#this has nothing to do with the current miniseries

[koimethehorizon]

Fionna and Cake theory: Simon the Artist

Nothing like a good old creative panic attack.

Fionna and Cake good. Haven’t been excited about a show like this in a long time, though it being a part of Adventure Time does help quite a bit. I was holding on to some cautious optimism for the show when it was announced as yet another big IP series covering the multiverse (still waiting to groan at THAT scene where Prismo has to explain to us about there being infinite universes), but as usual, Adventure Time’s crew continues to surprise me with its creativity, humor, and thematic resonance.

The most striking part about Fionna and Cake so far is just how deliberately the show wants us to differentiate it from the original Adventure Time.

We’re getting shots where Simon pops an artery from his arm, a theme song that explicitly talks about suicidal ideation, discussions of rent and financial problems, and curses no longer disguised with AT’s usual dialogue. Adventure Time has always had violence, thematic density, and juvenile rating pushers, but they were always reserved at small points. Meanwhile, these are factors that are just casually shown and discussed in Fionna and Cake every 3 minutes or so. This is not an all-ages miniseries, it’s for young adults. (hint: this will be relevant later)

Let’s get right into it. This is much less a speculative lore theory and more on what thematic direction the story may be going.

Before we do, let’s get this out of the way first. This theory assumes that the current Fionna and Cake world is all a part of Simon’s head and not merely a separate multiverse, which… I’m certain is fact for the following reasons.

The immediately obvious piece is that Fionna and Cake was always the Ice King’s fanfiction. Now if you’re versed in AT’s continuity you’re probably going to be asking about the red light in Fionna and Cake + Fionna and… I’ve no answer for it unfortunately. It’ll probably be relevant later in the series and possibly age this post like milk but for now, we’re not here to focus on the how, but the why.

Second is that the intro and the ending of Ep 2 literally show Fionna’s world spilling right out of Simon’s head like an animated world out of a frozen brain. If that isn’t clear enough-

Didn't realize this until writing, but these glasses are just plastic made to look like Betty's

There’s no other explanation for this other than that this world is artificial or influenced by Simon in some sense. Fionna even specifies that the statue went under renovation 12 years ago, but nobody seems to know who it is. Considering how Finn looks in the episode, it’s likely that it’s been that long since Betty’s sacrifice in the finale.

With that out of the way, here it goes.

The reason Fionna and Cake exist in the first place is because the creators found Natasha Allegri’s genderswap designs charming and wanted an in-universe reason to use them the Ice King wanted to create trashy, wish fulfillment through art. It was a phase.

Definitely changed that image for publishing.

Simon can argue if they’re good or bad but it’s undeniably his art. It’s not just a portfolio he left behind in a closet, it’s an experience that was shared with a larger audience.

And even if wasn’t liked at first, the citizens of Ooo seemed to have come around to it. And some of them love it!

Whether Simon likes it or not, he has a fan base that is so endeared to the story he made all those years ago that they demand he makes more. Why let a good story, loved by many, go to rest when you still have some life and creativity left in you?

Can't move on in more ways than one.

Except, the problem is that Simon isn’t Ice King anymore. He’s aged out of it.

His real passion is history, he's an adult who who finds passion in the mundane and antiques from the past. And frankly, there isn’t much room for wish-fulfillment and fantasy anymore. Simon has responsibilities. He has a job and a daughter in a world that is moving faster than he can process.

And where Ice King wrote about looking for love, Simon has already had it.

And lost it. His mind isn’t focused on the rosiness of finding new love, it’s grieving the one he already thought was the one.

Wasn't he supposed to be good with kids?

Despite his new life experiences, all his peers seem to want from him is to make more of what they’re familiar with.

A story made from wants and wishes that he doesn’t even have anymore.

A story that was literally made by someone else at a different time. It’s a fiction he cannot connect to anymore, art that he’s embarrassed by. Yet also jealous of. Because at one point, the body Simon used to be in understood what exactly was missing from his life and could express that easily.

Seeing it again is like experiencing a retrospection of a cringey loser you don’t want to imagine having ever been. It’s not you anymore, and you don’t want to be reminded of that.

Because despite him having a new creative passion, no one seems to care about that. All they want is Fionna and Cake. And what is more lonely than other people misunderstanding what you’re trying to express?

If I failed to make it clear somehow, my theory is that: Simon’s relationship with Fionna and Cake is a metaphor for creators growing out of their art. And this new Fionna and Cake world is still comfort art born out of Simon’s current desires and perceptions.

The snippet subtitles this “child holding a phone”. I guess I’m wrong. Essay over.

Episode 1 and 2 both have direct parallels with each other. They’re both about a protagonist who are feeling displaced from their world, living a phase of losing a significant other, leaving a thankless job, wearing a mask of stability in front of the people they care for, seeking a guru at the heart of the forest, and concluding that they no longer belong in their current world.

But more importantly, Fionna and Cake (the characters, the world, and the show) are no longer for an all-ages crowd. Fionna and Cake now feature young adults, curses, gore, alcohol, partial nudity, financial issues, morning routines, mid-life crisis, and overt suicidal ideation. These are the feelings that Simon relates to and possibly desires to express through art. Thus, his story and our new miniseries have warped that way.

Am I overthinking this? No. How dare you assume that.

Is equating the unconscious writings of his dementia-ridden self to Simon as his younger self seem a bit odd? ….Kinda. Again, it’s not the how but the why that matters in this case. I'm NOT crazy, I have proof that there is some acknowledgment of this directly in the show.

Rewatch the bar scene and apply this reading of the episode to what Simon says there:

“Your old stuff, Fionna and Cake, honest to glob my man, is an inspiration to me.”

“My old stuff, I don’t really want to talk about my old stuff…”

“Why not? You should be proud! You wrote an entire extended universe in a fugue state if you think about it.”

"Simon cringes"

If you have ever shared art with a group of people in the past, you’ve had this conversation.

Not likely, not possibly, no perhapses. You HAVE.

And Fionna and Cake being an epilogue to a massive award-winning, near-decade-spanning, cultural sensation 5 years after it ended, might result in its creators feeling very retrospective about what audiences want from them now.

And how difficult it’s going to be to tell new experiences and tones from what’s come before. Also, come on. “Extended Universe?” That doesn’t sound like Fionna and Cake. That sounds a lot like something else.

Again, seems bad with this kid.

One of the more profound shots in the main trailer for the show features the inconspicuously Finn-like kid crouching at her Fionna and Cake book in Simon’s trash. I believe this character is going to have a major role in two ways. Convincing Simon to be proud of what he’s accomplished and/or embracing that Simon wants to move away from his original work in order to create something new, or perhaps more likely, reinvent Fionna and Cake into what Simon relates to now.

We’ll just have to see what Simon thinks of his new Fionna next week.

PS. Talking as a fan now, WHAT IS UP WITH THE 1000+ TREEHOUSE IN THE INTRO?!!! ARE WE REVISITING THIS TIMELINE AGAIN?

SOMEONE TELL ME NOW!!!

[wanderlust-in-my-soul]

Hi, I'm new to BL.

Have watched kiseki, the Japanese drama with the unlucky student, and now Pit Babe. I'm bored with too innocent dramas and I prefer adult story lines with good chemistry. Do you have some favorites from recent years? Would love to look up some titles.

The hornier the better ���

Uhhh, nice ask! For the answer I made up two categories: the ones with mature storylines and the horny ones. Of course, the two categories overlap in places, but the categorisation was helpful for me for a better horny classification 😅 There are incredibly good series for both groups. And I'm happy to talk about them.

Let's start with the mature ones. And just so you know, this is going to be a very long list 😅

The Mature-List

180 Degree Longitute Passes Through Us

This series had us under its peculiar spell in 2022. I would rate the horny scale at 1/10, the chemistry between the two mains is terrific and the tension cutting, but that's not what this theatrical masterpiece is about. It's about acceptance, grief, guilt and the fact that all of this can either destroy you or make you grow and emerge stronger. Highly recommended.

Ghost Host, Ghost House

The series starts off rather funny and strange and develops over time into a profound story about grief, letting go and healing. It's all somewhat broken up by a love story with incredibly good chemistry and very nice NC scenes. These two can kiss! And yet nothing is easy and grief takes time and only when you have been able to mourn you can heal.

Goodbye, Mother

Nau Van travels back to his home country of Vietnam with his partner. Instead of telling the family that they are a couple, they are caught in the middle of a family drama. The film is very emotional, the characters are well drawn and the story told is touching and well written. If you want to watch something different from the "standard" series, you've definitely come to the right place. Highly recommended, but watch out for triggers such as violence and homophobia.

Happy Ending Romance

I would go out on a limb and say that the gif may be a little misleading here. On a horny scale, the series would be in the lower range. But it's still quite progressive for Korea. The story is very intricate and you have to be careful not to miss anything. An aspiring writer, disappointed and deceived by the publishing world, hides behind his own walls and those built by his partner, a well-known and celebrated author. Until a young publisher sneaks into our writer's life and tries to lure him out of hiding so that the world can experience his genius. Maybe it's the fact that it's about publishing and writing or because I just think the publisher with his fuzzy head and sunshine smile is so cute, but I loved the series!

I Feel You Linger In The Air

Horny? At times, yes. Mature? Definitely. A tragic story set in a past in which homosexuality was frowned upon and the male descendant was expected to take over the business and live his life according to the ideas of the head of the family. And that's where our protagonist Jom, a heartbroken young man from the current century, is thrown in by an accident. He meets Yai, a young man with whom he shares a very special bond. The chemistry between these two is outstanding and the characters are so well written. Such a beautiful series!

Innocent

I must admit, I was a little bit confused when I first started this miniseries. I put it to the side and some time later I started it again. And it finally clicked. It's not an easy series and yet it can give you back your faith in love and trust. Yu Shi has some really bad trauma from his childhood, but chooses to stay witth Wu Zheng and the latter is patient enough for Yu Shi to trust him enough for Noah to accept him in his life.

La Pluie

This series divides opinion. Some find it consistently terrific and well-written and others may have problems with one or two characters. I belong to the latter group, which spoilt the series for me towards the end, but I would still list it here. Because tastes are different and absolutely subjective. You should form your own opinion here. The bottom line is that La Pluie is about soul mates and whether it's something you choose yourself or something that is predetermined. The NC scenes are delicate and appealing and the basic idea behind the series was actually very interesting. It's thought-provoking and packaged in nice pictures.

Life: Love on the line (Director's Cut)

Itou Akira and ishi Yuuki meet on their way to school while walking on the white line. They become friends and fall in love. What follows is a portrayal of their lives as they struggle through high school and college and eventually arrive in adult life. And as in every life, there are obstacles and problems and the older and bigger you get, the bigger the problems become. A film well worth seeing.

Long Time No See

What happens when a contract killer falls in love and the person he's dating isn't necessarily who he claims to be? An excellent film in any case, peppered with a nice story, good NC scenes, great chemistry between the actors, a sister as the best mood enhancer and also very well choreographed violence. In other words, everything you could wish for. And I can't and don't want to say any more, otherwise I could spoil important things and we don't want that.

Moonlight Chicken

EarthMix with a very aesthetic NC scene right in the first episode? Oh yes! But apart from the fact that the two of them really surprised me in this series, Moonlight Chicken simply blew me away with its storytelling, the depth of the individual stories, the well-drawn characters and the emotions that the individual stories evoked in me. The series tells stories about new beginnings, about letting go of the past, about trust, about acceptance, about grief and anger and about finding relationships where you didn't expect to at first and that love can't cure everything, but it can make life a little more bearable.

Old Fashion Cupcake

Old Fashion Cupcakes is a story about adults for adults. It's a comforting series that gives you courage and makes you realise that you're never too old to enjoy life. Besides, the two of them eat the most delicious things and I'm constantly hungry while watching. It is so good to see Nozue open up to Togawa and let the younger one lead him back into life.

Rec

I went into the film without any great expectations. And after the first few minutes, I actually thought that it was just a couple who like to film themselves having s'x. But at some point I was so captivated by the depth of the film. I was really touched at the end and understood why the two of them indulged themselves so excessively and filmed it. I can't put the film on the horny list because it would somehow be out of place there.

The Sign

A current series about two cops who realise that they are connected by past lives. Fate wanted them to fall in love and so they now have to overcome the hurdles that this love entails together. Because in earlier times, this love between Naga and Garuda was forbidden. Yes, there are a few mystical elements built in and they look pretty cool! The two mains have no problems with closeness and the NC scenes are some of the best out there.

Before we move on to the horny list, a few shout-outs for good series, which I didn't want to write about in detail:

Light

Plus and Minus

Manner of Death

Step by Step

Jack o'Frost

My Tooth Your Love

Papa & Daddy

Tokyo in April is...

My Personal Weatherman

The New Employee

To My Star (1+2)

Triage

Our Dating Sim

We are now leaving the mature series and moving on to the horny list (mostly with serious topics).

The Horny-List

Bed Friend

In addition to really good NC scenes, there is a lot of trauma shown. It's not quite my cup of tea, but many others find the series really good. I'll leave my personal opinion out of it and just say that this series is pretty high up on the horny list. However, you should pay attention to the trigger warnings and there are quite a few of them, especially when it comes to SA in every conceivable form.

Cutie Pie

I was pretty hyped about the show until the seventh episode or so. God was I obsessed. After that, the magic that Zee had on me left me a bit. The story really isn't the best, but I think most people didn't necessarily watch the show for the story. The two of them have really good chemistry and that kitchen scene still makes me weak in the knees sometimes. Definitely up there on the horny scale.

Dangerous Dr'gs Of S'x

There is no gif for this. Even if I found it here, I wouldn't insert it. Japan has two sides, either innocent and sweet or hardcore (well not really, but sometimes you can get this image). This one is hardcore. It's not necessarily horny and there's even a pretty heavy story behind it, but this film is riddled with s'x… Not necessarily consensual, at the beginning definitely not consensual. If you're over 18 and can take it, check it out. The film is not bad at all. It's just a bit different…

KinnPorsche

Praised by many, but viewed by me with a somewhat more critical eye, I would still recommend the series if you don't have a problem with dub-con or torture or violence in general. The mafia story is softened somewhat by the love scenes and the slapstick humour is not for everyone. It's a lot about daddy issues and whether you like the characters or not is something you have to decide for yourself.

