#which like isnt how strangling someone works anyway

[kaurwreck]

I think it's cute that Chuuya only chokes Dazai by digging his fingers into Dazai's carotid arteries, since that's generally considered "safer" (insofar as any strangulation can be safe) than applying pressure to the trachea, which risks crushing it.

(In 55 Minutes, Atsushi similarly chokes someone via their carotid arteries to knock them unconscious without damaging their throat— so we can assume it's intentional here too. Asagiri clearly knows the difference.)

[w2beastars]

regarding your translation comparison post, i just thought i'd share some translation theory, since i see a lot of stuff like this where OPs are like "why would the translator make these changes??"

on the first point, this is an example of condensation - when you condense the information present in the source text into fewer words in the target text. it's very common in interlingual subtitling and things like comics and manga due to the limited space available. i've also been told by someone who worked in manga for a little bit that typesetters have a rough job in the industry and should be taken into account when translating manga. basically, due to pressure to use fewer words in the official context, "strangled [...] because i'm a snake" was condensed into "constricted", since that word has the nuance of a snake doing it already.

a few of the other points you make are examples of expansion - when you include information in the target text that wasnt in the source text so as to suit the target audience. it's a very common translation technique in japanese to english translation. this is because japanese is a high context language, and sentences that make perfect logical sense to a native speaker, or someone very experienced with the language, would not make sense and/or sound very vague when translated literally - as in the fan translation. now, sometimes vagueness can feel like the more natural option, but i've been told that in the industry it's common practice to basically guess the ends of japanese sentences that lack verbs. of course this depends cus sometimes you would be able to consult the original author and ask what verb they were implying, but this is rare in manga. this is common practice in translation because english - particularly american english, a majority of manga is officially translated into - is a low context language, which is rarely vague in it's execution and most things are spelled out when its used by native speakers.

i cant speak for the bullies talking about hyena boy because i havent seen the source text, but i would like to use the opportunity to express how important context is for translation, and that while manga translators likely have access to the original images, there are some fields of translation where they dont necessarily, particularly video games, or so i hear. this isnt a go at you, this is just something i find people just dont know so yeah.

anyway sorry if you knew all this already so it comes off as condescending, that wasnt my intention. have a good day <3

Don't be sorry, I was not aware of the lack of access to the original source

[mc-lukanette]

Omg I am loving your dreaded string of fate au this is such an interesting take! As always your writing and ideas absolutely amaze me You are such a wonderful writer! If it isnt too much of a bother could we get some more writing for dsaf? Either way I hope you are staying safe, taking care of yourself, and that overall life is doing you good.

Thanks, everyone! And sure, you can have more!!

—————

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]

Luka wasn't sure why Marinette had called him over that day. As far as he knew, she was busy with projects, though he wouldn't complain about spending some time with her.

Still, he found himself tensing and steeling himself up as he walked up the stairs to her living room. The hum of her sewing machine could be heard as he got closer, reminding him of clothes, which led to the thought of thread, which then brought his mind to the red string of fate wrapped around her neck. His last venture as Viperion seemed to have improved his sensing, so now he could see someone's red string even if the person on the other end wasn't nearby.

Needless to say, he wasn't looking forward to it with Marinette.

He closed the living room door behind him, then went up the staircase, knocking to let Marinette know he was there. The sound of the sewing machine stopped, and he heard her footsteps come closer followed by the slight creak of the trapdoor.

Marinette's face was revealed to him, offering him a smile, and Luka tried not to stare too much at the red string still tied around her neck. He swallowed, but smiled back at her, which was genuine enough even if he was uncomfortable.

"Come on up," she welcomed, holding the trapdoor up for him. He nodded and walked up the rest of the stairs, hearing the trapdoor close behind him as he took a look around the room. He felt Marinette's eyes on him, but she voiced her thoughts before he could wonder about them.

"You didn't bring your guitar?" she asked.

He glanced at his back, then at her, having no way of telling her the real reason why he'd chosen not to bring it. "Yeah, I didn't. Sorry, did you want me to play for you?"

"Oh! No, it's okay—I mean, of course I love it when you play for me so I always want—but I understand!" She thankfully dropped the subject there, turning away to return to her seat. "You can make yourself at home or help yourself to the fridge downstairs if you want anything!"

"Thanks," he said with a smile, heading over to her chaise lounge and taking a seat on it. Even with Marinette's chair turned away from him while she used her sewing machine, he could still see the red string dangling off the side, though it faded into full transparency before it hit the floor.

In truth, he'd left his guitar behind to force himself to use less music and more words. He didn't want to hide behind it to try and ease his situation or make himself more comfortable with everything. The situation the love of his life - and more importantly, his friend - had gotten into through no fault of her own was horrible, and no matter how uncomfortable he was, he couldn't have been any more uncomfortable than her being strangled by fate itself.

He watched her, waiting for a lull in her work to ask, "Did you need anything?"

"Hm?" She looked over her chair to meet his gaze.

"I'm happy to be here anyway, but I didn't know if you needed me for something," he clarified.

"Oh." She understood. Waving a hand dismissively, she assured, "No! I just invited you here to hang out—" She gestured to her sewing machine, her eyes a bit shifty. "—with me, while I was busy but totally happy and relaxed and everything!"

Her wording was inherently suspicious. His eyes scanned over the room, noting the projects littered about that seemed so plentiful. He supposed he hadn't exactly been subtle in his concern for her, but he wasn't sure of exactly what tipped her off or made her feel like she had to "prove" her happiness to him.

Besides, he knew better, and he knew her. Even with the smile she gave him, her brows were furrowed and twitching, a tiredness to her eyes that definitely didn't show what he would call "happiness."

He gave her a nod anyway, not wanting to call her out when he was still piecing things together himself, and he didn't want to confirm her worries if she was merely suspecting that he felt that way.

He leaned back while she returned to working, his hand on the cushion underneath him as he considered what to say. If Sass was right in his beliefs, then Luka indeed had the power to change Marinette's fate, though there wasn't any specific method of how. He thought back to all of their conversations, wondering what he would've done differently if he'd known beforehand and trying not to get bogged down by "what if"s or blame himself for it.

He stared silently at the back of Marinette's head, remembering the day at the ice rink when he saw the same thing. She'd been running away, or more specifically running towards Adrien after he'd encouraged her to do so. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time, but from what he gathered from interactions he'd either seen or heard about, it hadn't gone anywhere. Maybe it hadn't even gone well at all.

Maybe he'd made a mistake?

Luka's mind grew heavy with the thoughts, his body falling back to lay down on Marinette's chaise. He didn't regret doing what he felt was right, but now he wondered if his wording could've been better.

"You should probably go over and talk to him."

He hadn't exactly been thinking at the time - a lot had happened that day - but he noted that he could've asked her how she felt. He could've questioned her on if she really wanted to go after Adrien. It was possible she'd wanted to go home on the subway with him, but was convinced to chase Adrien when he brought it up. Luka just imagined Marinette seeing Adrien and Kagami together, the red string tightening around her neck and then loosening when she was presented with the prospect of going after him.

He felt like he was the one being strangled, just thinking about it.

"Luka?"

He looked up, surprised, seeing that Marinette had stopped sewing at some point and had come to sit on the chaise lounge with him. She hovered over him, concern written across her features and the red string taunting him with its mere existence. Luka knew by now that she was very worried about him, and trying to wriggle or half-lie out of it wasn't going to convince her. He'd just really thought that she would've been sewing for longer.

He also jolted up into a sitting position upon realizing that he probably looked like he was making himself too comfy on her chaise lounge. She didn't seem to mind at least.

"...Marinette," he said slowly, trying to put his thoughts in order. She leaned closer as a sign that she was giving him her attention, and he continued, "Do you know why I let you go that day?"

She tilted her head and he belatedly caught that he hadn't been specific, still too lost in his own head. He opened his mouth to clarify, but realization struck Marinette before he could speak, her brows raising in recognition.

"Oh!" she gasped. Though the conversation was sudden, she didn't seem to mind rolling with it. "Um, yeah, I wondered about that sometimes. I mean, I knew that you knew that I—but I didn't know that you—but if you didn't back then, I—"

"No, your song was definitely in my head, even back then," he confirmed casually, smiling as he added, "Since the day we met, remember?"

She blushed at the mention of his confession, but nodded. "Y-yeah." Then, seeming to rethink the moment with that information in mind, she asked, "...Why did you let me go then?"

His eyes flickered to the red string, then back up to her face. "I want you to be happy, Marinette, no matter who it's with. I thought that Adrien would do that, but I hope I didn't make you feel like you had to go after him."

She blinked, the thought having seemingly not even occurred to her. She averted her gaze, her eyes darting around at nothing in particular. "Is...is that why you were looking like that?"

He didn't answer, but that was answer enough for her.

"Oh, Luka," she murmured sympathetically. "I—well—" She shifted uncomfortably. "—I shouldn't be talking to you about this. It'd be wrong when my feelings are so messed up. You..."

He shook his head. "You can talk about Adrien if you want. I'd be happy if you relied on me more."

He meant it. Even regardless of his fate sensing, he wanted Marinette to feel comfortable talking to him, even if it was about her love problems. He didn't want their relationship to be changed because of his feelings for her.

"Even more?" She raised a brow, the concept confusing her, but she didn't question him further. She hesitated, rubbing her cheek in thought, then dropped her hands to her lap and twiddled her fingers. "I-I don't know; about Adrien, I mean. I—" She sighed, giving a halfhearted shrug. "—he's not interested in me. He likes Kagami, but the girls kept telling me that I shouldn't give up on him because of how hard I tried." Then, stiffening, she waved her hands and rapidly assured, "N-not anything against your sister, of course! That's just what happened—and—" She huffed in frustration. "—it feels like I hit a wall, and I'm not going anywhere. Adrien doesn't notice me and I can't talk to him and... I'm tired."

Luka nodded silently to let her know that he was both listening and sympathetic towards her plight, also not wanting to interrupt her.

"Of course I tried hard, but Adrien and Kagami seem like they're good for each other and they should be happy together. Just, whenever I think of giving up or not trying, I..." She raised a hand to her neck in a gesture that he immediately understood. "It hurts, and Alya's always trying to get me together with Adrien no matter what I say. Maybe she knows best and maybe she's right, and that's why I always end up in crazy situations with him. Plus, everyone..." She looked away, her voice not having the enthusiasm one would imagine her next words would go with. "...everyone keeps saying we're made for each other."

Luka clutched his leg to ground himself while struggling to keep a straight face. He'd certainly never heard that one before, but it stung like his neck did just thinking about it. His lips pressed together, trying to contain his emotions, but he couldn't help blurting out, "No one's made for anyone."

She blinked at him, shocked, but he didn't take it back or apologize for saying it so suddenly. He recognized the fact that he was talking about destined love being nonexistent when he himself knew that "fate" was very much a real thing, but his actual opinion on the subject hadn't changed. As far as he was concerned, fate's "opinion" was about as valid as anyone else's when it came to someone else's relationship.

"No matter what Alya, or even Rose, say about you and who you love, Marinette, all that matters is you and who you want to play for. You deserve someone who makes you happy." He paused, lamenting the reality that she really hadn't gotten to think about it. "Does Adrien make you happy?"

He saw the string tighten, Marinette opening her mouth to respond before she seemed to stop herself. He felt like apologizing, but knew she wouldn't understand even if he did. She frowned, staring down at her lap and appearing conflicted with herself, so he reached out and carefully hovered his hand over her shoulder in a show of comfort. She glanced at his hand, noticing the gesture, but didn't immediately give him any sort of permission.

Then, to his surprise, she brought her hand up, gently grabbing his wrist and lowering it so his hand was placed perfectly on her shoulder. She didn't even let go, keeping his wrist held like she needed his hand there.

"...Luka," she whispered, her voice shaking, "I—no, you'll laugh, or think I'm crazy."

He squeezed her shoulder, not hesitating to insist, "I won't. I'm here for you, Marinette."

She finally met his gaze, and he saw a vulnerability there that wasn't there before. She was nervous, whether of his potential reaction to whatever she had to say, or something else entirely.

She took a breath, her fingers tightening around his wrist as she composed herself. The silence stretched, though he could tell that she was steeling herself up.

"The—the Adrien pictures," she began, tossing a pointed look to the wall where they were. "I don't remember putting them there."

He kept his expression schooled, not wanting her to overthink his reactions. Careful and quiet, he asked, "What do you mean?"

"I-I mean, obviously I started putting them there, back when I first met him," she admitted, "but I took them down. They'd been down for a while."

Luka could confirm that. He'd been to Marinette's room before when she'd been sending in their Kitty Section audition to Bob Roth, and the pictures weren’t there.

She continued, "I-it hurt when I did it, but I did, and I threw most of them away. But then—when I wake up sometimes, they're back, and I don't remember putting them up. I-I mean, maybe I did but I just don't remember it? I stay up late sometimes and I won't remember falling asleep, so it might be like that, you know? I-I know you're not exactly like me and I'm sure you don't sleepily put pictures on your wall but..."

He smiled as best as he could, even though he was hurting inside. "I know as well as you do that creativity doesn't have a schedule."

She managed a smile in return, but it returned to a frown as she dropped her gaze to her lap. "A-anyway, I can forget things, but it's never been that bad, and sometimes they'll be gone for a while but then they'll be back a few days later. There's just—there's no other explanation, so it has to be me, right? I-I don't know if it's a sign or what, but if it is then I don't know what it's telling me? Because whenever there are a lot of pictures—" She made a vague gesture with a wave of her free hand, cringing as she added, "—something humiliating always happens. That usually gets me to take them down again, but then... well, you know." She rubbed the back of her neck with a hand, blushing in embarrassment. "Sorry, I probably sound crazy. I-I swear, I'm not trying to—"

"I believe you."

Her mouth halted mid-sentence, hanging open as she stared at him.

"I believe you, Marinette," he repeated, giving her shoulder another squeeze. He didn't need any further detail to know what happened, as there was no way Marinette would take down those pictures and then put them back up the next day, or even the day before that. It didn't make any sense, and while he hadn't seen the wisps of fate move things or brush them aside, he had seen them trip Marinette, meaning they had some level of physical control. It explained it all: the convenience of the pictures appearing and disappearing, as well as the amount of them there'd be.

