#understand its premise and point clearly

[nopeferatu]

everyones opinions are valid unless they not positive towards the things i love. in those instances, theyre WRONG

[gyuswhore]

the story of us ✦ j.w.w x reader

the story of us looks a lot like a tragedy now - the story of us

synopsis: So many walls that you can't break through; except you do.

wc: 2.1K

contains: best friends to lovers, angst, fluff, humour, happy ending, alcohol, arguments

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[a/n]: im exhausted, im loopy, im hungry, but i really wanted to post this so here you go my babies I'm sorry i haven't fed you in so long (ty @toruro for making sure i wasn't talking out of my ass in this ily)

[edit; 11/04/24]: grammar and spelling.

Jeon Wonwoo was nearing boiling point when he watched you push him away from yet another conversation.

He tried to understand, just like he always had. But it was proving near impossible at the five-month mark. 

There were clear signs you exhibited when you needed space, for whatever reason, Wonwoo knew you would tell him when you recovered. So he gave you what you needed.

And yet, when he finds himself pushed away from what looks like a casual conversation between your mutual friends, he finds his mild annoyance grow into something hotter. 

There’s a clench in his jaw as he tries not to squeeze the red cup in his hand with too much pressure, even when all the spiteful bit of his brain wants to do is to pour its pigmented contents all over your cream outfit. He manages to control himself, choosing to get up and exit the premises entirely. In complete silence, he refuses to acknowledge any yell of his name from passing acquaintances. 

Jeon Wonwoo refused to respond to any of your advances after that. 

Invitations to lunch were left on a jarring sent, the notification sitting in his log until he chooses to open it too late. His response was bare when you asked for help on some accounting concepts, pushing you over into Jihoon’s hands to fulfill your requirements. There’s a blatant shrug when you touch his shoulder, concerned, asking why his behaviour had become so distant in the past weeks; he responds with a mumble of, “just tired”.

The great divide happened a few days proceeding your birthday, one for which Wonwoo did nothing for but send you a quick message during the evening, never to see you throughout the extended day. 

“I can’t believe you’re putting this on me!” you all but yell, eyes wide and expression exasperated at the situation.

“Are you blind? Or just plain stupid? Because I didn’t tolerate months of your shit attitude to have you say it isn’t your fault.” Wonwoo is breathing heavily, hands motioning towards your entire figure with equal disbelief.

“What attitude?” you emphasize. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know I couldn’t be upfront with my best friend.”

“There’s a difference between being in a mood and blatant disrespect. I’m tired of having to put up with your mood swings like it’s my responsibility to coddle you. When was the last time you genuinely asked me how I was doing?”

“All the time!”

“Yeah, after you realize there's nobody else to whine and wail to!”

“Wonwoo, you’re being ridiculous.”

“Fine. If I’m clearly so unhinged, I’ll leave you to your liking.” 

The dwindled interactions, from messages to hellos, went from sparing to nonexistent — just like that. 

You’d be lying if you said you didn’t expect for you and Wonwoo to reconcile in the matter of a few days, if not a couple weeks.

But when the distance did nothing but grow larger, there was a settle of resentment in the pit of your stomach as you accepted the feud you were in. 

A text was sent from your phone a couple days after the incident.

[You]: can we talk?

But when you see no sign of the grey Delivered on the end, you knew he had blocked you. 

This was all nothing less than baffling to you for a number of reasons, starting with how you had never witnessed Wowoo acting this way. 

Wonwoo had done nothing but reprimand you the rare chance you suggested blocking an apprehensive individual, something about not showing that you cared. His voice seemed redundant after a certain decibel, the rarest chance to witness him yell at a failed video game or a frustrating professor. 

You know better, which is the only reason you’re ruling off paranormal possession. 

The claims against you came as an afterthought, not, however, rendering them any less strange. There’s a part of you that pondered if your shield of annoyance blocked you from seeing the truth in his words and in your behaviour, finding yourself overwhelmed with emotions when the thought crossed your mind, tears of frustration immediately blurring your vision. 

You did not understand, you could not. And when it all got too much, you allowed the hurt and confusion to turn into something more dangerous. You replaced it with anger, in the same place that once occupied a more delicate emotion. 

There was an uproar in Wonwoo’s mind when he sees you walk into the lecture hall, unaware of your overlapping schedule in the new semester. He watches as your eyes pass over the moderately packed space, briefly glancing over where he sat; if you saw him, you did nothing to bring a reaction out of it. You take a seat a few rows up front, right in front of him where he’s able to see the back of your head for the next two hours — for the rest of the semester. 

He wonders if it’s too late to switch classes. 

“Wonwoo, I honestly think this is getting out of hand.” Jihoon munches on his cashews, leaning against bark of the tree they were both sat under. 

“Did you want me to keep tending to her bullshit then?” he grumbles.

“That’s not what I’m saying, you know it’s not.”

“That’s what it sounds like.” Wonwoo’s retort is brisk.

Jihoon is suddenly snapping his fingers in his face at the reply, a flinch accompanies Wonwoo’s already sour expression. 

“See! See how frustrating it is when somebody isn’t making sense?” 

“How does this—” 

“Wonwoo, did you try talking to her about how you felt, you know, without the screaming?” 

Jihoon watches as Wonwoo’s expression clears out, his eyebrows unfurrowing and the scowl fading. He doesn’t speak, choosing to let the realization kick in.

“No.” 

Jihoon sighs, taking another pause. “I’m not saying what she did wasn’t uncalled for, but you need to talk shit out before deciding you hate each other.”

“I don’t hate her.”

“Right, so can we wrap this up quickly and have you confess your undying love so we can all relax.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Heat crawls up Wonwoo’s cheeks.

“What? If you don’t hate her, it’s gotta be the opposite.”

Did Wonwoo like you? Yeah, he probably did. Did he ever let himself ponder upon it? No, because he was downright mortified of the mere thought. He finds himself a hypocrite to say it was to preserve your friendship, but he figures he’s fucked it up in a way that’s arguably worse. 

Regardless, Wonwoo walks away from that conversation with two things: a stark realization, and an even starker admittance. 

Everything was going wrong. At least that’s what it felt like when you hear the clang of your water bottle hit the pavement, rolling off into the oncoming traffic as you sprint to grab it. You nearly cause a vehicle pile-up, swallowing a couple profanities from braking drivers. 

You’re stuffing the darn thing into your bag when you trip on a loose brick on the path, nearly landing on your face. The glare you send into the pavement costs you even more when a hard shoulder bumps into your side, sending you another couple steps back. You don’t bother to see who the perpetrator is, too preoccupied with your attempts to take in deeper breaths amid the blankness of your mind. 

There are no hiccups after that, what you might owe your more conscious mind to. Stomping up the library steps, you thank nothingness for the air conditioning that meets your hot face, slowing down as you take in the crowd. 

Scanning the room for an empty seat is harder than you’d anticipated, hoping the heat would keep students away from the building as you left to get work done. Approaching a table, you set down your bag with a huff, pulling the chair out to finally take the seat you’ve been needing for so long. 

The universe seems to have other plans. 

It’s almost funny the way you and Wonwoo make eye contact across the other table, the recognition sending a jolt through your stomach. 

You’ve never moved so fast, pushing the chair back in with a screech that earns you a few looks, grabbing the handles of your bag as you turn around to leave the building you’d just entered. 

No way you'd sit there. Not when he was around.

You're bounding down the steps when somebody passes you, murmuring something without slowing their stride.

“I’m leaving, you can go inside,” Wonwoo says, and the sound of his voice has you halting almost immediately.

Whipping your head around to search for the sound, you watch as he takes a turn at the end of the steps, slowly moving out of your vision. 

There’s a swirl of something in your chest, and you realise in that moment how much you missed hearing his voice. 

Chiding yourself, you blink back the water that wells up in your eyes, embarrassed at how quickly you were losing yourself.

But the damage was done. And you wanted to be reckless, regardless of how desperate it made you look. A split second decision is made in that moment, one that lightens the heavy feet that you’ve planted on the concrete. 

You’re back to bounding down the steps, but this time with aim. 

Taking the same turn you saw Wonwoo take, you break into a sprint as you see his figure move farther away. You keep running, continuing to bump into both objects and people, hurried "sorry"'s the only thing you choose to throw their way. 

“Wonwoo!” Your voice comes out stronger than you’d intended, the sharpness having him turn around in search, eyes landing on your accelerating figure. 

Both of you realize too late how fast you’re really going, the velocity taking you directly into his outstretched arms, hands grasping the sleeves of his shirt as you come to screeching stop directly into his chest. 

You don’t have the time nor the patience to be embarrassed, pulling your face back to look directly into Wonwoo’s bewildered eyes to huff out your next words.

“Why did you block me?” you ask, voice gruff and slightly out of breath.

Wonwoo’s mouth opens and closes like a fish, words refusing to come out. 

“Why are you so mad at me? Why are you being nice to me if you’re mad at me?” You don’t stop, the direct questions tumbling off your tongue in desperation. 

You search his face for an answer when his mouth fails, but all you find is the remnants of shock yet to ebb away. 

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry for making you feel like you weren’t important, I’m sorry for taking your presence for granted, I’m sorry for hurting you, I’m sorry for…for… I don’t know! I’m just really sorry and I don't know how else to make this right.”

“I’m sorry, too,” you hear him say and you feel the moisture return to your eyes. 

“Huh?”

“I should’ve…” he pauses, looking sheepish. “I should’ve talked to you before I, y’know, went off on you. I should’ve managed my feelings better, I’m sorry.” 

You're silent for a few tantalizing moments before you raise your fists, and pound down on his chest with everything you have. You do it again, and then again, and again—

“What?- Ow!” 

“When are you gonna stop bottling up your feelings for fucks sake, it’s landed you everywhere but good!” you say, nearly yelling.

Wonwoo whips his head around to see who’s listening, palm to mouth in attempts to silence you. 

“I’m sorry! I know! I’m working on it,” he rambles, trying to get you to quit struggling. “Jihoon and I talked, that’s why I realised I was being dumb.”

“Are you gonna unblock me now or do I need to pay Jihoon to sit down with you again?”

Wonwoo’s eyebrows furrow. “You payed Jihoon to sit with me?”

“No, you idiot. But I should have because you can’t seem to figure out how to feel emotions.” 

Wonwoo can’t help himself when he breaks out into a grin, letting out a breathy chuckle that has you asking “What?”.

He pulls you in, heart to heart in an embrace, holding you tight to make up for the weeks of no contact. He breathes in your scent and feels as though he hasn’t in years. 

“I’m not gonna come running up to you the next time you decide you hate me,” you mumble into his shoulder, pouting slightly.

“I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” 

“No.” Wonwoo pulls away but keeps you in his arms, looking at you, “I love you. Like, the kind of stuff that makes you wanna live together forever. I love you.” 