Love In The Air

I have my issues with the show, but the more I watch and the more I try not to be quite so critical of toxic and destructive phatasies, the more these issues leave me unconcerned. Will I ever watch the series again? Nope. Can I understand why so many people love this show? Of course I do. That's why I don't want to withhold it from you here. LITA has a total of two stories to tell about two friends and their love life. The second story is definitely not an easy watch. There is trauma and SA and some stalking shit and it really can hit you. But for both parts, the NC scenes are, hands down, some of the best ever.

The End Of The World With You | Love At The End Of The World | Till The World Ends

We would have a Japanese doomsday scenario, a Filipino one and a Thai one. I'll summarise it under one point. All three are very explicit in their depiction of intimacy. All three are somewhat confusing story-wise. I had fun watching all three. In contrast to Love at the end of the world, The end of the world with you and Till the world ends are definitely still quite restrained.

Only Friends

The GmmTV actors have taken over and caused a huge mess. A group of friends want to open a hostel as a college project. Whilst in the series this somehow slips into the background at some point and really only served as a location for flings and water adventures, people get to know and love each other and some fall back on old friends to make new loves jealous. Somehow everyone was trying to hurt someone else at one point. I have found a new icon thanks to this series and have cheered for Boston and Boeing in their many endeavours. If I had to say one sentence about the show it would be that it's pure chaos, but damn Boston and Nick... hot.

Playboyy

Okay. I know the majority don't like this series, but I think it's terrific. I'm always amazed at how artistic the episodes are. How each couple has their own special setting, so you know who's about to appear. Yes, there is a lot of s'x, not necessarily horny s'x. It's often used for storytelling or as a catalyst for what happens next. And Prom and Nont are my little favourites. I find Prom only half as attractive without glasses, unless he swaps glasses for a blindfold… Still, on a horny scale it is up there.

Pornographer aka The Novelist

A student runs over a writer on his bike, breaking the writer's arm. As compensation (and because he can't pay damages), the student agrees to write down the writer's story he was working on. It is pornographic literature and while the writer dictates to the student, a kind of relationship develops between the two. This is not a romantic relationship in the classic sense, it's not about a cautious approach and getting to know each other, but about the psychology of lust and manipulation, about loneliness and the desire for more. It's pretty deep shit and I can only recommend it. But always with the warning that it's not going to be an easy watch.

Sweet Curse

Here's a short film for a change. I love short films! And Sweet Curse is one of them. Min-woo is jealous of one of his closest friends Ha-joon and wants to curse him. Too bad when the haunting spirit falls in love with the handsome and kind-hearted Ha-joon. When Korea has the freedom, they go all out. There are some short films that you wouldn't have expected from South Korea. And this here it's quite high up on the horny scale.

Wedding Plan

God, I love this series. No matter what anyone says, it was so good to watch these two fall in love and slowly let their walls down until the clothes followed. A very amusing series in which both mains know what they want and, above all, that they want each other, even if the planned wedding of one of them got in the way a little beforehand.

Why R U

The series may lack a bit of story, but if you want it horny, the Fighter x Tutor storyline is definitely for you. You have to hand it to Zee, the man can kiss. It's not the most adult series, set in college, but the topics are sometimes a bit heavier and the NC scenes are definitely worth watching.

I hope I haven't bored you and that there's something suitable for you in this small selection 😊 It was so fun making this list! Thank you again for this ask!

[https-florals]

i know what you tell your friends - r.c.

part one || part two

word count: 4.6k

summary: you’re losing your rules and all your resolve.

warnings: suggestive, angsty?? fanon rafe, protective rafe, misogyny, catcalling, kelce and topper being rude and nasty, drunk rafe, showering together but not in a sexy way, cursing, rafe yelling at you, rafe being a swiftie for fun, shitload of toxicity

a/n: I GOT VERY CARRIED AWAY ITS SO LONG!! hopefully y’all like this even tho there is no kissing or sexy times 😳 im v proud of this little miniseries!!!! pt3 will hopefully be in the works soon! read on beautiful people!

Rafe has never been good at following rules. It’s just not his thing. Parts of him simply forget restrictions, his mind deciding what it wants and his body following. Other times, he looks at a rule like a dare: he breaks them out of pure spite.

He can’t tell which reason is making him push the limits with you. 

It’s a pretty Saturday night at the country club, Rafe and his friends all crowded at a table in the corner of the club restaurant. He’s hoping that you’re not working and simultaneously praying you are.

Much to his chagrin (enjoyment?) you’re the first to bounce over to his table, pulling out your notepad and pen before you look up at the customers.

Rafe is painfully aware of the way your breathing hitches, your smile not quite reaching your eyes when you realize who is seated at your table. 

“How are y’all? What can I get started for ya?” You’re the damn picture of a perfect waitress, short black skirt stretched over your thighs and white polo purposefully unbuttoned. Rafe is thinking that there’s definitely a porno about something like this when Topper nudges him.

 “Bro? Your drink?”

“Whiskey. Whiskey sour, please,” he says, getting a side-eye from a buddy at how strained his voice is and how he deigned to even say please. 

The only thing he can think about is how pretty you would look with that skirt pushed up about your hips. 

“Dude? The fuck is wrong with you?” Kelce hits Rafe across the chest as you walk away, snapping him out of his stupor.

He blinks hard and shakes his head, like he’s trying to shake rain out of his face. “Nothing, man. I’m just tired.” Lying is currently Rafe’s number one hobby, apparently. First to your face about a multitude of things, now to his best friends. He doesn’t like to think of himself as a dishonest person- the principle of integrity has been drilled into him since he was a kid, and even though he’s managed to shake off a lot of guilt, something about lying to the people he loves grates on his conscience. 

Not that he loves you, or anything. 

When you come back with their drinks, Rafe tries his hardest to ignore the way his friend’s eyes rake over you. 

You’re so bubbly and customer-service-y as you pass out drinks, smile bright when Topper thanks you for his old-fashioned. A slight twinge of jealousy hits Rafe, and he wishes you’d smile at him like that.

The second you walk away, Topper makes some offhand comment about how he couldn’t help but look straight down your shirt when you gave him his drink, and Rafe bites back a comment about how Topper wasn’t worthy of that smile you gave him. He focuses on picking out what he wants to eat.

Rafe drifts in and out of the conversation with his boys, but mostly watches you as you go from table to table. You’re back for their food order, and it’s almost like you’re avoiding making eye contact with him. 

Topper is leering at you, Kelce is being rude to you, they’re all being dickheads, but who is the one person you aren’t even looking at? Rafe.

As you leave, Kelce grins. “She’s fine as hell, Top. You see the way she looked at you?”

The boy’s cheeks tint pink as he takes a sip of his drink. “Practically begging for it,” he chuckles.

Rafe is silent as Kelce howls for no damn reason, slapping the table as a joke that just isn’t funny.

“Man, this is your opportunity,” Kelce chirps as you walk from table to table. “Ask her if she’s doing anything after her shift!”

Topper throws his hands up, attempting to act bashful but the bold smile on his face betrays it. “What am I supposed to say, dude?” He shifts his tone, making it nauseatingly breathy and smooth. “C’mon, babe, let me give it to you right,” Topper practically moans in her direction, sending Kelce into another howling fit.

“Shut the fuck up,” Rafe groans, slouching in his chair and downing the rest of his sour. His friends are insufferable, he knows that. He’s never really cared before, in fact he himself often goes along with their lewd jokes- flirting with club staff, making gestures behind their backs. Why it’s just now grating on him so hard, he doesn’t know.

If the boys hear him, they don’t act like it. They’ve moved onto horrific pickup lines.

“If I flip a coin, what are my chances of getting ahead?”

“Roses are red, violets are fine, you be the six, I’ll be the nine!”

Rafe sighs, wishing he had at least two more drinks sitting in front of him. “Can you not? You’re acting like douchebags.” His words are coated with annoyance. He sounds like a mother chiding her boys.

“Who pissed in your cereal, man?” Topper scoffs. “We’re just messing around. You’ve been so tight lately, bro. You usually eat this kinda bullshit up.”

It’s true, but it makes him cringe. He’s been guilty of the very thing he’s angry at them about, and it’s probably the reason you think he’s a shit person. 

Kelce laughs. “You’re just mad she ain’t looking at you, dickwad.”

They’ve finally shut up by the time you come back with their food, much to Rafe’s relief. 

His hand just barely brushes yours when you hand him his plate, and you jolt so hard that the club sandwich almost slides off. There’s a flash in your eyes like you’re hoping he doesn’t notice, but of course he does. 

He notices everything about you. 

He also notices the way your skirt shifts up as you move, and Rafe resists the urge to reach out and tug it down. 

You clear your throat as you set everything else down, wiping your hands on the front of your skirt, pushing it down a little.

Thank God.

“Okay, gentlemen! Anything else we need?” You smile, and Rafe thinks that he needs you to kiss him like, right this second, but he bites his tongue and shakes his head.

You’re just about to turn away when Kelce clears his throat, saying, “One more thing I need to know, miss!”

It’s like he’s talking in slow motion. Every part of Rafe is filled with an inexplicable dread as he begins to speak.

“Job policy make you wear this?”

You pause, a little perplexed frown on your face. “No, I just wear an Island Club polo for fun.”

Kelce grins, and runs his hand down your arm, not faltering at your tone and not even when you jerk away. “Strictly that? Nothing else?”

You’re preparing for some lewd joke about whether or not your wearing panties.

“You need some more… accessories.” He grins, innocent when he looks up at you. “I’ve got one that would look great in your mouth.”

Rafe’s vision goes a little red when your jaw drops open. He stands up quick and slams his palms on the table. “Get the fuck out, man.”

“Has that ever worked for you?” you blurt incredously as Rafe moves around you. His hand tucks on your waist as he slides you away from Kelce, but you pretend not to notice.

Kelce gasps when Rafe grabs him by the sleeve to pull him out of the restaurant. 

“Dude! Chill out!” Topper protests.

The look on Rafe’s face scares you a little when he whips around to look at Topper, snapping, “You wanna quit acting like a douchebag, or do you want me to haul your sorry ass outta here too?”

Topper flushes and sits. 

“Don’t ever let me catch you talking like that to any of these girls here, alright?” Rafe is seething as he pushes Kelce into the club bathrooms. The other boy’s jaw is dropped open, nodding his head. 

Rafe knows he can be scary. Right now, he uses that to his advantage, hand fisted in the collar of Kelce’s shirt as he towers over him. 

Kelce is trying to break free, but Rafe refuses to budge. “You are gonna go back out there and say you’re sorry, and then leave her the biggest tip she’s ever seen. Got it?” 

The shorter boy nods fervently when Rafe lets go of him, and practically sprints back to find you.

Rafe steps out of the bathroom, leaning up against the wall as he watches Kelce find you and apologize. Your eyes are wide while he’s talking to you, and you give him a timid smile right before he walks away.

Rafe hates him. He hates the way he spoke to you, and hates the way you don’t punch him in the dick. If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself, he thinks.

When you walk away from Kelce, Rafe follows you before even really thinking about it.

You’re finally within reach and he grabs your wrist, spinning you to face him.

Yanking your arm away from him, you hiss, “What are you doing?” The stilted customer-service kindness is gone.

“I’m sorry my friends are assholes,” he whispers, taking a step back from you, his hands up like he’s begging you not to shoot.

Your shoulders sag. “It’s not your fault, Rafe. You don’t have to apologize.”

“No, I do,” he says, voice thin. “I acted like that, before, and now they think it’s cool to be dicks.”

“Before?”

Before you, he thinks, but doesn’t say. 

“I try not to be like that anymore,” Rafe says instead. He holds his hand out like a peace offering, and you accept it, your palm sliding against his in an awkward shake.

“Friends?” He asks, soft and questioning.

“I wouldn’t go that far,” you joke, not quite catching the way Rafe frowns. “I gotta go. Text me later, okay?”

He promises he will, then he’s moping back to his table, where he slaps down two fifties and makes Kelce add two more to the pile. The boys are gone before you can even offer a check.

You get off late, heading back to the Chateau drained. You pass on a game of poker with your friends for a shower, receiving a boo from John B and several rude names from JJ.

After a good half-hour shower and coating your body in lotion, you’re feeling up for cards, and settle at the table with a glass of apple juice.

“Ooh, now that is hard liquor,” Sarah comments, teasing as she deals you in.

“I don’t feel like drinking tonight. Y’know, in case I have to drive anywhere.”

“Where would you be driving?” Pope asks, and you shrug in return, even though you know exactly where.

“She’s gotta see her little kook boyfriend,” JJ says, but there’s a bite to his words.

“Not my boyfriend,” you state, hands up.

Kiara makes a face, but you don’t miss it.

“Guys. We are strictly just fucking.”

“Ew! I don’t wanna hear about that shit!” JJ shouts, and the rest of the table makes disgusted noises.

You look at him with an incredulous expression. “Can a girl not get laid anymore without everyone having to give a damn opinion? We are just messing around!”

“It’s not like he’s the absolute worst,” Sarah ventures, her hand sneaking over yours.

John B frowns at her while JJ chimes in, saying. “Sarah. I know he’s your brother, but he is actually the worst.”

“He’s getting better!’ She defends, voice high.

Almost like he knows he’s the subject of your conversation, Rafe’s caller ID pops up on your phone. You motion for everyone to be quiet, and answer it. Your volume is up and for once the Pogues are so quiet that they can hear the other line without you even putting it on speaker.

Rafe croons your name over the phone, one, two, three times before you can say anything.

“Rafe?”