"T-thank you," she murmured, her lips briefly moving to form extra words but nothing coming out. She looked shy, possibly from admitting something she hadn't told anyone before, but she at least wasn't so nervous anymore.

"You don't need to thank me," he assured, "but you're welcome. Just know that you can tell me anything."

She ducked her head, peeking up at him to ask, "How much do you want to know?"

"Whatever you're comfortable sharing with me," he replied.

"Everything?" She'd said it quickly, as if she'd blurted it out, but she didn't panic afterward. She merely looked at him, hope in her eyes.

He nodded without hesitation, wanting her to be certain that he meant it. She searched his gaze for a few more seconds, one last shred of doubt remaining, but he knew he'd convinced her when her body relaxed and she smiled at him with her whole heart. Her grip on his wrist lightened, her hand sliding off and back down to her side. He pulled back as well, his heart a mixture of emotions but mostly just happy to see her happy.

"I..." She turned away, facing her trapdoor. "I'm going to get some snacks first."

He watched as she pushed herself up, then stood as well to follow after her. "Do you want any help carrying them?"

She looked at him, confused. "You don't have to."

Instead of responding with the obvious - that he wanted to - he simply replied, "You're not alone anymore, Marinette."

He didn't need to elaborate for her to understand. He let himself get lost in the warmth of her gaze, hoping that he might see it more one day if he could ever get her string removed, even if her warm gaze would end up being for someone else.

[alovelyburn]

Rambles about the Golden Age Part 14

Rambles about the Golden Age Part 14

Today we’re covering the rescue through the death of Wyald. Making some progress! 

This whole part is heartbreaking, I’m just saying. And the next one is also going to be pretty depressing!

So...

1. I don’t quite remember much about the first time I read Berserk, but what I do remember is from this point forward I probably cried a hundred times. Just seeing him in that state -- the entire post-rescue Golden Age, to be honest, was incredibly difficult to read and I think this is the first reread I’ve done where I didn’t feel sort of tempted to skip it. 

All that said, one of the frustrating things about this whole period is that Griffith is kept internally silent (and obviously externally silent as well). I think this actually has a pretty powerful effect fro me as a reader - he is viewed from the outside, so we are as unclear about where his head is and what he wants or thinks as anyone else. But I do think he is readable from visual cues and....

...ok one thing I keep seeing is that Griffith is a hateful shell of his former self and despises Guts because he blames him for the imprisonment. The thing is, that’s not untrue, right? At least not at first. It is a fact that he went on at some length about the conflict in his heart about Guts, and the list is quite long - malice, friendship, jealousy, futility, tenderness, sorrow, pain, hunger. All the feelings one gets when they are deeply hurt by someone they love. And, of course....

The first thing he does when he sees Guts is try to strangle the life out of him. There’s that malice and pain. But the thing is, if you want to say that he hates Guts based on that, then you have to take the whole scene into account as well as their history. Not that I approve of people trying to strangle each other, but from Griffith’s perspective he was extremely close to and reliant on Guts - the only person he loves and trusts - and then abandoned out of nowhere with no explanation. He thinks Guts is disgusted by him and that pain drove him into a mindset where he burned his whole life down. 

Again, not okay to strangle people, but that’s the logic, right? Which is why it’s important that when he sees Guts crying for him, when Guts grieves for him...

...all the malice and anger dissipate and what does he do? He tries to comfort Guts by resting his hand on Guts’ just like he did for Casca so many times. It’s that easy. All he needed was to know Guts didnt hate him. Basically. 

And not to get ahead of myself, but from this point until the last moments before the Eclipse, he really isnt hateful or angry, just... sad but otherwise all right. Anyway we’ll get to that later. Now.

2. A lot’s been said about this torturer and specifically what he did to Griffith. Because that line about being husband and wife is pretty suggestive, not to ,mention hes literally licking Griffith’s tongue here. Also he is referred to as a pervert and is displayed in the guidebook alongside Donovan.

I have no idea whether he sexually abused Griffith directly, but I do think it’s fairly obvious that it was a sexual experience for the torturer, it’s just a question of whether it was the torture alone that he got off on or if he did other things too. I don’t know, and other than saying this guy is a complete idiot who gets a somewhat quicker death than he actually deserves when Guts runs him through and throws him into the pit. 

And there’s Judeau recognizing that Casca is in extreme danger of falling back into her old pattern with Griffith. 

3. I love watching Guts work. So does Griffith, he always did - after all, it was seeing him chop Bazuso up that made him want Guts to begin with. So what’s with the stare... well I aside from how watching Guts makes him feel on a personal level, I imagine it’s also incredibly difficult to watch since he can’t do anything to help. I imagine some combination of resentment, lust, admiration, and frustration is in play here. 

4. There’s a certain irony to the King whining that Griffith should have rotted away by now when he’s the one who insisted he live for a year. He has no one to blame for all this but himself - Charlotte wouldn’t have cut him off if he hadn’t sexually assaulted her and locked the man she loves in a dungeon to be dismantled. And insisting on killing him sure isn’t going to help his case with her.

5. One of the theories I see tossed around a lot is that Griffith is angry because Guts took his most loyal soldier (Casca) and that’s his problem. ...that’s silly. There’s literally no point to having soldiers now and he’s not an idiot, he knows that. And he never had that much interest in Casca anyway - that always strikes me as a way to No Homo a way around what IMO is fairly obvious - he’s jealous because he can tell Casca and Guts have something going on and he’s in love with Guts. The first of the two panels on the second row establishes the scene he’s seeing and the second establishes what he’s focused on, which is Guts (drawn in a sensual way). And that look in his eyes, that’s almost always shown when he’s looking at Gut - he’s the only person Griffith consistently has that reaction to.

6. She’s a little in denial here, but at the same time I’ve always liked that his physical condition didn’t repulse her or make her turn away from him. I don’t think Charlotte gets enough credit for being strong (even if quietly so) and loyal even in the face the greatest tests.

Right down to the point where she nearly dies to protect him.

But I can’t imagine how terrifying it would be to the Hawks here to have potentially gotten Charlotte killed. 

How is that even an exchange?  Anyway.

So later we find out that what he says to her is “I’ll come back for you.” I will say right now that I don’t think he believes that for a second. He’s just trying to get her to leave so that she won’t die.

Obviously there’s less to say about battle scenes, but I do have a couple of comments:

7. There’s a thing that happens with the Hawks and Griffith later on that I find quite disturbing. Just the way they talk about him and treat him in general after he comes out of that dungeon. And this page is kind of noteworthy toward that issue because the thing is...

One of the reasons watching him in this state is so hard to see is that his mind is still completely intact. He’s just as brilliant, just as quick thinking, just as observant - and this isn’t news, I mean his body was savaged not his mind. 

But the way Guts (and Casca) express surprise that he was the one who tipped Pippin off to the crack in the ceiling is a bit of a warning sign for me that even though his mind is there, not everyone is going to think about that - they may even assume otherwise. 

8. This whole scene - the quiet before the storm. I think it’s incredibly important to establishing a few things: first of all, the fact that Casca so easily falls back into Griffith’s grip, which Guts does see: 

And just like he suspected he would, he really just accepts it. This tendency he has to assume that Casca would just pick Griffith over him every time, which is honestly correct (at least until the Eclipse) ends up being a sore spot for him even post-Eclipse - it’s played into when she runs to Griffith on the Hill of Swords, for example. It helps that his initial belief, going back to what he said to Judeau before he left the Hawks, was that Griffith and Casca were sort of... supposed to be together. And now that his dream is gone and he’s no longer unconquerable, it becomes evident that Casca is just as wrapped up in Griffith as she ever was - and just as wrapped up in Griffith as Guts is, himself.

The other thing, though, is how quiet and peaceful and mild Griffith is. I’m a little baffled by people who think he spent this whole time fuming and plotting revenge on Guts or whatever - he’s... okay? He’s at peace. I’m not saying he’s happy, of course he can’t be overwhelmed with happiness given what he’s lost. But he’s not.... angry, he’s not hateful. He rests quietly, smiles as the innkeeper who helps them, and ultimately as they leave Windham, he lets go of those flowers, and his dreams, seemingly forever, as the castle he reached for fades in the distance.

I don’t believe he’s bitter and resentful. I do think he feels the loss of what he was and what he hoped to achieve, but for the moment at least he seems... at peace?

It’s predictable that what shakes him out of that is of course, danger to Guts. Because when Guts is going off on Wyald, you get one of the most heartbreaking moments in the series:

The last time Guts fought an Apostle (not that they know that’s what they are), he and Griffith both nearly died. Watching Guts fight Wyald, Griffith is visibly upset upfront, and then when he’s been hidden in a cave to protect him, he clearly wants to go help Guts, but he can’t.  And once Wyald unleashes his apostle form it just gets worse:

As he has his standard quiet panic attacks and ultimately physically struggles to go and help the obviously in danger of dying Guts. He clenches his teeth so hard he literally bleeds.

And anyone who thinks he didn't care about Casca try to explain to me why he’s desperately trying to go to her when Wyald assaults her.

Anyway, love seeing Guts basically learn on the spot how to fight Apostles - knowledge that comes in great handy for literally the rest of his life to date.

9. Casca’s continued tug of war between Guts and Griffith is pretty interesting - I’m not sure if you could say her interest in Griffith is romantic as such at this point - between her not-a-relationship (per Miura lol) with Guts and Griffith’s current condition, she does seem to have transitioned into a caretaker mode. Which isn’t to say the feelings aren’t still in there, but they’ve gone latent I guess since that’s not what Griffith needs right now. 

In fact, that kind of recalls my comment on the cave scene waaaaaay back when - though she was in love with Griffith ultimately I do think what Casca wanted most was to be able to give him what he needed the way he had done for her. Which means his current state ends up dragging her old feelings back up because now he finally does need her.

That said, she ping pongs a lot between uncertainty and commitment. After starting to drift away from Guts throughout the rescue and progressively falling back into her old pattern of circling Griffith like a satellite, seeing Guts in such danger pulls her out of it and drops her back where she was when they were first making promises to each other, and it’s evident in how coupley they act in this moment and in the wagon bandaging scene - all while Griffith continues to take mental notes on that relationship. 

...honestly I do kind of struggle with the insensitivity of doing all these things in front of Griffith’s face considering how much he’s been through. But admittedly I dont think she could help it. 

I had a whole section here about the Holy See and Casca’s name but eh, I guess I’ll do that next time. Anyway...

10. This is one of my favorite scenes in the entire manga, but also fuck this scene it’s too heartbreaking. I honestly don’t understand how anyone perceives him as a hateful scheming evil monster in this period of his life. To me, he is just... fragile. Happy to be out of the dungeon, but heartbroken at what it cost. Happy to see Guts again, but unwilling to let himself be seen by him. Guts says he can take the mask off because its only them, but of course I doubt there’s anyone in the world he wants to see him in tatters less than Guts.... because of his pride, and because of his love.

This scene has that Grizabella in Memory feeling - the once beautiful one who has fallen and is reminding themselves of who they were before. But make no mistake, Griffith is very aware that he can’t recover from this. No matter how much Guts tries to reassure him...

He knows what’s happening. I mean for one thing he was the one there when it happened. Also all of his studies, all those things he learned in his quest to be great, would have told him what was done to him isn’t recoverable. 

It’s also incredibly sad to me that it took this to let Guts talk to Griffith the way he used to - as a person - and to see him on the ground instead of on a pedestal. The way he talks to Griffith is just. Almost the way I imagine they were before Promrose got Guts’ head screwed on backwards. 

It’s sad and wistful but... fond? I don’t know, it’s just a sad, beautiful scene between two people who love each other immensely however you care to define that. 

AND THEN WYALD COMES BACK TO MESS IT UP HAHAA.

So, I’m actually kind of annoyed that Wyald gets cut out of adaptations because I do think it’s a crucial part of the story - I get that he’s kinda nasty and censor unfriendly, but he serves two major purposes, I think.

First, he is the first apostle Guts defeats, and fighting him is really what teaches Guts how to fight and defeat apostles. Without this scene, the leap from getting his butt handed to him quick like a fast food order to fighting apostles in the eclipse or killing them outright in the black swordsman era seems kind of random.

Second, and perhaps even more important, it serves to point out That Thing that’s been bothering me. The thing that always bothers me when I think about post-torture Griffith and his relationship with the Hawks, but honestly also pre-torture Griffith and the Hawks, namely they do not treat or see him as human. Wyald calls them out on seeing him as their precious thing and that’s what he is. They didn’t even rescue him just to rescue him, they did it so that he could save them from their life as bandits by building them back up. And Miura went out of his way to have them say that in the leadup to his rescue, and then have Wyald here point to it directly.

Basically my feeling is that the Hawks loved and respected him but as the White Hawk, rather than as Griffith. And this is partially something he did to himself right, because he constructed the image of a perfect leader - a symbol, which is what he is to a LOT of people from the commoners who take pride in seeing one of them rise to the nobles who saw him as evidence of a dangerous incursion on their dominance. To the Hawks, he was superhuman - Casca describes the way they saw him - the way she saw him herself before she had a reality check through the Gennon situation: a miracle. He was able to take a bunch of people who are ultimately fairly ordinary and turn them into something special and they loved him for that but of course they don’t know him as a person. In that sense they loved him for what he is able to do for them and how he reflects on them rather than who he is, because they don’t know him.

That caused immense pressure even when he was still in his prime, but because Griffith is a strong person -- because he forces himself to be strong -- he was able to carry that on his back without showing the strain. But now, because he has lost his gleam and can no longer bring them glory or help them rebuild the way they assumed he would, he loses his superhuman glow... but he’s still not a person to them. He is a doll. And that plays out very distinctly in the next bit of this arc - which I will get to another day - when they discuss where to put him and who should watch him like they’re settling custody of their pet dog or their stamp collection or something. 

Anyway I’ve talked about this before both here and on the g/g server, and I would have thought maybe I was reading too much into it, except Wyald literally calls them out on it, so.

I wish these things didn’t have the white bar in the center because this is a phenomenal double page spread... and a fantastic turn of events. Because after chapter upon chapter of Guts and the Hawks in general barely managing to scrape by and survive Wyald, when Zodd shows up it’s immediately evident that, in the scale of things, Wyald is a relative small fry vs. apostles like Zodd. Not just because he;s just physically much larger than Wyald but because of how the Hawks react to Zodd and the way Wyald reacts to Zodd.

