#we've barely moved from 'friends-ish' to 'interested'

[dear-mrs-otome]

Dear Mr. Jude 'They're Only Getting To You Over My Cold Corpse' Jazza...your overprotective is showing again. 💜

[initiumseries]

If you had to pick between spuffy and cangel, which one do you find more interesting? And why?

I'm gonna preface this with, I don't think either of them are particularly interesting. That's a large part of why I don't like these ships lol. My dislike of these ships has less to do with personal taste, and more to do with the obliteration of their characters and the overarching story integrity to make them happen. An example of this is, when I saw TVD was moving toward delena, I hated the idea of breaking Elena and Stefan up, especially when it felt like they'd barely been together and I gad serious problems with how damon consistently and without repercussions, violated obvious boundaries of everyone around him but especially Stefan and Elena. That was a personal issue for me, but I was also curious to see how they'd handle the story. I'd said this to Zal at the time, but I was prepared to be on board a delena ship if it meant the show taking an interesting character/story turn. If we actually got to see that darker turn in Elena, the fallout of her choices, and how being with damon messed with her morality, perceptions, isolated her from her friends etc, I would've liked to see that story progression and character arc, even if it meant the (temporary) end of a ship I liked. When that didn't happen, and the story rapidly deteriorated, I resented the ship because it essentially ruined the show (among other issues) to keep it working.

So to the point of the ask, I don't think that either were particularly interesting, but I will say that Spuffy, for a time, had better execution. I had tired of Spike whining about Buffy, dreaming about Buffy, becoming a pathetic shadow of what made him interesting as a character for Buffy. It sucked. So to see the return of his vigor as a character in this dysfunctional, abusive and hypersexual relationship with Buffy was refreshing. It was also uncomfortable, which its meant to be. Buffy is the white knight. But she died, and was finally at peace and her friends traumatized her by bringing her back, then traumatized her again by abandoning her to dig herself out of her own grave. She was angry, depressed, isolated and she had no one to work her issues out with, and here was Spike, allowing her to revel in the worst parts of herself. Something she never allowed herself before she died. That was interesting. It was moreso, because it was so obvious this wasn't about actual affection. It was clear at the time, Spike didn't love Buffy, he was obsessed with her, and Buffy didn't even like Spike, he was a site for her to work out her pain. That was more interesting to me than anything else, because, again, Buffy's relationships up until then had been about mutual affection, partnership and love, and now she's slumming it and hiding it from all her friends because she's embarrassed. That's good story stuff. Where I jumped off and immediately lost interest is when both Buffy and Spike became OOC-ish just to bring them back together in some weird, pointless amicable companionship thing. Spike assaulted Buffy and then got a soul to punish her for her rejection. Forcing her to not only accept him, but defend him and protect him against her loved ones, then alienate her AGAIN, to bring them back together is cruel, and a betrayal of Buffy as the titular strong female character she was always meant to be. Buffy in any previous season would never have forgiven her attempted rapist, much less stopped GILES from killing him when he was a KNOWN liability and danger to her work. She killed Angel - the love of her life - to save the world, but defends Spike? Makes 0 narrative sense. Spike becomes a sad little bitch because of the soul no one wanted or asked him to get, then just sort of...returns to himself, and shows no remorse, no repentance for what he put Buffy through, and how that affected the group. And suddenly we're all supposed to believe this is...what, love? How? We've SEEN what Spike looks like when he's in love, and this isn't it. So, that's where it becomes uninteresting to me, because in order to make this ship work this way, they have to betray the characters, insult the viewers, and compromise the story. Those are bad narrative choices.

[astral-corner]

Welcome to MDM

MDM is short for Monday Dusk Monolith, which is the (cancelled) FNF mod that this au is based off of. (Warning for body horror; including extra eyes/eyes where they don't belong/things in place of eyes, and spiders.) Or, well, originally based off of. Collaborating with friends, we've taken a lot of creative liberties and gone off in our own direction. The two of us have a focus on the main human(ish) characters, and as a group we've added plenty of mod and other outside characters to the roster, along with incorporating lore tied to things like Pico's School and Spooky Month.