It’s your turn to gape like a fish. 

“W-what?”

“You told me not to bottle up my feelings.” 

“Yeah, but—wow, um.” 

“Did I make another mistake?” 

No! You wanted to scream. But you don’t. You instead lift your hands up to come around his face, cradling it. And you kissed him. 

“I love you, too. Like the live together forever kind.” 

[nepentheansea]

What’s Right, is Wrong.

© nepentheansea all works are my own and contain mature content!

𝒎𝒂𝒊𝒏 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕 ・𝑹𝒂𝒏𝒅𝒐𝒎 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒂𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑶𝒏𝒆 𝑺𝒉𝒐𝒕𝒔

premise: You wanted it all, and now you are realising that it might not be possible, and you need to tell Anakin.

pairing: Anakin Skywalker x Fem!Reader

warnings: angst, smut, p in v, fingering? overstimulation, semi-public smut, sexual themes, etc. I don’t know at this point. 

wc: 4.3K

a/n: I read over it like once, so there is that. Also, this is my first time writing for him so if it’s not good, apologies. 

It was a mistake, falling for him. You had dedicated your life to the order, years of training and devotion all so that you could help bring balance, and all they asked of you was to remain free of any personal attachments, and you failed. You knew the moment you had met Anakin, with his charm and ,  that it would always prove difficult to keep to the laws bestowed upon you. 

You had spent years with him, growing, learning, training, and after all that time, he wore you down. Leading you to wonder constantly what the things that were so blatantly forbidden to you, would be like, and eventually, you broke as did he, Unable to keep yourself from wanting him, needing him. In the worst possible ways he consumed you, made you weaker than ever before. You couldn’t go on like this, you just couldn’t. 

You had no idea what Senator Amidala was saying to you, despite its importance, you had checked out, your mind distant, stuck with the tall handsome Jedi that owned your mind, body, and soul. She hadn’t seemed to notice, and perhaps it was because you found the room to occasionally nod and make other gestures that you were taking in everything that she was saying, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. It was a blessing that she hadn’t sought any responses from you, before she had left, leaving you alone with your thoughts and some surrounding padawans. 

If you closed your eyes now you could still feel his fingers, feather-light on your naked skin, body pressed against yours, sweat riddled and tired, but unrelenting, his arms wrapped around you in an attempt to keep you from disappearing from his grasp. The tired, unhurried thrusts as he rocked his hips against your own, helping you to find that state of utter bliss that only he could give you. And then there was the imprint of his plush lips down your neck, spine, sternum. His mark, permanently branded on you. 

The chatter of the room had fallen to just above a whisper as Anakin stormed into the room, crossing it in three large strides. His strong hand wrapped around your arm as he pulled you slightly into him.

“May I have a word with you?” he hissed, raising his brows as if to stress urgency over his request. He didn’t seem to care just how many people were surrounding you or even looking at you, nor the person that you had been speaking to at that moment. Whatever was on his mind was clearly more important, and you had the strongest urge that you knew exactly what it was. 

You exchanged a quick glance with the padawan you had been talking to before Anakin had pulled you off with him, out of the room and into the desolate hallway out of earshot as he pushed you up against the nearest wall. His tall frame looming over your much smaller one, as he looked down at you, eyes desperately searching yours for the sole reason he sought you out. If this had been a different situation, you could have almost guaranteed that you would have folded right then and there. Staring back at him, you suddenly found it much harder to keep your eyes on his, though they were full of confusion and some well-hidden pain, and you couldn’t fully blame him for it. 

“Ani-” you started, finding it harder and harder to find the words to explain to him just why you couldn’t do this anymore. The arrangement, the understanding had simply been ‘try it once, and then we’re done’ and after once, it turned to twice, and so on. Living for the moments that you could shut yourselves away in a dimly lit room, with no prying eyes, completely engulfed in each other. But it became an addiction, lying awake thinking about him and only him.

“Why did you leave?” he cut across you, ignoring the way his name fell from your lips in such a soft and delicate way. He didn’t have the time for your excuses, whether they were logical and well-reasoned or not. He only needed the truth, the unfiltered and undeniable truth. He thought he knew the reason, but he wanted you to look him in the eyes and tell him why, tell him that you didn’t want this anymore, whatever it was, not the fucking note that you left thinking it would be sufficient enough for him. You had never been so wrong about something in your life. 

One of his hands was firmly pressed against your abdomen, holding you in place in case you got the sudden urge to run from him like you had done earlier, he couldn’t risk it this time. 

“Why?” he prodded, and you felt that shift in energy, something more compelling and urgent. You cast your eyes down, taking a deep bated breath as you tried to search for the words. 

“Anakin, we can’t, we can’t do this and you know it. It’s wrong, forbidden-” you explained, gesturing towards the room where you had just come from as if to better help explain your point, but Anakin couldn’t see it, he wouldn’t.

“If it is so wrong then why doesn’t it feel that way? It feels right, beyond right, and I know you know that.” Anakin argued, the vein in his neck growing more prominent, as he clenched his jaw, trying to calm himself. His eyes were fluttering between your own, watching closely for any indication that you understood, agreed with him, his brows creased in determination as his hand moved to caress your hip, gently lifting up your robe just enough for him to make contact with your skin. 

He was right about one thing, it had never felt more right than to be with him, consumed by him and everything he did. Every fibre in your body calling for him every waking moment, desperate for his touch, his presence, like if you didn’t get it you would surely go insane. To have your mind plagued by the very thought of him, finding yourself counting down the minute until you could see him again, feel him, taste him. The mere thought of him, a disruption to your existence. It was to the point of total madness, and not a single second of it felt wrong, or like it should be forbidden, and yet it was. That’s what they had told you, that's what you had spent all those years knowing, practicing, preaching. 

You had slipped up, catching yourself wanting something that you couldn’t have, like a piece of forbidden fruit that had been dangled in your face, and Anakin had been nothing shy of happy to oblige, only wanting the same thing. You had both failed, getting so caught up in the feeling, the need and want, that you couldn’t stop, couldn’t resist. With every encounter, it became harder to see reason, to see where the true problem lay, and even now, even now you weren’t sure that you knew what the problem was. 

You had spent the past few days fighting everything in you, telling you to go on, that nothing had to change or stop, but you couldn’t ignore that little part of you that screamed out that it was wrong. 

“Anak-”

“You left me, with a note…A note? Is that really what it means to you, what I mean to you? Is that my worth, y/n?” His voice sounded broken like he was trying to keep it all together. If you reached out to him, you would be able to feel, sense his fear and anticipation. He was scared and confused. He couldn’t lose you, not when he had no reason to, it would tear him apart. It had been cruel of you, but in a split second, a moment of poor judgement, you panicked and did the only thing you could think to do. You left him alone with a simple note, and his thoughts, hoping that by some chance it would suffice. Guilt wracked you as you looked at him, that looming gaze filled with disappointment and betrayal. 

“No, I-its just, I knew you would try and stop me, and you can’t, we can’t.” 

You could see the rage bubbling inside of him, no matter what you said, did, he wasn’t going to see the problem, because to him it wasn’t a problem. He would instead abandon the Jedi than lose you, to lose what he had with you, and if that's what he had to do then he would, he didn’t care. You meant more to him, this meant more to him than everything else he had grown to know, love.  

“What is so wrong about it?” He asked, his teeth clenched, “Nothing that we have done is wrong y/n? Nothing, it has only felt right, addicting..” 

“Anakin, have you ever considered that this is the reason it is wrong?” you start, your features hardening under his blunt gaze. “I can’t get you out of my head, I can’t get the feeling of your hands on my body, your skin from skin,  your taste from my tongue, and assuredly I cannot get the feeling of you consuming me from my soul. It's permanent! It doesn’t stop, day in and day out you are the only thing I crave. I don’t seem to care about much more, Anakin, not the things that I should care about, and that is where the problem lies. We have a goal, a purpose to serve and I can’t seem to find myself wanting anything to do with it anymore.” You could feel the way your eyes were prickling with emotion, your head reeling trying to make sense of it all, trying to convince yourself that what you were saying, that you needed to stop, was the right thing to do. 

Anakin’s hand shifted just slightly, further up your shirt, his thumb soothing your skin with gentle massages, a gentle reminder of the way his hands felt upon your skin.  

“And I see nothing wrong with that? There is nothing wrong with that, I-”

“Anakin, no,” you state plainly, seeing his brow twitch and his jaw clench. 

His face contorted at your response, finding it harder and harder to make sense of it all. The truth was, he couldn’t, he couldn’t see your reasoning.

“Is that what you really want? Do you want to stop? I want the truth, I want to know what you really want, not what you think you should want. I need for you to tell me.” he explains, praying that you would tell him that you take it back, that you were scared and that was all. 

The silence that fell over the pair of you was deafening, consuming both of you. You were holding your breath and you hadn’t even seemed to have noticed it, but he had. He felt drained, watching your eyes search his. There was no hiding the conflict in yours, he could see it, all he needed was for you to be honest with him. 

You felt nothing but guilty as you looked at him, knowing the truth was, you didn’t want to stop, but more so that you had to. You had been foolish to think you could have it all, and it was all finally coming down. As you looked at him, his eyes pleading with you to give him the answer that he wanted to hear, you just couldn’t say goodbye to him, not yet. Ignoring every sensible thought that you had, you leaned up against him, brushing your lips against his neck, hesitating for a single moment before kissing his soft skin, clenching your eyes shut as you moved them down the side of his throat. 

He couldn’t help but fall into place, hoisting you up into his arms, clumsily pushing you into the nearest empty room, backing you up against a sturdy wall. Small gasps like moans trickled from his lips as you continued your attack on him, sucking, biting, licking his skin until any type of mark blossomed. Your fingers curl into his hair, desperate to pull yourself closer to him, your body, firmer against his. Rolling your hips against him, all of the fabric of his robes, obstructing you from what you really needed, the friction that you so desperately craved. Groaning in frustration, he lowers you to the ground, pulling back from you the moment your feet touch down. 

“Take these off..” He demands, something in his voice dripping with lust, as he reaches for his own hem to his pants, tugging them down, letting them fall to his ankles. You bite down on your lip, letting out the softest whimper as you catch sight of his cock, hard, thick, and leaking drops of precum. It takes nearly all of your willpower not to just drop to your knees, take it graciously into the palm of your hand, and let your tongue glide around it, licking up every little bead that formed and dribbled down his length, running your tongue over that prominent vein. He was staring at you, that look of pained authority on his face, as he waited for you to do as you had been told. “Now.” 