It will also always be interesting to me that Zodd seems to act like an agent of the Godhand like he’s Gmork or something. 

And I wonder what would happen if Wyald HAD killed Griffith there. Would a secondary choice get the call instead? Or is it impossible for Wyald to kill him... in the sense that the world/idea of evil has spun the story and Griffith doesn’t die here in that story?

Finally, Wyald’s true form, the broken old man... the guide book implied that his sacrifice was a lover, so i wonder if he sacrificed his wife or something. I guess we’ll never know.

[cdroloisms]

Sooo... how about that reveal that c!Sam wasn’t feeding c!Dream? I mean, we all knew it was coming, but still. The auto food dispenser probably broke or smtg bc when c!Sam came down, c!Dream asked if he was there to give them potatoes. (Also with him being shaken up by learning c!Tommy is alive, c!Sam might not remember or care to feed c!Dream, who has none of his stores of potatoes left.) So, assuming the dispenser is broken and he doesn’t know, why would he come down in the first place? 🟩⛏?

hello anon !! yeah that reveal ,, dang, we already knew that c!sam had presumably been starving c!dream, but to see not only c!dream but c!sam confirm it as well as it having lasted AT LEAST a week ,, d a n g . they are Not pulling any punches in this arc (which, i mean, judging on the q stream, isnt exactly surprising anymore,, but still)

in the prison guard stream, we see how the dispenser works - it’s not automatic as much as it’s remote, as c!sam or the prison guards still need to press a button in order to dispense food. he also says “i havent even been around to feed the prisoner” or something along those lines in tommy’s stream, so we can conclude that the decision to deprive c!dream of food after c!tommy’s death is INTENTIONAL,, which i mean. again. yikes. 

anyway, here’s a snippet of c!dream finding out that the “automatic” feeder isnt as automatic as he might’ve thought - here, the dispenser + crying obsidian are installed at around the same time, so it’s between bad and sapnap’s visit

tw: starvation, disordered eating, abuse, mental illness, self-hatred, toxic relationship, gaslighting, disturbing imagery, dark content, c!sam/warden!sam critical (again, be careful with the content warnings)

Dream stares up at the hole in the obsidian, barely able to make out a glint of metal in the dark chute. The dispenser, just as expected, doesn’t respond to his glare, refuses to whir and click in the way that indicates food, and Dream bites his tongue, mumbles curses under his breath.

“Prick,” he blows a breath through his gritted teeth, only more irrationally angry when the dispenser, as expected, ignores him. “Some automatic dispenser, Warden.”

The walls don’t respond. Nothing responds, here, besides the dark dark thoughts swirling in his brain, and he thinks he’d prefer it if those didn’t - or maybe he doesn’t, because company is company, even if said company is the same litany of blood anger revenge pain you deserve this you deserve all of this you have destroyed the world now lie in the bed you have made pounding at the base of his skull. He drags his hand down his face; every minute is an hour, and every hour is a minute. Time has no meaning when your only frame of reference is eternity.

Even so, even he can tell that it’s been a long time since he’s had food, even by his usual standards - several days, at least, because the ever-present ache of hunger in his gut had swelled into something angrier, demanding, no longer as easy to ignore. Another stabbing round of pain nearly sends him to his knees, and just as he always he does, he clings to the feeling, gathers it into his hands, grabs it by the edges and directs the sharp edges into the words he spits at the indifferent walls. Let the Warden hear him - what can he possibly do?

Just as it always does, the fury in him peters out, drains, leaves him alone in the middle of his cell. He sinks the ground, arms wrapped around his stomach; a part of him wants to laugh at the irony. Some people think of silence as emptiness, void; he knows now that it’s anything but. Silence is suffocating, thick, so present that anything he says seems to get lost within it seconds after leaving his mouth. It grows and pushes into his limbs, becomes a weight tied around his throat, expands into the air in his lungs like a slowly inflating balloon until it’s pressed into every corner and space of the cell, every corner and space of him, taking up so much room that he can hardly breathe around it.

The hunger hollows him out, and the silence fills the space that’s left; Dream wonders how much more there is for him to lose before he’s completely empty, just a husk filled with the same liquid misery that drips down the walls. He wonders if anyone would care- laughs. As if.

“Dream.” The intercom crackles; Dream perks up at the voice, spine straightening against his will, and his hands tighten into fists as he realizes - prime, how pathetic is he, now? The voice deepens, becomes more insistent. “Prisoner.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m here. Or maybe I’m not; you better come and check, yeah?” A humorless smile tugs at his lips, and a static-filled sigh comes through the speaker.

“This isn’t the time for games, Dream.”

Dream rolls his eyes. It’s not exactly the time to be a dick, either, but you don’t see me complaining. A flutter of something warm, joyful, rises in his chest at the sound of something- someone, other than his own voice, and he strangles it with a hand wrapped around his own throat - he won’t let them break him, won’t let himself become desperate enough to crave the attention of a man that hates him - he won’t- he can’t-

“Do you need something? Or were you yelling at the wall for no reason again?” Sam’s voice is steely, indifferent, on a knife’s edge between apathy and anger. “Don’t waste my time, prisoner.”

Dream bites down the snarky reply sitting on his tongue, breathes in, out through his nose until the fury is no longer blinding.

“Your fancy automatic jig is broken. The potato one. It’s not- working.” The hunger fogs his mind, makes it hard to think. He feels caged and weak and pathetic and he hates it.

“That’s because it’s not automatic.” Footsteps echo on the speakers, Dream tapping along to the rhythm before he realizes and stops himself, and a moment later the familiar whirring and clicking of the metal box comes from behind him and a small pile of potatoes fall down and splash into the water. “There. Is that all?”

Dream feels the fury rise, again, but doesn’t quite to keep the words back, this time.

“So what was the point of the whole automatic feeder, asshole? You’ve changed nothing! What’s the difference between that thing and you coming over to my cell besides that you’ve wasted a couple stacks of redstone? Congratu-fucking-lations, you’re a goddamn genius-”

“It’s remote now, so I don’t have to come into your cell.”

“Oh, so it’s just the good ol’ Warden looking for more ways to make the prisoner suffer, huh? Should’ve figured, you fucking self-righteous prick-”

“Dream.”

His mouth shuts with a click, a flash of fear searing through his muscles, white-hot, and by the time he’s blinked back the ringing in his ears the silence has stolen all the words from him, once again. Pathetic, he screams in his head, but his jaw remains firmly locked in place - the Warden’s won, per usual, and they both know it.

“Is that all?” He sounds impatient. Part of Dream wants nothing more than to never hear his voice again, and the other half of him rails at the idea of being alone with his thoughts once more. All of him hates himself, and all of him hates the silence; they’re the only two constants in this place. “You’ll have to speak up if you want anything.”

“How- long was it, since you last gave food?”

Static for a moment, then another. “It’s only been about a day.”

“Bullshit.”

“You’d know if you took care of your clock instead of destroying it, prisoner.”

“I’d know if you were less of a fucking prick.”

“Behave, and you might get it replaced.” The Warden’s breathing is harsh, almost labored - he must be angrier than Dream thought, then. “Speaking of which, you won’t be getting any for a day after this stunt.”

“Ooh, I’m so scared. It’s not like you don’t do this - what, every other day?”

“Do you want food or not?”

Dream’s teeth grind against each other; he breathes in, out. He hates this, hates the potatoes, hates the Warden, hates himself. Hates the way that a part of him recoils at the thought of making the Warden angry at him, reaches desperately for a chance to earn his clock- his approval. Attachments are weakness, he tells his traitorous heart, knowing that it, as always, will fail to stay away.

“Yes. Thank you.” The pleasantry burns on his tongue, tastes worse than the bitterness of raw potatoes that seems to be the only thing it knows, anymore.

“Good-bye, prisoner. Don’t make me come into the cell.”

The intercom cuts off with a click, the space that the static made immediately filled by silence. Dream watches it blankly, jaw sore from how tight it had been clenched, and begins to work his way through the first potato, nibbling at the pale flesh just enough to tide over the worst of the pain.

This is fine, he tells himself, and the walls stare at him impassively. He’s not sure they believe him.

He’s not sure how much longer he can believe himself.

[fairyscribbles]

Boiling Bite. (Chanyeol, Wolf!au) 2/2

Hello guys! A few little changes!

I will try to again re-update a lot of the lists that I have here, because not only they were not up to date, they are a bit glitched, as I saw when uploading that Baekhyun story!

I also thought of putting up my ko-fi link again. I stopped doing it for a while because I was pretty content, but as I started working, my financial needs rose up as well, due to travel, food etc etc. I am also really shooting to go to the JLPTs again and obtain the highest level (N1). For that, I need the books for it. I already bought the grammar book, so I need the vocab, kanji and reading so I can prepare and hopefully go try out the summer dates of the test!

It’s also a bit hard to update for me now not only because of school but also because of the house renovation. My desk is really cluttered from all the things I’ve had on shelves and my laptop has been connected to the TV for about three weeks now and has been exclusively used for Netflix ^^’ I did go back to writing into notebooks though, and I’m biting through a few of the requests. Who knows, maybe once I’m done, I will open them again!

Well now, after this super long essay, let’s enjoy the second part of the Kris story I have posted a while back!

If you need to refresh your memory, here is the first part! If you like what you read, you can support me on ko-fi!

♥

-

Everything burned and everything hurt. You didn’t remember when was the last time you were conscious for more than five minutes. The pain always knocked you out before you could go insane with it.

You could clearly remember that night... the dark alleyway... Kris’ mate crying into her phone, begging Kris to come and save you. 

The two vampires standing, ready to pounce. 

You stepping between the vampires and Kris’ mate.

And then the bite.

It was as if somebody suddenly poured acid into your veins and the blood carried it all over your body. It felt horrible. You wanted to die as you felt the ice cold fangs digging into you, sucking the life out of you.

It might’ve been gone in a few seconds, but it felt like hours to you.

They came and saved you. But it was too late, as you crumbled to the ground and you screamed in pain.

You felt someone, Chanyeol probably, picking you up and cradling you to him, but it didn’t do anything with the horrible pain that coursed through your body.

That’s when you blacked out the first time.

- 

The first time you came to was when you felt someone settle down next to you.

“Ch-Chan…” your voice was too raspy for you to continue, a coughing fit interrupting your question.

“It’s me, ___.” Answered the voice that did not belong to your mate. Kyungsoo wiped at your forehead, the wet cloth gathering the sweat that trickled down your face.

“What…what…happene-“

“You were bitten. It’s the werewolf genes and vampire saliva that’s making you hurt.” You whimpered as the washcloth trailed down your face onto your neck, to the bite mark. A strangled scream ripped through your throat when the cloth dabbed at the wound and you immediately cowered from the pack’s healer. You heard him apologize, but everything was pronounced so slow and the way your eyelids seemed to drop, you knew you were out of it once again.

-

“Alright, ___. We need to get some of the bad blood out. This is going to hurt a lot, so we’re going to do it by bits, alright?”

You slowly grew accustomed to the pain, you were beginning to understand how it worked, how it always came in waves at you. It could’ve been two days since Kyungsoo’s visit, but it could’ve been two weeks as well.

You nodded shakily, tilting your head to the side and revealing your neck to him. Kyungsoo sighed, placing everything he was holding onto the nightstand before looming over you, his lips on your neck.

“Try to hold on as long as possible…” he mumbled quietly, his breath ghosting over your skin, before his lips closed over the wound. The first suck had you arching against him in a scream, your fists bunching in his shirt. You screeched, pleading for him to stop, trashing from side to side. You could feel the lift slipping from you from every suck by Kyungsoo’s lips. It ended just a few seconds after, yet it felt like eternity.

Kyungsoo spit out the blood he held in his mouth, its color a washed out red and more yellow than anything else.

“You did great, ___.” Kyungsoo gently stroked your cheek, trying to somehow calm you down.

“Chan…” you coughed heavily after that.

“What was it, ___?”

“Where…is…Ch-Chan…Chanyeol?” Kyungsoo fell silent for quite a while after that. Every passing second was like a dagger to your heart.

“He’s out hunting. He left three days ago, he didn’t come back yet.” Kyungsoo told you and yet you somehow knew it was a lie. You swallowed the tears that crept up on you and nodded to the tense Kyungsoo.

“You should try to get some sleep, ___-ah. We’ll try to get out more tomorrow.” His voice was gentle as if he was talking to a child. You nodded again, the grip of consciousness already slipping past your hands.

The last thing you thought of was Chanyeol’s voice, desperately calling your name.

-

Chanyeol sighed as he walked through the door. His body was full of kinks and soreness that wouldn’t be able to go away even after extended rest. As if he could do that, anyway.

For the past few days, he hadn’t thought about anything else, but revenge. He spent the past three days hunting down a vampire coven, making sure he would get every and single one of those suckers.

He kicked off his muddy boots and entered the house, his jacket a bloody pool on the floor. As he passed the mirror, he noticed the deep bags under his eyes and hallowed face.

He was only a ghost of what he used to be. He felt it, in his skin, his bones, in his very form, something changed. And he didn’t know how he would bring it back.

-

They switched every day. At first, only Kyungsoo would come, but later on, Suho replaced the healer, calling in Jongin to hold you down while sucking out the poison. The day after, the two switched and after that, Minseok and Luhan took their turns in trying to make you feel better.

You had already filled a whole glass with the yellowish substance and your mind was free from the sticky mist that clouded your senses.

It had its downfall, as it made the pain of healing clearer and the realization that since the night you’ve been bitten, Chanyeol hasn’t seen you once. Not a single time you felt his presence beside you and that made you tear up.

You probably disgusted him. You were bitten. And broken. Who in the right state of mind would want a broken mate? You thought as Kyungsoo gave your neck one hard last suck.

“Kyungsoo…” you choked out, stuttering over the lump in your throat.

“Yes? What is it?” he answered after cleaning his mouth, the poison still rocking slightly in the cup.

“K-Kill me.” You sobbed, the tears sneaking up on you. You could almost feel Kyungsoo freeze.

“What?” he wanted to you repeat as he slipped his hands around yours. You gripped him desperately.

“Please, just…let me have it over with. Just kill me and let that be…it.”

“Are you crazy? What about Chanyeol?” his voice sounded as if he still didn’t believe what you were saying. You swallowed the lump in your throat and looked at the ceiling, illuminated by moonlight.

