mind. They cant always talk about it to the public bc sometimes people are so rude and so insensitive and leave comments like, "youre not depressed! youre just overthinking" bullshit, barbara. "you just need to hang out more" hMMmM :// ANYWAY thats why they dont really speak up alot. sometimes they cant even go to a psychiatrist privately because the media is always watching and once its on display, BOOm haters here and there talking bs and obviously WE wouldnt realize unless its TOO LATE!

"Like a black shadow is absorbed into the night, the night I dig deep beyond the consciousness, inside of you I’m Undercover"

I dont know how to begin with this.. its like once theyve hit rock bottom and they feel like nothing is gonna get better amd everything is just dark and gloomy. Maybe this is like the moving on part?? like the beginning of moving on. the depressive episode. And at first theyre just trying to hide everything. Just being undercover.

WAIT OMG OKAY SO MAYBE UNDERCOVER BEFORE YOU&I

so they got depressed over what happened and theyre trying to hide from everybody that theyre okay but theyre not and theyre just undercover. in you&i thats when they start reminiscing about jonghyun and talking to him. telling him they miss him and that for him, they're ready to accept and let go.

OKOK SO THE NEXT SONGS ARE WHEN THEY START BEING POSITIVE AGAIN !! YES GO SHINEE !! OUR STRONG KINGS !!!

so i dont really know the sequence i mean its already fucked up in the beginning so lets just go with whatever !!!

So in GOODEVENING!

"The cozy darkness is lingering far away"

so the 'darkness' or those gloomy days and toxic vibes theyve been surrounding themselves has been slwoly disappearing. they're starting to feel a little better again. <3

"At the tip of the sunset that hangs on the buildings I think of you"

i cant explain this one and note: i havent slept and its 6am but im still trying to make this work. but i think fjksjfks ok sunsets means like the day is "ending" and like before the day ends, they remember their sufferings while they were depressed and all those sad times with Jonghyun, like those times of grief.. they remember it all before starting a new day ¿¿ I DONT KNOW im trying my best to explain it. Its like theyre finally accepting what has happened and is ready to start a new happy day

"Spill out the darkness

Open the night

I wanna see you more, right now, oh"

So the sunsets and the night has come and theyve already accepted whats happend but they want to see Jonghyun in a different light. They want to see their bestfriend and brother as someone who was happy and made others happy. They want to remember Jonghyun as someone who made his parents and everyone around him proud.

"The moonlight is rising

I’m going to you before it’s too late

I’m going to get you

Imagining how surprised you’ll be, I’m going to you

Going to you

Going to you

Without a reason, going to you"

okay this part is like giving someone a hug before they leave for their flight. Like even when hes gone hes not alone and shinee is not alone. like theyre always together. theyll always be together. "imagining how surprised you will be" nrkanfks im thinkg on how to write thus part wo sounding sarcastic. knowing what jonghyun has been through, he might have thought that he was and always will be alone... but the members are there to guide him in his travel to heaven with their prayers and theyre all hoping to surprise him ¿¿ AAAA im sorry if this sounds sarcastic or offensive i REALLY didnt mean it to be that way >·<

literally,for me anway, the whole song is about how theyll always be there for each other. even when the other is far away, it will never stop them from what they are doing. and thats why i love Shinee so much💓

In jump im not gonna add a lot of lyrics since im getting lazier. (lmao you can see my effort fading from you&i until here)

in Jump the song is about them trying to put their pieces together again. They've been broken and torn apart but they're ready to pick theirselves up again.

"I shake my head, brush it off and adjust my heart

I solidly protect my space again"

no one can recover quickly so i guess in this part, they're trying to take things slow. not too fast or anything or else they might make a wrong move and fall back to square one.

"Keep on enduring it

Just close my eyes when it feels futile for no reason"

in this part, theyre still not that strong enough so theyre telling themselves that they should just endure the pain or sadness. if it feels impossible, just close your eyes, believe and trust in yourself. theyve made it this far, why should they quit now?

"Higher, rise higher, fly

There’s the ground beneath your feet

When I travel between the two

Oh yes I feel the freedom

I jump on you, jump on you"

when they finally overcome the fear and sadness and EVERYTHING! they feel the weight lift from their shoulders and finally they feel freedom. overjoyed, they celebrate by jumping¿¿ i guess?? lmAO

"I’m not falling

I’m not wilting

It’s just changes

I turn different

And keep going forward"

this is when they realize that: nothing is going bad. everything is going just fine and everything is great. maybe they havent fully recovered yet but all those depression and pain is finally gone and theyre happy. They're different now and they realize they can finally keep moving forward without feeling to fall back down again.

"Why is that hard Why did I hesitate for such a long time Following my heart away From other people’s eyes I free the feet that were bound I let my imagination loose after a long time The wind is blowing Now I open my eyes and breathe in"

the first 2 lines is probably them asking themsleves, why didnt we do this earlier? they finally followed what their heart wanted instead of being trapped in their own mind and they finally can breathe again. they feel free and loose. they dont feel the heavy chains hanging on their shoulder anymore !

Now I can open my eyes and breathe in.

this is honestly a HUGE step for them. and im so proud?? ugh..

last song: All Day All Night

"All the moments I met you were highlight I don’t regret it, it’s just beautiful"

Theyre remembering Jonghyun more with their happy memories. How his existence highlighted mostly everything in their past. Jonghyun was such a big part of their lives and even if he was gone, they were still happy that he was able to be part of their lives and they were thankful to be a part of his.

"I start to see the world differently Yeah it’s all for you Time starts to emit a light Yeah it’s all for you Our very painful tears The joy that fills ourh hearts All for you, all for you, all for you"

Theyre doing all these wonderful things all for Jonghyun and maybe also for us too and for themselves. "Time starts to emit light" its pretty self explanatory. theyre beginning to see things in a positive way again !! So all of this, this is all for Jonghyun.

"Leave it alone, hold me and my painful scars All of it is the control"

theyre telling us to maybe accept it and move on too. To move on with them. We're all in this together and everything is in control.

So YAAS thats my theory or whatever you call it for SHINEEs album. I really do think the message hidden behind this album is deep and amazing and VERY important. I'm glad SHINEE is able to see things in a new light. Let's just keep loving and supporting them, okay??! So that's it.

The Story Of Light.

The End.