You fumbled quickly with your trousers, pulling them off and kicking them aside, already long forgotten. He stared at you, knowing what this meant, what this gesture meant. After this encounter, it was done, left on both of you like a permanent stain. Anakin moved forwards, slotting his lips against yours, kissing you with such fervour and passion that your back and head hit the wall with a soft thump, his hands gliding up your inner thighs, feather-light touches. With each whine and whimper that left you, his hand came closer and closer to your aching cunt, his fingers gliding through your fold collecting every ounce of arousal that pooled between your legs, gently spreading it around as he slowly worked your clit, taking in your sharp gasps. 

“Why would you want to stop this, when I can make you a mess with a few simple touches?” He murmured against your cheek, starting to leave his own trail of kisses on your delicate skin. “When you clearly crave me the same way I crave you…” he was talking to that part of you, the part that wanted him more than life itself. Appealing to it as best he could in hopes of changing your mind, making you see the reason that he dwelled on, and it was working. Anakin curled two thick fingers into your tight hole, smiling against the shell of your throat when you moaned deeply, your walls instantly clenching around his fingers as if they were begging him to never leave, and he could think of nothing more than the feeling of your soft walls milking his cock the way they had been his fingers. 

“When I can make you feel this good?” Thumbing at your clit while he pumped his fingers inside of you, kissing down the side of your neck. 

“Ani..” you mutter, not sure of what you intended to say. There was something about hearing his name on your tongue that drove him mad. Spoke to the most carnal parts of him, and then it was the way you spoke it so softly, like it was something so pure. He wasn’t sure how he was going to be able to let you go after this, he toyed with the idea of not allowing it at all but he couldn’t force you, he knew that. Anakin pulled himself from you, hand wrapping around his cock. Gliding the tip through your folds gathering your slick, watching your mouth fall open in anticipation, your fingers clawing into the fabric of his robes. Your eyes were pleading with him, begging him to fill you with every inch he had to offer, satisfying that feeling of emptiness that his fingers had left. 

“Tell me what you want. Tell me and it's yours.” 

Hard against your entrance, waiting for nothing more than the words to fall from your perfect lips, he stilled, his eyes searching yours for that familiar sense of warmth and invitation that they always held, and there it was, hidden behind the fear and longing. Pushing against you ever so slightly, the head of his cock now nestled into your aching cunt. He needed to hear it just as much as did, he needed for you to still want him and nothing more, he was desperate. 

“you, Anakin, I need yo-” 

It was more than enough, music to his ears as the words fell from your lips, almost like a prayer, and he couldn’t wait anymore. Anakin housed you up in his arms, pinning you against the wall once more, as he lined himself up to your entrance. His eyes met yours, searching for any sign of regret, finding none. With one snap of his hips, he forced the full length of his cock into your needy cunt, and with another, he had your head falling back against the wall, eyes clenched shut, as a deep breathy moan left your lips at the delicious stretch of him. His eyes consumed every expression that lined your features as he pulled out of you, watching that sense of panic over the thought of him leaving you empty and unsatisfied, only for him to sink back into your soaking pussy, causing you to let out nothing but pleasure-filled sounds. There was no holding back the particularly high-pitched moans that were being ripped from you, sounds that surely someone would hear if they walked by, with each precise thrust of his hips. Sounds that resided deep in your chest begging to break free. 

He captured your lips, moans, and whimpers, in a clash of needy tongues, and teeth, silencing the flow of sounds that left you. He wanted to hear every blissful sound that you made at his expense, but he couldn’t risk someone coming in and stopping this moment, ripping it from him faster than it had begun. You wrapped your legs around his middle, craving even more, drunk on the feeling of how utterly full you felt, how deep his cock nestled inside of you, hitting that sweet spot as if he had known it his whole life. 

“Why should we have to give this up….” He mutters through clenched teeth, his thrust becoming harder, “I won’t..I can’t..” he groans, burying his head into the crook of your neck, sucking at the delicate skin. He meant that. He would rather die than be without you and he needed you to know that. Your nails dug into his back, fisting at the fabric of his tunic that you wished wasn’t there, allowing you to feel his heated skin so perfectly pressed against yours. Clinging to him as each well-placed thrust forced you harder against the wall. He was the only thing you had to sturdy yourself. 

The sound of his skin slapping against yours filled your ears, mixed with his desperate moans, and grunts, clouding your judgement rather quickly. Every word he said, every question he asked you, made you second guess. How could you want to give this up? The truth was, you didn’t want to, never. And even now, with him pressed deliciously against you, beads of sweat falling from his brow, while a thin film-like layer coats your skin, his cock so perfectly buried inside of you as if it was made for you, you couldn’t imagine being without him, and you knew that. 

You wanted to tell him that you took it back, that you didn’t mean any of it, but you couldn’t seem to find the words. It’s like they were stuck in your throat unable to surface and all that came out was lewd sounds. Your fingers card through his hair, tugging on it so that he was staring up at you, his open mouth pressed against yours as you moaned into it, stealing kisses here and there. You urged him on, soft whine-like pleads and encouragement left you the quicker his pace came, his fingers gliding up your bare-tired thighs, to the apex of them, the spot where you needed him the most. Deft fingers flicked against your clit, as you took in sharp inhales of breath, as he drew tight and precise circles into it. 

He treated your body as if he knew it, knew it better than you ever could, like he knew just what to do and when to do it, to have you melting like a puddle at his touch. 

“Fuck, ani-“ you moan. There it was again, that beautiful sound of his name on your tongue, falling from it like it was sweet honey, urging him on, begging for more and more. His head falls forward, groaning deliciously at the way you took him so well. Good, so fucking good. 

“The things you do to me, woman..” he groans, getting drunk on the way his cock dragged inside you, the perfect amount of friction for his head to fog. You felt that familiar coil of warmth settling in your lower abdomen, surging through you with each thrust. You were close, so utterly close. “Ani I’m close…just like tha-“ You couldn’t even finish the sentence before your climax burst through you. Your pussy spasms around his length, a soft submissive sob escapes you. Seeing you like this, feeling the way your walls clench around him, gave him a slice of madness, a need to pound into you at a faster speed, desperate to see you become a stuttering mess, begging for him to stop. Sound after sound, profanity after profanity left you, your body, torn between needing more of him, and yet not. Your fingers clawing into his shoulders. “Ani-” Your whimper of his name was nothing but breathy. You couldn’t think straight, all you could see was him, all you could feel and think was him and only him, as each pulsing wave of pleasure washed over you.  

Anakin had no intention of letting you down too quickly, letting you catch a breath. Pushing you through your high, reviling in the way your body convulsed under his. Your head thrown back and eyes desperately clenched, your mouth hanging open and moaning after moan escaped you. 

“Ani-s’too much…” you whine, feeling every nerve in your body sent into overdrive, every sense of yours flooded in nothing but overstimulating pleasure. Your legs shake around his body, your cunt fluttering around his length as he drills into you, swallowing up every delicious sound that leaves you.    “Ani..ple-ease.” Anakin’s hand finds your chin, tilting it back down so that your face was level to his. His teeth tugging at your bottom lip.  

“Not till I’ve had my fill of you..” he pants, tightening his grasp on you, pinning you even firmer against him and the wall as if you could go anywhere. You let out a soft whimper as yet another wave rushes over you, and you take to silencing yourself by catching him in a heated kiss, biting down on his lip a tad too hard, feeling that metallic taste of blood against your tongue, feeling that strange sense of satisfaction overhearing him groan rather loudly. You could feel him pushing you over the edge towards a second orgasm, but your mind and body were already starting to feel numb. Drunkenly hazy over the way he was determined to overstimulate you. His fingers were relentless against your tired and abused clit, surges of ecstasy rippling through the entirety of your body. You could hear him saying something, but you had no way of comprehending the words leaving him. 

Anakin was reaching his end, his well-measured thrusts were becoming sloppy, but not once did they waiver in their mission. The only thing keeping him grounded was listening to the way you begged him, your body begged him for one more, but as your legs shuttered around him and your pussy clenched around him, he couldn’t help but spill into you. Warm thick ropes of cum soothing your abused walls, as he too shuttered, head buried into your chest, strings of profanities and praises leaving his lips like a prayer. 

His hands squeezed your aching thighs, as you relentlessly tightened them around his waist, almost as if you didn’t want him to release you, to pull out of you. His pace slowed, thrusts becoming more like desperate spurts as he pulled yet another orgasm from you. His name falls from your lips as it spread throughout you. Anakin stilled inside you, listening to the sound of your stuttering heart, beating rapidly as it slowed back to its normal pace, while your fingers carded through his hair, in such a soothing manner. Neither one of you wanted to move, to come back to the crippling reality that you resided in. He could stay the way he was forever, blissfully wrapped up in your presence, and you, you could do the same. Feeling his warm protective body, holding you so desperately close. 

After what felt like an eternity, he set you down, holding you up with a gentle squeeze of your hips. You didn’t dare look him in the eyes, knowing that if you did, you would crumble. You knew what you wanted, but as of right now, you could see no clear way of having it, not without surrendering everything else. You wanted nothing more than to say fuck it, give yourself over to him permanently, but you didn’t know how. How to let go and do just that. Pulling your pants back on and righting yourself, you take a deep bated breath. His gaze lingered on you, the painstaking look of loss on his features. 

“Ani-I…I’m sorry…” 

“I know..” he speaks, his voice breaking just a little. 

You thought that perhaps you’d find your way back to him, and perhaps it would be sooner than you anticipated, falling back into the addicting pattern you had created, and maybe this time it would go further, but for now, you wouldn’t. Wiping the tears from your face, you take a long, painful look at him, before exiting the silent room, not daring to look back. 

[flower-boi16]

I think what's actually alarming about Helluva Boss and Vivziepop is that the shower suffers from heavy creator-fan enmeshment, and the writers/Vivziepop don't see themselves as the problem for it. It's like they see themselves as the victims, too, while encouraging their fandom's toxic mindset and behaviors.

The writers/Vivziepop are not only too entangled with their fans, but they're THINKING like fan artists/fanfic writers instead of actually making a show. There's a difference between writers of a show and fanfic writing. When you take up the mantel to create a show you have to carry yourself in a way and write your show with a point otherwise you end up with shows like Helluva Boss/Hazbin Hotel, Miraculous Lady Bug, SVFOE, SPOP, and other shows that fall into that category. Some of them focus more on the shipping than the point of their show to begin with.

What makes a good show is having that distinction or maintaining that professionalism. Creators of shows should NEVER let themselves sink into the cesspool of their Fandoms because they should be focused on their story/message instead of all this shipping/woobing bullshit.

TLDR: Helluva Boss never had potential with VivziePop holding the reigns to begin with. It's too disorganized and unfocused, and with the Fan Enmeshment, it was never going to grow or expand from its fanfic-y feeling. If the creator of the show never grew up, we should never expect the show to grow, too.