“He…he doesn’t care about me anymore.” You had to wait a moment after saying that to calm yourself down. It was far too painful.

“I don’t blame him, though.” You added with a smile, even through the tears.

“Who would want a mate that is tainted by the enemy?” Kyungsoo squeezed your hand, rubbing circles into your skin with his thumb.

“That is the stupidest thing I’ve heard, ___. And I’m in a pack with Jongin, which means I’m listening to stupidities on a daily basis.” You could hear the smile in his voice and you couldn’t help but to chuckle shortly.

“Chanyeol wants you all the time. NO matter how you act, look or feel.”

“Then why isn’t he here?” Kyungsoo was quiet for a long time, weighing out his options. IN the end, he sighed, shaking his head.

“I would like to know that, too.” He rubbed your hand some more. It wasn’t the same thing as being comforted by your mate, but it came close.

“Just go to sleep, ___. You did good today.” You squeezed Kyungsoo’s hand one last time, before slowly rolling on your side. You instinctively awaited Chanyeol’s arms wrapping around you and pull you to him, but that never came.

-

Before Chanyeol could sigh and slip off his jacket, he was shoved back by a furious looking Kyungsoo.

“You need to start taking care of your mate.” He growled in a low tone, his eyes flickering gold.

“I am.” Chanyeol mumbled under his breath, trying to keep his cool.

“I’m avenging her. Killing every motherfucker I can get my eyes on.”

“She doesn’t need that. She needs you. But you’ve been too much of a pussy to face her.”

“What?” Chanyeol hissed, his beast stirring. Kyungsoo’s face showed he was being serious about what he said.

“I said, you’re too much of a pussy to look at her. You need to start taking care of her.”

“Do you even know how it fucking feels like? Being in my place?” Chanyeol asked, his tone menacingly passive as he came closer to Kyungsoo.

“Do you know the fucking feeling, when the person you love the most, the person you would die for, gets hurt? Like that? In front of your own fucking eyes?!” Chanyeol’s growl gradually turned into roaring.

“Do you even know how I feel when I walk around the room and I hear her screaming? Because I was unable to help her? Do you know the feeling?”

“And do you fucking know what you’re doing to her now? Did you even know that she asked me to kill her yesterday?” Kyungsoo’s words were like a thousand daggers, stabbing into his heart. As he heard about your wish to die, his knees buckled.

“W-What?” Kyungsoo smiled grimly as Chanyeol’s shock-ridden state.

“She thinks you don’t want her anymore. She told me that you probably think of her as disgusting since she was bitten by a vampire.” Chanyeol sighed deeply, sliding down the wall he was leaning against.

“Fucking hell…” he muttered, running his fingers through his hair. Kyungsoo knelt down next to him, laying his hand on Chanyeol’s shoulder.

“Look, I’m not going to try to convince you that it wasn’t your fault. You wouldn’t listen to me anyways. But killing vampires won’t help her. She needs you close. She needs to know that she’s still wanted.” Chanyeol sighed, nodding. He was too weak to say anything else.

“The sucking of the poison is very painful for her. She needs her mate. If you would do it, the poison will be gone in a few days.” When Chanyeol still didn’t answer, Kyungsoo patted his back once more and he stood to leave.

“Kyungsoo…”

“Hmm?” he turned around to look at Chanyeol. Only then he noticed how the biting affected him. He looked like hell- there were big bags under his eyes, his clothing hung on his disappearing frame and his shoulders seemed slumped with eternal luggage.

“Thank you. For everything.” Kyungsoo smiled softly.

“We’re brothers, Chanyeol. I would do anything for you.” At this Chanyeol smiled slightly.

“Even so. Thank you so much.”

-

You stirred when your bed dipped with another weight settling on it. Your fever had gone up again, so you didn’t recognize what was happening until the unknown person cupped the back of your neck and tilted your head to the side. Your blood started running faster as you realized what’s happening.

“No, Kyungsoo…” you whimpered quietly, your fists balling into his shirt. The body seemed different from Kyungsoo’s though.

“Please, no more…” you tried to cover the wound by tilting your head, but he nudged it aside with his nose. As you tried to fight back, more weight settled over you.

“Calm down, ___-ah…” a low voice rumbled above you and you suddenly knew who it was.

“Chanyeol?” he answered you with a hum, as he lightly licked your neck. Your breath hitched and you wound your hands around his torso, bringing him close. Chanyeol swiped his tongue over the wound once more before he closed his lips around it, giving it an experimental suck. He shuddered when the bad blood entered his mouth, but it didn’t stop him from sucking harder. It was much different, the cleansing with your mate. It was almost pleasurable for the first seconds and you pushed him down onto you some more, panting quietly. Chanyeol paused a while to spit out the venom in his mouth before diving in for more. This time, it was more uncomfortable, and you squirmed against him, your hands bunching in his shirt and tugging on it, to pull him away. He stayed relentless though, as he sucked harder. The first hard suck was painful.

“Chanyeol…” you whimpered, squirming some more. Once again, he leaned away to spit out.

“One more time, baby.” He assured you, closing his mouth around the wound again.

It was painful the last time, just as it was with the others. You arched your back, trying to get him from you, you tried swinging your head from side to side, but Chanyeol’s hold on you was tight, not letting go until you actually screamed out.

He quickly spat out the remaining poison and had you in his arms in seconds, holding you against his chest securely.

“I’m so sorry, baby, I’m sorry…” he kept repeating in your hair, stroking it comfortingly.

It took a while for you to calm down and to realize that he was actually with you. After the week of separation, it seemed unnatural.

“I thought you didn’t want me anymore…” you mumbled under your breath, holding onto him tightly. He reciprocated the grip, kissing the crown of your head.

“Are you kidding me? You’re my mate. I warned you about this before you signed your soul- it’s a job for life.” You giggled tiredly- the cleansing always had a dizzying effect on you- maybe because you lost a lot of blood.

“Will you stay?” you asked, looking up at him. You didn’t let him have much of a choice. There was a small chance he would be able to get out of the grip you had on him, anyways.

“Forever.” He said, kissing your lips.

[the-desolated-quill]

Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2018

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

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

Hold The Sunset

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

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

Avengers: Infinity War

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

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

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

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

That was a mistake.

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

Agony

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

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

Peter Rabbit

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

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

It’s about as bad as you’d expect.

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

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

Fallout 76

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

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

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

Mama Mia!: Here We Go Again

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

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

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

The Cloverfield Paradox

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

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

The Handmaid’s Tale - Season 2

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

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

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

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

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

The Predator

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

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

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

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

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

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

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Persona Problems: Apathy Syndrome, Mental Shutdowns, and Reverse Cases

Sooooo uhhh I can’t sleep so might as well ramble about this.

Comparing and contrasting the 3, ranting on why Mental Shutdowns are called Mental Shutdowns and why it’s stupid, and trying to fix PTS’ Reverse Cases.

An issue I’ve had with P5 tbh (I think I’ve talked about this before), but while thinking about it I realized that......my own idea of fixing P:TS’ Reverse Cases instead....made me realized some complications (I mean the complication was there to begin with but I’ll get to that). 

Anyway I’ll save Reverse Cases for last since I’m sure most of you are only here for P3/5. 8U

So one thing that bothered me in P5 is.....the fact they call Mental Shutdowns well...Mental Shutdowns. I mean because....it’s just Apathy Syndrome (or at least, how it’s called by the public, “Mass Lethargy Syndrome, which we find out in P4D, as a similar case is happening there).

Well let me explain what each one basically is.

Apathy Syndrome. is basically when a person’s shadow goes on vacation in P3, and Nyx/Full Moon bosses be giving out those vacation tickets like Oprah when well....the Full moon comes around. 8U I mean technically the person’s shadow gets “eaten” by a Dark Hour Shadow (and yes it’s their shadow, MegaTen says “psyche” but it’s clarified more that by psyche they mean shadow). Basically, while there are technicalities in HOW the shadow isn’t in the person’s body, the fact remains it happens because the shadow is not in the body. As for what happens to the person, they usually go into a coma/vegetative state and will die without medical help.

Mass Lethargy Syndrome: 

Now let’s look at Mental Shutdowns. It happens when a Shadow Self is killed.....ok.....so basically that means the Shadow is not there anymore. The Shadow is not in the body. Basically the same exact thing as Apathy Syndrome. What happens to the body? Same exact thing as Apathy Syndrome, they go into coma/vegetative state and will die without medical help. I mean sometimes they’ll die right on the spot for no good reason(ok maybe not RIGHT on the spot, stupid delay reaction Okumura....fudging things up), but of the 3/4 we saw, we know 2/3 (dunno if I should count train guy, but Wakabe and Kobayashi def count) died because they fell in traffic and not by whatever Okumura conveniently got. Also this doesn’t count Ichiko’s friend who was just in a coma, so it seems Okumura’s reaction is.....VERY rare. Btw fun fact, in P3′s 1st movie, something similar happens at a train station that mirrors Wakabe/Kobayashi, someone gets Apathy syndrome and falls in front of a train (I know it’s the movie, but the game DOES say there was a delay and the movie spells it out for us it’s cause of a body on the train tracks so.....there might be some weight to the movie). 

Now PTS....I’m....I’m mostly gonna focus on Reverse Cases, I mean this anime has Apathy Syndrome but I don’t recall it (or I didn’t get that far into it), and the wiki states it’s when a Persona is taken or destroyed, while Reverse Cases (as well as Kagenuki) specifically mention Shadows....and I dunno it could be P:TS being weird again and not knowing how the relationship between Personas/Shadows work, but then again Kagenuki was used so that people could tell if that person has a strong shadow and thus strong Persona and....basically I don’t think the creators through it through or the wiki is missing some info. ANYWAY, Reverse Cases are similar, it’s where a Shadow is forcibly taken by another Persona user for a certain goal of summoning something more powerful by gathering those Personas (if any of you Arena/Ultimax fans feel like you might’ve heard something like this before yeah I think they repurposed P:TS’s thing), and when that happens the person is turned inside out! Whoops! Well that’s a bit different, but hey same concept, shadow leaving the body (THAT BEING SAID it’s understandable why it’s called something different, the outcome is different compared to AS and MS). (btw Kagenuki is where you pull a Shadow/Persona out but it’s used to relieve stress or some BS, it’s temporary and....it’s kinda more like you are forcing someone to summon their Persona rather than take it....unless you are discount Strega aka Marebito then they are trying to actually take it).

Fun Fact: P2IS I believe is the first place that showcases Apathy Syndrome (or whatever we wanna call all 3/4 of these things), as the character Yukino experience similar symptoms when her Shadow Self commits suicide. P2IS didn’t have a name for it but....just a fun fact. 8U

Anyway before I pick apart P:TS’ mess, lemme get back to P5. Why the fudge do they call it something different? Like I GET MS’ process is a little different, but the outcome is pretty much identical, esp to the public....who are the one’s naming the phenomenon. Like us the players know it’s different, one is caused by the Dark Hour and is temporary, the other is caused by Goro being an asshole and it seems like this one is a bit more permanent....BUT THE PUBLIC DOESN’T KNOW THAT! To them it should be “Apathy Syndrome/Mass Lethargy Syndrome has returned and a new phenomenon ‘Psychotic Breakdowns’ has emerged!” you could possibly connect them due to both showing up at around the same time, but calling AS something different? No, to the public it’s pretty much the same, people are becoming vegetables and we dunno how to help them. In all honesty, just because the way shadows are leaving people’s bodies are a bit different, I don’t think it warrants a new name...in fact I think it can be confusing “Wait isn’t it basically the same thing? How/why is it called something different?” it just raises unneeded questions. And no you can’t make the argument that ‘maybe AS wasn’t well known’ because 1) it’s mentioned later in P4D (and I think even in Arena), albeit by a different but similar sounding title and 2) even a small town like Inaba’s murder mystery was still being alluded to in P5 about 5ish years later in-game....and Iwatodai is a city and it was being talked about on the news A LOT.....so no it’s not a small town/city thing.

But...”Well why aren’t you complaining about P4D’s re-name?” Probably cause the rumor of knowing the cause of MLS vs AS/MS. MLS is associated with the cursed video, while AS/MS are unknown to the public..... Or maybe AS was just known as MLS to the mass public or it’s a phenomenon where a bunch of people fall to AS, I need to replay P4D tbh if there are additional details I’m missing, but the fact remains that, to the public, MLS has a possible root cause while the other two do not so it’s possible to let that slide....tho it brings up the fact MS should either be called AS or MLS.... Esp because there’s also the fact that P4D is probably taking place in Tokyo (P3/4/4D basically just call it “the city,” but I think it’s heavily hinted to be Tokyo, heck a quick google search lead me to a LMB festival look alike, aka Tokyo Idol Festival so....yeah 8U). Which makes it even more jarring for P5 since WE KNOW it takes place in Tokyo so why are they using two names for the same thing??? It’s like.....calling the Chicken Pox something like “Polly Pocket Pox,” same symptoms, we just feel like calling it something totally random and new now for no reason even tho it’s literally the exact same thing in everyone’s eyes. 8U 

Anyway end rant on P5′s annoying alt naming, now for P:TS.

So.....Reverse Cases are a bit of a mess....both in the show (damn it be bloody) and.....lore wise (not new to P:TS bless its soul....haha soul....pun not intended). Lore wise it doesn’t make sense. I mean P3/4D/5′s way of doing it we basically have different ways of doing X1+A/B/C but we still get the same Y (basically X+A=Y, X+B=Y, and X+C=Y for P3/4D/5 respectively, X=a shadow leaving, A/B/C=the different forms aka Full Moon/Cursed Video/Goro-murders). RC is different, it’s end result is different even if say.....it’s the same as P5 (P5 involve another human harming another Person’s shadow so yeah). So with PTS, instead of X+C=Y, it’s now X+C=Z (Shadow leaving+basically stealing and absorbing the shadow=a person explodes).....so with PT X+C≠Y.....and that’s.....that’s some problems. Because PTS equates the shadow leaving with the person exploding (we’re ignoring AS in this universe cause....we don’t need more problems).