“Hey, baby!” There’s a crackle and the sound of fabric shuffling against the speaker. “Shit. I’m not supposed to call you that.”

“What are you doing?” you ask, though it's more of a scold than a question.

“I need your help,” he says, and you can hear music in the background. “Top was supposed to  be my DD, and I can’t find him.”

“Are you drunk? How many shots  have you had?”

Rafe doesn’t answer you, but keeps rambling. “Sarah didn’t answer any of my texts, and I don’t know who else to call.”

Sarah’s eyebrows knit together and she checks her phone, turning it so you can see that she has no notifications from her brother.

“Come pick me up? Please?”

There’s a moment of silence on your end, and Rafe repeats, “Pretty please.”

He says your name again, so soft it makes your heart ache. “I need you.” 

You sigh and stand up, JJ throwing his hands up in exasperation, but having the courtesy to remain silent. “I’ll be there soon, okay? Send me the bar and for the love of God, don’t drink anymore!”

“You’re the best,” Rafe answers, and doesn’t hang up, so you have to hit the button.

You’re rushing out the door, ignoring your friend’s remarks and jabs.

“I”m not letting you in when you get back here at the asscrack of dawn,” John B warns as you grab your keys.

You ignore him and race out to your car. When you get to the bar, Rafe is sitting outside on the steps, head between his hands. 

You park illegally in front of the entrance, ignoring the loud honk from a car. Rafe’s face lights up when he sees you hop out of your car, and starts to stumble toward you. He trips when he’s just a few feet away from you, and you stick your arms out to stop his fall. It doesn’t quite work, and the breath is knocked out of you when your back hits the metal of your car door.

Rafe jerks back, eyes wide. “Are you okay?” He’s inspecting you like you’re an apple in a grocery aisle- spinning you around, checking for bruises.

You nod, and make an odd little squawking noise when he hugs you tight and effectively takes your breath away a second time.

“I missed you,” he exhales into your hair, and you realize just how drunk he is.

You pull away, squinting up at the redness in his face. “How many drinks did you have?”

He shrugs and grins, eyes stuck on your lips, unashamed. “Too many.”

Blowing out a breath, you open the car door and help him in. “I can tell. Arms in, bud.”

There is too much sweetness in your tone, but you realize it a little too late, and can’t find it within yourself to even care.

When you slide into the driver’s seat, he slumps over the center console, head nestled on your shoulder and his hand slipping to your knee.

Spotify is shuffling all of your favorite Taylor Swift songs, and you notice about halfway through the drive that Rafe is quietly singing along. 

His fingers idly play with the frayed hem of your sweatshorts, humming, “if I showed up to your party, would you have me, would you want me…” It’s a little slurred, but he hits every note right.

“Didn’t know you were a swiftie,” you joke, pressing your cheek to the top of his head.

He shakes his head, but laughs all the same. “I let Sarah have aux whenever I gotta drive her places. She really likes the album that’s like, blue, and it’s got all those songs about Harry Styles on it.”

“1989?” 

He nods. “She loves that one. Good album.”

“You’re so right.”

There’s a beat of silence, and then Rafe is saying your name, whispering it like it’s a taboo word.

“I’m sorry my friends were such assholes earlier.”

“You already apologized. It’s alright, I’ve heard worse.” His face after you say that makes him look like he’s in physical pain. “Seriously, Rafe. Kelce’s question was maybe the most PG thing I heard today. Teenage boys say some wild shit to waitresses.”

He frowns. “I’ll beat those little motherfuckers up. Gimme a list, I’ll rock their shit.”

You tell him no, but you’re laughing. “I don’t need you to protect me, Rafe.”

He shrugs, acting like the phrase just rolls off his shoulders. “I don’t give a shit about what you think you do or don’t need,” he says, too nonchalant.

“Excuse me?” You swerve a little as you whip your head towards him.

Rafe sighs, stretching out in the passenger. The muscles of his thigh tense as he moves, fully on display with his little 5-inch inseam shorts. 

“I’m not repeating it, baby.”

Your chest tightens, breath a little shallow as you keep your eyes on the road. His hands are red hot on your thigh, like his fingerprints are burning into your thigh. You need to push his hand off before he can lay claim on you like that, but you don’t move, his fingers pressing and sliding and flaming. 

“Sarah told me you had a date the other day.” His voice has a little bit of venom. 

“I did,” you confirm, giving him a side-eye.

His profile looks like stone as he stares out the window, streetlights reflecting on his skin. “Why? Who was he?”

“You don’t know him, Rafe,” you sigh. “He’s from the cut. Works with JJ.”

His tongue pokes into his cheek as he laughs. “You and these Pogie assholes. You ever gonna try something different?”

“I have some range. Not just pogues. You’re a Kook asshole, and we get along just great.”

Rafe’s brows narrow. “Get along? You just want to fuck me, that’s why we get along.”

“You’re so right. Good job!” You try to joke.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

You jump and swerve at the sudden change in his voice. You’ve heard him yell before, but it’s never been directed at you. “Why are you yelling?” you shout back. You don’t know why your eyes are burning.

“I”m yelling cause you’re a fucking idiot,” he groans, but his hand is still painfully hot on your thigh.

You scoff and push it off. “Shut up, Rafe.”

His jaw tenses and shudders a little. “They’re so shit to you,” he practically cries. “And I’m here. I would be so good to you. Better than any of these dickheads.”

You rub your eyes, telling yourself it's because you're tired and not because you're about to cry. “Why are they dickheads? I think you’re an dickhead.”

“Don’t say that,” he whines.

“What makes them worse than you, Rafe?” you huff.

“Cause they don’t love you like you need to be loved.” He’s looking everywhere but you, and you’re thinking about pulling over because your heart is beating so fast you feel like you might die. Then his eyes finally shift to yours, piercingly blue. They remind you of the waves that break overhead when your surfboard pulls you down under the water.

His fingers are tracking back to your thigh, and you do your best to keep your damn eyes on the road and drive, no matter how hard he’s staring at you. 

“Like I could love you.”

Your knuckles are white on the steering wheel. There’s no words stuck in your throat because you can’t think of any; you’re panicky and you can’t breathe.

His face turns to the window and he begins to hum to the radio. Nothing else is said.

Rafe is still humming when you help him out of the car, his arm slung around your shoulders.

“Thank you for coming and getting me,” he says, breaking the heavy silence when you reach the door.

You stare at him like he’s an alien. He never says thank you. You're still reeling from the car conversation, but you clear your throat and pat his shoulder, like you’re just two buds. “You good from here?”

“No.” He says it so quickly, bottom lip poking out like a little kid. “I need you.”

I don’t give a shit about what you think you need. The thought twinges in your brain, and you stop yourself from saying that you don’t think you need to stay.

“You can at least make sure I don’t like, drown in the bathtub. And get in bed.” He smiles that heartbreaker grin. 

You can’t tell if he’s sober or drunk, or what. You sigh, and push past him, dragging the tall boy in tow. “Fine. No funny business.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He gives you a little salute, and stumbles along with you. 

It’s so hard getting Rafe upstairs that you give up on being quiet, and settle for praying that none of the Camerons wake up and catch the two of you. When you finally get to his room, you push him into the bathroom. 

“You reek,” you sigh, shutting the door as quietly as you can. 

“Rude,” he responds, peeling off his shirt.

You try not to watch him shuffle out of his clothes as you turn on the water, running your fingers under the stream and checking the temperature. When it’s warm enough, you turn back to Rafe, doing everything but staring as he stands shamelessly naked in front of you. 

“I- your- The water’s hot.”

He laughs and shuffles past you. “Don’t act like you’ve never seen me naked.”

Your cheeks heat, but you blame it on the rising humidity in the bathroom. After making sure he’s alright, you slip out. 

You pace Rafe’s room, messing with the few trinkets on his desk and marveling at the cleanliness. He has a little oyster shell dish with a little painting of UNC, and a couple of rings lay in it. You’re trying on his signet ring when you hear a thud. 

“Rafe?” you whisper-yell. There’s just the sound of running water. You rush into the bathroom, flicking on the fan to clear a little of the steam. Against your better judgment, you slide open the shower door. Rafe is slumped against the tile wall, eyes shut, mouth open. Dead asleep. You step in, water drenching your clothes as you smack his cheeks, trying to wake him up. “Rafe, when you said I needed to make sure you didn’t drown in the bathtub, I didn’t think you meant literally,” you mutter as you try to push him up and out of the water stream.

His eyes blink open, then roll back, then close again. 

“Rafe! Come on, baby,” you mutter, and smack him again.

His eyes fly open and you jolt back as his lips curve into a grin. “You called me baby.”

You frown. “Did not,” you lie.

“I love when you lie. You’re bad at it.”

Self-righteous asshole, you think. “Sit down,” you instruct him, pointing to the built-in shower bench. He sits, and you squirt some of his shampoo into your palm. You’re pleasantly surprised that it’s not 3-in-1. It even smells good. Standing between his legs, you push the shampoo through his hair, raking your fingernails over his scalp and giggling at all the little moans he lets out. 

Your clothes are soaked, uncomfortably so. Your tee clings to you, and Rafe’s hands fiddle with the hem of it. 

“Why are your clothes on?” He asks, tone genuine.

“Because you’re drunk,” you answer, “and I wanted to keep them on.”

He nods, and you rinse the suds out of his hair. The casual intimacy of the moment hits you hard when Rafe rests his head on your chest. It’s so soft and sweet and so out of the ordinary for the two of you that it’s nearly blindsiding. 

You get him cleaned up, and then track water all over the tiles when you grab towels. He wraps it around his hips, and you shiver as you pull it around your shoulders.

If the shower sobered him up at all, it’s not evident in his attitude towards you, but he is walking a little straighter. Rafe pulls a tshirt out of his drawer, and two pairs of boxers. One pair is for him, and he slides into bed, watching you expectantly.

You stare back at him. “What?”

“Shirt and boxers are for you. You can’t sleep in soaking wet clothes.” 

“Close your eyes.” 

Shockingly, he does, throwing a hand over his eyes without further questioning. 

You strip and don the outfit. The boxers are soft, and there’s a few holes in the collar of the shirt. It’s worn, with a faded Rolling Stones emblem. “I never see you wear this,” you say, and his eyes open, lips pressing together as a smile just flickers over his face. 

“Cause I don’t. It looks good on you.” Rafe’s cheeks are a little pink, and he’s looking at you with pure adoration.

You turn to hide the shakiness of your hands, and sit on the bed to pull on your Tevas before grabbing your keys. “You all good? I gotta head back to the Chateau.”

“No, I’m not good,” Rafe answers with a groan. “You should stay.”

You stare at him, taken aback. “No, I should not. I really need to go back.”

“Why?”

You shrug. A good reason is not floating through your brain at the moment, or at least one that’s real. You could say they need you back for… something. It’s a lie. You could say you have to help JJ with something. Also a lie, plus it would make Rafe mad, you think. Not to mention the fact that you aren’t sure if you and JJ are still on speaking terms after the way he glared at you when you left.

You could always say you don’t want to stay. But damn, that’d be the biggest lie of all.

“I just need to. Rules, remember?” you remind him as an afterthought. 

He sighs, loud and overdramatic. “Rules, schmoolze. Just stay.”

When you fiddle with the strap of your sandals, deciding whether or not to take them off, he reaches for your wrist, fingers hooking on your bracelets.

“I’ll be good,” he whispers. “Promise.”

Well, shit. How can you say no to that?  

Within seconds your shoes are off, keys tossed somewhere, and you’re crawling into bed with him. You’re rigid at first when he slides his arms around your waist and pulls you a little closer.

“Relax. Quit acting like I’ve never touched you before.”

“You haven’t like this,” you answer, voice strained.

“Don’t worry. Cuddling up won’t make you fall in love with me,” he huffs, and your leg hooks over him as your head tucks against his chest.

He’s wrong, you think. He’s wrong, and you need to go home. Right now.

But then his hand is on your back, and he’s humming another damn Taylor Swift song, and his thumb is circling your shoulder blade so, so slow.

You’re too far gone to leave now. 

“Comfy?” He stops humming to ask.

You nod, just a little bit, trying to find a place for your gaze to rest. Your options are endless- his eyes, his mouth, his chest- but none of them seem safe. You settle for a freckle on his cheekbone. “What about you?” you ask in return.

“Never been better.”

He’s comfortable in the silence, and you most definitely are not. It’s foreign, being in his bed with your clothes on and a part of him not inside you. You’re not sure how to act about it.

Rafe clearly does, either that or he’s winging it. His hands are soft and soothing all over you, willing you to loosen up. He unwinds the coil in your shoulders, the tightness in the small of your back.

As your eyes start to drift shut, you feel his lips against your forehead.

“Goodnight, honey.”

“Goodnight,” you repeat.

Your stupid little list of rules is doing nothing.

likes, comments, and reblogs are always appreciated!!!! thank you for reading!

[breathingxspace]

Well. This is it. Series finale day.

This show has been a joy to make, and I'm sitting here trying to figure out what I'm supposed to say in wrapping it up.

In thinking about it, I realized that I could go through & yell about every single individual involved with something specific to them, their performances, or their work. And that's a really good feeling-- knowing that regardless as to how large this crew has gotten (and holy shit is it big,) everyone is still stand out, unique, & beautifully talented.

I'm glad to honor that.

I'm not going to do it. But I could. And I think that's cool.

I've discovered I generally have nothing to say at the actual end of a show. I do my yelling as we go. I'm too excitable to wait, and you all do such stellar work, how can I NOT yell when listening?

So. What I'm going to do instead is share some stats.

Because they're frankly really fucking impressive, and y'all should see just how /much/ you've made.

The very first content for BSFF aired on March 13, 2021.

Our very last ep will air Oct 18, 2024.

In that time, we worked with 134 individual cast/crewmembers, including 20 writers, 10 editors, & well over 100 VAs.

We had cast/crew on 5 continents across 9 time zones

There have been a total of 78 individual releases, including episodes, miniseries, & bonus content with a combined runtime of

3,141 minutes

that is- 52 hours, or 2.2 /days/ of continuous Breathing Space material.