Though it is a shame since it could have been charming, had someone more professional taken the show.

Viv definitely was never cut out to handle a big project like this. I’ve said this many times before, but ya, Viv writes like a fanfic writer; everything with how messy the structuring of how her shows is and how poorly they are planned makes me think this.

It reminds me of when I tried to make my first fanfic and just went in without a plan with how to structure it which led to me just abandoning it early on. Viv writes like that.

She didn't listen to criticism of her Zoophobia comic and she still isn’t listing here. She shifted the focus of HB away from the premise to shipping nonsense and now we have this weird mess of a show that doesn’t even know what it wants to be anymore.

Season 2 seems to prioritize relationship drama over the actual premise which caused the show’s downfall. Hazbin feels a bit less fan-ficy but it’s still very messy.

Viv just crams too much shit into too little time which results in the pacing being awful. She paces her shows like a fan fic writer. It feels like she only came In with a small understanding of how show running works and jumped right into the industry because she was excited to show off her gizzalion OCs she had since high school.

Everything about HH/HB feels amateur. I really think that before you get into storytelling you need to actually study how to create good stories, like there are YouTube videos out there you could watch for free that give a run down of what is good or bad writing.

You don’t need to spend 20+ in school to be a good writer but you need to have a basic understanding of how to even write your ideas before you start making stories…which Viv clearly does not.

HB Season 2 in general doesn’t feel like a natural continuation of the first season. It feels like a fan-fic written by a fan after season 1 ended posted on wattpad that the show runners decided to animate and voice into a full season.

Viv should have learned how to run a show before jumping into something as ambitious as this, but she didn’t, and look at what we got.

[desidov]

The Structure of a Successful Game Changer pt. 1 - Make Some Noise

An analysis of the stages comprising an entertaining and innovative Game Changer episode, explained by breaking down the episode Make Some Noise.

Stage 1: Our contestants have no idea

With prompt "cow," Josh responds "cow." Sam replies, "I'm sorry, that is not the answer I was looking for."

Often only a turn or two, this first stage is comprised of the players identifying the core mechanic of the episode—getting a basic understanding of what each question will ask of them and how they might earn points or advance further. Other examples: the first forays into navigating the Jeopardy board, or Sam’s opening instructions for “Sam Says” demonstrating an instruction not preceded by “Sam says” should not be followed.

Stage 2: You all understand

With prompt "duck," Zac responds "quack quack" and receives a point. Josh comments "Okay I see, I see what this is about, okay."

Here the players realize the structure of each question, and witness some behaviors receiving points while others do not (excluding non-point-earning episodes.) Sometimes, this is all the players need to understand the fundamental premise (mimic the sound produced by the prompt) while sometimes unraveling the mystery of the premise is the overall conceit of the episode (tell us about yourself, yes or no.)

Stage 3: Escalation of Rules

After Zac's response to "frog," Sam says "I'm gonna toss it up to the other two contestants [to steal the point.] Brennan, give me your best frog."

An expansion to the initial rules is revealed, allowing players to further advance/gain points beyond the initial bounds of the premise. Here, the escalation is that players may steal prompts from each other—others include incorporated phrase bonus points from The Official Cast Recording and the hidden immunity loop-de-loops from Survivor.

Stage π: Departure

Sam says "We are now headed into our first mini game." Each player attempts to recreate a melody on an otamatone.

This optional stage, typically presented as a “mini game,” is thematically connected to the premise but operates on its own rules. Make Some Noise iterations typically include a mini game where contestants are provided a prop and must mimic a given sound with that prop—no spoken entries qualify. Similarly, A Sponsored Episode and its continuations feature a mini game of providing commercial voice-overs for stock footage (where non-commercial interpretations are not rewarded,) and a mini game of identifying brand taglines/logos.

Stage 4: Escalation of Concept

Sam introduces the next prompt, "Your word is jack hammer." Josh makes a jack hammer sound, bouncing with a hand above his head and explaining "that's him keeping the hat on."

While Stage 3 adds on to the rules of the episode, Stage 4 applies the same rules to something new—here transitioning from animal calls to all manner of sound effects. Escalation of concept can be clearly demarcated, as this example is, or more gradual, like the escalations from common animal calls to obscure animal calls or from physical prompts to intangible prompts like “anguish.” What matters is that escalations continue to push the format to new heights and prevent the conceit from stagnating.

Stage 5: Expansion of Concept

The prompt is a stock photo of a smiling young adult white man. Brennan roleplays the man arrogantly describing his improv group, ending with "This date's going well."

Though similar to Stage 4, I characterize this stage as a dramatic alteration to the format of prompts—here from text prompts to image prompts. This can be for several turns, as it is for MSN, or just one, such as “go” from Sam Says or the cockroach union from “Do I hear $1?” This builds a finale that presses the bounds of the format to their limits, capping off the episode.

[thejakeformerlyknownasprince]

Errors, “Errors,” and Animorphs

So in a different post I ranted about how a tiny non-distracting unfixable difference between two shirts is not an error in Jurassic Park.  IMHO, a continuity gap is only an error if:

It draws attention to itself and distracts the audience

It could’ve been fixed pretty easily in-story

It makes character, plot, or setting nonsensical

Animorphs has continuity gaps of its own.  And I have opinions about what we readers do and do not count as “error.”  First, an example that’s clearly an error:

I wondered if Tobias had heard my thought. I concentrated. Tobias, can     you hear me?

«Yeah,» he said, «I hear you.»

“Did you hear my thoughts before that?” I asked.

«No, I don’t think it works that way.  You have to think at me for me to     hear.»

—#1: The Invasion

Tobias briefly hearing Jake thought-speak in #1 breaks the rules of the setting; several other books (#2, #23, #31, #33, #46) clearly state that it’s impossible to thought-speak if one is human and not in morph.  It’s an easy fix; the re-releases and audiobooks delete this moment, and the graphic novel makes Tobias unable to hear Jake.  It distracts the audience; I’ve gotten 5 or 6 separate asks over the years of people going “I was rereading #1, and the weirdest thing...” It’s an error.  I can’t say what happened behind the scenes — K.A. Applegate toyed with a thread that was later dropped, or decided to introduce a limitation for plot fuel at a later time.  But it’s an error.

Second, an example that I don’t think counts as an error:

I returned to my life, feeling strange and out of place. That night Jake came over. We went outside.

"I tried morphing the Tyrannosaurus," he said. "Nothing. Didn't work."

"You could ask Ax. He may know why."

Jake laughed. "Yeah, but even if he explains it, I still won't understand it."

—MM2: In the Time of the Dinosaurs [Cassie’s narration]

The kids not being able to morph dinosaurs outside of the Cretaceous Era makes a lot of sense in context.  The whole book series would fundamentally change if they could use T. rex — that would become heavily a favored morph for many of them.  It kicks off all kinds of plot questions that demand answers: Where do the controllers think the “andalite bandits” got dino DNA? What anti-dinosaur measures would they be forced to adopt? Would the Animorphs’ whole strategy change around having those morphs? How would Rachel feel about everyone but Tobias suddenly having a much stronger morph than her? Would they even bother with contemporary animal morphs afterward?

If the kids are morphing dinosaurs all the time after ~#18, then the series loses a lot of its uniqueness.  Applegate has said that most of the inspiration for the series was about trying to help kids understand what it would really be like to be inside an animal mind, with as many animals as possible.  That’s part of why so many of the plots hinge on giving the Animorphs an excuse to learn a new morph (e.g. #4, #17, #27, #47, #52) so that we can experience the coolness right along with them.  That’s why the war is explicitly about fighting for Earth, nonhumans and all (#7, #23, #53).  If it’s not a menagerie of six different critters — including one immigrant from space — rolling up to battle, then it’s not Animorphs. No, it makes no dang sense that sario rip morphs stop working once the rip gets unripped.  But the series acknowledges it, and it allows us both to have a unique animal-based story (dinosaurs! Heckin dinosaurs!) without ruining its own premise.

Third, one that I find fascinating because it’s kind of right on the margin:

"What I don't get is why I have to be a girl wolf," Marco grumbled.

"We had one male and one female," Cassie explained for the tenth time. "If two of us morphed into the male, we'd have two males. Two male wolves might decide they had to fight for dominance."

"I could control it," Marco said.

"Marco, you and Jake already fight for dominance, and you're just ordinary guys," Rachel pointed out.

—#3: The Encounter

Later, Tobias’s narration uses the word “alpha” to describe Jake’s morphed behavior — howling and peeing to mark territory, challenging another wolf pack to protect his own.

There is scientific consensus right now, as of the 2020s, that the term “alpha” is an inaccurate descriptor of pack-lead behavior, and that dominance fights between adult males are almost nonexistent.  That although wolves usually run in a phalanx-like shape with one middle-aged male and female at the point, this isn’t the result of dominance fights but rather an effort to have the physically strongest wolves absorb blows from rogue prey animals or rival predators.  That the dominance fights observed in captive wolves in the 1970s were the result of an ecology error, putting wolves from rival packs into single enclosures.  Fox (1972, 1973) gave a reasonably accurate description of how wolves behave if you put a bunch of adult strangers in a zoo together: the young adult males fight, the winner of that fight wins first access to food, and the mate of the winner gets the most resources for her puppies.

However, time rolls forward, and advances like hidden cameras (and the resurgence of wild wolf populations) allow us to watch wolves without needing to capture them first.  Mech (1999) follows some such wolves around, and quickly realizes that dominance and submission aren’t nearly as important among wolves who chose to make a pack.  Stahler et al. (2002) figure out a better way to introduce stranger wolves in captivity, and get full cooperation among young adult males.  Nowadays drones and radio collars get 1000s of times the wolf data Fox had to work with, and reveal intense cooperation with little more than play-fighting among puppies.

The Encounter comes out 1997.  Mech publishes the first big takedown of the alpha concept 1999.

Did an error occur anywhere in this process?

No, in that Applegate presumably doesn’t own a Time Matrix and published a book based on the scientific consensus at the time about how wolf social dynamics worked.

Yes, in that the error is pretty distracting — I get drawn up short by it every time I reread #3, and I know others have too.

No, in that the error was corrected in the graphic novel adaptation.

Yes, in that the error is still present in the audiobook, and Michael Crouch delivers the moment about Jake being backed into a dominance fight with all of Tobias’s exasperated humor.

No, in that the error allows for some character moments, both silly (Jake peeing on trees) and sweet (Jake being ready to take on an entire rival pack alone, over a rabbit he doesn’t want).

Yes, in that the error takes away from one of the series’ most fundamental purposes, to educate kids about animals.

Anyway, books are great, science is imperfect, and I think the more we all engage with amateur criticism the more we’re all going to learn about what counts as an error in fiction writing with inspiration in scientific reality.