So....to fix it.....I originally thought “maybe add one more thing to the equation!” Have it be X+C+D=Z. With D= maybe the shadow goes berserk before it’s eaten and that’s how the person is exploded. Kinda similar to how Personas can turn on their user in P3 and strangle them....or in P4 the Shadow Selves....do something that kills them. I mean they both try to kill their hosts and seem to do different things to get the job done, and how they do it could result in a different outcome (P3 it’s strangulation tho not sure if traceable, P4 it’s unknown, PTS it’s explosion). There fix right? Nope.......I realized, thanks to P4 esp....there’s an issue....And this exists with how RCs already operate not just my fix it tweak. The issue is that.....once the person is killed, the shadow self (and by extension the Persona) disappears with it.... 

“Ok how is that bad?” Well the point of the RC are that the Marebito are gathering Shadows(/Personas) to make themselves stronger (and so that what’s his face can summon something, keeping it vague for spoilers but hey already dropped a spoiler so whatevs). But.....as soon as the Person explodes that Shadow should cease to exist. Rendering everything moot.

Which means we need to change PTS again, and we can do it a few ways thankfully! I mean you might have to rewrite PTS for some of the options but.....like it already needs rewrites so klnvkds;vna Anyway here’s what we can do:

No RCs! Instead it’s just Apathy Syndrome a new wave. What ain’t broke don’t fix it. Personas/Shadows are still stolen, but we just keep the symptoms as AS and just call it AS (or MLS, I’m down for either)

Might be an issue with getting the police involved, so either with the revamp have Shadow Ops be involved 

Or make it so the police think AS in PTS has a different patter compared to P3′s so they think it might be a group or some BS.

Keep the RC, but don’t make it about stealing shadows/personas to make something stronger or summon something. Instead just make it about a (or a group of) serial killer(s)! 

Either they just use their Persona to explode people

Or they utilize the Kagenuki to draw out the shadow self to do it for them!. 

Use both 1 and 2, by which I mean I guess pull a P5 (aka have two going at the same time like P5 has with Mental Shutdowns and Psychotic Breakdowns, and RC could be the reason the police get involved), AS is when they steal the shadow, RC is when they wanna kill a person without the weird as time delay MS has at times. 

I feel like I had more to say but it’s late and.....I think I’ll just end it here. 8V

[danfanciesphil]

Give Me A Try (New Chapter)

Gay Instagram Model/Bartender Phan AU Part 3

(Part One)

(Part Two)

(Read on Ao3!)

Dan’s in the middle of his break, scrolling through his phone, when a text notification appears at the top of his screen. He drops his bagel into his lap, cursing.

The text is from Phil. He doesn’t know any other Phil’s, so it has to be AmazingPhil, texting him, inexplicably.

He clicks the notification, eyes wide, simultaneously scooping up the bagel bits that have fallen onto his knees.

From: Phil To: Dan im in makeup for a weird photoshoot for some korean clothing brand and they just put loads of silver goo in my hair to make it chromey

As Dan is reading the message, searching between the lines for a reason Phil might be telling him this information, another text pings through.

From: Phil To: Dan whoops, i kinda meant to send that to PJ. but hey, if you’re interested, here’s a pic of me with ‘Kpop Idol Silver Hair Paste’ in lol xx

From: Phil To: Dan [image]

The phone slips from Dan’s fingers, clattering through his legs to the floor of the staff room. Phil has sent him a selfie. An un-edited, un-Instagrammed photo of his breathtaking face, up close. Sure, there’s a weird silvery goop in his usually raven hair, but still. Gingerly, Dan retrieves the phone, a small, strangled sound escaping from his throat as he surveys the image in front of him.

It makes a little more sense now that Phil has informed him that he had actually mistakenly texted the original message, but did the guy really have to follow up with a photo? He must, surely, be aware of Dan’s crush. He witnessed the brunt of Dan’s obsessive stalking in person on his phone, after all.

Bagel entirely forgotten, Dan just stares down into the pixelated blue of Phil Lester’s eyes, wondering how to respond, and if he even should. Deciding eventually that it would be rude not to, Dan shakily types out something he hopes is vaguely witty.

From: Dan To: Phil hahaha wow :’) kpop? more like kpoop. (it looks like bird poop, sorry dude.) x

From: Phil To: Dan hahaha it does ur so right. and if you think thats bad you should see the outfits… xx

Settling back into his chair, Dan bites his lip. As he thinks of a potential response, his eyes wander over to the spot, just to the right of him, where he and Phil had stood not long ago, when it had seemed like maybe, possibly, Phil might’ve…

But obviously that’s absurd. 

Dan’s wishful thinking had clearly driven him to the point of hallucination, because the very notion that Phil Lester, AmazingPhil, the famous Instagram model, would ever have looked at Dan as anything more than a random bartender, is laughable.

Dan sighs to himself, then smirks. Well, just because he has no chance, doesn’t mean he can’t utilise his semi-connection to the celebrity to get some behind-the-scenes footage of his fave.

From: Dan To: Phil well now i have to see x

There’s a noticeable pause, and Dan wonders, panicking vaguely, if he may have pushed too far. Is it a little much to ask this of Phil? Maybe he just won’t respond, and Dan will have to quit his job forever, or maybe just spend his shifts on red alert that Phil will wander into the bar, and hide from him if he does-

He texts back.

From: Phil To: Dan [image]

From: Phil To: Dan hot, right? xx

For two long, uninterrupted minutes, Dan is frozen. Then, he lets out a muffled groan of frustration. The photo Phil sent is a full body shot taken by someone else; he’s dressed in an asymmetrical long white t-shirt with several long rips through the chest, some bright pink camouflage trousers, and a shiny silver puffer jacket with a black fur-lined hood. The outfit is a complete disaster, but it doesn’t matter in the slightest. His chest is visible through the slits in the tee; having seen it twice now IRL, Dan is drawn to the slivers he can see. The trousers make his eyes pop, and the jacket matches the silver streaked through his hair.

His pose is casual, feet apart, smirking at the camera, with his hands gesturing to his body as if to say ‘see what i mean?’. If he’d posted this on his Instagram, Dan gets the feeling he’d have saved it to his camera roll anyway, maybe even made it his phone background.

Dan’s done that with a few of his favourite photos of Phil in the past. He won’t even dwell on the time when Phil posted a photo of himself in the bath and Dan, in a semi-sleep-deprived fit of insanity, printed the photo out and stuck it on his wall.

Tyler came over once, weeks later, saw the photo taped above Dan’s bed, and tore the thing down. He’d told Dan, quite rightly, to stop being such a creep and keep his crazed obsessive behaviour to social media like everyone else.

“Who even has physical photos these days?? You’re like a fucking serial killer!”

Dan chuckles at this memory. He’s glad for Tyler, sometimes, even if he’s only good for keeping Dan’s stalkerish behaviour within the realms of normalcy.

Belatedly, he realises it’s been over five minutes and he still hasn’t responded to Phil. Also, his break is close to being over.

From: Dan To: Phil woww. please, phil of the future, tell me what life is like in 2087 x

From: Phil To: Dan stawwp. i keep laughing out loud at what ur saying and now the designer is sending me death glares :’’’D xx

Trying hard to ignore the fact that his dorky jokes are apparently literally making Phil ‘lol’, Dan checks the time, and sighs, typing out another message.

From: Dan To: Phil is the designer a martian? or maybe secretly one of those reptile-people? maybe skin him just to be safe. also my break is over so i gtg. have fun on set of NASA’s moonlanding recreation x

From: Phil To: Dan aww ur at work too? that sux. i forgot that u work at night lol. hope u stay dry this evening ;) xx

From: Dan To: Phil speaking of… why are u at work? isnt it kind of late for a photoshoot? x

From: Phil To: Dan well its 8am here so no haha xx

From: Dan To: Phil where are you? x

From: Phil To: Dan seoul :) hence the… unusual fashion lol xx

Dan’s eyebrows shoot up his forehead. He stands from his chair, throws his half eaten bagel in the trash, and looks around himself. He’s in the staff room - a small, dusty space with a row of falling apart lockers, a couple of chairs and a small table. There’s a hook on the wall which holds a load of unused aprons, and a rusty heater for when it’s especially cold.

He’s about to go back out to serve a load of rowdy customers some overpriced cocktails, then mop a dancefloor sticky with sweat, alcohol, and whatever other liquids might have found their way there. Then, he’s going to go back to his crummy flat way across in Kemptown, unfold his sofabed, and fall asleep to Netflix.

Phil, on the other side of the world in Korea, is having his hair, makeup and wardrobe done by professionals. He’s being treated like a celebrity, no doubt, and pampered excessively. Later, he’ll receive high-definition, professional photographs of himself looking gorgeous, and post them to his Instagram, where millions of people will tell him how stunning he looks.

Dan sighs to himself. How the other half lives.

*

The following day, Dan wakes up to find that Phil has updated his Instagram story, and posted the photo with the silver goo in his hair. The same one he’d sent to Dan. The caption reads:

Not sure silver hair was a good idea! The designer was going for Kpop, but ended up with Kpoop… can’t wait to show you guys the photos from this shoot! xx

Two things cross Dan’s mind.

First, Dan can now officially state that he had a sneak-peek at an official AmazingPhil photo before it was posted.

Second, the bitch totally stole his joke.

He smiles to himself ruefully, then decides to leave a comment. There’s no way that Phil will even see it - he’s never seen any of Dan’s others, or at least Dan sincerely hopes he hasn’t, as they’re mostly things like ‘choke me’ or ‘slap me round the face with your yaoi hands dad’.

Okay, maybe he tends to leave those sorts of comments when he’s less than sober.

This time, Dan just taps out a simple:

danisnotonfire: joke stealing is a low form of theft phil smh ;)

Still smiling to himself, Dan rolls over onto his side, and settles in to watch Phil’s story. The stories are usually long, silly, and full of adorable clips of Phil being clumsy and cute. As expected, this one is no exception. It’s a tour of Phil’s hotel room in Seoul, which is very posh.

Phil exclaims over the origami hand towels on his bed, the robe provided for him in the wardrobe, and the multiple options on the ‘disco shower’ as he calls it. Just as Dan is marvelling at the panoramic shot Phil has filmed of his view from the balcony, a notification pings at the top of his screen.

amazingphil replied to your comment: joke stealing is…

Dan sits bolt upright in bed, the sheets falling off him. He runs a hand through his messy hair, eyes wide. He clicks the notification before it disappears, heart pounding.

Oh no, oh no, oh no. Dan hadn’t intended for him to actually see. What if Phil thinks he’s being rude? He doesn’t actually mind Phil stealing his stupid joke about the hair goo. It’s an honour, if anything, that Phil finds his dumb joke good enough to post as a caption millions of people will read.

Heart thrumming, Dan finds the response Phil left.

danisnotonfire: joke stealing is a low form of theft phil smh ;)

amazingphil: @danisnotonfire aha i was kinda hoping you wouldn’t see ;D

Another notification pings at the top of his screen.

amazingphil started following you

“Holy shit,” Dan says to nobody.

amazingphil liked your photo

“Fuck,” Dan squeaks, clutching his pillow for support. “Stop it Phil, I’m gonna have a heart attack.”

Curious, Dan clicks the last notification, wondering which photo it was that Phil pressed the little heart for. To his surprise, it’s a selfie, one he took at work around a month ago. He took it during a lull between serving, if he remembers correctly. The lighting hadn’t been awful when he was doing his hourly fringe check in his phone camera, so he’d snapped a pic. It’s nothing special, just a moody expression and a wash of pink lighting across one half of his face.

amazingphil commented on your photo

amazingphil: nice pout ;) xx

Dan falls back into the pillows, mind obliterating itself into a thousand, tiny pieces.

*

Over the next few weeks, Dan has several text conversations with Phil. They’re usually started by Phil himself, who will - out of what Dan assumes is boredom - sometimes send him a random meme, a musing about his surroundings, or a selfie. For obvious reasons, Dan prefers the latter.

No matter how many times Phil reaches out via text, the surreality of it never fails to send Dan’s mind freewheeling. It always knocks the wind out of his lungs, it always makes him stop dead in his tracks, and it always leaves him struggling to recover for the next few hours. Whenever this happens at work, Tyler never fails to tease him mercilessly.

“Whoops! Please excuse him, sir, his mind has been blended by a single text from his crush,” Tyler tells a customer the fifth time Dan drops a glass behind the bar.

Dan scowls at his friend, but doesn’t try to defend himself. It’s true, after all. One text from Phil has him behaving like a moron. He becomes physically inept, unable to make the simplest drink.

One night, after the bar has closed, Dan and Tyler are cleaning up.

“So when’s he gonna stop torturing you over text and come sweep you off your beer-drenched tootsies?”

Dan rolls his eyes at this. “He’s not, Ty. He’s a rich and famous superstar, and I’m clearing up puke for the third day in a row.”

Dan wrinkles his nose as he continues mopping up the patch of vomit. He’s suspicious at this point; three days in a row is unusual. Is the same person coming in each night and spewing their guts all over the dance floor out of spite? Perhaps it’s some sort of hate crime.

“It’s like a Cinderella story!” Ty exclaims, pirouetting around his broom. “Except it’s gay, which makes it even better.”

Dan scoffs at him. “I’m pretty sure fairytales don’t involve stalking someone over social media and having them find out. He’s just taking pity on me because he saw that first night that I’m a fan.” Dan dunks the mop back in the bucket, turning to Tyler. “Besides, I’m pretty sure he has a boyfriend.”

Tyler sucks in a scandalised breath. “What! Who?”

Dragging the mop back to the supply closet, Dan laughs. “Remember the drunk guy he came with? The one who gave me a lovely Rainforest shower?”

“Him?”

Dan sighs, locks the cupboard, and nods. He digs into his pocket for his phone, and brings it over to show Tyler the photo of Phil and Charlie kissing. Matt, the security guard wanders over to see as well, letting out a low whistle.

“He’s a nonce if he thinks that guy’s behaviour was attractive,” Matt says. “He puked ‘soon as I got him out the door that night. All over the pavement.”

Dan looks at Matt, tilting his head in interest. “He did?”

Tyler plucks the phone out of Dan’s hand, zooming into the photo to have a better look, a frown on his face.

“Yep, your friend there came out, called him an Uber and sent him off,” Matt says. “Doubt pukey there would’ve made it home without him.”

“Nice guy,” Dan mutters, cheeks warm.

“This is staged,” Tyler announces abruptly.

“What?”

“Look,” he says, bringing the phone back over for Dan to see.