So, uh. This has been quite the undertaking.

So many thank yous to everyone who has contributed to the show, and also to everyone who listened.

I hope we've brought you at least a few emotions during the course of our run. God knows we've felt them ourselves.

PS-

While this is the end of BSFF in its current incarnation, there's no way we're leaving The System entirely behind.

Keep an eye on our social media for what comes next.

–ash

[artbyblastweave]

So comic question - my Big 2-reading friend has been raving about the new Ultimates series, and also sworn up and down that it's actually easy to follow and you in no way need to read six different ongoing series in the correct order to understand what's going on or jump in halfway through a totally unrelated one for ten issues to get vital context.

Is he full of shit, or is it actually comprehensible and worth reading if my comics knowledge mostly boils down to pop culture osmosis and reading some posts?

He's kind of full of shit but also not. They did one four-issue miniseries called Ultimate Invasion- quite good in it's own right- that lays the groundwork/status quo/Big Ticking Two Year Countdown Clock Until All Hell Breaks Loose for the handful of ongoing series that launched afterwards. The fact that it's been largely easy to follow thus far is largely a function of it's currently limited scope- Only four largely separate ongoings (the two of which I've read are quite legible independent of the other ones) set in different parts of the world with very limited overlap, alongside a couple oneshots released as milestones. You can blow through the entire continuity in an afternoon. The Original Ultimate Marvel was, at it's inception, easy to follow for basically the same reason. This has the potential to metastasize in the same way that that did. They also might successfully tie a bow on it as a completed limited scope project. Time will tell. The other thing is that the Hickman and Camp's metatextual project is to create an imprint where the setting is so aggressively plugged into meta continuity porn bullshit that it would serve as a poison-pill to any attempted MCU adaption effort- In contrast to how the original Ultimate Universe was kind of visibily packaging itself for eventual adaptation to film, they wanted to do a story that can be a comic book and nothing else because of how much it's about comic books. A major theme thus far has been characters coming to terms with the lives they were supposed to lead, for better or for worse, and half of what's clever about this thing is banking on your ability to contextualize where the bit players are in life in this story versus where they wound up in other continuities. I also interpret the entire project as sort of a love letter to the phenomenon of trying to create revised, tightened reboots of long-running continuities that spiral out of control in their own right- the entire joke is that one of the two characters kept around by real-life editorial after the last, kinda-poorly-received attempt at a reboot universe like this is trying to make his own timeline with blackjack and hookers, only for it to spiral out of control in turn. (We Are Never Getting Out Of Here)

All in all, I've mentioned in other posts on this project that I've kind of lost the objectivity necessary to know whether this is at all good, legible or enjoyable if you aren't plugged into the big-two comic-book torment nexus. This shit is my Feldspar and Quartz. If you want to roll the dice, the reading order is Ultimate Invasion, Ultimate Universe, and then as far as I know Ultimate Spider-Man, The Ultimates, Ultimate Black Panther and Ultimate X-Men can be read in any order. The fact that I had to give you a reading order probably on some level answers your original question, though

[enriquemzn262]

What's an anime/OVA that you would recommend that is really good, and doesn't really feel like watching a typical anime - and maybe it's for that reason it is good?

Currently it has to be dead Dead Demons Dededede Destruction.

Doesn’t glorify high school, doesn’t treat its girls as impeccable dolls only meant to be ogled at, it set in a world where from the start you are told at some point everything will go to shit and tons of people will die, and while the plots of each episode seem mundane, the previous point and this aura of mystery around everything always keeps you on your toes.

Oh, and while it’s built around the trope of “cute girls doing cute things”, it doesn’t do the usual thing those shows do of pretending men doesn’t exist, as while none are main characters, they do have weight in the plot.

There’s also Netflix’s Pluto, an adventure mystery miniseries about robots, what it means to be human, and how Bush almost brought upon the Matrix by invading Iran.

It’s based on a manga of the same name, and honestly, my only complaint about it is how it does everything in its power to not give any form of meaningful role to any female character outside the one little robot girl, but besides that, it’s a truly fantastic story!

And finally, my old beloved Land of the Lustrous

CGI done right, extremely dynamic angles that put Pixar to shame, great characters, a completely unique setting, superb music, great SFX, and above all, the weirdest, most intriguing, most fucked up story you’ll get to experience, following Phos, who did nothing wrong, in their quest to find change in a world without it, and the consequences that brings for everyone.

I rewatch this one constantly, it’s just so good, the manga is fantastic too, but my heart of hearts can’t deal with the later part anymore, so I haven’t touched it in a while.

[jolapeno]

memories are fresh

cod soap mactavish x f!reader (callsign: squid)

thank you to voldie asking for happy angst — apparently the genre of what I write hahaha (voldie because they asked to not be named) warnings: angst. brief past mention of bickering. tense situations, with emotional convo. fluff. squid/mar is the nickname (from the miniseries) ends happy, promise. wordcount: 1.4k

soap masterlist

It’s quiet. Silent.

Has been for several minutes, which have ticked past on your watch. Not that you move—nor him. Not even as the long grass stems tickle your wrists and the weeds groan around the two of you.

The rain still patters against the leaves above, the branches swinging in the wind—the downpour smothering any oncoming footsteps, even in the bogginess of the countryside.

He’s breathing heavily next to you, catching his breath. His eyes focused elsewhere, as though he can’t bear to look your way, something you know isn't true, but just your mind playing tricks on you.

The remnants of the earlier bickering, still living and pulsing between the two of you. Or, at least, it is for you.

It had begun petty, but they always did. The two of you never really argued, just light bickering. Just this time, with the truth unwilling to be spoken, it had gotten close to personal before you both stopped it. Throwing apologies like blankets, hoping it would snuff out the smoke.

Jealousy had been an ingredient, a factor. Another had been a need to protect. Memories were the spices, still fresh—that former longing still clinging to bones, even if it’s him you choose, over and over.

None of that matters when a poor choice of words is made, when they fall from lips carelessly and greet ears cruelly.

Hear y'asked Price to go with LT. I enquired— Y'not fancy me goin' wit yer, hen? We told Price we wouldn't let this get in the way. And I'm not. Let it go, Soap. Aye, seems it. It’s not that I refuse to be partnered with you. I'm just choosing not to be. That so, Mar? I... I didn't mean—

The moment the words kissed the air, it changed things. You felt it, snapping your head in his direction to watch how he stilled his expression. Tried to keep all the pieces stationary. The words still shifted in the air, like your lips were poison, you watched the air turn black, rotting and eroding all the previous smiles or laughter.

Soap knew you were his, like you knew he was yours. It is all a fact, not a myth.

If anything, it was obvious it had been that way for longer than you both felt the need to acknowledge. Your sleeping pattern revolves around him, your calmness determined by his current location and physicality.

Yet, sometimes, memories from when you were friends needled past the bubble the two of you had formed. The one which grew with I need you’s and solidified with future plans. It wasn’t impenetrable, but close.

That’s how it got in. The jealousy. It slithered through the gaps which were still left. It lit the match, which illuminated the gas and the fire spread before the two of you landed in the European countryside. It engulfed and choked the air as you travelled closer to the place marked X by Price. It only silenced, stemmed under the quick apologies and I love yous, but then a new sound alerted you both to worry.

A bullet, one which whirred past your ear. You're thrown back, landing in mud, his weight on top of yours—for reasons different than a day ago.

Then it was shouting, both from the two of you, and some from them. It was bullets and boots meeting mud, it was legs sliding down banks, and his hand trying to find yours.

Now, it was silent for other reasons.

The rocks and trees doing well to hide the two of you, an explanation for the catalyst of the childish bickering sitting on your tongue. Evidenced by today—words which wouldn’t be said with bitterness, but rather with hope for real respite.

It’s been fifteen minutes of silence. No shouts in foreign languages, no bullets—nothing but the rain. It’s why you shuffle, boot almost sliding down the grassy hill—his hand grasping your upper arm without so much as looking.

It’s then you decide to let honesty out, rather than keeping it caged. Decided to abandon stubbornness, and let him in—a thing you grow close to being used to, until you find yourself stepping back into old patterns.

“Johnny…”

He hums, still looking, listening—ever the protector.

“I don’t wanna be with you out here because I can’t think straight,” you whisper.

The confession bursts the tension. Watching it fall like glitter and paper, flecks of it in his eyes when he turns his face to you.

Streaks of mud across his cheek, hair all at odd angles—beads of rain and sweat muddled together on his brow and nose.

Even covered in the earth, you weren’t sure you’d ever seen someone more handsome.

You offer a smile. “It’s one thing to hear that the person you love has…” you swallow, shifting your weight, “It’s another to see it. And we're both... stupid, stubborn—”

“Mar…”

Shaking your head, you hear the rest of his words die on his tongue. The two of you sigh, perfectly in time, in tune with the other.

Smiling, you should suggest moving—to try and make it back to the place you were to radio from, but he looks at you. Instead, you let it all unfurl—the cards you’ve been keeping close to your chest.

The ones held there by fear, that feeling which puts you on edge, waiting for him to realise he deserves better.

“I told you before, Johnny,” you whisper, almost afraid of saying it any louder, “I’d be lost without you, I meant it then, but I mean it more now.”

His eyes flash, dancing with the memory. One from another night in the rain, outside a pub then, rather than a large tree—an oak, maybe—with leaves which were hammered above by unfortunate weather.

And then, he’s giving you a look. Not his usual look, and not the one he gives you when he’s worried. The softer one, the one which comes out when you’re curled around one another under sheets; the one which lived, half-cloaked, in his eyes before the two of you were honest about your feelings.

Slowly, almost cautiously, his fingers, besmear with mud and dirt, slide across your cheek, eyes ablaze with something more than adrenaline, gratitude and righteousness.

“Y’not gonna lose me, Mar…”

You curl into his touch, having craved it. “You can’t promise me that.”

He drops his eyes, lips spreading into a line, before he flicks them back up. “I love—“

“—I know,” you say, too quickly.

Soap half-smiles, thumb stroking your jaw. “No, Mar. Y’don’t. You wanna partner wit someone else, worrying what you’ll see. I wanna partner with y’, so I can make sure nothing happens t’ you.”

Eyes brimming, you take a low breath. “You haven’t got to always save me.”

He smiles, mirroring the one you slowly let free over your lips. Hearing it, without him saying it, 'Gonna keep tryin', hen', even if the two of you know that not a lot stops bullets meeting flesh.

It's what scares you about partnering with him—what he's willing to do for the cause, and more what he's willing to do to keep you alive.

Not that you can blame him, you'd take a thousand for him too.

You watch him, how he leans closer, smiling as you say, “You can’t kiss me.”

“Why not?”

Smirking, you lose yourself in the pools of his eyes. Tell yourself the reason your hair is stuck to your skin is because you’ve dived in them.

“Because, I’ll kiss you back.”

“Aye? The horror.”

Shaking your head, he strokes a line across your jaw.

“And then I’ll want to take your vest off, and then your top, and then—because you hate being the only topless one when I’m around—we’ll both be topless, distracted, and likely be shot.”

Snorting, he taps your jaw lightly, before dropping his hand. “Y’have a point.”

“It’s why you love me.”

“That and you got a nice arse.”

Letting your head roll back, you fight a snigger.

“Mar…” he whispers, rolling your head to meet his eyes. “Y’dont have to partner wit’ me, when it’s just two o’ us. I get it, alright. Scares me t’.”

And you nod, a silent thank you, taking his hand in yours as you squeeze it—before drawing a heart on the back of it.

Him shuffling, slowly managing to stand without slipping, holding his hand out to you. Taking it with ease, knowing you won’t fall—won’t slip.

Johnny would never let you.

The two of you finding even footing before you glance at him, taking him all in. The mud over his vest, the way his wet top clings to his arms.

"Who'd you rather I partner with, after you?"

He pauses, adjusting the tightness of his vest, checking his gun.

"Ghost?" you ask, biting your bottom lip as you try not to smile.

"Y'pushing yer luck, Mar."

i don't do tag lists, but voldie said i can do this, so i'm gifting this flangsty little numbers to @brewed-pangolin because i adore them, and they love squid, they love angst, and more so love soap.