Due to not owning every character, we can't definitively answer every question, but this will hopefully give a good jumping off point for the things we can answer. Plus we can always ask our other friends for clarification.

Before we dive too deep, let's establish some of the characters:

Adam, aka Boyfriend Hatsune, (he/him) is a head empty, bi disaster of a man. He has the ability to go back in time whenever he dies or loses a rap battle, allowing him to try over again and do better next time. He is borrowing this power. He left his parents and sister behind in Japan, and his brother is currently MIA.

Lilith, aka Girlfriend Dearest, (she/her) has half a braincell, though most of it goes towards her interest in science. She gained her love of science from her dad, who she now sometimes offers help in searching for a cure for the infection that's taken over. Her and her dad try to keep close enough contact in this wasteland, but her mom is MIA.

Cain, aka Pico Newgrounds, (he/him) is tired of being the main braincell holder of this trio. He's not quite sure how the other two survived long enough to find him again, let alone survived curing him. Basically adopted by an army (literally) and forcefully adopted a member of an opposing faction as a cousin/sibling figure.

While the main plot of this mod, and the inciting incident we've been playing around after, is still the monolith landing in the city, there's some backstory we should give an overview of first.

Back in the day, in the fictional city of Newgrounds, Pennsylvania, (no, this is not a coincidence) Adam (Boyfriend) and Cain (Pico) went to the same high school. While there, the two of them were dating and often hung out with Val (short for Valentine, aka Nene) and Moses (Darnell). Around this time, the other three loved to tease Adam about a friend who "you wouldn't know her, she goes to another school." None of them realize that he really did know Lilith (Girlfriend) back then, having traded names with her at one point while the pair of them were transitioning.

One year, Adam's parents got a job offer in Japan, and moved across the sea with his younger sister Lydia (Miku). Given that Adam was in high school and thus close to finishing schooling, they decided to let him stay with his young adult older brother, Abel (Michael), to finish it out.

Unfortunately, Abel ended up in an altercation while trying to protect Lilith during a hangout with her and Adam. In keeping with the Big Bro mod that Michael originates from, Daddy Dearest quite literally saves his life.

This is not the only gun related incident Adam would be unlucky enough to get caught up in. Within weeks of the event with his brother, the shooting from Pico's School took place. While Cain saved the day as Adam barely survived, Adam's parents were naturally worried about their son staying in America after both gun violence incidents. He was given only a few weeks to pack his things in preparation for leaving, and nobody was quite okay in this situation. As a parting gift, he was given his now iconic hat.

Without Adam for emotional support or a positive influence in the wake of the shooting, the remaining three friends turned into mutual bad influences. With Cain getting scouted by Assassin Corp, the trio slowly turned to a life of crime together. While the trio all turned to contract killing, they aren't afraid to turn to other illicit activities on the side.

It was somewhere around this time when the events of various Pico related things took place; such as Pico vs Überkids, Pico vs Bear as alluded to with the mention of Assassin Corp, and the Pico's Cousin games.

Adam lived in Japan with his family until a few months before the monolith arrived, when he finally moved back stateside at the age of 19. It'd been 5 years since he'd been made to leave, and, having lost contact with all the friends he'd left behind, he had no idea where any of them were. He did manage to reconnect with Lilith, and the two of them ended up dating.

That leads us into the events of the mod: The monolith falling and causing the infection; discovering music is the cure through it stopping Lilith in her attack against Adam; using that to save Daddy Dearest; an adventure to meet two strange children, their spider mom, and a weird creature in a lemon costume; and stumbling across an infected Cain, who very much wanted Lilith dead.

And then off we are into even more original content for this au which includes meeting a bomb man, a cloud man, and stumbling across Pico's family which led to the discovery that Cain has the ability to respawn, just to name a few.

[italwayshadtobeyou]

How on Earth did "Taxi Driver" beat "Torn and Frayed"?! I really like "Torn and Frayed," whereas these are both, frankly, bad.

"Taxi Driver" suffers from the moronic introduction of a Hell portal that Crowley knows about and has apparently been using for years, which, what? The main plot of a whole season was about his and Castiel's desperate attempts to open Purgatory. As if that wasn't bad enough, we get a laughable attempt to depict Hell. It's got a medieval-ish gate and Halloween lightning! Scary!