He zooms in on the crux of the kiss, right onto Phil’s face. Dan grimaces.

“Ty, I don’t want to see-”

“Shut up and look at his face,” Tyler interrupts, grabbing Dan’s chin and angling it towards the phone. “See how his lips are puckered? All stiff and pointed, like he’s kissing his grandma. And his eyes are open.”

“He’s looking at the camera!”

“Nah, Tyler’s right mate,” Matt says. The gum he’s chewing is making gross squishy sounds right in Dan’s ear as he leans over to look. “He looks awkward as hell.”

Dan narrows his eyes at the photo, trying to see what the others see.

“Besides, didn’t you say he hated that guy?” Tyler asks, clicking off the photo.

Dan tuts, snatching his phone back. “Well, apparently he was just being nice to compensate for the fact his kissing buddy covered me in sugary cocktail.”

He makes the smart decision to step away from this preposterous conversation before he does something stupid. Like allow either of these morons to give him hope that Phil is actually single.

Not that Phil being single would even matter.

“Or he was making it clear that he’s available!” Tyler calls after him as Dan stalks over to the staff room. “He whipped his shirt off for you twice and gave you his number. Do you think he’d do that if he had a boyfriend?”

“Drop it, Ty!” Dan calls back, shutting the staff room door behind him.

He will not let himself fall into the trap of daring to believe he could get someone as gorgeous, as hilarious, as pure and… amazing, as Phil Lester. 

He won’t.

*

This is a good philosophy, in theory.

In practise, it turns out to be a lot more difficult. Dan finds this out to his cost when Phil strolls into Habenero the following Friday with Charlie Hickory at his side. Dan’s stomach sinks as soon as he sees the pair, the butterflies that appear each time Phil so much as acknowledges exploding into dust the moment he registers who Phil is here with.

Phil makes a beeline for the bar, a big smile on his face as he sees Dan. Warily, Dan smiles back, very aware that he is not exactly Charlie’s biggest fan.

“Dan!” Phil sings, chipper as ever.

Blushing already, Dan waves an awkward hand. He will never, he’s sure, get used to hearing his name on Phil Lester’s lips. “Hi. You’re back.”

“Of course! This is my local hangout now,” Phil says, winking. “Great cocktails, cute bar staff, crazy Bingo nights… this place has got it all.”

“Some people might not agree with you about the cocktails,” Dan can’t help himself saying, glancing at Charlie.

Charlie shuffles awkwardly on the spot. “Right,” he says, casting a look at Phil. They share a look that seems loaded with something Dan is not privy to, and then Charlie sighs, turning to Dan. “I wanted to, uh, apologise. About last time. Totally not cool of me to… tell you off like that. I was wasted.”

For an awkward moment, Dan waits for the actual word ‘sorry’ to leave Charlie’s mouth. It becomes obvious fairly swiftly that the dude feels he’s already said enough, so Dan just gives him a tight smile, and clears his throat.

“Oh, yeah man,” he says. “Let’s just… move on, I guess.”

If Charlie won’t say sorry, then Dan’s sure as hell not going to say he forgives him.

“So, drinks?” Phil asks, seeming to sense the taut atmosphere. “Maybe not cocktails?”

Dan can’t help the splutter of laughter, but Charlie shoots a dagger-like glare Phil’s way. It makes Dan’s lip curl; how could anyone be angry with Phil, of all people?

“Maybe some beers?” Dan suggests, teeth clenched. “We have a load of craft beers, or if you’re more into spirits I could make you guys a-”

“I’ll have a vodka and light tonic, no ice,” Charlie interrupts. “A double. If you use regular tonic, I will know.”

“Charlie,” Phil hisses under his breath.

They exchange another loaded look, and again Charlie sighs, turning to Dan with a fake smile. “Please.”

Swallowing the urge to roll his eyes, Dan nods, then gladly turns his attention to Phil. “And for you?”

“Oh,” Phil says, like it’s only just occurred to him that he needs to order as well. “God, I’m so bad at deciding, err…”

As he’s dithering, Charlie sighs. “Are you cool to get these, Phil? I’m gonna go find us a table.”

“You don’t wanna dance?”

“Not in the mood.”

Phil nods, obviously disappointed. “Okay, yeah, I’ll meet you in the back.”

With that, Charlie is gone, slipping into the crowd. The look of distaste must be more evident on Dan’s face than he thinks, because Phil laughs at it.

“I know,” Phil says. “But he does have a few… marginally amiable qualities.”

‘Why have you chosen to be with someone that’s marginally amiable when you’re so great,’ is what Dan wants to ask. Instead, he simply shrugs, deciding to change the subject.

“Have you decided on a drink yet? I’d better get on with making his low-cal dishwater.”

Phil laughs a little, then leans forwards, his smile deepening as he leans across the bar. “Surprise me.”

Something sparks a roman candle in Dan’s stomach, and his skin prickles with the heat it creates. He drags his eyes free of Phil’s with some difficulty, nodding, and turns to make the drinks.

He prepares Phil a ‘PopQueen’ cocktail, which is one of their most popular. It’s inspired by popcorn, along with the trio of Pop Queens that rule the gay music scene: Gaga, RiRi, and Bey. The moscato vodka base is made from Italian grapes to represent Gaga’s heritage, the spiced rum is a shoutout to Bey’s favourite drink, and Riri comes in in the form of a smoky splash of passion fruit bitter. The rest is topped up with popcorn syrup, lemonade, a sprinkle of caramel popcorn kernels, and as many sparkly cocktail sticks as Dan can fit in.

He explains the whole concoction to Phil as he presents it, a little smug because he knows this is an impressive looking cocktail. It’s probably his favourite one to make; the Viniq shimmery moscato vodka makes the drink swirl and shimmer - always exceptionally pretty.

Sure enough, Phil’s mouth drops open at the sight of it. “Okay wow,” Phil says, chuckling. “I’m gonna get drunk tonight, aren’t I?”

“If that’s your plan, this should definitely help you on your way,” Dan says, laughing too. “I wouldn’t recommend having a second if you want to remember your evening.”

Phil leans forwards to take a sip of the PopQueen, moaning around the straw, much to Dan’s dismay. He plucks one of the popcorn pieces off and eats it, eyes closed. In related news, Dan struggles not to fall to the floor. “Dan, you are an artiste,” Phil says. “Popcorn is my all time favourite food.”

“Oh, wow, that’s... lucky, I guess,” Dan stammers, a swell of pride surging up into his chest. “Glad you like it.”

“So, how much?”

“Oh, on the house.” Dan smiles, sliding the cocktail across the bar along with Charlie’s vodka tonic. “I feel bad for not letting you in on the forfeit for Bingo last time.”

The look on Phil’s face softens into something so sweet Dan can taste sugar on his tongue. 

“You don’t have to do that,” Phil says softly.

“It’s fine, really,” Dan assures him, all but sliding his elbows across the bar towards him. “I insist.”

A twitch in the corner of Phil’s mouth, and then he’s leaning across the bar. It happens slowly, but Dan still manages to be caught off guard. One moment, he’s watching, bemused, as Phil inches towards him, and the next there’s a light press of paper-soft lips to his cheek. A scratch of stubble grazes over Dan’s skin as Phil leans away.

“Thanks,” Phil tells him, smiling. “You’re sweet, Dan.”

And then he’s turning away, drinks in hand, slipping into the mass of people.

*

For the next few hours, Dan hopes for Phil to return to the bar for another round. He waits, eagerly, for this moment to come. Instead, Charlie is the one who brings his and Phil’s glasses back over, and waves to flag down Dan’s attention.

He nods in acknowledgement, finishing up the drinks order he’s in the middle of, and sidling over to Charlie. He forces a strained smile.

“Same again?”

“Yeah,” Charlie says, digging out his phone. “And a couple of vodka shots.”

He says nothing else, eyes glued to his phone screen. Dan waits for a moment before moving off, eyes stuck to Charlie’s face. He’s the kind of gorgeous that shouldn’t exist in real life. Unblemished, tanned skin. Clean, dark stubble, lacing his perfect, razorblade jawline. His hair is a swoop of glossy mahogany; even the cut of it looks expensive.

Charlie’s eyes flick up to Dan’s, obviously questioning why he’s staring, so Dan nods, embarrassed, and hurries to make the drinks. From a superficial standpoint, it’s obvious why Phil is with Charlie. Obviously, in Dan’s eyes, Phil is the most attractive man on the planet, but that’s just because he’s Dan’s type. Even he can tell that Charlie is objectively a beautiful human being.

It’s just a shame about everything below the surface level.

Dan pours the two shots Charlie ordered. “All together it’s twenty pounds, please.”

Charlie snorts, then pockets his phone at last. “Figures you’d give Phil the discount.”

He pulls out a twenty and slaps it on the counter.

“Sorry, I can’t give you guys free drinks all night.”

Charlie just stares back at him, a faint, knowing smile caught on his dusty pink lips. One of this thick eyebrows is slightly quirked, sliding an irritation under Dan’s skin. “Listen, Danny, is it?”

“Dan,” he grits.

“Dan,” Charlie says, leaning across the bar. “A little advice, yeah? Don’t be so transparent. It just comes across as pathetic.”

He downs both the shots in quick succession, baffling Dan, who is frozen, mortified, to the spot. Before his brain can thaw enough to stammer out some witty rebuttal, Charlie has swept the drinks off the counter, and is moving away.

Cheeks burning, Dan turns around, trying to calm his boiling blood. He squeezes his fists together, counting to ten, the way he makes himself after all encounters with dickhead customers.

“Hey, sweetcheeks, can we get some drinks over here, please?”

With a deep sigh, Dan unclenches his fists, and turns to the next customer.

*

At around one in the morning, Dan runs to the bathroom for a minute, and on his way, he sees Charlie. He’s against the wall of the club, near the DJ booth. There’s a muscular, dark-skinned man pressing him there; their faces are close. Dan can’t stop, he’s left Tyler and Dodie to the mercy of the drunks in their worst state - things get rowdy an hour before closing - and he needs to get back there. So, instead, he simply tucks the image away in his mind, to think about later on.

That man, leant against Charlie in a less-than-innocent seeming stance, was certainly not Phil, after all. As he exits the bathroom, he notices that Charlie is gone, as is whoever was with him.

*

At 1:55am, the lights come on. As usual, an enormous groan chants out of the crowd of patrons on the dance floor, followed by a few pairs awkwardly stepping out of the shadows, some squinting and eye-covering, and the slow, jelly-legged walk to the coat-check area.

“I think I just saw some guy getting up off his knees in the corner,” Tyler says despondently. “Shotgun not mopping the floor tonight.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” Dan sighs. “On the dance floor? Really? Why can’t they suck each other off in the bathroom like normal people?”

“Oh, there were definitely people doing that in one of the stalls about an hour ago,” someone says to Dan’s right. The voice, for some reason, sends the hairs up on the back of Dan’s neck.

He turns, wondering when Matt’s voice got so low, only to find that Phil has perched himself on one of the bar stools, the dregs of his cocktail still in a glass in front of him. For a moment, Dan is too stunned at the sight of him to reply. Then, he registers that the lights are on, and cringes, knowing he likely looks frightful. Phil, of course, looks radiant as ever even under the harsh fluorescents, apart from a faint tiredness, visible in the dark circles underneath his eyes.

“You’re still here,” Dan comments. “I thought you guys had gone.”

“Charlie left,” Phil says, looking away from Dan. “Or I assume he did.”

Out of sight, Tyler catches Dan’s eye, making an obscene gesture with his hands before snickering and running off in the direction of the supply closet. Dan just glares after him, pink-cheeked, and turns back to Phil.

“Wait, he left without telling you?”

One of Phil’s shoulders moves towards his neck, then falls. “He does that.”

“Wow that’s… kind of shitty.”

As soon as the words are out, Dan regrets them. He can’t help but think of Charlie’s comment from earlier; it rings in his ears as if the guy had screamed it at him.

Don’t be so transparent. It just comes across as pathetic.

He was right, probably, though Dan had hated hearing it. He should stop being such a suck-up. It must be awkward and cringey for Phil to see Dan so obviously smitten.

Still, Phil throws him a faint smile. “It’s cool. He’s just a flaky guy. A bit of a princess. He grew up rich, so he’s always been a bit superficial. I’m trying to wring the bourgeoisie out of his blue blood.”

Dan snorts with laughter. “In my experience, you can’t filter the dickishness out of people very easily.”

There’s a silence, then. Phil regards him with a faintly curious expression.

“Maybe I’m wrong,” Dan says once the silence gets too uncomfortable. He shrugs, grabbing the rag from his back pocket and starting to wipe down the bar. “I don’t know the guy, really. I’ve just had a couple of unfortunate experiences with him.”

“Oh no,” Phil says, face falling. “What did he do this time?”

Dan laughs, bitterly. “Don’t worry about it. He’s just a little mouthy, is all.”

“Ugh, I’m sorry.”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“So, when do you get to leave this place?” Phil asks, playing with his glass. He still hasn’t drunk the remainder of his cocktail. “Or do you sleep here?”

“On weekdays, the bar closes at two, so I get out of here at around two-thirty.”

“Christ,” Phil mutters. “And I thought my job was long hours.”

A laugh bursts out of Dan’s throat, but he covers it as best he can with a cough, turning away. Busying himself with ‘dusting’ some liquor bottles, Dan tries to compose a straight face. Is Phil honestly going to try and argue that his job is difficult? When was the last time that guy ever grabbed a broom, or handled someone’s sticky change?

In a minute, Dan is going to go into the corner of the dance floor, get down on his knees, and clean up some randomer’s come. A few weeks ago he saw Phil swanning about a five-star hotel in Korea. If AmazingPhil’s worst complaint is that he had to have a few questionable outfit choices put on him, and some silvery goo in his hair, then he needs a reality check.

Nevertheless, Dan knows that he can’t say any of this. Not only would he never dream of insulting Phil Lester, but it’s pointless to try and explain the differences between classes to someone in a privileged position. They’ve usually forgotten how to understand.

“Are you close by, at least?” Phil asks, interrupting Dan’s thoughts.

Dan turns back to him. “Kemptown. It’s half an hour’s walk, more or less.”

“You walk?” Phil asks, eyebrows skyrocketing towards his quiff. “At two in the morning?”