[literary-illuminati]

2024 Book Review #5 – The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler

I read Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea last year and, despite thinking it was ultimately kind of a noble failure, liked it more than enough to give his new novella a try. It didn’t hurt that the premise as described in the marketing copy sounded incredible. I can’t quite say it was worth it, but that’s really only because this novella barely cost less than the 500-page doorstopper I picked up at the same time and I need to consider economies here – it absolutely lived up to the promise of its premise.

The book is set a century and change into the future, when a de-extinction initiative has gotten funding from the Russian government to resurrect the Siberian mammoth – or, at least, splice together a chimera that’s close-enough and birth it from african elephant surrogate mothers – to begin the process of restoring the prehistoric taiga as a carbon sink. The problem: there’s no one on earth left who knows how wild mammoth are supposed to, like, live- the only surviving elephants have been living in captivity for generations. Plop the ressurectees in the wilderness and they’ll just be very confused and anxious until they starve. The solution: the technology to capture a perfect image of a human mind is quite old, and due to winning some prestigious international award our protagonist – an obsessive partisan of elephant conservation – was basically forced to have her mind copied and put in storage a few months before she was killed by poachers.

So the solution of who will raise and socialize these newly created mammoths is ‘the 100-year-old ghost of an elephant expert, after having her consciousness reincarnated in a mammoth’s body to lead the first herd as the most mature matriarch’. It works better than you’d expect, really, but as it turns out she has some rather strong opinions about poachers, and isn’t necessarily very understanding when the solution found to keep the project funded involves letting some oligarch spend a small country’s GDP on the chance to shoot a bull and take some trophies.

So this is a novella, and a fairly short one – it’s densely packed with ideas but the length and the constraints of narrative mean that they’re more evoked or presented than carefully considered. This mostly jumps out at me with how the book approaches wildlife conservation – a theme that was also one of the overriding concerns of Mountain where it was considered at much greater length. I actually think the shorter length might have done Nayler a service here, if only because it let him focus things on one specific episode and finish things with a more equivocal and ambiguous ending than the saccharine deux ex machina he felt compelled to resort to in Mountain.

The protection of wildlife is pretty clearly something he’s deeply invested in – even if he didn’t outright say so in the acknowledgements, it just about sings out from the pages of both books. Specifically, he’s pretty despairing about it – both books to a great extent turn around how you convince the world at large to allow these animals to live undisturbed when all the economic incentives point the other way, a question he seems quite acutely aware he lacks a good answer to.

Like everyone else whose parents had Jurassic Park on VHS growing up, I’ve always found the science of de-extinction intensely fascinating – especially as it becomes more and more plausible every day. This book wouldn’t have drawn my eye to nearly the degree it did if I don’t remember the exact feature article I’d bet real money inspired it about a group of scientists trying to do, well, exactly the same thing as the de-extinctionists do in the book (digital resurrection aside). The book actually examines the project with an eye to practicalities and logistics – and moreover, portrays it as at base a fundamentally heroic, noble undertaking as opposed to yet another morality tale about scientific hubris. So even disregarding everything else it had pretty much already won me over just with that.

The book’s portrayal of the future and technology more generally is broader and less carefully considered, but it still rang truer than the vast majority of sci fi does – which is, I suppose, another way of saying that it’s a weathered and weather-beaten world with new and better toys, but one still very fundamentally recognizable as our own, without any great revolutions or apocalyptic ruptures in the interim. Mosquito's got CRISPR’d into nonexistence and elephants were poached into extinction outside of captivity, children play with cybernetically controlled drones and the president of the Russian Federation may or may not be a digital ghost incarnated into a series of purpose-grown clones, but for all that it’s still the same shitty old earth. It’s rather charming, really.

[lemon-dokuro]

Yesterday, I watched Sound Holic's 2007 Touhou fan film, Touhou Project Side Story ~ Memory of Stars.

The plot is about Kaguya's father, the Moon's ruler, coming to take her and Eirin back. Makes heavy use of sci-fi aesthetics and is mostly set in space. Naturally, because it was released before Bogetsusho/Silent Sinner in Blue, all it had to go off of for the state of the Moon civilization and Kaguya's relationship to it were the 8th Touhou game and maybe Reisen's route/interactions in the 9th. It's a little interesting to see the creators' interpretation because of that, but... It was recieved very poorly by the japanese Touhou fandom in 2007 when it came out, you can even find comparisons to the infamous Cookie series. The reception is understandable — it really isn't good. I actually wouldn't call the story or the premise bad, they're just kitschy in a way characteristic of the otaku culture of its time, but they are ruined completely by the wonky presentation and especially the incomprehensible pacing. I don't want to recap it here because the anime isn't even that long or hard to find, but if I did, I'd have a fair bit of trouble. It feels like one of those 90s OVAs that tries to cram 4-6 volumes of a manga in about 40 minutes, so most things happen too fast to have an impact. There's a whole character that makes absolutely no sense because she has too little screen time and too little actually explained about her (Sphere Sieben, the redheaded space commander lady). Sakuya is there for a barely explained reason. Mokou comes out of nowhere in the middle (well, at least that had a point, ridiculous as it was). And considering this, bizzarely, the movie also has a lot of pointlessly drawn-out scenes where not much happens, like they were trying to pad out the runtime, even though there's a lot of substance they could have added. I have no idea what kind of constrains they were working with, but it's not like they couldn't have just written it more tightly. If not better, then, you know, at least. Even though I don't think the general premise and the story are bad per se, they are very unfitting for Touhou. The creators are obviously going for space opera aesthetics, which is a really weird fit for Touhou. They don't even really try to make it fit. Egregiously, Kaguya's presumably biological father, Luna Marius, has a sci-fi-ish western-style name for absolutely unexplained reasons. Of course, that kind of naming difference is not implausible at all, but it's a really weird creative choice, especially considering it's never adressed, not even in a throwaway line or anything. One could say it's emblematic of the work not compromising the conflicting aesthetics in any way. The visuals are often criticized for obvious reasons. They are great to me because I'm an oldschool doujin fetishist, but it's clearly all very stiff, mildly inconsistent, generally amareurish and feverishly oversaturated with bright flashing effects half the time. The backgrounds mostly consist of said effects. A lot of the animations are obviously reused. That being said, the original character designs are pretty well done. The bunny girl looks especially good, the artist absolutely nailed the early windows Touhou design style. Also, naturally, because Sound Holic is mainly a music circle, the soundtrack is decent. It's not remarkable, but there's nothing wrong with it, it's standard for 2007 Touhou arrange tracks. There's not much to say about the voice acting either — standard for doujin anime. The voice actors are inexplicably pretty well-known, but it's not that uncommon to see big names on the most random 2000s doujin projects. That's probably how these people become popular in the first place.

Well, what can I say overall. It's a weird little movie. I can't recommend it, but maybe you'll get a laugh out of it, or maybe you'll like the visuals as much as I did.

Also, that rabbit's names are both mochi types...

[leohtttbriar]

For the Reverse Unpopular Opinion meme: would love to give you the excuse to talk about voyager. (or if that's too easy, something you like about your least favorite star trek series??)

i love voyager. so so much. i tried to think if i love another star trek series i've seen any less than voyager, but i can't honestly say that i do? i love ds9, tos, discovery, and, yes, even snw. i am in the embarrassing position of admitting that i really just love star trek, in a mostly uncomplicated way.

of the things i love about voyager, the premise is probably the biggest one. i have rambled about this a lot already but: i think it confronts for the first time in star trek the inherent sadness associated with us studying the stars--and therefore the sadness that science-fiction writers mostly imagine their way out of, often as a way to speculate a time when this reality may be less real: the fact that space is big. it is too big. the fastest human beings have ever traveled, with their own bodies along for the ride, still isn't fast enough to get us to the moon in less than three days. light--the speed limit of the universe--needs a full eight minutes to get from the sun to us--a relatively close planet. space is enormous. we measure things that are "close" in light-years. everything is so spread out and that's just from the perspective of being inside a galaxy, which is actually crowded when compared to intergalactic space. everything is so far away and so long away and it feels impossible to think of getting anywhere in a time meaningful to us and our lifespans. which is in its own way heartbreaking.

and while in voyager they are clearly not alone in the way we feel we could be (and in practice are until we get the smallest sign that even non-intelligent life exists off our very own special rock) with all the aliens they meet and the fact that they are on a ship that can go faster than light, they are stranded and they are on their way back home and it will still take them a life-time. that's the reality of the story: that they will spend the rest of their lives trying to get back. and though i know they do get back much quicker than that, where i'm at in the beginning of season 3 that is still the reality of it. and this makes literally everything that happens in the show so fascinating--even if it's a plot or an idea that not only happened in another series but was done technically better in that series. every plot in voyager is colored by the tension between what the star trek ethos is as a whole--exploration and diversity and learning and humanity--all in an optimistic light--and what voyager is about--getting back home. it makes me think of the tension in the actual "voyagers," somewhere now in interstellar space, and the golden record with a map of earth's position etched onto it: spacecraft meant to never be returned but contained on them is a deep, deep hope that in some way they will be. this tension, to me, affects everything on the show.

but that's maybe too big an idea without specific examples from the series--i might ramble about that at another point lol

in the spirit of your question, i will say there is one star trek property that i don't particularly care for on the whole and that's the 2009 movie (and sequels). but i will also say what that movie did right and what i do love about it even if i don't love the movie as a whole is how it portrayed the high-tech poetics of star trek in a much more immediately understandable way than even the 90s shows could for a 21st century audience. the "apple-store" aesthetic is really an argument about how this is the future and it's sleek and stylish and humans have advanced in their engineering and scientific abilities. and among this high-tech argument is uhura front and center: she's very loudly and explicitly a linguist and she fits in this silicon-valley look despite the fact that nowadays things like linguistics are considered "soft sciences" in a general way and treated like that very specifically by the tech-industry now (the attitude being "there's an app for that"). but uhura makes a central discovery in one of her labs at the beginning of the movie which gives her and kirk a leg up on understanding the Movie Threat. the 2009 movie significantly raised her importance as a character, to the point that the "main trio" in those movies is, arguably, more kirk/spock/uhura than it is kirk/spock/mccoy---especially if you're going by the movie posters.

also they gave her this line:

UHURA: And did I not, on multiple occasions, demonstrate an exceptional aural sensitivity, and I quote, "an unparalleled ability to identify sonic anomalies in subspace transmissions tests?"

which is excellent world-building about communications-officers, if you care for that sort of thing. and it provides a starting point for an argument about how listening to a universe (famed quiet due to the lack of material through which sound can travel) is essential to understanding it---an idea that can be further extrapolated via sci-fi regarding things like: listening to gravitational waves if we record them right; or working on the idea that all matter is but a vibration in a quantum field; or, from a more cultural concern, the implication that it is absurd to think you can travel to an alien world and not bring someone with an "exceptional aural sensitivity" who can facilitate an exchange of language and, thereby, meaning.