Sure, we've sort of seen Hell before, in the form of Sam's Cage flashbacks. But it's never clear if that depicted the actual Cage, or was just Sam's brain struggling to grasp something inhuman enough to drive Sam insane. Kripke and Manners pulled off a very brief glimpse of Hell back in "No Rest for the Wicked," but that was in large part because they kept it as abstract as possible. There were cables and hooks strung through some sort of lightning-prone, sickly-yellow (sulfurous?) abyss. It had no doors, no walls, no furniture beyond the cables and hooks), and no pumpkin-orange glow. Presumably, somebody working on the show at the time had the good sense to realize that they couldn't afford to depict a Hell which lived up to its hype, so they simply avoided trying that.

In fairness to "Taxi Driver," you could argue that the sloppy plotting results, in part, from Carver and Singer's reluctance to commit to their arc plot-- in which case we should perhaps place the blame on them, rather than this episode and its writers. The second trial is complex and outlandish enough that it, by itself, needs multiple episodes of setup and followthrough. Maybe it would've gotten that treatment if the writers hadn't squandered the first half of the season. As it is, the narrative shortcut of a shortcut secret crossing between Hell and Purgatory cheapens season 6, the horseman of Death (because shouldn't his employees be a little more afraid of their boss?), and any future worldbuilding the show gives us, because why should we believe it?

Meanwhile, "Pac-Man Fever" centers on, no lie, a side character's video-game djinn dream. Robbie Thompson may as well have gone ahead and done his laundry episode, for all the excitement in this plot. Going inside a character's mind worked with Bobby back in "Dream a Little Dream of Me," but we'd had more than 2 previous episodes to get invested in him, and we knew that the brothers had known him for years. It's Charlie's 3rd episode, and the Winchesters barely know her. Oh, and Charlie breaks the fourth wall for no reason ("But... Montage!"), and there's some embarrassing character shilling, where Dean tells Charlie's mom that she has a great daughter-- despite his having spent one sleepover and maybe, cumulatively, a day of work with her. The only good minutes of the episode focus on the trials' effects on Sam, sadly relegated to B-plot status. If the writers needed another episode to sell the second trial, well, "Pac-Man Fever" doesn't have anything better to do!

As bad as they are, each of these episodes does deliver one genuinely moving sequence. For "Taxi Driver," it's Dean beheading Benny; in addition to the pathos of a character killing a friend, it's the first time this season that Dean's reminded us of how much he values Sam. For "Pac-Man Fever," it's Sam and Dean's post-case reunion in the bunker, which is the first time this season that Dean has done anything to remind Sam of how much he values him. I think that this particular point hits harder on rewatch, since we know from "Sacrifice" that it's too little, too late.

Anyway, this is a difficult choice. I'm going with "Taxi Driver" because I find the concept interesting, even if the execution is way off. Of course, I could easily have gone with "Pac-Man Fever" for the fact that its djinn plot, while boring, doesn't damage the season's arc. It's a tossup. A bad, very Buckleming-Thompson tossup.

Supernatural Battle of the Episodes!

Looks like Taxi Driver is our new Champion! We need a good strong episode to battle against the good strong season 8 wrap up! Let's see what's up next!

Bring it on out Chuck!

Chuck: Next up folks, we have Pac-Man Fever-Sam wakes up after a day long nap, feeling sick and weak from the last Trial. Now hunter, Charlie, shows up and goes with Dean to hunt a Djinn. Sam ain't about to stay home and do nothing, so he meets up with them to inevitably save the day! Oh, and an epic spontaneous brohug happens back at home!

[whats-the-story-tc]

25th-28th of May

"The One with the Companion"

Monday morning started off with a couple of interesting text messages. I spoke to the underclassman girl again I mentioned here, and we had yet another V-related talk session, singing her praises as a teacher. Soon after, V herself showed up in the class chat, probably before her morning coffee, telling us that if her general Classroom message informing those who were late to submit their works on time does not apply to us, we shouldn't be messaging her about it. Passive-aggressive :) at the end included. Somebody must really hate Mondays.