[roseworth]

Wait, I’m confused do you or do you not ship Jayrose?

short answer: usually no but ill ship it when its funny

long answer:

most of the reason i dont personally like it is because i see rose as a lesbian and i dont enjoy any ships of her with men (its fine if other people do! its just not my thing), plus i hc jason as aroace so im also not very interested in jason ships unless im in a very specific mood (the "specific mood" being jaykyle lmao. every few months i get really obsessed with jaykyle for a few days then i forget about it for the next few months. then the cycle repeats)

another reason i dont like it is that i am constantly in fear of rose becoming Jason's Girlfriend in comics and online. like how babs and kory are both seen as Dick's Girlfriend (also steph and tim to a lesser degree atm) and people refuse to engage with their character not in reference to their boyfriend, so writers have them constantly mention their relationship with dick even in comics that hes not in (like batgirls having dick show up randomly/birds of prey (1999) having babs talk about dick alllll the time, or kory in the current blue beetle run constantly mentioning dick even though theyre not dating rn and jaime has never even met dick). and thats somewhat starting to happen with rose where shes only in comics that jason is in and if jasons not in it then jason gets mentioned (see: catwoman #62). and obv as a rose fan i really don’t want that to happen because she’s such a great character outside of jason and i don’t want her to be reduced to just who she is with him. this is mostly me overreacting, especially since she had a miniseries just last year that jason was not in or mentioned at all. but being a fan of a female comic character means that most people are not willing to talk about her without mentioning her relationship with a man, and its even worse when the man is a batboy so i’m constantly on alert

so basically thats why it puts a bad taste in my mouth, but i have no issue with the ship itself or anyone who ships it!

i think jason & rose are extremely compatible. i see them as bffs but i genuinely do think about them in a relationship a lot even though i dont necessarily ship it. im rotating both of them in my mind 24/7 so i think about how i think they would act in a relationship & how it would ideally be done in canon. but i just dont trust any comic writers to actually respect rose

the reason i said that jayrose is one of the only jason ships that matters is because most jason ships are soooo bad... i wont name names but some jay ships rely on one or both of them being extremely out of character for it to work at all. in terms of jason ships, jayrose is one of the best just because a) an in-character jason AND an in-character rose would genuinely get along really well and b) none of the stories that they've been in have really been THAT out of character (with the exception of gotham war imo, which i went into here so i wont beat a dead horse. dceased was pretty bad too but that’s tom taylor’s fault it has nothing to do with jayrose). also unlike many other jason ships, a good portion of the people that ship jayrose are the ones who actually read the comics so it tends to be an actual Nuanced and Accurate portrayal. ofc there are many exceptions to that but as of rn jayrose is not one of the Certified Batfam Ships (you know those ships that are the only ships that fanon fans know about so whenever they want to give their fav a boyfriend they shove em with another character they know nothing about. like dick/wally where people say "well they were friends in yja thats enough for me" and they havent read anything with wally in it besides dick/wally fanfic and they dont care about him outside of his relationship with dick), so theyre somewhat safe. but unfortunately because of titans tv its also shipped by The Worst Man You've Ever Met so. you win some you lose some ig

it bothers me when people claim that they dont like jayrose because they "dont like what it does to rose" ???? literally when has jayrose ever been bad for rose. her worst out of character moments have nothing to do with jason in any way. she doesnt get sidelined for him and she doesnt get reduced to a damsel in distress or something. its annoying to me that people feel the need to make up an excuse for why they dont like the ship so they use rose as a scapegoat and pretend that theyre doing it for her when they actually dont know anything about her. just say you dont like it and move on! you dont need to justify it you can just not like it

so for the most part i have no issue with it, which is why i tend to mention it when i think its funny. theres a lot of jayrose content that i enjoy bc theyre fun together and i like seeing them interact! i dont ship them but i think its a good ship <3

however. despite all that i still have more thoughts. im playing devil's advocate against myself and disagreeing with everything i just said

because also. its kind of not in character for them to date. i like where they're at right now because theyre kind of in a casual thing, like theyre hanging out and having sex in the bushes but theyre not Dating. theyre not in a serious relationship that we've seen (other than gotham war but im not acknowledging that), so i like where they're at right now. hanging out, rose flirting aggressively and jason giving her next to nothing in return because he cant flirt, and probably having sex off panel*. i think theyre in a good place at the moment and i dont want it to change from exactly where it is right now in canon. *inside my head theyre actually just pals that pretend to flirt because they think its funny. they do not have sex off panel and they dont want to but the insane flirting is an inside joke that no one else thinks is funny. but thats just me

because neither of them has really shown any interest in dating (when written in character! so we're not counting rhato). the most "interested" jason has ever been in someone is minor flirting with donna in countdown. but he did not make a move on her and repeatedly said throughout that book that he was only focused on the mission and did not care about anything else. he doesnt seem to actually be interested in a relationship with anyone, partially because hes extremely emotionally closed off (to a degree. he is VERY open with his emotions, but hes not the kind of person that lets people into his life easily) and also because he just has other shit to think about. no sex only vengeance.

and ROSE. she is the most closed off person you will ever see. she will have casual sex in an effort to suppress all emotions (which i could talk about extensively. but thats not what this post is about), but she doesnt date people. the only people that she was close to being in a relationship with were eddie and hosun. with eddie, it was all flirting, emotional moments, and her pushing him away. she genuinely liked him (arguably. i could go into how its comphet but that is once again not what this is about), but she was closed off and didnt want to date him because she has so many issues. she tried to make him jealous and did her aggressive flirting thing like she does with jason, but she did not want to have an actual relationship with him. and with hosun, she once again (arguably) genuinely liked him, but she did not tell him that. she MARRIED HIM and still didnt talk to him about her feelings. he liked her and was interested in a relationship with her, but she did not want to embrace that and didnt make any effort to have a real relationship with him outside of agreeing to stay married to him after slade was arrested. she doesnt have any interest in actually dating the guys she likes, and shes so emotionally repressed that she will not make any effort to even be close with them

i hate phantom-one and i hate the idea of rose dating phantom-one but. i genuinely think their "relationship" is pretty in character for her (brisson understands her so well), because at most they have some nice conversations. shes somewhat interested in him so she'll come onto him a bit (no aggressive flirting but still), and she opens up to him when shes at her absolute lowest, then she leaves. shes more focused on what stormwatch is doing and she shows little interest in phantom-one during missions, but she likes him and oscillates between ignoring him and hitting on him. so.. out of the relationships rose has in recent canon..... i could make the argument that rose/phantom-one is more in character for her than jayrose even though i like jayrose a LOT more than i like rose/phantom-one

so yeah. its in character for them to get along. but i DONT think its in character for them to be in a serious relationship. which is another part of the reason im kinda skeptical about their relationship in canon, just because i dont want it to be an actual Relationship since it doesnt really make sense for them to actually date given... everything about them.

but again thats all just my opinion! ship whatever you want we're all just playing with dolls

[noturlondonboy]

If Kate + Kate Makes Two… (Prt. 2)

-Bishova/Kate Bishop ¿Selfcest? Miniseries

Request and concept art images by @selfcestmovies

Masterlist

Pairing: Kate Bishop x Yelena Belova x Kate Bishop

Summary: Yelena takes the two Kates to visit Dr. Strange, who counsels with Wanda Maximoff and America Chavez about Kate’s predicament. However, they aren’t lucky enough to provide good news, and Kate is left feeling even more discouraged.

Warnings: angst, not proof read

A/N: another! Welcome Wanda and America, I missed you

The thick coat wrapped snugly around Kate’s body does absolutely nothing against the persistent chill in Dr. Strange’s spooky magic apartment- the saline sanctum or some shit, she was too freaked to remember or frankly even care- and pulling it closer to herself only serves to make her shiver harder.

“God, I hate it here,” she whispers weakly to herself, teeth chattering as her eyes dart around anxiously.

“Tell me about it,” her own voice says softly back.

Kate’s head whips to meet identical blue eyes, and she swallows thickly as her face pales for the millionth time that day. The Other Kate was walking a few feet behind her, with a very concerned Yelena between the two of them as they followed behind Dr. Strange. Kate doesn’t respond to her (to herself? What the fuck) and just turns back around to stare at the floor as they walk. She doesn’t see the flash of disappointment in Other Kate’s eyes (HER eyes) when she looks away.

“Strange? Where are we going?” Yelena calls out, her deep voice as irritated as it is worried. Kate finds herself shuffling closer to her girlfriend, (???) the blonde the only source of comfort she currently could find.

Yelena must notice her unease, because gentle fingers trail over her arm. They’re only there for a moment, however, before they disappear and the woman’s hand falls into that of Other Kate.

Kate swallows again, hugging herself tighter. Maybe the cold had nothing to do with her discomfort. Seeing her girlfriend view her with weary confusion was doing something mean to her heart, but then again, Kate can’t blame her. She still does a double take every time she looks back and sees a long golden braid and not the choppy cut she had been recently accustomed to.

But also, there was an exact duplicate of herself back there, too, so, y’know. What the fuck’s all around.

“Run me by exactly what happened, again?” the sorcerer finally says, his voice interrupting the panicked spiral Kate had been sinking into as he glances at her. He leads them into a long hallway and then into a side room with high pillars and bookshelves lining the walls, and Kate has to take a moment to adjust to the dim lighting.

“Well,” she mumbles, tugging anxiously at the coat on her shoulders, “I got home. Um. Everything seemed pretty normal for the most part at first. But then different things kept popping out at me.”

“Like what?” Strange doesn’t look back at her again, his magic pulling several books from the walls and hovering them down to him.

“I’m used to the cupboards being pretty well stocked, but they were a little pathetic,” the archer says, laughing weakly. There’s a soft noise of complaint from Other Kate behind her, but it’s quickly hushed by Yelena. “And the furniture was back to its old arrangement.”

She leaves out the part about her devastation when discovering the Stone Age Animal Crossing island.

The sorcerer hums to himself as he leads through books, his mouth a thin line. “This sounds like a pretty simple problem,” he eventually says, his eyes finding Kate’s. “This isn’t the first time I’ve seen people get a little misplaced in time like this.”

“So you think it’s time travel?” Yelena speaks up, her voice weary. “Why didn’t just her brain do the traveling?” The blonde stops and looks between the two Kates. “Does that make sense?”

Strange doesn’t give any of them a chance to respond before he’s opening up another book. “In most cases of singular personnel time travel, you would be correct, Yelena. The conscious awareness would be the only thing aware of any change. Usually, we don’t end up with double of someone unless there were outside forces pulling some strings.”

Kate can feel her head throbbing, and she presses a hand to her eyes as they ache in her skull. “I don’t fucking understand. Someone else pulled some shit and space-timed me out of place, or something?”

“Or something,” Other Kate mutters under her breath, shifting nervously on her feet. Yelena’s hand twines with hers again. Kate bites back against the bitterness in her throat.

“Alright, keep telling me what happened,” Strange beckons, his eyes darting over the pages of several different books as they float in the air above him.

Kate swallows. “Ok, well… Yelena got back to the apartment, and I freaked out, because she suddenly had long hair again, and then I had to sit down because I was freaking out more, and then another me walked through the door.”

“And she passed out,” Yelena adds, incredibly unhelpfully.

Kate shoots her a look, but she wilts when she sees the weariness in the assassin’s eyes. God, she would give anything to curl up in bed right now and sleep all the confusion away.

Dr. Strange nods and hums to himself. “I’m going to call on Wanda and America and we’ll figure something out. In the meantime, Kate, Yelena, you need to keep her in your line of sight at all times.”

Kate opens her mouth to comment but stops when the two women behind her mutter their agreements, and Kate turns to look at them with a puzzled expression. “Wait, me? I don’t need to be babysat.”

“You’re the anomaly here,” Strange says simply, shrugging as his magic swirls around him. He disappears through a sparking portal without another word, and Kate stares at where he had been just moments before.

“What the actual fuck,” she mutters to herself, rubbing her hands down her face. Nothing but silence greets her back, and when she glances at Yelena and Other Kate, they’re watching her with a sense of unease and confusion.

“This isn’t a fucking zoo, you can stop staring,” Kate mumbles weakly, her shoulders drooping as the situation seems to really hit her. She lets out a breath and sinks down to the door against a pillar, resting her head between her knees and wrapping her arms over her neck.

There are soft whispers and some shuffling from the two others in the room, and after a moment, a soft hand rests on her knee. The archer glances up with tired eyes, meeting Yelena’s gaze.

“Are you alright, Kate Bishop?”

The familiar title has tears building in the back of her throat, and Kate shakes her head as her lips press into a thin line. “I’m scared,” she admits, her voice breaking.

Yelena’s eyes are kind, and they ease some of the tension in Kate’s chest. “This feels like the kind of thing you’d be all over,” she says softly, her head tilting. A few feet away, Other Kate is nodding slowly, her expression thoughtful.

“I know, right?” Kate laughs tearfully, pressing a palm to her eyes as they start to leak. “I’ve always been so interested in space-time shit. I just never thought I would actually see it happen to me. And just the fact that I don’t remember how or why it happened… I don’t know.”

Yelena squeezes her knee gently. “I’m sure we’ll be able to figure out what happened and get you back to where you belong.”

Kate stares at the blonde for a moment before a humorless chuckle sounds in her throat. “This is so fucking weird. I want to kiss you, because you’re my girlfriend, but at the same time you’re not.”

“Yeah, that’s gotta feel weird,” the Other Kate mutters, her eyebrows scrunched. Yelena nods in agreement and purses her lips.

“What’s your Yelena like?” the Yelena in front of her asks, head tilted to the side. “Is she much different? Is your universe completely changed, or is it just older?”

“It��s just older, from what I can tell,” Kate says quietly, feeling grateful for the excuse to talk about her girlfriend. To… herself. And… her girlfriend?

Jesus Christ.

“You, um… she…? You have shorter hair. You got it cut just recently.” Kate smiles weakly and rubs at her eyes. “It’s really pretty.”

Yelena’s cheeks go a little pink, and at the same time, Other Kate looks down at her girlfriend with a soft whistle. “You would look super good with short hair, babe,” she agrees.

“She does.” Kate and Other Kate share a smile for the first time, and Yelena glances between the two of them.

“Strange better figure out how to send you back,” the blonde mutters, and both archers give her a puzzled look. She rolls her eyes and stands, brushing her knees off. “I can barely handle one Kate Bishop. How am I supposed to live with two of you constantly trying to charm me?”

That makes Kate’s heart feel a little lighter, but at the same time, the worry that’s been growing in the back of mind pulses.

What if I’m stuck here?

With myself?

——

It’s several more minutes before another portal opens up, and Strange steps from it back into the room with America Chavez and Wanda Maximoff on his heels. Both women stop and glance between the two Kate’s with a strange look on their faces, but Wanda recovers first and walks closer.

“Which one of you is misplaced?”

Kate raises her hand weakly, feeling childish as the witch meets her eyes. “Me.”

Wanda hums and circles her, her gaze focused as she takes in Kate’s form. “You don’t look like this universe is trying to get rid of you, so that’s a relief.”

Kate feels her throat tighten, and her eyebrows shoot up. “What the fuck does that mean?”

“Oftentimes, when people are misplaced,” America chimes in, arms folded over her chest, “the universe they enter recognizes that they don’t belong and will do everything it can to get rid of the foreign entity.”

“Which could entail…?” Yelena says slowly, her eyes narrowed.

“The very fabric of Kate’s existence would be torn apart if she didn’t leave quickly enough.”

Yelena’s face pales, and Kate presses a hand to her stomach as it blanches.

“Not your Kate,” Strange quickly says, motioning to the Other Kate a few feet away. “Just the misplaced one.”