[saintsenara]

My first two ideas are extremely serious and my last two are extremely deranged:

Hermione/Ginny

Poppy Pomfrey/Minerva McGonagall

Dobby/Sorting Hat (Dumbledore/Sorting Hat?)

thank you very much for the ask, anon!

hermione granger/ginny weasley

i'm going with... success, following a bit of character-wrangling.

i often think that the fandom has a tendency to over-egg the depth of hermione and ginny's friendship within the canon timeline - clearly they get along well, and like and respect each other, but it's also apparent that the dynamic between them is that of a big sister and a little sister, rather than besties who are equals.

it's striking, for example, that the advice hermione gives to ginny about how to deal with her feelings for harry doesn't seem to go both ways - there's never any suggestion in the books that ginny and hermione ever talk about her feelings for ron, and while this isn't to say that ginny doesn't notice them, it's evidence that she and hermione don't talk about harry in a "teen girls yapping about boys" way, but in a "here's my advice as someone who considers myself responsible for you" way.

[they clearly do yap about other boys - hermione's the source of the gossip that ginny's dating michael corner, ginny knows that she kissed krum - but the text is clear that these are things that everyone other than ron and harry could figure out...]

it's also striking that, on the one occasion in canon where we see ginny and hermione snap at each other - when hermione's scolding harry for the sectumsempra incident - the thing which puts ginny's back up is hermione being condescending and assuming that she knows what's best for everyone...

the big character arc that hermione undergoes as the series reaches its conclusion is her learning to accept the fact that one of her defining traits is inflexibility, and to let the positive manifestations of this [her extraordinary loyalty, her resilience, her rationality, etc.] shine while the more negative ones [her tendency to meddle, her being a sore loser, her unwillingness to consider multiple viewpoints, etc.] become things she gains the life-experience and perspective to manage.

ginny doesn't really get a proper character arc, because her main narrative purpose is to be harry's happy-ever-after - she represents the normal life to which he can return once his hero's journey is done, which naturally precludes her being someone who changes as the series draws to an end.

[as she herself says - she fell in love with harry when she was ten and "never gave up on" him...]

but she can - nonetheless - be given one by authors who aren't bound by the genre needs of the later series. and - in particular - be given a character arc which plays with her canonical archetype.

ginny is clearly someone who is very stubborn - which i mean as a compliment. she's steadfast, she's very good at enduring hardship, she's brave, she's self-reliant [her teaching herself how to play quidditch! iconic!], she's prepared to get knocked back and keep going, and so on.

but she's also clearly someone who finds it hard to recognise the point when being tenacious turns into being masochistic - someone who struggles to understand that it's just as bad for you to never give up on things as it is to always give up on them.

and, of course, her learning to deal with this tendency as she gets older doesn't prevent her ending up with harry. but i think that there's a great premise for her and hermione getting together post-war while they go through this process of growing - as ginny learns that she and harry staying together isn't going to be happy-ever-after, and that she's right to walk away, and hermione learns that, when she stops seeing ginny as someone she has to advise and starts seeing her as someone she just has to hang out with... there's something between them that neither expected.

minerva mcgonagall/poppy pomfrey

beautiful. iconic. transcendent.

and outlined in more detail here:

albus dumbledore/dobby/the sorting hat

dumbledore and the hat are a couple, except - since the hat is a poor communicator and that's why its songs are so shit - dumbledore doesn't realise that they're in an open relationship.

[focsle]

Once again I am misled by recommendations and rottentomatoes reviews into thinking horrors are going to be Good…and my toxic trait is I think I have objectively good taste. Watched Barbarian last night. Didn’t like most of it. Spoilers below.

I think when I feel most critical of films is when they’re really good in the beginning and then deflate themselves. I thought the first third of Barbarian was SO creepy. It built the tension so well, I was really invested in learning more about Tess and Keith as characters, and had a really good way of balancing the anxiety of the situation. The premise of the house was super disturbing too. But after the first act everything else was a mistake.

Killing Keith, shifting the perspective to making Insufferable-Heavy-Handed-Parody-of-Toxic-Masculinity-Character AJ a main character who’s introduced 1/3rd the way through, and basically making Tess secondary to him was all a mistake.

Keith was a red herring that worked really well in building the opening tension, but was also clearly a red herring. I think it would’ve been more interesting that as the red herring died away, the horrors of the house being discovered together by Tess and Keith (as the film did a good job at building investment in their dynamic) would’ve been just…more engaging from a character standpoint. I think AJ served a function, but he sucked, and overemphasizing him as a main character was trash. I went from telling Tess not to go in rooms, to not giving a shit at all about the scary basement because I did not care about AJ, I didn’t care if he died, I wasn’t scared for him, and he just had like…..no substance. It’s crazy how the premise that I thought was so scary at the beginning literally meant nothing to me when he was the one in the tunnels.

Suddenly shifting the tone for the last 2/3rds to be a horror comedy also did not work for me. I feel like it was trying to replicate the artistry of Peele and his skill in blending horror and comedy seamlessly, but it didn’t know how to do it well. Peele has an understanding of tone, ramping of tension, and diffusal, as well as creating characters that you care about that like…didn’t exist here.

And I love horror as social commentary. I think horror is at its best when it’s a social commentary. But this film literally spoonfed it to you. The script spelled out every second ‘This Is About Toxic Masculinity And The Hypervigilance Women Have To Have Over Stranger Danger In This Society’ in a way that had no subtlety. It was a big eyeroll. It’s like how I more or less quite enjoyed the 2021 Candyman and thought it did some really great things, but also there were times when a character would just…Look at the camera and Define Gentrification. Or at the end of Block Island Sound where there was an unnecessary voiceover of the main character being like THIS IS THE POINT BTW. I feel like it happens a lot lately. Horror as social commentary works best, I think, when you give the viewers some credit to see your thesis statement without having to spell it out. Or are viewers just dumb? Do most people need things spelled out? Have we just become dumber at following narrative themes? IDK MAN it makes me kind of mad.

Anyway. It was so good and then it was so schlocky and disappointing.

[avelera]

I'm genuinely curious why a Lucifer!Crowley fan theory drove you up the wall? I mostly want him to be a nobody just bc I'm tired of "oOoOh the nobody is actually Somebody!!" twists, but I saw a meta yesterday that had me at least considering Crowley might be Lucifer 🤔😆

That particular theory drove me up the wall because it proliferated despite both Word of God evidence AND in-story evidence that was flat out against it. I’m all for fun headcanons but I’m just enough of a pedant that it sets my teeth on edge when a headcanon is contradicted by both the text AND the author.

- Neil flat out said that Lucifer and Satan are not separate people in the Good Omens universe. So the theory was already dead before he killed it again with this new ask.

- Crowley refers to Lucifer as a separate person. He’s not referring to himself or as being one of the “guys”, in context he’s clearly talking about a separate group and it’s needless conspiracy mongering to try to twist those words. The context was incredibly clear and it required willful blindness or perhaps unfamiliarity with English as a native language and its accompany tone to think Crowley was including himself in the group or referring to another person calling HIM Lucifer. He was clearly saying Lucifer is over THERE with the guys and I’m walking by them and then joining their table because I’m bored. Ergo he’s not Lucifer.

- Satan is a character in Good Omens! He was Adam’s father! He appeared on screen! He was voiced by Benedict Cumberbatch! I’d understand the theory if we never saw Satan or Satan’s identity and whereabouts were a mystery but they’re NOT. Crowley is not Satan! We’d know if he was Satan! We saw Satan! It was a whole big thing, the climax of Season 1! I get it if most GO fans care more about Crowley than Adam but it definitely happened in the text and on screen!

- And since Satan and Lucifer are THE SAME PERSON as is the case in the MOST popular perceptions of Satan and Lucifer if you don’t delve into truly obscure angelic and religious apocrypha, that means he’s a separate character from Crowley!

Like I get it, it’s a fun theory and a great premise for a fanfic that’s focused on Crowley but my god, this theory COULD NOT be more contradicted in the text in every which way. The conspiracy mongering to make it work is truly mind boggling. I promise you in no religious comedy intended for a broad audience is ANY author going to make Lucifer and Satan separate characters in a story based on Christian mythology with an assumption that readers will expect it. That is something you clearly lay out in the story if it’s true and people should be theory mongering around it, the fact that Pratchett and Gaiman didn’t is because it’s not true and because 99% of laymen ie, their audience, thinks of Satan and Lucifer as the same entity. It would be BAFFLING for most audiences not steeped in obscure Christian religious apocrypha to make them separate and if you did it would be clearly stated at SOME POINT, ANY POINT, IN THE TEXT.

For fuck’s sake, Crowley isn’t Lucifer! And I’m glad Neil murdered this theory dead!

[mdzs-fics]

Lotus Flower by Mydla

Series, AU - canon divergence 8 works 38k words

An insistent thought was buzzing in Lan Qiren’s mind, just out of reach. He furrowed his eyebrows, trying to focus on it. Soon enough, he realized that he actually knew who had planted them there; it must have been Wei Wuxian, probably as a memento of the Lotus Pier.

But why would he do that? There had been no connection between the Yunmeng Jiang sect and him for years now, he had cut all the ties, just as his former sect had done. Why would he make the effort to make lotus flowers bloom in such a desolate place as the Burial Mounds? And how did he achieve it in the first place? Lan Qiren found it hard to believe that using demonic cultivation could be any good for anything alive, flowers included. So had Wei Wuxian just taken the time to grow them normally? With hard labour and fighting against nature itself and the resentful energy alike?

Lan Qiren could not understand anything anymore as he was watching the withered flowers swaying gently in the wind, as if unbothered by its fierce and ice cold nature.

Suddenly, he noticed that there was one flower stuck up the dead tree next to the flower bed. It was odd enough how it had managed to get all the way up there, not even talking about staying in place. Lan Qiren was intrigued for no apparent reason. Something was just not right with this image.

Upon more intent observation, he could see something resembling a human hand holding the flower in place. The hand was small, the size of a child’s hand really and it distressed Lan Qiren even more. Of course he had heard stories about Wei Wuxian even raising fierce corpses who had been children in their previous life, but he had never seen one himself. It was revolting.

And then it hit him. Why would a fierce corpse be holding a flower? And so gently too? He had never heard about anything like this.

Despite himself and the situation he had all but forgotten about for the moment, he stretched his senses all the way to the hollow tree where the child – whoever or whatever it was – was hiding. He blocked everything else away, he could no longer hear the noises the cultivators had been making and all he could see was that single withered lotus flower and the hand holding it.