That night, I also posted a couple selfies on one of my social media sites. When I did, I got the following DM from an underclassman guy I barely even speak to (the earlier girl's classmate), saying:

Boy: "On the third photo you look a lot like [V's last name] 😅🤣🤣"

Further proof that I wasn't lying all those times I said V and I have the same face. Basically everybody sees it now. :D

Along came Tuesday. Class day. Encouraged by a voice message earlier this month where my friend was just trying to demonstrate she can't hear the background noises as V was talking and she captured about ~10 seconds of her voice, I got brave. Plus, I knew it would benefit me, because I could take notes later at my own pace (yes I actually did), so... I went ahead and decided to voice record the class, playing the audio from my laptop and recording with my phone, so I couldn't speak to her this time. Thus, the conversation I was teasing here never took place, no matter how much I prepared. She didn't even mention what happened. But on to class we go.

Nature and poetry, pretty chill topic, especially with a poet who keeps talking about the great big fucking plains over and over again, as that's become the "signature landscape of [our country]", according to V, signature being said in English. She herself has expressed her dismay by saying "I don't know whose imagination is moved by a big flat plain with nothing in it." Though this only happened after "Uhh... where is it? ... oh, this is only a description [of the poem]! I'm helpless...". As video killed the radio star, we might say that online school has turned tech expert V into a boomer real quick.

As we discussed a couple poems, V had a go at the choice of topic again, saying: "I don't know about you, but I'm totally done with summer heat waves, like, on a plain without any shade." May I just say? Same, Miss. But soon after, she turned poetic, and it's such a good quote that I have to share this with you.

"A landscape isn't necessarily beautiful, it may be really-really depressing as well, or trigger thoughts that say that the way things currently are in the world are not okay."

Anyway, we kept on talking about "the great damn plains where there really isn't a thing in the world" which "don't strike the spectator as challenging" (she was really bored already), class soon ended. As I said earlier, this was the only class we've had during quarantine where there was zero communication between the two of us. But here's the interesting part: I wasn't the only one who noticed. "I hope I didn't bore you to death", V said nervously, before signing off. She noticed something was off, even though she didn't specifically say it. I may be reaching here, in fact, I'm pretty sure I am, but I still can't help but think she noticed I was quiet.

Thing is: that afternoon, things weren't going nearly so well. I went for a run, and got a really heavy anxiety attack. I simply didn't know how to turn my thoughts off. And then I realised. V. I had 45 minutes' worth of her voice at hand. I had to give it a try. As soon as I heard her speak, as I tried to focus on the landscape poems and pay attention to what she was talking about, I calmed down. I felt like I was no longer alone. Plus, even if V tends to fuck around at times, this is exactly what I love about her: her intelligence. Last week (as in, the 26th of July), me and my friends concluded in a conversation that listening to her classes is like listening to a good podcast. She just... speaks so well, and knows what the important details are, even if in private conversations she tends to be real fucken awkward. Bless. Also there's the fact that her voice is really pleasant to listen to. You guys, I lucked out so hard with this woman.

Anyway, on to Wednesday. V only actually showed up in the morning, to give us (or, well, me at the very least) a good scare with the date of our final test of the year and some homework. Weird flex, but okay.

Thursday night. Blond Boy in the Back, the very one who dared to badmouth someone I love not long ago, is now begging me for homework answers. I told him I no longer have the document. And then... I snapped.

BBitB: It's at the task.

S: You know what else is at the task? The answers. All of them, in the text. Good luck!

Naturally, I showed a screenshot of the conversation to the new and improved class group chat mentioned in the previous story post, when one of the girls said this:

Girl: This was a bit [V]-ish

Girl: Especially the good luck at the end 😂😂

S: I've had a great master, no doubt. 🤣

Because that's what she is. My number one master (if you take this weird I'll break your kneecaps). My mentor. Someone I will always look up to and someone who takes excellent care of me, even if I oftentimes misunderstand her. Someone I can turn to if I'm scared, even if it's just her voice playing off a recording. And I can't ever thank her enough for that.

~ S ♡

[Every story I share here, no matter how specific I get with my wording, depicts actual events from my own life.]