“Five in the morning on weekends,” Dan confirms, hiding a smile at Phil’s surprise. “It’s okay, you get used to it. Besides, it’s mostly just drunk idiots chugging cans of cider and threatening to run into the sea. Not too scary.”

Despite Dan’s reassurance, the look of pity and concern on Phil’s face doesn’t subside. After a while, Dan turns from it, feeling awkward. He busies himself with clearing away the last of the empty glasses, yawning into the crook of his elbow. Tonight was rough.

“You should crash at mine,” Phil blurts.

Sure he must have misheard, Dan faces Phil slowly. “Um, what?”

“If you’re exhausted, I mean.” Phil fidgets, fingers tapping against his glass. “Like, on the nights you can’t face walking all the way home, you can totally just sleep on my sofa.”

Speechless, Dan simply stares.

“The couch is pretty comfy,” Phil continues in a ramble, not meeting Dan’s eye. “And my flat is just up the road, literally like a minute away. I’m not saying, y’know, come over every night, ‘cause obviously… that might be an issue, but you can absolutely stay round on, say, Saturday nights when you finish later. That wouldn’t be a problem.”

He’s just being nice. That’s Dan’s only explanation. Phil Lester is a sweetheart of a person, and he got so worried about the hypothetical danger involved in Dan’s walks home, that he offered something big, even though he didn’t really mean it.

Dan is a stranger to him. He needs to decline the polite offer, and let Phil off the hook he accidentally created to string himself up on.

So, Dan forces out a small chuckle, and says: “Oh, no, it’s really fine. Thanks for the offer, that’s really good of you, but I quite like the walk. It’s a nice come down after a busy night.”

Phil nods, chewing his lip. He looks unconvinced. “I’m not just saying it, though.” His voice has dropped to a lower tone. “Like tonight… you’re so tired, I can see it. Just grab some sleep at mine before you head back across town.”

As soon as Phil mentions it, the quilt of his own exhaustion flops around his shoulders, dragging Dan’s bones towards the floor. He tries to picture the stumble back to his crummy flat in Kemptown, loathing each imaginary step.

“You barely know me,” Dan says - one last attempt at refusal.

Sensing he’s won, Phil smiles very slightly, then downs the rest of his cocktail at last. “I don’t know if it’s just me, Dan, but I have this feeling that we’re going to be good friends.”

(Part 4!)

[growingrootsinco]

My Timeline

This exercise is designed to help pick the patterns in my behavior. Along the way I'm sure I will find other uses for it. First, a few reminders. DO NOT go back and edit. DO NOT beat around the bush. Accuracy is key.

2011

Working retail. In a relationship that is mind numbing. Brand new at this and dont have much to report. Not even sure what to write here.

2012

Fighting feelings of guilt. He's finally been put behind bars. I think I may need counseling.

Feeling guilty. Wanna kill myself.

2013

Fired from job. On unemployment. Still in BS relationship. Not sure this timeline is panning out to be what I thought it would.

New a new start. Signed up for college classes. Dental Assisting. Not something I would have thought I would choose. Worth a try.

School is turning out to be fun. Trouble paying but dad is helping. Gave me a car to get into San Antonio. I can feel the stress subsiding. Step grandfather passed. No emotion for someone who was such a prick towards the end of his life.

Christmas was a disaster. So many snobby family members.

2014

Ok. I think I'm getting this timeline thing. Hard to not go back and change it though.

Enjoying school. Especially clinicals. Will start my hours soon the graduate.

Relationship is okay now that he stays gone all week. I think I hate him.

Hours in my clinicals are rough with no pay. Got a job at a little cafe about 20 hours a week. Love my boss and his wife.

Clinicals FINALLY done. Job searching time.

OMFG clinical hours do not count as experience therefore no experience equals no job. wtf.

FML still no fucking chances anywhere. Suicidal thoughts.

Mom flipped the fuck out as usual. Took the boyfriends side because she was wrong. Would have rather him have gone. Getting tired of both of them anyway.

Time to hold it down on my own. His health is bad. Which makes me feel bad for wanting him gone. I think I have checked out emotionally. Or never checked in.

2015

Finally got my foot in the door at an office. Found someone I can learn everything from. She's awesome. The doctor is a douche but I can deal. Besides what man isnt a douche?

Theres something wrong with this office. So many people being secretive and my office manager is a total bitch. A "mean girl".

Gotta stop reading over this everytime I come in here. I want to change it!

Ok my 6 months is up for experience, time to look for another office. My mentor flaked and left. On my own.

Put in 2 week notice only to have my pay raised and promoted to office manager. Do I really want to sit behind a desk instead of working on patients?

Still in dead end relationship. Still hate him. Suicidal thoughts.

I think I'm getting this timeline down. Starting to see my patterns already. Even if I dont write them in here. How to fix them?

Easy holidays without family. Spent them with friends in Bastrop. Relief!

2015

Still working in the same office for more pay. Found out why everyone is so secretive. Doctor is a mess. In debt up to his eyeballs, no longer getting paid on time, misappropriated funds on a regular basis, has no business sense what so ever, deals with shady people, I doubt his abilities due to MANY pissed off patients, holy shit, the list goes on. Back to the drawing board for a new job.

2 surgeries almost back to back. I'm falling apart. Suicidal thoughts.

Well fuck. Jobs are everywhere but pay is a bitch. Nothing matches it. Cant quit here if I cant sustain my living situation.

BS relationship has finally taken its toll. Verdict is in. I hate his guts. Tired of doing everything myself. Spends all his time on the computer chating with girls. What do I care? Maybe one of them will take him in. Why do I want to strangle him in his sleep?

2016

Got a new house but still not happy.

Tried out a new office but it's not the same. I think I got use to the chaos. Alot of blood sweat and tears have gone into that office. Went back.

Doctor has hired an overpriced nanny. This bitch is gonna drive me to drinking. I've been replaced. Good thing or bad thing?

Starting to understand my emotions. Realizing my family is the root of my issues in life. Now I'm becoming content with no contact. Just have to figure out this BS relationship.

On my birthday, I think I found my SM. Talking on a regular basis. And finally figured out what to do about BS relationship.

2017

Missed a bunch of time on this so I'm writing it in 2019 and trying to write as I would have in that time and frame of mind. Using things from other posts to help write this.

New home again but cant afford it without help. Took on roommate. She's awesome.

Hanging with Boozefighters next door is a really good time.

Fired from job for insubordination. What a bitch!

Depression setting in. I want out of this town. Suicidal thoughts.

Dad is helping me move back to hometown and can already tell I was right about my family. My daughter is pissed!

Trying to find comfort in family but wanting more than anything for SM to give in.

First job back in retail because dental pay is BS.

Things with SM are rocky. A couple of jail stays and lots of drinking. Having trouble keeping my head on straight and leaning back on emotions instead of thinking logical.

SM busted! Now what? Something always sets me back. Wtf? What is so wrong with my choices in life?

Got a place together. More drinking...... and some fighting......... and court........

Realized I went off the reservation due to my feelings for him. Haven't thought logical in some time.

These feelings have to be real. Cant fight them. But emotions are unreliable.

More turmoil with family. Trying to reconcile with mother. Didnt got well. Fuck it!

2018

Lost car at Christmas and finding it hard to hold onto my job. Feeling depressed again. Suicidal thoughts.

Only thing I'm sure of are my feelings for SM. He's got me and now I'm scared of what I may do for him.

Job is suffering so transfer and begin walking to work.

Realizing the hold SM has on me and it's dangerous. Is it healthy to be this attached? Should I distance myself? HELL NO

Bought a new car. But now I need a new job and SM is leaving me to serve time.

Moved in with grandmother when SM goes into serve time. I'm slipping again. More depression and anxieties are back.

New job is overnights and not sleeping like I need to. I want him home! Job isnt going well from depression and 2 hospital visits for sleep deprivation and malnutrition. Job is too demanding and anger creeping up.

Transfer to different department hoping it helps but instead get hours cut.

Weekend drives to unit for visits that never seem to last long enough. Cant touch him like I need to, like i want to.

Dont want to do a fucking thing if he cant be with me. Cancelled on so many things with friends. Is this what my life has come to?

Searching for a new job. Wtf is wrong with this town. Part time only and everyone is short staffed.

Cant pay bills at my grandmothers. 500 dollar electric bill. Fuck this!

I'm cracking..... had an emotional breakdown and unsure of how to hold myself together.

Hanging with people I know I shouldnt and offered a chance at Colorado. Do I take it?

Got another part time overnight. What the hell am I doing killing myself like this? Fuck this town and fuck this whole goddamn state!

Took the Colorado offer but I know he will have issues with it. How to handle it? It's where he wants to be but doubt we would make it there by his hand.

Packed up, missed a visit. He's going to go ape shit! Daughter is more excited then I am because I cried all the way here. Why does it feel wrong at the same time?

Well I was right. He went ape shit.

Colorado is a culture shock but I can feel myself calming. Driving the amish all over is peaceful and informative. But hurting for money. Place we are staying in is run down and not fit for habiting.

SM sent a letter. If I dont go back, its over. I guess it's over. I dont have the money to go back. Hold onto hope that he will be here when he gets out anyway.

Got a job with the county that's going well. I now understand what I have to do to complete my main goal. (Main goal is in another post.)

Opened the guitar up to stare at it and cry all day. Wth............

Christmas was rough. Still on the fence about my decision to come here even though most of the time I'm at peace with the views here.

2019

Person I came with is expressing feelings towards me. Not feeling it.

Working 2 part time jobs so I can stop driving the amish but tired of the travel with one job.

Got a place in Romeo. Its decent but I've been ripped off. This asshole needs to be shot. Speaking of being shot. I'm being threatened and I have 2 gunshots in my house.

Rightful owner let me buy it from her. Ok I can do this. Now to do something about the asshole who ripped me off. The fucker lives right across the street.

Against my better judgement J moves in. I think I need protection. Bought a gun. Bad idea. J is a felon. He's not here alot but appearance is what matters. Wtf. I guess I'm back to using people again.

Turns out we make a good team. Accomplishing quite a bit to achieve my main goal. I still dont feel like he does but I'm getting shit done.

Bought a trailer house, 2 parcels of land, a boat, 2 cars and a camper trailer. Way to go!!!

What the hell did I just do? I just made things way more complicated and started something I have no intentions of finishing. Heart breaking again.

Fighting, fighting, fighting. I finally understand how SM felt about me in the beginning. Suicidal thoughts.

My daughter is settling in nicely. Started a three some relationship and taking after my mother. Lol Now she's met a guy and starting to find herself.

My daughter turned 18! Holy shit I'm old............

SM is in a halfway house......... he didnt sound happy and I think my heart is breaking again. J is flipping out on me again over SM. Pressure is on. Dont slip again. Stay focused.

Yay! for phone time! Again confirming my emotions are real this time.

My daughter graduated. Yup, I'm still old. And getting older by the minute.

Went to Midland to clear up the storage unit. Fuck! It's all gone. Destroyed! All his stuff is gone. I've gotta replace it all.

Ok home ownership sucks! Everything breaks and has to be fixed........ twice!

Cleared my head. For once........

Divorce is final. 16 years and now back in contact with my son. Feeling complete.

Job is going great.

In negotiations on another home and a restaurant.

Joined 2 community boards and Search & Rescue.

Talk therapy helped me come to a conclusion. Time to let go of SM.

Married J. Did I do whats best for my future?

This time around, marriage has proved to be easier than the first. Im all in but fearful of not knowing what the future holds.

Notes

Fill in above the notes as you go. Remember. Dont edit or erase. Dont fucking touch it other than adding. Calling yourself out only works when the truth is written down. Yes they will change consistently. Find your patterns. Truth means sensitive information so dont let anyone read it unless you are ready for anger. If you happen to mentor someone in the future, that might not be a good idea! And pay attention during depression spells. Ever emotion counts.

Had the best holidays ever. Real trees are a mess though.

2020

Finally got full time with benefits at the County

Set up my retirement and 401. This is what I have wanted my entire life. And life insurance!

Pandemic approaching.

Lockdown! Sent home for 2 months with pay.

Took up arts and crafts and gardening to pass the time.

Stimulus check. Bought my daughter a car.

Lots of facetime with my son!

Back to work. So many restrictions.

COVID cases are declining.

County in trouble financially. How much longer will I have a job?

Paid of the house! After a court battle from attempting to rip us off. Again........

Gained another family member.

Going back on lockdown with pay again.

[fuck-customers]

Tldr; at the end.

So where I work, we sell children’s clothes. Very ‘upscale’ per say. Now, yesterday at work a lady came in with her daughter and while Im already ringing up a customer tells me to hand her a piece of paper and pen to write down the order number. Now I have it to her, before I proceed lemme tell you how it works: order numbers are designed for online orders so that online can look it up and they can help the customer, now when in store we cannot go based off of that we go based off of transaction numbers. So while she writes whatever she needs to write down, I finish ringing up the customer.

Its finally time to help the customer with the low battery, she hands me over the order number and Im like “okay, let me call customer service (online store its interchangeable) to get the transaction number.” And she informs me that she spent 45 minutes on the phone with them only to be told that she only to be told she just needed the order number. Of course I let her know, in my sympathetic voice, “No we unfortunately cannot look up the item just with order number.” And she’s already bitching, like okay cool, I get it. I mean its not like I can tell her customer service is literally useless because they dont follow policies and decide so many things and say one thing and another but that is for another time. Now I get the answer and order number lady is talking on the phone (which why if your phone is dying) and I tell online rep about the order number. Now cue the online rep asking for more information and I start asking her, and she’s like “okay let me call you back theyre going to ask for more ridiculous information” to whomever she was talking to and starts telling me the information and I ask for the email and holy hell did she look ready to strangle someone, and not the typical look the 'Im smiling but just wait until I have my arms around you’ type. And asks to speak with the rep and I hand over the phone and she let her know that she spent 45 minutes talking just for the order number and its ridiculous that yada yada. Mind you, I have anxiety so I sort of spaced out.

Once they were done, she passed me the phone and Im already getting attitude from the online rep and am given the transaction number all the while she’s says annoyed “anything else you need?” And for our process if its online asks for the credit card number to proceed just to make sure its actually the right transaction or something, who knows. Cue the customer once again starting to freak that no she wants it in a gift card (store credit) and that it shouldnt go back to her cousin’s card since it was a gift and she doesnt want her to know that she’s returning it. I let her know that it wont but its required with online purchases. Finally we’re done and I hand over the receipt of the return and store credit and she’s out and still bitching, all the while the daughter stares.