Suddenly, he thought he could hear silent sobs and desperate calls of ‘Xian-Gege!’. His heart skipped a beat. It could not be; it was simply impossible. His senses were just deceiving him. Or perhaps the Yiling Patriarch was actually playing a trick on him. It just could not be that there was a child in the Burial Mounds, because what he was seeing and also the voice clearly pointed only to one reality. There was a child, a living one, hidden inside that hollow tree.

The series Lotus Flower began as a stand-alone story, Withered Lotus Flower. The premise is that Lan Qiren notices a withered lotus flower above the ground in a dead tree. He then notices a child's hand holding the flower, and the history of the Second Siege of the Burial Mounds suddenly takes on an entirely different turn from canon.

Over the series, Author Mydla builds on this stand-alone story through seven additional short stories that move from the immediate aftermath of the Siege through a period of three years. There is hope at the end of this first story that continues through the rest of the series. There are themes of recovery and guilt. As in canon, Lan Wangji is not present at the Second Siege because he's in seclusion as part of his punishment. The Wen, on the other hand, experience a different outcome, as does Wei Wuxian. There are problems along the way, and unpleasant truths are revealed.

The stories are a reflection of Lan Qiren's thoughts as he faces his past and where he wants to be in the future. In the final story everyone is in a much better place than the first. A happy, satisfying ending to tragedy averted because of a single lotus flower.

[capitalwildcat]

Now, I am just saying words recreationally, but the last 2 episodes of The Magnus Protocol really have me in a specific mindset about the series and the friends I discuss with IRL are not caught up, so I'm just throwing my thoughts onto the wall here instead. I'll start at the most recent episode (24) and work my way through all my raving after. Obvious spoiler warning for under the cut. (For both TMA and TMP)

This is a long post.

Episode 24 - Monster Babies & Endings:

Celia's involvement in the support group seems to have a lot of people asking questions. Is her baby also a little changeling monster? It's unclear, but I had initially assumed (and still feel) that the support group was simply a support group for single mothers. As our unfortunate statement-giver points out, none of the other mothers seem to need bandages. There's clearly something wrong, but there's no reason to assume Celia knows what it is.

On the other hand, I'm inclined to agree with the folks who assume Gwen has started to formulate a sort of plan regarding the Externals and that she is putting up a huge front with Lena. As much as she doesn't seem to want to deal with the externals, she admits to Lena that she'd rather have the small amount of protection that Knowing might give her - even if it's not going to protect her That Much. I don't think she really wants the role, but she's not going to let herself be caught unaware. Alice, meanwhile, might be against Sam's plans to kick the Magnus- Archives-Brand-Hornet's-Nest, but it seems like she's either unaware of Gwen's new, somewhat dangerous plan, or else she thinks Gwen is more capable of handling herself (or that Gwen's avenue of research could protect them all, while Sams' might only doom them).

I especially appreciated the scene in this episode of Celia playing mediator between Sam & Alice. To me, Celia is the bridge between new audiences and old audiences. She appears to be from TMA's universe (more on that later), but she wasn't a "Main Character". She's also clearly not normal to TMP-only listeners, but she's been more understanding with Alice than Sam has, and she seems to be happy to pretend things are normal - despite her obvious and suspicious willingness to believe everything that she's told about the supernatural being real.

It's too soon to say whether she's "trustworthy" or not, but I feel like she's about as trustworthy as anyone else.

Jumping to the end of the episode- I think it's an interesting choice for Basira to call in "Mrs. Banks".

Deliberate reference or not (I obviously choose to believe it's deliberate), Oliver Banks was an avatar of the End. Even if they never expand on who Mrs Banks is, or confirm whether she's connected to the larger plot... that's not the point.

As an audience, we have reached an end point. There might be something in this graveyard for us to dig up, but we have to stop asking the Corpses where it is and start asking the Gravekeepers. (Ie- engage with the premise and setting where it is at, and do not expect a miraculous appearance from someone else we already know to give us All The Clues.)

I'm sure we will learn a lot from Sam & Celia's investigations, but the writing is nowhere near sloppy enough to put all the weight on their piece of the story.

I also got the feeling that this statement, in a way, reflects a bit of the fear that comes with creating a sequel - do you cannibalize the progenitor to satisfy the spawn? Whatever anxiety the writers had about creating something "new" and "perfect" has definitely manifested itself alongside the transmogrification & birth metaphors of the last 2 episodes. At least to me. It could be projection! It could be nothing! But I don't doubt that there's been a lot of pressure to follow up TMA with something really outstanding and I'm sure some of that has found its way into the work. (Writing is a self-portrait sometimes).

Expanding that thought - Perfection, Creation, and Alchemy:

It certainly feels a lot like episode 23 and episode 24 are a matched set.

There are plenty of themes of obsession and individual stories/statements about trying to attain a sort of personal perfection or divine creation or level of acclaim that ends up corrupting or destroying the participant/creator. (Everything with Ink5oul, for a start. Honestly, Gwen's ambitions to move up in the company, too.)

There is, frankly, no way the theme has been so prevalent by accident.

Alchemical symbols may have been convenient shorthand for the ARG, but I don't believe for a second that's all there was to it. Episode 19 gives us one example of this - the letter to Robert Boyle regarding Arbor Philosophorum Perfecta - aka. The Philosopher's tree. Obviously we can look at the episode as explaining the invocation of "The Protocol" (scorched earth), but more than that - it's a reminder that alchemy is concerned with study and refinement.

Refining elements to their purest forms, creating precious metals from base ingredients. Possibly creating 'externals' could be a type of alchemy, though I have less coherent thoughts on that. Given that we know Alchemy is not only present, but seems to have worked before the events that might tie together Protocol's universe with Archives'... we're not going to get far without considering The Homunculus. The idea of constructed or cobbled-together life-forms has been a recurring theme (from Episode One, Even) and I suspect we're going to get even more of that as we go on.

Fears, Externals, and Coincidence:

Not to reinvent Smirke's 14 here or try to impose a framework on a series that doesn't necessarily follow or need it, but I have a working theory that the multiple ocean-themed cases could be related. I've been referring to this thing in my head as "The Deep".

Mainly my suspicions are based on the story of the ship tattoo and the profound effect the ocean has on 'Gordon J' in in Episode 11 , the woman drowning on land in Episode 15, and possibly the coral in episode 23. Also potentially related, from episode 22: "I dreamed of an ocean, deep and unforgiving, with an unplumbed heart full of dark secrets waiting to be uncovered, whilst overhead flew radio signals, invisible and unknowable, not even rippling the surface".

These things don't necessarily connect at all, but the ocean motif does have me spinning my wheels.

Then there is the matter of [ERROR]. This isn't as well-thought-out of a category, but I did notice that when Gwen is compelled to speak in episode 21, her story involves finding a dead fox. Gee wouldn't that be odd, if someone had specifically mentioned a dead fox before? Oh, wait-

Episode 10, when Sam & Alice are exploring the institute (when the inadvertently release [Error], when discussing the smell of the place. "It's Manchester, so yeah, probably. Whether they’ll serve us when we smell like a dead fox is another matter…"

I just thought that was an interesting connection. Did Sam recognize the smell? Did he pick up on something? Was Gwen's story her story, or is it something that came from [ERROR] directly?

Character Sets: Gwen & Alice:

We've had a divide going for a while now, but this episode really managed to split our team into neat sections.

To me, Gwen and Alice are the "you don't have to listen to TMA" section of the podcast. Obviously the show would not work without them. (Also, I love them). They are experiencing these things for the first time.

Mr. Bonzo is a perfect representation of their part of the story. A familiar character from TV turns out to be a facade for a violent creature in ill fitting skin. Something, something, the loss of innocence. Something, something, the horror of realizing what you assumed was Safe is most assuredly Not. Something, something, Gwen's eagerness to take on this role and her immediate regret at finding the job entails bloody murder. The works.

I'm extremely excited to see what Alice and Gwen plan to do, now that they've agreed that the Externals are a danger. It seems like Gwen asking for another opportunity to be the externals liason (and taking a modicum of protection over complete ignorance) is a step towards really figuring out why the OIAR is working with these things, how they started... all things that are completely divorced from what returning TMA audiences could really know.

Character Sets: Celia & Sam

Celia and Sam are the characters whose story will likely appeal more readily to people who have listened to all of TMA.

First of All: Celia is almost definitely from TMA's universe.

She recognizes Chester's Voice

She appears to have knowledge of Smirke's 14, which makes sense given her time in the apocalypse

She would have met Helen, and while I believe she was taken before Basira's arrival, Melanie seemed to get on well with Basira, so it makes sense she would have told the others about her.

It explains why Celia knows, without real confirmation or in-universe backup, the names Jonathan Sims and Martin Blackwood.

It may also explain why she knows this universe's version of Georgie. If I were pulled out of my own personal hell, I would also seek out my heroes' counterparts in an alternate dimension (Not sure if she's tried to contact Melanie and failed, or if we're just not there yet)

While she would not have known Gertrude or Gerry, she and Sam didn't seek them out on her prompting - they looked for Gerry based on records from the institute that "John" mailed to Sam.

"Complicated immigration status"

Now, Celia, to me, is a perfect bridge character. First of all, because she has just enough information about the universe of the previous series to keep people who are familiar with it from getting too antsy. She also wasn't a main cast-member, which means that she doesn't have so much information that Protocol-only audiences can't possibly understand her, nor was she so important that Archive-listeners know everything about her.

She also has her own unique plot going on that we can't really infer from just listening to TMA. It's going to have to be handled in universe.

Her exhaustion could be related to a monster baby, sure, if that's really what is happening with the support group. However, it seems like she's been waking up in areas that she doesn't remember traveling to, more than anything.

This is exciting, because it opens up a lot of possibilities.

Sleepwalking

Involuntary Teleportation

Possibly (and this is my favorite so far) sharing a body with the Protocol version of Celia. This could be related to the statement in episode 22 that shows us multiple souls in 1 body could be possible.

Then we come to Samama Khalid. My dear Sam.

His complicated relationship with Alice is reason enough for him to react badly to her perceived interference - he already knows she's a bit jealous, and she's always very contrary, and she fiddled with his computer behind his back. As far as Sam is concerned, Alice is meddling because she doesn't think he can handle things himself. Celia's mediating between them is welcome and appreciated, and it cuts through their arguing very neatly to keep the story progressing. Now is not the time for Sam & Alice's relationship drama to derail our investigations.

I also know a lot of folks were put off by Sam's reaction to Gwen re: Mr. Bonzo, but let's be completely honest: If someone got really dramatic about monsters and then told you that like... Count Von Count from the muppets was the monster they meant, you'd laugh too. Not to mention that Sam is used to Alice messing with him. He dismisses her, but it's a completely sensible and human reaction.