“My head hurts, holy shit,” Kate grumbles, her eyes screwed tightly shut as she rubs at her temples. This was all so fucked. She just wanted to go home.

Wanda’s hands are gentle when they land on Kate’s shoulders, and the archer looks at her after a moment. “It’s going to be alright, Kate,” the witch says kindly, her smile warm. “We’ll figure out why you’re here in no time, and then make a plan to help you get home.”

“Thank you, Wanda,” Kate whispers, her throat tight.

The woman nods and offers Kate’s shoulder a squeeze before walking back over to Strange and America, and the three of them talk quietly together, different books and hand gestures Kate doesn’t understand between them.

The archer wraps an arm around her stomach, leaning her other elbow on it and biting anxiously at her thumbnail. Wanda’s presence was a comfort, especially knowing just how much knowledge and power she possessed about this sort of thing, but Kate’s belly was still tied up into sharp knots. At one point she starts to pace around in circles, and the sight of Yelena and Other Kate talking softly and shooting her worried glances nearly sends Kate into another spiraling mess.

She suddenly stops in her tracks, eyes wide and jaw a little slack as she realizes that Yelena- her Yelena, future Yelena- couldn’t possibly have any way to know where Kate had gone. How long had it been since Kate disappeared? Was her girlfriend okay? Had she noticed? Was she worried? Panicked? Did she feel abandoned?

“Kate, hey.” Soft hands are suddenly on her arms, and Kate’s head snaps up to meet an identical pair of blue eyes. She doesn’t realize that she’s nearly started to hyperventilate until the other archer’s frown deepens, and the strange weight that is her own hand on another person moves to rest over her sternum.

“Breathe. I get it. You’re worried about Yelena,” Other Kate says gently, her eyes wide and conflicted.

Kate nods jerkily, her lips parted and trembling as she struggles to force air into her lungs. Of course this Other Kate would know what’s on her mind, it’s herself for crying out loud.

“This is so weird,” she chokes out, her hands toying nervously with the zipper on her coat.

“Yeah, yeah- it really is. But it’s gonna be okay,” Other Kate offers, eyebrows raising with sympathy as she does her best to keep her tone even. “Wanda will get it all figured out, and Strange and America will be able to send you right back to where you need to be.”

Kate nods again, rubbing her palms against her eyes. “Right, yeah. For sure. It’s fine.”

“Do you… want a hug?”

Kate looks up at her again, at herself, at her own face that stares right back, and gives a little nod, shuffling forward. She wraps her arms around the other woman’s waist, her face pressing into her shoulder and taking in the familiar scent of her own body. It was strange, to see her own face and hear her own voice, but to also have the same skin under her fingertips? She could almost pretend it was her mother, or a cousin- but a wave of comfort that Eleanor could never have possibly provided washed over her when Other Kate hugged her back, hugging her just the way Kate liked to hug others herself.

“This is weird,” Kate says again, a soft, tearful laugh echoing in her throat as her arms tighten around Other Kate.

The woman nods in agreement, her fingers gently combing at the baby hairs on Kate’s neck in the way they both knew made her feel better. “Yeah. It’s weird. I’m hugging myself. Normally this would sound really sad, but it’s actually happening and not some stupid metaphor.”

This makes a real, genuine laugh bubble up in Kate’s chest and she steps away after a moment. “Man, I give good hugs.”

Other Kate gives a bright grin, and they both start rocking back on their heels at the same time. “I know right? We really are just a teddy bear.”

We felt so much better than her and me.

Kate’s responding comment is interrupted by the sound of approaching footsteps, and the three of them turn to see Strange, Wanda, and America all approaching with conflicted expressions. Except for Strange. He looks neutral. Unbothered, almost. It pisses Kate off.

She never did really like him.

“Anything?” Kate asks after a moment of tense silence.

Wanda’s mouth opens and closes a few times as she shares a look with America, but Dr. Strange is the one who speaks up first.

“We figured out what happened, and why, but… it’s a little more complicated than we would’ve liked.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” Other Kate mumbles, and Kate can’t help but to agree.

Her throat tightens almost painfully, and her eyes dart anxiously to Wanda. “Not too complicated though, right? I mean, maybe you just need some time? To figure out how to get me home?”

“That’s… just the thing, actually.” America’s tone is nervous, and she flashes an apologetic look. “You’re kind of… already home?”

She’s met with three blank stares- two of which are identical and equally chilling.

“I don’t follow,” Yelena says, voice low and cautious, as if she knew they were all hurtling for an edge that Kate could topple over at any moment.

Strange beckons to America, who nods and takes Wanda’s hand as if to steady herself as she thrusts a fist out through the air in front of her. Light seems to shoot from her hand, and a dazzling, star shaped portal appears at an angle above the ground.

Kate’s breath catches when she first sees the blazing opening etched in blue fire and a bit of red, but then it catches again for a completely different reason. Through the portal she can see Yelena- her Yelena, with kind, mischievous eyes and short, choppy hair slicked messily back. Kate’s body tenses as she opens her mouth, as if to call out, to step forward and reach for the woman who held her heart, but another figure has her completely stopping.

Kate appears in the frame, her arms wrapping around Yelena’s waist from behind as the blonde cooks what looks like macaroni on the stove. The two women laugh softly and sway together, exchanging kisses and quiet words. It was a scene Kate was familiar with, one she valued and adored and always looked forward to on long days- but this specific one sparked confusion, and not recollection.

Kate watches herself kiss her girlfriend’s cheek and tug playfully at the hood on her sweatshirt- a sweatshirt that she had been planning on buying her the next day. Yelena hadn’t ever seen the hoodie at the time that Kate was tossed through space and time. This moment had never happened for her.

But there it was, happening before her very eyes.

Without her.

She had been duplicated. She was a clone. Kate was misplaced, with nowhere to even go back to.

Yelena did not even know she was missing.

< Prev — Next >

[varteeny1234]

Why You Should Watch Marma1ade!

All about my favorite MCYTer :D

Introduction

Marma1ade is a small Minecraft Youtuber, currently with about 8.6k subscribers, and only 75* videos. She doesn't have a lot of series, but she has been uploading regularly for about two years now! Most of her videos are single-player, but she is a part of the Skyblock Kingdoms SMP (link to her channel playlist) and has been a part of two collaborative videos, one a hardcore luckyblock video (her video) with AnimusJ (his video) and one with AvidMC (on his channel). She does not, as of currently, have any inter-series lore or storytelling, so you don't need to worry about having to catch up on any of that.

*the number of videos is listed as 80, but only 75 of them are full-length, 5 are yt shorts

Video/Editing Style

She has chill, relatively slow-paced videos. She doesn't yell loudly, narrating her videos in a quiet but clear voice. She DOES use a lot of background music, especially in her earlier videos, but it doesn't feel like she over-uses it, and she matches the beat of the song to in-game actions (particularly in her chunklock miniseries). She uses B-Roll in building montages (various 2-3 second clips of different stages of building- if you've seen any of Ethoslab's videos, you probably know what this is) as well as timelapses. She tells a story for everything she builds!

Series

Survival Let's Play Season One: Magical theme to her builds, stories about a world with connecting civilizations. Starts out living in a mangrove swamp! 32 episodes, finished (MC version 1.19)

Survival Let's Play Season Two: Builds and lives in a cherry grove valley village, with a story about how time has passed and changed the buildings, and new places have been built. 14 episodes, likely finished* (MC version 1.20)

Chunklock miniseries: Starts out in a forest biome, explores nearby areas, does not have an overarching story. Her main goal is to beat the Ender Dragon- because the chunklock datapack is the way that it is, a long-term series with big builds just wasn't a realistic goal. That's ok though- the sacrificial shrine is worth it! 5 episodes plus a combined movie, finished (MC version 1.20)

1.20 Hardcore: Lives in between a cherry biome and a plains village! Has built a lot of farms, but no large builds yet- smaller builds yes, but nothing really MASSIVE. 5 episodes, ongoing** (MC version 1.20)

Skyblock Kingdoms Season One: SMP series with 19 other creators, all playing on Skyblock, in teams of two each with their own island and tree type! Marm is one of the Mangrove witches, and she has a lot of involvement in the OSSHA arc. 13 episodes (as of 19 Sept. 2024), ongoing (MC version 1.20-1.21)

*Marm has not confirmed the series is finished. However, it has not been continued in 9 months, and she has since started two new series.

**Marm has not started any new SINGLEPLAYER series, and she stated in-episode that she has plans for builds later on, but she is currently busy with SBK. She may return to Hardcore in the future.

Series Lore

While Marm has lore in her Skyblock Kingdoms series, she does not have any canon* lore connecting to her other series. In SBK lore, she has magical powers, and is connected to the void through her magic. Her character is connected to AvidMC's character/lore. On her Tumblr (@/marma1adee) she has made comments about possible connections to other series' lore (specifically LP S1) but nothing has been confirmed or even mentioned in-episode.

Why She Is Awesome

Marma1ade is very talented at both playing Minecraft and editing videos, and her videos are always fun to watch. She's a very friendly person, and cares a lot about sharing her ideas with the world!

She has a good sense of humor, which adds a lighthearted air to her storytelling. Also, she cares less about perfection and more about the experience, so she likes to ask her viewers what they think she could do to improve!

One funny quirk I've noticed is that Minecraft mobs seem to always be in the wrong place for her. If you think, "oh, that's normal!", then you have NO IDEA just how bad this curse is. Not a SINGLE mob is in the right place the first time! In fact, I believe that her frogs from LP S1 are still stuck underneath their lily pad :P

IN SHORT: MARMA1ADE FOR LIFE!!!! :D

[b-skarsgard]

Credits and a very big thank you to @/TheCrowUpdates on IG&Twitter for sharing!

Someone was going to revisit The Crow.

We just didn't know who. Since 2008, fans of Alex Proyas' 1994 dark superhero movie - about a murdered rock musician back from the dead to seek revenge - have watched reports roll in about who was going to do it.

Names of possible stars were attached and detached before it was ever confirmed they were true: Bradley Cooper, Channing Tatum, Mark Wahlberg (twice), Jason Momoa (that one got as far as leaked test footage). Potential directors included Blade's Stephen Norrington, 28 Weeks Later's Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, Corin Hardy, and more.

At one point in 2010, hopes were raised when there were rumours that Nick Cave was doing some form of script revision - The Crow is a graphic novel and a film that held music close to its goth black heart. For a while, everything went quiet. And then: someone actually revisited The Crow.

When Empire asks director Rupert Sanders why, after all these years, it was him, he laughs and says, "Tenacity." He adds, "Sometimes these things just have their time.

They work when they're supposed to work. I just feel that this was probably the right iteration." He also thinks it's a case of how it was made, not why: outside the studio system, for a fraction of the budget of current superhero movies, and far less than Sanders himself has worked with in the past (his first film, Snow White & The Huntsman, cost $180 million). "People are calling it a Hollywood remake and it's really not.

There's nothing to do with Hollywood in this movie at all — it's a very scrappy indie movie," he says. "[And] because of that, we were able to remain close to the centre and the darkness and the violence that's in the graphic novel. The only reason we could do that is because it's not a studio movie."

Given how fervently the fanbase protects the first movie, some might also add another word in addition to tenacity: bravery. This was the film in which Brandon Lee, playing Eric Draven, tragically lost his life in an accident on set with a prop gun at the age of 28. This was the film that wasn't just a film; it remains a hallowed target of worship. If you are of a certain age, you will remember how posters for The Crow hung for a weirdly long time in the video shop, how you wore out the soundtrack on your Walkman, how on more than one occasion someone told you that the set was cursed, actually. For some, the idea of revisiting The Crow is as impossible as waking the dead.

In order for Sanders to get it made, he had to sweep aside all of the cult-film baggage that came with the job. He ignored the "probably hundreds" of versions of the script that were floating around. He had to go right to the beginning and hatch his own bird.

James O'Barr's original telling (the character's self-titled miniseries ran February-May 1989), The Crow is a comic about revenge. Eric and his fiancée, Shelly, are assaulted by a gang of thugs after their car breaks down. Paralysed by a gunshot wound, Eric can only watch as she is raped and murdered in front of him, before later dying himself in hospital. When he is resurrected by a crow — those supernatural beings who can bring people back to put the wrong things right - he wreaks vengeance on those who hurt her. The idea all stemmed from an event in O'Barr's life: when he was 18, his fiancée was killed by a drunk driver.

He put the hate and other feelings on the page. O'Barr later said on stage at Comic-Con that the comic, to him, was a Cure song—Sanders was there at the time and heard him. It was an idea that stayed with him throughout the process. "[The Crow] has that kind of comfort of melancholy," he says. "There's something about listening to a Cure song that makes you feel that it's okay to feel how you're feeling."

Sanders didn't rewatch the 1994 film; he reread the graphic novel, once, and then let the ideas permeate. (Sanders is an art-school comic-book guy — he's been trying to to turn Charles Burns' Black Hole, a story about sexually transmitted, grotesque physical mutations in teenagers that renders them social outcasts, into a movie for 20 years.) He even made a Black Hole short film, and says it's the closest DNA in his work to The Crow - you can watch it on his website). He researched the spiritual history of crows across cultures: how they are believed to exist between worlds as messengers between the living and the dead, how they are both symbols of change and harbingers of death. But above all, what Sanders saw in The Crow was not a revenge story at all: he saw a tragic love story.

"We've all lost someone in life, or we all will lose someone in life, and we're all going to die. It was really about losing someone and being selfless in trying to get someone back."

For a love story to work, Sanders needed to find a man who could believably be both "tender and terrifying" — he couldn't cast the monster and work backwards. Having almost worked with Bill Skarsgård on another project that fell through (an adaptation of Tim O'Brien's Vietnam-war book, The Things They Carried), Skarsgård was already on Sanders' radar. When he mentioned the idea to the actor, Skarsgård needed very little convincing. But before he did his self-tape for the casting process, Skarsgard wanted to spend a week with Sanders exploring the character.