Now a few things: 1. Order numbers are not transaction numbers, theyre just there to let them know it was ordered. Receipts are given with the product. 2. I honestly thought we had done that and was like 'who tf is stupid to do that?’ And no it was her so thats on you booboo 3. If you didnt want your cousin to know maybe return it without a receipt, sure a waaaay lower price however she wouldnt find out 4. Lady, if your phone is dying then why tf wont you charge it at the multiple outlets at this mall and proceed to make a phone call?

Tldr; lady comes in trying to do an online return with something that isnt a transaction number, says her phone is dying, but proceeds to make phone calls anyways. Bitches and freaks because we need more info and proceeds to tell us about her time wasted. Freaks cause she doesnt want the amount to go back to the credit card because she doesnt want her cousin to find out. Sets a wonderful example to her child on how to be a horrible and entitled customer.

[diabolik-bitchchan-blog]

All for "This or That"

You are my favorite anon-chan

(Rose) - Pick one of them to drink your blood: Subaru or Kou.

I have go with Subaru for this one.

(Baby’s Breath) - Pick one of them to drink your blood: Reiji or Ruki.

Ruki (Carnation) - Pick one of them to drink your blood: Shuu or Yuma.

This is a tough one but I’ll go with Yuma.

(Amaryllis) - Pick one of them to drink your blood: Ayato or Laito.

Laito always (Dahlia) - Pick one of them to drink your blood: Kanato or Azusa.

why do I have to choose between the adorable cinnamon rolls D: can I choose both? I’ll go with kanato 

(Allium) - Which date do you go on: Wandering through the cemetery with Kanato or studying microbiology with Reiji?

Cemetery with kanato. anything but studying with salty pigeon mom

(Amaranth) - Which date do you go on: Intense concert practice with Kou or shelving books with Ruki? 

Both would be lovely but a concert with Kou sounds more fun ^_^

(Anemones) - Which date do you go on: Being Shuu’s unmoving body pillow for eight hours or shoveling soil with Yuma?

Shuu’s body pillow

(Anthurium) - Which date do you go on: Totally unfair basketball practice with Ayato or dangerous game of darts with Laito?

Dangerous game of darts sounds fun :D

(Astilbe) - Which boy’s bad side would you rather be on: Yuma or Reiji

oh god what did I do .-. um I guess lets go with yuma it might be a little safer Reiji scares me sometimes

(Astrantia) -  Which boy’s bad side would you rather be on: Ruki or Kanato

Ruki would much better. I’d prefer not to be stabbed. Cause I feel like cake won’t resolve being on Kanato’s bad side

(Calla Lilies) -  Which boy’s bad side would you rather be on: Laito or Kou

.-. neither Kou scares me more though so Laito. I just gotta stay away from places that would result in being pushed off. 

(Chrysanthemum) - Which boy would you save from death: Shuu or Azusa

ahh fuck no I choose bboth. okay I would go Azusa gotta protect the cinnamon rolls

(Clematis) - Which boy would you save from death: Subaru or Ayato

This is even harding than the first one .-. but I’ll choose Ayato.

(Craspedia) - Which boy would you save from death: Reiji or Ruki

Ruki. I just hope the sakamaki mansion will remain intact somehow

(Daffodil) - If you got permission to clonk one on the head without negative consequences, who would you pick: Yuma or Shuu

I don’t know. I woulnd’t feel the need to do this to either of them but I guess I’ll choose Shu.(Freesia) - If you got permission to clonk one on the head without negative consequences, who would you pick: Ayato or Kou

Kou it would be kinda funny. Can I do this in front of his fangirls?

(Hydrangea) - If you got permission to clonk one on the head without negative consequences, who would you pick: Laito or Ruki

Ruki because he keeps calling me livestock D:

(Iris) - You’re pregnant! Who’s the dad: Reiji or Kanato

Guess what Kanato? You’re now a father(Orchid) - You’re pregnant! Who’s the dad: Subaru or Ruki

Subaru. *if you listen closely you can he walls being destroyed in the distance*

(Peony) - You’re pregnant! Who’s the dad: Yuma or Kou

Yuma better work on bigger garden! We’ll have more mouths to feed.

(Veronica) - Who stole your virginity: Subaru or Azusa

Azusa is a father (Tulips) - Who stole your virginity: Shuu or Ayato

Ayato because Ore-sama will steal all your firsts

(Aster) - Who stole your virginity: Reiji or Laito

Laito

(Iron) - Who gets to dominate you to his liking: Kou or Subaru

Tsunbaru ^.^

(Steel) - Who gets to dominate you to his liking: Yuma or Ayato

Yuma ;3

(Gunmetal) - Who gets to dominate you to his liking: Ruki or Kanato

Kanato

(Silver) - Who gets to give you a haircut: Laito or Shuu

that’s a tough one considering I do my hair myself and I’m not a fan of letting others do things such as cutting or dying it( had a few bad experiences so I learned to do it myself) Tbh I wouldn’t trust either with this but I’ll go with Laito because he does seem to have some experience with dealing with hair *In more blood he does your hair

(Gold) - Who gets to give you a haircut: Ruki or Kou

Kou. He’s an Idol I feel like he would know what he’s doing 

(Rust) - Who gets to give you a haircut: Kanato or Azusa

Kanato. I feel like he would have better knowledge of hair cutting and is one of the 2 I’d trust with this

(Copper) - Pick a bad deed: burned Ruki’s favorite book or threw a spider at Laito.

Sorry Ruki but fuck your books I’ll by you new ones. Please don’t kill me lol. I hate spiders and refuse to touch one. I wouldn’t want someone throwing one on me so I wouldn’t do that to him. I understand the fear way too well.

(Bronze) - Pick a bad deed: stomped Yuma’s tomatoes or ruined Shuu’s MP3 player.

Sorry Yuma but you can grow more. Again I wouldn’t want someone doing that to my Mp3 player. I need my music. So I wouldn’t do that to Shuu

(Brass) - Pick a bad deed: knocked over Reiji’s alchemy ingredient shelf or got stains on Teddy.

Fuck your alchemy ingredient pigeon boy! I rather not die thank you very much.

(Nickel) - Pick a bad deed: threw away all of Azusa’s knives or hit Subaru with a Subaru and made a bad joke to his face.

Throw away Azusa knives. You don’t need be hurting yourself dear. If thats what it takes to make you stop.

(Zinc) - Whose heart did you break, u monster: Ruki or Kou

Kou Screw you Idol arse! jking .-. sorry Kou

(Titanium) - Whose heart did you break, u monster: Yuma or Reiji

Reiji. Sorry not sorry I refuse to be forced to your “ladylike” standards

(Aluminum) - Whose heart did you break, u monster: Shuu or Ayato

Sorry Shuu T_T

(Platinum) - Whose heart did you break, u monster: Kanato or Subaru

oh god why do I have choose between these 2 >.> sorry subaru but I can’t break the screaming cinnamon rolls heart I just can’t

(Tin) - You’ve been a bad girl, who gets to punish you: Laito or Ayato

Laito of course ;3. Totally wasn’t bad on purpose or anything ;P

(Lead) -  You’ve been a bad girl, who gets to punish you: Azusa or Kanato

umm.. well results are roughly the same here soo I guess I’ll choose the screaming cinnamon roll Kanato(Bismuth) -  You’ve been a bad girl, who gets to punish you: Subaru or Yuma

Subaru

(Cobalt) - Who gets to rip out your heart and devour it: Shuu or Reiji

Reiji. He need something on this list that isnt a bad choice

(Palladium) - Who gets to rip out your heart and devour it: Ruki or Ayato

Ayato can have it

(Rhodium) - Who gets to rip out your heart and devour it: Laito or Kou

Laito (Mercury) - Who gets to rip out your heart and devour it: Subaru or Kanato

Kanato doesn’t he like that sort of thing anyway?

(Iridium) - Who gets to rip out your heart and devour it: Yuma or Azusa

Azusa. How could I say no to such a cutie.

(Thallium) - Pick the more preferable scenario: becoming one of Kanato’s dolls or being forever locked in the dungeon as Laito’s toy.

I’d be cool  with both options but I’d like to be alive so Laito’s toy it is( let’s be honest here I was going to choose Laito regardless)

(Seaborgium) - Pick the more preferable scenario: slowly eaten alive by Ayato or slowly stabbed to death by Azusa.

ლ(ಠ_ಠლ) Jesus.. well im dead either Stab me bb

(Vanadium) - Pick the more preferable scenario: drowning to death with Shuu or strangled to death by Yuma.

Drowning with shuu. If I’m doing I’m dieing via water. It’s my favorite element

(Chromium) - Pick the more preferable scenario: violently eaten alive by Subaru or Reiji’s toy until inevitable death.

... Reiji’s toy it is. Being eaten alive just sounds terribly painful.

(Sapphire) - Who would you rather cook dinner with: Kou or Subaru

Subaru. Can kou even cook?

(Ruby) - Who would you rather cook dinner with: Reiji or Kanato

Reiji cause I know I’ll be yummy.

(Garnet) - Who would you rather cook dinner with: Yuma or Ayato

yuma

(Pearl) - Pick one to be on your zombie apocalypse team: Shuu or Kanato

Kanato. He can just burn their undead arses.

(Amethyst) - Pick one to be on your zombie apocalypse team: Ruki or Azusa

Ruki. Sorry azusa but I need someone would prefer not being eaten

(Diamond) - Pick one to be on your zombie apocalypse team: Reiji or Laito

Reiji. He would be better. much smarter for this kind of thing

(Jade) - Pick the more preferable activity: building a pillow fort with Shuu or playing house with Kanato.

both sound awesome but I gotta go with the pillow fort

(Jasper) - Pick the more preferable activity: helping Reiji with his alchemy or wandering the rose garden with Subaru.

Rose garden with Subaru

(Peridot) - Pick the more preferable activity: assisting Laito with his crossword puzzle or cooking with Ayato.

both sounds really fun but I think crossword puzzles would be more fun :)

(Opal) - Pick the more preferable activity: silently reading with Ruki or hardcore karaoke with Kou.

I am horrid at singing so absolutely not kou. Silently reading with ruki sounds much better 

(Sodalite) - Pick the more preferable activity: picking strawberries with Yuma or admiring scars with Azusa.

I actually like both of these cause I feel like I could have a really deep conversation with Azusa and I love deep Conversations. Seriously you ever want talk to someone about whatever I’ll listen ^.^ 

I also really like strawberries and strawberry picking sounds really fun. I’ve never got to do something like that before. I think I’ll choose strawberry picking ^.^

(Lapis Lazuli) - Last, but not least, if you got to live any of the endings from any game, which would it be?

Laito’s Vandead Carnival ending

[chewbaccaaah]

There comes a time in every hunters life when they get older and need a spell that they haven’t used before. Said spell might include some freaky shit. Bones? Used loads of them. Blood? Been there, done that. Urine? Yes, even pee.

Sam Winchester thought he had seen it all, but when some idiot created a dybbuk from his dead grandfather to kill his bullies, a new spell component was called upon.

Huston Texas had a large Jewish community, so it wasn’t that hard to find the shofar. The man behind the counter at the Jewish specialty store gave them odd looks the entire time but still helped them find the hollowed rams horn needed for the spell. He did frown when Sam also added a prayer book and a large yet pretty copy of the old testament (complete with modern translation of both the original words and commentary of rabbis) to the purchase. He smiled at the man behind the counter, shrugging.

“Grandma wants us to know a bit more about our history.” At this the owner softens, and passes them a pamflet and a few sheets for events in town. Even making polite chit chat as he rang up their purchase.

Dean later asks him why he picked up the old testament. Sam will say that the men of letters didn’t have translation of the commentary, which apparently is written with a slightly different alphabet then the rest of the book.

The spell is not complicated as spells go, some herbs, raw wool, fresh water. Mix and toss on the grave of the restless spirit, sound the shofar three times to send it where it needs to go. And that’s that.

But it’s not. Because the horn refuses to make a sound.

Sam let his brother take the horn because Dean had been eyeing it all afternoon. But when he took a deep breath and blew into the shofar, nothing came out but strangled sputtering. Sam couldn’t help but laugh at the face his brother made.

“Is this thing broken?” Dean shakes the horn in his hand like he expects to hear something rattling inside.

“I don’t think so. We picked it out, the store wouldn’t sell a bad shofar on purpose.” He holds out a hand and Dean passes it to him. It doesn’t seem to be blocked or damaged. “We’re gonna have to call him.” Dean shrugs but pulls out his phone anyway.

“Hey Aaron! Hows-. Yeah, it’s late. Yeah, I wouldn’t have called you if it wasn’t important. Yeah. We need to know how to blow a shofar.”

Sam is surprised to hear laughter coming from Dean’s phone. The brothers share a confused look and shrug. “Sorry, you said blow and I wasn’t expecting the shofar part after.” Aaron manages to get out.

Once the laughter dies down Dean yeps and mm-hmm’s his way through the instructions given to him. The hunters are assured that the horn isnt defective, it just needs to be blown in a particular way.

Dean passes the phone to Sam with the call still going on, they want to make sure they do this right. With the shofar in his right hand, Dean presses the smaller edge of the horn to the right side of his lips and pressed the first two fingers of his left hand over the rest of his lips, take a deep breath through his nose and blasts out a powerful sound that hardly resembles anything Sam knows.

“Not bad.” Aaron comments, “But if it said three blasts it probably meant Trooah, three times in sucsession. Toot toot toot.” He explained, voice still rough with sleep.

Dean nods and tries again, he nearly gets it but looses his breath halfway through the last toot and it splutters out.

“Try again man.” Aaron yawns. Dean tries again after he breathes for a few moments and belts out the three blasts.

After that the brothers book it away from the cemetery because someone probably heard that loud horn. They say hi to the golem once the clay man takes the phone away from Aaron demanding to know why he heard the Shofar when it was not the new year. After explaining and exchanging “good nights” all around, the brothers head back home.

After showing off to Castiel, the shofar gets a permanent spot in the trunk of the impala. A new weapon in an arsenal for a never ending battle. It’s not the holiest of items in the trunk, but it works.