And yes, his obsession with the institute is definitely blinding him to some of the other goings-on at the O.I.A.R., but he doesn't need to fill that role. He has a vested interest in a very different piece of the puzzle than Gwen and Alice. Sam is also the only person so far that we know for certain has been contacted by both "John", and the Response Department (that isn't supposed to exist).

Honestly I'm more excited at the moment to learn about the response department than I am to learn about what might be going on with the institute, but I will not lie to you - I anticipate hearing news eventually about Jmart and co. I just don't expect it to be good news.

Series Notes - Connected Universes (Welling Mutare Materia Research Program):

Speaking of Jmart. Let's hop to episode 17.

This case is the first real confirmation of dimension hopping in Protocol. Our ex-con was going to court-mandated anger management therapy. Shockingly, at the same place where we had (what most people assume) our Alternate Universe John and Martin in the waiting room.

He goes into the Dr's office. He meditates. Then he is gone. When he comes-to, the office is dark and he is exhausted, emaciated, dehydrated, in pain, and his legs aren't working well... I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure this is when he is transported not just through time, but also realities.

He even makes a point to mention seeking out people he knew in his life prior, but they don't seem to know him or recognize him.

[Celia actually responds to this case with a "Thanks, but it's not exactly the same, is it" (I might be biased but I count that as a win for 'Celia is from TMA' bingo).]

There is a similar discovery of a body in episode 18, though the woman is deceased when she is found, and gives her "statement" posthumously ("I wander lonely. I wander lonely. I will die in this place. And no-one will miss me.") I interpreted this to mean that she was present in a domain of the lonely in the TMA universe during the apocalypse and appeared in this universe before succumbing to her exhaustion, starvation, etc.

Anyway. The statement is only part of what is interesting here. In the report itself, the subject is ranked for viability as subject, agent, and catalyst. These categories appear in other places too - like episode 9, about the dice that change fortune.

The part that gets me, of course, is the Welling Mutare Materia Research Program. The Dr Welling in question is mentioned in episode 21, which I will get to now.

Series Notes - Connected Universes (The Dome):

Episode 21 gives a lot of information that I think is very crucial. First of all, we have the Millenium Dome as a site, and the concept of "Universal Transmutation".

1) Obviously whatever plans were in place, it is no accident that the institute was burnt down in December 1999 when the launch of this project was anticipated to be in 2000. (At Dr. Welling's suggestion, given the turn of the century's psychological impact)

2) The concept of Loci. Ie "in the process of developing into a locus without our intervention".

It is unclear whether a locus is more akin to Hilltop Road, or to The Panopticon, but I'm guessing whatever it is will be closer to the latter. The "hungry architecture" structure discussed in episode 8 may also be developing into a locus, along with the Oxford outreach center of the institute (Episode 17 & possibly 18's subjects appeared there)

3) Of course, the mention of incorporating the dome into a "grand ritual" is noteworthy, though it is unclear whether this was intended to call down an entity, or several entities, or to transform existing parts of the world into something else.

4) The Millenium Dome was a real project in the UK, and the dome was originally conceived of as being split into 14 sections (some folks already pointed this out and how fun that knowledge is when you consider Smirke's 14. If nothing else, it is a fun coincidence.)

5)The doppelganger of a worker pulls his double into the earth. I want to bold this, underline it, and highlight it. This is another confirmation of "selves from alternate realities", and at minimum is a 2rd example of someone's double appearing from another world.

Series Notes: Tie-ins & Foreshadowing

Finally, I'm going to wrap up this rambling string of thoughts with this: I refuse to believe that the Very First Statement in protocol isn't relevant.

"I just couldn’t face the thought of the rest of my life never hearing him again, I had to try"

(Did hearing that in Martin's Voice hurt my heart? Very much so)

But beyond that, this piece stuck out to me.

"Arthur? Is that you?

And that voice I have loved for twenty years answered:

Some of him".

First of all, the statement feeds into later themes of obsession and blah blah blah. But it also, crucially, encapsulates the idea that even the things we love and recognize- the things we'd do anything to see again- are likely going to be so irrevocably changed in this story that we might regret wishing for it. I take this as a warning to the audience. Listen at your own risk.

It also could give us a hint into the existence of [ERROR], with it's many eyes and its tape recorders. There was some speculation that it might be a monstrous version of John, or Elias, or even Sasha. But I think that, most likely, it's not any single one of those things.

If some part of John (or any of our characters) is in there, I wouldn't be surprised, but that's just it- some part. "Some of him". Back to my homunculus rambling from earlier (and my obvious graveyard simile) this could be an in-universe example of someone digging up the past (literally) and trying to bring it into this world.

ANYWAY

That's it for now I just really, really, really had to get this all out of my system. Thanks.

[narbevoguel]

AoC deserves better.

I think enough time has passed for me to rant about the current status of BotW, AoC and TotK.

I'll start by saying TotK is a really fun game, I enjoy playing it way more than I ever did a portion of BotW, they actually found a good balance between old dungeon design and trying to revamp it somewhat, it still needs work but defo a step in the right direction; but the reason I believe people feel BotW was better for them, is because of multiple factors:

1.- The novelty of exploring wore off. First, you get to explore the same Hyrule from BotW, and while the overly needed addition of caves was a thing, the depths and skies added little to no substance, contrary to what the trailers made you believe.

2.- While the story, standalone at least, is not that bad, it isn't a big of a deal either, and while I believe the premise for it is better than BotW's, at least BotW bothered sticking to it with a strong foundation, whereas TotK story is glued together with nothing but tape and tears (no pun intended).

3.- The characters. BotW gave us amazing characters that sadly the plot didn't let shine (which is where AoC comes in, but that's for later), TotK gave us characters that are just... there. Even if BotW did little to nothing with its cast, at least they had their moments in the cutscenes; what do the likes of Rauru, or Sonia, or the past Sages have? Nothing. It's almost like they left out important plot points out on purpose and somehow thought not elaborating on them was a good idea? I bet not a lot of people know about Rauru's sneaking out antics, or Mineru not getting enough sleep because of her research, or Zelda liking to help Mineru with her research because that's just the kind of nerd she is, or the fact that Rauru and Mineru would perform together in the form of song and dance respectively. These are things that would have been cute to see in the form of cutscenes like we did with the Champions in BotW. You can summarize plot and characters to an extent in BotW, but not in TotK, sadly. That said, I don't mind Ganondorf being evil for the sake of being evil, but them choosing to make him less of bound to the curse and more the curse itself can get disappointing at times. What's the point in making him sexy with zero substance? (Yes, they made him sexy on purpose, they said in an interview). But back to the Champions, can I mention how little respect they had in TotK? Like, I understand passing on the veil of destiny to the now sages, but disregarding them almost completely like that was a decision I can't understand, you take the best of BotW and almost discard it completely in the sequel?

AoC, on the other hand, took everything BotW and just added the "what if" fanfic 'fix' where everyone lives and it's a much better, happier outcome, but as a result, it lets the best part of BotW (the characters) properly shine and be fleshed out, it's a game that was clearly developed with care towards the source. The hate it gets it's because it was marketed as a prequel to BotW, yet it wasn't (and tbh, I'm sorry but thinking a musou game was gonna have perma character death was kind of a naive thought), and thus has no place in the timeline, but we are somehow okay with TotK liking to play the game of "Let's pretend BotW didn't happen"? Where do we draw the line then?

If you think there's nothing wrong with how TotK handled BotW's retcon, but don't like the premise of AoC, you owe AoC an apology.

That said, if I were to recommend someone who really enjoyed BotW what to play next, I would recommend AoC 100%, as much fun I have with TotK, AoC is more respectful.

I don't want to hate on TotK entirely, because I stand by what I said, I still have lots of fun with it, I never enjoyed playing BotW, but I do TotK, but it's being praised for things that people used to justify hatred towards AoC, and I won't allow it.

[bonzos-number-1-fan]

TMAGP 5 Thoughts: Getting Babadooked

Honestly, I didn't really vibe with this one. I didn't hate it or anything but it didn't really grab me. I'm not really sure there is a whole lot to say about it either. It's an interesting premise in a cerebral sense but I don't think the incident itself was super compelling.

Spoilers for Ep 5 below the cut.

I think the setup was pretty great but when it got time to do something spooky there wasn't really much of it there. The build up was compelling enough. A movie that's so obscure information on it in any sense is hard to come by. The singular review being not overtly strange but not really a review at all. A contest that's pretty clearly a scam of some sort. Some hints that the theatre was wrong, a single weird staff member hinting at more, spooky popcorn, etc. The movie itself is entirely mundane except that it's a home-movie of your own family, with a detail you never noticed while you were living that movement. Then it just sort of ends.

It really felt like it could've done with a couple more minutes to give it a bit more of an ending. The conclusion, while scary to think about as a full scenario, lacks so much detail and happens so abruptly it's hard to feel like there is really much of a conclusion at all. Just a minute or two of blind panic and a hurried attempt at an escape before they get kidnapped, and presumably, replaced would've been a much better climax which the final post on the site would've helped reinforce. There was even a narrative device worked in that would allow for all sorts of fucked up stuff to happen and still be coherent in the format. [UNINTELLIGIBLE] is just [EXTENDED SOUNDS OF BRUTAL PIPE MURDER] by a different name and could've done a lot of great work in leaving that sort of imaginative space for the listener.

For the office drama portion of the episodel; Klaus being the IT manager before Colin is an interesting detail for sure. Wasn't entirely expecting that but it explains a few things. It doesn't significantly alter any of my previous understanding other than suggest that the precursor to the OIAR's system might be a little bit more fringe. As in if Klaus set up Freddy entirely then the Klaus sheet might not be from a German version of the OIAR. The response 121 came back a lot sooner than I was expecting but still feels a bit like a slow burn.

DPHW Theory: 2377 lines up well enough. It was mostly a weird time where they got compelled to do something. Makes sense, not too exciting.

CAT#R# Theory: CAT2RB is properly filed this time around but still not a whole lot to say. You could assume the ones that were wrong are all wrong and so the tria prima thing is back on the table but with so few data points it's hard to call any of them anomalous. R# could be some sort of scale indicator now though. Rank C incidents supernaturally affect single people or objects, Rank B's can affect larger areas or spread from person/object to person/object, Rank A's are wider still, and Rank S's are on very large scales. That idea fits pretty well with what we've seen so long as you labour under the assumption that the effect an incident can have doesn't map directly with its Rank. Daria's incident ranks higher than the violin but lower than the Institute. Whatever happened to Daria was passed onto her through another means so is higher even though the violin ended up killing more people it never grew beyond just a violin. Where as the Institute is a hole building that's seemingly supernaturally tainted.

Header talk: Disappearance (undetermined) -/- Invitation is fairly interesting. Showing some broader concepts than I think we've previously seen.