"That kind of dating phase was what I needed, to know that I really wanted to do the movie," says the actor. They swapped films, music, and YouTube videos, and worked together to get a sense of who this character is. Sanders suggested Skarsgärd watch Jacob's Ladder (Adrian Lyne's 1990 film about a Vietnam-war veteran suffering from horrifying hallucinations; Skarsgård loved it), a documentary on the SoundCloud rapper Lil Peep ("I wasn't really familiar with that world at all; it came after my teenage-rebellion years"), and a lot of documentaries about drug use and homelessness. It was all in aid of figuring out Eric's journey up until the point we meet him in the movie, when the suicidal man sees his salvation in the love of Shelly. We won't even see this backstory on screen.

In Stockholm, where he was born and still lives, in the depths of pandemic times, Skarsgård made his self-tape in a studio with some friends. There was no script yet, just a couple of scenes. For the final one, he performed it in traditional Crow make-up.

Did he apply it himself, as Brandon Lee does in the broken mirror? "Definitely not!" he laughs. "I had someone help me do it —a professional. I've been down that hole before where I've tried to do my own make-up. It turns out that my skill doesn't translate that well into that."

Skarsgård has also been here before with the white make-up, the cult favourite character, the weight of decades of history —he went through all of this playing Pennywise the clown in It. When asked if he felt the pressure of stepping into a role with so much noise around it, he speaks with the clarity of someone who has been bruised before but is now prepared (and knows to ignore the internet). "I think I would have been more hesitant if it felt really close to the original—but the fact that it felt so different from it, the separation of it [made it feel like I could] make this my own thing, as opposed to trying but failing at something that's already been done."

As soon as he took the job, Skarsgård "never thought about this as The Crow". He was interested in the psychology of the character of Eric — in his journey from suicidal, to saved, to nihilism. "That became very important to me — that it's not just a guy putting on make-up and thinking he's badass and saying catchy one-liners. This is someone who has lost everything, and the only thing that he has left is his hate. And hate is destructive. When he becomes this sort of superhero, he's become a monster that he doesn't want to be." Skarsgård buried himself in the psyche of the character, as he routinely does with every role, possibly to his detriment.

"Honestly, I don't know any other way of doing it," he says. "You have to go there. You do get a little bit consumed with that state of mind. I was kind of burned out at the end of it, for physical reasons, mental reasons, all of it. It was a lot."

But he says it was all worth it: all the hours of tattoo application, the nights submerged in a tank of syrup made to look like oil, and the time-consuming effort of trying to get the continuity of black tar blood-splatter just right. There is only one thing he would change if he could: his... entire body. When he came onto The Crow, Skarsgärd had just finished filming Boy Kills World, an action movie where he plays a martial-arts expert.

He was in insane shape. He was eating raw meat and training six days a week. "I felt very strange being in great shape for Eric as the person Eric, he says, after detailing the extreme training schedule and diet he kept over the nine months that spanned both films. "I wanted him to be really skinny!" he laughs. "He was not a person that worked out, ever. In a perfect world he would have been a lot less fit in the first half of the movie."

In the 1994 version of The Crow, Shelly is dead before the opening credits. The film opens with her, bloodied on a gurney in the rain (it can't rain all the time, but it does in this movie), being loaded into the back of an ambulance. In Shelly-POV flashbacks we see the faces of her violent, laughing rapists.

Shelly is not so much a character as a reason for The Crow to exist: a plot device to give our male hero something to avenge. This is something Sanders wanted to correct in his telling of the story. To him, Shelly was the "emotional engine" of the whole film. It needed a woman so "magical" that we would miss her like a vital organ when she was gone.

"Without us falling in love with her as he does, we can't go on that journey with him," he said. "We can't be complicit with what he does to gain her back." Sanders had only one person in mind for the role, someone otherworldly and haunting enough to carry it: the genreamorphous, avant-garde musician FKA Twigs.

"I felt honoured," says Twigs, on being asked to make such an impression in her first-ever starring role (prior to this, her only feature credit was in Alma Har'el's Honey Boy) and being given only a third of the film to do it in. "But at the same time, I really did know that I could do it."

She and Skarsgård met on a balcony in the hotel in Prague where Casanova used to stay.

They read lines, became friends, and soon Twigs was so invested in the story of Eric and Shelly that she was standing at the monitor on set, watching herself die, sad that their characters were being so cosmically ripped apart.

"[Sanders] would always look at me and be like 'Oh, I know, Twigs! They can't be together!' And I'd be like, 'But I want them to be together!'" she laughs. "He knows I have a real, genuine interest in their love and what love means to a lot of people in the world. I believe that we need more stories like this.

Where two people can love each other so wholly and so beautifully amidst so much darkness and uncertainty. That, to me, echoes almost what we're going through now."

Meanwhile, Danny Huston plays the bad guy in all of this - but he goes to great lengths to explain that unlike other battles between good and evil, the lines here aren't so clearly drawn. "It's messy, it's human, it's inky," he says, remaining mysterious about his character's true desire and identity. (Says Sanders: "The devilish people in your life are the most seductive, the most charming, and the most flattering. There's something about Danny that just really personifies that.")

Huston says the film reminds him most of Powell and Pressburger's A Matter Of Life And Death — "That would be the, uh, gentle version of our film," adds Sanders - in which love is tested in the hinterland between the living and the dead.

The character is fascinated by love in the manner of a demigod who is above it. "Love can be flawed. And it can be childish. It can be saccharin. It can mislead you," Huston says. "But yet, it's what makes mortals tick.

It's what makes them sacrifice. Is that enviable? I suppose it is, when you have never felt it."

Rupert Sanders' take on The Crow reportedly cost around $50 million. Not peanuts, but less money than is spent on your usual superhero outings. And a lower budget, like love, can come with sacrifice.

But the cast and crew were tenacious and brave enough to, in the words of Skarsgård, go there, wherever "there" was.

"It wasn't an easy journey, that's for sure," says Skarsgard. While the role took physical and mental tolls on its male lead, Twigs was willing to face her greatest fear to make it work: deep water. She spent days in the tank, with a nose peg on, trying to control her beating heart. Elsewhere, Sanders was inverting severed heads into plastic dummies to get two effects for the price of one, drawing in Eric's sketchbooks, throwing blood around the set, never sitting still. And when the crew's numbers dwindled in the final days of filming, it ended up being just Sanders with a camera, a light, and a guy with a crow on a leather glove. (The director says that crows - in spite of all their dark mythology — are good companions and lovely to work with.)

Later, when it was all over and Twigs saw the trailer, she was surprised. "When we were making the movie I didn't really have a sense of how magnificent the scale is," she says.

"Maybe it's because it's one of my first films, but it's hard to tell when you're in it. It's a huge, wild, big-scale, giant film! But when I was doing it, it just felt like we were in this little family, running around Prague for three months."

Sanders hopes this could help form a new model in how cinema might counter shrinking audiences - not just for comic-book movies, but for films in general.

"You have to be more adept at making things more effciently, that are emotionally resonant, and not just spectacle," he says. "I really hope we're in for another kind of Easy Riders, Raging Bulls period of having to make these more down-and-dirty films that still feel like big epic movies [but] are weirder and stranger."

Inevitably, there will be opinions about the new version of The Crow. Sanders isn't worried. "You can never please everyone when you're working with existing material—but I look at it as Kenneth Branagh doing a Shakespeare play that Gielgud did [before him]," he says. "That was a seminal performance, but it doesn't mean that's it and everything stops." It's been 30 years since the last film, and he hopes that in the same way the film excited 17-year-olds back then, his version will do the same for kids who are 17 years old now.

"This is for this generation. Probably 30 years from now they will be berating anyone who tries to make another version of it because this was the version they grew up on," he predicts. "It's cyclical." At least this time around, fewer cassette tapes will be harmed in the replaying of the soundtrack.

THE CROW IS IN CINEMAS FROM 23 AUGUST

[doberbutts]

There’s also all the Tiger Woods stuff — as that one well circulated post put it ‘hearing about tiger woods as a child in the early 2000s you’d assume he was going to jail’ I get that in the immediate aftermath of the revelation it was like. PERFECT TMZ shit, high drama and all, but god that got dragged on and on

Yup, people get really weird when literally any black celebrity does anything wrong.

Which, don't get me wrong. Vick's fighting ring was horrific. The firsthand accounts of what happened on that property were truly gruesome. It was bad.

But. But. But. He also went to prison. For nearly two years. And then he spent some additional time in and out and on house arrest due to various violations of parole. He paid the maximum fine allowed by law. He was punished. People to this day, 16 years later, post fantasies about how much they want to kill him, torture him, and continuously ruin his life. They talk about how every time he does anything new, they call up the people in charge and protest and get signatures on petitions etc until inevitably the company caves and cancels whatever contract they've got with him. There are people who still will not watch the Eagles play even though he hasn't been involved with them in over a decade.

What punishment is enough? Does one black man need to spend the rest of his life being hounded by these self-professed dog lovers in order to have proper penance for his crimes? Does he need to spend the rest of his life in prison? Should he be executed as these people are calling for? Is he never allowed to make any money ever again? Is he permanently banned from any form of media coverage? Currently he's doing a miniseries where he dives into the lives of black quarterbacks, which people have tried to get cancelled because he's going to make money off of it and they don't want a dog fighter to have any amount of spotlight. None of the dogs removed from him are even alive anymore. When is it enough? When can we say, okay he has learned his lesson, he is allowed to be just a guy again?

Never? Forever punishment is acceptable? This is really the opinion we're going to have on the prison abolition website, where we say that forever punishment is bad and teaches nothing except that everyone is one major screwup away from being worth less than dirt? Really?

The thing is. When black people say black lives matter. They mean all black lives matter. Even the lives of black people that it's hard to defend. Even the criminal matters, because he is a human, and he has life, and he can be so much more than just a man in a box for the rest of his life.

And that is especially true when other football stars have gotten off more lightly for worse. The children JoePa knew about are still alive and dealing with their trauma today as adults, and they get to live with the knowledge that he knew and he chose not to help and he is still celebrated and worshipped as a coaching god to this day. People only get this intense about it when it's black folks doing it.

[grifff17]

Audiodrama Sunday 6/2/2024

Happy Pride Month! Audiodramas are overwhelmingly queer anyways, almost everything I listened to this week, by total coincidence, had queer characters in it. Unrelated, I've decided to start doing new show alerts, and putting them at the top of these posts, to try to spread the word about new shows I check out.

NEW SHOW ALERT Hamuel Burger and the American Dream was created by @asbestos4president for the @podcast-bookclub Podcast Jam. The show, which currently only has 1 episode, has the insane premise of an alien twitch streamer who has come to earth to kill the president. This show was so funny. I laughed out loud multiple times. I really want a full season of this show.

NEW SHOW ALERT The pilot episode of Bitcherton, an improvised Jane Austin parody podcast, came out this week. I love the cast for this show, it already looks like its going to be really fun. The occasional modern day references ("I think he was just a misogynist") had me rolling. Their Kickstarter for a full season starts June 13th, check out the pilot episode before then!

I listened to parts 1 and 2 of the Last Breath miniseries of Skyjacks Couriers Call. The description of the whole town, and the Leviathan refinery in particular, was insane. Excited to listen to the last part when I have time.

I caught partially up with @breakerwhiskey. Holy shit, an actual other person who is alive and doesn't want to kill Whiskey. I sure hope nothing bad happens to them! Things do seem to be looking up for Whiskey, I expect something to go wrong soon.

@midnightburgr released part 2 of Welcome to the Horizon! I love Verge so much, they're such a great character. I desperately wanted to hear that conversation between Verge, Frank and June that was implied to happen right after the episode ended. Hopefully its in the next one. I bet this miniseries will lead to Verge going off to find the diner to reunite with Leif, and I can't wait for that.

@midstpodcast had a hell of an action scene in the first half of this week's episode. I loved the nature corner. This show keeps doing this thing where I'm already blown away by the episode then look at the runtime and there's still 20 minutes left.

Mission Rejected this week has me wondering how many episodes until Chet Philips is the president of the United States of America. The Speaker of the House is 3rd in line for the presidency, he's not far off. As far as the actual plot of the episode, I have fond memories of watching Murder She Wrote with my grandparents so I loved this episode. Of course she figured out they were spies. Also I love how this show changes the bumper music for themed episode to match the theme.

@re-dracula Jonathan had a good idea to try to send letters through intermediaries, but it wasn't clever enough. Dracula is actually starting to be intimidating to me, rather than charmingly weird as he was in the earlier episodes. Dracula also knows that Jonathan uses shorthand code now, which can't be good.

Dear Liisphyra this week had a really funny intro bit. Also, the idea of a Genie who is just really annoyed with the people who find his lamp is great. He's not going to curse them or anything, he just wants them to go away so he can go back inside. I keep thinking I should write a letter in to this show, they have an email address in the description, but I need an idea first.

In Spout Lore this week Vyng's dice really told a story. I feel like Vyng is usually so competent in combat, and consistently rolling badly vs the pigs was so different. Speaking of the pigs, I love the aesthetic of "post-apocalyptic farmingpunk". I've never seen anything like this before, and I don't know how else to describe it. It's a post-apocalyptic wasteland, but its of halfling farmers, so they have scarecrow disguises and beets carved into skulls.

I started a new job this week, which theoretically means I have less podcast time, but I still listened to so much this week. I'm ready for getting through more of my backlog next week!

[pluralsword]

-Steven Caple Jr. has said that aspects of Rise of the Beasts were inspired by the Unicron comic miniseries of IDW1 that capped off EXRID and TAAO (really all of the IDW1 Hasbroverse except MTMTE/Lost Light, will note we're currently unsure if the Clue stuff was still going) save for it's final issue (Post), so while someone would need to ask to confirm we feel like this is clearly why Arcee is Optimus's right hand in the film

-Earthspark Arcee is so very clearly inspired by IDW Arcee in part while doing her own thing. the teaching (also an Animated aspect), the martial arts and incredible feats therein (in this case though unarmed), Robby literally asks her if she'll teach her "berserker rage" etc.

-Transformers One Arcee has cheek guards extended from her helm that are the kind of thing IDW Arcee is known for (and began with Binaltech Arcee with much thicker armor herein, and it's unclear if those two are related in that way)

So with all that in mind, just some thoughts/desires on the future of Arcee in film/animation in regards to film/animation:

Basically, while we think there's nothing wrong with casting cisgender voice actors for versions of Arcee who are in part inspired by her canonically trans and transcoded iterations, we hope that someday they go all the way and have a transfemme voice actor for her with a major role, at least once, if not more than once. Our dream would be if they ever also do a film focused on Arcee and it has multiverse theming that she'd get to team up with a number of other Arcees based on other continuities (and like, in that case the gender spectrum of the voice actors could obviously vary more than the vastness of the transfeminine spectrum). I dunno. The thing Mae Catt said about wanting Earthspark Arcee to be trans gave us some hope in addition to all this that we might actually get a version of her that is outside of the comics sometime in the next decade, and maybe actually have her gender journey touched on. I mean, there's two different explicitly trans Arcees in canon, one in Ask Vector Prime and the other one in IDW1, off of whom basically all of the IDW Arcees who came after are iterated off of to some degree (including crossovers. Sidenote, her TTRPG bio in the Autobot book is definitely based on her, and Gauge's bio in her pregen character sheet in the starter box set directly references Arcee has her mentor. This also came with a sheet for Anode that touched on a new version of her own trans journey!). We think both trans narratives are very adaptable considering what IDW1 Arcee's end up being in the end as someone who sought gender affirming surgery during a time when gender variation was being abandoned on her world, was betrayed by her transmedicalist surgeon, and as a survivor managed to carve out a future with the help of another trans gal for a time and eventually found her way back into transformer and galactic conflict on her own terms, finally finding community, love, and a job that didn't involve fighting and a shape she adored in the postwar era after the hierarchies that had bothered her were finally mostly gone (if you want to read about this we have an essay about it and also the conceptual origins section of her IDW1 tfwiki page has a shorter overview of how her narrative changed quite a lot over the years). AVP Arcee's story of kicking off a gender revolution in understandings and gender affirming care is also rather beautiful (you can check out the archived official Ask Vector Prime 1.0 entry here). They could also combine both or just tell a different story with a transfemme version of her. We'd be happy with any of those four possibilities 💜🏳️‍⚧️

Like, there are voicedubs of IDW1 Arcee where transfemme voice actors were sought out, can't that happen for something official too? Voice dubs have way less resources so usually getting more than one person to do a whole dub is already a lot

Like, we owe her and the other transfemme and sapphic transformers our she pronouns you know? We love her, and we know other people love her too

[widowshill]

How do you think Dark Shadows would differ if made today? Would it still be the cult classic or is that kind of writing lost to us?

with the disclaimers that I don't think you can set out to make a cult classic, and also I only know as much about the entertainment industry as the next person, and also I don't really think the writing in Dark Shadows is that good, I do think it's an interesting question! I'll do my best.

To start: for me, the lion's share of the show's enduring appeal is in its earnestness, and part of that is the palpable shoestring budget. things like flubbed lines, camera man and mic shadows in the shot, and other genuine mistakes are part of what you watch the show for, they do not detract but add to the experience. this contributes a similar sense of watching live theatre (paired with most of the core cast being new york theatrically trained and bringing that acting style with them) because you know you're seeing something usually done in one take, where the mistakes bleed through, where who the actors are as people is alongside them on the stage. they flub, and recover, and this is part of the story: so too do the Collinses make vast mistakes, and go on. it is an imperfect world riddled with faults.

This is not something you're going to get in the current media landscape from one of the big networks like ABC; I find it almost impossible to imagine a daytime show being produced with the kind of natural errors Dark Shadows contains. To capture that same kind of poor theatre troup earnestness you would have better success as either a) actual serial theatre, b) a webseries / tiktok series / etc, c) a low-budget independent or college tv station, or d) a miniseries, possibly. If a major network took it on and purposefully put those mistakes in, it would not feel the same. I'm a bit bored of the constant insincerity/irony in a lot of 2020's media, and I think it would rapidly veer into that genre of work.

As far as being a daytime serial, specifically, I don't think the current media environment is exactly right: part of the reason they aired a gothic horror soap opera to begin with is it was part of the broader cultural conversation, next to television like Bewitched, The Addams Family, I Dream of Jeanie, The Munsters, The Twilight Zone, etc. American entertainment in the late 60's had a love affair with the occult (with witches, monsters, ghosts, the works) and this permeated broad aspects of arts and culture: The Haunted Mansion opened at Disneyland in 1969, Monster Mash was number 1 on the Billboard chart in 1962 (and #91 in '70, and #10 in '73). Pair that with prominent artists like John Zacherle's discography, Vincent Price's film credits, 70's gothic horror comedies like The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Phantom of the Paradise, and of course the wild popularity of gothic romance paperbacks in the 60's and 70's. This isn't everything, of course, but just to broad-strokes the landscape.

It's not that we don't have supernatural media today — horror is one of the highest performing movie genres, and there are shows like Ghosts and WWDITS, and Watcher Entertainment — but it's not quite the same explosion of culture (in my opinion). Making a gothic romance-horror-vampire serial would be more at home in the 2010's among the love affair with Twilight, True Blood, The Originals, the dominance of horror game Youtube, the height of Supernatural, Crimson Peak, What We Do In the Shadows 2014, etc. One imagines this is why the 2012 film adaption came out when it did; the cultural moment was conducive, overall. Most nighttime network television today (and I am generalizing) is dominated by legal, medical, and police drama; current soap-operas (especially General Hospital) reflect that, and there are only three soaps getting aired, period. Nothing is impossible: but a soap in the Dark Shadows vein (ha) getting green-lit today seems unlikely, vastly unlikely with the ebb in vampire fervor.

What I will say that works better in today's production moment for a potential series revival (revision?) is we're starting to see an embrace of practical set building / prop making / etc that was lost to us for a little while, especially among the horror genre. For example: Blumhouse's FNAF utilizing the Jim Henson creature shop, the beautiful set work on Haunted Mansion 2023, the use of practical effects in Beetlejuice 2. This is something that to me feels integral, for making Dark Shadows. You may disagree! But I don't think the heavy dependence on CGI did 2012 any favors. The magic inherent in the show (curses, ghosts, whatever you want to call it) is supported by movie magic and the invisible (or sometimes visible) artisanal hands crafting the world for us.

Moreover, with Bridgerton, especially (but also Emma, Little Women, The Gilded Age, The Great, etc) there's been a bit of a renaissance of lush period pieces. The current fascination with historical romances (and anachronism!) lends itself very well to a dive into 1795 or 1897. My best guess is that if we produced a revival right now, there'd be a very heavy focus on one of the alternate time periods (probably 1795), and they would lean on anachronism (and sex) very heavily, and the present year would be a very very minor presence, if they bothered with it at all – and maybe they wouldn't!

As for the writing, specifically? There's nothing that extraordinary about Dark Shadows' writing, to me, what is extraordinary is the characters and the actors' management of them (and Lela's direction) and what they are able to do with the script (aside from a few standout moments of memorable lines). There are brilliant television writers out there who could write a lovely gothic adaption. Some of our priorities in terms of storytelling are different: one thing you would have to acknowledge that the original show rarely dealt with and never performed well on is race. However a lot of the dominant concerns in the cultural landscape do reflect the issues at the forefront of the themes in the writing: especially women's bodily autonomy (Barnabas' hypnotism and forcing Josette's identity onto the nearest brunette/the inherent violation of biting and enthrallment, the way his victims are 90% of the time poor women, or sex workers, or the criminalized and otherwise vulnerable); women's economic position (Liz running the house and business, Victoria and Maggie's subject to endless horrors for a wage, Carolyn free to kick getting married down the road because she's economically secure) and the rigid dominance of the hetero-nuclear family structure as it is entwined with economics in America, and its subversions; and, especially, the way that the American houses (architectural, economic, genealogical) are built on the exploitation of those beneath them, often demanding the physical sacrifice of bodies and blood.

If I had my choice — and this is not what I think is probable, what is probable is a lean into the literal vampires and witches and sex associated in a modern-day setting — a current version of Dark Shadows would lean heavily into those themes, and take the reflection of the literal monsters (Barnabas, Angelique, Quentin, Laura, etc.) on the metaphorical monsters (Elizabeth, Roger, Burke, David, etc.) seriously. Preferably I'd want it set in the 1960's-70's again, because, like Collinsport, we seem to repeat the same sins over and over again, currently we are engaged with and reversing much of the progress that was made by social movements of that era, so in some senses we are returned to that time, culturally. Preferably I would emphasize the mystery? the permeation between the boundary of human and monstrosity? that dominated the early supernatural arcs with Laura and the beginning of Barnabas; and emphasize the terror, especially the terror of violence contained within the charming, and genteel, and refined, and beautiful. Above all I would not begin any first episode of anything with Barnabas, who should be first and foremost a reflection on the family so ready to accept him as like kind.

cult classic? I don't know. I think there's an appetite for earnestness; for long-form storytelling; for the quotidian — to learn about characters as they eat breakfast and bicker, as well as fight monsters. and theatre-trained enunciation that you can hear. I would hope, with sufficient intimacy training, the kissing and sex scenes would be a little better and not make me so very miserable.

[kayas-kosmos]

Ko-Fi Challenge - 2024, the Year of Solarpunk!

[This post is intended for the Ko-Fi January 2024 challenge. However, I receive an error message every time I try to post this blog on Ko-Fi so I am uploading it here instead. I therefore don't know if I will quality for the challenge since I cannot get my posts to work, but it's worth a shot].

Hello everyone, I hope you are all having a great start to the year!

I have decided to dip my toes into the Ko-Fi January challenge and let everyone know about my plans for this year. Really, I only have one plan – Do something small every day to make the world a better place. But I plan to go about doing this in a big way.

The last several years have been extremely troubling with a lot of catastrophic Global crises happening on a daily basis. It's all around us and it feels inescapable. People are tired of the constant flood of bad news, they're tired of doomscrolling and they're tired of the deluge of films that portray some different flavour of the apocalypse. Even us artists can't escape into our art for comfort anymore because of the constant spectre of AI technology threatening to make our work obsolete. The future looks very grim and a lot of people are not looking forward to the year ahead.

That's where "Solarpunk" comes in.

Solarpunk offers an alternative to all of the doom and gloom and presents the idea of a bright future in the face of cataclysm. It is a movement both political and artistic designed to reignite our souls and excite imaginations with ideas rooted in science and observation of the world around us. Even if it is utopian, it's a utopia grounded in what is realistically achievable and the current tools we have at our disposal to succeed.

Here is a short video that gives a great summary of what Solarpunk is all about.

Now you know what Solarpunk is, here is where my art comes into all of this and what I am planning for the year ahead.

Flowerpunk.

The first and most important project I want to launch this year is Flowerpunk.

Flowerpunk is my webcomic that I have been developing since 2020. Taking place in a universe where magic has been reduced to nothing more than a commodity, the magic itself is starting to decay, causing the soul of the world itself to become sick. It is up to a group of punks and outcasts to take back the magic and heal the world of this rot.

For those who haven't seen it yet, I put up a trailer for the webcomic on Webtoon, Tapas and GlobalComix. Please check it out!

These first 9 chapters follow two main characters, Kimi and Ludwig. Kimi is a gentle soul who has a thing for pastel colours and Ludwig is a rebel with a burning spirit and big hopes.

They both have a pretty terrible taste in music as well!

A lot of work has already gone into this project. I have most of the world-building done, there's a whole myriad of magical creatures featuring in this universe and the first part of chapter 1 is only 11 panels away from completion.

Furthermore, Flowerpunk is an IP under a CC BY-NC licence, meaning that you can legally use my characters and creature designs for anything that is not monetised provided that credit is given.

"This license allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. Credit must be given to the creator. Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted."

To give some examples of what you can do:

~ Make derivative versions of my work (writing, art, AUs, etc...).

~ Make OCs from my species, or use them for your own stories removed from the original universe as long as the work remains non-commercial.

~ Use my creatures or character likeness for RP characters or in DnD/tabletop campaigns.

~ Using my work for any educational purposes (such as copying a drawing for an art study).

I want this project not just to tell a story of radical hope, but to also encourage the creativity of others and their own storytelling projects based in this universe.

But that's not all! Once Flowerpunk launches, this will lead me onto the next part of my plan which is...

Merch.

I would love to launch some new merch to help support Flowerpunk's development, including stickers, pins and most importantly, motivational posters. This image below is the kind of thing I am aiming for:

These posters will also be used on social media to help inspire people to take action and fight for a better world. And speaking of social media...

Social Media, TikTok and Twitch.

I plan to start Twitch streaming my process later in the year and I may even consider inviting guests to do chats and interviews with. This is inspired by the time I appeared on a LumiRue Twitch stream back in March of 2022 and the extremely productive conversation we had about art and activism. I also have shorter videos planned for my TikTok discussing a variety of topics, including Solarpunk (obviously), my webcomic universe, autism and disability and much more!

Recently, I created a Solarpunk feed for Bluesky and I plan to continue contributing more positive news and ideas to this feed. The feed consists of art, videos, book recommendation, games, real-world projects (such as re-wilding projects) and much, much more! The feed has seen a great success so far and I want to continue using it to spread positivity. I may even start inviting people to add their own contributions to the feed!

In Conclusion.

Despite the challenges we face this year, I feel like it's going to be a good one moving forward. There is a lot to look forward to and a lot of cool stuff on the way!

Also, I wanted to take a moment to thank all of the people who have supported me here on Ko-Fi over the years, it really means a lot to me and has helped so much. Even small donations make a huge difference, especially in times like these when things have become so precarious for artists.

Hope you're all excited!